Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will model the potential impact of the omicron covid-19 variant on NHS England hospital admissions based on South African levels of serious cases relative to total cases. (96739)

Tabled on: 04 January 2022

Answer:
Maggie Throup:

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has no plans to do so as demographics, co-morbidities, past-infection and immunisation statuses in the two countries differ. However, the UKHSA is currently estimating the severity of the Omicron variant related infections in England to understand the likely ongoing demand for healthcare. This is in its early stages as a reasonable period of observation is required to fully understand the evolution of the Omicron variant in sufficient numbers of people across all ages and immunity status over time.

Please see below my article published at Conservative Home:

Manifestos matter. They are the way for an incoming government to set a direction for the country and to provide a work plan for the civil service to implement.

In 2019 the Conservatives put forward a strong positive manifesto to the public. Its key messages helped the party win its first substantial majority since 1987. The main pledges were getting Brexit done, not raising the three main taxes, reducing immigration and boosting money and personnel in the NHS, the police and schools. There was also a commitment to net zero by 2050 without a detailed road map for the first few years of that long journey.

The Government will comfortably exceed its money pledges to the three main public services singled out for front page promises. I would expect it to hit its recruitment targets for more nurses, doctors, police and teachers over the Parliament. Fifty million more GP appointments should be achievable, maybe with a different balance between face-to-face and remote exchanges. So far so good.

Net zero will be more than honoured by a wide range of initiatives already taken. The danger is in going too far beyond other countries efforts with measures that have serious costs. Making and growing less ourselves to cut carbon dioxide, only to import from big fossil fuel users, is a loss for us and no win for the planet.

More difficulties surround the related issues of getting Brexit done, cutting low and no skilled migration and keeping taxes down. The idea behind these policies is to expand national wealth and income, to promote more prosperity for more people, and to level up the lower income areas and groups.

The policies were right in 2019 and remain right today. The optimistic spirit of the manifesto was its prime attraction. The idea was to boost people’s real incomes through more and better paid work. As the document stated there is “only one way to pay for world class healthcare and outstanding infrastructure and that is to foster and encourage the millions of British businesses large and small that create the wealth of the nation”. Levelling up is above all about individual personal journeys into better and more skilled jobs, into self employment and into ownership of homes and businesses.

Taxes worry people. High tax rates can kill confidence, drive business and investment out of the country and stifle entrepreneurs. The tax rate that collects the highest amount of tax is not the highest tax rate. Politicians who promise lower taxes and then put them up usually come unstuck with the electorate.

The 1974-9 Labour government presided over a nasty recession, raised taxes substantially and suffered a big defeat in 1979. The John Major government stood accused of putting up many taxes by the time of the 1997 election. It was defeated by its own backbenchers over a very unpopular attempt to hike VAT on fuel. The higher taxes contributed to the massive defeat in the general election as the outward reminder of the big Exchange Rate Mechanism recession the government had imposed.

The Labour government in 2010 was crushed by the great banking crash recession it helped bring about. The increases in income tax and fuel duty in its last budget underwrote the unpopularity. The first George Bush was a one term president because he was unable to keep his promise of no new taxes, the best thing he said in the election.

Fortunately this government has recovered the economy quickly from the sharp and sudden economic collapse brought on by anti-pandemic policies. The public is likely to be more understanding of this setback than they were of the big recessions that overwhelmed previous governments. The public will be less understanding if the Government presses on with its increase in National Insurance at a time of squeezed real incomes. It would be bad economics, as the Government needs to promote a further recovery. It is worse politics, taxing jobs and breaking a promise. The Government should drop the idea before it hits wage packets in April.

The Government also needs to redouble efforts to fulfil its promise over immigration. It said Brexit would allow real control over who comes into the country. It promised “We will not allow serious criminals into the country. If people abuse our hospitality we will remove them as quickly as possible”. The UK can now legislate as it wishes to exercise the controls it wants at the borders. The current Bill going through the Commons needs to be fit for purpose to deliver. Only a sharp drop off in illegal migration and in total numbers will now reassure people.

The manifesto showed concern for people’s fuel bills and promised “new measures to lower (energy) bills”. Instead the Government is presiding over a worrying energy shortage. We rely too much on imports, exposing us to the expensive vagaries of European markets during an acute European energy shortage. The manifesto promised the North Sea oil and gas industry ” a long future ahead” before getting to net zero, yet the Government is currently blocking a number of important new gas and oil developments that could ease the supply squeeze. Once again we need to ask why we stop our industry to cut carbon only to import fossil fuels from elsewhere generating extra CO2 to transport them.

The manifesto promised that the whole of the UK would leave the UK together. We were reassured that Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK “would maintain and strengthen the integrity and smooth operation of our internal market”. Work to do there then. The Government needs to remove obstacles to goods moving from GB to Northern Ireland where they are certified as being for UK consumption.

This may require UK legislation to reinforce the message to our officials. It is fully compliant with any reasonable interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol, which can anyway be suspended if there is diversion of trade. The protocol expresses respect for the UK internal market and is meant to be compatible with other Northern Ireland Agreements that respect the place of NI in the UK. The promise to end the jurisdiction of the European Court over the UK must be carried through.

There are enough potential wins from the freedoms Brexit brings us to be the topic of another article. The manifesto holds out the realistic expectation that government will use its creativity and power to promote a more prosperous UK forged from that independence.

There needs to be more effort to implement that great vision. Success will come if the Government cuts taxes rather than raising them and if it promotes UK production rather than importing more. It needs to concentrate on helping people achieve their aims of better paid and more skilled employment and to do more to create a great environment for setting up and growing a business.

In the early days of the pandemic the Chancellor saw the need for a massive fiscal and monetary boost to offset the worst features of the draconian lockdown imposed. I supported him and these policies, urging additional help for some small businesses and self employed.

As the vaccines and treatments became available the Chancellor spoke up for fewer restrictions to get more people back to work more quickly. Again I supported him. We did need to do that, as the huge support was not affordable indefinitely.

At this point the Chancellor was the most popular Minister in the government. We were all impressed by the bold responses to a dire economic situation forced upon him by a national emergency he could not control.

Then all went wrong. The Chancellor accepted the self defeating Maastricht austerity policies dictated by the EU rules on debts and deficits. He compounded the error by thinking a huge tax rise in April 2022 before the economy  had made sensible gains above the 2019 level would cut the deficit. They will slow growth, deter investment and cut confidence. This will reduce revenues from taxes generally.

It is no wonder his popularity has tumbled. If he does not change tack soon he will find out what it is like to be really unpopular come April. With higher tax rates imposed economic  performance will deteriorate and he will not have good options if he sticks with his austerity mantra.

Time was when the Daily Telegraph was a loyal supporter of the Prime Minister. It often reflected his views. It had been his generous and tolerant employer for many years.

Yesterday the paper was brilliant. It urged him to follow up on his decision not to lock England down for Christmas and the New Year, but to get everyone back to work. We need to live with the virus and curb it with vaccines, treatments and individual judgements of risk.

It ran the need to abate the cost of living crisis. It proposed cutting the tax burden. It highlighted the dangers of the Chancellor’s high tax policies. It backed removing the National Insurance rise and challenged the Treasury removing our investment advantage of having relatively low Corporation Tax.

It warned of the energy crisis and ran an article proposing producing more of our own U.K. oil and gas.

I urge the PM to read this and to reflect on it. It comes  from a friendly institution that wishes him well.

Let me add an appeal to the forces in government that are holding him back from these better policies. They usually want to keep us close to EU rules and thinking. So let us copy the EU’s latest policy of designating gas as a green fuel and procuring more of it. We have the added advantage we can produce our own.

They also like us to cosy up to Democrat Presidents in the USA. We should copy Joe Biden in licensing more exploration, development and production of gas.

I wish the Foreign Secretary well in her new role sorting out the Northern Ireland Protocol.

It is important she stands up to the EU. She needs to rub out the wrong  statement by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that the U.K. might need to break international law in a limited way. She needs to insist on reversing the diversion of trade from GB/NI in accordance with the Protocol and insist on upholding the Protocol’s affirmation of the importance and integrity of the U.K. internal market.

This is a much easier negotiation to win than the one Margaret Thatcher won when she secured a large U.K. rebate on EU contributions with no real leverage. There is plenty of leverage here, as we can simply impose a fair solution as NI is part of the U.K. and under  the U.K. Parliament and government’s control now we have left the EU. She must enforce the Manifesto promise to end ECJ jurisdiction over any part of the U.K.

The  Express on line has run my piece on domestic energy production in place of imports in the Comment section.

www.express comment

 

In 2010 President Yanukovych was elected President of Ukraine. International observers did not claim the election  was unfair. As an Eastern Ukrainian with sympathies for Russia in 2014 the President rejected the draft EU Association Agreement and opted for closer ties with Russia. This was highly contentious in western Ukraine and led to protests. Some think the EU and the US encouraged the protesters, leading to the resignation of a President who could no longer keep control. His replacement led Ukraine to an  EU tie up. Russia sent in troops to Crimea, took control with no resistance and held a referendum. They claimed 97% support for their takeover on an 83% turnout. There were  no western  observers or audit of this result, and the two choices did not include the old status quo. Subsequent independent opinion polls have shown a high level of support for the results of the referendum anyway, just as independent polls before the annexation showed majority support for closer links with Russia.

Western policy has failed towards Ukraine. The UN did on a majority vote condemn the Russian actions and called for the restoration of Crimea to Ukraine, The Western powers rightly did not seek to claim Crimea back by military intervention. To this day they have said Crimea should be returned but have ruled out military involvement. It would kill too many people, and it would be difficult to impose Kiev and EU rule on many people of Russian origin in Crimea who prefer Russian rule.

All this is topical again because some other parts of Eastern Ukraine  are in revolt against Kiev rule and have sympathies for Russia. Russian troops have been massed on the frontiers. The West led by President Biden has told Russia not to invade and has threatened penal sanctions were they to do so. What is clearly needed is a political solution in Eastern Ukraine that works for its people. The eastern voters  have little  chance of winning an countrywide  election in Ukraine any  more, unlike 2010, because their numbers have ben reduced by the loss of Crimea.

Ukraine is the political battleground between EU and Russian influences in Eastern Europe. The EU and US misjudged the situation badly in Crimea when they pressed the EU  Association Agreement against the wishes of the then President and lost a  part of the country. They need to be careful not to misjudge again.

The good news at the Environment Department is they did grasp the big opportunity that leaving the EU offers when it comes to ending our involvement with the Common Agricultural policy. Over the years it inflicted considerable damage on the UK. It left us short of milk quotas, shrinking our dairy industry and forcing us to import more milk based products. It prolonged the hit from BSE on our beef cattle. It paid grants to get UK farmers to rip out orchards so we imported more continental fruit. It paid large grants to successful large scale arable farmers that w did not need to pay. The UK lost considerable market share  in temperate foods. The Dutch  took over our flower market and came to dominate salads, the Spanish the vegetables market, the Danes the pig meat market. Most of the CAP is being swept aside.

The not so good news is the delay in putting in a replacement, and the absence of strong policies to promote more UK food production. For a department which wants to be green there is a surprising lack of interest in cutting the food miles. There are no dedicated schemes to give grants to farmers to create the orchards we have lost or to put in competitive capacity to the Dutch green houses for market gardening. There are expensive schemes to take land out of agricultural use altogether to make us more import dependent for food.

The Department is promoting more tree planting., which is fine. It needs to encourage more sustainable forestry, as what we need to do is grow more of our own roof trusses and floors, more of our own biomass for power stations and wood for furniture production.

The Department is doing little to recreate a healthy and sustainable fishery run by UK based fishing vessels and crews.

it sounds as if the government does now think it has to act to cushion the impact of energy bills on household budgets in April. It also sounds as if they will let the price go up, so they will probably determine to route more taxpayer cash to lower income families through benefits and tax credits. Alternatively they will subsidise energy companies to keep bills down. This would be a dearer route but would help more bill payers.

What they need to do is to solve the underlying problem of a shortage of energy. Our electricity system is too reliant on wind and solar which can drop off to very little power when the weather changes. They need to keep more of the fossil fuel capacity we currently have as back up. They need to install more reliable green generation with more hydro, biomass and nuclear. Depending  more and more on unreliable  imports means paying peak prices at times of general shortage with adverse effects on bills.

The government as argued here before needs to licence new gas and oil from U.K. sources. It is not green to ban domestic production only to rely on more carbon intensive imports of coal and gas instead. The U.K. could follow the US model of lower gas prices with plenty of home production rather than the European model of very high prices, gas scarcity and reliance on Russian imports.

It is far from helpful that the government will end up with higher benefits, more subsidies and higher public spending because they have allowed a severe shortage of gas to emerge. Cutting  our stockholding capacity and our domestic output comes with a dear price.

The Conservative Manifesto of 2019 promised to get Brexit done. It stated the government would ” take the whole country out of the EU as one United Kingdom”. We would leave the Customs Union, be able to pass our own laws and end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. “There will be no political alignment with the EU” . We would take back control of our laws, our money and trade policy, and ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.

The central offer was to “use our new post Brexit freedoms to transform the UK for the better by focusing on your priorities”.

In some blogs in  the days ahead I will examine how far the government has got in implementing this vision, and how we can take advantage of our new freedoms to do better. At the time of the Withdrawal Agreement I drew attention to issues over Northern Ireland trade and fishing, and was told by Ministers these would be sorted out for  in the final Agreement. I was not satisfied they were so I did not vote for the final Agreement.

I am pleased that the government now recognises that  the trade position for Northern Ireland is entirely unsatisfactory and needs substantial change. I urge them to take action to enforce the clear statements in the Northern Ireland Protocol that both sides respect the internal market of the UK and regard Northern Ireland as part of that market and customs Union. The Protocol condemns diversion of trade, yet we are witnessing a major diversion of trade from GB to NI to EU to NI. The UK should instruct our Customs officials to allow free passage of goods from GB to NI as we do within the rest of the UK, if necessary confirming the instruction to them in UK legislation and making clear this is the UK interpretation of the NI Protocol. The UK Act should also confirm UK sovereignty over NIU/GB trade and exclude any role for the ECJ.