Covid-19: Businesses and the Private Sector

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, for this timely debate and the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, for his comments last night. I firmly believe that rebuilding our fragile economy will eventually be down to people such as Graham Kershaw, the owner of a small, family-run plastics company in Stockport called Macpac. It has 55 employees and not one has been furloughed. He switched production and designed and produced a plastic visor for protection from Covid-19. So far he has produced more than 100,000 a week. He modified the design and now they fit any hard hat manufactured. Network Rail is using them. He has now designed a small plastic desk partition for schools. The innovative, can-do attitude of hundreds of small businesses up and down the country will be the key to getting our economy back on track. Always remember: necessity is the mother of invention.

Greater Manchester is also home to many young, vibrant, fast-growing businesses. However, our youngest businesses, those set up since 2019, remain excluded from the Government’s self-employed income support scheme. The leader of Stockport Council and Greater Manchester LEP have written to the Chancellor with proposals to close this gap. It would be helpful to have an update from the Minister on what action the Government are taking to support newly self-employed people as well.