Newspaper column 11 March 2021 - a return to school and the Budget

This week has seen the full reopening of schools across the country and I wish all those pupils returning to school after being home educated through 2021 so far all the best for the rest of the term.

Of course our schools have been open throughout, teaching vulnerable children and children of keyworkers, and I’d like to thank all those teachers and staff who have continued to teach both at school and virtually through these challenging times.

As a parent myself who has taught our daughter at home when my work has allowed it, I think a big thank you also has to go to all the parents who have home-schooled their children throughout the pandemic, often while working from home themselves – certainly a new and challenging experience for me, and I am sure we all now have a better appreciation of the excellent work teachers carry out at school every day!

Last week saw the Chancellor give the Spring Budget Statement. This is one that I think delivered for Cornwall in providing more support for people and businesses as we look to recover strong from the pandemic and look towards the future.

Firstly, the government is supporting livelihoods by extending the Furlough scheme until the end of September.  The furlough scheme has supported 11.2 million jobs across the UK, worth £53 billion. But to provide further certainty, the Government is extending the scheme until the end of September. And our scheme remains among the most generous of its kind in the world.

This Government is also delivering new Restart grants to help our businesses get going again. Non-essential retail businesses will open first and therefore receive grants of up to £6,000, while hospitality and leisure businesses – including personal care, hairdressers and gyms – will likely open later or with more restrictions and so receive grants of up to £18,000. These will be worth an extra £5 billion – taking our total cash grant support to £25 billion.

And this Government will extend the unprecedented 100% business rates holiday for all eligible businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors. This will apply for the next three months until June, before cutting rates by two-thirds for the remaining nine months. This is particularly welcome in Cornwall with our large percentage of tourism and hospitality businesses that have been particularly badly hit by the pandemic.

The Budget also provides further support for homebuyers, by extending the stamp duty cut. To avoid purchases not completing in time for the end of March, the Budget confirms the £500,000 nil rate band will end on 30 June, before tapering down to £250,000 until the end of September.

But even with the stamp duty cut, there is still a significant barrier for people to get on the housing ladder: the cost of a deposit. That is why, from April, lenders who commit to providing loan-to-value ratios of between 91% to 95% can get a government guarantee on the full value of those mortgages.

There will be more work to do to ensure we build back better from this pandemic, but this Budget, combined with the continued success of the Lockdown measures and rollout of the vaccine programme, COVID-19 figures released last week show Cornwall again has the lowest figures in England, gives us every reason to be optimistic for the future.