Markus Andrews

The NHS frontline is now “stretched perilously thin” due to the pressure of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, a senior representative of hospital trusts has warned.The chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said that he believes the health service will avoid collapse under the pressure of thousands of Covid patients on top of the regular winter demands.But he said it would be wrong for ministers to under-estimate the degree of difficulty which trusts are facing.Mr Hopson’s comments come as cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi accepted that the NHS faces “a rocky few weeks”, but insisted that the government was doing everything possible to ensure it was able to “ride out this bump” caused by the Omicron variant.Speaking to BBC1’s Sunday Morning, the NHS Providers boss said that the situation in initial Omicron hotspot London was now “stabilising”, with the epicentre now moving to the northwest and northeast of England.“If you look outside London, then there’s no doubt the NHS frontline is going to be stretched perilously thin,” said Mr Hopson.“But because we are a national health service, one trust can help another, so I think that the frontline will hold.“But  we should not underestimate the degree of pressure trusts are seeing.”The director of public health for London, Kevin Fenton, said it appeared the capital had passed the peak of Omicron cases around New Year’s Day, but as many as one in 10 residents are still infected with the variant.He told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday: “We think we may have passed or are at the peak.“Data from the ONS (Office for National Statistics) suggests that the peak may have occurred at or just about the New Year period. “We’re seeing reductions in overall case rates across the city and the prevalence of infection within the community. “But remember that infection levels are still very, very high. The ONS figures suggest that nearly one in 10 Londoners are still infected with the with the disease. “So it means that we’re not yet out of this critical phase of the pandemic, although we may well be past the peak.”Mr Hopson said: “What we’ve got is this combination of three things at once – we’ve got rising Covid cases, we’ve got rising staff absence, significantly due to COVID. But we’ve also got on top of that the ordinary winter pressures.“This fortnight is the busiest fortnight in the NHS calendar. The combination of those three things at once and it is causing very, very significant pressure.“Each individual place will have its own dynamics. In some places is the volume (of cases) that’s very difficult, in other places it’s the sheer volume of staff absences.“You can see from the number of critical incidents that got declared last week that, in some places, this is really difficult.”The NHS Providers chief executive added: “We had a very, very stretched workforce before Covid hit. We had 100,000 staff vacancies.“What we’re now finding is that for some of our staff, this 18 months on top of all of that is being very, very difficult. We have to have a long-term workforce plan for the NHS. “It’s really important that the government should accept an amendment that’s coming into the House of Lords to ensure that we get long-term workforce planning. Otherwise, we’re going to have more and more burnt-out doctors, more and more burnt- out nurses more and more burnt-out frontline staff. “We have to get the right number of people in the NHS providing the care that’s needed so we don’t give our staff an impossible workload day in day out.” More

Labour has called on Rishi Sunak to reverse the government’s planned 2.5 per cent hike in National Insurance contributions in his March budget.Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said that Labour would not go ahead with the rise – made up of 1.25 per cent each on employers’ and employees’ payments.And she said that Mr Sunak still has time to halt the controversial rise before it comes into effect in April.Conservative MPs are piling increasing pressure on the chancellor to rethink the tax rise, intended to fund improvements to the social care system as well as helping the NHS deal with the backlog of cases which has built up during the Covid pandemic.Leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg broke ranks at last week’s cabinet to call for the rise to be halted.Ms Reeves said it appeared Mr Sunak would have to be “dragged kicking and screaming” into dropping the £12bn hike, which will raise the overall tax take to its highest sustained level since the 1950s at a time of a cost-of-living crisis.Challenged over whether Labour would reverse the rise, Ms Reeves told BBC1’s Sunday Morning: “If we were in government, we would not be going ahead with it now.“They still have time to act. The government can do the right thing.“There is another fiscal statement from the chancellor set for 23 March, just over a week before this tax increase is due to come in.“I want the government, I want the chancellor to rethink. The chancellor has to be dragged kicking and screaming to every announcement he makes.“You’ve now got a chorus of Conservative MPs as well as the Labour Party saying ‘Do the right thing, think again on National Insurance’.“This double whammy of a National Insurance hike at the same time that gas and electricity bills are going to be going through the rood is just a catastrophe that families and pensioners cannot afford.” More

Cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi has said he would like to see a cut in isolation times after a positive Covid test from seven to five days “as soon as possible”.The education secretary said it was important to be “careful” about the danger of increasing infection rates, and said he would follow the advice of a review currently being conducted by the UK Health Security Agency.But he said that five-day isolation would help “mitigate” pressures on schools, as well as healthcare and other critical services, caused by staff shortages.The former vaccines minister acknowledged that the NHS is set for “a rocky few weeks”, but insisted that the government was doing everything possible to ensure it was able to “ride out this bump” caused by the Omicron variant.Speaking to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday, Mr Zahawi said he would “always defer to the scientific advice” on five-day isolation.“Of course it would help for that to happen as soon as possible,” he said.“It would certainly help mitigate some of the pressures on schools and our critical workforce and others.“But I would absolutely be driven by the advice from the experts, the scientists, on whether we should move to five days from seven days. We don’t want to create the wrong outcome by higher levels of infection.”The former vaccines minister said he hoped the UK will lead the world in moving from the Covid pandemic to an endemic situation in which the country is able to live with the virus.But he warned that the country need to be alert to new variants of coronavirus over the coming 10 years.“I hope we will be one of the first major economies to demonstrate to the world how you transition from pandemic to endemic and then deal with this for however long it remains – five, six, seven or 10 years,” said Mr Zahawi.The education secretary told Sky News there were “absolutely not” any plans to end free lateral flow tests.“I don’t recognise that at all,” he said. “This is absolutely not where we are at.” More

Foreign secretary Liz Truss has warned she is prepared to unilaterally override parts of the post-Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland if negotiations fail.Ms Truss said she will suggest “constructive proposals” to her EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic this week during their first face-to-face talks.But she said she is “willing” to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol, which would suspend parts of the treaty designed to prevent a hard border with the Republic, if a deal cannot be struck. More

Boris Johnson is reportedly set to escape a further investigation into the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat.Parliamentary standards commissioner Kathryn Stone, who oversees the code of conduct and rules for MPs, is said to have decided not to open another inquiry into the controversy following two previous probes by the Electoral Commission and Christopher Geidt, the independent adviser on ministers’ interests.No 10 was informed of her decision this week, according to the Sunday Telegraph.Senior Conservatives were fearful an investigation from Ms Stone could have lead the prime minister being suspended from Commons if he had been found guilty of breaching the parliamentary code of conduct.Mr Johnson this week faced new sleaze allegations after WhatsApp messages were released which appeared to show him expressing support of a project proposed by the Tory donor who funded his luxury flat redecoration.He was also strongly criticised by Lord Geidt for failing to reveal the messages to his inquiry, an omission the ethics adviser described as “extraordinary”.The PM’s aides are said to have insisted the refurb, approved for funding by Tory donor Lord Brownlow, was not a matter for Ms Stone as it did not relate to his role as a minister.But shadow justice secretary Steve Reed said Labour urged the parliamentary standards commissioner Kathryn Stone to investigate the WhatsApp messages, arguing that there were questions about potential “cash for access” for the PM to answer.Mr Reed said the text messages “matter immensely” as they showed Lord Brownlow “appears to have access to the prime minister because he was paying for the flat renovations” at Downing Street.Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “If that is the case, that is corruption.“And what we’re seeing here is a case of, potentially, cash for access where Lord Brownlow was given access to ministers to try and influence them over decisions of spending taxpayers’ money – that is why this matters so immensely.“Those very cosy text messages show there was a quid pro quo in operation between the prime minister and Lord Brownlow, and we need to get to the absolute bottom of this.”Lord Geidt also faces calls to reopen his inquiry, with Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the Labour Party, saying his decision to close the case “raises a number of serious concerns and questions”.The ethics adviser’s probe concluded Mr Johnson had not breached the ministerial code, but criticised the PM for failing to “assemble all relevant material” for his inquiry.The prime minister had blamed a new mobile phone number for the lapse and was forced to issue an apology. More

The “blind optimism” shown by government ministers in their plans for the future of England’s farms could result in many small and tenant farmers being forced out of business, a parliamentary report has warned.In the wake of Brexit, farmers in England are set to see direct payments – worth £1.8bn in 2019/20 under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy – slashed by more than half by 2024/25 and removed entirely in 2027 as the government shifts to a new regime intended to boost productivity and improve stewardship of the countryside.But a House of Commons committee report said that George Eustice’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has not yet done enough to gain farmers’ trust in its ability to successfully deliver the programme.And it said ministers were over-optimistic about the likelihood of making English farms more productive.The end result of encouraging farmers to free up land for environmental purposes – such as woodland – is likely to be that England ends up importing more of its food, often from countries with worse environmental standards than Britain, said the report from the cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.This would not only force up prices in the shops, but also make Britain more reliant on food from abroad.With the average farm making a net profit of just £22,800 a year without subsidies, the committee said it feared that many small and tenant farmers operating on wafer-thin margins could be forced out of business.This was likely to mean an increase in the average size of farms, with a consequent loss of environmental benefits.Defra plans to match the overall £2.4bn in subsidies provided annually by CAP to England’s farmers, while steadily reducing the proportion going in direct payments, based on the amount of land farmed.Under the Sustainable Farming Initiative (SFI) and Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS), an increasing share of the cash will be linked to improving the environment, protecting the countryside, boosting the productivity of the farming sector and enhancing animal health and welfareBut the report found that the scheme was “beset with many of the same issues that have undermined ambitious government programmes in recent years”.A lack of information from Defra had left farmers unable to plan and was causing anxiety, exacerbated by a historic lack of trust caused by past failures in managing farm payments, the MPs said.Committee chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP for the Cotswolds, said: “We have known we were replacing the CAP since 2016 and still we see no clear plans, objectives or communications with those at the sharp end – farmers – in this multi-billion pound, radical overhaul of the way land is used and, more crucially, food is produced in this country.Farmers had been “left in the dark”, with failures in Defra’s business planning undermining the certainty they need, said Sir Geoffrey.And he warned: “The UK is also already a large net importer of food and we heard in evidence that the ELMS’ vague ambition to ‘maximise the value to society of the landscape’ may in reality mean that increases further. The recent energy price crisis should be a salutary warning of the potential risks to the availability and affordability of food if the UK becomes even more reliant on food imports.”Labour’s shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon said the government was “falling far short” on support for farmers, with “trade deals that undercut our rural businesses, leaving them exposed and rightly feeling let down”.“Just this week, the environment secretary tried to dodge responsibility for making sure farmers get a fair deal from major retailers, despite rocketing food and production prices,” said Mr McMahon. “For our country to thrive, we need to see more food grown at home, to a high standard and through sustainable processes – but the government isn’t listening.”But Mr Eustice said Defra disagreed with many of the report’s points, which he said failed to take account of recent developments.“Farm incomes have improved significantly since the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016 and there will never be a better time to improve the way we reward farmers,” said the environment secretary.“In December, I set out comprehensive details of the Sustainable Farming Incentive, including full payment rates, and we published an in-depth analysis of UK food security and agricultural output.“In the past week we’ve shared further details of the Local Nature Recovery and Landscape Recovery schemes and announced a major increase in payment rates for those farmers involved in existing agri-environment schemes.” More

Michael Gove is set to give property developers an Easter deadline to “do the right thing” in making safe buildings put at risk by cladding or face legal action to force them to do so, according to reports.The housing secretary is expected to tell MPs in a statement on Monday that he will “expose and pursue” private firms responsible for safety problems caused by cladding, as he sets out measures to remove the material from lowrise blocks.Monday’s announcement is expected to include a pledge to residents of buildings between 11 and 18 metres high that they will not have to pay for the removal of panels deemed unsafe in the wake of the 2017 Grenfell Tower property.According to BBC reports, Mr Gove will say that the government instead intends to secure up to £4bn from developers towards the costs.“Those who profited and continue to profit from the sale of unsafe buildings and construction products must take full responsibility for their actions and pay to put things right,” Mr Gove is expected to say.But Labour warned that the measures to be announced “appear far less significant than they sound”, with nothing for leaseholders facing huge bills to fix non-cladding defects.The government has already allocated £5bn to remediating fire safety defects including flammable cladding in hundreds of highrise blocks of more than 18m in height, following the death of 72 people in the Grenfell blaze.But this left hundreds of thousands of people in buildings under 18m facing huge bills to make their homes safe or pay for expensive fire patrols, with many unable to insure or remortgage their properties.In November, Mr Gove announced that he was “pausing” plans for a loan scheme proposed by his predecessor Robert Jenrick, under which leaseholders would have had to repay up to £50 a month after work was completed.He questioned why as “innocent parties” leaseholders should be forced to foot the cost of replacing the cladding.Loans for these buildings will be replaced by a “limited grant scheme”, according to the letter to Mr Gove from chief secretary to the treasury, Simon Clarke, reported by BBC Newsnight on Friday.“You may use a high-level ‘threat’ of tax or legal solutions in discussions with developers as a means to obtaining voluntary contributions from them,” the letter said.Stating that “the taxpayer should not be on the hook for further costs of remediation”, Mr Clarke’s letter said that his approval of the new package of measures which Mr Gove will reportedly announce next week was conditional on the fact that no new Treasury funding will be made available for the work.Instead, if Mr Gove is unsuccessful in persuading developers to pay for the costs, existing housing budgets should be used as a “backstop” for funding the proposals, Mr Clarke said, warning that, in the event that insufficient funds are raised from developers, “safety should be prioritised over supply”.A Commons select committee report in 2020 placed the cost of fixing only the tallest buildings at £15bn – triple the amount currently proposed in the government’s Building Safety Fund.Further government proposals to be announced on Monday to fix a “broken” housing safety system are understood include:• The withdrawal of consolidated advice notices, which make it difficult to sell a home without a perfect bill of health.• A pledge that no leaseholder in a building above 11m will ever face costs for fixing dangerous cladding.• A £27m fund to pay for fire alarms and sprinklers to end so-called waking watches.A spokesman for the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign welcomed the reported plans as “a welcome step in the right direction” but warned that “there’s still a long road to travel”.Labour’s housing spokesperson Matthew Pennycook said: “We await the full details, but on the face of it these proposals appear far less significant than they sound.“There is nothing new for the significant numbers of leaseholders facing huge bills to fix non-cladding defects; no guarantee that the cost of remediating buildings under 18 metres won’t be drawn from already allocated public funding; no help for the countless leaseholders currently mired in mortgage chaos; and no change in the government’s position on leaseholder liability.“Any further measures that help resolve the building safety crisis are welcome but blameless leaseholders are being hit with bills right now. If the secretary of state is serious about doing the right thing, he needs to ensure leaseholders are fully protected in law from the costs of fixing all historic defects by amending the government’s Building Safety Bill.”Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “I’m relieved that the government has seen sense on this aspect but many questions remain. Innocent leaseholders are still facing eye-watering bills to fix non-cladding fire safety defects not of their making, and more defects may be discovered once cladding starts to come off.“Anything short of putting new laws in place to make the developers pay for their shoddy and dangerous house-building is a betrayal of innocent leaseholders whose lives have been put on hold for four years already.“Leaseholders still need and deserve a public inquiry into the government’s handling of this crisis and why it has got it so wrong for so long.”Mr Gove’s Department for Levelling Up declined to comment on what it termed “speculation” about his plans. More

A shake-up of alcohol duties touted by Boris Johnson as one of the key benefits of Brexit has sparked fury among the UK’s wine trade, who warn it will force up prices for consumers, sow confusion in shops and create “unworkable” levels of new red tape.The Wine and Spirits Trade Association (WTSA) told The Independent there were fears that some of the UK’s 1,000 independent wine merchants could fold under the burden of extra bureaucracy and expense.Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a review of excise duties in his 2020 Budget, saying that the UK would “make the most of the opportunity of leaving the EU” by simplifying the regime in place as part of the trading bloc.But Treasury proposals set to take effect in February 2023 would replace a single rate of taxation for still wines with 13 different bands of duty levied according to strength – with 14 more for fortified wines.The change will add up to 68p in tax per bottle on wines drunk by millions of Britons, while saving cash for those choosing less popular low-strength brands under 11.5 per cent alcohol. But the industry believes that knock-on effects could mean an increase of as much as 30-35p for every 0.5 percentage point in alcohol by volume (ABV) above 11.5, meaning price rises of £1 or more on higher-strength bottles.The overall hit to consumers of wine – now the UK’s favourite tipple, with 33m drinkers – is estimated at around £250m a year, while levies on beer and cider will fall and spirits remain unchanged.And wine trader Daniel Lambert from south Wales told The Independent the complex new scheme was “completely impractical and unworkable” for the industry to operate.Wine brands could leap from one tax band to another based on factors beyond producers’ control, such as the impact of weather conditions on grapes which can significantly alter the ABV of individual wines from one vintage to the next, he said.In a New Year message marking the first anniversary of his trade deal with Brussels, Mr Johnson listed “simplifying complex EU alcohol duty rates” as one of a handful of benefits which he believes Brexit has delivered to the UK.But WTSA chief executive Miles Beale said the proposed changes were in fact so complicated as to be “unimplementable”.“The proposals replace one rate of tax for wine with 13 new ones,” he said. “And that’s before we talk about British fortified wine products – it’s another 14 rates for them.“What’s more, wine’s ABV can vary by up to 0.8 per cent, label versus liquid. This means a tax change every half-degree of alcoholic strength is not implementable in real world.”The wine trade has welcomed Mr Sunak’s abolition of the higher rate of £2.86 a bottle for sparkling wine, which will in future be taxed in line with still products.But Mr Beale said the new band system for all wines and fortified wines between 8.5 and 22 ABV – described in Treasury documents as “a single flat rate per litre of pure alcohol” – would in effect mean duty per bottle varying from £1.65 at the bottom of the range to £4.27 at the top.Bottles with an 11.5 ABV will continue to incur the current £2.23 rate, but tax at 12 ABV will be £2.33, at 13 ABV £2.52, at 14 ABV £2.72 and at 15 ABV £2.91.The row comes shortly after the government trumpeted a trade deal with Australia which ministers said would knock 20p off the price of a bottle of wine in UK stores.“It seems like Liz Truss negotiated a 20p price cut for Australian wine and now Rishi Sunak is going to put 50p back on,” said Mr Beale. Mr Lambert said the impact on traders and consumers will be “seismic”.“Most wine drunk in the UK comes in at about 13-14.5 ABV,” he said. “The additional cost when margins and so on are taken into account could come to £1-£1.50 a bottle. That’s a lot more money to expect customers to pay.“Customers will have no comprehension of why the price of different brands are going up and down. The complications and extra paperwork will be worse for bigger retailers because they have a wider range to keep track of, and the likely result is that the range available to the consumer will get smaller.“I also fear it will open up the entire excise system to fraud, as there will be a financial incentive to under-estimate strength.”The wine sector is understood to be voicing strong opposition to the Treasury in a consultation which closes at the end of this month.In an editorial, trade magazine The Wine Merchant said the industry expected “supply-chain havoc” due to vast variation in duties payable on mixed pallets of wine.Hal Wilson, of Cambridge Wine Merchants, said: “There are so many reasons the proposed tax policy fails in its aim to be fairer and simpler. Different rates for wine, beer and spirits at the same ABV, incredibly complex to administer, only wine to be taxed more.”And retailer Eynsham Cellars said: “Wine drinkers and importers are under attack from these totally unfair and massively complex new duty proposals.”A Treasury spokesperson said: “We have adopted a common-sense approach to alcohol duty by taxing drinks in accordance to their strength, that will come into effect from February 2023.“This approach puts the taxation of stronger beers, wines and spirits on an equal footing for the first time ever.“We’re also supporting pubs and keeping costs down for consumers by freezing alcohol duty rates – a tax cut worth £3 billion.” More