Coronavirus: Job-Support Schemes — House of Commons, 2020-07-07
Topic: Labor
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): I will be coming to some of the points that the hon. Member raises later in my remarks. We are focusing on the furlough scheme and the self-employment scheme, but of course these schemes have been a small percentage of the overall response, which has included a vast array: £300 billion of loans, tax deferrals, grants, reliefs and the rest of it, as well as support under universal credit and other forms of benefit. It has been a very, very comprehensive system of support, of which we can be proud Let me push on. I was talking about the principles involved. The scale and urgency of the crisis were such that the Government’s overwhelming and overriding motivation was to deliver the greatest help to the greatest number of people as quickly as possible. That was the driver behind the schemes. Both were designed to make use of existing processes and verifiable data precisely in order to make the implementation happen in the fastest possible time and to minimise the risk of fraud, error and delay. Any delay would have meant that millions of people who benefited from the schemes would not have received the support when they needed it most It has not been possible to extend the self-employment scheme to individuals who became self-employed after 2018-19, because although self-employed taxpayers can file returns for 2019-20, this would have created an opportunity for fraudulent operators and criminals to file fake returns. It does not take an enormous amount of mental mathematics to calculate that a relatively small percentage of additional fraud would equal quite a lot of additional schemes that would have to have been assessed and worked through the system. That is what makes it so difficult. As the House knows, these problems have been highlighted in testimony to the Treasury Committee. It is also important to be clear that these are just two measures within a much larger package of Government support I only have one minute left, so let me turn quickly to the points that have been raised. My right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon raised the question of fairness to individuals. I understand his point. I think he is aware that the schemes are targeted at those who need them most, and the self-employment scheme is most reliant on people’s self-employment income. He has had an explanation of the 95% figure that we have used—that is, those who get more than half their income from self-employment and who could be eligible for the scheme. Of course, many of those people are also entitled to claim other benefits The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) said that it cannot be beyond the wit of the Government to address these issues. Of course, it is true that people have found groups that have been left out, but I put it to her that this has been extraordinarily difficult. We have been able to make changes at the margins but not at the core, precisely in order to deliver the benefits we wanted Let me finally say, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe, that the OBR has projected some £60 billion in total for the current schemes and £15 billion for supplementary estimates. That may be the order of magnitude that we are talking about. I wish that I could speak for longer.