Lord Bilimoria
Main Page: Lord Bilimoria (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bilimoria's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberI share the noble Lord’s concern for those who have fallen through the cracks. We have issued a number of initiatives over the last few weeks and months to try to close the gap. For example, for the arts sector, there is some £1.5 billion of support, some of which will be available to vulnerable groups which have not been able to be part of the traditional self-employed schemes. We have also made funding available to local authorities, which are able to use discretion in the allocation of some of that money for vulnerable self-employed people.
[Inaudible]—will be crucial. The news of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is very welcome. Does the Minister agree with the recommendation of the CBI, of which I am president, about the creation of an economic recovery commission, uniting government, business and unions? It would be a vital step, as would the urgent rollout of affordable, regular mass antigen testing—with the Liverpool pilot, thankfully, having been started and now in full swing—along with investment in job-creating projects, with a focus on digital skills and green jobs. To reinforce what the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said, what can the Government do to help the 3 million excluded from the huge amount of government support that has been made available so far, for which we are all grateful?
My Lords, the Government are in constant contact with the business community. They absolutely accept that the wealth creation engine of our economy is vital for us to recover from this pandemic. I share the noble Lord’s optimism about the vaccine. Of course, we need to be careful—we are not through the last hurdle yet—but it is certainly nice to have a little bit of good news occasionally. I have answered the point about the self-employed, raised by several other noble Lords. It is perhaps worth reminding the noble Lord that we have improved the universal credit system to try to provide a little more protection at that end of the system. We have also confirmed that those on mortgage holidays can extend to six months without any impact on their credit file.