Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con) [V]]

It is easy to forget the empty streets and people’s concern about not just their health and their families but their personal financial circumstances when coronavirus first arose. But when this generation’s political memoirs have been well and truly pulped and accurate history books are written, I think it will still be considered the Chancellor’s own personal achievement to have mobilised the economic resources of this country to stabilise the economic outlook.

Labour Members cry for certainty about future support, yet they would huff and puff if the Budget were leaked today. The PM was clear yesterday that the Government will not pull the plug on support. Surely no one can deny the extent to which the Government have taken extraordinary steps to protect jobs and livelihoods. The furlough scheme has protected some 10 million jobs to maintain that crucial link with employment and make sure it is not severed permanently. I do not accept that that is money wasted, as the shadow Foreign Secretary described it. I hope that some thought can be given to how a cliff edge in the furlough can be avoided, so that we can gradually reallocate the labour force to the most productive parts of the economy.

The necessary extension to the furlough should be made in lockstep with decisions relating to both levels of benefits and wider fiscal measures. We have seen a vital uplift in universal credit of £20 a week. I have frequently urged the Chancellor to extend that, and I do so again. But we run the risk of being beguiled into thinking that that is the sole weapon in the Government’s armoury to reduce the financial impact of covid and improve financial resilience. Critics seem to wholly overlook the relaxation of the universal credit minimum income floor for the self-employed, as well as the significant increase in local housing allowance.

The best help we can render right now is not so much retrospective help but ensuring that the economy is relaunched successfully, with no return to lockdown, so as to restart both cash flow and economic activity. More importantly, we need to think creatively of future fiscal measures to unleash the spirit of free enterprise in a post-covid economy. Representing an area dominated by the hospitality sector, where unemployment is currently at 9.1%, I naturally join the sector in exhorting the Chancellor to maintain the 5% VAT reduction to help repair balance sheets, as well as extending the business rates holiday.

The Government’s measures to support jobs and livelihoods have been broad and deep. We know that they cannot endure forever, so the question we must answer is about how we transition from financial decisions taken in the early stages of the pandemic to post-pandemic spending that does not have a detrimental impact on my constituents’ financial resilience in what will still be very difficult times.