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Faisal Islam Profile picture
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5 May, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Extraordinary development that the US is now backing a pandemic waiver on vaccine patents - the WTO boss warned in an interview with me of “unacceptable iniquities” in spread of vaccines...
Biden’s trade Rep Tai has been seeing vacc makers - presumption was that the threat of a patent waiver was mainly a form of leverage... Tai raised issue in a bilateral with UK Trade Sec Truss last month highlighting “need to support production equitable distribution of vaccines”
In March my colleague @deb_cohen obtained the draft of discussions at WTO showing US, UK and Swiss pushing back against the efforts of India and South Africa - we discussed extensively on Newsnight - see this thread:
UK Govt, when asked about this, pointed to example of the licensing at cost of manufacturing of the Astra Zeneca vaccine to India, and indeed WTO chief Ngozi pointed to this as a model in her interview with me.

But US move goes much further than this... bbc.co.uk/news/business-…

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More from @faisalislam

Faisal Islam Profile picture
29 Apr
NEW: Fishing groups decry failure to strike 2021 deal with Norway as a “disgrace” & “disaster”. UK Fisheries group say Government was “unable even to maintain the rights we have had to fish in Norwegian waters for decades”.

Say Norway will continue to export cod here tariff free
Defra confirms:

“We put forward a fair offer on access to UK waters and the exchange of fishing quotas, but we have concluded that our positions remain too far apart to reach an agreement this year.”
Operator of the UK’s biggest fishing vessel, currently in dock in Hull, suggests it may have done its last catch, and that all cod will have to be imported now, after failure to secure deals (apart from Svalbard) in waters fished routinely last year

Read 4 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
28 Apr
NEW:

Defra Committee cross party MPs release bruising report on “considerable trade friction” & “substantial” new red tape leading to “substantive & enduring” post Brexit costs for food exporters.

- Flatly contradicts in line 1, PM’s assertion of “no non tariff barriers”.
* Report calls for Govt to re-enter discussions with EU to lower new burdens on exporters through veterinary partnership. Says it wasnt achieved by Lord Frost’s negotiation “in part because Govt did not place sufficient priority on it resulting in creation of non-tariff barriers”
* the consequence so far of the non tariff barriers for food exporters, the MPs report says is not just “teething problems” but “imposing enduring costs” which may result in big business “shifting processing to the EU” and smaller businesses finding such exports “unviable”.
Read 9 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
23 Apr
Subpostmasters have their names cleared at High Court after incredible and awful Horizon IT scandal... bbc.co.uk/news/business-…
Hits home this one - my Dad was a subpostmaster, was pressurised enough with all risk piled on to small biz owners, & PO having veto on selling up... we just swerved Horizon -

the stories of honest hard working community servants criminalised by IT incompetence are just awful.
As others have said @PrivateEyeNews @rbrooks45 & @nickwallis deserve great credit for their championing of this story over many years eg here: private-eye.co.uk/pictures/speci…
Read 5 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
23 Apr
Full year government borrowing figures just released...

£303bn deficit in 2020/21, 14.5% of GDP, post war record, though lower than OBR projection of £327bn

Taxes down £34bn on previous year
Spending up £203bn (78bn on furlough/jobs support)
Interest payments on national debt now at 98% of GDP, was ...

down a fifth on the year before.., £39bn this financial year versus £48bn the year before
Also March tax receipts were basically same as last March.

falls in VAT, business rates, fuel duty, balanced off by notable increases in

Stamp duty
Self assessment
Capital gains
PAYE
Customs
Read 7 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
22 Apr
“The request is simple, please include... supply chain finance” Bank of England release FOI correspondence with former PM Cameron, lobbying for inclusion of supply chain finance, offered by Greensill Capital, within post COVID support scheme to buy forms of commercial debt:
Greensill contacted Bank/HMT on ‘a number of occasions’.

Cameron contacted Bank on 5th and 7th March 2020.

DC/ Greensill/ Bank call on 17 March.

On 18 March Bank announced CCFF scheme, excluding supply chain finance.

DC asks for clarity twice in April

bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/fi…
This is a rather interesting sentence from Cameron to then Governor Carney’s private secretary introducing Greensill...

“GC is now the world’s largest provider of Supply Chain Finance and has the mandate for the UK government”.. which is a reference to...
Read 9 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
21 Apr
V interesting story from Laura about ventilator challenge..

At the time, other manufacturers felt that in the key March 16th meeting the PM was especially keen to involve Dyson and JCB, as manufacturer-supporters of Brexit, rather than carmakers and aerospace (who succeeded)
Those manufacturers had quickly determined ventilator challenge could only be met by using existing blueprint (for an approved medical device) and told me at time they were bemused by focus on Dyson (whose plans did not proceed)...
At same time there was tension with car and planemakers who had begun to argue pandemic would require an extension to Brexit trade deal negotiations to get deep deal that protected manufacturers...

Bit of context, but some on call left with perception PM overly focussed on Dyson
Read 5 tweets

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