Economic Update

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

It is a record to be proud of. We have cut carbon emissions by 40% in the last few years. We are now a world leader in offshore wind and, for the first time ever last year, we generated the majority of our energy from zero carbon sources. We are building on our progress. That has happened under a Conservative Government, and whether it is through our nature for climate fund, our measures to tackle air quality, or new technologies such as direct air capture or carbon capture and storage, this Government will ensure that we meet our net zero obligations and do so in a way that creates jobs in every part of our United Kingdom.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his excellent statement and his £30 billion jobs plan, which will give hope to thousands of people in my constituency—I thank him for that. I am particularly grateful for the commitment to the future of our young people, who are hardest hit by this crisis. The kick-start scheme is for an initial six months. Will he reconsider and review it at the end of that period?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for her support. She has spent a lot of time in this place championing the futures of young people. I am pleased to tell her that the kick-start scheme will be for longer than six months. It will be open for bidding, hopefully, at the end of this month or the beginning of next month, and the first new kick-starters will start in the autumn. The scheme will run at least until the end of next year. Hopefully, if it is popular, we can get as many as hundreds of thousands of young people being part of the kick-start programme. I hope that she and her constituency can be a champion for it.

The Economy

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the fine speech by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), although I do not agree with his conclusion. At the start of March 2020, Telford, the town that I am so proud to serve, was coming of age. We had just celebrated our 50th birthday as a flourishing new town with a great future. Historically, Telford is a town that has been among the hardest hit by previous recessions, and it was once an unemployment blackspot, particularly for young people not in education, training or employment. We had the closures of the pits in the east Shropshire coalfield and the deep recessions that followed. Telford has always struggled, but it has always survived and, against the odds, in 2020 it was flourishing as never before. The new Southwater centre had been created, there was a thriving night-time economy with new restaurants and bars, and with new factories and new skills in advanced manufacturing jobs, unemployment was at an all-time low. The town centre’s iconic Plaza office blocks were fully let for the first time, and our huge retail sector was bustling.

Set against this backdrop, it is desperately sad to see that those who had been hit the hardest in the past—those who had struggled the most and triumphed over the odds—have been hit the hardest all over again. Overnight, Telford became a ghost town, a wasteland with bits of litter blowing around the empty streets. The Telford dream was now a nightmare of lost livelihoods, lost opportunities and lost hopes for the future. The futures that people had nurtured and nourished were swept away in an instant. When people stop buying cars, it is not just the showrooms in Chelsea and the production lines in Solihull that suffer; it is also the supply chains, including the people making wheel arches in Telford, as well as their families, their household incomes and the local shops where they spend their wages. They all suffer.

However, Telford has always found innovative ways to survive—adapting, evolving and embracing change, from the coke ovens of the industrial revolution to the state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing robots of 21st-century post-Brexit Britain. We know how to do change in Telford: fundamental change, step change, revolutionary change. Let us be in no doubt that the covid crisis is the stimulus for a new, accelerated revolution involving a new economy with new jobs in tech, data and the life sciences. In the town that was the birthplace of the very first industrial revolution, we understand that by embracing change we embrace opportunity.

Post-covid, none of us can keep doing what we used to do. The world has hit reset, and we must evolve to meet the new normal. We are all being forced out of our comfort zones and doing things differently, and that process is now well under way in Telford. Our history in Telford shows us that by embracing revolution and finding solutions through innovation, all change is an opportunity to be seized. Because of this, we in Telford will survive and flourish once more. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Treasury team for the incredibly agile and responsive support that they have given to workers and businesses throughout the pandemic, and to young people across Telford today. Telford’s economy, and the economy across the UK, could not be in better hands than those of our nimble, responsive and emotionally intelligent Chancellor. My message to the Chancellor is: keep doing what you are doing, because we know you are with us every step of the way. We in Telford thank you for that.

Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend will know that I cannot possibly comment on any specific circumstances, but I recognise the work he has done in putting this so squarely in the public mind.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I thank the Treasury team for the incredibly agile and decisive support they have given to workers and businesses during this pandemic—across my constituency, we are very grateful. As part of the transition to the new covid economy, will the Minister consider supporting a network of innovative technology accelerators, in Telford and across the country, to create jobs and new start-ups? Will he meet me to discuss this further?

[Jesse Norman]

I am very interested in my hon. Friend’s suggestion. It is not squarely a Treasury matter—it is more an industrial strategy and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy matter—but I would be delighted to meet her on the topic.