There is considerable discussion and much misinformed commentary on a possible EU/UK deal on this outstanding disagreement.

The Protocol itself was an agreement to disagree, a temporary holding position pending the full Trade and Co-operation Agreement between the UK and EU. Then there was the failure to resolve the outstanding issues even at that later stage. It left unclear the interactions of EU and UK law and of the respective internal markets.

The Protocol does make clear the primacy of the Good Friday Agreement, which the opening of the Protocol says “must be protected in all its parts.” Yet the Protocol now is the main cause of dissent, preventing the resumption of devolved government and cross community working which lies at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement. The Protocol does not enjoy the consent of the Unionist community, yet the Good Friday Agreement requires the consent of both communities to important matters covered by the Protocol. Most people of good will want the Good Friday Agreement to continue to provide a secure future for NI, and are worried by the current impasse over attendance at the Stormont Assembly.

The Protocol states support for the “shared aim of avoiding controls at the ports and airports of NI to the extent possible in accordance with applicable legislation” . It is to have regard to “the importance of maintaining the integral place of NI in the UK’s internal market”. Article 1 “respects the essential state functions and territorial integrity of the UK”. NI is recognised as part of the customs territory of the UK. Article 6 is dedicated to the protection of the UK single market.

The truth is the EU negotiating mandate does not allow a solution, because it violates these crucial features of the Protocol and does not respect the legitimate concerns of the Unionist community. So far we read the UK may share more of our trade data with the EU concerning internal trade within the UK, with no reciprocation. We hear the UK is considering border control points at ports and airports in violation of the Protocol to avoid checks on internal UK trade into NI. None of this makes any sense, as it will annoy the Unionist community more.

Those wishing to help resolve this need to understand these simple points. Nothing can work in NI without the consent of both communities. The Protocol does not have Unionist consent. It is not just a matter of trade issues. The Unionist Community does not wish to be subjected to EU law with no rights to reject or amend it. The EU and UK should not seek to force a solution on NI that one community rejects.

The UK has been very generous in seeking to meet the legitimate concern of the EU, namely the protection of their single market. The UK could secure this for them by the method of UK legislating to say it would be an offence for anyone in NI to seek to export into the EU products that do not meet EU laws and regulations. There is no case to justify barriers to GB to NI trade, nor the imposition of EU laws on NI now the UK has left the EU. Of course the UK should supply all data concerning exports to the EU that the EU wishes to see. The checks and controls on exports to the EU need not be made at the border but can  be made at the farm, factory or warehouse from which the consignment is despatched.

Article 13.8 envisages the amendment or ending of this  Agreement. Article 16 allows either side to take unilateral remedial action in a wide range of problem circumstances, and seeks to outlaw trade diversion which imposing barriers on internal GB/NI trade can create.

John Redwood
(Wokingham) (Con):
Could the Secretary of State give us a little more indication of how he will consult on and agree minimum standards in the railway industry?

Grant Shapps:

I will set out in a bit more detail the way in which the legislation will work in a while, but, briefly speaking, secondary legislation by regulation will be used in each individual sector to come to the right balance. I will explain that in more detail, if my right hon. Friend is patient. I will give way in just a moment. I have already taken more interventions from Opposition Members than from Government Members. I think it is true to say that there comes a time when we cannot let such a situation continue. That is why we need minimum safety and service levels to keep livelihoods and lives safe. It is frankly irresponsible, and even surprising, for the Opposition to suggest otherwise.

 

 

Glad to report we have made some progress in keeping the lights on. Intervention has secured the capacity cited below to bring into use when there is insufficient wind and solar available. This amounts to around a third of necessary output on a cold busy day and to around half of other times:

 

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (117398):

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what is the maximum electricity output from all coal and biomass generating plants in the UK that would be able to operate if needed. (117398)

Tabled on: 06 January 2023

Answer:
Graham Stuart:

As of the end of September 2022, the installed capacity of coal and bioenergy plants in the UK totalled 14.1 GW of electrical power. This comprised 5.9 GW for coal-fired plants (Digest of UK Energy Statistics, DUKES 2022, Table 5.11) and 8.1 GW for bioenergy plants (Energy Trends, December 2022, Table 6.1). The latter comprises 4.7 GW for solid (animal and plant) biomass and 3.4 GW for other bioenergy.

The answer was submitted on 16 Jan 2023 at 14:57.

There is a disjointed contradiction at the heart of UK politics. The major parties claim to believe in the supremacy of Parliament. In Commons exchanges Opposition parties hold the government to blame for everything that happens in the public sector, and for much in the private on grounds they could have regulated it. Ministers rarely deny collective responsibility. 

 

Yet the major parties this century have also created and empowered more and more so called independent bodies, arguing that panels and boards of independent  experts should be much better at deciding things and at spending tax money than politicians without specialist knowledge and with public opinion to please or appease. The independent bodies who often get things wrong, make mistakes and annoy people usually escape blame and shelter behind the Minister who was not allowed to interfere with the mistakes when  they were making them. 

 

One of the most prominent examples of this confusion is the Bank of England. Most MPs believe Gordon Brown made it independent. Most believe the Bank has one overriding aim, to keep inflation  down. This is embodied in one simple and memorable target to keep inflation at 2%. Recently inflation hit 11%, more than five times target and more than five times the Bank’s forecast a year or so earlier. Opposition politicians blame the government for the inflation. The government blames the Russian invasion of Ukraine, glossing over inflation already at 5.5% before the tanks rolled. No one seems to blame the Bank that owns the target, sets interest rates, and printed £895 bn of extra money which must have had some impact. 

 

Take the Environment Agency. It is charged with many tasks which include both keeping us free from flooding and ensuring we have enough water. Some years ago it allowed systems to keep the Somerset levels dry to silt up with fewer working pumps. The inevitable flooding took place. Ministers  had to intervene to get some order restored. The Agency was expressing a political preference for salt marsh over farms which did not reflect tradition or local residents needs.

 

The reassuring truth is we are still sufficiently a democracy so when an independent  body annoys enough people or makes a big enough mistake politicians do usually intervene. They impose new measures or new men and women on the agency or change the way the whole thing is done. The frustration is the need to often go through a long period when a quango is visibly failing pretending not to notice, or blaming someone else with Opposition and Ministers united in the view politicians  should not interfere. 

 

The reason our traditional constitutional theory gave power to Ministers was twofold. Often it needs a common sense decision taker to sift the professional advice, challenge the experts and decide what to follow. It also does need a specialist at what the public will accept and at what the public wants, which is what good politicians know. 

 

Today the NHS is at the centre of political rows. It is ironic it is so, as both main parties believe in the NHS, both support its values, both give more money to it, both want the waiting lists down. The rows are mainly about results. Sometime ago Parliament set up NHS England with its own CEO , Board and well paid senior executives. All agreed the politicians should stay out of running the  NHS. So who is to blame for the current high waiting lists for non urgent assessment and operations, poor labour relations, the shortage of beds  and long waits for urgent treatment? The Opposition will blame Ministers and Ministers blame the epidemic, the unusually high seasonal pressures and global trends. Few ask whether the executives could have spent money better, raised staff morale, used considerable powers over grading, promotions and increments to look after staff better. The quangos seem untouchable. 

 

 

If the UK wants to persist with its model of independent bodies it needs to make their CEOs, Chairmen and Governors more directly accountable. Their tenure and remuneration should vary depending on performance. Their responsibilities need to be more tightly defined. If Ministers have to run these things  that is probably best done by taking them back into direct departmental control.

 

Jerome Powell the Head of the Fed, America’s Central Bank, recently argued strongly for narrow limits being placed on how much independent power a body like the Fed should have. He sees the political imperative to keep main policies under democratic control through the Congress. He said the Fed should not be set aims to  promote the net zero journey or other social objectives, as these are contentious matters that need political judgement and leadership. The Fed should stick to its economic objectives which are cross party and relate to the direct tools and expertise the body has. He is very conscious that the Fed has to earn the right to have such powers by doing a good job and avoiding straying into more disputed policy areas.

 

This is all good advice. It is time for the UK to review how much power these bodies wield, and to assess how well they have performed. Ministers who fail to do this stand in danger of taking the blame for the errors they have not themselves committed. 

 

 

 

 

The Department of Health and Social Care has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (117392):

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps to encourage NHS managers to use (a) promotions (b) increments and (c) flexibilities in pay scales to retain and motivate staff. (117392)

Tabled on: 06 January 2023

Answer:
Will Quince:

Retention within the National Health Service is a complex issue and decisions to leave are taken due to a multitude of factors, of which pay is only one. The NHS Retention Programme seeks to understand why staff leave, resulting in targeted interventions to support staff to stay whilst keeping them well. Locally, employers in the NHS have the option to use measures like pay increments and promotions to attract and retain staff.

The answer was submitted on 12 Jan 2023 at 11:11.

The Department of Health and Social Care has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (117396):

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps to increase the number of beds in NHS hospitals. (117396)

Tabled on: 06 January 2023

This question was grouped with the following question(s) for answer:

1. To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the availability of NHS hospital beds. (117756)
   Tabled on: 06 January 2023

Answer:
Will Quince:

As part of the NHS England’s operational resilience and capacity plan for winter, the National Health Service is increasing bed capacity by the equivalent of 7,000 general and acute hospital beds. This includes a mix of new physical beds and innovative virtual wards.

On 9 January the Government announced £200 million of funding to allow local areas to buy thousands of extra beds in care homes and other settings to help discharge more patients who are fit to leave hospital and free up hospital beds for those who need them. This is an addition of the £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund announced in December which is also supporting hospital bed capacity.

The answer was submitted on 11 Jan 2023 at 14:09.

The Department of Health and Social Care has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (117394):

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help recruit more permanent staff to the NHS and reduce dependence on Agency staff. (117394)

Tabled on: 06 January 2023

Answer:
Will Quince:

This Government is growing the National Health Service workforce. There are now over 42,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) more staff working in NHS provider trusts and commissioning bodies than October 2021, including almost 4,700 more doctors and over 10,500 more nurses. We are working hard to deliver 50,000 nurses by the end of March 2024 and we are well on the way towards achieving this aim with over 36,000 more nurses working in the NHS now compared with September 2019.

The Government has funded 1,500 more medical school places each year for domestic students in England, a 25% increase over three years. This expansion was completed in September 2020 and has delivered five new medical schools in England. There are currently record numbers of medical students in training.

The Department of Health and Social Care has also commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan. The plan will look at the mix and number of staff required across all parts of the country and will set out the actions and reforms that will be needed to reduce supply gaps and improve retention. A temporary workforce market allows the NHS to meet demand fluctuations without the need to increase capacity above that which would be required on a sustained basis. Staff can be drawn from internal staff banks or external agencies.

Measures were introduced in 2015 to control agency spending and include price caps, limiting the amount a trust can pay to an agency for temporary staff, the mandatory use of approved frameworks for procurement, and the requirement for all trusts to stay within the specified Annual Expenditure Ceilings for agency staff. The agency rules outlined were effective in reducing spending on agency staffing by a third between 2015/16 and 2020/21.

The answer was submitted on 12 Jan 2023 at 11:10.

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): No one can deny that the health service is under extreme pressure. No one can look at it and not realise that there has been a big surge in extra demand, that there are problems from the hangover of covid when a large waiting list for less urgent treatments built up, and that we are short of doctors and nurses, not because Ministers will not authorise their appointment but because there are vacancies to be filled. As one of those who has been urging for some time to see a published workforce plan, I welcome the decision of Ministers to insist on that, and the sooner we get it the better. However, I am quite sure that there are a whole series of workforce plans already in the many dozens and hundreds of working trusts and quangos that constitute the NHS. It is about aggregating and making sense of those plans.

Yes, indeed. From my hon. Friend’s own expertise, I am sure she is right. When people talk about productivity, they do not believe that hard-pressed staff have to work harder; they are saying there must be smarter working, making jobs more manageable or enabling them to concentrate on the things they are most skilled at, with more relief for the other necessary record keeping, which may indeed need slimming.

 

Dr Caroline Johnson (Con): We often talk about the shortage of doctors. We know we cannot create a doctor overnight. It takes a substantial amount of time to train them. The Chancellor, a former Health Secretary, invested in five new medical schools to increase the number of doctors in training. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Chancellor, with the Health Secretary, needs to invest more money in more medical schools and medical school places, but also look at how we increase the Toggle showing location of Column 647number of doctors by reducing the amount of bureaucracy and paperwork they have to fill in, so that they can spend more time doctoring and less time filling in forms?

 

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): My hon. Friend is right that we could expand our training places further, but as we have heard there has been a big increase in educational provision and it takes seven years for it to flow through. I am glad we are getting to the point where we will see some benefits from that. We need more homegrown talent. Many people are attracted to the privileged career of being a doctor and the more we can allow to do that, the better. However, given the immediate urgency of needing more capacity, and therefore more doctors and nurses, the most obvious place is to look at all those who have already had the training and have left the profession or the NHS for one reason or another. Some may be in early retirement. That is probably not something my hon. Friend wants to change because she enjoys her new job, but there are many others who are not in a very important job like her who might be attracted back. I hope the Treasury will be engaged in the review, because I hear from doctors, as many do, that the quirk in the tax system at just over £100,000 where some of the better paid doctors are resting, producing a more penal 60% rate, is an impediment to extra working. I also hear about the pension problems that have been cited on both sides of the House. The Government need to take those issues more seriously if they wish to accelerate returns.

Ministers have very clearly set out that they want more NHS staff and have obtained much larger budgets in the last three years to help bring that about. They have also said very clearly that the public’s priority—and indeed the Opposition’s priority—is to get more treatments and get those waiting lists and waiting times down for those needing more urgent or emergency care. Those Ministers must translate that through the senior health service managers into ways of spending that extra money. If it needs a bit more extra money, there is always some extra available—every time we meet another additional sum is announced—but it has to be well spent. It has to be spent on motivating and recruiting the medical workforce.

I had better not, because we are very short of time for colleagues.

The money has to be well spent and I hope that senior managers, as they give us a published workforce plan, will share more of their thinking. It is not good at the moment that there is such a breakdown in relations with talented and important staff in the health service. There is a complex system of pay reviews, increments, promotions and gradings of activities. All those things have flexibility within them. I look to the senior managers

We need more supply because there is excess demand, for understandable reasons. Huge sums of money were tipped into the system to deal with covid. Not all of it was well spent, but that was understandable given the unknown nature of the beast at the beginning, and the obvious pressures in this place and elsewhere to get instant results with personal protective equipment, testing and so forth. That is now behind us, but unfortunately it disrupted normal hospital work and normal GP work and created backlogs.

I urge the Government to understand that part of the answer is having more bed spaces in hospitals, with the staff to back them up. I do not know why so many senior health executives never want to admit that. They always say that there are lots of bottlenecks and other issues. Yes, of course we need to move people on from hospital as soon as it is safe to do so, and of course we need more capacity in social care, but I say to Ministers that it would be great to have a bit more capacity in the main hospitals to give us extra flexibility and take some of the pressure off. Could not some of the extra £20 billion, £30 billion, £40 billion or £50 billion that has been found in recent years be spent on the combination of physical capacity and the staff to support it that we so need?

I do not have expertise in the chemistry or the medical effects of vaccines. If you wish to discuss this topic then go to sites that are capable of handling these issues and have articles from people who do know about them. Nor do I wish to host a debate about Mr Bridgen’s  words. As you can see I have not written about this medical issue.