Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to his response to the question asked by the hon Member for Cardiff West in the urgent question from the Rt hon Member for Oxford East on 12 May 2020, what the evidential basis is for the calculation that there are 120,000 people who were due to start a job after 28 February 2020 and who are not covered by the Coronavirus Jobs Retention Scheme.

The figures provided on 12 May were initial estimates based on PAYE RTI submissions to 8 April. PAYE schemes have until 19 April following the end of the tax year to submit details of payments. Equivalent figures based on complete data are not yet available. The data submitted by employers omits start and leaving dates for a proportion of employments, and to provide complete and full figures it would be necessary to estimate these dates. This has not been possible in the time available to answer this question.