Author: johnredwood

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): With a three-year visa but only six months of guaranteed accommodation, will people have any tenant rights? What is the back-up provision if the sponsor wants to terminate well before the end of the visa?

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Minister for Intergovernmental Relations: It is our expectation that those who commit to have someone in their home for six months are undertaking quite a significant commitment, but it is already the case that the expressions of interest suggest that there are many people who want to do exactly that. The experience of previous sponsorship schemes has been that those who have undertaken such a commitment have found it a wonderful thing to have done, and the number of those who have dropped out or opted out has been small. However, it is the case—my right hon. Friend is absolutely right—that there may be occasions where relationships break down, and in those circumstances we will be mobilising the support of not only of central Government and local government, but of civil society, to ensure that individuals who are here can move on. The final thing I would want to say is that many of those on the frontline coming here will of course be women and children, but many of those coming here will want to work, to contribute and to be fully part of society. It is the case already that we have had offers from those in the private sector willing to provide training and jobs to people so that they can fully integrate into society for as long as they are here.

I recently had a discussion with Mark Littlewood from the Institute of Economic Affairs about my latest book, Build Back Green: The Electrifying Shock of the Green Revolution. You can watch it here:

The government now says  it does wish the UK to be more self reliant. One obvious area to start with is energy, the centre of the current cost of living and international crisis.

The government wishes to move to a  net zero future. They need to understand that for the next few years most people will need gas for their home heating boilers, most energy using industry will still need gas for ceramics and steel, bricks and cement.  Most cars, trucks and vans will still need petrol or diesel. The electric revolution will be more widespread next decade, not this.

That is why the UK government now  needs to call in the oil and gas industry in the UK and encourage it to fill the gap of the next few years with more UK produced gas and oil. The Business Secretary implied he would do so. So when will he make the announcements that policy needs? We do not need more studies or White Papers. The need is urgent. He and his officials need to give licences to explore and to produce more  from all the known deposits and fields. The Treasury needs to consider if the tax regime is sending the right signals, as it will be a big winner from more domestic production. Producing UK oil and gas already incurs Corporation tax at double the standard rate.

For its wider goal of decarbonising the government needs to make more rapid progress with small nuclear reactors, to conclude if this is feasible and economic and if so pump prime a development and production programme to make them a  next decade reality. It needs to see which combination of technologies could back its extension of windfarms so that they can keep the lights on when the wind does not blow or blows too much.  They need to decide on   the balance of green hydrogen production, battery storage and pump storage as the main means of storing wind energy when it is available and using it when the wind is on strike. Affordability matters when they make their choices. You cannot rely on more wind farms alone as there are too many hours when there is no wind or when you have to switch off the turbines because the wind is too strong. All the energy they produce on windy nights needs to be stored for use on calm days.

Let me make clear I strongly oppose the brutal Russian invasion and their resort to medieval sieges with modern bombs and artillery raining down on civilians and defenders. I do not post here the few submissions I get which slavishly follow Russian propaganda denying atrocities or blaming others for the  deaths and destruction we can see from reputable media sources.

I also strongly support NATO policy to take every precaution to avoid this becoming a NATO/Russian war.  Whilst NATO would overwhelm Russia there could be much larger loss of life and destruction  in Ukraine and the conflict would be widened by Russia into NATO countries before they lost. NATOs aim should be to encourage settlement between the parties whilst helping Ukraine resist Russia’s unprovoked aggression.

The U.K. as a leading member of NATO needs to stick with NATO policy. In the end like all wars there has to be a truce and preferably a peace settlement which can only come from talking. The U.K. will not play an important role in that as it falls to Russia and Ukraine as the combatants to decide what compromises they will make to end the fighting. It may  take a neutral intermediary like Israel to help them.

Russia seems to want to gain legal title to Crimea and the bits of Donbas it already influenced. It wants to add a land corridor from Russia to Crimea. It wants Ukraine to pledge it will not join either the EU or NATO. Maybe it still wants a change of Ukrainian government. It does not look as if Russia can either easily conquer the whole country or govern significant parts of it by military occupation now it has united most Ukrainians outside Crimea and Donbas against it. Maybe Russia still  thinks it can get unconditional surrender by starving and bombing people out of cities, but it still leaves it with too few troops there to keep down a population of more than 40 million.

Ukraine wants the Russian army to exit and wants to restore democratic government to the whole country. These positions are so far apart because Russia still looks as if she thinks she can at greater cost in lives and destruction claim more territory and the Ukrainians have growing confidence they can make further conquest difficult for the Russians.

There will only be a truce or peace if Russia gives up many of her imperial ambitions and if Ukraine offers Russia some way of climbing down that Putin can accept. Unpleasant  though that is  to the Ukraine side a lot of lives rest on it. It looks to an outside observer who does not have to do any fighting  as if Ukraine will not be able to join the EU or NATO any time soon. It  looks  as if Crimea would in a free vote vote to be Russian. Maybe these are building blocks for a ceasefire. The EU and US  involvement in removing an elected President of Ukraine in 2014 for being anti closer links with the EU triggered military responses from Russia  which have just got a lot worse.Whilst President Macron seeks a ceasefire the  EU issues a Council statement about Ukraine’s European EU future. This in Putin’s other reality is a further provocation of an expansionist Europe.

Most of us believe in free trade in our own lives. We rely on the free internal market of the Uk to supply most of our wants. I rely on the farmers to grow my  food, on the millers, bakers and retailers to supply my bread and on the energy companies to heat my house and fuel my car. Each of us trains, specialises and takes a job in a relatively narrow field knowing we can rely on our fellow citizens to supply our other wants.

We do this because it is impossible for us to command all the skills and resources it needs to live to the level of sophistication we enjoy by working together. I do not need to plant my garden with potatoes, learn to sew clothes and try to get up to speed on how to make electronic devices when there are so  many people and businesses that can do these things better, faster and cheaper.

The same theory should apply at the international level. Russia should have cheaper oil and gas because it has so much more of it than us. Ukraine should have cheaper wheat as it specialises in growing grains on its fertile plains. Unfortunately war can stop all that potential trade. Taiwan does have better microprocessors, but when the world is short of them we are not going to get all we need by hoping for more imports.

National resilience is about having the capacity to do the things that matter for yourself. In the world wars the UK had to dig for victory, putting more acres under the plough to  grow more food as our imports were being attacked at sea. Today if we want successful industries we could do with more of our own microprocessors and more affordable gas to fuel our factories as foreign supplies are damaged.

There is little point in spending lots of money on defence equipment if in a war you were unable to scale up the production and draw mainly on your own resources to equip and supply your forces. That is why I have stressed that a plan for national resilience is an important part of any National Security Council work on defending ourselves.

My critics have complained that in recent years I have urged the UK to make and grow more of the things it needs at home. I have been accused of resiling from a belief in free trade all assumed I had. Let me reassure. I accept that free trade does increase the prosperity of all embracing it. My problem with it has always been that so few practise it. There are many countries and big companies that see a nation or company that practises free trade as weak, an opportunity to exploit. It is important not to be a naive free trader.

My own industrial experience reminded me how difficult it is to find others who play by free trade rules. When I helped take an industrial group into China to sell product there to our global customers who were establishing factories we soon found product circulating copied from ours without permission and even found a case where someone else’s product was being sold in lookalike packaging with our brand name on.  When we sought to take one of our technology advances into Germany, offering to joint venture with them to gain wider access to their market there was no deal. The players bought single copies of our product to see what they could learn and apply to their own without needing our assistance or joint investment.

Many US and UK companies have had difficult experiences with China, where joint ownership structures and investment vehicles are required and used to transfer technology. Today we see how dangerous it is for countries and companies that have come to rely on Russian energy or other  necessities. There is a sudden disruption to supply brought on by bad conduct by the counter party country.

The UK promotes free trade where it can, and works closely with the WTO to bring it about. The UK also needs however to be worldly wise and cautious about trusting some foreign jurisdictions too much.  If they are  not themselves equally pledged to play by the rules and accept the give and take successful free trade needs we should not make it easy for them to cheat. EU managed trade was not  very free or fair for us in many areas including  fish and farm products. We should promote multilateral free trade, whilst taking care to build sufficient national resilience in crucial areas that are especially prone to disruption.

The U.K. government launched a scheme to grant entry to Ukrainian refugees who wish to join family here in the U.K. They will have somewhere to stay, they have people to welcome them and they may well speak English to ease their lives here. I strongly support this policy.

The U.K. government have listened carefully to what the refugees crossing the land borders out of Ukraine want. Many want to be given temporary accommodation and support near to the Ukrainian border, so they can return home easily once the fighting  is over. Many of them are women and children who want to be rejoined with their husbands, brothers, fathers who have stayed at home to fight. They want  as soon as possible to return to their own homes. I support the generous approach of the U.K. to assist the host states near to Ukraine with money, supplies and expertise. This is the way we can help the most refugees in the way they want. They want  to stay in a country closer to and more like their own.

The U.K. is now drawing up a third scheme to offer 3 year visas to refugees without family contacts. This scheme will harness  the generous spirits of U.K. citizens who want to offer free accommodation to Ukrainian refugees. I would be interested in your thoughts on this scheme.

My questions about the emerging shape of this scheme include

Why a 3 year period? It is a long time to be out of your country and we all hope there will be a peace long before then. If there is no peace why limit it to 3 years.

What provision would be made if we are talking large numbers to ensure there are enough school places with special teaching to overcome the language barrier? What extra capacity will be added to GP and hospital services?

If it is based around the free offer of accommodation by U.K. home owners what legal agreement will there be to ensure security of tenancy for the refugees? In what circumstances could the U.K. citizen back out of the offer? What fall back accommodation does the state have? Will there be any stipulations about the standards of the accommodation?

Russia’s economy will suffer badly from the sanctions now imposed. Many companies are pulling out of their businesses in Russia, stopping trade with Russia and looking elsewhere for supplies. The  ruble  has collapsed making imports so much dearer. Russia cannot access a lot of foreign exchange.

These  sanctions also impose costs on us. Wild price movements in energy have just made the cost of living problems that much bigger. The  war will disrupt the grain trade and is propelling some food prices up. Russia is likely to look to China to work round the banking  sanctions and to find new markets for its energy and other commodities. The much higher prices in world markets will increase Russian revenues and will be paid in hard currency by those who want the oil and gas.

The government needs to adjust its tax policies for these new developments. There is an even more compelling need to ease the squeeze.

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set out the range of assumptions of virus spread and severity of illness used in his covid-19 response planning.

Maggie Throup, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care: The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) provides advice to the Government on its response to the COVID-19 epidemic. Its operational subgroup, Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M-O), modelled potential scenarios for the Omicron variant using a range of assumptions on indicators. These include parameters such as the transmission advantage and intrinsic severity of the Omicron variant over the Delta variant. SPI-M-O modellers use contemporaneous academic studies when setting their assumptions.

Such modelling is regularly updated to reflect changes in assumptions as and when more detailed studies are released. Where there is uncertainty in a parameter value, sensitivity analysis is used to explore the range of impact and inform the Government’s response. Given the large number of assumptions made for the parameters that feed into the modelling, the latest underlying assumptions used by SPI-M-O academic groups is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-m-o-chairs-statement-on-covid-19-19-december-2021

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) also informs the scientific advice presented to the Government. The UKHSA undertakes studies and risk assessments on selected emergent variants, assessing transmissibility, immune evasion, growth advantage and infections severity based on available data from the UKHSA and academic partners. Variants are selected for assessment on the basis of growth, and the number and type of genetic mutations present. Risk assessments are updated regularly until stable assessments are reached and are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-sars-cov-2-variants-of-concern-variant-risk-assessments

Detailed analyses of the indicators are published in the Technical Briefings, which are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-sars-cov-2-variants-technical-briefings