Markus Andrews

The government is wasting vast amounts of money PPE that is still “not fit for purpose” a year and a half into the pandemic, an influential committee of MPs has warned.Official figures show nearly 7 per cent of all items purchased by the health department have failed quality checks while ministers are spending £6.7m every week to keep it stored.An eye-watering 2.1 billion items have already been found unsuitable for use in medical settings and 10,000 shipping containers are still to be unpacked.The same committee also warned of “significant financial risks for decades to come”, with the estimated lifetime cost of all the government’s Covid measures reaching £372bn in May 2021.Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said too much of the “eye-watering sums” of cash being spent to combat the pandemic were going to waste.Labour called for an immediate public inquiry on the findings of the report. In two separate reports, the committee said that a further 8.4 billion items of PPE on order from other parts of the world have still not arrived in the UK.And it said the government did not have a credible plan for the excess PPE that was suitable for medical use, with no evidence of a robust plan for repurposing and distributing the stock properly.Responding to the report, the government said there are “robust processes” in place to ensure taxpayer money is spent properly. It said less than 1 per cent of PPE it had ordered was unsuitable for any use at all, distinguishing between its suitability for medical use and other uses.Dame Meg said: “The ongoing risk to the taxpayer will run for 20 years on things like arts and culture recovery loans, let alone the other new risks that departments across Government must quickly learn to manage.”The government has promised a public inquiry into the pandemic, but it is not expected to start until spring next year.The PAC report said it was “clear that government cannot wait for the review before learning important lessons” and must instead present a Covid recovery plan in the autumn spending review.Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said the cross-party report was more evidence of Tory failure during the pandemic.She said their approach had “resulted in tens of thousands of avoidable deaths and saw eye-watering sums of taxpayers’ money wasted on unsafe PPE and contracts handed out to their mates”.“We cannot wait until next year for the public inquiry to start and ministers cannot kick it into the long grass and cover up their failures by refusing to hand over information hidden in personal email accounts,” she added.A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “There are robust processes in place to ensure that government spending always provides value for money for the taxpayer.“We have worked tirelessly to source life-saving PPE to protect health and care staff, and we have delivered over 12.7 billion items to the frontline at record speed. As the National Audit Office has recognised, all NHS providers they spoke to were able to get the equipment they needed in time.” More

Summer holiday plans for nearly six million people across the UK could be ruined if the government moves Spain and Greece onto the amber plus Covid list, according to an analysis.Labour warned that an estimated 5,857,558 people face the prospect of last-minute quarantine if the two countries are put in the same restricted travel category as France.Fully vaccinated holidaymakers visiting counties on the amber list are generally exempt from quarantining on return to the UK, but ministers removed the exemption for Britain’s cross-channel neighbour earlier this month – effectively creating a so-called amber plus tier.The decision was taken because of concerns about the spread of the Beta variant of Covid, with fears it could bypass vaccines. There has been speculation that Greece and Spain could face the same measures as France.While the government has not yet indicated that this will happen, a year and a half of abrupt U-turns by ministers when it comes to travel has left holidaymakers cautious.Shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: “Not only have they failed to protect our borders, allowing Covid cases to rocket, they also refuse to be straight with the public and give them the information they need to book travel with confidence, with clear information on the direction of travel of infections in each country.“Families who have booked holidays in good faith now risk losing out – a 10-day quarantine is simply not an option for many people who are already struggling financially thanks to the pandemic.”The opposition drew up the estimate by looking at official data for past travel to the countries and adjusting for lower willingness to travel during the pandemic by using data from surveys.Environment secretary George Eustice this week hinted that France could be moved back onto the regular amber list when the government review the rules next month.“It was concern about the Beta variant and the fact that the vaccine might be slightly less effective against that,” he told LBC radio.“But as those rates come down obviously the evidence will change and it can be reviewed and we will want to be putting countries like France back onto the amber list in the normal way.”Responding to Labour’s estimate, a Department for Transport spokesperson said: “The travel list allocations have not changed for Spain or Greece.“We are closely monitoring the data and will take swift action on travel list allocations and international travel requirements should the data show that countries’ risk to England has changed.” More

Boris Johnson’s poll lead has fallen sharply in the wake of last weekend’s fiasco over whether he should be exempt from self-isolation requirements.A new survey by YouGov released on Saturday saw Mr Johnson’s party fall by a statistically signifiant six points, to 38 per cent of the vote.Opposition parties also gained ground, with Labour up three points to 34 per cent, and the Lib Dems and Greens both up to nine per cent and eight per cent each.The results follow another poll by Survation release this week that also showed a narrowing gap between the parties, with the Conservatives on 39 per cent and Labour on 35 per cent.The prime minister and his chancellor Rishi Sunak caused uproar last weekend when they announced they would not be self-isolating despite coming into contact with Covid.Downing Street claimed the pair were participating in a pilot programme that would see them exempt. A swift U-turn was performed following a backlash against the claim.Pollsters say the story has cut through with the public, however – coming as it does with the backdrop of rising case numbers and vast numbers of people being told to self-isolate.Commenting on the latest YouGov poll, James Johnson, a pollster at the firm JL Partners, said: “A real shift. Going by this week’s focus groups it is the Boris/Rishi self-isolation ping story that’s done it.”The poll would still see the Conservatives win as the largest party, and possibly a majority depending on how votes were distributed. But with the Tories solidly above 40 per cent of the vote in most surveys during the pandemic, the suggestion that public opinion could be shifting has piqued interest in Westminster.Labour’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “As Johnson’s poll ratings take an inevitable dip the Tories likely to start planning when to dump him for Sunak. “Time to remind people how much of our pandemic plans he either refused to or delayed in delivering last year. He’s implicated in every Johnson failure and misjudgment.The YouGov poll was commissioned for the Times newspaper and fieldwork was conducted between 20 and 21 July. The Survation poll quoted was conducted between 19 and 20 July. More

Sadiq Khan has urged Boris Johnson to quickly change the rules so fully vaccinated people do not have to self-isolate if they come into contact with a Covid case.The push, which is also backed by business leaders, comes amid shortages of staff in sectors such as hospitality, transport, and the food supply chain.Rail services have been cut back and some pubs and restaurants closed as vast numbers of people are ‘pinged’ be the NHS contact tracing and and told to self-isolate.Bin collections, the police, and the food supply chain are also among other sectors said to have been affected by absences.In the capital, some lines of the London Underground have faced problems because of the so-called “pingdemic”.The government has said workers in some sectors like food supply and power networks will soon be exempt from the requirement if they are double-jabbed – following a similar move for health and social care workers.And a more general relaxation of the requirement is due to come in from 16 August.But in a joint letter to the prime minister, Mr Khan joined UK Hospitality, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry and London’s Federation of Small Businesses said the date should be brought forwards.”The summer months are crucial for many businesses’ recovery and their ability to recover must not be put in jeopardy,” the letter says.”We are therefore calling on you to ensure that the necessary testing is in place to enable people who have been double vaccinated for longer than two weeks and pinged by the NHS Covid app, to immediately return to work, following a negative PCR test, rather than having to self-isolate.”The signatories say this approach would help keep faith in the NHS Covid-19 app. Polling suggests large numbers of people are deleting the app or turning off contact tracing amid a surge in pings.As many as 608,000 contact tracing alerts were sent in England in the week between 8 and 15 July, according to the most recent available figures – a record high number.Defenders of the app say it is merely contact tracing a lot of people because a lot of people have Covid and are mixing in public.But critics say it is imprecise and does not take into account many risk factors like whether a person is outside or in a well-ventilated area.Friday’s figures showed 36,389 new Covid infections, a lower increase than in previous days. More

More than 660,000 low-paid key workers, including nurses, supermarket staff and social carers, will be among millions of people affected when the universal credit uplift ends in the autumn, new figures suggest.London, the south east and the north west have the highest numbers of key workers on universal credit, according to research by the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).A union leader said 30 September was set to be a “bleak day” for workers when the temporary £20-a-week increase is stopped.The large number of key workers receiving universal credit is symptomatic of issues with in-work poverty, said the RSA.Alan Lockey, head of the organisation’s Future of Work programme, said: “The link between hard work and fair pay is broken, and this cut will only make it worse.“In the short term, the government needs to protect this vital lifeline for millions of hard-working Brits, especially our pandemic heroes working as nurses, social carers and supermarket assistants.“In the long term, the government needs to make work pay, expanding the use of the living wage, tackling insecure work, and making benefits such as sick pay more generous and universal.”Jonathan Reynolds, shadow work and pensions secretary, said the cuts were “economically and morally wrong”.“It is shameful that the very workers who got us through this crisis are in the firing line when it comes to poor pay and cuts to universal credit,” he said.“The government must see sense, back struggling families, and cancel their cut to universal credit. Labour would replace universal credit with a fairer social security system.”Steve Turner, assistant general secretary of the Unite union, said the majority of those receiving the benefit were in work but earning too little to get by.“The determination to rob the poorest workers and families of £20 a week is heartless and economically irresponsible,” he added.“Food and living costs are rising and the chaotic bungling of the reopening of the economy means we cannot be assured of a return to any so-called normal. “That £20 is a lifeline during this continuing uncertainty and removing it will cause certain despair.“September 30 is set to be a bleak day for workers and our communities with [both] the cut and the end of furlough.“It will go down as the day that this Tory government threw hundreds of thousands of working and vulnerable people and children under the bus.”A government spokesperson said: “Universal credit has provided a vital safety net for six million people during the pandemic, and we announced the temporary uplift as part of a £400 billion package that will last well beyond the end of the roadmap.“We’re committed to putting more money in the pockets of hard-working families, which is why this year we provided a pay rise to 2 million of the UK’s lowest-paid through a higher minimum wage, while we’ll also help people earn more by levelling up opportunity.”Additional reporting by Press Association More

Boris Johnson has been accused of “letting down” the country by failing to fulfil a promise he made exactly two years ago to fix Britain’s broken social care system.One the second anniversary of his arrival at Downing Street, charities and opposition parties have vowed to make sure the prime minister does not forget his pledge.In his first speech after becoming prime minister on 24 July 2019, Mr Johnson told the nation: “We will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared.”No such plan has yet been published, and there was disappointment this week when his government spurned the chance to bring forward proposals to boost funding for the social care system.Some 1.4 million requests for care from older people have been turned down by local authorities in England since Mr Johnson’s historic pledge two years ago, according to Age UK.Ahead of the anniversary of the PM’s speech, Age UK representatives handed in a letter to Downing Street urging him to honour his promise.The charity, which analysed data from NHS Digital, said the 1.4 million requests for care equates to nearly 14,000 people aged 65 and over each week not getting the vital support they need.In 24 per cent of these cases the local council found they did not meet the eligibility criteria for social care support, and in 26 per cent they were referred to other services after being found ineligible, Age UK said.Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said it and other charities “will be working hard to ensure the government doesn’t forget the commitment it has made”.The Age UK director said: “After all the recent media stories suggesting that the government wanted to make an announcement about its social care proposals before recess, it is very disappointing to have been let down once again.”Ms Abrahams added: “The fact that we are all now thoroughly used to being led down the garden path doesn’t make this latest disappointment any easier … These constant government delays carry a cost.”Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said he was disappointed by the delay, and urged the government to prioritise reform when parliament returns from recess.He said people working the sector were “exhausted” by the extra demands of the pandemic. “It’s probably the most serious it has been for many, many years. So that’s why we need a plan for social care that will refresh people and give them some confidence in the future,” said Mr Green.Liz Kendall, Labour’s shadow minister for social care, said: “After more than a decade in power – and two years after the prime minister made a clear promise on the steps of Downing Street – we are still no closer to seeing a plan to fix the crisis in social care.“Every day the government delays their plans for fixing the crisis in social care is another day that staff don’t get the pay and training they deserve, another day that thousands of people go without the basic help they need.”There had been widespread expectation that care funding proposals would be put forward before the summer, but the three main players who would be involved in the decision – Mr Johnson, chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid – are all self-isolating.Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak had reportedly come close to agreeing to a plan to reform social care by raising national insurance by 1 per cent – but some cabinet ministers made clear they were unhappy at the prospect of a tax hike.Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng referred to the Tory manifesto commitment not to raise national insurance contributions, saying: “I don’t see how we could.”Minister rejects national insurance hike to fund social care rescueThe Resolution Foundation condemned the national insurance idea as “a terrible way to raise the funds required”.The think tank argued it would mean increasing tax on working-age young people, few of whom have the funds to buy a home, in order to ensure that the elderly are not forced to sell their homes to pay for care.Lib Dem MP Munira Wilson, the party’s spokesperson on health and social care, told The Independent it was “high time” the prime minister fulfilled his promise.Referring to reports a national insurance rise was being considered, she said: “After two whole years the only part of Boris Johnson’s clear plan for social care we know is that his plan to pay for it will hit low earners and the young hardest, just when they are struggling the most.”Ms Wilson added: “People who have worked hard and paid taxes all their lives deserve high-quality social care if they need it. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a proper, cross-party fix for social care.”The Alzheimer’s Society said it was frustrated that social care reform announcements were not made before the parliamentary recess.James White, head of public affairs, said that “while dementia isn’t curable yet, the care system is … However, the social care system is funded, its reform must be delivered, with proper investment in the sector.”A government spokesperson said “no decisions have been made” on the issue, promising only that a plan would be set out “before the end of the year”. More

The UK government is telling councils to display EU flags across towns and cities in England as a condition for receiving high street Covid recovery cash.Guidance issued to local authorities by the communities ministry this summer says the blue and yellow symbol of European unity is “required” to be displayed around “every piece of signage, pavement sticker, or temporary public realm adaption” funded under the scheme. The requirement, which will see thousands of new EU flags posted on official buildings and in public places across the country, exists because the European Regional Development Fund has given money to the UK to help with the Covid-19 reopening. Despite Brexit having happened, under the withdrawal agreement the UK is still eligible for certain payments from the fund until the end of 2023 – but with strings attached. The flag rule, imposed from Brussels but enforced from Whitehall, is embarrassing for ministers because they are keen to rid UK public buildings of EU flags, but do not want to turn down the Covid recovery cash.The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport announced in only March that it was repealing planning rules dating back to 2007 in a bid to make it harder to fly EU flags.And some Brexiteers have claimed that leaving the EU has made it easier to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.Under the Welcome Back Fund, councils have been given £56 million EU cash to “support the return to high streets safely and to build back better from the pandemic”.The fund, administered by the government in Westminster, is being spent on adaptions to high streets to “promote a safe environment for local trade and tourism, particularly in high streets as their economies reopen”. Examples of aid include street planning, extra seating, green spaces and new signage, flowers, and the removal of graffiti – anything that encourages people to return to the high street.Virtually every local authority in England is getting some of the cash, with the biggest recipient Leave-voting Birmingham, which has landed over £1 million in funding.Liberal Democrat frontbencher Christine Jardine said: “This shows the absurd hypocrisy of this Conservative government. They have spent years denouncing EU projects and pulling the UK out of funding schemes like this, and now they have the gall to trumpet a fund made possible by exactly the sort of European cooperation they are turning their backs on.“Instead of worrying about displaying the EU flag, the government should be working hard to support the thousands of struggling high street businesses – starting with extending the furlough scheme that’s due to taper off next week.”Naomi Smith, chief executive of campaign group Best for Britain said: “For a government that measures patriotism by the number of union flags in a BBC report, showing that the EU is helping our highstreets in this particular way will have a bitter taste.”But she added: “With parts of the UK like Wales previously receiving £400million every year from the EU but now set to receive a measly £10 million from the government’s levelling up fund, this branding is a small reminder of the support that’s been lost to the areas of the UK most in need.”The government appears so anxious to comply with the rules stipulating that the EU flag is displayed it has told councils that “copies of all publicity materials, including press releases, marketing activity and posters displayed in venues where activity takes place must be retained to demonstrate proactive activity and the correct use of the EU logo and required text”.The rules say the flag must be displayed on “all electronic and print publication materials used for information and communications supported by the fund” including advertisements, leaflets, project reports, posters, and websites.It also demands the display of “at least one poster of minimum A3 size, readily visible to the public (e.g. the entrance area of a public building) at the location of the activities being implemented” that includes the EU flag and reference to the European Regional Development Fund.A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government blamed the EU, telling The Independent: “This is not a UK Government requirement. Now that we’ve left the EU, this funding will be replaced by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.” EU funding will in fact continue until the end of 2023.The department spokesperson added: “We are ramping up UK-wide domestic funding to at least match what the EU currently offers – reaching around £1.5 billion a year.” More

More large-scale trials should be carried on the effectiveness of public health measures designed to contain coronavirus as the country tries to return to normality, a government adviser has warned.Professor Graham Medley, a member of the Sage group, said arguments about the impact of some interventions could have been resolved by now if there had been more tests.He told the Independent that such trials “are difficult to do in politically-charged environments and during an epidemic, but that is exactly when they are most needed”.He added: “We have done very few proper randomised controlled trials of public health interventions. Many of the contentious arguments about hospitality, large events, schools etc could have been greatly informed by evaluation of different interventions and different policies.”It was up to ministers to decide what trials should be carried out, he said.“The priority for what is trialed is really determined by policy choices. If there are things that government would do if they knew they worked, then they are the priority,” he said. His call was backed by Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford. He said that when it came to drugs or vaccines “we do randomised controlled trials”. But there was a lack of evidence on the impact of many non-drug interventions, he said. “That means people’s opinions dominate the discussion.” He suggested that trials could be carried out to assess the impact of Perspex screens, for example, or whether separate rooms in hospitals reduce the risks of transmission or whether or not offering greater financial and social support to people told to self-isolate would encourage more of them to stay at home.Properly understanding the effects of some measures could allow ministers to “open up more quickly as well”, he said.He called on the government to “come out and say we need to pursue such a strategy, because the funding is not unlimited. And I think it would be wholly advisable to go down that route.”The government last week postponed plans to ease the final Covid restrictions in England, amid fears over a surge in the Delta variant, first identified in India. Boris Johnson has set a new date of July 19, though there are suggestions it could come earlier, depending on the data.Even after lockdown measures are lifted fully, however, England’s chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty has warned the public will have to learn to live with coronavirus.Labour called on Boris Johnson to outline a ‘tried and tested’ plan for what that would would mean. Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “It’s not good enough for Boris Johnson to glibly insist we need to ‘learn to live with the virus.’ He needs to outline a tried and tested plan for what that means. “Decent sick pay is vital as it support for buildings to improve air quality given how important ventilation is. And health and care services need to be properly resourced and rebuilt. The public deserve better than trite statements from the prime minister.”The calls comes in the wake of controversy about one such trial currently going on in around 200 schools and colleges across England. One group of the schools follows the nationwide guidance to quarantine the contacts of a positive case of coronavirus. The other group allows daily testing of contacts for a week, instead of isolation. But a group of 14 academics wrote to the BMJ this week arguing that “the assessment of risk of increased transmission arising from these trials is inadequate”.A government spokesperson said: “Throughout the pandemic we have been guided by data and scientific advice and have acted quickly and decisively to save lives and livelihoods. “Ahead of Step 4, as more is understood about the impact of vaccines on transmission and a far greater proportion of the population has been vaccinated, the government will complete a review of social distancing measures and other long term measures that have been put in place to limit transmission.” More