It is well known that we spent over £280 billion on an unprecedented package of support for businesses, including the job retention scheme, support grants and Government-backed loans. I speak regularly with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on all the support measures available for businesses, including in the next stage when we try to lead and help them through the pandemic and towards recovery.
Jason McCartney [V]
Hundreds of my local hospitality businesses are extremely grateful for the Government support grants they have received. As the success of the vaccine roll-out allows those businesses to start planning reopening, will my right hon. Friend continue to speak with the Chancellor about helping hospitality businesses, including the wedding industry, as they get back on their feet, perhaps by extending help with VAT and business rates?
As my hon. Friend knows, we speak all the time not only to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer but to the sector; indeed, ministerial colleagues spoke to the sector just yesterday and I have dipped in on roundtables as well. We are very concerned about this; we fully recognise the great efforts my hon. Friend is making on behalf of his constituents, but we are in regular contact with our colleagues in the Treasury.
Almost 24,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in Scotland are currently supported by 100% rates relief. That support has been extended until the end of July, but the Scottish Government want to go further and Scottish businesses need us to go further. However, due to borrowing constraints placed on Scotland’s Parliament, the funding necessary to extend further can only come from the UK Government, so does the Secretary of State agree that his Government should step up and fund this relief for another year?
What I do agree with is the fact that we have extended an unprecedented range of support and measures. I am in regular contact with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor; he has taken a nimble approach, and I look forward to engaging with him on what further support we can supply.
The hospitality supply chain has remained open despite a significant loss of earnings to continue supplying the NHS and schools that have to be open. Here in North Devon, Philip Dennis and Savona delivered to people’s homes and operated pop-up click and collect venues when many vulnerable households struggled for supermarkets slots. However, these companies are not eligible for the same support as the hospitality businesses they normally service; will my right hon. Friend ensure that they have the support they need so they are still trading when our hospitality sector reopens?
As my hon. Friend knows, in January the Chancellor announced an additional £500 million in grant funding to local authorities for the additional restrictions; this discretionary funding enables local authorities to support businesses, including, as she pointed out, those in supply chains that have been adversely impacted by restrictions but are ineligible for other measures. This funding comes on top of the £1.1 billion allocated in November 2020.
Allan Dorans [V]
If the furlough scheme is not extended beyond April, Scotland, like the rest of the UK, will face mass unemployment, with the consequent damage to businesses, communities, families and the mental health of hundreds of thousands of people. Will the Secretary of State therefore urge the Chancellor to take urgent action to ensure that this is avoided by extending furlough?
I am absolutely mindful of the immense pressures our businesses right across the UK are suffering under at the moment. I am in regular contact with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who has acted in an unprecedented way; as I have said, he has put £280 billion into the economy to help our struggling businesses. But of course we are looking at the situation as it evolves, and we are very keen to help our economy through this.
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend again on his new position and on behalf of the 3,700 businesses across Beaconsfield that have benefited from the £200 million-worth of Government-backed loans since the start of the pandemic? Will he join me in paying tribute to Buckinghamshire Council for its excellent work in ensuring that businesses are supported during the pandemic, and confirm that he will continue to offer all the support he can to protect jobs and keep businesses afloat so that we can look to not only restart our economy but build back better from the pandemic?
Throughout this crisis, as I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, the Government have stood by businesses, as she mentioned, and worked tirelessly to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods across the entirety of our country. As we emerge from the pandemic, we will ensure that we seize the initiative, as she put it, to build back better, greener and faster from this pandemic.
Does the Secretary of State not accept that, if people who are excluded from support packages are forced to wind up their businesses and move to universal credit or social security, that is more costly to the Government and damaging to the economy in the long run? Surely it is better to bring the excluded in from the cold now than to pay the long-term costs of exclusion in the future.
I fully appreciate—this is our key message as a Government—that jobs and employment are a No. 1 priority. That is exactly why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor extended the furlough scheme. I am in constant conversation with him about how better to provide support for our economy under this distress.