Protection of Jobs and Businesses

Debate between Mike Wood and Jamie Stone

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

The breadth and scale of the support package put in place by the Government is genuinely unprecedented, whether in times of war, disease or global recession. In Dudley South, nearly 12,000 of my constituents have been supported through the job retention scheme, and 2,500 more have been supported through the self-employment income support scheme. Without such measures, thousands more of my constituents and millions of workers around the country would have lost their jobs. Whereas the last Labour Government chose to bail out the bankers, this Government have decided that the real priority is to back working people around the country, and that is something of which I am extremely proud.

We now need people back at work and the economy growing so that those jobs can be genuinely protected and sustainable in the medium and long term. It is not just a matter of sandwich shops and coffee bars losing out when large numbers of workers are away from the office and the factory for so long. We live and work in an interconnected economy where all parts of it rely on other sectors. One of the main factors limiting order books for manufacturers and other businesses in my constituency is the fact that so much of the economy is performing below normal capacity, and that impacts on supply chains. The longer that many jobs are furloughed, the less likely those jobs are to be there and to be sustainable whenever the furlough scheme ends, and that is why it is not appropriate to have an indefinite extension of the scheme.

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Member is very courteous to give way. I too pay tribute to the furlough scheme, which has been very helpful to businesses in my constituency. I am the chair of the Excluded UK all-party parliamentary group. Other Members have made this point already, but does he agree that the APPG would not have happened had it not been for support from the Government Benches? It would be helpful if we could have a meeting with Ministers from the Treasury to discuss constructively how we might be able to help the people who have been missed out.

[Mike Wood]

I obviously will not answer on behalf of Ministers as to their availability for meetings, but for those who fell outside these extensive schemes, I think they more than anybody need the economy to be moving back towards a state approaching normality, because that is where their sustainable income comes from. The quicker we can do that, the better it is for them.

While it would not be appropriate to have an indefinite extension of the furlough scheme—I do not think furlough is even a medium-term solution—there are some parts of the economy where there are particular needs for support. The measures announced earlier this afternoon by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for businesses that are told to shut and for individuals who are made to self-isolate are extremely welcome. I do hope that Ministers will look at what measures other than furlough might be appropriate for those businesses when legislative requirements mean that they cannot operate or cannot operate economically —we have heard about theatres and live events—or where ongoing regulations mean that demand has simply being taken away. For some parts of the tourism and travel sector, for example, quarantine measures mean that their customer base is not there at all. Businesses across the economy would not have survived the last six months without the innovative support that has been put in place by the Chancellor. I thoroughly welcome that, but now we need to build the economy for a sustainable future.