Economic Update

Martyn Day Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is right: our innovative companies are a great strength of the UK economy compared with others and they will help drive our recovery. That is why we put in place the future fund, which was an unprecedented intervention to help 1,000 of our fastest-growing start-up companies with match funding. Innovate UK also made available £500 million of additional grants and loans through its innovation schemes, and most recently, we have committed extra funding for our start-up loans scheme next year. Taken together, it is a significant vote of confidence in those innovative companies, and I look forward to hearing from her other ways that we can support them to help drive our recovery.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

Last week, when I challenged the Prime Minister over the lack of support for the 3 million excluded, he claimed that they had “not been excluded”, so can the Chancellor spell out what is being done to make the PM’s word a reality, as I did not hear anything today that will give meaningful support to my constituents who have had 10 months of zero income or Government help?

[Rishi Sunak]

It is just not right to say that people have not been able to receive any support. Obviously, I cannot comment on the individual circumstances of every single person, but we have put in place £280 billion of direct support in a multitude of different ways, and then there is additional support that is not even fiscal—for example, mortgage holidays, which now one in six, or one in seven mortgage holders have taken advantage of. So yes, it may be the case that people have not been helped in the exact way they wanted, but with £280 billion of support in literally 20 different ways, this Government are doing what they can to provide reassurance and security to millions of people and businesses through this difficult crisis.