Covid-19: Government Support

David Warburton Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and to speak on this subject today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) on securing the debate.

Like all of us, I have been contacted by constituents from a kaleidoscope of different situations who have been unable to access Government support in spite of having been hit hard by the pandemic and the lockdown restrictions. From visiting businesses in Somerset and talking to owners and managers and those in their supply chains, it seems the economy is like a pointillist painting with apparently discrete specks of colour, but when one steps back they merge into a cohesive picture. The Government have provided huge support to countless businesses and individuals—to many of those specks of colour. It has been unparalleled in peacetime, and the package of support has ended up costing more than £300 billion, with some 14 million people supported. However, some have not been able to access that.

I met the Chancellor a few days ago and talked to him about those people. I very much understand both his intention to try to help as many as possible and the challenges in bringing more into the safety net through proper assessment. Of course, restrictions on livelihoods are about to be lifted. Those who managed to keep the show on the road ought to be back in business very soon, but there will be challenging months ahead, and we should now look carefully at those who have had to struggle without support for the past 15 months.

The different types of ineligibility are numerous and complex. We have the newly self-employed, anyone earning over £50,000 and those drawing their salaries as a dividend. This is a common one in the music sector where I have been trying to get more support. There are those with mixed income and those on zero-hour contracts such as peripatetic music teachers. This is not academic or theoretical. It is tangible and real. I know my right hon. Friend the Minister is more than sympathetic to it. The impact means businesses going bust and mounting personal debt, and there is a particular impact on younger and older workers, new parents, parents of young children and their families. I will not go into the detail of specific cases or numbers. I am sure we will hear more about that and we can argue or dispute numbers. However, we are talking about millions of people.

I hope, as we climb out of the abyss of the pandemic, we have the perspective to take a breath, look closer at overcoming the technical assessment difficulties, which I fully appreciate, and fish more people out of the pond with a net that is slightly more tightly meshed. Without wanting to mix my metaphors, that would protect those specks of entrepreneurial colour that together make up our national economic picture.

Levelling-up Agenda

David Warburton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak on this subject today. I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on securing this very important debate. Much like his patch, Somerset has suffered from a historical fiscal concentration on London and the south-east. A major part of addressing that is for those outside the metropolitan bubble to be given the kind of investment in connectivity and infrastructure that will allow us to properly compete.

As Somerset’s representative on the Heart of the South West local enterprise partnership, I see first-hand the need for investment and the marvellous potential that even quite modest investment can unlock. If we are to rebalance our economy and properly level up, investment in connectivity is key. That means digital and physical connectivity, such as the dualling of the A303— the major arterial road for the entire south-west—which I have been talking about endlessly for many years. I am sure that 4,000 years ago, when the ancient Britons hauled the stones to Stonehenge, they got stuck in queues on the A303. If the A303 was in a decent state, President Biden would have driven to Cornwall, purely to take in the glorious view of Somerton and Frome on the way. The real issue is that so many of my constituents rely on that road to get to work, to get to school and to visit family and friends, and not all of them have a helicopter lying around.

Connectivity also means public transport. I am delighted that, with the Langport Transport Group, we secured the funding for a feasibility study for a new railway station for Langport and Somerton from the restoring your railway fund. At the moment, the splendid people of Somerton and Langport drive miles to Taunton, Bridgwater, Yeovil or Castle Cary just to catch a train, which is faintly ridiculous.

In the 21st century, digital connectivity is as important as physical connectivity. Last week I met Wessex Internet, a local internet service provider—a family business supported by Government investment that is building full-fibre networks across south Somerset. That really is a great example of public and private sector synergy. But much more needs to be done; in my constituency, more than 90% of households do not have access to superfast broadband. There are pockets, such as Isle Brewers, Compton Dundon and many more—too many to mention—where getting a 1 megabit connection is about the best a man or a woman can get.

One of the greatest threats to the levelling-up agenda and so much more is the continuation of the covid restrictions, which will continue to harm lives and livelihoods across Somerton and Frome, costing jobs, harming the economy and depriving ordinary people of the opportunities they have worked hard to create. Levelling up is an essential component of the country’s agenda, and vitally important for Somerset. Let us get properly connected, up to speed and able to compete with the rest of the country on a level footing.

Covid-19 Support Schemes: Ineligible People

David Warburton Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on calling this important debate. We must applaud the vast scale of financial support provided to many millions since March. It is unprecedented and rivals that of any western country, but there have been exclusions that have caused distress and suffering for many—the self-employed, freelancers, zero-hours workers and entrepreneurs who have taken huge risks to start new businesses and create jobs and opportunities. Those people have worked hard, but when they were most in need of support, they found themselves left behind.

On Small Business Saturday at the weekend, I visited businesses in Frome and met Liz Huband, the owner of Badger House Leather in the town’s fantastic Black Swan arts centre. Liz started her business two years ago, self-funding all of it. Her business was growing, but when the pandemic hit, she had to stop trading. In order to keep funding it, she worked half time supporting social work education. Because of that, she became ineligible for the self-employed income support scheme. The support system has entirely let her down; it has forgotten her. I have other examples, as I am sure we all have, but in two minutes I do not have the time to mention them. Some 3 million people are unable to reach meaningful support, which is a catastrophe for so many lives and livelihoods.

With vaccinations starting this week, there is an end in sight to the pandemic, but in rebuilding our economy, we will need entrepreneurs such as Liz to drive the recovery. I urge the Minister to look again urgently at ensuring that support is allocated fairly and proportionately to all those who have felt, until now, entirely left behind and forgotten.

Productivity: Rural Areas

David Warburton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) for raising this critical issue. For me, there is an answer to the productivity gap, and it is technology and infrastructure, as we have heard. Even before lockdown, a quarter of the rural population worked from home. With small and medium-sized enterprises being the engine of the rural economy, digital connectivity is vital, but Somerset is sprinkled with areas that have unreliable and intermittent connectivity.

New investment in broadband in those dead zones is of course great news, and the shared rural network agreement is another step forward, but there is still a lingering belief that the rural economy is purely focused on agriculture. Of course, we have a thriving industry that is based on agriculture—in my constituency, the fabulous cheese makers of Wyke Farms, Montgomery Cheese, Godminster and Barber’s, and innumerable cider manufacturers—and they are all vital to the local economy, but it is equally important to stoke the fire of businesses such as the logistics and supply chain company Vallis Commodities in Frome, the operations of which depend on Somerset’s physical and digital infrastructure.

Investment in road—I dare not mention the A303 again —in rail and in digital infrastructure will pay dividends for decades to come. Just stick in the money and sit back and watch as the resourceful and dynamic people of the west country beaver away in effect to give it all back with interest. If the shared prosperity fund is to achieve its purpose of smoothing inequalities between different communities, let us do that within a framework that balances protecting the bucolic glory of our small towns and villages while equipping them with the tools that they need to flourish.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

A mouth-watering contribution.