Category: Uncategorized

Please find my interview below between 1:08:00-1:20:00 where we discussed immigration

There are many people heating their homes with gas who hope that the gas suppliers will develop hydrogen to replace natural gas, or to dilute it sufficiently in their networks to satisfy those who wish to drive to net zero. People are told modern gas boilers will take hydrogen with or without some modification, and will  be cheaper and easier than a heat pump. Some hope that direct drive  hydrogen vehicles as developed at the  big end by JCB will be available instead of electric vehicles. Toyota has developed hydrogen cars.

There is considerable interest in the idea that hydrogen could help solve the problem of interruptible wind energy. When the wind is blowing well green hydrogen could be made and stored, to be used on windless days when we are short of electrical power. It could even  be burned in generating stations. Various governments as a result of these developments are spending taxpayer cash on experiments and trials in the hope that they could push these matters forward.

Meanwhile there are customers who do not want to end their use of traditional gas boilers and petrol cars on the grounds that they are affordable and  work well . There are rather fewer consumers who buy fully into the green revolution and wish to buy a heat pump and an electrical car. There are many others willing to be persuaded that a hydrogen or electric answer to their heating and transport problems will work well, but think improvements need to be made before they will  be ready to buy one.

The governments that are driving the transition have to accept they are falling behind in getting in the capacity it needs to change the way most people travel and heat their residences. Grids and power stations cannot meet the potential demand if a serious number of people decide to shift. One of the reasons they are finding it difficult to get in the capacity is the doubts and options over which is the best system or combination of systems to displace petrol for cars and gas for homes. It will take a huge infrastructure of gas production, storage and pipes if we go for hydrogen, and a huge grid and cable expansion if we go all electric. Lots of countries are carrying out limited scale experiments, some overlapping with others. No country has yet come out wanting a hydrogen solution to the main demands. Several countries have backed wind and solar energy but still have not cracked how to store and spread the power from hot and windy days to nights and windless hours.

Do you have any advice for those who are designing away to find a road to net zero?  What role is there for hydrogen, and how can renewable power be stored? Who should pay the costs of experimentation and investment in the roll out of any of the answers?

The NHS Chief Executive for England says as a commentator might that she would like the government to settle the  nurses and doctors pay dispute. Many of us would like to see that happen, as it will take a happier workforce to deliver the targets to get waiting lists down , treatments and operations up.  A backbench MP can say that, a member of the public can urge that, a journalist can write articles about it. I find it most odd that the CEO says it. She after all hires and fires staff members, settles pay and job gradings, supervises promotions and training, and directs staff to the places where they can do most good to deliver the services  the NHS needs to look after  the public well.

To suggest that there is a simple row between medics and Ministers over how large a percentage increase in pay there should be leaves open the question of what is the CEO’s view of how much such a rise should be? Surely she and her advisers know what the jobs market tells them about pay levels, and her daily contact with medics should give her insight into what they want by way of pay and conditions to end their strikes. She also knows what increase she has agreed for her budget this year and must  have a view on what is affordable. Management is usually about making difficult decisions about how many people to hire, how much to pay them, how to deploy them and how to energise them to raise productivity. With over 400 senior managers on six figure salaries there are people who can help her with these decisions.

If the CEO is working well with Ministers then you would expect her to be influential over helping set a pay offer. This advice would be given privately and she would either win the argument or accept the Ministers judgement having put her case. This would then be a united NHS management offer, bringing together both politicians and senior managers. More importantly many of the demands of the medics in the public version of the pay negotiations we have all heard are about non pay issues. They want better work rotas, more support from other staff, better conditions and the right supplies and equipment. These are all issues that fall to the managers more than the Ministers to resolve, working within budgets and signing contracts with external suppliers.

Ministers rightly have to take the overall responsibility for what happens and what is achieved. They need to work with senior managers closely. I hope the managers will find a way to influence and then support Ministerial policy, which tends rightly to concentrate on overall aims and targets. Real and cash health spending have shot up since 2019. The issue is what are patients getting for it, as well as why cannot all that money buy more contentment with jobs and remuneration packages?  £233 bn for public sector UK health is a lot of money which needs to buy more happiness.

I have no problem with the Prime Minister wanting to be a good manager more than a visionary speaker. Nor do I find myself in disagreement with the five tasks he set himself. They may have emerged from polling rather than from his beliefs but that means they are anchored in what voters want. It is true that setting three economic tasks including reducing debt shows the influence of the Treasury as well as of the pollsters, but given the salience of economic issues and the need to tackle the cost of living crisis, again there is nothing wrong with the policy framework.

So why do I read over the week-end there is dissatisfaction in Downing Street with the state of the polls and the lack of credit going to the PM? My advice to Downing Street is threefold.

One, do not expect credit until the five aims are visibly getting nearer with good recorded progress in cutting inflation and waiting lists, stopping the boats, getting some growth and showing how that cuts the borrowing. People will not reward the government for saying the right things. They want it to do  the right things and deliver results.

Two, recognise that seeking stability is not going to deliver any of the aims. It will take a strong and determined policy including more legal changes to stop the boats. It will take management change at the NHS to get the waiting lists down and staff back to work from strikes. It will take tax cuts to boost growth and cut some prices, and it will take some spending controls to help growth cut the borrowing.

Three, recognise that pursuing other policy aims like renegotiating the EU settlement, doubling down on more moves to net zero, and seeking to intervene in so many businesses  will get in the way of bringing about the five aims. The more the government spends on other policies outside core public services the more difficult it will prove to get inflation down and borrowing under control. The more it gives away to the EU the more it annoys Brexit voters and destabilises the Union in  Northern Ireland. The more it  intervenes with subsidised and windfall taxes and partial nationalisations in business, the more it will deter private investment and growth.

One of the areas that could free some cash, curb costs and improve working in the civil service and quangos is the property estate.

Now that many officials wish to work from home for much of the week, there could be less office space with hot desking. Now that government and Unions  are firmly committed to improved insulation and reduced heating and air conditioning bills in offices there needs to be more modern space. As many officials dislike travelling into large city centres, especially London, given the inconvenience and cost the government needs more modern office space away from these high cost locations.

The government should keep the heritage buildings like Downing Street, the Foreign Office and Treasury. The rest of the central  London estate should be reviewed with plans to move early to replace them or to do so as leases expire. Rents are much lower as little as 20 miles out of London. There are better modern offices with lower fuel bills, higher standards of accommodation and better working space for people available at much lower rents.

If the government is serious about net zero it has to show by example how a major reform of its offices estate could both lower carbon emissions and cut taxpayer bills.

There are three main changes I am pressing for a better outcome on inflation and growth.

The first is change from the Bank of England, who have now accepted their models and forecasts have been wrong and are reviewing the way they should change.

The second is to tackle the productivity collapse in parts of the public sector, and to gain greater control over levels of spending.

The third is to get across that the UK has a supply problem. We make and grow too little, relying on imports too much. Lower tax rates and better regulation are central to rebuilding capacities in everything from water and electricity to food and industrial products.

One of the problems is in every area where taxes are too high, spending is unwise and regulation unhelpful the main Opposition parties usually support the current stance and or wish to intensify it, making things considerably worse.

In a series of blogs I will look again at how we could tackle the problems of too few producers, of wild swings in money and credit, and the collapse of public sector productivity.

Economies do not flourish if they suffer unduly from price controls, windfall taxes and subsidies. Governments are not good at backing winners and can deter investment and supply if they interfere too much.

So we now know the High Court and Lord Chief Justice support the  Rwanda  policy but two Appeal Court judges do not. Meanwhile the legal bills mount up, the government is unable to stop the boats as promised and more delays loom ahead.

The government should make what changes they need to the Rwanda scheme and introduce a short one clause bill next week and take it through all Commons stages making it the  law in line with the original High Court judgement and ending further legal policy debates between judges .The Lords would be ill advised to stop the Prime Minister’s clear intentions in this matter.

John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):
Given that we do not want too much pressure on mortgage holders, who will be struggling, will the Government launch a series of supply-side measures to increase the supply of things that are short, to promote more home-grown food and home-produced energy, and above all to work with public sector employees and managers to have a productivity revolution in the public services where there has been a collapse in output?

Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer:
As so often, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right and it is in supply-side measures that we see the long-term solution to the inflation problem that we and many other countries face. That is why the Budget was focused on labour supply measures such as a massive reduction in the cost of childcare—a reduction of up to 60% for families with young children—and it is why my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is launching the very productivity review my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has called for many times, to make sure we are getting better value for public money spent.