Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Virginia Crosbie Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con) [V]]

Listening to young people here in my constituency of Ynys Môn, they tell me that they want a future here on the Isle of Anglesey. They want to work here, buy a home here, raise their families here, stay in their community and keep our Welsh culture and language alive. They want quality jobs and they want a pro-business Government who will enable them to have a good job.

The past year under the shadow of coronavirus has had a major impact on everyone, but especially our young people. Their education has been impacted, and they have spent months isolated from friends and extended family. The UK Government have supported them and their families with practical measures to keep jobs and businesses going, with the introduction of schemes such as kickstart, which has already seen new jobs created here on Anglesey. The Chancellor’s innovative schemes have offered a lifeline to thousands of people here on Ynys Môn, with more than £7 million in CBILS loans, just under £37 million in bounce back loans, 3,400 employee jobs furloughed, 2,000 claims made under the self-employment income support scheme and nearly £1 million claimed on the eat out to help out scheme.

My constituency has seen underinvestment and the loss of major employers for decades, and I will be fighting to ensure that all my constituents have a future and are a major beneficiary of the UK Government’s key manifesto commitments to level up the social and economic playing field across the UK. Ynys Môn can play a key role in the build back better recovery of the UK by embracing the UK Government’s levelling up agenda.

Anglesey’s bid for freeport status would create a hub of enterprise across the island, fanning out from the port of Holyhead. As the only bid in north Wales, and the only bid in Wales to include a university, the freeport would attract major new employers, bringing permanent employment and boosting the supply chain across the whole of north Wales. Our island’s natural resources can play a significant role in helping to make net zero a reality. We have wind, wave, tide and solar, as well as one of the best potential nuclear sites in the UK at Wylfa Newydd. Businesses such as Morlais and Minesto offer huge opportunities to harness green energy locally, as well as providing exciting, new, high-quality jobs.

By investing in homegrown innovative businesses, such as Diagnostig and Virustatic, which are based in the Menai science park, we can encourage our young people to visualise their futures here on the island through initiatives such as my innovation jobs fair, which will be opened by the Science, Research and Innovation Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), in July.

I want to see our young people in a position where their hope for good employment does not mean they have to leave our island. I want them to be able to stay here, buy their own homes, raise their own families and live in the communities they love. Levelling up is not about handouts, but the country working in partnership with this Conservative Government to bring about regional as well as national prosperity. On behalf of Anglesey, I am grabbing it with both hands.