Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes Debate
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Meg Hillier
Main Page: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)Department Debates - View all Meg Hillier's debates with the HM Treasury
Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes
Meg Hillier Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
In my constituency, around 25% of the population, aged 16 to 64, are being furloughed or are receiving universal credit. The additional support for people on the self-employment scheme probably takes the figure to 30%. We recognise, therefore, the scale of the Government’s intervention, but there are many freelancers on short-term contracts or on different ways of working for freelance industries who are not getting a penny, many of whom have a strong and detailed track record with HMRC, so the reverse engineering that took place with the main scheme could be applied to them. The Minister repeatedly keeps talking about the generosity of the scheme, which suggests no shift I assume. Will he be categoric now and tell us whether there is any hope for these forgotten freelancers?
Jesse Norman
What I have said is simply that international and national bodies recognise the comprehensiveness and the relative generosity of our schemes—[Interruption.] They have done that, so that is the fact of the matter. The point that the hon. Lady raises is one on which we continue to reflect. As I have said, we take this very seriously. We want to support all sections of the economy, including self-employed people who have not been able to qualify. There are, of course, other ways in which they may be able to qualify for support within the wide package of support that we have given, but the self-employment scheme at the moment is not one, in some cases, that they are able to use, and that is something on which we will continue to reflect.