Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts
Tuesday 21st July 2020

(3 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Amanda Solloway Portrait Amanda Solloway
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I give my assurance that one of the things we are addressing in the roadmap is ensuring that we become a science superpower. Within that, we are levelling up across the whole of the country. I am committed to making the workplace diverse and ensuring that we have a culture that embraces that throughout the whole of country. We will ensure that UK scientists are appreciated and rewarded.

Rushanara Ali Portrait Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
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What assessment he has made of the effect of winding down the coronavirus job retention scheme on employment levels.

Amanda Solloway Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)
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The Government have provided unprecedented support to businesses and individuals. We are doubling the number of jobcentre work coaches, spending £32 million to recruit National Careers Service careers advisers and creating hundreds of thousands of new subsidised jobs for young people throughout the UK.

Rushanara Ali Portrait Rushanara Ali
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I thank the Minister for her answer, but my question is about the job retention scheme and employment levels. Given that some employers will be paid to retain workers who are never going to be made redundant, some of the job retention bonus scheme will be a dead loss. Would it not be a more effective use of public money to use some of these funds to continue to pay the wages of workers hardest hit and to provide some support to some of the 3 million households that have been excluded throughout this crisis from any help from this Government?

Amanda Solloway Portrait Amanda Solloway
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We are giving a whole range of support to everybody, as the hon. Member will know, through a lot of schemes. In fact, 9.4 million jobs have been supported through the coronavirus job retention scheme. As the scheme winds down, we will be making it more flexible so that people can return to work part time. We are also offering £1,000 to employers for each furloughed employee who is kept on until the end of January 2021.