headlines. now on bbc news wednesday in parliament. hello again and welcome to wednesday in parliament. a labour mp denied the chance to see his dying relatives due to covid rules challenges the prime minister. we see sycophantic, spineless, hypocritical government ministers lining up to defend the indefensible. we have tried throughout this pandemic to minimise human suffering and to minimise loss of life. also in this programme, universal credit claimants face a £20 a week cut. this was brought in in line with the temporary measures to support people during the covid pandemic. it s being phased out in line with all the other temporary measures.
of contracts during the crisis. the party s westminster leader said the uk had seen the very best in our society during these tough times. but the pandemic has led to opportunism, for greed and for covid profits above accountability. because this tory government is guilty of funnelling covid cash from the frontline into the pockets of its rich friends. we are talking about endemic cronyism during a global pandemic. i respectfully suggest that before he starts throwing stones at the uk government, he looks at his own government s record in edinburgh. over 160 contracts awarded by the scottish government worth £539 million from nhs scotland, the scottish government and scottish local authorities during the pandemic were awarded to suppliers with no competitive process. it is quite clear that
six former work and pensions secretaries have urged ministers not to end the uplift. therese coffey was giving evidence to mps on the work and pensions committee. ahead of october, we will start communicating with the current claimants who receive the £20 to make them aware that that will be being phased out, and they will start to see an adjustment in their payments. i think it really kicks in largely in october, but it will start to kick in, i think towards late september for some people. so the current proposal is that we will be recognising that this was brought in in line with the temporary measures to support people during the covid pandemic. it s being phased out in line with all the other temporary measures that are also being removed. so you re resigned to the fact that the treasury won t be giving the money to continue this for the rest of
got schools open again with all the damage to a kid s education. and frankly, mr speaker, if we listened to him we would not now be proceeding cautiously, pragmatically, sensibly to reopen our society and our economy, and get people back the chance to enjoy the freedoms they love. question time ended with a powerful, personal contribution from a labour mp. mr speaker, my grandmother, whom i love dearly, was lying on her hospital deathbed and none of us were allowed to be there to comfort her in herfinal moments. i couldn t even carry her coffin on my shoulders, i also had to endure the agony of watching alone online, the funeral, of my uncle, my fun loving uncle, and we were not even there to comfort my brother in law s father who somehow contracted covid in the slough care home during his final moments. all of this because we followed government guidance. having experienced such painful personal sacrifices, like many others, imagine
economist friends were almost predicting 12% unemployment, and we did not know quite the situation that people would be facing about getting back into work, you know, the amount of restrictions we were putting into place. you know, some people could just not work any more. that is not going to be the case, or it hasn t been the case in quite a while, it is certainly not going to be the case once we get to road four, and we can genuinely open up and fill those vacancies and help people get back into work. so, there is a lot of effort gone in with the support through the furlough scheme. it s been a significant cushion. and while there is still about 2 million people on the 2.4 million people on the furlough, certainly that s been a buffer for a lot of people, to some extent, you saw that with the temporary £20 uplift. therese coffey. the snp has called for the inquiry into covid to start immediately, accusing the uk government of rampant cronyism over the awarding