Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support businesses during the covid-19 outbreak.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on increasing support to businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

It is well known that we spent over £280 billion on an unprecedented package of support for businesses, including the job retention scheme, support grants and Government-backed loans. I speak regularly with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on all the support measures available for businesses, including in the next stage when we try to lead and help them through the pandemic and towards recovery.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Throughout this crisis, as I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, the Government have stood by businesses, as she mentioned, and worked tirelessly to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods across the entirety of our country. As we emerge from the pandemic, we will ensure that we seize the initiative, as she put it, to build back better, greener and faster from this pandemic.

[Patrick Grady]

Does the Secretary of State not accept that, if people who are excluded from support packages are forced to wind up their businesses and move to universal credit or social security, that is more costly to the Government and damaging to the economy in the long run? Surely it is better to bring the excluded in from the cold now than to pay the long-term costs of exclusion in the future.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I fully appreciate—this is our key message as a Government—that jobs and employment are a No. 1 priority. That is exactly why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor extended the furlough scheme. I am in constant conversation with him about how better to provide support for our economy under this distress.