Covid-19: Financial Support

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

In the early days of the pandemic, the country came together in the worst of times, making unprecedented sacrifices in all of their lives so that they could collectively fight the pandemic and save lives. The pandemic also put the structure of governance and our public finances under extreme strain; there were undoubtedly difficult—sometimes impossible—choices that had to be made. Such is the responsibility of government, but as the covid inquiry and many of our constituents have told us, there were people who were failed.

Financially, individuals and small businesses in my constituency and—as we have heard powerfully—across the country found themselves excluded from support, as their lives did not map cleanly on to the fantasy of seamless transition from workplace to workplace and from business to business. They were told that their circumstances meant they did not qualify. They included new businesses, the newly self-employed, freelancers, those on parental leave, and company directors of small businesses who received their income from dividends and a salary, to name just a few. That point has been made powerfully by several Members, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden).

Those who were in the most precarious employment were also hit hardest, with job opportunities limited. We saw youth unemployment spike during the pandemic, from 12.4% immediately before the lockdown to 15.2% only four months later. Many of those young people were made unemployed because of the high turnover and insecure nature of their workplaces—they were not on the payroll when 19 March 2020 came around. Just before the first lockdown, I and many other students were working seasonally in the hospitality sector, on zero-hours contracts, taking time off during February and March to complete the honours levels of our degrees. We expected to return to work that summer alongside pursuing our careers, but we were not given any support during the pandemic and found that our employment opportunities were limited, with no furlough available.

There was no restitution for the loss of income and opportunity many young people faced during the pandemic. The impact was that the generation most likely to be employed in those casualised or ad hoc employments were set back. Plans to move out of home, pay off their student loans and begin a career—the proof points of a successful journey through our economy—were delayed. For many, survival became the predominant need; the desperate need to pay their bills, feed their kids, and survive through any means possible. Although the pandemic was hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime event, this Government must be prepared for any such eventuality. What I have described is a good reminder of the harm of balancing the labour market in one direction.

One constituent who got in touch with me about this issue was a company director who was paid in dividends and a small salary, and who received no support because of that gap. They pointed out that not only was the lack of support hugely challenging, but colleagues and competitors in the same industry with a clearer definition of self-employment did receive support and were provided with a significant competitive advantage, which continues to this day. That is harmful to the economy, and is an injustice to my constituent and limited company directors like them. Years later, people feel like they are still trying to tread water with a weight chained to their ankle as they maintain businesses while paying back extensive loans that they took out to bridge the pandemic’s severe impact on their business.

I commend the Government on the very good work they have done to identify the clear waste and instances of fraud that occurred during covid. The covid corruption commissioner identified £10.9 billion in losses due to weak accountability, bad quality data and poor contracting under the previous Government. We can go further, and I would welcome an acknowledgement from the Minister that better design in the previous Government’s schemes could have averted those losses. That money should and could have been spent on deploying support that would have unchained many people, including my constituents, from the extensive consequential impacts they went through at the time. Those impacts should be recognised through a clear and unambiguous statement of support for those people by delivering an apology on behalf of the British state.

I commend the campaigners at ExcludedUK and its supporters, who have been relentless in advocating almost six years on from the start of the pandemic. They are fighting every day, chained financially to the circumstances caused by the pandemic—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I call Iqbal Mohamed.