Author: johnredwood

Yesterday in Parliament the government confirmed its renewed scheme to offer some money to the self employed who are banned from working by lock down rules.

In the exchanges I welcomed the government’s acceptance of a simple proposition. If government prevents someone from earning their living or from trading their business for a public health reason, they should compensate them.

I went on to ask given this common ground between us, why didn’t the government follow through and make sure all categories of self employed who have lost their livelihoods to lockdown are in receipt of some substitute income for the duration of the controls?

I was not the only one to ask this. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury gave us the same answer as during the first Furlough scheme. They find it too difficult, for example, to distinguish between a self employed person working only for his own small company and paying himself a dividend, and a rich individual receiving dividends from other companies where he or she does little or no work. I find this bizarre. The Treasury should already know from tax records that the individual just has the one source of income, and works in the company he runs. They can always check it if they are suspicious. They could demand some certification by the individual when claiming the money. They rely on the individual to make an honest declaration of the dividends for tax purposes anyway.

I and others will keep pressing the government, though they seem unwilling so far to be fairer and more flexible. As I explained again to the Minister we will need all the entrepreneurs, small business people and small companies we can get when lockdown is over the power the economy back to life. Our small business sector deserves better. The Treasury should also abandon it tax attacks on people who work for themselves where the tax authorities want to claim they work one of their customers.

I am reproducing this article which was published earlier today on ConservativeHome:

Throughout this pandemic, I have been dismayed by the poor data and the misleading forecasts produced by some of the official advisers to the government.

On Saturday evening, like many people, I was left trying to read graphs purporting to give the reasons to justify a major curtailment of personal and business freedom, only to be unable to see the varying scales, the sources of the data or the relevant dates. There were as often glaring omissions. Why, for example, are we never given up to date figures of bed occupancies for the NHS either nationally or regionally?

Over the last six months, we have been shown some gloomy forecasts that proved wrong, regular changes in the way figures like the numbers of deaths are computed, misleading international comparisons with countries that compile data differently and a refusal by the advisers to engage in public with legitimate professional concerns of other medical and scientific experts who take a different view.

We hear a stupid mantra that we must follow the science. There is no single agreed scientific view of this disease because it is new and talented scientists and medics are wrestling to understand it and to work out how best to treat it. There are healthy disagreements between them as they seek better knowledge.

It is the worst kind of talking down to tell us there is one perfect settled scientific view which leads to one simple policy prescription of lock down. When I asked about the forecast of four thousand future daily deaths and the huge range in estimates for both deaths and cases into December, there was no convincing answer. The truth is that the government advisers do not know how many cases or deaths there will be next week or month. It turns out the 4000 forecast was based on out of date data, and the forecast build up towards 4000 has already been shown to produce figures that were far too high.

I fully accept that for a minority this is a dangerous and potentially lethal disease. For most, it is at worst a flu-like illness; for others, there are no symptoms at all. I am seeking changes to the way that the government responds to the pandemic. I wish them to do all that a government can to save lives, and to help the vulnerable find the protection they need and want from the disease.

I also wish to see the Government avoid measures which do substantial damage to jobs and livelihoods. As we saw, the last national lockdown was unable to stop the virus spreading again come the autumn. The Government’s own advisers who think the lockdown itself brought down case numbers and deaths substantially accept that a tough national lockdown does not solve the problem. They recommend continuing with various lockdown measures as long as we have no cure or preventative vaccine. Others think the virus had peaked at the point where the lockdown was imposed, and maybe the weather and other factors played a part in its temporary demise.

I am urging the government to work closely with medics and pharmaceutical researchers to identify more treatments to cut the death rates. There are various steroids, anti-virals, clot busters and antibody treatments that have now been found to help, or may emerge from trials as useful additions to treatment.

Health professionals have also now discovered using non invasive ways of administering extra oxygen are often best. There are also issues about whether Vitamin D and zinc supplements can help. I have urged more emphasis on qualified people seeking new ways of treating and preventing. There is much medical and pharmaceutical talent in the UK, and it may well make more breakthroughs, as it did with the introduction of steroid treatment.

I have urged better data. The basis of defining a death has been changed several times during the pandemic, and there are issues about whether Covid-19 deaths have been overstated whilst understating other lung infections and serious co morbidities in the mainly elderly people dying. In the early stages, the authorities boosted death numbers from Covid-19 by directing its inclusion on a death certificate even if there was no confirmatory test for its presence, based on reported symptoms.

There was also a wish to ascribe all deaths to Covid-19 where it was present, even though the elderly person concerned may have died from one or more of several other bad conditions they had. Some of the most common tests for the disease may also report false positives, which needs to be taken into account when examining figures for deaths and cases. The latest forecasts for cases and deaths take the form of very wide ranges where the upper figure is three times the lower figure, making them meaningless as planning forecasts.

There is an absence of reliable public data on hospital bed occupancy, which seems to be the main worry of NHS management and the scientific advisers. We must not close the economy down to save the NHS if it can now cope thanks to the building of the Nightingales, to greatly expanded intensive care facilities and recruitment of many more staff. Why are we not using some hospitals as isolation hospitals specialising in Covid-19, and leaving the rest of the system free of the disease to reassure patients needing many other treatments?

What we do know is a lockdown is very damaging to jobs and business. The first national lock down took around a quarter off our national income and output – an unprecedented fall. We cannot afford to do that again, as government rightly spent a fortune on subsidising public services and private sector employment to cushion the blow.

I am pressing for substantial changes to lockdown plans. I see no need to close outdoor sports facilities. I think a range of specialist retailers should stay open with suitable measures to cut risks of infection spreading. Pubs and restaurants should be allowed to sell drink as well as food for take away. Government should work with business and offer help to improve air extraction so more can function safely indoors.

I do support the schools staying open as this is important to the development and future prospects of children and teenagers. This disease is usually very mild in young people. I have urged the resumption of non Covid-19 work by the NHS as Ministers seek, as many more people die of causes other than Covid-19 every day.

In order to reduce the spread of the virus everyone needs to reduce the number of social contacts they have in enclosed spaces with poor air. This requires buy-in by the public. There is no agreed set of laws and controls on our everyday movements that will guarantee success. Government needs to persuade people to reduce social contacts rather than try to find a set of laws they can enforce against the wishes of a significant minority. It could also help by assisting more people and businesses to live with the virus for all the time we have no cures and vaccines.

Can we have more UV sanitising systems deployed in public places? Can we have more assistance to adapt air systems in commercial premises to extract dirty air promptly to make them safer? Can we have some better understanding from government that we need all the small businesses that serve us, and they are the ones that are in danger of being hounded out of work by clumsy generalised lockdowns.

We can adapt our lives to living with the virus by many small steps of a practical nature. This battle cannot be won by taking too many liberties away, and lecturing people to stop their social and business lives. My constituents want the government to work with them to help protect the vulnerable and make normal life safer for the rest. There is no silver bullet or single answer. We all need to help, and that requires a general spirit of collaboration, tolerance and commonsense.

I am seeking changes to the way the government responds to the pandemic. I wish them to do all a government can to save lives, and to help the vulnerable find the protection they need and want from the disease. I also wish to see the government avoid measures which do substantial damage to jobs and livelihoods.

I am urging the government to work closely with medics and pharmaceutical researchers to identify more treatments to cut the death rates. There are various steroids, anti virals, clot busters and antibody treatments that have now been found to help or may emerge from trials as useful additions to treatment. Health professionals have also now discovered using non invasive ways of administering extra oxygen are often best. There are also issues about whether Vitamin D and zinc supplements can help. I have urged more emphasis on seeking new ways of treating and preventing.

I have been very critical of the data and forecasts used by government advisers to urge Ministers into adopting lock downs. The basis of defining a death has been changed several times during the pandemic and there are issues about whether CV 19 deaths have been overstated whilst understating other lung infections and serious co morbidities in the mainly elderly people dying.

The latest forecasts for cases and deaths take the form of very wide ranges where the upper figure is three times the lower figure, making them meaningless as planning forecasts. There is an absence of reliable published data on hospital bed occupancy which seems to be the main worry of NHS management and the scientific advisers. We must not close the economy down to save the NHS if it can now cope thanks to building the Nightingales, greatly expanding intensive care facilities and recruiting many more staff.

I am pressing for substantial changes to lock down plans. I see no need to close outdoor sports facilities. I think a range of specialist retailers should stay open with suitable measures to cut risks of infection spreading. Pubs and restaurants should be allowed to sell drink as well as food for take away. Government should work with business and offer help to improve air extraction so more can function safely indoors.

I do support the schools staying open as this is important to the development and future prospects of children and teenagers. This disease is usually very mild in young people. I have urged the resumption of non CV 19 work by the NHS, as many more people die of causes other than CV19 every day.

If you are suffering particular problems with your job or business from the proposed lock down please let me know as I am pressing for change from Ministers. Without serious change to this policy I am unable to support it in a vote.

Yours sincerely

John Redwood

Whilst the official advisers seem to find forecasting the possible incidence of the virus and trends in future cases of the disease difficult, there is considerable agreement amongst economic forecasters that the anti virus measures are very damaging to jobs, output and incomes.

The latest proposed England lock down, allied to the lock downs already in force in other parts of the UK are particularly bad news for jobs and businesses in entertainment, hospitality, tourism, leisure, sport , travel and shop retail. Around one quarter of our economy will be subject to bans on trading altogether or will be trading in very restricted circumstances to comply with anti CV 19 requirements.

The damage will be mitigated by the extension of the Furlough scheme for another month, allowing 80% of the wages of people employed in affected sectors to be paid by taxpayers rather than by employers. There will also need to be more easy terms loans for struggling businesses losing some or all their cash flow owing to bans and controls.

The need for an Exit Plan is however paramount. We all need this to have something to look forward to. Businesses need it to know it is worthwhile borrowing, making do and bridging over a further period of lockdown. They need reasonable certainty that come next year they will be able to trade well, so keeping together expensive teams of people and maintaining plant and properties is worthwhile because they will trade again as they used to.

The immediate task is to seek to ameliorate the rules and controls, given the Opposition’s intention to support the lock down on any vote we might get. The questions include

Can outdoor sporting facilities be used rather than all closed? The changing rooms and club houses could be shut to avoid larger gatherings indoors.

Can pubs and bars run an off licence trade with home delivery so they have some drinks turnover, as well as being allowed to sell take away food?

Can specialist shops which sell home items be allowed to open to compete with the multi purpose food led supermarkets?

Can Garden Centres be allowed to keep open their outdoors areas with the sale of a range of items for growing food, food, home care and gardening with allowance of some trading under awnings or with plenty of through fresh air flow? Their stock is perishable.

When will the government press further with advice to allow adaptation of buildings to extract air rapidly to allow more indoor use with low risk of concentrated and infected stale air harming people?

The large increased costs to taxpayers of the railways and other public services, allied to the large subsidies needed for private sector business and individuals banned from working, cannot be sustained indefinitely. I am all for spending enough whilst the controls last, but there does have to be a recognition that we cannot go on like this through more cycles of relaxation and lockdown. It also needs to be understood that with this second national lock down we will lose more jobs and businesses permanently. In more cases their debts become too high and their owners will lose confidence in the longer term viability of businesses gravely damaged by these policies.

I remain critical of the wild ranges of the official forecasts and the highly selective and variable data being used to justify this policy.

The first national lock down was said to be for one main reason – to save the NHS. The NHS was short of Intensive care beds and breathing systems at a time when that was thought to be the only treatment for bad cases of CV 19. This time the government advisers say hospital admissions may stay below the April peak which was handled, or may be three times that level. What is the use of such massive ranges as forecasts?

The time of that lockdown was used to procure many more ventilators, to put in four large new Nightingale hospitals and to expand ICU capacity in existing hospitals. More nurses and doctors were hired, and recently retired qualified staff were tempted back to help with the crisis. The peak demand in April was comfortably accommodated by the NHS. Serious cases came down, though some argued the peak had been reached at or before the lock down started. As we went into summer with more Ultra violet light and warmer temperatures which both damage the virus case numbers stayed relatively low.

The lock down also gave the medical and scientific establishments more time to research the virus, to understand more about its transmission and its impact on infected people. As a result we now know than some steroids, anti virals and clot busting drugs can make a difference to serious cases and can save some lives.

Today we are told there needs to be an extensive “circuit breaker”. It’s a strange analogy, because of course a circuit breaker immediately cancels all dangerous power in a system, whereas a lock down does not immediately turn the virus off. When you put a circuit breaker back on full power is restored immediately, but what I assume these scientists want to do is to use a period of lock down to bring virus spread down, before resuming some relaxation which on their analysis will allow some drift back up. How does this help? How much relaxation would they allow and how much extra virus circulation would they find acceptable? Why are we not given measurable targets in advance so we can see what they are trying to achieve?

The advisers rightly warn us there may be no magic bullet or solution early next year in the form of a vaccine which offers full protection.This means the true question to answer is how do we live with this virus? What is the right mix of policy to keep the spread down, to protect the vulnerable, but to allow more jobs and activity than we currently enjoy?

It is no good the government imposing a whole new raft of controls over people’s daily lives if there is insufficient buy in by the public. To work people have to be persuaded it is necessary to follow the rules, and the rules have to be the minimum to keep virus spread down sensibly . What controls do you think are necessary?

Dear Director General

         Congratulations on your appointment. I am glad you are reviewing the extent to which the BBC delivers the impartiality and public service content Licence fee payers pay for.

        As someone who seeks to make a  contribution to the main arguments over public policy, specialising in economic and constitutional matters, I find the BBC output is often biased against discussion and thoughtful  consideration of  views and attitudes that disagree with the conventional wisdom of the large corporations, civil service and international quango establishment. As examples  I have in the past  been denied access or time to explain  the case against the ERM and features of the Euro which duly went on to do considerable economic damage, the case against so called independent central banks when they were in recession creating mode,  to consider the opportunities given to nationalisms by devolution or to make the case to rescue industrial and agricultural market share lost during our years in the EU single market. I have written and published on these and other themes extensively and wish to discuss them in a true Reithian spirit of independent enquiry. Instead I have to listen to a propaganda channel which just assumes the establishment view of Euro policy,  thinks the single market is always a net gain which we must not lose, that  Central Banks are wise and right and the errors of economic policy are all the fault of governments, and favours lop sided devolution  which must be  encouraged. There is a reverence towards so called independent experts who are often political in their judgements and sometimes not even good experts in their fields with poor track records at forecasting.

          I do not think the BBC reveal party political bias between Labour and the Conservatives. The interviewers are usually rightly tough on both parties. There is however systematic  bias against England, with many voices representing Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and liberal reporting of the devolved governments  with never any consideration of the views of England where  most Licence fee payers live.   There is  no English radio or tv channel to redress the balance, unlike the other nations in  the Union which have their own channels. No-one is ever allowed to speak for England. We are endlessly told Scotland voted to stay in  the EU but never told England voted decisively to leave. The BBC follows the EU agenda of trying to break England into regional and city area governments, whilst leaving Scotland whole despite the anti Edinburgh tensions in  places like the Shetlands and the differences between the Highlands and the main cities.  I would appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with you about global  establishment bias throughout BBC output, which has left the BBC finding it very difficult to report sensibly on Brexit or Trump or other populist movements. I think the BBC needs to do a lot more to foster intelligent debate about these economic and constitutional matters, as it misses out on many of the conversations listeners and viewers are having on social media in frustration with their state Broadcaster.

           The bias is also reflected in the way so called populist politicians and parties in office overseas are reported. I am neutral on the US election, as UK politicians should stay out of foreign elections and be willing to work with any democratically elected government that emerges in an ally. Listening and watching BBC output it regularly frames the election as the Democrats would wish, concentrating plenty of hostile fire on Trump and  his supporters but never doing the same to Biden and his. Coverage of continental parties in government that are sceptical of EU policy is also usually more hostile in tone than coverage of pro EU parties. I look forward to meeting.

Yours sincerely

John Redwood

The tragic loss of life at sea near France this week has highlighted again the need to change policy in tackling illegal migration.

You have rightly condemned the actions of people smugglers. They take profit to put people at risk on dangerous boats and encourage them to break the law of the country they wish to enter. It would be good to know what more can be done to find and prosecute the people in France responsible for organising this vile trade.

The UK needs to reinforce your clear view that people should not attempt illegal entry through dangerous crossings in boats or by illegal and dangerous use of trucks and road vehicles with or without the knowledge of the drivers. To do so the courts need a new instruction from an Act of Parliament to help ensure there is no incitement to try the dangerous sea route or back of the lorry method with smugglers. No-one should be paying a people smuggler to evade the law and no-one should be funding and organising dangerous journeys for children.

The message has to go out that it is possible to become a refugee or economic migrant legally and safely. The UK should not accept any attempted illegal entry. The last thing we want to do is to send out a message that attempting illegal entry is likely to work as that would be an incentive to put more lives at risk. Too many have died at sea or in or on lorries already. Let’s take action to save lives.