Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

As the hon. Member has turned up today, I hope he will do the right thing and support people with an economic package so that they can do the right thing and we can save people’s lives across Greater Manchester and the whole of this country. I hope he will do the right thing and support us in the Lobby tonight.

The Government have not given us the chance to have our say, so today we are giving the House the chance to do so. Our motion calls for the Government to bring forward fair national criteria for financial support in areas facing additional restrictions, and it provides for Members to have a vote on the criteria.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on making some excellent points in her speech. Given that the Government’s strategy to deal with the pandemic is not working, does she agree that, rather than using divisive tactics and treating the regions of our nation with utter contempt, the Prime Minister needs to adopt a united, one nation approach? Does she also agree that, if we want to impose stricter measures, we need to provide support to individuals and businesses, and that we cannot have lockdown on the cheap?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Over the past 24 hours, the people of Greater Manchester, regardless of their political persuasions or colours, have been absolutely dismayed by the way in which our democratically elected Mayor has been treated, but this is about the treatment not just of our Mayor but of the people of Greater Manchester. This is not some spiteful little game; this is about people’s lives, people’s loved ones and people’s jobs. They have spent years building up our economy in Greater Manchester. This Government choosing the path that they have chosen has done one thing for Greater Manchester: it has completely brought us together in saying that this Government and Prime Minister must do the right thing by the whole of our nation and support everywhere, not pick us off one by one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Barclay]

There has been a framework that we have used to shape our discussions. However, is this not what the Opposition motion, in essence, is calling for—a nationalised approach? In fact, we just heard an Opposition Member calling for the exact opposite in saying that the Mayor of Manchester had a case that was supposedly better than that of the Mayors in Liverpool or South Yorkshire, so the Mayor of Manchester should be treated a preferential way to constituents elsewhere in the north-west. Yet the hon. Gentleman, who I know comes at this very constructively—I recognise that that has always been his approach in the House—says something different. There seems to be confusion among Opposition Members. Do they want a national approach or do they want the Mayor of Manchester to be able to negotiate something allegedly on behalf of Great Britain? I do not think that was his electoral mandate.

[Mr Dhesi]

Many individuals are not eligible for either the self-employed income grant scheme or the coronavirus job retention scheme. I have been contacted by many of my Slough constituents, particularly the self-employed, who fear that after November they will see their incomes plummet. Does the Minister agree that they cannot be ignored and that they need support, especially if they are to go into increased lockdown restrictions?

[Steve Barclay]

I do agree that they cannot be ignored. In the third section of my speech I will come on to the individual support that we have in place and where that stands in international comparisons. Indeed, we debated that at Treasury questions only yesterday.