‘ Halifax had been punching well above its weight as a northern Pennine town before the virus.’

SMES COME in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They really are the powerhouses of industry in our regional economies.

Prior to becoming an MP, I worked for an SME in export, trade and marketing, and it was seeing things like Business Link – axed in the so- called bonfire of the quangos back in 2011 – that made me feel so strongly about them.

For all the talk of trading our way out of the recession, the Government at the time did not really understand the type of support that SMEs truly valued.

I was keen to bring those experiences with me to Parliament. We will need to trade our way out of this again, so what do we need to do to lay the groundwork to build back better?

Halifax has been in the equivalent of Tier 2 restrictions since July. We entered restrictions over three months ago, when our infection rate was in the 30s per 100,000.

At one stage, we got it down to around 14 or 15 per 100,000, but the restrictions were not lifted before the second wave we are currently seeing sweep across the country brought about another spike. My SMEs have been living with restrictions far longer than most, and it is really starting to take a toll.

Children’s soft play centres have been among those hardest hit, and I commend places such as the Mill Playcafé and Play Palace in Halifax for doing all they can to diversify and keep their doors open.

However, they are the types of leisure facilities, much like bowling alleys, which were the last to be able to reopen under the national restrictions. They then faced further Tier 2 delays.

When they finally got the go- ahead, they had additional restrictions on how many children could use the play areas safely, meaning that takings have been down by around 80 per cent, completely undermining their viability and business models.

The packages of support for SMEs do not reflect those differences and some businesses have faced more hardship than others under the restrictions. I am not here to suggest that it would be easy to tailor the support to the exact requirements, but my colleagues on the Labour front bench have been asking for sector- specific support.

One recurring message from local businesses is that November and December are usually their best months. Whether it is Saks salon or Carter’s market stall selling nightwear for the winter months, turnover across the year factors in an expectation that the business will do well in the runup to Christmas, especially given the year that these businesses have had.

The hope that the best months of the year were still to come was keeping lots of businesses going, but it will take a great deal to recover from the reality of missing out on trade at this key time. I have spoken to lots of the market stall traders at the impressive Halifax borough market, one of the last indoor Victorian markets, and which first opened in 1896.

The council is staring into a massive black hole in its finances and did what it could to give stallholders a rent break at the start of the crisis, but its position is such that it needs to continue to charge rent, even when the footfall has been so low that takings for traders have been a fraction of what they would normally be.

Due to a variety of different business models and employment practices within the market, not all of those working in it have been able to access the various different schemes.

With this in mind, I wrote to the Government to ask the Secretary of State for the

It will take a great deal to recover from the reality of missing out on trade at this key time.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport ( Oliver Dowden) if the money already announced for the recovery of culture and heritage could be used to support the market as a cultural destination as a means of supporting the businesses in it.

I received a response on October 1, saying that it could not but that he urges market business owners to continue exploring all options and monitor any existing funding streams for further development.

Halifax had been punching well above its weight as a northern Pennine town before the virus, and I know that we will get there again. We have a real strength in depth across our SMEs, but we have faced a perfect storm of restrictions.

I also add that we were recovering from the devastating floods of February before we almost immediately had to turn to face the virus, so we need to know that the Government are responsive to and understanding of our almost unique circumstances in Halifax.