Support for Self-employed and Freelance Workers

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are practical ways through this. We do not pretend that it is not difficult, but the problems are not insurmountable if the Government would only show flexibility and willingness to listen. Millions of people’s hopes were crushed and their lives thrown into chaos and anxiety when they saw the ship was sailing and had left them behind.

I do not need to list the exclusions, but can we drop this idea once and for all that these are all super-wealthy people living it up on savings or shares? One of my constituents affected is a face painter and balloon artist. She has a simple job, which is to bring joy to children, and it is a job she loves doing, but it is a job she could not do when, like every other business, she went into lockdown and her business closed. Now, as she is trying to get her business back up and running, she finds the rule of six has once again crushed the party business. She is not super rich, she cannot do her job through no fault of her own and she has not had a penny of support since April.

We have heard other powerful examples, including from my hon. Friends the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous). There are so many examples we could give, but we have so little time and those people have even less time. “You will not face this alone”, the Chancellor said. Unfortunately, that was true in only one respect: they found each other. Through ExcludedUK, ForgottenLtd and other campaign groups, they have found a support network and managed to win a hearing in the huge cross-party support they have built in this House. So why is the Chancellor not listening? Why is he being so stubborn and inflexible? Why, even now, do Ministers refuse the basic request, which is just to meet and talk with people who are willing to come forward with ideas and practical solutions? The consequences of the Government’s failure to act are clear. Before the crisis began, around 15% of the workforce were self-employed. That figure has fallen sharply during this crisis. We heard powerful personal testimony on this from the hon. Members for Buckingham (Greg Smith) and for Warrington South (Andy Carter)—people who know what it means to take the plunge, take the risk and start a business.

We have heard powerful contributions on the arts and creative industries, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), who knows how to build an audience. We have heard other brilliant speeches, too, from my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), from Conservative Members, such as the hon. Members for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and from right across the Back Benches, from SNP and Plaid Cymru Members.

People might think that theatre is frivolous and all about singing and dancing and having a good time, but there is an important economic issue here. There is a reason central London is empty: the theatres are closed. The live music sector contributed £4.5 billion to the UK economy in 2019. We also see in the figures that some of the sharpest falls have been in construction, professional, scientific and technical services, and administration and support services. The Resolution Foundation has highlighted the sharp fall in these people’s earnings.

Labour has repeatedly called on the Government to listen to the concerns of the excluded. The shadow Chancellor has written to the Chancellor four times in recent months to highlight problems and suggest solutions, and we are always willing to meet, if only the Government were not so stubborn and unwilling to listen. The Federation of Small Businesses—experts in this area—has repeatedly called for a rescue plan for those left out of Government support. It is right to argue that those whose businesses are often suffering through no fault of their own should not be left out of support. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) underlined, the Government do not understand Britain’s self-employed. As a result, they have not valued them and because of that they have not provided them with the support they desperately need.

Before I was elected to this House, I spent just a year as a freelancer. It was one of the most terrifying professional experiences of my life—not knowing if I would get the next job, or if the invoice would be paid on time; worrying about things such as my cash flow, bills, my incomes, my outgoings. It is a stressful experience. I can speak for the self-employed and the excluded in my constituency—we have heard so many others speak for their constituents too—but none of us can truly understand what these people have been through this year, seeing other people receive support and themselves left behind.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member agree that many freelancers, particularly in the creative industries, where it is really precarious and people live contract to contract, make ends meet with casual work, but that has totally dried up in the hospitality sector, in ushering and in box office work, for example? So they have absolutely nothing, and they are desperate and running out of savings.

[Wes Streeting]

That is absolutely true. One of the things I find most worrying about the trends we have seen is that—as if the inequality that has gripped this country was not bad enough entering the crisis—there have been two very different experiences of the pandemic. If people are in a job with stable employment and have had money coming in every month, they may well be one of the households who has contributed to a record rise in savings. They may well feel that their outgoings have gone down and that they can start planning for home improvements or a decent family holiday. However, if people have lost their job, or were self-employed or freelance and their business activity went completely down to zero, this has been an absolutely terrible experience. I do not think that any of us, unless we have been in that position, can really understand what those people are going through.

In conclusion, I say to the Minister, whose task in responding to the debate I do not envy—with the notable and honourable exception of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), I think she has found herself pretty alone in this debate—that the cross-party calls for the Government to listen, even to meet, are overwhelming. The privilege of being able to govern comes with the responsibility of taking action, of seeing people through difficult times. We know that the Government have a difficult job. We would not have wished this pandemic on anyone, but so many of us on both sides of the House simply do not understand the Chancellor’s intransigence, stubbornness and unwillingness to listen on this issue. So please, I beg the Minister, on behalf of millions of people across this country who have felt unheard or excluded: it is time to act.