MPs urge government to provide targeted emergency coronavirus support

The government should prepare to step in with targeted emergency support to help people and businesses that would be hardest hit by a second surge in coronavirus infections, a group of MPs has warned.

Sounding the alarm over the uneven impact of the Covid-19 crisis, the commons business committee said there were major gaps in the financial support package rolled out by the government – especially for women and freelance and agency workers.

Raising the concerns in a letter to the business secretary, Alok Sharma, the cross-party panel of MPs said the government needed to apply much more “policy sophistication and transparency” in the face of a second wave of infections or in response to local lockdowns.

The Labour chair of the committee, Darren Jones MP, said: “Rishi Sunak echoed a previous chancellor in suggesting that the coronavirus has seen us all in it together. However, it’s clear that the reality of the economic lockdown is that its impact has not been shared out evenly and that it is falling very heavily on some parts of our economy.”

Jones called for targeted support for sectors that are most likely to face restrictions in a second wave, such as aviation and hospitality, warning that they would otherwise face a threat to their viability – putting jobs and growth at risk.

The letter raised concerns over the impact of late payments for small businesses that had experienced cashflow problems during lockdown. Jones said that as the country gradually began to emerge from restrictions, additional powers should be drawn up to force late payers to be excluded from government contracts.

The business committee also called for new powers to be given to consumer watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority, to tackle company abuses that took place during the first phase of the crisis, such as profiteering.

Jones said: “It’s important the government quickly learns the lessons of recent months so that they can act in future with more policy sophistication and transparency and be able to step up and deliver the most effective support possible to workers and businesses.

“If we face the prospect of a second wave and the likelihood of increased local lock-downs, it’s essential the government looks again at its approach to support [for different business sectors] and to the additional measures which will be necessary to secure our economic recovery, help businesses prosper and enable workers to protect their livelihoods.”