Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I should inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the manuscript amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. He has done this because the motion was tabled only shortly before the moment of interruption yesterday, and because one of his predecessors selected a manuscript amendment to an Opposition day motion in comparable circumstances on Monday 3 December 2001, thus creating a precedent.

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[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I say to the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) who keeps chuntering: you had your chance, mate. Let other people in.

For hundreds of years, Mancunians have been told to know our place, but we have never listened—from the People’s History Museum to the Mechanics Institute, from our science and industry to women’s suffrage. We will not be told what our place is, and we will not be bullied into taking it. We are proud of our history and proud of our collective contribution to our great country and determined to build a great future together.

This is not just about Greater Manchester; this is about all of us. We will not be picked off one by one. We will not be offered the crumbs when we helped bake the loaf. We deserve a fair slice and our people deserve a Government willing to protect them and to do as the Chancellor promised—“Whatever it takes”. In recent days, it has been Lancashire, Liverpool and Greater Manchester. Next week, and in the weeks ahead, it will be communities in other parts of the country that find themselves in tier 3. If the Government are prepared to wilfully inflict so much harm on their own people in the middle of a pandemic in one part of the country, they will do it to people elsewhere as well.

We are staring down the barrel of a bleak winter, because the Government have lost control of the virus: infections are rising; hospital admissions are rising; and deaths, tragically, are rising. The testing system has collapsed. People and businesses across the country will be anxious that they will not be able to make ends meet and put food on the table. Our motion today will ensure a fair national deal for the country, a vote of this House on it and the Government’s own promises to workers kept. Madam Deputy Speaker, I commend this motion to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. [Interruption.] Do not heckle me while I am on my feet. I call Steve Barclay to move the manuscript amendment.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

It will be obvious to everyone in the Chamber and those who wish to take part but cannot get in because it is very nearly full—I appreciate why they cannot be here—that this debate is very over-subscribed. From the very beginning, the time limit will have to be four minutes.

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[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

The past few weeks have been utterly exhausting, not just for those of us who represent Greater Manchester and local authority leaders but, more importantly, for the people we represent. Areas such as my constituency have lived with restrictions for months, and there is a real sense of never having properly left the lockdown that we all endured at the start of the year. That is why today I can only express my absolute dismay at how things have gone over the past 48 hours.

None of us—I do mean none—wanted to go into tier 3. The Minister will have heard from all 27 Greater Manchester MPs at one point or another, and even the press noted our outbreak of unity. However, as the weeks dragged on and brief and counter-brief ping-ponged their way across social media and the front pages, the likelihood of getting something that works for Greater Manchester became more and more remote. I need only look at my Twitter feed today to see that Andy Burnham, consummate performer that he is, is already rewriting the past few weeks, aided by the breathless adulation of the commentariat. The important message behind all this, however, is that 2.8 million people are now in desperate need of answers.

I watched yesterday’s press conference as the Mayor donned his carefully confected outrage and gave an encore performance of his old refrain, “Nothing to do with me.” We should let local leaders, with the support of Greater Manchester’s MPs, talk to the Government about how we will be supported over the next 28 days and beyond. The people I represent are being asked to face the toughest restrictions of their lives and livelihoods since March, and I am genuinely worried—I am sure that colleagues are, too—about the future of the people and businesses in the communities we serve. I have asked the Government to ensure that their efforts are redoubled and that any settlement with individual boroughs in Greater Manchester is conducted quickly. Despite our myriad political differences, I know that the leader of Rochdale Borough Council cares deeply for the people of our borough, and I will work with him, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) and anyone else who wants to ensure that we have the support we need.

We have been very badly let down. Andy Burnham inserted himself into this process, and at every step of the way, he promoted himself as the leader of Greater Manchester and purported to speak for us all. Some of us—I include myself in this—were willing to give him some latitude. Not unlike the First Minister of Scotland, Mr Burnham has the same sort of reality distortion field, which allows him to shrug off every broken promise and failed initiative and to emerge squeaky clean. In all honesty, who would not want some of that stardust working for them?

I am a pragmatist. I just wanted the support package; I did not care who got credit for it. Unfortunately, the Mayor did. That is why, after a demand of £65 million was made at the negotiating table and the majority of that sum—92%—was offered, Andy got up and walked away from the table, all because he wanted to brag about having got more money than Merseyside or Lancashire. That dogma and demagoguery will cost people dearly.

I am supporter of devolution, which on the whole I think has been a positive force in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but I cannot say the same for the piecemeal and patchy system that we have in England. Mayors have ill-defined and varying powers, which makes them next to impossible to scrutinise or hold to account. What this whole shabby episode has told us should be a salutary lesson for us all. Today’s last minute debate has all the hallmarks of the same opportunism that has done so much damage over the past few days, no doubt with a carefully calculated vote at the end, designed for release on social media afterwards.

I implore Opposition Members to park the opportunism. I know the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) thinks this is a good crisis that the Labour party should exploit, and I know she speaks for a lot of her Front Bench colleagues when she says that. We just need to see it in the support-U-turn-oppose approach that has characterised their hindsight-heavy behaviour. [Interruption.] Excuse me, did the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) just call me scum?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We will not have remarks like that from the Front Bench: not under any circumstances, no matter how heartfelt they might be—not at all.

[Angela Rayner]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I ask your guidance on the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) saying things in his speech about Labour Front Benchers that are inaccurate. I ask him to withdraw them.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

It is not for the Chair to decide what is accurate or inaccurate. I cannot make such a judgment, but of course I will ask the hon. Gentleman to be reasonable in what he says and to be careful of his remarks. I am sure that if he feels he has said anything that is offensive to the hon. Lady, he will undoubtedly withdraw and apologise immediately.

[Chris Clarkson]

Thank you for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should clarify that I asked the hon. Lady whether she called me that. That is what I heard.

I implore Opposition Members to look at the damage that is being done here, to follow the example of Labour leaders in the Liverpool and Sheffield city regions who put the welfare of their constituents first and to see the debacle of Andy Burnham’s failure for the learning experience it should be.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

After the next speaker, the time limit will be reduced to three minutes.

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[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I am sure I am not the only person in the House who is suffering from an overwhelming and frustrating sense of déjà vu. Often in this crisis, I feel like a parent dealing with a petulant teenager—it does not matter how often we say it, because even though they know in their heart of hearts that their parents are right, they do not want to admit it. Like that parent of a petulant teenager, the nagging from Opposition Members is because we care. We care about the outcome, and we care about people who are suffering across this country.

We care about businesses such as the long-established recruitment firm in my constituency that came to me because it did not qualify for support, or the company I spoke to this morning that was successful until March and now has to make people redundant—something that would have been unthinkable a year ago. This evening, I will be talking to constituents about how we can save Murrayfield ice rink, one of not only Edinburgh’s but Scotland’s most loved and used facilities. These might all be statistics to the Government; I hope they are not. But behind every single one of these cases are people—employees who are suffering and many self-employed people who have had no income for months.

Minister, this Government have to admit it, and admit it soon: what we saw yesterday in Greater Manchester is not an isolated case. People up and down this country feel abandoned and feel that the Government are not doing enough for them. They want to know why we are letting them down. They have contributed to the economy for years, and now they need something back—where is it? They face unprecedented hardship. That will only continue, and for some it will get worse.

It is an accepted fact in this country, repeated by various Conservative Governments over the years, that small businesses, entrepreneurs and innovators are the backbone of the British economy. Minister, that back is breaking, and it needs this Government’s help. We need them to bring back the original job retention scheme after the end of this month and to keep it going until June next year; to extend the business rates holiday to the end of 2021 to protect the retail, hospitality, leisure and childcare sectors; and to bring in those excluded groups who have nothing.

Einstein said that to do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result is madness. Well, Minister, I am prepared to indulge in that madness in the hope, which I hope is not a vain one, that the Government will eventually listen to the many voices in this country saying that we need to keep furlough—full furlough, the job retention scheme. We need to support more people. We need our economy to survive this, because without it we are all in deep, deep trouble.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I did not want to interrupt the hon. Lady’s rhetoric, but three times during her speech she addressed the Minister. Yes, I see she gets the point. I make the point so that Members who are new to the House will not think she is correct, and I let her do it three times. The hon. Lady clearly knows, and I hope others will take note, that she should address the Chair.