Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Alexander Stafford

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The sums requested by Greater Manchester yesterday were a speck compared with the millions given to Serco, G4S, KPMG, Deloitte and other private firms in this pandemic. They were a tiny speck compared with the £745 billion of quantitative easing that was announced in June, supposedly to support our economy.

In Greater Manchester alone, 408,000 people have accessed furlough since its inception, unemployment doubled between March and May, and we saw an increase in universal credit claimants of 76% between March and September. Some 3 million nationally have been excluded from any support so far, from small businesses to freelancers to new starters. Tier 3 brings a very dark winter to them. It brings a dark winter to those forced to close without adequate Government support, and for those not ordered to close the Chancellor’s scheme is not enough to support them in the face of the wider economic impact. Indeed, businesses in my constituency were already having to lay off staff, and that was under tier 2, so at the very least, the Government must agree to support the motion set out today. Not only that: they must also offer a package of support for the 3 million excluded from support so far.

The Government ask my constituents to give up their civil liberties and livelihoods, but they refuse to stand beside them with the support they need, all for a plan that even the Government scientists do not believe will work. To most, this does not appear to be an exercise in infection control. It appears to be an exercise in keeping the north and other tier 3 areas away from the rest of the country to engage in our own version of “The Hunger Games”, where only the fittest and wealthiest will survive.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

No, I will not.

I say to the Minister: is it not the truth that in Greater Manchester we have been in tier 2 for months, but we have seen an increase, not a decrease, in the infection rate? Is it not the truth that the Government’s own chief medical officer said that he was “not confident”—neither was anyone else, for that matter—that tier 3 would actually work? And is it not the truth that the Government continue to ignore many of its own SAGE scientists who have advised that an immediate, short, national circuit breaker is the only way truly to bring infection rates down?

Abraham Lincoln once said:

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts”.

The fact is that Government negotiations yesterday were little more than an attempt to make local authorities complicit in the Government’s mismanagement of this crisis. The people deserve better. They deserve support, and they deserve the truth.