Covid-19: Financial Support

Paul Kohler Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) on securing this important debate.

During the pandemic, the state quite rightly intervened on an unprecedented scale. Hospitality businesses received grants, employees were furloughed and billions were distributed through schemes that were fast, generous and non-repayable. Yet alongside that, there existed a shadow group who did not fit into neat categories: new starters, new businesses, PAYE freelancers, many directors of limited companies and numerous other groups, as we have heard. Millions of people saw their work vanish overnight. Their income collapsed, and when they applied for help, they were told bluntly, “Computer says no.”

Meanwhile, the Conservative Government’s handling of PPE contracts left taxpayers out of pocket to the tune of billions. An interim Government report found that defective PPE contracts cost the British taxpayer at least £1.4 billion. VIP lanes and fast-track deals with Tory friends and supporters led to waste, inefficiency and fraud. This was money that could have kept millions of small businesses and self-employed people afloat, yet it was instead mismanaged at the hands of well-connected insiders.

The vast majority of those excluded earned under £50,000 per year before the pandemic, working in trades, retail, education, the creative industries, hospitality and events. They were economically active, often running microbusinesses that supported local jobs and sustained vital supply chains. As we have heard, 3.8 million people were excluded—roughly one in 10 of the UK workforce. While their neighbours received thousands of pounds to stay afloat, they were left with nothing.

As a cabaret bar owner, I saw for myself what that meant in practice. My freelance artists, the musicians, the singers, the burlesque dancers, the drag queens and the self-employed performers received no help from the state. Years later, many are still living with the debts, which did not end when the lockdowns did. For those who were excluded, be they freelancers, sole traders or small businesses, survival often meant borrowing through bounce back loans, credit cards, overdrafts and personal loans.

Many are still repaying those loans today, at a time when rising energy prices, inflation, supply chain pressures and the cost of living crisis make every repayment a struggle.

What makes this hard to accept is that the exclusion was not inevitable; Treasury-ready solutions existed. Analysis by ExcludedUK shows that fully costed, low-fraud proposals based on HMRC data could have reached the vast majority of those excluded. Those solutions had backing from across the political spectrum and were supported by business groups and experts, yet Ministers in the Conservative Government chose not to act, unlike the Northern Ireland Executive, who worked with HMRC to deliver targeted grants to newly self-employed people and limited company directors who were excluded from UK-wide schemes. If it could be done in Northern Ireland, why could it not be done in the rest of the UK?

The Government are rightly pursuing the fraudsters where money was wrongly paid out, but they cannot ignore the money that was wrongly withheld. The recently published final report of the covid counter-fraud commissioner makes it clear that weakness in preparedness, data sharing and oversight was the reason why millions were excluded. It is incumbent on the House to acknowledge that those who were excluded were wronged; it was a serious policy failure with lasting consequences, and we must address its legacy. That means looking seriously at debt relief or redress for those forced into borrowing to survive. It means learning from what worked in Northern Ireland and ensuring that in any future crisis, support is inclusive by default, so that no group of taxpayers are ever again told, “The computer says no.”