Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on supporting job retention in Scotland during the covid-19 outbreak.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

What estimate he has made of the number of self-employed people in Scotland who have not received support from the Government’s covid-19 financial support schemes.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on supporting job retention in Scotland during the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Jones [V]]

I note that the Government’s latest package of measures for the self-employed slashes their support from 70% of income to just 20%. And that is only for those who are eligible—many self-employed people have not received any help at all from the Chancellor. How many self-employed people in Scotland have fallen through the financial safety net, and what is the Secretary of State doing to help them?

[Mr Jack]

The hon. Lady will know that we have brought in a new set of measures, as she said. There is the self-employed support scheme and the new job retention scheme. We have made a cut in VAT for the tourism and hospitality sector, and introduced the kickstart scheme. The self-employed income support scheme was a broad scheme. By definition, in a broad scheme it is inevitable that some people will sadly miss out, but I would say that in Scotland 283,000 grants were given, which came to some £777 million of support. The scheme now continues for another six months.