It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for securing this important debate.
It is excellent that more than 10 million people in the UK have been able to benefit from the extended furlough scheme throughout the pandemic. However, for many people, access to much-needed funds was marked by one bureaucratic nightmare after another. For one group in particular, the challenge of receiving financial support is ongoing. The Government have repeatedly failed to reconcile the glaring imbalance in access to covid-19 support for the self-employed. Many self-employed workers continue to be unfairly marked as ineligible for Government support schemes.
Throughout the pandemic, I have received distressing emails and phone calls from constituents excluded from funding because of the obscure eligibility rules for the self-employment income support scheme. One such constituent started a business five years ago and in that timeframe experienced one year of minimal profit. Because of the initial year’s lack of return, they were deemed ineligible for funding. This constituent’s appeal to the Government to discount their start-up year fell on deaf ears and their appeal was rejected without due consideration of their circumstances. If the Government are to ensure that the process of granting SEISS funds is fair, they must do a much better job of providing transparent guidance for this seemingly arbitrary system of eligibility.
Although circumstances vary in detail, my self-employed constituents have collectively faced needless obstacles in trying to access grant money that they deserve. The difficulty, and often inability, of many of them to access Government funds has become the rule, not the exception. The Government must do better at offering accessible support to the self-employed instead of blocking them through non-uniform exceptions.
As we discuss continued access to covid-19 relief refunds, I also urge the Government to consider the devastating consequences of cutting off overall grant access too quickly. Over the past 18 months, businesses—particularly small, independent businesses—have faced a devastating financial fall-out from covid-19. They have seen their savings depleted, taken on massive loans and bent over backwards to accommodate safety restrictions, often at great expense. UK businesses have borrowed more than £75 billion during this pandemic, and it will take many small businesses decades to pay back loans.
This month, banks will begin to ask for the first repayments, and if the Government withdraw financial support completely, small business owners will need to grapple with repaying huge debt, often with little savings, with no safety net. The Government simply cannot throw small businesses under a bus. Instead, they must be prepared to provide greater flexibility on repayments and to consider what grants should continue to be made available for the self-employed and small business owners over the coming months as the economy recovers from the pandemic. Simply cutting away all existing support and then demanding repayment is a recipe for disaster.
5.23 pm