Afternoon summary
That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.
Ombudsman's report into Waspi women brings prospect of compensation closer
The SNP has welcomed a report from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman saying that the Department for Work and Pensions failed to properly inform women that they would be affected by a decision in 1995 to raise the state pension age. The party, which has been campaigning for some years on behalf of the so-called Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) said the report “exposes multiple failings and instances of maladministration”.
A summary of the report is here, and the full document is here (pdf).
Having established that there was maladministration, the ombudsman will now go on to consider if there was an injustice, and what remedies could be put in place. It cannot reinstate lost pensions, but it could recommend compensation.
David Linden MP, the SNP’s work and pensions spokesman, said:
The ombudsman has been damning of the DWP’s handling of communications relating to state pension age increases, effectively finding that ministers continued to take the same action despite knowing it wasn’t working and that women were being left in the dark about their retirement.
Women born in the 1950’s have suffered a huge injustice which has now been recognised by the ombudsman; they have been robbed of the retirement they deserve and I hope that the full impact of this is recognised by the ombudsman as he continues his work.
Liverpool mayor Joanne Anderson tests positive for coronavirus
Joanne Anderson, the mayor of Liverpool, has tested positive for Covid, the Liverpool Echo reports.
A council statement said that the mayor has contracted the virus even though she was following social distancing guidelines, wearing a face covering, and had received both doses of the Covid vaccination.
In her own statement, Anderson said:
I’m feeling tired at the moment, but I’m relieved that I made sure that I was fully vaccinated as soon as possible or the symptoms could have been much worse.
On Twitter she added that she was glad to have had both jabs.
Feeling very lucky to have had both jabs.
— Joanne Anderson (@MayorLpool) July 20, 2021
I urge everyone to keep being sensible and to get the vaccine as soon as you can so we can keep each other safe.
Vaccine drop-ins: https://t.co/HwoeRMfFyO https://t.co/K3IwGBJ6s2
Updated
Johnson renews call for EU to show 'pragmatism' over Northern Ireland protocol
Boris Johnson has been speaking this afternoon to Micheál Martin, his Irish opposite number. The UK and the Irish governments are at loggerheads at the moment over two issues of crucial importance to the people on the island of Ireland - the Northern Ireland protocol, and the proposed amnesty for Troubles-related offences - and even though No 10 telephone call readouts are famously bland, this one does not hide the difficulties.
These summaries normally focus on the points on which the two leaders agreed, but this statement just talks about them agreeing to work together to tackle Covid.
On the Northern Ireland protocol, it says:
The prime minister emphasised that the way the protocol is currently operating is causing significant disruption for the people in Northern Ireland.
He made clear the UK government’s commitment to protecting the Belfast (Good Friday) agreement in all its dimensions. He said the EU must show pragmatism and solutions needed to be found to address the serious challenges that have arisen with the protocol.
The prime minister said that the UK government would outline its approach on the Northern Ireland protocol to parliament tomorrow.
And on the proposed statute of limitations (No 10 is not calling it an amnesty, even though that is what it is), it says:
The leaders also discussed the UK’s proposals, published last week, on addressing the legacy on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The prime minister stressed that the current focus on criminal justice is not working for anyone and looked forward to further engagement with the Irish government, parties in Northern Ireland and others on the UK’s proposals.
Updated
UK records 96 further coronavirus deaths - highest daily total for almost four months
The UK has recored 96 further coronavirus deaths, according to the latest update to the government’s coronavirus dashboard. That is the highest daily total on this measure for almost four months (since 24 March, when 98 deaths were recorded). And the total number of deaths over the past week is up 60.6% on the total for the previous week.
There have also been 46,558 new cases. Week on week, new cases are up 40.7%.
For the second day in a row, the number of new cases is bigger than the number of first doses of vaccine administered yesterday (35,670). With 88% of the UK adult population now vaccinated with at least one dose, some slowing in the rate at which first doses are being administered would be expected.
Updated
On the World at One Justin Madders, a shadow health minister, suggested that Labour might vote against plans to make vaccine passports mandatory for people wanting to go to a nightclub. The party would have to look at the legislation before taking a final decision, he said. But he said:
We’ve been very clear from the outset that we consider requiring vaccine passports as a condition of entry discriminatory against those people who may not be able to have the vaccine. And of course, as we know at the moment, actually having the vaccine is no guarantee that you are not carrying the virus ....
There is a real concern that if we move into this without any testing as a backup it creates a very unfair situation, also creates a very dangerous situation, because it creates a false sense of security that actually they are protected when they might not be.
Three more thinktanks have joined those criticising the proposal to use a national insurance increase to fund social care reform. (See 10.11am and 11.09am.)
This is from Charlotte Pickles, head of Reform, a centrist thinktank.
This is a regressive step - requiring shrinking & on average poorer younger generations to pay for care of growing & largely wealthier older generations
— Charlotte Pickles (@ce_pickles) July 20, 2021
At a minimum must mean pensioners paying NI & asset-rich paying fair contribution https://t.co/OzEqwjRiIY
This is from James Kirkup, director of the Social Market Foundation, another non-partisan thinktank.
Politicians face a difficult truth: there is no easy way to fund a social care system which has suffered from decades of neglect, with too many people facing the prospect of a catastrophic lottery of care costs and quality.
It is in the interest of all generations to reach an equitable solution, but raising national insurance contributions fails to meet that mark and breaks the contract between generations. A NI increase passes the buck to poorer, working families who have suffered significant financial hardship during the pandemic, whilst protecting the wealth of asset-rich older voters.
With an estimated £10bn required to plug the funding gap, the SMF has recommended a one-off “payment at 65” for those with household assets of more than £150,000 per adult. This levy would cap the cost of care for the elderly whilst also ensuring that workers don’t have to bear the burden of funding social care.
And these are from Miatta Fahnbulleh, head of the New Economics Foundation, which is on the left.
We absolutely need serious investment in #socialcare. But hiking #nationalinsurance in its current form will disproportionately hit the young and millions of people already struggling to make ends meet.
— Miatta Fahnbulleh (@Miatsf) July 20, 2021
(1/3) https://t.co/f1geW2nd0y
We need a proper plan to fund social care that shares the burden between generations and asks those that can most afford to to pay their fair share: Time to unpick the pensions #triplelock.
— Miatta Fahnbulleh (@Miatsf) July 20, 2021
(2/3)
If the prize is a properly funded universal social care system, everyone should pay their share.
— Miatta Fahnbulleh (@Miatsf) July 20, 2021
How we can fund our health system fairly: https://t.co/Q8p0dax6kH
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative party leader, has told MPs that he is under threat from China. Speaking in the Commons, during an urgent question about the about the Chinese state-backed Microsoft Exchange hack, Duncan Smith said:
I understand now there is intelligence from the Five Eyes sources that there is now a very active and direct threat from the Chinese government aimed directly at the co-chairs of the inter-parliamentary alliance on China.
Some of these co-chairs, of which I am one, have now been warned by their intelligence services in receipt of this that they should be very careful and that they will be supported.
Earlier this year Duncan Smith was one of five parliamentarians sanctioned by China in response to their criticisms of its human rights record.
China has rejected claims from the UK and its allies that it is implicated in the Microsoft Exchange hack. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London said
The Chinese side is gravely concerned and strongly opposed to this.
We call on the UK side to immediately stop echoing the groundless and irresponsible accusation against China.
China is a staunch defender of cyber security and a main victim of cyber thefts and attacks.
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon has obliquely chided her deputy, John Swinney, for tweeting a graphic wrongly stating that face coverings could cut Covid transmission by 100%, but she said he was trying to illustrate a valid point that masks were protective.
Swinney came under heavy criticism on Monday after tweeting an unsourced and contested graphic that said if two people wearing face masks are 2 metres apart, that cuts virus transmission to zero. He has resisted calls from the Scottish Conservatives and others to take the tweet down.
As we move to Level 0 in Scotland - marking good progress on our careful process of relaxing restrictions - this is a helpful graphic showing why we must use face coverings and keep our distance. #staysafe pic.twitter.com/AcyrEBmVgb
— John Swinney (@JohnSwinney) July 19, 2021
Sturgeon, questioned during her press briefing, said Swinney’s tweet “was intended to illustrate what is absolutely the case, that wearing face masks protects people from transmission of the virus”. She went on:
[And] I think the more we can illustrate that point the better. What I would say in addition to that is we recognise that in seeking to illustrate that, we should take care to use properly verified graphics and we will certainly take that on board in terms when we tweet that information in future.
Nicola Steadman, Scotland’s deputy chief medical officer, said during the briefing the evidence on this was “incredibly complex”. It partly depended on the type of mask people were wearing, implying general use face masks were not sufficient. She said tests of this hypothesis were done in laboratories, not in the real world.
A similar graphic, widely-circulated on social media in different parts of the world, was factchecked last year by the news agency Reuters. It said its claims were unsubstantiated and “partly false”.
Reuters said the US Centers for Disease Control had found no evidence to substantiate the data repeated in Swinney’s graphic.
Updated
Main Northern Ireland parties unite to condemn Troubles amnesty plan at Stormont emergency sitting
All the main parties in the Northern Ireland assembly have backed a motion condemning the government’s plans for an effective amnesty for Troubles-related offences. MLAs (members of the legislative assembly) broke off their summer recess to return to Stormont for the emergency debate, where the motion was passed without opposition.
Nichola Mallon, the SDLP deputy leader opened the debate, on a motion tabled by her party, and she said the plans would allow “perpetrators - state and paramilitary - walk free and instead condemn the victims and their families to a lifetime of pain and suffering through the denial of hope, truth and justice”.
Mervyn Storey from the DUP said:
My party rejects these plans. The majority of murders were carried out by paramilitary terrorist organisations. The secretary of state seems to have chosen a path which finds equivalence between the soldier and police officer, and those who planted the bomb or pulled the trigger. This is morally reprehensible.
Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin deputy first minister, said that because of the extend of their interference with due legal process, the plan “actually places the British government to the right of Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile”.
Naomi Long, the Alliance party leader, said the government was planning “what is in effect a full amnesty for all those who committed murders and atrocities during the Troubles, whether in uniform or in terrorist organisations”.
And Doug Beattie, the Ulster Unionist party leader, said:
We have been quite clear that the soldier, the policeman, a terrorist, a member of the public or a politician - if you break the law, then you should face the law.
And everybody deserves the opportunity to get justice. It doesn’t mean they always will, but we cannot take away that hope.
Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA
Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, has announced plans to publish a white paper on prison reform. In a speech to the Centre for Social Justice this morning, he said:
I can announce today our ambition to publish a prisons white paper - to set a new direction of reform as the prison estate adapts to recent legislative changes, transitions from Covid-19 and begins to look to the future of criminal justice in England and Wales ...
Making a success of the white paper can and should mean protecting the public from the effects of crime in the short and longer term, while at the same time giving those who want a second chance the opportunity to change their lives for good.
Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed she is considering vaccine passports but warned that imposing them on specific places or activities presented ethical and civil liberty risks.
The first minister said during a media briefing on the Covid pandemic the potential benefits vaccine certificates could offer businesses had to be weighed “very carefully” against the risks they could be discriminatory or damage public support for voluntary vaccinations.
Boris Johnson has said the UK government is considering requiring vaccine passports for businesses such as nightclubs, to suppress transmission, but Sturgeon pointed out that under Scotland’s still tougher Covid rules, nightclubs were still closed north of the border. That was because they posed risks of wider transmission of the virus. She went on:
We haven’t taken a decision on whether or not to require vaccine passports in any particular setting. It’s something we’re considering over the next period.
I have said many times before that while there are arguments for requiring vaccination to enter certain places, it raises sensitive ethical and equity considerations, not least because there are some people who can’t be vaccinated because of health conditions.
Nicola Steadman, Scotland’s deputy chief medical officer, implied this morning there was little prospect of Scotland doing so. “We don’t believe in using coercion to encourage people to be vaccinated,” she told BBC Radio Scotland.
But despite confirming that approximately 500,000 adults in Scotland have not yet been vaccinated, including 30% of those aged 18 to 29, Sturgeon said that no new or special measures were being considered to drive up vaccination rates.
The latest data showed too that 20% of 30- to 39-year-olds in Scotland had also not yet had their first jab. Scotland recorded one of its lowest daily vaccination rates on Monday, with only 2,483 people getting their first jab.
Sturgeon said: “We will do everything we can to encourage people who haven’t been vaccinated to get vaccinated.”
That encouragement would rely on the current measures, she said, such as walk-in and mobile vaccination clinics; she said there were no plans to deploy more “ambassadors” to promote vaccination amongst younger adults.
Updated
Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
Updated
Steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta should still be allowed to control Liberty Steel despite concerns over poor corporate governance and opaque financing at his company, Kwasi Kwarteng has said. PA Media reports.
Kwarteng, the business secretary, told MPs he believes the businessman’s company GFG Alliance could raise the funds to save the firm.
But, he added, contingency plans are being drawn up should the government need to step in.
Gupta previously asked the government for a £170m grant in March to support Liberty Steel, but this was rejected due to concerns the money would be used to pay down debts at GFG rather than through reinvestment in the steel business.
Gupta’s GFG Alliance, a loose collection of industrial companies linked to Gupta and his family, has faced criticism from MPs over its financial arrangements and its relationship with Greensill Capital, which collapsed last year.
Johnson to delay social care reform plans until autumn
Boris Johnson is delaying plans to fix the crumbling social care system until the autumn, after negotiations foundered with the three key players isolating, my colleagues Heather Stewart and Rowena Mason report.
No 10 says no list planned saying which critical workers can benefit from isolation exemption
Here are the main lines from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
- No 10 said that decisions about which “critical workers” will be allowed to use testing as an alternative to isolation if they have contact with someone testing positive would be decided on a case by case basis. The government has said health and social care workers will be allowed to use testing as an alternative to isolation, and at his press conference last night Boris Johnson said some other critical workers would get an exemption. But today the PM’s spokesman said the government would not be producing a definitive list of who counts as a critical worker. Asked how people would be chosen for the scheme, he said:
It’s not a blanket exemption and my understanding is we’re not going to be producing a list covering individual sectors, these business-critical areas will be able to apply for exemptions to their host departments.
There won’t be a list covering individual sectors ... it’s important that anyone who feels they’re in a critical industry or wants to raise potential issues because of isolation are able to contact departments and get advice and where necessary get exemptions.
Asked if supermarket workers would be included, the spokesman said:
We’re not seeking to draw lines specifically around who or who is not exempt. What’s important is to make sure critical services are able to function and get that balance right between requiring people to isolate ... but also making sure critical services can function.
The spokesman also refused to say how many people were likely to take advantage of the new system, which will apply until 16 August, when the government plans to allow all fully-vaccinated people to use regular testing as an alternative to isolation.
- The spokesman described reports that the government will raise national insurance to fund reforms to social care (see 10.11am and 11.09am) as “speculation”. He said:
There’s continued speculation but I’m simply not going to be engaged with that speculation. The process for agreeing our proposals is still ongoing. We will set that out before the end of the year.
In Whitehall media-speak, “speculation” is often the term deployed by press officers to describe a story that is wholly or substantially true but not due to be announced until a later date.
- The spokesman suggested that, even if vaccine take-up increases significantly among the young, the government will still go ahead with its plan to make vaccine certificates mandatory for people going to nightclubs from September. But he said exemptions would be available for people unable to get vaccinated for medical reasons.
- The spokesman did not rule out extending the mandatory use of vaccine passports to pubs. Asked if this might happen, the spokesman said:
The prime minister talked about the sort of areas we were considering, and nightclubs are where there is significant evidence we have at the moment. But we’re going to use the coming weeks to look at the evidence, particularly both in the UK and globally before making a specific decision.
- The spokesman denied Dominic Cummings’ claim that Johnson wanted to visit the Queen in person last month as Covid cases were soaring, but had to be dissuaded by Cummings. “This didn’t happen and we’ve been clear about that,” the spokesman said.
Updated
Sturgeon takes swipe at PM saying any leader 'glib about human life' should consider if they are fit for office
This is what Nicola Sturgeon said at her press conference when asked about the Boris Johnson text implying that he would prefer to see many old people die than order a second lockdown last autumn. (See 9.36am.)
She expressed some element of scepticism about what Johnson may have actually meant by a text he sent to aides last October (the actual wording of which has not been denied by No 10), but she still managed to criticise him over it implicitly. It was artfully done. She said:
I don’t know what Boris Johnson said or didn’t say in relation to the allegations from Dominic Cummings, so it’s probably not appropriate for me to comment in detail on that, other than to be a two things.
Firstly, nobody, and certainly nobody in a position like mine or Boris Johnson’s, should be glib or complacent about human life, whether that’s the human life of a child, a young adult or an older adult. Human life is human life and as decision makers, it has been a heavy responsibility on all of our shoulders to try to take decisions that we recognise cannot save every person from this virus, but that minimises the impact of it.
I think any leader who doesn’t take that seriously should be asking themselves questions about whether they are fit for for office.
But I don’t know what Boris Johnson’s comments were, so I’m not going to go further ...
I’ve been a critic of Dominic Cummings in the past when he’s said certain things so I’m not going to suddenly decide he speaks gospel on everything. I would be a bit sceptical about some of what he is saying and probably should leave it there as a result.
At her press conference, asked about the latest allegations from Dominic Cummings, Nicola Sturgeon says she does not want to comment in detail, because she does not know exactly what was said.
But she says no leader should be “glib or complacent about human life”.
She says any leader who does think in these terms should consider whether they are fit for office.
But she goes on to stress that she does not know exactly what Boris Johnson said. And he says she has been a critic of Cummings in the past, so she is not going to treat everything he says as gospel.
Sturgeon says she is urging JCVI to keep case for vaccinating all teenagers under review
Sturgeon is now talking about the JCVI advice on vaccinating teenagers.
She says the Scottish government is following its advice.
But she says other countries are all vaccinating 12 to 17-year-olds, and not just those most vulnerable (as the JCVI is advising). She says Scotland’s chief medical officer is writing to the JCVI asking it to keep the case for vaccinating all 12 to 17-year-olds.
If the JCVI does change its advice, she says the Scottish government wants to be able to start vaccinating teenagers quickly.
Turning to vaccines, Sturgeon says about 90% of adults have had at least one dose, and more than two thirds have had a second dose too.
She says the take-up has been remarkable, and higher than was expected.
But every person who does not get vaccinated leaves a vulnerability against the virus, she says.
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon's press conference
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is holding her press briefing.
She starts with the latest case numbers.
NS: "1,604 positive cases were reported yesterday - 9.2% of all of tests carried out.
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 20, 2021
That takes the total number of confirmed cases now to 332,455.
There are 529 people receiving hospital treatment - which is 7 fewer than yesterday."
NS: "And 47 people are in intensive care, which is 2 more than yesterday.
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 20, 2021
And sadly, a further 13 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, which means that the total number of deaths registered, under the daily definition, is now 7,813."
More than 1 million pupils in England out of school last week for Covid-related reasons, DfE figures show
More than 1 million children in England were out of school for Covid-related reasons last week, according to the latest figures from the Department for Education.
The absent pupils account for 14.3% of the total, up from 11.2% the previous week (8 July) and from 8.5% the week before (1 July).
The data shows that on Thursday 15 July:
774,000 pupils (10.6% of the total) were isolating because of contact with someone at school testing positive.
160,000 pupils (2.2%) were isolating because of contact with someone outside school testing positive.
47,000 pupils (0.6%) were off school with a confirmed case of coronavirus.
35,000 pupils (0.5%) were off school because their school was closed for Covid-related reasons.
34,000 pupils (0.5%) were off school with a suspected case of coronavirus.
Last week the equivalent figures showed more than 800,000 pupils out of class for Covid-related reasons.
Updated
In his text message from October, shown to the BBC, Boris Johnson said the median age for people dying of Covid was above life expectancy. This led him to joke: “So get Covid and live longer.” (See 9.36am.)
The main objection to this text, of course, is the implied tolerance of large numbers of elderly people dying as a result of the policy approach Johnson was contemplating. But Stuart McDonald, an actuary and a member of the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group, says Johnson also got his life expectancy figures muddled up.
Oh Boris!
— stuart mcdonald (@ActuaryByDay) July 19, 2021
There’s a lot wrong with this. For one thing he compared median to mean, but crucially he’s wrongly using life expectancy (LE) at birth.
LE at age 80 is 9yrs for men and 10yrs for women
LE at age 90 is 4yrs for men and 5yrs for women
ONS 👉 https://t.co/CM5WO7hBXV pic.twitter.com/xF2TxlPtvI
McDonald has explained the problem in more detail in a blog here.
Updated
Northern Ireland's chief scientific adviser 'very concerned' about vaccine take-up rates
Prof Ian Young, Northern Ireland’s chief scientific adviser, has said he is very concerned at stalled vaccine rates.
As PA Media reports, almost 82% of adults have received a first dose of the jab in Northern Ireland, compared to 87.8% in England, 89.8% in Scotland, 90.5% in Wales by July 18. Of the 18-29 age group, just 56% have come forward for the vaccine.
Young told the BBC he was “very concerned” about these figures. He said:
There’s still around 18% of adults who have not come forward for the first dose of their vaccine.
And that means 18% of people who are just as susceptible to the most severe effects of Covid as they were earlier in the epidemic and at just the same risk of severe illness, long-term illness in the form of long Covid, hospital admission and death.
Yesterday Northern Ireland recorded more than 1,700 cases for the first time since January.
EasyJet has said it expects to fly around 60% of its pre-pandemic flight programme over the summer quarter, up from 17% in the previous three months, thanks to easing travel restrictions and rising demand, PA Media reports. PA says:
It said the reopening of travel in continental Europe and easing of restrictions for the fully vaccinated in the UK will drive a marked rebound in demand in its fourth quarter to 30 September.
The carrier said it is boosting flights to 74 countries on the so-called amber list - such as Spain, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus - after the government announced on 8 July that fully vaccinated passengers will be able to fly back from these countries without quarantine.
EasyJet’s trading update for the three months to 30 June showed it narrowed headline pre-tax losses by 8.2% to £318.3m, which was in line with its expectations, as cost-cutting helped limit the ongoing hit from the pandemic.
The Office for National Statistics says 183 of the 9,752 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending Friday 9 July, or 1.9%, involved coronavirus. The previous week there were 109 coronavirus deaths, accounting for 1.2% of the weekly total.
Tax experts express doubts about fairness of using national insurance to fund social care reform
This is what some of the best economic commentators are saying about the proposal to fund social care reform through a national insurance rise. Generally they think other means of raising the money would be fairer.
Nick Macpherson, a former permanent secretary at the Treasury, suggests national insurance is the wrong tax to raise.
Rentiers and trustifarians won't have to pay a penny. And the low paid young will subsidise the wealthy old. Higher spending does require higher taxes. But national insurance is a regressive tax on jobs. #soundmoney https://t.co/1GZ9xTYon7
— Nick Macpherson (@nickmacpherson2) July 20, 2021
Torsten Bell, a former Labour adviser and chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said the plan is a terrible one.
Our social care system is a national disgrace – and the government is right to recognise it needs more funding, and right to say that achieving this means higher taxes.
However, raising National Insurance is a terrible way to go about this. It asks younger and lower-paid workers to contribute more than older and wealthier people, compared to a fairer rise in income tax.
Why we would do that having just lived through a pandemic that has increased wealth but hit young low earners hard, is a question to which no-one has a good answer.
Helen Miller, head of tax at the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, has posted a twitter thread in which she argues that using national insurance to find the money for social care reform could be seen as “deeply unfair” to the young. It starts here.
NICs is skewed towards younger, poorer people getting income from employment rather than running a business or investing.
— Helen Miller (@HelenMiller_IFS) July 20, 2021
I’d like to see the poll showing this is how voters want social care to be paid for
Here’s a list of specific issues with NICs:
1/n
And this is her conclusion.
If the govt goes ahead with using NICs to fund social care it would not only be arguably deeply unfair across generations but would be a missed opportunity to reform NICs.
— Helen Miller (@HelenMiller_IFS) July 20, 2021
For those wanting to swot up, there’s an explainer of NICs here: https://t.co/mbEf0pjca8
end
Edward Troup, a former permanent secretary at HM Revenue & Customs, says the government could make its plan fairer by including pensioners in national insurance.
If Sunak chooses a National Insurance increase to pay for social care it will not be for want of Treasury advice on the unfairness of a tax rise that excludes pensioners.
— Edward Troup (@edwardtroup) July 20, 2021
What better opportunity to remove the age limit on NICs and apply it to all income? #youknowitmakessense
Tim Pitt, a former adviser to Philip Hammond and Sajid Javid when they were at the Treasury, has posted a Twitter thread explaining why the politics makes raising national insurance easier than raising income tax or VAT.
Lots of people pointing out that from a policy perspective there are better options to fund social care than a NICs rise. True. But that needs to be weighed against the nightmarish prospect of getting Tory MPs to vote for any of them. QUICK THREAD.
— Tim Pitt (@TimPitt11) July 20, 2021
But Pitt also favours getting pensioners to pay national insurance if the government is going to implement this policy.
So an extension to pensioners should be strongly considered. And if no extension is forthcoming then it certainly strengthens the (already strong case) against implementing the triple lock this year.
— Tim Pitt (@TimPitt11) July 20, 2021
But Richard Murphy, the accountant and tax justice campaigner, says raising national insurance would be the worst of the options available.
Of all the options available to pay for social care national insurance is easily the worst https://t.co/K9wqmDY3F7 The government wants to penalise the young, employers and those who work to pay for social care when the wealthy should be picking up the bill, if anyone does
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) July 20, 2021
No 10 insists it is 'crucial' for people to isolate when pinged, in rebuke to minister who implied otherwise
Downing Street has in effect slapped down Paul Scully, the business minister, for suggesting it is acceptable for people to ignore a request from the NHS Covid app to isolate. (See 9.25am.) A No 10 spokeswoman said:
Isolation remains the most important action people can take to stop the spread of the virus.
Given the risk of having and spreading the virus when people have been in contact with someone with Covid it is crucial people isolate when they are told to do so, either by NHS Test and Trace or by the NHS covid app.
Businesses should be supporting employees to isolate, they should not be encouraging them to break isolation.
This suggests that Scully, and his business minister colleague Gerry Grimstone, were freelancing when they started pointing out that people could ignore the app, and not peddling an agreed No 10 line.
At his press conference yesterday Boris Johnson stressed the importance of isolation as a means of controlling Covid, saying it was “one of the few shots we have got left in our locker”.
(That is because Johnson left the locker relatively empty when he took England to step 4 of the roadmap out of lockdown on Monday, abandoning some of the measures still in force in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.)
Updated
Prof Sir Jonathan Montgomery, who chaired the ethics advisory board for NHSx on its contact tracing app, told Times Radio this morning that he thought the government should give clearer advice to people as to when they did or didn’t need to follow a request from the app to isolate. He explained:
When we had no protection the risk was the same for everybody. If that risk is now reduced because someone is double vaccinated it feels as though we need more sophisticated advice.
If we are visiting an elderly relative or a cancer patient then take the ping seriously but, if you are doing something relatively Covid-friendly then maybe make a different decision.
The government needs to do more to help us make better decisions.
Labour expresses doubts about proposed national insurance hike to fund social care, saying plan should be fair to all age and income groups
As my colleague Jessica Elgot reports, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are considering increasing national insurance – in what might be described as a as a social care and health levy – to fund an overhaul of social care.
According to the Times (paywall), Johnson is expected to increase national insurance contributions (NICs) by 1p in the pound, for both employers and employees, to raise £10bn a year.
This has not been confirmed yet and, although Johnson was reportedly hoping to announce the policy this week, the fact that he, Sunak and Sajid Javid, the health secretary, are all isolating because Javid has coronavirus has made that less likely.
Nevertheless, if this is the plan, it will probably be the most consequential non-Covid decision taken by Johnson since he agree the Brexit deal. It would be a significant spending pledge, with the potential to address a problem that has been left untouched for decades, but also one fraught with political risk. Theresa May’s popularity was permanently damaged when her 2017 election plans for social care reform were backfired, Labour’s plans for a tax to improve social care cost it support before the 2010 general election, and it is hard to see how Johnson could unveil the plan he reportedly favours without breaking his election promise not to raise the rate of national insurance.
(Johnson may try to argue that this is not national insurance, but a different, hypothecated levy, but if it looks like national insurance and functions like national insurance, many voters are likely to conclude that that is what it is.)
Pat McFadden, a shadow Treasury minister, told Sky News this morning that Labour would judge the new plan by whether it was fair to all income groups and to people of all ages. He said:
There’s been a social care problem in the country for many, many years. We know we’ve got to fix it, the Covid pandemic has shown us the problems in the system, and we understand that’s got to be paid for.
And again, with a tax proposal, which has been briefed to one or two newspapers, the best way to judge it is on two criteria.
One: does it really fix the problem in social care? And secondly, is it fair to people of all ages, and all income groups? And at the moment, we’ve got one story briefed, but we’ve had this quite a few times, so again, on this, it’s better to wait to see what the proposal is.
But if we’re going to affect social care in this country, it will have to be paid for.
I think any proposal, as I said, has to be fair to all income groups and people of all ages.
This implies that Labour is readying itself to oppose the plan. National insurance is not fair to all age groups, because pensioners do not pay it, and it is less fair to all income groups than income tax. Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, explains why in a Twitter thread starting here.
This is 1) predictable 2) a terrible idea https://t.co/fxhc0qh2Xn
— Torsten Bell (@TorstenBell) July 19, 2021
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Minister dismisses claim text shows PM was willing to sacrifice over-80s to Covid
And here are some more lines from Paul Scully’s interviews this morning.
- Scully, the business minister, rejected suggestions that Boris Johnson was willing to sacrifice the over-80s to Covid last year - although he did not deny that Johnson sent the text on which this claim was made. The text has been revealed by Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser, who has given a long interview to the BBC. As our story on the interview says, Johnson sent a text to aides in October saying:
I must say I have been slightly rocked by some of the data on Covid fatalities. The median age is 82 – 81 for men 85 for women. That is above life expectancy. So get Covid and live longer. Hardly anyone under 60 goes into hospital (4 per cent) and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff. Folks I think we may need to recalibrate.
Asked if this meant Johnson was prepared to sacrifice the over-80s, Scully told the Today programme:
I don’t think that’s right.
The prime minister has had some really difficult decisions to make.
We want to protect people, clearly we want to keep people safe - we are - and that’s why we are looking at measures on what we do in the lead-up to the winter. But that has to be balanced with people’s livelihoods as well.
- Scully admitted that her personally was uncomfortable with the plan to require people visiting nightclubs from September to show proof of Covid vaccination. Asked about the plan, he said:
I’m not comfortable that government is mandating anything frankly, I’m a very libertarian Conservative, I want to be able to back off, that’s why yesterday was an opportunity for government to back off from so many different things and let people live their lives.
But what we have to do is make sure that people will also live their lives safely, the NHS can function safely, and these are the challenges that we still have to do. So it’s incredibly frustrating, it’s incredibly complicated to work through the detail, but that’s the challenge we have.
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Minister stresses people pinged by NHS app can choose not to isolate
Good morning. Business leaders have become increasingly concerned about the so-called “pingdemic” caused by increasing numbers of people being told to isolate because they have been in contact with someone testing positive. Last night Boris Johnson said that critical workers would be exempt, and would be allowed to use regular testing instead provided they are fully vaccinated. (We are due to get the list today saying who will count as a critical worker.) But this morning Paul Scully, the business minister, offered an alternative solution; you can always ignore a ping from the NHS Covid app, he pointed out.
Scully was able to say this because, while an instruction to isolate from NHS test and trace is a legal requirement, a ping from the app is just advisory. This was not a distinction that was widely advertised when the app was launched, but ministers now seem keen to highlight it.
Scully told Times Radio:
It’s important to understand the rules. You have to legally isolate if you are on the ... contacted by test and trace, or if you’re trying to claim isolation payments.
The app is there to give ... to allow you to make informed decisions. And I think by backing out of mandating a lot of things, we’re encouraging people to really get the data in their own hands to be able to make decisions on what’s best for them, whether they’re employer or an employee.
Asked whether this meant people should or should not self-isolate if pinged, Scully replied: “We want to encourage people to still use the app to be able to do the right thing, because we estimate it saves around 8,000 lives.” But he said it was “up to individuals and employers”.
As the Times’ Steven Swinford reports, Scully’s fellow business minister, Lord Grimstone, has also been making this point in a letter to employers.
Exclusive:
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) July 20, 2021
Ministers have written to major manufacturers emphasising that staff are not legally obliged to isolate if pinged by app
Lord Grimstone, investment minister, told one large employer that app was only an ‘advisory tool’ and that people were not under any ‘legal duty’
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.
9.30am: The ONS publishes its latest weekly death figures for England and Wales.
10.30am: Lord Bethell, the health minister, gives evidence to the Commons health committee about the NHS patient data sharing scheme.
10.45am: Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, gives evidence to the Commons business committee about the steel industry and domestic heating.
11.30am: Downing Street holds its daily lobby briefing.
11.30am: Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, gives a speech to the Centre for Social Justice.
12pm: The Department for Education publishes school attendance figures.
12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, holds a briefing.
12.30pm: A Foreign Office minister responds to a Commons urgent question about the Chinese state-backed Microsoft Exchange hack.
Politics Live has been a mix of Covid and non-Covid news recently and that is likely to be the case today. For more coronavirus developments, do follow our global Covid live blog.
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