Author: johnredwood

The UK imports too much of our food, our energy, our industrial goods. So many of the policies urged by the opposition parties and adopted by the government entail higher taxation and stricter regulations at home, losing us jobs, factories and capacity.

The UK imposes the higher carbon taxes of the advanced world, accelerating the loss of our steel works, ceramics factories and the rest. The UK is planning the earliest ban on  new petrol and diesel cars making it likely we will lose more of our car industry than the main rivals who do not do threaten that. The UK offers plenty of grant money to owners of farmland not to grow crops and rear animals, instead of spending more of the money on promoting great home grown food. The UK imposes a corporation tax twice as high as the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, only to see many large companies set up over the Irish Sea to take advantage of the lower rates. Ireland raises almost four times as much in business tax per head than the UK thanks to the lower rate.

The water regulators keep us short of water instead of allowing and encouraging more reservoirs. This country gets plenty of rain but it does need collecting when it is around and storing. Inviting in 600,000 extra people every year to settle here requires more water, more road space, more health capacity, more school places.

The NHS keeps us short of beds and the key medical staff to service them despite getting large increases in money in recent years. Too many new homes are built without the school places, by passes and other facilities we need.

High corporation tax and windfall taxes are deterring investment in producing our own oil and gas, making us ever more dependent on imports which deliver more CO2 as well as big bills for the UK to settle abroad. Investment in wind farms has proceeded well leaving the UK short of grid capacity to transmit the power, and short of ways of storing it on windy days to sue on days when there is no wind. The UK used to be self sufficient in electricity and for a period in  oil. We now depend far too much on imports for no good reason.

A growth policy would set tax rates at suitable levels, offer the necessary permits and let the private sector get on with resolving most of these capacity shortages. The extra tax revenue the growth would generate could be used for the extra NHS beds and school places we also need.

The frustration of some Conservative MPs  with current policy and management of the party led to three of them resigning with immediate effect, a most unusual development. MPs usually accept they have made a commitment to their electors to serve for a Parliament.

Some will dismiss these actions as arising from the special circumstances over the Parliamentary enquiry into the past conduct of Boris and from the bitter disappointment of his closest allies over the way a wave of Ministerial resignations  was used to force him out of office. The PM’s closest supporters are putting round that an attempt to copy the rolling resignation method of applying pressure has failed as they do not anticipate any more doing it. They see this as a win.

What matters more is how the PM now responds. He needs to do all he can to win the by elections. Losing any one of them would be worrying. Losing all would be disastrous. He needs to understand as the polls tell us that it is not just 3 Conservative MPs who have lost the wish to support for their own personal reasons, but millions of Conservative voters who voted Conservative in 2019 but who tell pollsters they do not want to if asked again right now. Just sending lots of volunteers and MPs to deliver leaflets will not be enough. Voters will want some persuasion that policy will reflect their needs and preferences going forwards.

The Boris statement which of course stemmed immediately from his dispute with the Committee on conduct ranged widely. It argued that the promises made in 2019 on Brexit wins, taxes, growth, animal welfare and others need to be honoured instead of dropping the relevant legislation and hiking taxes.It would be helpful to the country as well as to the PM and to the Conservatives in the by election if the lower taxes, Brexit wins and growth strategy were introduced now. The right kind of lower taxes and growth policies are not only popular but will also cut the deficit.

In 1941 Churchill and Roosevelt met on a U.S. warship to draw up the Atlantic Charter. It was before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and slanted heavily in favour of the USA reflecting the weak position of a near isolated UK fighting the Germans. It contained some important binding truths that have united  the two countries ever since. Its terms became more important once the USA was in the war. It set out a future peace based on the self determination of peoples, the reversal of occupations imposed by force, free trade and the pursuit of peaceful resolution of conflicts.

In 2023 President Biden signed an update, a revised Atlantic Agreement, with the UK. Reflecting the modern U.S. preoccupations of the Democrats, it set out a course of future economic development with more state involvement, more subsidies and more protection. It is a partial prospectus for a divided world, where the US will lead one alliance against a China leading the main contestant grouping.  The document wants onshoring, friendshoring and western technical superiority It wishes to impose a green revolution, seeking to remove fossil fuels from the western side by 2050. It identifies quantum computing, semiconductors, smart biology, artificial intelligence and advanced communications as crucial areas to develop.

The UK will hold a conference in the autumn on regulating AI and will push for a world regulator. It is difficult seeing the Chinese bloc wanting to submit their IP and plans to such scrutiny. It is difficult to know how to regulate before you know what you are regulating. My best advice to the UK is understand there is going to be a race to expand and adopt these ideas.The UK should concentrate on creating better conditions on tax and talent to help the UK stay ahead.The USA will naturally put America first and will expect her large subsidies to buy advantage.

Please find below my Interview with Times Radio, you can find it between 1:12:28-2:12:00

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/show/20230604-21435/2023-06-04

 

 

My lecture begins at 7:14

I am quite happy for any of my emails, texts and other messages received by  Ministers and the NHS during covid to be considered and published as part of the covid enquiry if that helps and results from their release by the Ministers and officials who lie at the heart of this consideration.

I would like the Enquiry to consider the issues I raised at the time, which are also recorded on this website and available by using Search.

Air purification in hospitals and care homes

I raised the issue of using powerful  UV air cleaners to kill the virus in circulating air within the ducts, and recommended checking and adapting air flows where necessary to greatly reduce the chances of passing on the virus through stale or infected circulating air. Whilst there seemed to be some agreement this could be done it did not seem to get the priority it deserved. It was a an obvious thing to do in hospitals and care homes, and in restaurants, hotels etc.

Isolation hospitals and wards

I suggested demarking some hospitals as isolation hospitals for covid and keeping some others open for other conditions to limit the build up of backlogs of other medical problems. I argued for continuing use of the Nightingale hospitals for covid to relieve pressure on beds elsewhere. Instead the Nightingales were little used and quickly shut down. There were some moves to create different entrances and to segregate covid areas from other areas in some hospitals. I was a voice with others for the establishment of the Nightingales which did take place.

Discharge of patients from hospitals to care homes

I was one of the early callers to ensure people were not sent back to care homes until there was reasonable certainty they were no longer infectious.

Alleviating drugs

I argued for more and faster testing of existing drugs that might have beneficial effects in treating covid symptoms. There seemed to be reluctance and delay in doing this, though some drugs were subsequently found to be helpful.

Duration and intensity of lockdowns

I worked with the group of Conservative MPs that argued against the intensity and long duration of lockdowns, and voted accordingly. We successfully opposed a final extra lockdown period, and note that Wales which locked down harder and for longer ended up with a higher death rate than England.

Use of statistics

I raised issues about the quality and reliability of the data, and the changes made to presentations of the statistics. I was particularly critical of the UK concept of a covid death, which included death with covid as well as death from covid. I was  concerned about the reliability of evidence from test and trace programmes.

John Redwood (Wokingham, Conservative):
If we reduced the waiting time from, say, a year to three months when making a decision on an illegal migrant, would that not cut the accommodation and other public service costs by three quarters and relieve a lot of the pressure? What is a reasonable time to come to a conclusion on whether someone is illegal and should not stay, or is welcome here and can get a job?

Suella Braverman, Secretary of State for the Home Office:
That is why I am encouraged by the progress we are making on our initial decision backlog, cases preceding last summer where people have been waiting for many months and in some cases years for a decision on their asylum application. It is essential that we bear down on that backlog, shorten the time that people are waiting for a decision and fundamentally reduce the cost to the taxpayer.

Please see my interview with Talk TV where we discussed the need for tax cuts, scrapping IR35 and inheritance tax

You can find it between 2:09:01 and 2:19:00

 

Dear Kemi

The UK  vehicle industry is being badly damaged by the threat to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars from 2030. This is sooner than our main competitors, leaves insufficient time to create EV models people want and can afford and destroys a very successful UK ICE industry. Do you want all those factories to shut soon? Where are plans for new factories for making EVs with the batteries they need?  How would you stop people importing nearly new ICE vehicles they want from 2030? Why do both government and Opposition want to wipe our current factories off the map?

There is a threat to our gas and oil boiler manufacture and installation businesses from the proposed ban on these boilers in new homes from 2025. Given the very low take up, high cost and questionable performance of heat pumps it would be wise to delay this ban until more progress has been made with finding good value good performance alternatives to gas and oil boilers.

I am copying Grant Shapps in to the correspondence as these policies are also unhelpful in trying to cut CO 2 emissions. EVs require a lot of energy to manufacture, and need a lot of electricity to recharge the batteries. Most days in the UK the bulk of this energy comes from fossil fuel generation. Heat pumps also need plenty of electricity to run and again often work from power mainly derived from fossil fuels. It makes the extra  cost of the imports bizarre.

There is no point shifting industry from the UK to overseas to shunt round the CO 2, and no point in closing our oil and gas fields only to import these fuels instead. The UK needs to earn a living, to invest and create jobs here, not end up dependent on others.

Yours

John Redwood

The government is keen to promote heat pumps for others, yet the uptake by Ministers and senior officials is still low. I would be more impressed if those recommending them had personal experience of them first. The German government seeking to accelerate their adoption by proposing to end oil and gas boiler sales by the end of this year has suffered a blow to its ratings. The  policy  has acted as good stimulus for gas and oil boiler sales as people rush to renew before the deadline.

My electricity supplier tells me about heat pumps, presumably to encourage me. They say a heat pump costs between £5500 and £13000 with a government £5000 grant. They warn that I might need to put in bigger radiators and  pipes which would be costly, and of course propose additional spending on insulation to allow for the lower temperatures you would otherwise get. They say the hot water would be 50-55 degrees  not 60 to 65 degrees which they propose for a gas boiler. They suggest running costs would b e lower than a gas boiler.

I made enquiries for one for my small London flat where I am not allowed a gas boiler.  I was told they cannot supply one as I am not allowed to place a box or pipe on the outside of the building and am not on the ground floor to allow ground source heat. Flats present  a major setback for the heat pump movement, as many are unable to adapt to them.

Some users who have tried heat pumps report low levels of heating in cold snaps. Some report large electricity bills as they try to get their water and rooms up to temperature against a background of much dearer energy tariffs for electricity than for gas. Some experience difficulties in getting the systems to work. Installation is more complex and entails more work to the house than simply changing gas boilers.

These products are a  hard sell. They are dear. On windless days the heat pumps require a lot of fossil fuel to be burned in power stations to keep them working. I will wait to see how many Ministers and senior officials do buy them and listen to their experiences if they still want to recommend them.