Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2020-07-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Aaron Stuart Bell (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy). It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) and to congratulate him on a truly excellent maiden speech. It was warm, it was witty and it was thoughtful, and I know that he will serve the people of Workington very well in this place. He, like me, represents a red wall seat. The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, spoke nostalgically and warmly about the Blair Government. Under the Blair Government, both his seat and mine had 10,000 Labour majorities or more, and perhaps the Opposition might reflect on why those voters have lost faith with Labour to solve their problems. There is poverty in my constituency; there is poverty in my hon. Friend’s constituency, but those people put their faith in the Conservative party to make their lives and their futures better I turn to the Bill and the amendments. It is clear that an ambitious and decisive response was demanded of the Government by the serious economic situation that we as a nation and the whole world face. The Budget debate in which I spoke back in March already feels a very long time ago for all of us, I am sure. In many ways, the world has changed a great deal since the day when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered his excellent first Budget to the House. I welcome these Government new clauses, which provide both relief and certainty in a number of affected areas, and I will speak a little more specifically about new clause 20 later In other ways, however, it is even clearer now than it was then that my right hon. Friend was ahead of the curve in the response to the challenges that we face. The Treasury has been at the forefront of the national response to the coronavirus and a leading example to the rest of the world, with its focus on protecting jobs and maintaining the capacity of our economy, while also looking after the most vulnerable in our society in all the measures taken to respond to the virus The extraordinary success of the coronavirus job retention schemes means that we have been paying the wages of more than 9 million people who would otherwise have been laid off or made redundant and therefore we have protected their jobs, their livelihoods and their families through this most difficult time. The Government have, in my view, risen to the challenge of protecting our economy thoughtfully, responsibly and with ambition. In my constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme, that has meant 10,200 jobs supported through the furlough scheme and 2,600 self-employed workers supported with grants of more than £7 million. The local borough council has also supported our local businesses by distributing more than £21 million of business grants. I have received many emails from constituents asking me to pass on their thanks to the Government for the grants, the furlough scheme and all the other measures that have helped to keep them, their businesses and their families afloat through this period.