Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be pleased to see that I have all my clothes on.

This is an important debate as we head towards the Budget. As somebody who was formerly self-employed, I think it is incredibly important to recognise not only the importance of the self-employment scheme, but all the people who have been excluded from it. We need to recognise that people do not go into self-employment expecting to rely on the Government for help; they do it because they are willing to focus on their own abilities and to bring about the best outcomes for themselves. When self-employed people are left having to rely on Government, it comes very unnaturally to them.

We should remember that the majority of self-employed people were asked by the Government back in March to stay at home and not to go to work. They were told that there would be a self-employment scheme to support them. It has become transparently clear that so many of them have been missed out, while, simultaneously, other people who have continued to work have still been able to claim via the scheme. Just this week, I spoke to a constituent who has been excluded because, over the course of the three years, he has had periods when he has been employed; and he took a pension when he first became self-employed, to get him through. As a result he is unable to demonstrate, according to the Chancellor’s very arbitrary 50% of income rules, that he is self-employed. He has had almost 11 months during the vast majority of which he has been unable to work and unable to be supported by the scheme. At the same time, he has been working on building sites for people who have worked all the way through—have hardly missed a day—and have said, “This is wonderful: the Government are giving me money, even though I am carrying on.” We have schemes that have not worked as they should.

Directors of small businesses who have paid themselves through dividends have been excluded, and I am afraid that throughout the life of the scheme, too many people have been missed out. That was understandable back in March, as the scheme was being put together in a rush, but there really has been enough time to sort this out now, and the Government should get to getting it sorted out.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We are now going back to Stoke-on-Trent, where I observe that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) is now properly dressed. Lest anyone should be confused, when people are participating virtually they are appearing in this Chamber, the Chamber of the House of Commons, and therefore it is absolutely imperative that everybody taking part in these debates should be dressed in the way that they would be in the House of Commons.