Stephen Farry
Main Page: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)Department Debates - View all Stephen Farry's debates with the HM Treasury
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Rishi Sunak
There are fewer greater champions of the tourism and hospitality industry than my hon. Friend, and I know he will be pleased about today’s announcements. He is absolutely right that our local businesses in all our constituencies have worked unbelievably hard over the past few weeks to adapt how they do business, to invest in new things, and to make their premises safe for us, and that is why today we introduced the “eat out to help out” discount. We can all play our part in supporting these businesses and protecting these jobs.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
As a former employment Minister in Northern Ireland, I welcome the Barnett consequentials that allow us to shape our own local response around youth unemployment, apprenticeships and traineeships, but what analysis has the Treasury done of where redundancies have been occurring and where they are likely to occur over the coming months? Surely that information should guide the use of that £9 billion for the furlough bonus to be more targeted around those sectors that are going to face problems for longer, but which have sustainable futures, such as aerospace and the creative industries.
Rishi Sunak
We have published breakdowns of the furlough population by region, constituency and age to give a sense of the types of people who are affected. One thing that comes out of that is the importance of rural and coastal communities being particularly impacted by numbers of people on furlough. That is because they are disproportionately reliant on the hospitality and tourism sectors, which is why today’s interventions are targeted and will make the biggest difference to the greatest number of people.