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Tag: 2021

  • Christine Jardine – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    Christine Jardine – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West, in the House of Commons on 3 March 2021.

    It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher). I think we all appreciate that the Chancellor’s statement today comes at a time when the covid-19 virus has had far-reaching and, in some cases, life-changing and even life-ending consequences for far too many of our constituents. People have seen the well-planned, well-financed future they had built for their families swept away by the virus. Businesses are now on the brink because they followed responsibly the rules laid down by the Government. While there are some steps in the Budget that I am sure will be welcomed, it does not go far enough for the many who have suffered the most, such as those on lower incomes, for whom the freeze on the tax threshold will mean a real- terms loss in their income.

    Today, a million small businesses and small-business owners who have been fighting desperately to stay afloat and protect jobs and livelihoods were looking to the Chancellor to extend a lifeline—something to get them through the next few months and out on the other side of this pandemic. While there will be changes to corporation tax in two years’ time, that is two years’ time. What about tomorrow, next week and next month? I am sorry, but what we have heard today falls far short of what those small businesses needed. We need to get shops, tradesmen, hairdressers and florists, who are the backbone of our economy and the heart of our communities, through the next few months and they needed changes now. They have lost income and revenue to pay the rent costs, which are building up, and they are accruing debt.

    Five billion pounds for small businesses is not enough. What the Chancellor has announced does not even touch the sides of the problem. What we need, and what Liberal Democrats have been calling for, is a £50 billion recovery fund to help small businesses meet their costs and replace their lost revenue until they are able to trade properly again, until the economy is open—£25 billion over three months, totalling £50 billion. We have seen in Germany that it can succeed.

    We have also called on the Chancellor to implement a zero business rates policy for all small businesses in 2021-22. While maintaining the VAT cut for hospitality is essential, we would have liked to see that stay in place until the end of the financial year, not just until September, and not just for hospitality but for all businesses. VAT deferral would allow them to free up capital to invest in their business.

    The extensions to furlough, to self-employment support and to the universal credit uplift all needed to go much further. Furlough should be extended for as long as we need it, and all the self-employed and excluded should be brought into it. Too many people who have been left out will remain so after this Budget. There are 3 million people who have had no financial support at all in this crisis, and only 600,000 of them, according to the Chancellor’s own figures, will be helped. The gaps in support all-party parliamentary group gave the Chancellor a plan that would have helped those left out. Why did he not take it?

    As for the universal credit uplift, even with it, the UK still has one of the least generous social welfare systems in the OECD, and one that we all know is seriously flawed. The uplift is due to end when unemployment could rise again, as the furlough scheme, which has kept it down, comes to an end. Therefore, when will the Government listen to the voices across the country, and from all political parties, that are calling for pilots and trial schemes of a universal basic income, which would have meant that nobody fell through the cracks during this crisis?

    Now we all look to September and wait for the Chancellor’s next batch of patches. I am left today with far too few answers and too many questions. Why is our economic performance so much worse than those of other countries? Why is support for small businesses and the self-employed so little, especially for those so hard hit by Brexit? There is no long-term reform of business rates. Why is there nothing on social care and carers? Why so unambitious on our future green industries? There are no tax incentives for transitioning away from a carbon economy, and there is nothing to replace the green homes grant. But there is a tax hike on the lowest paid, by freezing the threshold next year. Simply mitigating the problems caused by covid will not repair the economy or provide the investment for the growth that we need for recovery.

    Small businesses, families and self-employed people up and down this country were watching today, hoping for something to repay their commitment and their sacrifice in fighting this pandemic—a fair response from the Government, not self-congratulations on having done so well. The Chancellor, at the beginning of his statement, promised us a Budget to meet the moment. I am afraid that I do not think he has fulfilled that pledge.

  • Katherine Fletcher – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    Katherine Fletcher – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Katherine Fletcher, the Conservative MP for South Ribble, in the House of Commons on 3 March 2021.

    Last year, I asked the Prime Minister, on behalf of the good people of South Ribble, to throw the kitchen sink at supporting the British people through this awful pandemic. Today, this Conservative Chancellor has continued to do just that: kitchen sinks are being thrown. The scale of the financial support that we are offering is massive. We are extending our spending to help people and businesses right through to September and beyond, which is much further than many expected. We are helping businesses to survive with furlough and VAT cuts and supporting them to get back on their feet with restart grants. Costing £407 billion, it is a lot of money to help this country in its time of need.

    It was the Conservatives who spoke a decade ago of getting the nation’s finances sorted. We were fixing the roof while the sun was shining. Well, this once-in-a-century global pandemic is the weather equivalent of it raining stair-rods. Cats and dogs have fallen from loaded dark grey clouds on the British people during this pandemic. Businesses have been forced to close, or to work in different ways, to save our lives. Our existential British right to talk a load of nonsense down the pub on a Friday night with friends and strangers has been curtailed, not to mention what has happened to the brilliant people who run these businesses. This Chancellor and Government know what they are doing. We get that we could not have a situation where people lost their jobs or their hard work for businesses just because some bat in China got a nasty cough a couple of years ago. That is not their fault, and this Government have done eye- wateringly massive things quickly to protect people, their families and their work from the consequences of bats and biology.

    It is also honest to say that this help has cost us a fortune. This Conservative Government have been fair in protecting people when the awful things happened, but the sums of money required are—wow—massive. It is our money. When I say that it is costing us a fortune, I do mean “us”. It is not Government money or some nebulous concept; it is our money raised by our taxes on our hard work and our business innovation. At some point, we will have to pay this massive support back— not all in one go and not at any price. I commend the Chancellor’s honesty today in setting out two broad themes on how to keep us on an even keel with our money and the nation’s finances.

    As individuals, we will have to push back some potential gains to future years, such as freezing salaries, paying a bit more tax, and asking the bigger businesses to contribute a bit more without making us as a country too different from our international peers in the G7. As the Government, we will have to continue to be careful about how we spend our money, but when we do spend money, we should spend it to invest. This statement shows that we will focus on areas that will help us grow our businesses and our communities. We are putting in place the foundations for a future economy to boing back, never mind bounce.

    Today’s announcements of investments, super deductions and capital investment plans will boost business investment by enormous sums with world-leading measures. This Government are supporting people to invest to grow their business, creating good jobs across the country. Measures today such as the UK infrastructure bank in Leeds—it is the wrong side of the Pennines, but still amazing—and the levelling up fund will make the UK and Lancashire the best place in the world for innovative businesses to set up and grow. Freeports will help us get our goods to the world, and Help to Grow is brilliant. It will give everyone access to new skills and technologies and boost their businesses, no matter how small they are. I would have run with open arms to these measures when I was running my business.

    On a personal note, the people of Leyland want me to thank the Chancellor hugely for the announcement today of the £25 million investment in our town. For too long, Leyland has not seen its fair share of investment. Recently, local businesses, local officials, elected people like me and experts from the Government have been working really hard together in the town board to put a bid together to transform our town centre. I am so chuffed it was successful. Thank you. We cannot wait to get spades in the ground and get started.

    It is also important to note that I have the honour in today’s debate of following the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), if only to point out where his crazy spending plans would have put us in the middle of this crisis—in short, a mess. The plans, which the Opposition Front Benchers supported in their manifesto, would have dug a black hole bigger than this pandemic has done in our nation’s finances, which the pandemic would have then deepened. The Labour party is just not being honest or straight with the public when it suggests we can just borrow our way out of this. When Labour Members are a bit vague about what they would actually do to fix this problem, that is because they are not being honest about the consequences of having too much debt for the safety and security of our country.

    Not committing to anything and being a bit vague is fine as a political strategy, but it is not the way to do the right thing by the great British people. This Chancellor and this Government are doing the right thing to support us—responsible, grown-up, practical and fair. They are being honest about what we have been facing and are still to face. They are looking to the future and investing for growth in Leyland’s town centre, in Lancashire’s businesses and across the nation. It is what we need to build back better, and I support this Budget wholeheartedly today.

  • Jeremy Corbyn – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    Jeremy Corbyn – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Independent MP for Islington North, in the House of Commons on 3 March 2021.

    I am delighted to be able to speak in this Budget debate, but sadly this Budget does not reflect the reality of people’s lives. Just this morning I have come from a local food bank where people were queuing up to try to get enough food to get by. They are people who thought they would always be okay and have enough money to live on, but they do not and they therefore rely on food banks. To the tens of thousands of people who have volunteered in mutual aid groups all over the country, I think we should say a huge thank you. They have contributed, in a way that the Government have not, to the lives of so many people who would be in such great difficulty if those food banks were not there.

    The Chancellor talks about extending the furlough scheme and protecting people on those wages. I point out to him that the scheme includes no floor and that 80% of minimum wage is a lot less than the money people need to live on. It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) who proposed a year ago that we should have a furlough scheme. He sent substantial papers to the Treasury in order to bring that about. Sadly, I do not believe that the Chancellor read all of them.

    The scheme proposed by my right hon. Friend would have guaranteed everybody’s income and jobs, it would have had a floor, and it would have gone on to protect people’s conditions and wages, as well as those of people in all aspects of self-employment, including in the artistic sector. There are many people in work at the moment who are being threatened with fire and rehire, and there are companies trying to dismiss the whole workforce and rehire them on lower wages and with worse working conditions. British Gas and British Airways tried it on, and so many other companies are trying to do the same thing. Where is the protection for people’s living standards and jobs in this Budget? Sadly, it is desperately missing.

    On public sector pay, many are going to be hit by the pay freeze and by a stealth income tax rise through the freezing of the tax allowance. I remind the Chancellor that a previous Government—a Labour Government in the 1970s—came a cropper on that one when the Rooker-Wise amendment was passed to prevent the Chancellor from the freezing the tax-free allowance.

    Millions of public sector workers have contributed so much to dealing with the covid pandemic. Those working in our national health service, our care services and our local government have made super-human efforts to try to help people get through a desperate time, helping people through the mental health crisis and so much else. Their reward is going to be frozen pay and, for those working in local government, a continued underfunding of local government services.

    For pretty well everyone across the country, there will be a 5% rise in council tax, as local councils desperately try to balance the books and deal with the increased demands on their services because of the covid pandemic. I hope that the Chancellor will recognise that we need a proper funding formula for local services across the country, and not just claps for the NHS, the care service and delivery workers, but actual pay increases to recognise the massive contribution that they are making to our society.

    The Budget said a great deal about corporation tax and other business taxes, but it did not say very much about tax evasion or tax avoidance. From the Government’s statements, they propose to raise around £2.2 billion between now and 2025—in the next four years—from tax avoidance and tax evasion, yet the real figure is that something over £30 billion a year is lost to our public services through tax avoidance and tax evasion. If the Government were serious, they would have included measures in the Budget to deal with tax avoidance and tax evasion.

    I hope, by contrast, that the Government will recognise that not increasing statutory sick pay while at the same time doing nothing about tax evasion and tax avoidance says it all about Tory priorities. Statutory sick pay is £95 per week. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care himself said he could not live on that; I do not think that any Member would want to try to live on that, so why are we expecting anybody else in our society to do so? It has to be increased, and we need a guarantee of at least the £20 rise in universal credit, which at the moment is still a temporary measure.

    The Chancellor had obviously read quite a lot of the proposals made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington before the last election, in which he pointed out that he wanted to move jobs to the north and ensure that the increase in public spending that we were proposing would help people across the north. The Chancellor made a big deal of about 750 jobs going to Darlington. Sadly, all that is cancelled out by the huge number of job losses in transport authorities across the north of England, particularly in Greater Manchester and Merseyside City Region. That is because the Government have not provided them with the funding package to support transport systems that they have in London and other places. This degree of unfairness between the north and the south will continue, and the degree of unfairness between the richest and poorest in our society will increase under this Budget.

    Towards the end of his speech, the Chancellor managed to provide a great deal of greenwash for his proposals. Of course, we all support a green industrial revolution. It was central to Labour’s manifesto at the last election, but where is the commitment to net zero emissions by 2030? Where is the commitment on protection of biodiversity to protect us all for the future? This Budget is such a lost opportunity. At the end of it, our society will be more divided than it is at the present time, there will be greater stress and uncertainty in so many people’s lives because of this Budget. We can, should and must do much better than this.

  • Sajid Javid – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    Sajid Javid – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Sajid Javid, the Conservative MP for Bromsgrove, in the House of Commons on 3 March 2021.

    Over the course of the past year in countries not too dissimilar to our own, people have been asked to choose between protecting their livelihoods and protecting their lives. That has not been the case in our country, and for that we have my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to thank. He said, right at the very start of this pandemic, that he would do whatever it takes to protect jobs, to protect businesses and to protect public health, and he has delivered on every count, and this nation has rightly given him its gratitude.

    Despite his success, the Chancellor will be in no mood for a victory lap. Comprehensive support, as he has said today, has come at unprecedented pressure on our public finances. To date, as we have heard, the Government have already spent more than £300 billion, every penny of that borrowed. While low interest rates have certainly helped, we cannot expect such a benign lending environment to last forever. With national debt already close to national output, as we have heard, just a 1% rise in gilts would mean an additional yearly cost in debt servicing of £25 billion by 2024. That is more than half of the annual defence budget. Indeed, we are already seeing rising pressure, especially because of rising global inflation expectations, so we cannot allow the inflation tiger to prowl unchecked.

    The faster our economy can bounce back, the easier it will be to manage our debt in the future. Thankfully, I believe that our prospects for a sharp, strong recovery look very promising. Thanks to the Government support, the vast majority of businesses are ready for the shutters of the economy to be lifted. The Bank of England has shored up confidence with monetary easing. Households are sitting on some £100 billion of excess savings and, unlike in wartime recessions, there has been no physical destruction of capital. Above all, the Government are delivering on their vaccination programme—a programme that is the envy of Europe and that will lead this continent out of the lockdown. For these reasons, I am very optimistic about the recovery, and I think it will happen rapidly.

    Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)

    My right hon. Friend was of course part of the legacy that has put us in a strong position to make the support packages of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. Does he agree with me that small businesses are the absolute lifeblood of our recovery, and that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has brought forward, in the Help to Grow package today, two really insightful schemes that will support the nation’s smallest businesses?

    Sajid Javid

    I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and I very much agree with that. I think there are actually more than two schemes, if we are honest. There are a number of schemes that will help businesses, not least the speed and the scale of the recovery that I have talked of. I especially welcome those measures, but also the super deduction and the support through grants for businesses.

    In the medium term, we will put our country back on to a firmer financial footing by tackling some of the systemic issues that were around long before this pandemic hit, such as low productivity and regional inequality. That is why I also welcome the Chancellor’s emphasis on infrastructure investment. Not only will this provide an immediate increase in economic activity, but it will drive long-term productivity improvements and will make sure that growth is even better distributed across the entire United Kingdom.

    However, I would urge the Chancellor not to take his eye off delivery. Successive Governments have had a poor history of delivering infrastructure projects on time and on budget. I therefore hope my right hon. Friend will consider complementing his very welcome changes to the Green Book and the new national infrastructure investment bank with a comprehensive cross-government delivery strategy.

    While grants and support schemes have been consumed by our generation, they will be paid for by the next. That is why the Chancellor was absolutely right to level with the British people and to set out so candidly the pressure on the nation’s finances. While slamming the brakes on spending now would be self-defeating, the Government should be drawing up medium to long-term plans to manage debt. That is why I welcome many of the initiatives the Chancellor set out today, including his commitment to try to avoid borrowing for day-to-day spending. That commitment starts with new fiscal rules. The Chancellor should ensure that those rules are in place by year end, ideally alongside the next Budget and the comprehensive spending review. Having run four spending Departments and the Treasury, I am left in no doubt that a fiscal anchor is essential to control spending and to control debt.

    Lastly, in the long term, putting the country back on a firm financial footing means that we need to build resilience against future disasters, as the Chancellor recognised in his Budget speech. Of course, not every disaster is a black swan and it would be foolish to prepare for crises we cannot foresee while we ignore those that we can. In terms of their potential impact on the future economy, few crises are more existential than climate change and declining biodiversity. That is why, as Chancellor, I set Professor Dasgupta very ambitious terms for his independent review on the economics of biodiversity. It makes clear that biodiversity is declining faster than at any other time in human history. If we continue to undermine the resilience of the natural world, we will introduce new sources of serious financial uncertainty, not least the increased spread of infectious diseases. While of course it will take time for the Treasury to digest Professor Dasgupta’s review, the Treasury should make a start on one of his most central recommendations: the need to recognise the value of the natural world in our national accounts. I urge the Chancellor to formally ask the UK Statistics Authority to review how that might be done. The Office for National Statistics is one of the most widely respected economic institutions in the world. If it can lead by example, it can make such a difference in trying to persuade other countries and financial institutions to do the same. We can lead on this, not least because of our chairmanship of the G7 and the COP26 conference this year.

    This has been a long hard winter and we have all been hibernating for many months, but, as case rates fall and the vaccination programme continues at pace, the frost has begun to thaw and we are beginning to see the first signs of spring. The Government have been given a precious opportunity not just to resurrect our economy but to reinvigorate our entire country. I am in no doubt that the Chancellor will rise to the occasion with the energy that this moment requires and the sense of purpose that history demands. I am pleased to say that his Budget is the first step to doing just that.

     

  • Meg Hillier – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    Meg Hillier – 2021 Speech on the Budget

    The comments made by Meg Hillier, the Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, in the House of Commons on 3 March 2021.

    I welcome parts of this Budget because if it works, it will prop up the system for a bit longer, but I am worried that we have seen announcements about the extension of furlough, for example, at a point at which many workers will have already been hit by decisions taken by employers who were worried that such an announcement would not be made today.

    The country is crying out for change. It is in debt and there is an uncertain future for many individuals and businesses. Brexit, which I do not think I heard mentioned in the Chancellor’s speech, is hitting businesses and individual consumers very hard and proving costly to the economy, certainly in the short term. The bit that was missing from the Budget is the vision for a country that should be supporting people into decent, affordable homes; that should be properly tackling net zero, on which I will touch in more detail; and that should have a plan for social care, the sector that was abandoned in the early stages of covid.

    We should also be tackling the challenging issues in respect of different employment statuses that have caused so much difficulty for so many. In my constituency is represented everything from zero-hours contracts to IR35, self-employment, people employed for tax purposes and people on short-term contracts. Covid has had different impacts on different groups of people.

    The Chancellor said he will do whatever it takes but, structurally, the inequalities remain. The poorest get a welcome prop-up with the extension of the uplift to universal credit, but only to September. I am not sure that I can see—I am sure the Chancellor would agree that he does not have a crystal ball—what will suddenly change in September that will mean that people do not need the extra £20 a week.

    Structurally, there are real issues. A few figures have been announced today on green initiatives—I have not had a chance to go through the detail in the Red Book—but there is no clear plan. We have targets on net zero and other environmental targets, including on things such as electric or net zero cars, yet there are not enough milestones along the way to the targets, which are coming upon us really fast. I will look in detail at the little bits of money announced today, as my Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, is examining issues relating to the green economy in a series of inquiries.

    I welcome the fact that there is finally a bit more support for some of the self-employed people in my constituency—we need to see the detail on that—but it is a whole year late. Like many Members, I have constituents who have lived for a year without a penny of income and did not qualify for universal credit, and sometimes they were in exactly the same position as somebody else who lost their job only a day later. Lives have been put on hold and future plans shredded, and there is no prospect of work for many people in many sectors for many months.

    I welcome investment in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions to look at fraud and error. These are small amounts. But it was this very Government who pushed bounce back loans through, as the National Audit Office has said, with very little regard to risk. A slight delay of 24 or 48 hours would have put less risk on the taxpayer for the guarantee on those loans. With regard to some of the furlough schemes, at the early stages it was right to get this out the door, as my Committee has acknowledged, but later, more safety mechanisms could have been put in place. That money is good money chasing bad, in many respects. The risk appetite was high.

    Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)

    The hon. Lady mentions the risk in bounce back loans. Her Committee—our Committee—has done sterling service over the years on the whole question of tax evasion and the investigation of that. Does she have anything to say to the Chancellor about that, because it is a very large, lucrative area that the Government could pay attention to?

    Meg Hillier

    I have hopes for some of the £100 million that HMRC has been given. In fact, having scanned the Red Book, I see that other money is being added to HMRC. As a Committee—as the right hon. Gentleman, a former Chair of the Committee, will know—we are very keen for HMRC to get money because with every £1 it gets for compliance it brings back a lot more to the Exchequer. We need to look closely at this because there is a challenge in the tax system—for example, as regards high street businesses versus online businesses. It is a complex matter and no one should imagine that there is a simple solution; I know he does not think it is simple. It is something we need to continue to engage with.

    On housing, once again we have seen a focus on fuelling demand, not increasing supply. The Chancellor seems to have got off the hook on leasehold issues for constituents of mine, and those around the country, who had dangerous cladding by taking the announcement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government last week as though that is the matter closed.

    Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)

    My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about leaseholders, as did the Father of the House, and she knows that many are affected in my constituency. Does she agree that it is absolutely crucial that we get clarity from the Chancellor as soon as possible about the consequentials for Wales—he talked about funding across the Union—of those announcements? There needs to be work with the Welsh Housing Minister to sort out the issues around the levy and the tax that have been proposed that are supposed to fund dealing with these fire and building safety issues. It is absolutely urgent that that is done as soon as possible.

    Meg Hillier

    I completely agree: it is absolutely urgent for the people living in those homes whose lives are on hold, but it is also important for the Exchequer. If the Chancellor’s announcements do fuel demand for buying housing, that is stymied by the fact that so many people are stuck in homes that are unsaleable and worth nothing, so they are mortgage prisoners. The whole supply system is not working and the demand system is being fuelled in the wrong direction. We have seen homes in my constituency that were being sold at just below the last threshold for this.

    My Committee has looked at the Government’s housing policies over many years now. One million new homes in England were promised between 2015 and 2020 and 500,000 more by the end of 2022. Even taking into account the pandemic, we saw, for example, the starter homes project fail completely after nearly £200 million was spent on land remediation alone, with £2.3 billion in total set aside for that in the 2015 spending review. Yet this did not happen because the Government did not even manage to enact the secondary legislation necessary to get it off the ground. Five years later, they finally announced that it was the end of the starter homes project and introduced First Homes, a discount for first-time buyers, and now we are seeing a loan guarantee on 95% mortgages. It is a very muddled policy. I cannot yet see who will benefit, and we will be looking at this in detail.

    On net zero and the environment, the Government are setting big targets, but our detailed work in the Public Accounts Committee raises many concerns. This is on top of failures on the green deal, the privatisation of the green investment bank, three competitions for carbon capture and storage—one more was recently announced, but so far the first three have failed—and real inertia on developing proper, long-term commitments to really tackling climate change.

    Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con) rose—

    Meg Hillier

    I will not give way as I have already taken two interventions.

    It is easy to make announcements; it is much harder to get the system to deliver on them. There is a will in this House, I think, to deliver on this, but the Government have to stop making cheap headlines.

    On jobs, only one in 100 young people aged 16 to 24 is benefiting from kickstart. Again, it is a nice headline, but unless it delivers for our constituents, it is not working. We need to act now on making sure that further education is properly funded so that it can plan ahead as, hopefully, we come out of lockdown and into more normal life, and make sure that people are able to be reskilled.

    Finally, I welcome the movement—as far as I have read the detail, which is not in full yet—on visas for tech entrepreneurs. This has been a brake on progress in Shoreditch in my constituency. However, we have young people in this country who were brought up in the UK, for whom it is their home and the only country they know, and they are struggling to buy citizenship at over £1,000 apiece, because families cannot afford it. They may pay for citizenship for the main householder, but not for the family. This is something that I feel is viscerally unjust. We have these talented people in our communities, in our constituencies, in our country, who are essentially British but priced out of citizenship. So if we are going to have visas for tech entrepreneurs at an easy rate, why not do that for the young people already in our country who are willing, able and capable of contributing?

  • Liz Truss – 2021 Comments on Flexible Working

    Liz Truss – 2021 Comments on Flexible Working

    The comments made by Liz Truss, the Minister for Women and Equalities, on 5 March 2021.

    Our commitment to flexible working is based on our desire to open up employment opportunities to people regardless of their sex or location. The shift for many people to work from home during the pandemic has changed mindsets and now is a chance to seize the opportunity of making flexible working the norm, rather than something employees have to specially request.

    The fact is that for many jobs there are invisible restrictions that hold people back – like the need to live in high-cost accommodation close to the centre of cities or maintain working arrangements that are very hard to combine with family or other responsibilities.

    We now have the chance to break down these barriers and boost opportunities for everyone.

  • Michael Ellis – 2021 Comments on the Sentence of Amaraze Khan

    Michael Ellis – 2021 Comments on the Sentence of Amaraze Khan

    The comments made by Michael Ellis, the Attorney General, on 5 March 2021.

    Amaraze Khan targeted a vulnerable victim who could not defend himself. His cowardly actions have caused psychological harm to the victim and I welcome the Court of Appeal’s decision today.

  • Dominic Raab – 2021 Statement on Venezuela

    Dominic Raab – 2021 Statement on Venezuela

    The statement made by Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, on 5 March 2021.

    The decision of the regime in Venezuela to expel the Head of the EU Delegation is unwarranted and deeply regrettable. The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with our EU partners.

  • Matt Hancock – 2021 Statement on Covid-19

    Matt Hancock – 2021 Statement on Covid-19

    The statement made by Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on 5 March 2021.

    Good afternoon and welcome to Downing Street for today’s coronavirus briefing.

    I’m joined by Dr Susan Hopkins, from Public Health England and NHS Test and Trace.

    Today, I’ve got an update on progress in our battle against coronavirus, some new evidence of the effectiveness of the vaccines, an update on the cases of the Brazilian variant of concern and extra funding to support mental health in schools.

    Because, of course, on Monday that marks our first step in our opening up after this lockdown.

    Next week, classrooms will be buzzing with activity once more. I know parents across England will be delighted and relieved that all children are going back to school.

    Also, from Monday, I’m just so pleased that we’re able to reopen care homes to visitors.

    We’ve put in place a really careful policy so each care home resident will be able to register a single regular visitor, who’ll be tested and wear PPE.

    I know this really matters to hundreds of thousands of people with a loved one in a care home.

    And I’m really glad that we can make this step.

    So, first, let’s turn to the latest coronavirus data.

    This data shows this progress we’ve made, including more evidence on the impact of the vaccine in saving lives.

    First slide please.

    Here, you can see the number of cases of COVID-19.

    I’m pleased to say that the cases are still falling.

    The average daily number of cases is now 6,685 – the lowest since late September and the weekly case rate across the UK is now 84 per 100,000.

    The latest figures from the ONS, which were published earlier today, reported a further significant decline. They show that in England 1 in 220 people have coronavirus, a fall from 1 in 145 last week.

    This is all encouraging news and it should give us all confidence that we can safely take the steps we’re taking on Monday.

    Next slide please.

    Slide 2 shows the hospital admissions with COVID and it shows that they are falling too.

    There are still 12,136 people in hospital in the UK with COVID.

    That’s still too high, but the average number of new admissions to hospital is 900, the lowest since October.

    Next slide please.

    Thankfully, the number of deaths with COVID are also declining steeply.

    The average number of deaths per day is 248, also the lowest since October.

    And here, the decline is in fact accelerating.

    The halving time of the number of deaths has come down from 19 days – so the number of deaths each day – last month, to halving every 11 days now.

    Not only that, there are now fewer people dying of all causes in care homes than is normal for this time of year.

    Taken together, these 3 slides show that we’re heading in the right direction, although there is further to go. And what we can also see in the data, across the whole UK, is that the vaccine programme is working to protect the NHS and saving lives.

    Next slide please.

    The best way to see this is by looking at how fast cases, hospital admissions and deaths are falling.

    The number of cases have been falling, in a fairly even way, since around the middle of January, by a quarter every week. Just a little bit more in the past few days.

    It’s not been completely smooth.

    A week ago, I stood here and we said that we were worried that the fall in cases was slowing down.

    Thankfully, as you can see in the chart, that now looks more like a temporary blip.

    Which is good news for us all.

    Next slide please.

    Now let’s turn to the number of hospital admissions.

    Again, this is falling steadily, at around a quarter every week.

    But there are early signs that this fall is getting a bit faster.

    In fact, the 29% fall in the last week is the fastest fall in hospital admissions at any point in the entire pandemic.

    Final slide please.

    But where you can really see the effect of the vaccine is in the fall of the number of deaths.

    The number of deaths is falling faster and faster.

    And now deaths are falling by over a third every week. And in fact in the last week have fallen by 41%.

    Faster than before.

    The Chief Medical Officer told us weeks ago that you’d first see the effect of the vaccine in fewer people dying, and then in reduced hospitalisations.

    And I believe that that is exactly what’s happening.

    What this all shows is that the link from cases to hospitalisations and then to deaths, that have been unbreakable before the vaccine – that link is now breaking. The vaccine is protecting the NHS and saving lives and that right across the country, this country’s plan is working.

    And as well as this real-world data, I want to share the results of a study by the University of Bristol which clearly shows the difference our vaccination programme is making.

    The study looked at all patients over 80 who were admitted with serious respiratory disease in Bristol.

    The results showed a single dose of both the Pfizer or Oxford/AstraZeneca jab offers around 80% protection against hospitalisation after at least 2 weeks even amongst the most frail, and those with underlying medical conditions.

    Again, as with the data that were published last week, the effect was slightly stronger in the Oxford jab than with Pfizer. What this corroborates is that what we have seen over the past couple of weeks is that vaccines work. And they’re the best way of securing our freedom.

    As of midnight last night 21.3 million people have been vaccinated.

    I can tell you that we have vaccinated two fifths of the entire adult population of the United Kingdom.

    Yesterday, I was in Scotland, seeing the combined teamwork of NHS Scotland, Scottish local authorities and the armed forces, delivering jabs in Hamilton.

    They were all working together as one, towards a common goal. Protecting us all.

    As anyone who has been to a vaccination centre will know, the joy on people’s faces when they get the jab is unbelievably uplifting.

    And more and more people will be getting this feeling of protection over the next few weeks and months.

    We’re on course to hit our target of offering a first dose to everyone who’s 50 or over, or part of an at-risk group, by 15 of April.

    And all adults by the end of July.

    The vaccine roll-out has allowed us to set out our roadmap for how we’ll carefully lift some of the restrictions that we’ve all endured for far too long.

    And as we do this, we’ll be drawing on the huge testing infrastructure that is now in place.

    We are now testing 2.8 million people a week.

    The roadmap is built on the principle of replacing the protection that comes from lockdown with the protection that comes from vaccines and regular testing.

    So, as we open up – for instance, care homes as I mentioned a moment ago, to visitors – that will come with regular testing for visitors.

    And as schools and colleges return we will be giving teachers, staff, parents, secondary and college students and their households access to rapid regular testing twice a week in term time and in holidays.

    And I urge all those and the households of those who are going back to school or to college next week to take up this offer

    One of the most dangerous things about this virus – one of those dangerous things – is that around one third of those who get it don’t get any symptoms at all and yet can still pass the disease on to others.

    That’s why it’s so important that all of us follow the social distancing and take the precautions that we know we must.

    So rapid, regular testing is a critical part of our response.

    And we can do so much more because of the huge capacity we’ve built up in NHS Test and Trace.

    I would urge you if you’re eligible to participate in one of these regular testing programmes like I do, because that is how we will keep this virus under control as we continue to roll out the vaccine

    For more information on how you can get a test, go to gov.uk/coronavirus.

    I’d urge everyone who’s eligible to get that regular testing.

    Now, I know that this pandemic has been an anxious time for so many young people.

    Growing up, after all, is tough enough at the best of times.

    But during these difficult times, it’s even tougher.

    Home schooling, being unable to see your friends, sport cancelled, and being stuck at home.

    I know just how much people are looking forward to going back to school, seeing friends in a classroom not just on Zoom.

    Monday will be a long-awaited day for many.

    But for some it’ll be a moment of unease and anxiety too.

    We need to help young people to get through this and get their life going again.

    And give them the help and support that they need.

    We’ve worked hard throughout the pandemic to make sure mental health services are open. And we’ve set up 24/7 support for those in need.

    I’m delighted to announce today that we’ll be allocating an extra £79 million to boost mental health support for children and young people.

    Almost 3 million children and young people will benefit from more mental health support teams, and those mental health support teams in schools will be working hard to ensure people get access to the support and care that they need.

    And we’ll be expanding access to mental health services in the community too.

    I’d like to end with some good news on our work to tackle new variants.

    Thanks to the brilliant team who’ve been working so hard over the past week, we’ve now successfully identified the sixth case of the variant of concern first identified in Manaus in Brazil.

    Using the latest technology, and the dogged determination of our testing and tracing scheme, we’ve successfully identified the person in question.

    The best evidence is that this person in question stayed at home and that there’s no sign that there’s been any onward transmission.

    But as a precaution, we’re putting more testing in Croydon, where they live, to minimise the risk of spread.

    This positive outcome was only possible because of the huge genome sequencing capacity that we now have in this country and our test and trace team, so we could identify these cases, track them down and contact them.

    It shows how important this capacity we’ve built is, and how important it is to be transparent whenever new variants are found.

    Because whether it’s here at home or around the world, testing, sequencing and being transparent about what you find helps stop the spread of this disease – and in particular these variants of concern which are so worrying – and protects lives.

    I’m really delighted at the work the team have done this week. They’ve worked absolutely flat out since these 6 cases were first identified on Friday and found the 6 positive cases, even though the form wasn’t filled in quite right.

    So Susan is going to say a little bit more about this in a moment but my summary is:

    Things are moving in the right direction.

    These are challenging times.

    But thanks to the vaccine, we’re making progress.

    But we’re not there yet.

    So, as we go down the road to recovery, it’s vital everybody plays their part, follows the rules and when their call comes, get your jab.

  • Dominic Raab – 2021 Comments on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

    Dominic Raab – 2021 Comments on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

    The comments made by Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, on 7 March 2021.

    We welcome the removal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ankle tag, but Iran continues to put her and her family through a cruel and an intolerable ordeal.

    She must be released permanently so she can return to her family in the UK. We will continue to do all we can to achieve this.

    We have relayed to the Iranian authorities in the strongest possible terms that her continued confinement is unacceptable.