I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), who chairs the Treasury Committee, and the Backbench Business Committee for using this estimates day debate to shine a light—in many ways a warm light—on the performance of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs during this extraordinarily testing and difficult period. I am grateful to all Members who have contributed to this interesting and lively debate.
I welcome the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) to his first debate as my opposite number, which I hope will be the first of many, although I do think that he slightly missed the tenor of the argument in calling the Government too slow, given that most other Members who have commented have been concerned about the sheer speed of our delivery and whether people might have been missed out in this set of measures.
The coronavirus has the potential to spread with extraordinary speed across a population.
In March, the Government took the unprecedented step of asking businesses and employees to halt their normal activity for an extended and, at that time, indeterminate period of time. At the same time, or shortly afterwards, the Government unveiled an extensive package of support that included a business rates holiday, VAT and income tax deferrals, and Government-backed and guaranteed loans worth £300 billion.
At the heart of that response was, as has been highlighted in the debate, not one but two major schemes that between them covered the vast majority of the working population. As right hon. and hon. Members from all parties have mentioned—my great friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) in particular highlighted this—had that been done in normal circumstances, it might have taken months or, more likely, years to deliver just one of the schemes, let alone two. My hon. Friend was absolutely right to highlight what an extraordinary achievement it was to bring in both schemes at the speed at which they were introduced. He used the phrase “extraordinary achievement”, and he was right.