Early evening summary
- Sir Keir Starmer has renewed his criticism of Boris Johnson’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying Johnson was “incapable of international leadership, just when we need it most”. (See 3.49pm.)
- Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has told MPs that the UK will not recognise the Taliban, but that it will engage with them. (See 4.58pm.) He also said there was a “clear difference” between the Taliban and terrorist groups like Isis-K and al-Qaida. He said:
There is clearly a difference between the Taliban and groups like Isis-K and al-Qaida and indeed, there is suspicion that the Abbey Gate attack from Isis-K, that part of the intention was to target the Taliban.
So clearly, the Taliban if it wants to be an effective administration of some sort, if it wants to avoid all of the disastrous mistakes made previously, they will have to live up to the assurances they have made to avoid Afghanistan becoming a harbour or safe haven for terrorism.
- Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has said that the NHS in England will be getting an extra £5.4bn over the next six months - but that this will not be enough to stop waiting lists continuing to rise before they fall. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will also get up to £1bn extra between them for health. (See 6.08pm.)
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England’s rate of new cases of coronavirus has started to rise once more, latest figures show. As PA Media reports, some 315.3 cases per 100,000 people were recorded in the seven days to September 2, the third day in a row the weekly rate has increased. PA says:
It means three of the four UK nations are now experiencing a jump in rates.
Scotland is continuing to see a sharp rise in numbers, with 796.3 cases per 100,000 people recorded in the seven days to September 2 - up week-on-week from 644.8.
One month earlier, on August 2, Scotland’s rate stood at just 142.8.
The rate for Wales currently stands at 479.6, up week-on-week from 411.8.
In both these nations, rates have been rising steadily for several weeks.
That’s all from me for tonight. But our Covid coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.
Updated
Javid says extra £5.4bn for NHS in England this year won't stop waiting lists getting worse before they improve
The Department of Health and Social Care has confirmed that the government is giving the NHS an extra £5.4bn to cover Covid costs over the next six months. (See 9.39am.) It says £1bn of this will cover the costs of catch-up operations that are needed because treatment was postponed during the pandemic.
These are the figures for England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will get up to £1bn in total under the usual Barnett rules.
The DHSC said the £5.4bn for England comprised: £2.8bn for Covid costs including infection control measures; £600m for day-to-day costs; £478m for enhanced hospital discharge; and £1.5bn for elective recovery, including £500m capital funding
But the DHSC also admitted that this money would not be enough to stop waiting lists rising before they start to fall. It said:
The waiting list for routine operations and treatments such as hip replacements and eye cataract surgery could potentially increase to as high as 13 million. While today’s extra £1bn funding will go some way to help reduce this number, waiting lists will rise before they improve as more people who didn’t seek care over the pandemic come forward.
£478m of this new funding has been dedicated to continue the hospital discharge programme so staff can ensure patients leave hospital as quickly and as safely as possible, with the right community or at-home support. This will free up thousands of extra beds and staff time to help the NHS recover services. The government has also invested £500 million in capital funding for extra theatre capacity and productivity-boosting technology, to increase the number of surgeries able to take place.
And Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said:
Today’s additional £5.4bn funding over the next 6 months is critical to ensuring the health service has what it needs to manage the ongoing pandemic and helping to tackle waiting lists.
We know waiting lists will get worse before they get better as people come forward for help, and I want to reassure you the NHS is open, and we are doing what we can to support the NHS to deliver routine operations and treatment to patients across the country.
At the weekend the Observer reported that the TUC wants the government to raise capital gains tax as an alternative to increasing national insurance to fund a more generous adult social care system. A reader asks by how much capital gains tax (CGT) rates would have to rise to get the £10bn or so that the government is looking for.
I asked the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but they told me they could not produce a sensible estimate quickly. But it would have to be a very big increase, they said. The total sum raised by capital gains tax at the moment is less than £9bn, they point out.
According to this government chart (pdf), a 1 percentage point increase in the main rate of capital gains tax would raise only about £10m.
Helen Miller, deputy director of the IFS, said that conventional increases to CGT would not be enough. “There are some useful reforms the government should make on capital gains taxes, and a good case for increasing rates (alongside making some changes to the base), but I think it is unrealistic to think they could raise enough to ‘fund social care’,” she told me.
However she did concede that you could raise much more serious sums of money by much radical changes to CGT (“eg, charge it on the rise in value of people’s main homes”).
And radical change is exactly what the TUC is proposing. In a report published at the weekend it quotes research suggesting that “equalising capital gains tax rates with income tax rates and removing exemptions could raise, on average, up to £17bn a year”. It is available here.
Updated
In her response to Dominic Raab, Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, also asked about emails. She said earlier today she checked, and hundreds of emails were still unanswered. She asked if people would be getting substantial replies by the end of today, or just holding replies.
She also said that overall what happened was “nothing short of a disaster” and that Raab should show some humility as he embarks on the task of repairing relationships.
Updated
Much of what Boris Johnson said in his Commons statement restated what he said to parliament in August, when there was an emergency recall of the Commons after the fall of Kabul, but what was new was the focus from MPs on the failure of government departments to answer emails from MPs about individual Afghans related to their constituents trying to escape to the UK. Johnson said all MPs would get a reply by the end of today. See 4.22pm.
This is from the Labour MP Abena Oppong-Asare, one of many MPs who raised this with Johnson. She says she will hold him to his promise.
Hundreds of my constituents' family members are still stuck in Afghanistan. This afternoon I asked the Prime Minister why I have not received a single substantive response to any of these cases?
— Abena Oppong-Asare MP (@abenaopp) September 6, 2021
He said every email will be answered today - and I will be holding him to this. pic.twitter.com/uYtQWpKsxZ
UK 'will not recognise Taliban, but we will engage', says Raab
Raab tells MPs that the UK “will not recognise the Taliban, but we will engage”.
He says, working with the international community, the UK wants to “exercise the maximum moderating influence on the Taliban that we possibly can”.
Boris Johnson has finished his Commons statement and Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, is addressing MPs now. It is unusual to have two ministerial statements, back to back, covering broadly the same topic, but Raab is updating MPs on his talks in Qatar and Pakistan last week.
Prof Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist from Imperial College London whose initial modelling was pivotal in Britain’s coronavirus response, has said he would not be surprised if the chief medical officers in the UK decide to go ahead with vaccinating healthy 12-15 year olds, despite the recent advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) that the margin of benefit, on health grounds alone, is too small to support vaccination of the entire age group.
Speaking at an online event hosted by the Institute for Government, Ferguson said it was an enormously difficult decision, adding there were arguments on both sides of the debate. Among them was, he noted, the argument that vaccinating younger people would drive down transmission and therefore help protect the vulnerable. “So long as you’re convinced that there is some individual-level benefit, then I think it’s valid to call in the population benefits,” he said.
Ferguson said he understood that the JCVI had been relatively conservative in its advice because of the small risk of a condition called myocarditis that appears to be linked to certain Covid jabs. He said:
I think the committee had some particular concerns about long-term follow-up data in terms of myocarditis associated with vaccination, and so took quite a conservative position, almost akin to a kind of medical regulator – which isn’t quite its role.
He pointed out that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency had licensed certain vaccines for use in children over 12.
Ferguson also said that despite the JCVI’s position, vaccinations of older children might yet go ahead. He said:
It wouldn’t surprise me that the chief medical officers taking in account these other factors, decide to go forward with vaccination.
Updated
Labour’s Peter Kyle says Johnson has turned his back on the EU and on Washington. Is there any area where Britain has gained more influence abroad since Johnson became PM?
Johnson says the UK has more influence virtually everywhere. This prompts laughter, but Johnson says the UK can now have its own sanctions policy, and it is free to strike its own trade deals. And there may be another this week, he says.
This may be a reference to a deal with New Zealand, which was supposed to be agreed in principle by the end of August.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, says that, with tens of thousands dead after the invasion of Afghanistan, there should be an inquiry into what happened - and into the whole case for the use of military intervention in foreign policy.
Johnson says there was a full review after the end of British military operations in Afghanistan in 2014.
In the Commons Labour’s Hilary Benn says poorer areas always take in more asylum seekers than richer areas. Is that fair? And if not, what will the PM do about it?
Johnson says he hopes all areas will “step up to the plate”.
As the Guardian reported last week, there are eight times as many refugees and asylum seekers living in Labour-run parts of Britain as in Conservative areas (broadly, but not exactly, the same point Benn was making).
Updated
Johnson repeats his claim that every MP who has emailed the Foreign Office about Afghans wanting to come to the UK will get a reply “by close of play today”.
The Observer revealed just over a week ago that thousands of those emails had gone unread.
Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster, says that if Johnson wants to show the UK will offer a warm welcome to refugees, it should withdraw the borders bill.
Johnson does not accept that. He says the government has offered a safe and legal route for thousands of Afghans to come to the UK.
Asked what will be done to stop the Taliban flooding the streets of the UK with heroin, Johnson says the export of heroin from Afghanistan has been increasing in recent years. He says the UK will insist to the Taliban that Afghanistan should not become a narco state, but he says it is for the National Crime Agency to fight crime in this country.
Theresa May, the former prime minister, asked Johnson if he accepted that the fall of Kabul increased the terrorist threat to the UK. Johnson said he did not yet have any specific information to show that that was the case. He said the government would spend what was necessary on counter terrorism.
This is from the Telegraph’s Lucy Fisher.
Theresa May says: "As a result of Nato forces withdrawing from Afghanistan, the terrorist threat has increased."
— Lucy Fisher (@LOS_Fisher) September 6, 2021
She calls for counter terror to be given "necessary support" to keep UK safe.
PM says: "We have no direct info as yet of any increase to the threat yet."
Updated
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminister, says normally a cabinet minister gets sent out to cover for the PM. But this afternoon Boris Johnson is here to cover for Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary.
He asks why the Foreign Office ignored so many emails sent by MPs about Afghans hoping to escape to the UK. The Foreign Office said it got more emails than during Covid, he says. But he says there was a difference; people did not know Covid was going to happen, but they could predict this.
Johnson says every email sent by an MP will be answered.
UPDATE: In response to a question from Blackford about how many Afghans eligible for relocation to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme were still in the country, Johnson replied:
As for the question of how many Arap candidates are remaining I can tell him that the total number is 311, of which 192 responded to the calls that were put out and, I repeat, we will do absolutely everything we can to ensure that those people get the safe passage that they deserve.
Updated
In his response to Starmer, Johnson said the Labour leader was wrong to brand the evacuation a failure. He said the military evacuated twice as many people as they originally expected.
He also accused Starmer of not attending the first of the three Commons statements he has given to MPs on Afghanistan.
Updated
Starmer says Johnson was 'incapable of international leadership' over Afghanistan
Sir Keir Starmer is responding to Johnson on behalf of Labour.
He says those involved in Operation Pitting (the evacuation) were “the best of us” and he thanks them.
But they were let down by lack of leadership, he says. The government’s assumption that the Taliban had no path to victory was “complacent and wrong”.
The government’s strategic defence review published earlier this year did not even mention the Taliban or Nato’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, he says.
He says many Afghans eligible for help under the Afghan relocation and assistance policy (Arap) scheme were not able to get out, even though they applied in good time. He goes on:
We have a prime minister incapable of international leadership, just when we need it most.
Political leadership was “missing in action”, he says.
History will tell the tale of Operation Pitting as one of immense bravery. We are proud of all those who contributed, their story made even more remarkable by the fact whilst they were saving lives our political leadership was missing in action.
Updated
Johnson says Saturday will mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
If anyone says Britain achieved nothing in Afghanistan, people should tell them that the armed forces, and their allies enabled 3.6 million girls to go to school in the country, he says. They also protected the UK from al-Qaida, and organised the biggest humanitarian airlift in recent history, he says.
Updated
Johnson says the government will let up to 20,000 Afghans relocate in the UK.
As well as people who worked for the military, the scheme will also cover others at risk from the Taliban, including people who campaigned for democracy and human rights, or who are at risk because of their gender or sexuality or religion, he says.
Boris Johnson starts by saying the biggest and fastest emergency evacuation in recent history is over. He says 15,000 people were brought to safety in the UK.
He says two British nationals and 13 Americans were among the dead from the “contemptible” terrorist attack at the airport.
He pays tribute to the military personnel involved in the evacuation, and to those who served in Afghanistan generally over the past 20 years. He says they contributed to keeping the UK safe from terrorist attack.
He says the government is spending another £3m on mental health support for veterans, and is giving £5m more to military charities.
The government is still committed to helping Afghans who worked for the British, and it is working with partners in the region to try to secure them safe passage out of Afghanistan. The government will do all it can to help them reach safety, he says.
Boris Johnson's Commons statement on Afghanistan
Boris Johnson is due to deliver his Commons statement on Afghanistan within the next few minutes.
Here is our report from last time he addressed MPs on this matter, when parliament was recalled in August after the fall of Kabul.
The Resolution Foundation thinktank has produced a typically incisive briefing paper (pdf) on the key policy choices facing the chancellor this autumn. Like the IFS (see 11.30am), it says that a national insurance rise and an income tax rise would both be progressive means of funding social care, but that putting up income tax would be more progressive. This chart illustrates the point.
Updated
At the No 10 lobby briefing the PM’s spokesman said that figures are available showing that the shortage of HGV drivers is a Europe-wide problem, and not just a UK-specific consequence of Brexit. (See 1.35pm.) The pro-Brexit Guido Fawkes website has posted this link on Twitter to support No 10’s point.
Browsing through Global Cold Chain News, as you do, it seems the lorry driver shortage is pan-European... https://t.co/8EVSQfIre3 pic.twitter.com/i7xZRDyThM
— Euro Guido (@EuroGuido) September 6, 2021
Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow who chairs the Commons education committee, told Times Radio that he would vote against the proposed increase in national insurance to fund social care unless measures were taken to exempt people on lower incomes from the new tax. He suggested it should only apply to people earning more than around £40,000 a year.
Coronavirus rules are set to be renewed for another six months as No 10 admitted cases are likely to increase sharply in England because children are returning to school, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Sir Charles Walker, the vice-chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, told the World at One that Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, would hear a lot of concern from MPs about the social care plan when he addressed the committee tonight. Walker, a lockdown sceptic, told the programme:
There’s going to be a lot of concern and we are going to reflect the concern of our constituents. I’m not surprised the government is running out of money because it has just spent £430bn shutting down the economy.
Walker said that, although he would love to be able to leave his assets to his children, he believed that if he needed money to pay for social care in his old age, those assets should be used to pay for it. He also said that he would like to see the emergence of a market that would allow him to buy insurance to cap his liability for social care costs.
(The original Andrew Dilnot plans for social care unveiled 10 years ago, which involved a cap on the amount that any individual would have to pay for care and which are the basis for the plan expected to be announced tomorrow, was meant to provide the industry with an incentive to start offering social care insurance.)
Although Walker said he hoped the government would come up with “a more sensible solution”, he also said he would not vote against the plan because he accepted the government needed to raise money.
Updated
No 10 plays down suggestions that shortage of HGV drivers just down to Brexit
Here are the main lines from this morning’s Downing Street lobby briefing.
- Downing Street hinted that the government may be backing away from plans to make entry to a nightclub in England from the end of September available only to people who are fully vaccinated. In July Boris Johnson said that this would be the new rule, and that “proof of a negative test will no longer be sufficient”. Asked if this was still the policy, the prime minister’s spokesman said that there had been no change and that:
It remains our intention to bring in the requirement for the Covid pass by the end of September for nightclubs and other venues.
But the Covid pass is a document that allows people to gain entry to a venue by showing either that they have been fully vaccinated, or that they have had a recent negative test. When asked if it was still the government’s position that proof of a negative test would not be enough to secure entry to a nightclub from the end of September, the spokesman just said there had been no change to the plans for Covid passes and that the full plans would be set out in due course.
- The spokesman said Johnson has “no plans” for a cabinet reshuffle this week. (See 12.32pm.)
- The spokesman said that the government would “shortly” provide an update on whether it intends to go ahead with full implementation of post-Brexit controls on EU imports involving animal products as planned. Some rules are due to come into force in October, and another set in January. The spokesman could not confirm that was still the plan. He just said an update to parliament on standstill arrangements would be made shortly.
- The spokesman played down suggestions that the shortage of HGV drivers, which has led to shops running short of goods, is just a result of Brexit. Asked about the problem he said:
It’s worth recognising that this is a challenge that is seen in other European countries as well. There are published statistics on shortages in Europe currently.
And he confirmed that the government was opposed to putting HGV drivers on the government’s shortage occupation list, which would make it easier for firms to hire drivers from abroad. “We want to see employers make long-term investments in the UK domestic workforce, rather than relying on labour from abroad,” he said.
- The spokesman also played down the significance of the news that a shortage of HGV drivers has led to deliveries of flu vaccine being held up. He said:
This is something that the government and NHS have significant expertise on. It’s not uncommon for there to be delays to flu vaccine supplies because of the way that the flu vaccines are made. And so manufacturers build headroom into their planning every year so the overall supply is maintained.
- The spokesman said that after Johnson makes his statement on Afghanistan to MPs, Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, will also make his own Commons statement following his visit to the region. After that there will be a Commons statement from Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister.
After the @FCDOGovUK statement, the Minister for COVID Vaccine Deployment @nadhimzahawi will make a statement updating MPs on Covid-19. pic.twitter.com/d6jlksj12I
— Leader of the House of Commons (@CommonsLeader) September 6, 2021
- The spokesman did not deny reports that Johnson is planning to announce his plans for social care tomorrow.
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The spokesman confirmed that Johnson spent the weekend with the Queen at Balmoral. He arrived on Saturday and left this morning. The spokesman would not confirm reports that Johnson was accompanied by his wife, Carrie, and their 16-month-old son, Wilfred.
Updated
Downing Street says Johnson has 'no plans' for cabinet reshuffle this week
Yesterday it was reported that Boris Johnson may hold a cabinet reshuffle on Thursday. His diary has supposedly been kept clear for that day, and a reshuffle might overshadow the row he is expected to generate when he announces his social care plan, possibly tomorrow.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked about these reports, the prime minister’s spokesman said there were “no plans for a reshuffle” this week. But he would not go as far as to say definitely that there would not be one.
It is not unusual for the government to say it has “no plans” for something only a short period before it actually happens, although if the spokesman had described the reports as “speculation”, reporters would be writing their reshuffle stories already.
Some Tories suspect the reshuffle talk is just a ploy to discourage ministers or MPs who may be tempted to criticise the plans to raise national insurance. This would not be the first time a reshuffle rumour had been used in this way as a party management tool.
It is also possible that Johnson (no stranger to indecision) has not decided yet. In politics it is helpful to be able to keep your options open, and he could wait until Wednesday afternoon before taking the final call.
I will post more from the lobby briefing shortly.
Updated
Alex Stafford, a “Red Wall” Tory elected in 2019 (he is the first Conservative to represent Rother Valley in Yorkshire), has told Times Radio this morning that he is opposed to putting up taxes to raise more money for social care without that being linked to a proper plan to reform the system. He said:
I’m a Conservative and therefore Conservatives shouldn’t be raising taxes willy-nilly. That’s the last thing we want to be doing.
But what we want to do is actually see a plan. We can’t just raise tax without a plan to actually make fundamental changes and make things better.
My concern is if they just add an extra one percent on national insurance or whatever, but no actual fundamental way to make social care provision better, it’s a bit pointless. What we need is a new plan of how we provide social care and then see how much is the cost and how much we are going to need to get from the public ... We can’t just raise it without a new way of providing social care.
This is almost exactly the same as the argument made by Labour’s Liz Kendall, the shadow social care minister, in her media interviews on this earlier today.
“All we’re getting is a tax rise.”
— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 6, 2021
Shadow Social Care Minister, Liz Kendall says plans for a cap on care costs “won’t do anything” for working age people with disabilities.#KayBurley
Get more on this story: https://t.co/OAPMo90y2G pic.twitter.com/N51Ps6itbd
Tomorrow MPs are due to debate the second reading of the elections bill, which will require people to show photo ID before they can vote in a parliamentary election. This morning the Electoral Reform Society, which is opposed to the bill, is highlighting the government’s impact assessment (pdf), which says that the measure is likely to cost the government £120m over a decade - and that it could cost £180m if the number of people applying for free voter ID is higher than expected.
Jess Garland, head of policy and research at the ERS, said:
It is simply gobsmacking that as we continue to struggle with the pandemic, the government’s priority is to push through plans to make it harder for everyone to vote. At a cost of up to £180m every decade, this is a costly attack on the right to vote, when more than two million people lack acceptable photo ID.
Only 1.4% of extra social care cash would come from pensioner families under PM’s plan, says IFS
The Institute for Fiscal Studies, the leading tax and spending thinktank, has published an analysis this morning of the generational impact of Boris Johnson’s plan for social care (or at least what we know if it, on the basis of leaks, which are not being denied).
It says almost a quarter of families in England (23%) include someone aged 66 or over. That is the state pension age, when people stop paying national insurance on earnings.
If a one percentage point increase in national insurance is used to raise an extra £10bn or so for social care, those families will contribute just 1.4% of the extra revenue, the IFS says. But if income tax were increased instead, those families would pay 10 times as much - contributing 13.8% of the total revenue raised.
The IFS also says that the richest 10% of families would pay less than half of the total money raised under both options (a national insurance increase or an income tax increase). But it says raising income tax would be “slightly more progressive”. It explains:
In many ways, increasing income tax and increasing NICs would have similar effects. But there are some differences.
In both cases, slightly less than half the revenue would come from the highest-income tenth of families; an income tax rise would be slightly more progressive than a NICs rise because the threshold at which it starts to be paid is higher (£12,570 in 2021–22, compared with £9,568 for employee and self-employed NICs and £8,840 for employer NICs) and because it is also paid on some investment income, which tends to be concentrated in the hands of the better-off – and especially the very best-off.
Updated
In a post on his blog John Redwood, the Conservative rightwinger and former cabinet minister, says the government should not be putting up any taxes - because forecasts for the deficit are likely to be too pessimistic.
The Treasury should not be demanding any tax rises on the back of wildly pessimistic forecasts of the deficit. It overstated it by a massive £90 bn for last year and this year it is already £26 bn below its forecast.
— John Redwood (@johnredwood) September 6, 2021
In an interview with the Today programme David Willetts, the Conservative social policy expert and former minister who is now president of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said he thought that, “as an absolute minimum”, to make Boris Johnson’s social care plans fairer, the national insurance rules should be changed so that working pensioners continue to pay it.
Islamism remains first-order security threat to west, says Tony Blair
The west still faces the threat of 9/11-style attacks by radical Islamist groups but this time using bio-terrorism, Tony Blair has warned. As my colleague Patrick Wintour reports, in a speech Blair also challenged the US president, Joe Biden, by urging democratic governments not to lose confidence in using military force to defend and export their values.
The text of Blair’s speech is here.
Why is Johnson set to raise national insurance and not income tax instead?
In his Today interview (see 10.17am) Jake Berry was asked why he thought the government was planning to increase national insurance to raise funds for social care instead of putting up income tax. Berry, who favours putting up income tax instead (because it is paid by pensioners too), replied by saying he could not say.
In fact, there are two explanations. First, according to reports about what the government is planning, what is being described as a 1 percentage point rise in national insurance is in fact a 1 percentage point increase on employees’ national insurance and on employers’ national insurance. That means roughly half of the £10bn or so that might be raised a year would be coming directly out of workers’ pay packets, but the other half would be paid by businesses. To raise the same money from income tax, income tax would have to rise roughly by twice as much - which would be an even harder sell politically.
And, second, national insurance is a more popular tax than income tax. That is because many people assume that it funds benefits and the NHS. It doesn’t; it just goes into the pot of money generally available for government spending. But, when he was chancellor, Gordon Brown exploited this perception when he raised national insurance saying that the money was needed for the NHS. And it has been reported that Boris Johnson may go further, by labelling the increase he is planning as an “NHS and social care levy”. In the Sunday Telegraph yesterday Edward Malnick reported:
Senior figures hope that by placing a ringfenced NHS and social care levy on workers’ payslips, taxpayers will see a direct link between future calls for an increase in health spending, and the impact on their personal finances. But one government figure opposed to the move claimed: “It’s all just going to the same pot… Saying X tax pays for Y spending is just spin.”
Updated
Tory Northern Research Group chair says PM's social care plan unfair on people living in areas with lower house prices
This morning the Today programme broadcast an interview about Boris Johnson’s plans for adult social care with the Conservative MP Jake Berry. Berry was far less critical than many of his colleagues have been; he made a point of saying three times that he congratulated Johnson for addressing the issue, and he said he personally was “not necessarily” totally opposed to the as-yet-unpublished plan. But he expressed strong reservations, and this will worry the PM because Berry used to be one of his strongest supporters in the Commons (before Johnson became PM).
More importantly, as chair of the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs, Berry is effectively the party’s levelling up watchdog - the person best placed to adjudicate on whether Johnson is keeping his promise to improve opportunities in the north.
Given that the main aim of Johnson’s policy is to stop people having to sell their homes to pay for their care, and that house prices are far higher in the south of England than in the north, it is not hard to see why Berry finds it problematic. In his interview he described raising national insurance as a “jobs tax”, and said it would be unfair in two ways.
First, it created regional unfairness, he argued. He told the programme:
It doesn’t really seem to me reasonable that people who are going to work in my own constituency in east Lancashire, probably on lower wages than many other areas of the country, will pay tax to support people to keep hold of their houses in other parts of the country where house prices may be much higher.
And, second, because people above state pension age (currently 66) do not pay national insurance, even if they are still working, the plan created generational unfairness, Berry said. He explained:
It doesn’t seem fair to me - particularly following this pandemic where so many people have taken great sacrifices to keep people safe, it’s particularly hit the youngest, particularly hit those in work - that we then ask those in work to pay for people to have protection in care.
Berry also said he was surprised to see Sajid Javid, the health secretary, backing the plan. Referring to his time as Northern Powerhouse minister, when he was entitled to attend cabinet, he said:
When I was sat round that cabinet table and Sajid Javid was the chancellor of the exchequer writing the [2019] Conservative party manifesto, he was a great believer in not racking up the jobs tax and I just wonder why he’s had a sort of Damascene conversion when becoming the health secretary to seeing the jobs tax as the way forward.
Berry said he thought it would be better to raise income tax, not national insurance, to raise funds for the social care system.
Updated
According to the BBC, Downing Street and the Treasury have agreed to put an extra £5.5bn into the NHS this year. This will help it deal with the backlog of operations needed that has build up during the Covid crisis. Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political editor, says the Treasury is unhappy about this figure being publicised overnight.
Also understand Treasury wasn't aware that 5.5bn cash for NHS up til April was going to be made public overnight- it's the smaller part of much bigger problem govt trying to solve on social care and health cash, but hints things are pretty choppy behind closed doors
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) September 6, 2021
This sum seems to be the Covid top-up payment expected by the NHS to cover the second half of the 2021-22 financial year. In March a payment worth £6.6bn was announced to cover the first half of the year. At the time the government said it did not want to unveil a 12-month settlement all in one go because it did not know how bad the Covid situation would be in the autumn.
Starmer says Labour will not back plan to raise national insurance to fund social care
Good morning. I hope you all had a good summer.
The first week in September always tends to be a hectic time at Westminster. MPs return anxious to implement all the ideas they have been mulling over while on holiday, there is a stack of issues backed up because parliament has been in recess and the looming party conference season means the senior figures are under particular pressure to firm up some announcements.
This year the decision logjam seems more intense than ever: a whole set of problems needing ministerial attention have been on hold, not just over the summer, but since the start of the Covid pandemic. In his London Playbook briefing, Politico’s Alex Wickham has identified 18 serious issues that Boris Johnson needs to address, almost all of them with the potential to create a major crisis. And one of the biggest is the need to reform adult social care, which is set to be the story of the week. Johnson does not need reminding that the last prime minister to announce a plan to raise more money for social care never really recovered from the damage it did to her reputation with voters and her party.
As Jessica Elgot reports in her overnight story, Johnson is already facing a huge Tory backlash – over plans that have not even been announced yet.
Johnson has a working majority of more than 80, but that means that if just over 40 Conservatives vote with all the opposition parties he will lose and, reading the papers today and over the weekend, it feels as if that many Tories have already spoken out about Johnson’s plan to raise national insurance to make the system more generous so that pensioners do not have to sell their homes.
In an interview with the Daily Mirror this morning, the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, confirms that Johnson cannot rely on the main opposition party to bail him out. Starmer told the paper:
We do need more investment in the NHS and social care but national insurance, this way of doing it, simply hits low earners, it hits young people and it hits businesses.
We don’t agree that is the appropriate way to do it. Do we accept that we need more investment? Yes we do. Do we accept that NI is the right way to do it? No we don’t.
But we will look at what they put forward because after eleven years of neglect we do need a solution.
Starmer said it was “inevitable” that taxes would have to go up to address the social care crisis. “We need a fair way to raise the money that is needed,” he said. But he would not offer an alternative to the Johnson plan, insisting a decision was not needed until the party published its manifesto.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Tony Blair, the former prime minister, gives a speech at the Rusi thinktank to mark the forthcoming 20th anniversary of 9/11.
11.30am: Downing Street holds its daily lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Boris Johnson gives a statement to MPs about Afghanistan.
There may well be some Covid news covered here, but for more extensive coronavirus coverage, do read our global live blog.
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