Economic Update Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Economic Update

Paula Barker Excerpts
Monday 11th January 2021

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Rishi Sunak Portrait Rishi Sunak
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I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend’s tireless campaigning on this issue. She is a great advocate for the cause. She will know that we have just provided over £4.5 billion of support to many small businesses up and down the country, which I know she will warmly welcome and has called for. Indeed, part of that is half a billion pounds of discretionary funding for local authorities to support local businesses, many of which may include the people she has talked about who will be eligible for that support.

Paula Barker Portrait Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab) [V]
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For 10 months, 3 million people have been forgotten or excluded by this Government, including several of my own constituents, such as Graeme Park, and Karen and Matthew Cox. The Prime Minister said last week that these people will be listened to and that support packages are there to protect people, so can the Chancellor tell us clearly today what package of support is actually available for these groups, how much is available and when will people be able to access them?

Rishi Sunak Portrait Rishi Sunak
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Rather than me recapping every single thing that we have done, let me say that it is worth bearing it in mind when the hon. Lady talks about 3 million people that for over half of those people self-employment is not the primary source of income; they are not majority self-employed. From memory, the average income from self-employment of those individuals is around £2,000. It is actually the case that many of the other things that we have done will be of more significant support to them. Indeed, the majority of them are actually employed and can benefit from our furlough scheme, so it is not right to say that they have received no support. We have put in place a range of different things, and many people are benefiting from them.