Chancellor visits Yorkshire to see super-deduction in action as £400 billion Plan for Jobs enters next stage

1 Oct 2021 12:34 PM

The Chancellor has today praised Yorkshire workers’ resilience during a visit to Legal & General’s modular housing factory in Selby to mark the next phase of the Government’s £400 billion Plan for Jobs.

• Chancellor highlights support available to UK firms during a visit to a Legal and General modular housing factory in Yorkshire.
• As furlough winds down flagship schemes such as the super-deduction, Kickstart Scheme and traineeships continue.
• Chancellor praises Yorkshire workers’ and businesses as Government’s Plan for Jobs enters the next stage.

The super-deduction has allowed Legal and General to expand their factory capacity and has supported over 1900 jobs across the UK, including 400 new jobs at their factory in Sherburn-in-Elmet.

Having protected over 11.6 million jobs during the toughest times of the pandemic, including nearly 900,000 jobs in Yorkshire, the furlough scheme closed today. This comes as latest figures show there are one million job vacancies available, more employees are on payrolls than before the pandemic, underlying wages increasing strongly and the OECD predicting the UK to see the fastest growth in the G7 this year and next.

During his visit, Rishi Sunak met with apprentices and a new Kickstarter to hear about their experiences working in different areas across the business. Seeing more of the Plan for Jobs in action, the Chancellor praised Legal & General for taking advantage of the super-deduction – the biggest business tax cut in modern British history – and double-downed on his call for firms across the UK to do the same.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak said:

I am immensely proud of the furlough scheme, and even more proud of workers and businesses in Yorkshire whose resolve has seen us through an immensely difficult time.

It’s great to see Legal and General taking advantage of the super-deduction to grow their business and create new jobs, and I would encourage others around the country to do the same

Our Plan for Jobs is working, and is continuing to help people into work and make sure they have the skills needed for the jobs of the future.

Rosie Toogood, CEO of Legal & General Modular Homes said:

We are delighted to welcome the Chancellor to the factory today to show him the highly innovative work we are doing in modular.

The super deduction has helped us accelerate our investment in automating our processes, creating hundreds of new jobs for the local area.

Whilst some other countries ended their economy-wide support schemes earlier in the year, our Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme continued into the Autumn.

Over 18 months on from its launch and with over £68 billion spent on the scheme, the furlough scheme has been instrumental in protecting workers and incomes from the worst of the crisis. The Resolution Foundation said this week that the furlough scheme has “prevented catastrophic rises in unemployment”, and there are now almost 2 million fewer people forecast to be out of work than was feared at the height of the pandemic.

While emergency support draws to a close, the Government will continue to create high quality, productive jobs, and deliver the skills that people, businesses and the economy need to thrive. Our Plan for Jobs includes the Kickstart Scheme, the Sector-Based Work Academy Programme, continued support for employers to take on apprentices and the Government’s pioneering Lifetime Skills Guarantee.

That is just one element of support to boost the economy and support living standards. The Recovery Loan scheme, a reduced 12.5% VAT rate in the hospitality and tourism sectors and ongoing business rates relief are helping businesses to bounce back - and the energy price cap, the new £500m Household Support Fund and increases in the National Living Wage are supporting families.

Further information:

• Photos from the Chancellor’s visit today will be available on the HM Treasury Flickr page
• Up to the end of July, a total of 11.6 million jobs have been furloughed and 1.3 million employers have benefitted from the scheme. This includes nearly 900,000 jobs in Yorkshire and the Humber, including 133,400 in Leeds and 16,100 in Selby.
• As the economy has reopened thanks to the success of the government’s vaccine programme, the number of people still using the furlough scheme has fallen consistently - at the end of July, 1.6 million people remained on furlough compared to nearly 9 million at the scheme’s peak.
• Since the start of the scheme a cumulative amount of £68.5 billion has been claimed. This is across all claims submitted to HMRC by 16 August 2021. This does not include claims submitted for August and September and therefore does not represent the final cost of the scheme
• Over £27 billion has been spent on the self-employed through five Self-Employment Income Support Scheme grants, supporting nearly three million self-employed individuals throughout the pandemic.
• The Government’s Plan for Jobs includes:
  • the £2bn Kickstart Scheme which has so far placed 76,900 young people at risk of long-term unemployment into jobs
  • the Sector-Based Work Academy Programme which has helped 65,000 jobseekers to date – exceeding initial targets
  • continued support for employers to take on apprentices, with the government offering a newly-improved
  • Apprenticeship Levy transfers system which will help smaller employers to fund their apprenticeship training, and a £7 million fund to support the creation of new flexi-job apprenticeships to unlock more opportunities in freelance and creative sectors
  • the Government’s pioneering Lifetime Skills Guarantee will continue to transform the skills system so everyone, no matter their background, can gain the skills needed to progress in work at any stage of their lives through various programmes including ‘skills bootcamps’ and funding for adults to access free Level 3 courses.