The government has this week published the special review 3 MPs and officials carried out into  the opportunities to reduce the regulatory burden and to have smarter regulation.

I agree with their main recommendation that future regulation should be proportionate  and not based on the precautionary principle of EU regulations. I also agree Regulators should take into account competitiveness, competition and innovation. Regulations can benefit from partial exemption for innovative developments and trials.

I welcome the wish to abolish the 2019 Ports Directive which was agreed by the UK ports and government at the time be a needless extra burden on them. I also support amending the Weights and Measures  Act to decriminalise and authorise the use of imperial measures if people wish.

I would liked to have seen other proposals to make life simpler and cheaper for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

I would include for example

 

1. Raise the VAT registration threshold to lift more small businesses out of VAT. It is a major burden setting up a new VAT system for a small business, and a disincentive to growth.
2. Take VAT off domestic fuel to cut fuel poverty and boost spending power of those on low incomes
3. Remove VAT from insulation, boiler controls, new heating systems, draught excluders and other green products. Installing more of these is labour intensive and helpful.
4. Remove need for a person paying full NI on earned income to claim deferral of extra NI on other earnings every year. This is a waste of time and government effort when no tax is due.
5. Reverse M and S decision in ECJ allowing grouping of EU continental losses to cut U.K. Corporation Tax. HMT should  like this as it will collect more tax from U.K. successful businesses.
6. Remove Digital Tax imposed unilaterally and await G7 or OECD agreement on how to tax digital activity other than through normal business taxes. This tax is leading to tariff retaliation from the USA, raises little  money and causes trouble with on line/in shop retail hybrid businesses.
7. Raise the Business rate exemption for smaller commercial property
8. Exempt a self employed person from Employer NI for their first employee for the first two years.We need to grow more self employed businesses and create more jobs
9. Remove threat of IR35 changes

 

 

ENERGY

 10.Remove expensive requirement on energy companies to install Smart meters. Let them and their customers do so if they wish. This is a £20 bn public spending commitment which is causing energy businesses difficulties as well.

11,Revise UK energy policy to give greater priority to self sufficiency of electricity and to ensuring a safe margin of capacity as we used to enjoy.

12 Change generation mix by introducing more lower cost supply through a bidding process, as we need lower power prices for the onshoring of industry to the UK and more self reliance. The UK needs  more biomass or green gas as baseload and can do with more hydro and pumped storage for flexibility. Too much reliance on wind is both costly given the need for backup and leaves us vulnerable on capacity on low wind days.

 

 

BUSINESS

13 Speed up introduction of Freeports and make sure they have high levels of exemption from customs, taxes, and property restrictions.

14 Create new Enterprise Zones, including in conjunction with Free ports.

15 Change procurement rules allowing more UK only bidding for UK government contracts, as with MOD.UK government purchases should be much more UK rich in  choice of goods. Why does the UK public sector import  any cars?

16 Develop the vaccine model where UK government backed a research project, helped with installation of production capacity and then had preference for purchasing product.

 

FISHING

 

17 Ban EU vessels fishing for shellfish in Class B waters in response to their ban on our exports

18 Step up policing of UK fishing rules on foreign vessels

19 Ban supertrawlers over 100m in length

20 Get DEFRA to roll out faster, better and more generous plans to step up UK domestic fishing capacity in both sea going vessels and processing fish

 

FARMING

 

21 Inject more attention to promote more food production in the UK into new subsidy schemes

22. Speed up schemes to install more market gardening capacity into UK to produce our own temperate fruits and vegetables, and to extend the growing season under glass and polytunnels

23 Ensure tree planting schemes and subsidies are also linked to much more sustainable forestry to produce timber for home use. Why do we import timber to burn at Drax power station? Why don’t we produce more of our own wood for housebuilding and furniture fabrication?

TRANSPORT

24.Reimpose road charge on foreign lorries using U.K. roads to help domestic haulage

25.Repeal the limitations placed on the Merchant Shipping Act by the ECJ, and develop a better framework for UK owned and registered ships. We need to encourage more UK flagged vessels.

I attach the check list from the Report of their suggestions. I would  be interested in comments, as government will now consider all this. Many of their proposals takes the form of additional regulation for new areas which they wish to see done in a spirit of assisting the development of these areas. It would have been helpful to have some worked up proposals of how this might work.

 

THE Annex A: Full list of recommendations
A BOLD NEW REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR THE UK
1. Promote productivity, competition and innovation through a new framework of
proportionate, agile and less bureaucratic regulation.
1.1. Reimpose the ‘one in, two out’ regulatory duty on all government
departments.
1.2. Make the UK a global pioneer and leader in agile, adaptive regulation to
increase productivity, competition and innovation.
1.3. Create a lead Cabinet Minister and ensure there is a Cabinet Committee
responsible for the implementation of regulatory reform.
1.4. Mandate a new “Proportionality Principle” at the heart of all UK regulation.
1.5. Use digital sandboxes to test innovations more quickly and ensure regulation
is based on evidence of impact.
1.6. Regulators should introduce ‘scaleboxes’ to provide agile regulatory support
to high growth innovative scale-up companies.
1.7. Give regulators statutory objectives to promote competition and innovation in
the markets they regulate.
1.8. Delegate greater flexibility to regulators to put the principles of agile regulation
into practice, allowing more to be done through decisions, guidance and rules
rather than legislation.
1.9. Give the Regulatory Reform Committee a remit to scrutinise all regulators and
regulatory reform proposals. Bolster its resources, including with seconded
experts, to carry out this expanded function.
1.10. Include consideration of the wider effects of proposed policies in Regulatory
Impact Assessments, including on innovation, competition, the environment,
and trade.
1.11. Establish a framework for regulators to report publicly on how they have
promoted competition and innovation in the markets they regulate.
1.12. Produce a simple annual innovation scorecard to assess departments and
regulators on the markets they are responsible for.
1.13. Embed our recommendations in the UK Innovation Strategy, use
non-legislative and existing regulatory powers where possible and make use
of targeted primary legislation.
1.14. Set a UK standards strategy to promote the use of British standards
internationally as a way to boost UK influence and promote trade and exports.
SECTOR PROPOSALS
UK PENSIONS AND INVESTMENTS
2. Reform regulations limiting UK pension and insurance funds to enable greater
investment in UK domestic growth.
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2.1. Enable Defined Contribution (DC) pensions schemes to diversify their
investments into venture capital and businesses that drive Net Zero and
levelling up commitments.
2.2. Amend matching adjustment and risk margins in Solvency II to release
significant capital for investment in the UK.
2.3. Attract private investment to help regenerate local infrastructure and support
the UK’s levelling up agenda.
UK START-UP AND SCALE-UP FINANCE
3. Amend the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and the Enterprise
Investment Scheme (EIS) to maximise Private Equity and Venture Capital
investment in growth industries.
3.1. Amend the age eligibility requirements for companies to access investment
through EIS and SEIS to ensure businesses outside London and the south
east benefit equally.
3.2. Increase the maximum level of SEIS investment.
3.3. Commit to the continuation of EIS beyond 2025.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
4. Restore a common law principles based approach to financial services
regulation.
4.1. Amend inherited MiFID II Position Limits to introduce greater flexibility while
preserving protections on critical contracts.
4.2. Introduce a more discretionary and judgment-based approach to calculating
Central Counterparty Clearing House (CCP) margins.
5. Deliver a regulatory framework that supports UK global leadership in FinTech
and digitalisation of financial services infrastructure.
5.1. Mandate the expansion of Open Banking to Open Finance quickly, and take a
more market-led, Australian-style approach.
5.2. Increase competition in the banking sector by adopting a graduated
regulatory approach for challenger banks.
5.3. Reducing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) burdens for new Open
Banking/Fintech services, which have been caught in the scope of the EU
AML Directive.
5.4. Accelerate UK plans to develop a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and
launch a pilot within 12 – 18 months.
6. Amend disclosure and transparency requirements for financial services
products to make them more proportionate and less burdensome.
6.1. Remove the requirement to provide costs and charges reports to professional
investors and eligible counterparties from MiFID II.
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6.2. Remove the “investment recommendation” disclosure requirements from
MAR for wholesale clients.
6.3. Confine the key information document disclosure requirement in PRIIPs to
genuinely complex packaged products.
DATA
7. Replace the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2018 with a new, more
proportionate, UK Framework of Citizen Data Rights to give people greater
control of their data while allowing it to flow more freely and drive growth
across healthcare, public services and the digital economy.
7.1. Reform GDPR to give people meaningful control of their data.
7.2. Reform GDPR for artificial intelligence, including by removing Article 22 of
GDPR and focussing instead on the legitimacy of automated
decision-making.
SMART GRID
8. Create the ‘smart’ energy grid of the future, through interoperable data
standards, reforms to the energy retail market, regulation, and licencing, and a
new regulatory framework for smart appliances.
8.1. Support the deployment of low-carbon technologies on to8.2. Create clear consistent technical and regulatory standards for ‘energy smart’
appliances to support their roll out – creating a more stable energy network in
response to growing demands for energy.
8.3. Modernise energy retail regulation to support novel and innovative
participation in the energy market and improve consumer protections by using
activity-based regulation rather than supply licenses.
8.4. Reform the regulation framework for the retail energy market to enable
innovative approaches to tariff pricing and new products.
8.5. Prioritise investment in infrastructure in pricing negotiations with energy
market operators.
NET ZERO
9. Reform the current UK regulatory framework governing energy generation and
distribution to match the Government’s ambitions for green growth and Net
Zero.
9.1. Fully implement the short-term findings of the Offshore Transmission Network
Review, reforming offshore transmission connections to support disruptive
‘pathfinder’ projects in the industry.
9.2. Reform the regulatory framework for offshore wind to simplify responsibilities
across government, and create a more coordinated offshore network that
uses standardised designs and can link with interconnectors at scale.
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9.3. Reform OFTO regulations to unblock industry coordination of offshore wind
projects.
9.4. Review the Grid Code and other relevant technical codes and standards, to
ensure they adequately support innovative net-zero and decarbonisation
technologies.
9.5. Design and deliver an energy network ‘blueprint’ to support further delivery of
offshore wind power.
9.6. Create a new regulatory framework for hydrogen via a new Office for
Hydrogen in BEIS, encouraging investment and innovation in the sector.
9.7. Increase the legal limit on hydrogen blending by amending the Gas Safety1.5. Simplify and accelerate NIHR adoption and peer review process for trials that
are fully funded with standardisation of costing tools across academic and
commercial trials.
11.6. Streamline clinical trial set up by HRA adopting automated AI or digital
processing of ethical and trials approvals.
11.7. The MHRA and HRA should accelerate the adoption of novel clinical trial
processes through better digitising of trials applications and data and use of
novel models like UK Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP) and IMPACT with
the capacity to deliver registration level trials.
11.8. Replace the Caldicott data guardians with a HRA Single Data Controller
‘One-stop shop’ for Health Research Information Governance with
harmonised committees to reduce bureaucracy and standardise processes.
11.9. Establish a centralised health dataspine, where all data is stored for ease of
access by approved users across the health network, with standardised
format and approval routes for data collection and curation.
11.10. Reform the ICH GCP Guidelines 1995 to embrace the latest novel digital and
biomarker end points, and replace ‘standard of care’ control arms with
‘synthetic control arms’ derived from RWE (Real World Evidence) and RWD
(Real World Data).
11.11. Accelerate Access to innovation by establishing clear digital framework for
Conditional Approvals and Adaptive Licensing of new therapies like gene
therapies based on data including from the new Electronic Patient Recorded
Outcomes Measure (EPROMs) dataspine.
11.12. Expand the MHRA remit and Innovation Team to include promotion of UK
leadership in innovative trial design, new accelerated access regulatory
pathways, standardising format and approval routes for data collecting,
curating and collation, and use of novel clinical and digital biomarkers and AI.
11.13. Set global Standards in Clinical Research Skills through a UK professional
standard for clinical trials research nurses, clinical trial managers, data
managers & clinical trials pharmacists.
11.14. MHRA to work with stakeholders to establish a UK Regulatory Innovation Hub
on the same model as the US Centers of Excellence in Regulatory Science14. MHRA to work with stakeholders to establish a UK Regulatory Innovation Hub
and Innovation (CERSIs).
11.15. Regulation of medical cannabinoids and medicinal CBD should move from
the Home Office to DHSC / MHRA to create a regulatory pathway for
assessment and approval based on patient benefit.
DIGITAL HEALTH
12. Establish a clear regulatory pathway for new digital health technology from
approved health apps to integrated healthcare ICS system management to
ensure the UK is at the forefront of the digitalisation of healthcare.
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12.1. Remove the barriers to adoption of health apps by creating a new digital
health regulatory unit within the MHRA, responsible for establishing clear
digital interoperability standards and an integrated regulatory pathway for
development of Consumer Healthcare Apps.
12.2. Remove barriers to accelerate the integration of business-to-consumer digital
health, and create a simple regulatory framework to help new companies
develop tools that recruit, diagnose and treat otherwise hard-to-reach
patients.
12.3. Remove barriers to local health prevention through the new ICS by
establishing a digital framework for assessing Disease Cost and Population
Health by each local authority area.
12.4. Reform GDPR to improve use of healthcare data by establishing federated
models of data sharing and creating a joint sandbox between the ICO and the
HRA.
12.5. Update regulations on medical devices to represent the latest technological
advancements and to licence and adopt AI and AI software as a diagnostic
device.
12.6. Remove the barriers to mental health apps by accelerating the integration of
business to consumer patient wellness apps like IESO Healthcare with clinical
neuroscience research networks like the Case Register Information System
and NIHR research databases like Incliseran to create an integrated UK
digital health spine for mental health.
12.7. Extend the IAPT outcome measurement framework (or an IAPT like
framework) to Children and Young People and to other therapeutic
interventions (e.g. drug treatment) to be able to compare drug and non-drug
therapy and conduct multimodal trials.
AGRI-ENVIRONMENT
13. Replace EU rules with an integrated agri-environment framework which better
supports the development of more environmentally sustainable agriculture,
with more proportionate and evidence-based, outcomes-focussed regulation.
13.1. Promote a flexible, market based trading system for biodiversity offset credits.
13.2. Implement with urgency the data sharing provisions in the Agriculture Act
2020 to unlock data silos in agriculture and the environment.
13.3. Develop a comprehensive system of environmental metrics for sustainable
agriculture, incorporating the environmental impacts of a production system
from field to fork, to support clearer food labelling.
13.4. Develop a supportive regulatory environment to enable the development of
and increased use of agri-tech to promote sustainable agriculture.
13.5. Simplify compliance with environmental licensing and permitting
requirements, with the aim of moving from a mechanistic compliance-based
system toward outcome measurement.
13.6. Deliver a common-sense solution to transitioning chemical registrations from
EU to the UK REACH.
13.7. Introduce further exemptions to Annex XVII of UK REACH to allow the reuse
of products in support of the UK’s circular economy ambition.
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13.8. Reform landfill surrender requirements to accelerate diversification away from
landfill.
13.9. Adopt a risk-based approach to waste regulation to drive greater re-use of
waste products.
13.10. Remove burdensome EU regulation on the animal feed industry, whilst
maintaining rigorous safety standards.
AGRICULTURAL GENOMICS
14. The UK Government should actively support research into and commercial
adoption by UK farmers and growers of gene edited crops, particularly those
which help the transition away from agrochemicals to naturally occurring
biological resilience.
14.1. Interpret current GM rules on a case-by-case basis, to permit specific crops
with proven benefits and which are consistent with the UK’s rigorous
standards on food safety and environmental protection.
SPACE AND SATELLITES
15. Through reform of the Space Industry Act, the Government should address the
indemnity and liability issues currently holding back investor confidence in the
UK as a satellite launch and operations hub.
15.1. Amend the Space Industry Act 2018 to cap liability and indemnity
requirements for licence applicants to launch and operate satellites from the
UK.
15.2. Ensure the Civil Aviation Authority has the expertise to fulfil its new and
additional responsibilities as a regulator for the space sector.
15.3. Develop an Earth Observation (EO) data regulatory policy framework.
NUTRACEUTICALS
16. Create a new regulatory framework for the fast-growing category of novel
health enhancing foods and supplements to promote investment in the UK as a
leader in the nutraceutical sector.
16.1. Establish clear regulatory standards and definitions for ‘nutraceutical products
and create a permissive environment for regulation of products with accepted
science outcomes, to form a new easier nutraceutical product regulation
pathway.
16.2. Encourage NIHR to gather data to support claims and enable research into
products medicinal and health properties, lead on international
standardisations and ensure a pathway to market, so that consumers are
aware of the health benefits and better able to make informed choices.
OTHER TARGETED REFORMS
17. Deliver other targeted regulatory reforms to reduce the regulatory burden on
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businesses.
17.1. Amend the Weights and Measures Act 1985 to allow traders to use imperial
measurements without the equivalent metric measurement.
17.2. Develop an optional e-labelling system for devices with screens or that can be
connected to a screen, to display compliance information.
17.3. Repeal the Port Services Regulation 2019 (SI 2019 No. 575) to remove
unnecessary, EU-derived regulatory burdens on UK ports.
17.4. Liberalise parallel import laws to reduce prices and increase choice for
consumers.
17.5. Urgently review guidance on hand sanitisers so that tested, effective
non-alcohol based sanitisers can be used

 

The EU and Remain MPs always thought  the argument in the U.K. was all about trade. They denied in the U.K. but not elsewhere that the true quest was for ever closer Union  including full monetary, economic  and political union. They tried to turn crucial arguments about democracy and national accountability into profit and loss items on trade account. They tried to ignore the  high cost of belonging to the EU which was more than the likely cost of tariffs to trade on  WTO EU terms as a third country. They insisted on a lop sided view where a free trade arrangement with the EU was crucial but a free trade agreement with many other important trading countries was impossible as a member of the EU.

Since we left they still presume to lecture us with these views even though we rejected them many times as contradictory or untrue. They now seem to want to belittle or disrupt any trade agreement we negotiate with others, to validate their nasty view that we would not be able to do this on our own.

 

I remember all too many meetings or meals with leading representatives of continental members of the EU when they lectured and hectored me for daring to oppose first the Exchange Rate mechanism and  then U.K. membership of the Euro. More recently they have done everything  they can to rubbish Brexit, instead of conforming with their Treaty which requires them to seek positive and friendly relations with neighbouring countries.Why didn’t they respect our referendum decision and seek to keep our import market?

What a contrast with Australia and New Zealand. The U.K. left them in  the lurch when we joined the EEC/EU , imposing EU tariffs against them and substituting EU food for the food they sent us. As soon as we voted to leave the EU the High Commissioners of both Countries  made it clear to MPs that their countries harboured no grudges and saw this as a great opportunity to develop closer relations and free trade with each other again. Why shouldn’t we switch  more of our attention from the angry , legalistic and negative EU  to friendly allied countries that wish us well?

It is time to trust people more. It is time to control people less. I would like to praise Ministers and officials, and particularly all the scientists, medics and researchers, who have worked so hard to ensure that the UK is a leader in vaccines. We are supplying one of the best vaccines to the world, getting it out early and making it available for all of us, and ensuring that we had bought in other vaccines that became available so that we were in a position to protect our population well and relatively early compared with other countries. I pay tribute to all the work by the NHS and the medics to understand how to treat the disease better and how it is transmitted so that we can take better actions to give people greater security.

I say now to all those experts, the NHS and the Government, “Share what is relevant with the rest of us—the public—and let us make more of our own risk assessments.” We are now saying to people that there are two major ways in which we can all protect ourselves against the possibility of getting this disease, or a bad version of it. First, we are making two jabs available to all adults who want them, and the figures so far show that that gives them a much better probability of not catching the disease at all and very strong protection against a serious case of it. This is what we are mainly worried about, as we are trying to stop people dying or struggling in intensive care, and to stop that pressure on the NHS and all the suffering that it produces.

We are also saying to people, “If you’re still worried about the residual risk or if you really don’t like vaccines, you can self-isolate.” I hope that the Government will continue, as an employer itself and as the Government guiding others in the economy to say that we should be generous and supportive of anyone who really does feel that they need to protect themselves against the virus by self-isolation. I think that we are now well beyond the stage where we have to isolate practically everybody else to some extent when so many people now have protection, are making their own risk judgments, and want to get on with their lives.

In the room, when assessing the data, it is important that we look at all the data about jobs, livelihoods, incomes, family stress and mental health pressures, because this policy is creating all of those. The Government can do more. They should be helping the private sector to manage air flows, air extraction, ultraviolet cleaning and so forth to make it safer for many more social contact businesses to reopen and have a reasonable number of people enjoying their services. I think that more could be done on ensuring that all our health settings have really great infection control, because we do not want any more slippages from health settings themselves.

I urge the Government to think again about an idea they looked at early on but did not develop, which is in the large populated areas, particularly the conurbations, to have isolation hospitals that deal with covid and other variant infectious diseases well away from general hospitals. We add to the pressures and the likelihood of cross-infection if we have a general hospital taking in a very infectious disease.

There is now huge scope to get a really good economic recovery to save jobs, create new jobs and get pay up, to have many more transactions in the economy. To do that, however, we need to relax and to trust the people more. I think my constituents are ready to make decisions about their own lives again and many are very frustrated that they are not allowed to. We have all this great advice and knowledge. Let us not get too gloomy and let us not lock everybody up again.

I will post this morning the text of my speech yesterday in Parliament about the planned extension to the lockdown. I joined with others to vote against the measures, and spoke in favour of an alternative approach.

Yesterday with full Opposition backing Parliament voted to delay the return of a full Parliament. All the time we are encouraged to join remotely, all the time seats are very limited in the chamber, all the time you need to bid for a speaking slot in advance and find your name on a published list, the scope for spontaneity and more challenge to government is limited. Parliament thrives on the  momentum of causes, on the noise of support and opposition, on the heat of the moment remark or intervention. Much of this is lost with a largely remote Parliament.

The Opposition parties supported the government and most Labour MPs did not bother to join the debate. The few who did just wanted to exploit the latest  Cummings Revelations. It fell to Conservative MPs to question the policy and to make the case for a restoration of Parliament.

Now the government has said we will have to live with the virus, and has stated it cannot be completely eradicated, the question is why not start doing that now? We accept all sorts of other risks in our lives. We all know there is no guarantee of immortality, and no government can protect us from all harms. Every time we cross a road, drive a car, fly in a plane, prepare food, stay in a railway carriage or on a bus with people with flu we run a risk of harm. It is important to let people decide for themselves how much risk of this virus they want to run, and offer them several ways of minimising that risk.

We n ow want to get on with our lives. We now need to let people go to work and rebuild our prosperity.

When President Macron said that sending supermarket supplies from Toulouse to Paris was different from sending them from Liverpool to Belfast because in the first case they were in the same country he revealed a common international misunderstanding about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Fed on a diet of EU and Republic of Ireland spin they all see the issues in Northern Ireland from the Irish Republican  viewpoint. They ignore or simply do not understand the majority community in Northern Ireland who are strongly of the  view that Northern Ireland must remain an integral part of the UK, as much a part of the UK as Toulouse is part of France. There are quite a lot of Americans who also need to be told this. They sometimes seem to think the UK is holding onto some colony in Northern Ireland against the will of the people. As the Good Friday Agreement makes clear Northern Ireland is fully part of the UK by virtue of popular majority support. It could be changed by a referendum or border poll. Recent polling shows an insufficient level of support for any such change showing there is no need to hold a poll.

When challenged by the UK view that the current arrangements over trade between GB and NI are not working, the EU argues two contradictory soundbites. They say the UK entered into an international Agreement called the Northern Ireland Protocol, and that must be fully enforced and can never be changed. They also argue that the Good Friday Agreement is central to the wider issues of good peaceful government on both sides of the border on the island of Ireland.

The truth is the EU’s aggressive and excessive approach to implementing their view of the Protocol is undermining the Good Friday Agreement. Their actions have alienated the majority community in Northern Ireland, who see the EU trying to force them into dependence on the Republic, severing important links with their own country, the wider UK.

Nor is it true to say that the EU’s view of the legal requirements of the Protocol are correct. The Protocol, like the Good Friday Agreement, seeks to balance the interests of the UK and of the Republic/EU .It is meant to uphold Northern Ireland’s s full membership of the UK’s internal or single market, yet the EU is doing everything  it can to stop goods, animals and plants passing from GB to NI. The UK government needs to set out its legal view of the EU’s need to respect the UK single market  to comply with the Protocol, and its various suggested fixes for the restrictions and frictions deliberately placed in the way of GB/NI trade by the EU.

I did not myself vote for the final UK/EU Agreement, fearing bad faith by the EU especially on fish and Northern Ireland. The Withdrawal Act I did vote for contained the crucial sovereignty clause  which gives us the legal basis to act unilaterally if the EU refuses to negotiate a sensible compromise. We also have such rights under the Vienna Convention on Treaties should we need to renounce the Protocol. The EU/UK Agreement also gives us the right to suspend the Protocol if it is not  being fairly and sensibly enforced. It is time to take control of our own internal trade and demonstrate that is legal as well as right.

 

I understand the caution of advisers specialising in controlling CV 19. For them there may indeed be a mutant virus around the corner that beats the vaccine, or a new variant that spreads faster. The task of government is to weigh that advice in the balance with the advice coming from people wanting to re open their businesses, get back to work, have a less restricted social and family life who think the current restrictions have gone on long enough.

Earlier in the pandemic debates I suggested  a range of measures to help keep people as safe as possible whilst locking down less of the economy. Some were adopted. The basis of the whole package was the principle of helping all elderly and medically vulnerable people to stay away from others who might be a centre of infection whilst allowing others unlikely to get a serious version of the disease more freedom if they wished. It was important to make it as easy as possible for those isolating to get deliveries of the things they needed from phone or on line orders, and for them  to keep in touch by phone or zoom or social media.  The measures adopted anyway had to allow a large minority freedom to work to keep the rest of us supplied with food and water, power and broadband. It also had to allow all of us the choice to go to food shops and to take some exercise. As the official figures for cases and deaths built up around the world there was no simple relationship between length and severity of lockdown and death rates. Countries like Belgium and Hungary with lockdown policies suffered worse than others not taking so many measures.

The UK government did well in early identification of vaccines to back, offering cash and orders to companies that seemed likely to develop and test a successful vaccine. It also took up the idea of testing existing drugs for their efficacy in treating the disease to cut death rates for those infected. I also urged more work on air flows and air extraction to make public venues safer, and better infection control in  health establishments.

Yesterday the government announced a continuation of measures for another four weeks. This will harm a range of businesses still locked down, and continue to impede other businesses operating well below  normal capacity thanks to social distancing rules. I urge them to review this decision as soon as new data becomes available. It appears that the vaccines are very effective, and that practically everyone vulnerable to bad version of the disease has now had a vaccine. I favour letting people make more of their own decisions about how much risk they are willing to run in their lives. If someone still has a fear of this virus then of course the employer, the family and the community should be sympathetic and help them to do as much as possible without social contact. For others who are at very little risk of a bad version of the disease, let them make more of their own choices.

Listening again to the tired and repetitious high level arguments of the Opposition MPs advocating faster progress to net zero whatever the cost, I am reminded of the years of their lectures on the dangers of Brexit . On both topics they are sure they are right. They despise anyone who questions their beliefs or suggests amendments to their position. They arrogantly dismiss opponents as too stupid to have a worthwhile view, or too badly informed to take seriously.They do not even want  to hear an alternative way of meeting their high level aim which presumably is  a better quality of life for the many, whilst tackling flood or drought risk proportionately.

They proceed by making a series of very gloomy forecasts for us all unless their policy is followed.They refuse to analyse why their forecasts have often been wrong in the past, and ignore or explain away repeated errors in their forecasts as new data emerges. Above all they ignore the views of many voters. When challenged on the gap between what they think and what a lot of voters think, they say the political elite has a duty to act and needs to teach the public to accept the actions.

 

They get plenty of help from traditional media. There is an accepted framework to the green debate. The  science is settled. Global warming of more than 2 degrees is coming unless   we adopt early net zero. That will Flood low lying cities, cause water  shortages and forest fires and melt the poles. CO 2 aided  by methane rather than water vapour is the main culprit. Pricing carbon is part of the answer. People must be taxed, priced or regulated out of plane travel, off meat and dairy, out of diesel and petrol cars and away from fossil fuel heating.

One of the reasons a lot of voters say they broadly agree with  this yet do nothing to change their own lifestyles is the perception of double standards.If the great powers actually thought this was a life and death matter wouldn’t China and Germany  be closing their coal power stations now? Wouldn’t the EU cancel the Nord stream 2 Pipeline and fund  a green alternative to Russian gas? Wouldn’t all the experts behind the COP 26 climate  conference ban all those jet flights to it and go virtual?

Above all they fail to deal with the fundamental dilemma faced by China and emerging economies. They need fossil fuels to achieve higher living standards, but their incremental demand tips the world over the top on these carbon accounts. Does the advanced world have the right to stop fossil fuel growth in large populated developing countries? Is there anyway the advanced countries can help them leapfrog to low carbon economies? So far the use of oil, gas and coal in countries like China and India is rising remorselessly up for billions of people.

I have had a couple of emails from Remain voters asking what benefits we have seen from our exit from the EU, as they are still unhappy about the decision taken in a referendum and reinforced by two General elections.  After five and a half  months it is still early days but so far it looks as if we will have a good first year out.

The main benefit of Brexit is we are now a self governing country that can make our own decisions, change our own laws, and run our own budgets. If in the future government did badly we can rid of it at the next election and change the laws and policies which were wrong. A General election here could not change a single EU law, tax or budget decision when we were members.

We have already seen early evidence of the advantage in our decision not to join the EU vaccine policy but to pioneer a new vaccine here in the UK with government support and orders to back it.  This resulted in an earlier roll out of vaccinations for all here and the offer of a crucial low cost treatment to the rest of the world. We are busily creating a new and enlarged vaccine production capability in the UK.  Spending on the NHS has gone up by more than £350 m a week.  We will now start to save larger sums on EU levies  as we are no longer liable for new contributions to the EU growing budgets.

The UK has as promised rolled over the trade agreements we shared with the EU with a  number of other countries, and is now well advanced on a new round of trade deals with countries that do not have such arrangements with the EU. This year will be our first outside the EU and its single market. According to international bodies the UK should see its fastest growth rate for many years at 7%, ahead of the EU average. Contrary to Remain predictions sterling has been strengthening since we left, house prices have been rising and employment is still at high levels despite the pandemic damage. It is a matter of regret that the EU wishes to damage its exports to us by placing barriers in the way of trade. Fortunately many other countries see this as an opportunity and are keen to sell to us and understand that means they should also be willing to buy more from us. One of the big gains from Brexit will be growing and making more for ourselves, to cut the food miles and create more better paid jobs at home.The latest trade figures show a welcome cut in our trade deficit with the EU thanks to a fall in imports to the UK. We are buying home produced or cheaper and better from the rest of the world.

We live in an age of governments wishing to pursue national resilience. The USA has awoken to the way China has used free access to western markets whilst continuing to protect and control its own to gain a stronghold over crucial technologies, essential raw materials and important manufactures. The USA has embarked on a crash course of regaining the initiative in technology, onshoring more production and securing its position in a range of things from rare earths to semiconductors and from batteries to 5G communications. The UK too can now do something similar. Our industrial and agricultural  base in many crucial areas like steel, electricity production, shipbuilding and temperate foodstuffs was hollowed out by EU competition. In control of our own state aids, public procurement and competition policies we can now set about rebuilding.

 

If the U.K. thought it should send both the Prime Minister and the Speaker to represent it at the G7 the other states would object that  the U.K. was over represented. If the mighty USA sent both the President and the Majority  leader of the Senate that too would have seemed silly or unfair. Yet if you look  at the photos of the meeting of the G7 you see nine people present. Sure enough the EU had sent not one but two Presidents, the President of the Council and the President of  the Commission.

This absurdity famously spilled over into a row between these same two Presidents in recent negotiations between the EU and Turkey. The President of the Council who I think is technically the senior bagged the one large official chair for the EU rep, only for there to be very public complaints from the President of the Commission. The EU needs to get its act together and decide in each meeting or negotiation which of its 5 Presidents leads the delegation and sits in the one chair they should be awarded like the countries present.

There is at the G7 a more serious and worrying issue. The EU has five of the nine seats, sending three member state Heads and two Presidents. On an issue like vaccines which is a crucial issue at this summit the EU has run the policy for its member states, so on that issue just one EU rep should engage with four independent countries. If these intimate gatherings of a few leaders of powerful countries are to be valuable they should not be slowed down by the EU giving five versions of what they will do on vaccines.

On  issues where member states have some powers but have to work under the legal and policy framework of the EU as in green matters and economic policy it would be helpful if they settled in advance who was in the lead and who could speak for them. There will inevitably be much groupthink and common policy between all 5 so it does not need all 5 present and talking to represent that one viewpoint. Decisions of the  G7are usually by consensus, not vote, but having a majority of the voices could distort the debate and give the EU view an unjustified numerical advantage over the US or U.K. view.

Yesterday I launched a pamphlet through Politeia on the ever topical green revolution. In it I asked one central question that governments seem reluctant to ask. When will government and the private sector produce the products and services that they regard as green which fly off the shelves and figure on people’s wish lists?

Today practically all of us accept carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas which will heat the planet if more is produced and  nothing else changes. We also accept that advanced country  governments intend to take people on their railway track to net zero as soon as they can. The track will be signalled and  the trains powered by subsidy, carbon taxes, rules and laws.

Whilst most people tell pollsters they do think the world is warming and something should be done about it, most people do not plan to do anything very much about their own lifestyles anytime soon despite government urging. Most people have no plans to rip out the gas boiler and put in an expensive heat pump. Few want to pay up to get a new electric car, or have done the sums and cannot afford one. Many people still want to fly abroad for a holiday as soon as covid rules allow. Most family diets continue to include dairy  and meat products despite the carbon footprint they create.

Three other panellists had their say. They all spoke only about government policy and large companies. None of them would engage with my simple and crucial question about consumer behaviour. One of them told me the policy answer is a much higher carbon price, presumably to price the lower paid out of  carbon based goods and services. One proposed a big subsidy for electric cars to get more people to buy them. They all seemed to think the prime duty for the revolution rests with governments, and governments just need to keep sharpening the regulatory controls and fiddling with the taxes and subsidies until carbon based activity is taxed out of the system.

They did not wish to pursue the issue of why Germany, a keen green advocate, plans to continue with coal based electricity generation well into the next decade. They did not comment on the way large quoted companies, told to get out of coal, simply sell their coal assets onto someone less exposed to criticism.  They  seemed to think banning all new diesel and petrol cars as early as 2030 would work fine.  So I ask again, where are the iconic must have products of the Green revolution? Where is the  new domestic heating system, the new diet, the new personal transport that has the pulling power of the smartphone, the ipad and the Amazon Prime and Netflix  subscription? For this revolution to take off governments need to engage with the public, not just talk to the elites.