Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Thompson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

Perhaps the hon. Lady could let me know whether she thinks that it is right to target support on those who are majority self-employed. She refers to the millions of people, but, as I have explained from this Dispatch Box, 1.5 million of the 5 million people who file self-employed tax returns are not majority self-employed; they earn the majority of their income from things such as employment, which means that they can access, for example, the furlough scheme. That was a decision that was made because we are targeting support in a certain way and we do not know what individuals are doing. By the way, the principle of our decision was supported by every organisation that I spoke to as we designed the scheme. Indeed, they were all supportive of a much higher threshold—a less generous threshold—than the one that we ultimately used, which was a majority of 50%. They were all supportive of something higher— 60%. Rest assured, Mr Speaker, that those who are in that category have median self-employment earnings of between £2,000 and £3,000; it is not the primary source of their income. At that level, all the various other things that we have done will be of some help to them.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

What recent discussions he has had with his Scottish counterpart on the effect of his Department’s fiscal policy on household income in Scotland.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

What recent discussions he has had with his Scottish counterpart on the effect of his Department’s fiscal policy on household income in Scotland.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)]

This year, the Government have put in place an unprecedented package of support to protect incomes and jobs right across the UK. Analysis published earlier this year shows that our interventions significantly protected people’s incomes, with the least well-off in society supported the most.

[Owen Thompson]

How are those who have been excluded from support so far seeing their household incomes protected when they are getting no support from this Government at all? What plans does the Minister have to meet members of the ExcludedUK group to make sure that those who have had no support at all can actually survive Christmas?

[Steve Barclay]

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out a moment ago, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will be meeting that group, but we have also targeted the support, including on those who are majority self-employed. Through that targeting, we have been able to confirm an additional £2.4 billion of support for the Scottish Government.