My thoughts are also with the family and friends of Jo Cox.
Over the past 15 months, companies in sectors such as tourism, travel, hospitality, events, the arts, the night-time economy and weddings—and their supply chains—have been building up debts and have not even gotten close yet to breaking even. It is shameful that not an extra penny of support is being announced for them today. The debt incurred by businesses could take a decade to pay back and will be a drag on recovery. The Treasury Committee was told last week by the British Retail Consortium and UKHospitality that their estimate of commercial rent arrears alone stands at over £5 billion. The Minister has extended the moratorium today and spoken of legislation, but what is his plan to deal with this debt? He asks businesses to start paying back, but with what?
Under the Treasury’s furlough scheme, businesses must pay an additional 10% of their employees’ wages on 1 July, rising to 20% in August, before the scheme is due to end in September. When this happened last year, businesses could not cope with the costs and people lost their jobs. Kate Nicholls of UKHospitality has called this situation unsustainable, and the Federation of Small Businesses has called for urgent additional support.
So will the Minister delay the furlough increase, and will he now extend furlough and the self-employment income support scheme for as long as they are required? Will he act to support those like the Blue Dog employees in Glasgow, whose employer’s behaviour has meant that they have not received the payments they were entitled to? Will he finally—finally—put things right for the millions unjustifiably excluded from UK Government support schemes, such as those on short-term pay-as-you-earn contracts? Many have faced absolute financial ruin through no fault of their own, and it is high time they got support, and an apology from the Minister. Will he make the VAT cut to 5% permanent to give hospitality, tourism and events a much-needed boost into next year, and extend it to the hair, beauty and personal services sector? Will he keep the universal credit uplift and make an increase to sick pay?
The UK currently has the lowest stimulus package of any G7 country despite suffering the worst economic slump. We now need to boost it like Biden with a major fiscal stimulus of at least £100 billion. There is so much more that Scotland would do with the economic levers if we had access to them—so if the Minister will not act, will he give Scotland the power to do so?