UK Politics

More than 60,000 families in England are starting the New Year in insecure temporary accommodation, at a time when four times as many homes sit empty.Among the households without permanent homes are 125,000 children, whose education is disrupted by the need for frequent changes of address.While the latest statistics show that 60,490 households with children are in temporary accommodation, some 268,000 homes in England were classed earlier this month as “long term vacant”, meaning they have been empty for more than six months.The figures were revealed by new research from Liberal Democrats, who are demanding that ministers make it a priority in 2022 to secure permanent homes for children around the country who need them, to avoid further disruption to their lives and education.The party’s housing spokesperson Tim Farron said that those affected include families who have lost jobs due to the Covid pandemic, vulnerable people, and those who were previously homeless.And he said that finding them permanent place to live was essential for Boris Johnson to be able to claim he was fulfilling his promises to “build back better” and “level up” the. country.“It is an utter travesty that many thousands of families will enter the New Year worried about where to live while a swathe of homes are sitting empty,” said the former party leader.“Temporary accommodation only offers families a brief respite over the cold winter months. We know that being forced to move several times causes huge disruption, particularly for children in education.“We need to see more long-term planning from the government, to support people into permanent homes and a stable job so they can get back on their feet and rebuild their lives.“Ministers must focus on getting everyone who is in temporary housing this winter a permanent place to live in 2022. Only then can we truly aim to level up our communities and build back better.”London has the highest number of children in temporary accommodation in the country, with 42,290 families without permanent homes while 30,458 dwellings are empty for six months or more.Some local authorities with the highest number of families in temporary accommodation also have thousands of homes sitting empty. According to the Lib Dem figures, these include Birmingham, where 2,900 families are in temporary accommodation and 5,386 are long-term vacant; Southwark,  with 1,491 families in temporary accommodation and 2,358 long-term empty homes; and Manchester, with 1,713 families in temporary accommodation and 1,455 long-term empty homes. More

As he sat down to write his New Year’s message to the nation 12 months ago, Boris Johnson was in ebullient mood.Like millions of Britons, the PM was relieved to put a miserable 2020 behind him and welcome a year which must surely be better.Johnson was brimming with confidence. The nation was an “an amazing moment”, with “the end of the journey” of coronavirus nearing and “global Britain” ready to seize the opportunities of Brexit with both hands.Looking back from the end of the year – with the UK braced for a fresh wave of deaths and restrictions from Omicron, crops rotting in the fields, the prime minister’s poll ratings tumbling amid a slew of scandals and his rebellious MPs openly discussing a leadership challenge – it is safe to say that 2021 has turned out to be “amazing” in a different way than Mr Johnson expected.And rereading his New Year address, it is easy to see the seeds of his current discomfort in the confident tone the PM took, as he fell prey to his usual vice of over-promising.At the time, there were plenty of reasons for the PM to feel optimisticFirst and foremost, the vaccines had arrived. The UK had just delivered the world’s first non-experimental Covid-19 jab and had enough stocks on order to rein in the Alpha variant then raging around the country – offering the longed-for prospect of an end to restrictions and an economic boom as Britain reopened.The five-year national trauma of EU exit negotiations was over with the signing of a Christmas Eve trade deal and the transition out of the single market and customs union on New Year’s Eve delivering on the flagship promise of the PM’s election campaign, to Get Brexit Done.As well as the new freedoms he hoped this would deliver, Johnson was also relishing the chance to fly the flag for “global Britain” on the world stage as chair of the G7 summit in Cornwall in June and president of the United Nations’ Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow in November.Major progress was promised too on a domestic front, with the long-awaited plan for social care and big-spending schemes for rail improvements in the north and “levelling up” of left-behind regions all in the pipeline by the end of the year.As the cherry on the cake, his approval ratings were bubbling around a very healthy 60 per cent mark. And as vaccines rolled out, the Tory lead over Labour was rising to reach comfortable double figures in the spring, making him the darling of success-hungry MPs.Looking back now on that rosy prospect, it is hard not to conclude that the PM must now feel that all his dreams for 2021 have turned to dust.Alpha proved far more devastating than the first wave of Covid-19 in terms of hospitalisations and deaths, and was followed by the Delta variant, imported from India amid accusations that Mr Johnson delayed travel restrictions in the hope of going ahead with a trade visit. “Freedom Day” was delayed and when it finally arrived on 19 July it was swathed in warnings about the need for caution, rather than celebrations of liberation.By then, Mr Johnson had lost his health secretary Matt Hancock to humiliating footage of a lockdown-breaking and marriage-ending clinch with a mistress he had hired as his adviser.And he was savaged by former right-hand man Dominic Cummings, who told MPs that blunders by the PM – who he branded “the trolley” because of his tendency to veer around wildly on policy – had caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.Covid restrictions helped to mask the impact of EU withdrawal, as feared queues of lorries at Channel ports did not materialise. While trade with Europe went off a cliff in January, there was enough of a recovery for Johnson to pass it off as “teething troubles”, despite evidence of long-lasting damage to industries such as seafood.But official statistics confirmed pre-referendum predictions that Brexit would knock around 4 per cent off GDP growth in the longer term, offset by only a tiny fraction of a percentage point by the trade deals negotiated with countries like Australia and New Zealand.In Northern Ireland, the PM found himself in the bizarre position of demanding the rewriting of the Brexit deal he had himself agreed less than two years previously. And a “sausage war” with Brussels erupted after Johnson belatedly noticed that the treaty he signed included a clause banning the movement of chilled meat from one part of the UK to another.Meanwhile, onerous new Brexit red tape compounded supply chain problems caused by Covid to empty supermarket shelves, while a shortage of overseas workers left food unharvested and pigs being destroyed in their thousands.Rows over Brexit overshadowed Mr Johnson’s moment in the G7 spotlight at Carbis Bay, where world leaders’ pledges of 1bn vaccines for developing countries fell far short of the 11bn needed to prevent the emergence of variants like omicron.Mr Johnson’s hopes of a historic Cop26 deal to limit global warming to 1.5C were derailed by a last-minute ambush by China and India, who drew tears from summit chair Alok Sharma by toning down a key pledge from “phasing out” to “phasing down” coal power as China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin stayed away.The limits of “global Britain” were brutally exposed as Joe Biden neglected to consult Johnson about the handover of Afghanistan to the Taliban, leading to a chaotic airlift as then foreign secretary Dominic Raab sunned himself on the beach.And the PM horrified traditional low-tax Tories with a 2.5 per cent hike on national insurance, bringing the share of national income taken by the state to its highest sustained level since the 1950s just as millions of voters were suffering cuts to benefits and inflation was on its way up to 5 per cent and beyond.An early sign of the shine coming off the Johnson premiership came at the Conservative conference in October, where jokes about “building back beaver” and promises of a “high-wage, high-skill” economy fell flat in a nation still frightened about Covid and worried by the hit to their living standards.And soon it seemed nothing could go right for the PM.His attempt to spare Brexit comrade Owen Paterson punishment for paid lobbying ended in ignominious retreat amid the fury of Tory MPs effectively ordered to vote in favour of sleaze.His social care “reforms” turned out to be a massive transfer of money from the working poor to the heirs of wealthy pensioners. And he provoked the fury of the north with a rail plan which cost billions but axed or scaled back long-cherished schemes. Meanwhile, the white paper on levelling up was quietly postponed until next year.The prime minister suffered a “emperor’s new clothes” moment in a crucial address to the CBI, as he stumbled over his words and bemused business executives by asking them if they had been to Peppa Pig World, prompting one TV reporter to ask: “Is everything OK?”Bungled handling of allegations of Christmas parties in Downing Street turned a passing embarrassment into a national scandal, as Johnson’s protests that no rules had been broken crumbled in the face of growing evidence. When his close aide Allegra Stratton resigned after being filmed laughing about the party, the PM – mocked on prime-time TV by Ant and Dec – was forced to order an inquiry into what had happened.As if that were not bad enough, questions about the funding of the lavish refurbishment of the Downing Street flat were revived by an Electoral Commission report which fined the Conservative Party and revealed messages in which the PM asked for money.Worst of all, the arrival of the Omicron variant forced Mr Johnson to activate Plan B of his Covid plan, bringing back mandatory face-coverings and restrictions on sports and entertainment events in a way which he hoped was in the past.The arrival of wife Carrie’s second child on 9 December did little to relieve the gloom enveloping the prime minister, whose personal ratings plunged to unseen depths as Labour took its first sustained polling lead of the Johnson premiership and Keir Starmer was installed for the first time as voters’ preferred option for PM.Ninety-nine mutinous Tory MPs inflicted the second-worst rebellion on a prime minister in modern times, with some openly saying he must change to survive as leader.His Brexit minister Lord Frost, one of the few Johnson loyalists in the government, walked out after the PM caved in to Brussels over the principle of European Court of Justice oversight.And the one factor which attracted the party to Johnson more than any other – his election-winning prowess – was comprehensively trashed by the loss of rock-solid Conservative seats in Chesham & Amersham and North Shropshire on stupendous swings to Liberal Democrats. As 2022 approaches, the prime minister will once again be relieved to be putting the past year behind him.But this time round – with the UK gripped by a contagious new variant, tax hikes looming, an impending public inquiry into the handling of Covid, new customs barriers to trade with Europe and mutterings about a leadership contest – Mr Johnson has less reason to look ahead to next year with the confidence he showed 12 months ago. More

The NHS does not have enough medics to staff beds in “surge hubs” for Covid patients being set up at hospitals around England, a representative of health service managers has warned.The chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said that an “emergency staffing model” will be needed, with recently retired doctors and nurses and experienced volunteers called in if the additional capacity is needed.And a member of the committee of the Doctors Association UK, neurologist Dr David Nicholl of University Hospital Birmingham, warned that many clinicians within the NHS are “really, really anxious” about the rising pressure on staffing within the service.“The biggest threat is staffing at every level,” Dr Nicholl told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Speaking to my colleagues in critical care, they tell me they have less staff than they had 12 months ago. “That, frankly, is because people are burned out from last winter. A lot of people are really, really anxious about what what’s going to happen next.”Mr Hopson said ministers must be ready to introduce new restrictions on social and economic activity “at pace” if numbers of vulnerable patients rise in English hospitals.But he warned that it will take a fortnight for the impact of any new restrictions to reduce admissions, during which time numbers on wards and in intensive care could rise sharply.It was not possible to expect an NHS with 100,000 vacancies to man the extra surge hubs, he told Today, adding: “We’re clear that we would need extra support to staff these hubs and that’s been made very clear.”Mr Hopson said there was no national threshold for the number of Covid patients which would require the use of surge hubs, as the trigger will vary from area to area depending on community infection rates and levels of staff absences.He warned that emergency departments and elective surgery are far busier now than they were a year ago at the time of the Delta surge, while a lot of NHS capacity is taken up with the vaccination campaign. Some English trusts are already under “real, real pressure”, he said.Meanwhile, Scottish deputy first minister John Swinney said there were signs from north of the border that Omicron patients may not require as extensive hospital treatment as those hit by earlier Covid waves.“It does appear that people are perhaps staying less time in hospital than they were previously during the pandemic,” said Mr Swinney. “And our ICU (intensive care unit) admissions are not as large a proportion of hospital admissions as they have been in the past.”Work will start this week on on a total of eight temporary “Nightingale units” at hospitals across England, each with a capacity of around 100 patients. Further sites could also be identified to add a further 4,000 “super surge” beds.With a record 189,213 daily positive tests reported on Thursday, and 11,898 patients in NHS hospitals – including 868 on ventilation – NHS medical director Prof Stephen Powis has said the service is on a “war footing”.Numbers in hospital remain well below the peak of around 38,000 seen at the height of the Delta wave in January last year, but Mr Hopson warned that the threshold set by ministers for new restrictions may rapidly be reached.“The government assesses the rules and restrictions, not the NHS, and we know the government has set a high threshold on introducing extra new restrictions,” he told Today.“So on that basis, trust leaders can see why the government’s arguing that – in the absence of a surge of seriously ill patients coming into hospitals – that threshold hasn’t yet been crossed.“But we still don’t know if the surge will come. In terms of restrictions, I think we’re in exactly the same place we’ve been for the last fortnight, which is that the government needs to be ready to introduce tighter restrictions should they be needed.“It’s worth remembering that it does take about a fortnight for any new restrictions to affect the levels of hospital admissions. So the pattern of admissions over the next fortnight has already been set.“So in terms of restrictions, we should bring them in at pace if we need them. But Trust leaders understand why, the government having set a very high threshold, that threshold has not been crossed.”Mr Hopson said that NHS trusts will make use of all existing capacity within hospitals before moving to fill beds in surge hubs located in car parks outside.“As we saw when we expanded our surge capacity last January, we will obviously use existing facilities inside hospitals like, for example, wards that we use for elective care patients,” he said.“If necessary, we’ll move into operating theatres and anaesthetic areas to treat patients should we see this real surge of older patients.“The hubs are there to have super-surge capacity on top of that, so we really would be in an emergency if we were having to use them. And therefore we would have to use an emergency staffing model.“We’re very clear in the NHS, we don’t have the existing staff to be able to staff these beds. So we would have to go into an emergency mode.“We would be asking colleagues who’ve recently retired, we’d be asking colleagues from the voluntary sector and experienced volunteers to come in and help.“The important thing to understand is that we wouldn’t be using these hubs for the most critically ill patients. What we would be doing is we would be using those for patients who effectively were over the worst, who were heading towards discharge to home. Their needs still would be significant needs but they clearly wouldn’t be the same needs as the most seriously ill patients. So it really is about an emergency staffing.”The decision to locate surge hubs in car parks, rather than using conference centres and exhibition halls as was done during the first wave of Covid in 2020, meant that senior clinicians can swiftly be called in if a patient needs highly expert attention at short notice. More

Boris Johnson has “made a mockery” of the standards expected of him, Labour has said, amid reports he is set to be cleared again of breaching the ministerial code over the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat.The Financial Times reported that the PM’s behaviour will be “criticised”, with ministerial standards adviser Lord Geidt describing the situation to colleagues as “deeply unsatisfactory”.But the newspaper said it was understood Mr Johnson would be cleared of breaching the code.It quoted a senior official as saying: “Geidt makes clear the situation is a total mess. But at the same time the fundamental conclusion is that the PM did not deceive and did not break the ministerial code.”Lord Geidt previously cleared Mr Johnson of breaching the code in relation to the funding of the flat refurbishment but has since re-examined his initial investigation in the wake of a recent Electoral Commission probe, the FT said.The commission fined the Conservatives £17,800 after finding the party had not followed the law over donations from Lord Brownlow to help cover the works at the flat above Number 11. More

All eligible adults in England have been offered a Covid-19 booster vaccine, the government has said – apparently meeting the target announced by Boris Johnson earlier this month.In further good news for the vaccine programme 90 per cent of all adults aged over 12 have now had their first injection following a surge in demand .The NHS has dramatically stepped up its vaccination drive in the last few weeks in a bid to increase protection against the omicron wave, which is seeing record case numbers reported across the UK.To speed up the process the health service oversaw the opening of 180 new vaccine sites in December, drafted in 750 armed forces personnel, and scrapped the 15-minute post-jab observation period in a bid to get more vaccine into arms. In his New Year message Boris Johnson boasted that the UK’s “position this December the 31st is incomparably better than last year” and said people had “responded heroically, voluntarily, and in almost incredible numbers to the call to get vaccinated”.Speaking directly to people who were yet to get a booster shot, Mr Johnson added: “Look at the people going into hospital now, that could be you.“Look at the intensive care units and the miserable, needless suffering of those who did not get their booster, that could be you.” He said people should make it their New Year’s resolution to get their jabs. Ministers have however admitted that many people had not been offered jabs because they would have to wait 28 days after being infected with Covid to get one. 7 in 10 eligible adults have had their booster already, accounting for 28.1 million people. The government says there are “hundreds of thousands” of appointment slots still available between now and Monday 3 January, with “millions” more slots available beyond 3 January.In a statement, health secretary Sajid Javid said the UK’s programme was “world-leading”, adding: “I am delighted to confirm we have hit our target of offering a COVID-19 booster to all adults by the New Year. “I am incredibly proud of the work the NHS has done to accelerate the programme and offer my thanks to the frontline staff, volunteers, Armed Forces and British public who have made it possible for us to meet this commitment.”Mr Javid added that it was “never too late to come forward for you vaccine”, stating: “The NHS is ready for you and has been working around the clock for over a year to jab more than 90% of the UK population, an incredible 51.7 million jabs.” More

The Welsh government has agreed to loan English NHS four million Covid test kits to help relieve a shortage.Speaking on Thursday, first minister Mark Drakeford said Wales had a “significant stock” of lateral flow tests and was willing to share – amid pressure on supplies.It comes after UK health secretary Sajid Javid said a shortfall of kits caused by surging demand and supply chain issues could last weeks.In a letter sent to MPs, Mr Javid admitted that “huge demand” meant there would be a “need to constrain the system at certain points over the next two weeks to manage supply”.Mr Javid was urged by his Labour opposite number on Thursday night to prioritise available tests for key workers – similar to the approach taken in Scotland.Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said in a letter that the government should put “the workers we have relied upon for the past two years to the front of the queue and do everything you can to prevent a staffing shortage crisis in our NHS”.He added that the prime minister’s advice for the public to get tested before attending parties on New Year’s Eve was running up against the fact that “tests have been unavailable in much of England for the past few days”.In his own statement on Wednesday, Mr Drakeford said: “Demand for PCR tests and for lateral flow devices continues to rise and has reached new record levels. “Wales has a significant stock of lateral flow tests, sufficient to meet our needs over the weeks ahead.”The Welsh Labour chief added: “The Health Minister has agreed today to loan a further four million such tests to the English NHS, bringing that mutual aid to 10 million lateral flow tests.“Distribution of lateral flow test kits through home delivery and pharmacies remains the responsibility of the UK government and we are working with it, as it increases the capacity of the system.”The UK government has placed at-home rapid testing at the centre of its strategy to fight Covid, alongside vaccination – but their growing scarcity is causing problems.People unable to find a test have to isolate for around 40 per cent longer under government rules, staying at home for 10 days instead of seven.It comes as concern mounts about staff shortages across the economy, including in the NHS and on public transport – with Victoria Station in London already closed to its main operator due to a shortage of train crews.Yet the NHS website has faced rolling shortages and pharmacists in high-demand areas have largely been out of stock.The government says it has taken steps to increase the supply of tests, with 300 million expected to be delivered in January, up from an original order of 100 million.The UK government has so far declined to impose new Covid restrictions on people in England, putting it increasingly out of line with countries on the continent, as well as the other home nations. More

The supply of at-home lateral flow Covid tests will be “constrained” in the coming weeks, the health secretary has said. In a letter sent to MPs on Wednesday evening Sajid Javid said the public should continue to take tests when coming into contact with vulnerable people or doing risky activities.But he admitted: “In light of the huge demand for LFDs seen over the last three weeks, we expect to need to constrain the system at certain points over the next two weeks to manage supply over the course of each day, with new tranches of supply released regularly throughout each day.”Mr Javid said MPs should instruct concerned constituents unable to find kits in the normal way to “see whether their local authority is distributing tests” or to check community facilities such as libraries.“I would like to thank your constituents for their continued understanding and patience during this unprecedented time,” he said.The government has placed at-home rapid testing at the centre of its strategy to fight Covid, alongside vaccination – but their growing scarcity is causing problems.People unable to find a test have to isolate for around 40 per cent longer under government rules, staying at home for 10 days instead of seven.It comes amid concern about staff shortages across the economy, including in the NHS and on public transport – with Victoria Station in London already closed to its main operator due to a shortage of train crews.Yet the NHS website has faced rolling shortages and pharmacists in high-demand areas have largely been out of stock.The government says it has taken steps to increase the supply of tests, with 300 million expected to be delivered in January, up from an original order of 100 million. The UK government has so far declined to impose new Covid restrictions on people in England, putting it increasingly out of line with countries on the continent, as well as the other home nations. More

Downing Street aides have reportedly been asked to attend formal interviews as part of an inquiry into lockdown parties at No.10.Special advisors and civil servants are among though set to be hauled in for questioning, with one government source telling the Times newspaper the people in question were “pissing themselves”.Sue Gray, the civil servant leading the inquiry, has emailed more than a dozen people about the grilling.She took over the inquiry after Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, recused himself following revelations that his own office hosted a similar gathering to the ones he was tasked with investigating.Mr Case, who was appointed to his job by Boris Johnson, admitted he was aware of the bash, but said he did not participate in it.Aides thought to have attended parties include Jack Doyle, the PM’s director of communications, who is said to have addressed staff and handed out awards last Christmas on 18 December.Claimed gatherings include a flat party at No.10 on 13 November hosted by Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie; a leaving do for aide Cleo Watson on 27 November; and a “festive” No.10 quiz in December featuring the prime minister.On 14 December Conservatives also partied in the basement of the organisation’s headquarters with a full buffet, while a few days late4 on 18 December No.10 held its alleged Christmas party.Photographs have also emerged of the prime minister and colleagues being served cheese and wine in the No.10 garden during the first lockdown when even outdoor social gatherings were banned. More