Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

12. What assessment he has made of the efficacy of the Plan For Jobs in supporting people into work.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Plan For Jobs in supporting people into work.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

Some 1.6 million people have moved into work having received support from work coaches, and hundreds of thousands of jobseekers have been supported by our other Plan for Jobs programmes, such as kickstart. It is clear that this plan is working; unemployment is now expected to peak at less than half of what was initially predicted.

[John Glen]

Yes, I can. My hon. Friend is right; unemployment is at 3.5% in her constituency, as against the 5% average. On people aged 50 to 64 who unfortunately lose their job and find a return to work less likely, this spending review announced an enhanced 50-plus offer worth more than £20 million to ensure that that cohort of the workforce receive that support to remain in work and benefit from living those fuller working lives. That is in addition to the other interventions across the whole of the working age group.

[Stephen Crabb]

Right now, in this country, about 1 million children are growing up in long-term workless households. Does my hon. Friend agree that the measures the Chancellor took in the Budget last week to boost the national minimum wage and the work allowance, and to lower the universal credit withdrawal rate when people move into work, mean that we have the best opportunity in more than a generation to really bear down on long-term unemployment and improve the life chances of children growing up in homes where there is no role model of someone going out to work every day?

[John Glen]

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend, who has been a champion in this area, throughout his experience in government and in his work now as Chair of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs. In addition to what he has set out, we responded to the call to raise the national living wage. It may interest him to know that the April 2022 increase will mean that a full-time worker’s annual salary will have increased by more than £5,000 since the national living wage was introduced, when he was in government, in April 2016.

Economy Update

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

May I first echo the remembrance by the hon. Lady and colleagues across the House of Jo Cox? I also pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the work that she has done, including with my friend Seema Kennedy, through the loneliness commission.

Let me turn to the various points raised by the hon. Lady. She said that she is not calling for support forever, but suggested that the Government were withdrawing support. The package announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was designed deliberately to go long, until September. Measures such as furlough were extended to anticipate the fact that there were no guarantees on the covid road map. That was very much designed into the support, so there is no question of withdrawing support; it was in the very plan announced by the Chancellor.

The hon. Lady’s question about the delta variant was addressed comprehensively by the Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s questions, where he pointed out the timing. One can look back with hindsight now, but the issue was the timing of the delta variant becoming a variant of concern. I will not repeat the points made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for recognising the announcement regarding commercial rents. I hope that that is appreciated across the House. I know that it speaks to a very real concern that many Members will have seen through their constituency emails and post bags, and that it will provide some extended support.

The hon. Lady questioned whether the Government are doing whatever it takes. Again, I remind the House that the Government have spent £352 billion to date. By any definition, I think that is a comprehensive package. More to the point, the plan is working. We see that in the plan for jobs, in the fact that the unemployment projections have improved and in the number of jobs there have been since November. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s plan is working. He has done whatever it takes to protect our NHS and public services, putting a further £63 billion into the NHS for covid support measures last year. The plan is having clear benefits.

The hon. Lady asked specifically about the furlough taper. Labour market conditions have improved substantially since the turn of the year and will continue to do so. Indeed, demand for staff has increased at the quickest rate for more than two decades. With unemployment falling in the last four releases, there is clear evidence that the labour market is beginning to recover, but we went long in the first place to anticipate any slippage in the covid road map.



The hon. Lady had a query on business rates. Again, it is worth reminding the House just how comprehensive the support on business rates has been, with 100% business rates relief last year for many businesses, and those businesses now paying 75% over the course of this year. There is a comprehensive package of support for businesses. There is no question but that many businesses will feel strain as result of the further extension, and it is not a decision that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister took lightly, but the package of support announced by the Chancellor anticipated this scenario. It went long in order to provide support and it continues to do so in a way that the evidence and the data shows is working.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement. He is right: the latest employment and job vacancy figures do demonstrate that the UK economy is now rebounding strongly. I cannot recall a time when so many businesses in my constituency were telling me that they are struggling to hire staff, right across all sectors. Does he agree that we need to take a sober and clear-sighted look at the furlough scheme, because it is the view of a great many employers out there that there are still far too many people being paid to do nothing, which is distorting the efficient functioning of the labour market as well as costing the country tens of billions of pounds?

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend draws attention to exactly why the attack from the Opposition is misplaced and why the furlough taper is justified—because there is demand for labour from businesses. He also knows that it is part of the wider package of support. As a former Secretary of State, he has done a huge amount to champion the need to support people looking for work. That is what the doubling of the number of work coaches is doing. We announced a further £2.6 billion of additional support for the Department for Work and Pensions in the spending review, alongside further specific measures such as the restart scheme, to tackle the situation of those who have been unemployed for over a year. Over 1 million unemployed people on universal credit will have access to that scheme.

This is about a combination of the furlough, which is providing much-needed support but needs to taper, and a wider plan for jobs, including the restart scheme, the kickstart scheme, the tripling of traineeships, and the increase in the apprenticeships incentive to £3,000—a whole package alongside the doubling of the number of work coaches.

Economic Update

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

We have provided significant support to our cultural industries. I think it is right that we highlight the contribution they make both to our society and to our economy. I struggle to find any other countries that have matched the £1.5 billion of support we have provided, which has now gone out, I believe, to over 3,000 different cultural institutions, supporting the livelihoods and local institutions that cover performing arts, such as musicians, and we know that they will play an important part in our recovery.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

There are businesses in my constituency in Pembrokeshire that only made it through to the end of 2020 because of the outstanding support and intervention by this UK Government, and the funding support that the Treasury has provided for the devolved Administrations has been a key part of that. However, does my right hon. Friend share my concern that, at the same time as businesses in my constituency tell me they feel shut out of the Welsh Government’s business support grant scheme, it appears that the Welsh Government are sitting on about £1 billion of unallocated funding support? Does he agree that this is not a moment for holding back support and that we need to be getting it to the frontline, especially for small businesses?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the question, and he is absolutely right. We must try to get our cash support out to businesses as quickly as possible; they are suffering as we speak. The Welsh Government have been provided with over £5 billion in an up-front funding guarantee, and he is right to highlight the importance of that money getting out to support the local businesses that he knows are so important to driving the future prosperity of the Welsh economy.

Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

Again, I appreciate the concerns the hon. Gentleman raises on behalf of businesses in his constituency, but, as I said to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) a moment ago, by international standards the package of support the Chancellor has put in place stands fair comparison. That interaction between the support for those jobs and businesses that are able to be open, and the additional £7 billion of welfare support through universal credit, provides dynamic support for the workers to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend spoke a few moments ago about the important role being played by universal credit at this time, so may I press him again on the Treasury’s intentions on the temporary uplift in universal credit? It is one thing for a Government to reduce a planned rate of increase of a benefit or even to freeze a benefit, but it is another thing altogether to give extra money to some of the poorest people in the country and then take that away. That is precisely what we are on course to do next April unless we change course, so will the Minister address that issue?

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend raised exactly the same issue at our urgent question last week, and I know he has a huge understanding of it from his time as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. He knows full well that the announcement made was a temporary one to deal with the immediate consequences of the covid pandemic, and with all these decisions we need to balance the competing pressures at a particular time with the wider fiscal position.

Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady raises a legitimate concern, but I do not see the panacea to that being an extended furlough for an indefinite period. What has never been clear to me from those who seek to extend the furlough indefinitely is for how long they would extend it, and how many sectors would be included. We have taken a different approach, as the Chancellor has set out, through the winter plan, the job support scheme and the self-employed income support scheme to support those jobs that we are able to support. I say respectfully to the hon. Lady that I do not agree that the panacea to this would be an open-ended furlough.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I think there is a growing understanding that we will be wrestling with this crisis for perhaps many more months to come—far longer than any of us had perhaps hoped at the beginning of the pandemic. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is essential we have a longer-term framework in place—a framework of support for families and for businesses through periods of rolling on-off lockdowns and through periods of self-isolation and sickness—and that, underneath that framework of support for society and for business, we need a strong safety net of social security, which is the hallmark of a decent society?

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that our response to the pandemic needs to evolve as our understanding of the disease improves but also as we get a better understanding of how long we will live with the consequences of the pandemic. That is at the heart of the Chancellor’s strategy. In the initial phase in March, we locked down to protect the NHS to build our capacity. There was a shift to the second phase in July, with the plan for jobs and more recently with the winter plan as we look to move people from being furloughed at home to being brought back into the workplace. The more tailored approach of which he speaks is shaped by things such as track and trace and the significant funding that the Treasury has put into that programme in order, as he rightly says, that we can be very targeted as we deal with this in the months ahead.

The Economy

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We seem to be having some trouble hearing Christine Jardine. I will move on and try to come back to her if we can sort out what is wrong with the sound.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Throughout this crisis, the Chancellor has moved with speed and determination to protect jobs and family incomes. I welcome his comments today about targeting job support on viable companies with viable jobs. Implicit in that, though, is a recognition that, sadly, unemployment will continue to increase, so will he say a bit more about the importance of the social security safety net at this time and reaffirm the importance of the increase that we made right at the start of this crisis to universal credit and perhaps tell us that there is no intention on the part of the Government to withdraw it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I know my hon. Friend takes a close and expert interest in this issue, not least through her work on the relevant Select Committee. Individual Departments are responsible for ensuring that all money spent as ODA meets the criteria of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, and that it is spent through the powers of the International Development Act 2002, which requires funding likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

What fiscal steps he is taking to help families on low incomes during the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)]

The Government are committed to all groups in society, including the most vulnerable, facing the challenges caused by covid-19. That is why we have put in place an unprecedented package of support, including the job retention scheme, the self-employed income support scheme and a package of welfare measures that the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates to be worth in excess of £9 billion.

[Stephen Crabb]

The commitment of this Government to ensuring that the most vulnerable in our society are protected through this crisis cannot be questioned. The scale of the intervention has been remarkable, but may I encourage the Chancellor and the Treasury team, as they begin making their plans for next year’s spending, to bear in mind the importance of the increase in universal credit that we made at the beginning of the pandemic, and to ensure that we keep it in place, because many more families will be relying on it in the months ahead?

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is a passionate champion of this issue. He will have seen from the answer given earlier by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor that the distribution analysis at the time of the summer update illustrated that the measures taken by the Chancellor had protected the poorest households the most as a proportion of income. I know that he will have listened closely to my right hon. Friend’s representations.

Protection of Jobs and Businesses

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I, for one, really think that the Government deserve enormous credit, not just for the sheer scale of the financial response to the pandemic, but for the speed with which key parts of the safety net were put in place really early on as the crisis unfolded. I say that first of all as a Welsh Member of Parliament who sat and listened to a near constant stream of criticism from Welsh Labour Government Ministers about our actions here as a Government, and something similar could be said for the Scottish nationalist Government in Edinburgh. I am really proud that we were able to support so many families and businesses in every part of the United Kingdom. The question those politicians need to confront is how on earth those businesses and families could have been supported in a similar way without the strong intervention of the United Kingdom Treasury. That is an important point.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not going to give way—forgive me. For me, the subject we are discussing today is about two things. One is how we support livelihoods. How do we support families and help keep them afloat during this crisis? There is a point I would like to make, which has not yet been made, about the strengthening of our social security system. Alongside the schemes to support businesses and jobs early on in the crisis, the Treasury took the very important decision to put extra money into universal credit as a temporary measure. If I may make one plea to those on the Treasury Bench this afternoon, it is that they need to decide very quickly that that increase should stay in place for next spring for those families, many of whom will still be adjusting to having lost their jobs and having perhaps moved from furlough to benefits, and many of them will find that a very hard landing indeed. Any prospect that we are going to remove that additional money next spring is for me unthinkable.

This debate is also about how we protect key strategic parts of our economy and our national life, and how we ensure that they come through this crisis without too much irreparable damage. I confess that I have some sympathy for some of the opinions that have been expressed on both sides of the House this afternoon. I have talked about extending furlough in a targeted way previously, but I absolutely do recognise from the conversations that I have had with trade bodies and with Ministers in recent days and weeks just how difficult it is to pin down and define a targeted extension of furlough. None the less, I plead with Ministers to keep an open mind when we talk about these sectors. I think about the enormous manufacturing operation of Airbus in north Wales and how strategically important it is for Wales and the United Kingdom. I also think about all those padlocked theatres a short walk from here in the west end and in every city centre up and down the country.

We want to protect key parts of our economy and our national life, and I really urge Ministers to keep an open mind about how we do that. They need to think flexibly and work collaboratively with unions and trade bodies on getting our economy through this crisis.

Economic Update

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I commend and applaud all the efforts the Work and Pensions Secretary and her team are doing at the moment. Just for reference, they are doubling the number of work coaches and doing it in record time. We will have 13,500 in just eight months—a 100% increase. It is worth comparing that to what happened in 2008-09, when the Department for Work and Pensions recruited just 10,000, a 60% increase, which took 12 months. We will go as fast as is necessary, but no one can accuse us of not doing as much as we can, as quickly as we can, to provide people with the support that they need.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Make no mistake, what the Chancellor has announced today to save a generation of young people from bearing the brunt of this economic crisis is incredibly positive and to be welcomed. May I welcome, in particular, the determination of my right hon. Friend to avoid past mistakes in employment schemes, where we saw too many examples of young people in work placements not doing meaningful work, with poor oversight, poor management and no opportunity to really build their skill levels? Make this scheme, the kick-start scheme, the best employment support scheme we have ever seen.

[Rishi Sunak]

I very much thank my right hon. Friend for that support. Of course, this is an area he will know well. He is absolutely right. There is no point in doing this if the work placements are of low quality. It is important that we get it right as we construct the bidding process. I would be very grateful to him if he sat down with me so that we can get his thoughts on how best to achieve that.

Future Relationship with the EU

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

The EU says repeatedly that it accepts the fact of Brexit, yet its entire negotiating strategy seems to be geared to keeping the UK squarely in the legal and regulatory orbit of the EU. Does my right hon. Friend agree that unlocking the deal will require flexibility and good will but also fundamentally requires the EU to be realistic and honest about the path that the UK has chosen?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My right hon. Friend makes very good points. The EU needs to recognise that we are now a sovereign equal and negotiate with us on that basis. There are massive opportunities from us coming to a deal. The EU will be aware of those opportunities, and I hope that we can get the focus that we need to resolve the remaining issues and get a move on for their Union and ours too.