MP hails latest Furlough and Self Employed support figures
Banff and Buchan MP David Duguid hailed latest figures underlining UK Government support for businesses and jobs across Banff and Buchan.
Latest HMRC figures for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) or furlough scheme show a gradual decrease in furloughing of staff across all sectors in the UK in April 2021. Provisional figures for April 2021 show a decrease in use of furlough with 3.4 million employments on furlough at 31 April 2021 (provisional figure). This decreased from 4.3 million employments on furlough at 31 March and 4.7 million at 28 February. This compares with the overall peak of 8.9 million employments on furlough on 8 May 2020. There have been 11.5 million unique jobs supported by the CJRS since its inception (claims made up to 14 May 2021). A total of 1.3 million employers have made a claim in CJRS since it started in March 2020, totalling £64 billion claimed.
Provisional figures for Scotland show a decrease in the number of employments furloughed to 269,800 at 30 April. The number of employments furloughed in Scotland on 31 March was 333,400. Scotland has 152,000 fully and 117,800 partially furloughed. This is down from 228,600 and 104,700 on 31 March respectively. In Banff and Buchan, 4,100 employments were furloughed as at 30 April 2021 (provisional) representing a take up of 10% of eligible employments. The cumulative figure since the inception of the CJRS scheme stand at 15,200 jobs.
Latest HMRC figures for the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) show that across the UK by 9 May 2021 2.8 million unique individuals had received a grant under the SEISS. Across the four SEISS grants so far, 8.8m claims have been made totally £24.5bn.
In Scotland, 207,000 self-employed individuals were potentially eligible for the SEISS scheme. By 9 May 2021 105,000 had claimed totally £294m representing a take up rate of 51%. In Banff and Buchan, 1300 claims have been made totalling £3.8m representing a take up rate of 36%. The average value per claim was £2,900.
Scottish Conservative MP for Banff and Buchan David Duguid said:
“These latest figures from HMRC underline the unprecedented level of support provided to local jobs and businesses by the UK Government.
“This support, which has supported businesses and saved jobs, would simply not be possible without the economic strength of our United Kingdom and really shows the benefits of working and sticking together in times of crisis.
“I am pleased to see that as we start to lift restrictions and the fantastic UK vaccination programme, there is a gradual reduction in furloughs across all sectors of our economy, as we begin our crucial economic and social recovery from the pandemic.”
