Former top Treasury mandarin says test & trace “most wasteful and inept” public spending in history - and links acceptance of that in Govt to Bank of England effectively printing the money to fund it...
Can occasionally be forgotten that an adjustment made for the output of the test and trace system notably boosted Q4 GDP figure ...
Full report here... from cross party @CommonsPAC

key charge: didn’t achieve aim, that justified £37bn cost, of preventing further lockdowns..

& initially centralising this mistaken when local health officials have expertise here, like in Germany

committees.parliament.uk/publications/4…
Case for defence here: testing capacity went from 100k to 800k a day, 2.5m contacts tested positive, 4.5m associated contacts told to isolate...

More generally, Govt tried a load of expensive risky VC-style experiments - vaccines clearly paid off, test & trace not so much.
Big strategic question that needs answering - centralising procurement/data gathering/then applying machine learning was conscious strategy in early pandemic - applied to PPE, ventilators, test-trace etc. Did it help? Did it distract from tried and tested local health efforts?

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More from @faisalislam

11 Mar
NEW:

Govt delays post Brexit import paperwork checks due next month and in July... until October, and into next year
Govt: “we have not seen generalised disruption... however recognise scale and significance of challenges” in adjusting to Brexit changes at same time as Covid impacts: Image
Written ministerial statement from CDL Gove here:

questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statem…
Read 6 tweets
10 Mar
Made point before - issue was EU at first insufficiently protective of its own exports, possibly as a result of listening to some of the bigger pharma companies, not controlling for example even some of the first vaccines it funded... unlike UK with govt funded and brokered AZ-Ox
consequence however of political pressure EU under here - is next time, or if ongoing need for an EU originating vaccine/treatment/component - they’ll find a way to insist on domestic first supply, as UK has... thread from a few weeks back explaining:
In general though, in context of AZ-Ox being distributed via India around developing world at cost price, difficult to sustain argument that UK has been vaccine “nationalist”... perhaps initially vaccine protective....

EU firms have made billions from these exports to ROW.
Read 5 tweets
9 Mar
Manston Airport no longer required for customs checks on cross channel freight exports...
OBR’s updated traffic data confirm flow of lorries in Dover was in early Feb back to 2020 levels. “normal” says Govt (tho below 18/19 - 6,100 trucks a day) accords with Govt management data, shows worst case scenarios didnt materialise, but hit to actual trade yet to be revealed
But former PM Theresa May had some pretty sharp comments on the Budget -

“Every prospect Brexit will have continued impact in reducing the size of our economy”... expresses concern that the stimulus is entirely capital allowances not R&D tax credits “get on and do something..”
Read 6 tweets
9 Mar
Former Chancellor George Osborne speaking to the IFG very interesting currently defending corporation tax cuts - really big revenue raising comes from VAT, NIC, income tax - “the idea you can raise C-tax with no consequence is a mistake...” before adding “if it does go ahead”...
Osborne revealing to IFG that Cameron overruled his suggestion to introduce an extra two bands of council tax for expensive houses and use the proceeds to cut higher rate of tax to 40p. DC did not want a mansion tax though, and thought 40p taking cuts too far....
Asked Osborne about Sunak turning around decades of orthodoxy on low C-tax rates raising revenue, he replies:

- Everyone assumes that low tax is the driving force of Conservative thinking, but its fiscal responsibility that is the driving force...
Read 6 tweets
9 Mar
Interesting new set of @OECD projections...

World (up 1.4%) and UK (0.9%) upgraded in back of vaccinations, US much more so on back of Biden stimulus (+3.3%)...

But medium term UK biggest hit by end of 2022 in G7...

USA expected to have bigger economy than 2019 projection:
Oecd high frequency data comparison - shows the significant hit from pandemic and lockdowns on UK weighing down the economy - but eg Germany too now about same down
UKs stimulus efforts much smaller vs US and Canada according to Oecd model but a bit bigger than Japan and Eurozone - this may not take latest budget into account, but can’t see that this would change table significantly:
Read 13 tweets
5 Mar
So the process on the NHS pay round should be this...

This 1% is the Government’s submission into the Pay Review Body process - others have made other submissions from £2k bonus to 15%...

Pay Review Body will report back in May.

Govt will then choose whether to accept or not
Government’s decision will rest on several factors - the 1% number is a reference to what is deemed affordable within current NHS budgets. Other factors play into the decision, chiefly recruitment and retention..
- this is the full NHSPRB Govt evidence:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
Govt also published Doctors and dentists evidence...

There is lots of very interesting information on trends particularly on the increasing reliance of NHS on non UK staff, and eg levels of sickness absence during pandemic:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
Read 6 tweets

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