Covid-19

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the passionate contribution of the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom).

I am conscious that the debate this evening has been opened by a Health Minister and, I understand, will be concluded by the Paymaster General, and the case I want to raise is connected to the support offered by the Government for businesses, particularly the furlough scheme. I have been wanting to raise this case for some weeks now.

Staff mainly at two venues in Glasgow, Blue Dog and Ad Lib, have not had any furlough payments since October last year because there is an issue between the business and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs that has so far been unresolved. Across these two venues and others there are up to 200 people who have had no income at all—nothing—since October.

I have been in correspondence with the permanent secretary and chief executive at HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions to try to get the staff some state support, because at the minute the staff’s real-time information—their live tax information—shows them as though they were still being paid as normal when HMRC and the DWP know that that is not the case, and that means they are not eligible to receive universal credit.

So may I plead with the Minister or the Paymaster General to please look at this case and get it resolved, as 200 low-paid bar workers in Glasgow really need it resolved? On the question of who is at fault, whether the business owners or HMRC, there will be plenty to say in future; all I want to get across to Government tonight is that these staff members really need an intervention in their case.

It has got so bad that the staff of Blue Dog and Ad Lib in Glasgow have had to start crowdfunding from fellow bar workers in order to at least have some money to pay bills that keep on coming, and I want to end my remarks by repeating something that one of the staff put on his Facebook page this weekend. John Taay Russell had this to say:

“I…don’t even know what to do anymore. I’m fighting tooth and nail…mentally I am defeated…I find myself in a carousel of depression and self loathing,”

but

“Bills keep coming, Rent needs paid”.

So I am pleading with Ministers: please look at this case in detail; please get these individuals the financial support they are entitled to and so desperately, desperately need.