Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member invites me to be clear and honest, and the one thing that probably most people know is that I tell it how it is and I always have. I can be clear and honest with him: the Prime Minister’s plan, as it currently stands, will not protect the people of Greater Manchester and will plunge us into more poverty. We have seen the evidence that says that. I promise him and other hon. Members across the House that the Labour party will always put the people, and the protection and security of the people, first. I ask the hon. Member to get the Prime Minister to do the same thing, instead of playing party politics with people’s lives and livelihoods.

Today this House can vote for a fair deal for all and to end these political games. No more will the Health Secretary have to tour the country like a pound shop Noel Edmonds, announcing “Deal or no deal?”. The Government can honour their own promises that every worker facing hardship on the job support scheme will get at least 80% of their previous income, because what is good enough for the office worker in the City of London is good enough for the caterer in the city of Manchester, and what was good enough for the whole country in March is good enough for the midlands and the north today. We are trying to hold the Government to their own promises. Businesses need consistency, and they need that promise honoured.

The Prime Minister told the House on 14 October that

“whatever happens, a combination of the job support scheme and universal credit will mean that nobody gets less than 93% of their current income.”—[Official Report, 14 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 368.]

He then said that those on low incomes will get at least 80% of their income. Perhaps he can tell that to the waitress in my constituency who earned £9 an hour on a 32-hour week, serving in a central Manchester bar that has now closed. The Resolution Foundation has shown that she will end up with less than 70% of that wage under the Government’s current plan. So the Government are telling my constituents to survive on less than the minimum wage for months, because the Government cannot tell us when an area will leave tier 3 and how those restrictions will be lifted.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and thank her for the case that she is making. Is she interested, as I am, that not a single one of the interventions that she has faced from the Conservative side has been relevant to the motion that we are debating? They all seem to be dragging us back on to Labour party policy, rather than standing up for the financial settlement that they are offering to Manchester, and that we know will be going to so many other areas. So can she help me in inviting them to actually speak about the 80% that we are trying to ensure gets into some of the most impoverished people’s—some of the most impoverished workers’—pockets, rather than trying to change the debate into the one they want to have?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I will go a little bit further and compliment some of the Tory Members who have stood up as part of Greater Manchester, and I will be incredibly disappointed if what I have seen over the past 24 hours results in this becoming a party political fight. Because in Greater Manchester, despite what the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary were trying to suggest, we were united in trying to support our citizens across the conurbation in doing the right thing, bringing the virus rate down and supporting our economy. I hope we can continue to do that. I hope we do not get distracted by messages that are not in the motion, and I absolutely hope the Prime Minister does the right thing, because this is not just about Greater Manchester—this is coming to a town near you. In so many areas now, the R number is increasing. So many areas are in tier 2; so many areas are going to go into tier 3. This is a marker to ensure that our economy survives through those problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Barclay]

First, the hon. Gentleman is right to recognise the importance of today, the anniversary of a national tragedy that unites us all. As I said to him last time, I am keen to work with him constructively, as I know he is, to take that work forward. Later today, I have a call with the Finance Ministers in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Administrations, so I will be able to talk further about that. As a fellow Unionist, he will know that one of the advantages we have had throughout this pandemic is the broad shoulders we have been able to provide as a United Kingdom to the various business support and job support measures. What is announced for England is subject to the usual Barnett process, and I will discuss that. One of the concerns of Members across the House is about decisions taken in Wales that have an economic impact. It is important that these decisions are co-ordinated through the Joint Biosecurity Centre, in order that we have a consistent, scientific approach. That is a key issue that a number of Members have concerns about.

[Mr Perkins]

The Minister suggested a moment ago that the Mayor of Manchester had not been constructive; he praised how constructive the Mayors who had come to an agreement with him were. The Mayor of Manchester made a request for £90 million and was willing to be negotiated all the way down to £65 million, which sounds incredibly constructive to me. In the spirit of trying to bring everyone back together, would it not be better for him to recognise that the Mayor of Manchester is doing what he thinks is right—as are other Mayors and council leaders in other areas, whether or not they agree with the position that the Prime Minister and the Government come up with—and to say that everyone in this is attempting to be constructive?

[Steve Barclay]

I was making a factual point that picked up on the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne. The Mayor of Manchester, in his discussions with Government, expressly said that Manchester should be treated differently from other areas. The hon. Lady said that the Mayor of Manchester “spoke for Great Britain”. That does a disservice to other local leaders, who have also spoken for their areas and have worked constructively with Government. I do not think it is the case that the Mayor of Manchester, unlike the Mayor of Liverpool, speaks for Great Britain in the way that the hon. Lady suggested.

The Mayor of Manchester’s position is not deliverable operationally, because local authorities do not have access to welfare payments for the dynamic aspect of joint job support—I can come on to that in my remarks—and it was at odds with the tiering approach that we set out. There is a difference, I am sorry to say, between the approach taken by the Mayor of Manchester and the constructive approach taken by other local leaders. I do not accept the premise from the hon. Lady that the Mayor of Manchester alone speaks for Great Britain, and other local leaders in Liverpool, Lancashire, South Yorkshire and elsewhere do not, or that businesses in those areas should in some way be treated worse than the businesses in Manchester—that seems a remarkable position for the Opposition to take.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a huge misfortune that, at the moment the entire world is grappling with this pandemic, the United Kingdom should be stuck with this Government—probably the most incompetent Government that there has ever been—at a moment when never more has there been a need for a strong and reliable Government. When the whole country is looking to the Government for leadership, for them to instead be involved in the dreadful spectacle of politicising and trying to split up areas such as Greater Manchester—trying to get people to work against each other, rather than working together—at a moment like this says everything not only about their competence, but about what motivates them.

The Government are now claiming that they had a formula all along, but that has so transparently been done after the event to justify what they offered to Greater Manchester. Surely a sensible business support formula would work on the basis of the number of workers that an area has, not the number of citizens. The deal that the Greater Manchester Mayor asked for would replace 80% of the income of those workers on low wages put out of work by the Government’s incompetence. It is an area, remember, that has been in tier 2 for months. In Chesterfield, we are just going into tier 2 and we see the appalling consequences it has for our hospitality sector, which is getting no support whatever. All the way through, the Government’s eyes have been on the political win rather than on the best interests of the people they are here to serve.

If the Government had a formula all along, why was Manchester getting only £22 million at 3 o’clock and £60 million again by 7 o’clock? Why is Sheffield city region getting £6 million less in business support than the formula says? Why was the initial offer to Manchester, of £55 million, £3 million less than what the Government now say that formula is? If there is actually a formula, it does not add up. They do not even lie well. The Government are so inept that they cannot even get their story straight when they are screwing people over.

The whole charade would not be so bad if the Government had the slightest compunction about wasting billions of pounds of public money. They are the Government who conspired to deny a cash-strapped council £50 million from Richard Desmond, and who pay consultants £7,000 a day to screw up track and trace, but when it comes to laying people off—because all the Government’s measures so far have failed—the people of Manchester are not even worth £20. What a shabby disgrace!

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

To resume her seat at 3.59, I call Suzanne Webb.