Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I am delighted, as a woman on the Conservative Benches, to be joining this debate. As I have only three minutes, I am unable to go through the many things in the Budget that I think are wonderful. It is a great Budget and there are many things to praise in it. The numbers that have been quoted by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) are frankly eye-watering in terms of Government spending, but in the midst of those big numbers there are some losers and some areas of our economy that need focus. I would like to spend my three minutes—two and a half, as it is now—focusing on them.

First, the self-employed who are employed through a limited company have not had any support at all. I cannot be the only Member in this House who has constant emails from such constituents asking for support. I am not saying that this is easy, but perhaps the Treasury could see whether there is a way to help the self-employed. Many of those who are self-employed through limited companies are in the creative industries, and it would be great if we could find some way of helping them.

The wedding sector has also been particularly hard hit. Wedding venues are too large to qualify for business rates relief. They have no turnover, so the VAT reductions do not help them, and they do not serve food, so eat out to help out could not help them. I know that support has been given to the wedding industry, but these venues want to get back open and to hold weddings. They can do that in a covid-safe way, and they were doing so before this lockdown. I ask the Government to bring forward support for that sector.

I also want to touch on pubs, and I declare my interest in that my family run pubs and it is the industry in which I grew up. While great support has been given, wet pubs in particular have suffered. Support such as eat out to help out has been available, as well as the VAT reduction to 5%, which is very welcome and I am pleased that it has been extended—as is Alton Towers, one of the biggest employers in my constituency. However, if a pub does not sell food, it does not qualify for the 5% reduction. Would the Government consider finding some way to help those wet pubs? They will be reopening just as the football season comes to an end and will therefore not have the benefit of people coming in to watch the football, and they do not serve food and therefore cannot benefit from many of the Government’s incentive schemes. Just a suggestion: maybe there could be a way to allow those businesses to continue furloughing staff but let the staff come back in to work to help them to reopen. There are great costs involved in reopening that they need to think about.

My final point is about getting people back into town centres and spending money in the hospitality businesses. We need a whole-of-Government effort to ensure that not just the great events that my right hon. Friend mentioned but local events are held. I spoke to the leader of my district council today, and we are looking to see what we can do because we want those businesses to be able to stand on their own two feet, as the Secretary of State said.