Covid-19: Economy Update

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is a rightly proud champion of her businesses in central London. Obviously, what is happening not just to our capital city but to all our city centres is incredibly sad. We all want to see them springing back to life and vibrancy. Hopefully, the measures that we have announced today will provide some support and breathing space to help them get through a difficult period until they can get back on their feet and do exactly what we want them to do, which is return to where they were—bustling and welcoming us all back into their shops and restaurants.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The Chancellor says that he has been talking to the people who are worried about their livelihoods and the businesses facing redundancy, so he will know that those redundancies are falling particularly heavily on mums. We know from the data produced by the Office for National Statistics last month that 79% of the increase in redundancies has come from women, and we know that it is mums who are losing their jobs, but his Department is sitting on £1.7 billion of unspent tax-free childcare funding. Will he use that money to ensure that our childcare sector can support every parent who wants to get back to work and to stop the tsunami of unemployment that we are about to face?

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the particular importance of good-quality childcare, which, as she said, enables mums to be able to protect their employment. I am happy to look at the specific suggestion that she mentioned, but I think that we have recently made—in the previous Budget and before—some changes to the operation of tax-free childcare, so that it is more available to more people. She is right that the take-up has not been what was forecast, which is why we put the changes in place to broaden the approach and broaden the eligibility for it, but I am happy to look at her specific suggestion.