Patrick Vallance gives evidence to Covid inquiry
It is a big week for government economic policy, but it is also a big week for the Covid inquiry, where the government’s two most important scientific advisers during the pandemic – Sir Patrick Vallance and Prof Sir Chris Whitty – are giving evidence on how the government responded as the crisis escalated. Vallance starts at 10.30am.
Vallance, who was the government’s chief scientific adviser at the time, kept a private diary during this period and some short extracts have already been released. We will probably hear further highlights today. From what we have seen, it is a much better read than the Matt Hancock “diary” and some of it makes gruesome reading for Boris Johnson and his colleagues.
In a thread on X starting here, the BBC’s Jim Reed has flagged up some of the excerpts published already.
Monday should be VERY interesting at #covidinquiryUK as Sir Patrick Vallance, then chief scientific adviser, gives evidence. We’ve already seen extracts from his private diaries or evening notes – described as a ‘brain dump’ to protect his mental health. Let’s take a look… 1/n pic.twitter.com/xMC2Mnh6Bw
— Jim Reed (@jim_reed) November 18, 2023
Here is the one from August 2020 where Vallance describes “quite a bonkers set of exchanges” in a WhatsApp group including Johnson. The PM was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life”, Vallance records.
This (below) becomes a recurring theme over the autumn, according to diaries and other documents. The idea that Boris Johnson is increasingly convinced we need to keep the economy open, because it’s mainly/only older people affected by Covid. pic.twitter.com/eEIfP8qbji
— Jim Reed (@jim_reed) November 18, 2023
And here is the entry from December 2020 when he quotes Johnson as saying that Tory MPs think Covid is “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and that he tends to agree.
By mid Dec England has emerged from 4-week national lockdown and back into the regional tier system. Clear Vallance is again frustrated with decision-making. Here he’s saying one minute Johnson is dismissive of Covid risks, the next he’s advocating tougher tier 3 restrictions. pic.twitter.com/4FsqinIzVc
— Jim Reed (@jim_reed) November 18, 2023
Key events
Here are tweets from journalists on the highlights from the Sunak speech and Q&A.
From ITV’s Robert Peston
The Chancellor will DEFINITELY cut personal income taxes on Wednesday, income tax or national insurance. If he doesn’t the PM will look incredibly foolish for saying this morning, repeatedly, that the moment has come to start cutting taxes, because he knows most voters don’t see the extension of capital allowances for business (though important and expensive) as tax cuts that matter to them. And Rishi Sunak is not a PM who creates expectations if he knows those expectations will be disappointed.
The Chancellor will DEFINITELY cut personal income taxes on Wednesday, income tax or national insurance. If he doesn’t the PM will look incredibly foolish for saying this morning, repeatedly, that the moment has come to start cutting taxes, because he knows most voters don’t see… pic.twitter.com/v4pzDInPs4
— Robert Peston (@Peston) November 20, 2023
From Robert Colvile, a Sunday Times columnist (and head of the Centre for Policy Studies, a Tory thinktank)
Sunak’s speech summarised: because I’ve made you eat your vegetables, I can now give you sweeties. In a judicious and responsible fashion. And Labour would snatch them away again.
— Robert Colvile (@rcolvile) November 20, 2023
From the BBC’s Iain Watson
Rishi Sunak is talking up tax cuts ahead of the autumn statement- he stresses ‘we cant do everything at once’ but ‘we can turn our attention to cutting taxes’ and because inflation has halved, ‘we can begin the next phase and cut tax’
— iain watson (@iainjwatson) November 20, 2023
From my colleague Ben Quinn
Subak is talking up his experience & Jeremy Hunt’s in businesses
“Our political opponents have got no experience whatsoever about running a business”
Cue fresh scrutiny of both men’s records (eg Hunt’s ‘HotCourses’)
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) November 20, 2023
But he tells us he’s “not a market fundamentalist”
When crisis hit the state has to step in— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) November 20, 2023
This feels a prototype election manifesto, with a lot of likely attack lines that’ll come in a campaign
.. differentiating from Labour on a range of fronts “they will allow unions to bring the country to a standstill with just a third of members support”
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) November 20, 2023
Sunak seems up for reopening confrontations with Tory low tax ultras like Liz Truss
Says he was willing to resign from govt and lose a leadership election because it’s not possible “to borrow that amount of money” and for it not to have an impact
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) November 20, 2023
Q: On tax, wouldn’t it make more sense to just lower thresholds – instead of taking with one hand, and giving with the other (by reducing the headline rate).
Sunak says he has taken difficult decisions on tax.
Now, because he has halved inflation, and because the economy has outperformed, he is in a position to look at cutting taxes.
He says, when he became PM, everyone was forecasting a recession for this year.
He says, as he explained in his speech, the government will address tax cuts “seriously and responsibly”. The government will be disciplined, he says. And it will focus on supply side measures.
That is the end of Sunak’s Q&A.
Sunak says the number of small boat crossings have fallen by a third this year.
No one thought that was “remotely possible” when he made the pledge to stop the small boats, he claims.
But he says he is determined to finish the job.
He says he will not let a foreign court stop the UK sending planes to Rwanda.
Sunak says voters will face ‘clear contrast’ at election because Labour’s £28bn borrowing plan means it couldn’t cut taxes
Rishi Sunak has finished his speech, and is now taking questions.
He says Labour would put up borrowing by £28bn a year. That means it would not be able to cut taxes, he says.
He says there will be a “clear contrast” at the election.
Vallance says that some of what he was doing during Covid would have been done by anyone else in the post of government chief scientific adviser (GCSA).
But he says because of his medical training, and his knowledge of vaccines (he had worked for GlaxoSmithKline before taking the GCSA job), he was probably more involved than another GCSA might have been.
But he also says that this does not mean that the GCSA should always be a health expert. In future, he says, climate change is likely to pose the biggest scientific challenge for the government.
Sunak says government ‘over time can and will cut taxes’
Rishi Sunak is delivering his economy speech now. This is from Ben Quinn, who is in the audience.
Sunak: “now that inflation is halved & growth is stronger, meaning revenues are higher we can begin the next phases & turn our attention to cutting tax. We will do this in a serious & responsible way”
” Over time we can & we will cut taxes”Over time = income tax cuts in 2024?
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) November 20, 2023
We will post a summary of the speech once it is over. If possible, I will cover the Q&A in full, but the speech is not being covered live by the networks. Sky News and the BBC are focusing on Vallance.
In his witness statement Vallance said his private diary was “never intended to be read by anyone else”, the inquiry was told.
Vallance says he kept daily diary during Covid as means of ‘decompressing’, not for future publication
Sir Patrick Vallance, the former government chief scientific adviser, is giving evidence to the inquiry now.
He says the notes in his diary were written at the end of the day. It was a means of “decompressing”. That helped him focus on what he needed to do the following day.
He says he had no intention of publishing them. He did not even look at them again. He says he felt the world had “had enough” of Covid memoirs.
I had no intention whatsoever of these ever seeing the light of day or me looking at them again, and sort of felt the world probably had enough of books and reflections of people’s thoughts during Covid …
At the end of each day, often quite late in the evening, I would just spend a few minutes jotting down some thoughts from that day, and things and reflections, and did it as a way to get that, in a sense, out of the way so that I could concentrate on the following day.
These were private thoughts. They were instant reflections from a day. And once they were written, I actually never looked at them again.
They were put in a drawer and that was that. I certainly had no intention of doing anything else with them either.
He did not even show them to his family, he says.
“They were very much instant thoughts,” he says.
Q: Did you take notes at the time?
Vallance says he might have written some things during the day, and others at night.
He says his handwriting is very poor.
Q: You sometimes quote people directly. Did you note the quotes at the time, or from memory afterwards?
It could be either, says Vallance.
Andrew O’Connor, counsel for the inquiry, shows extracts from Vallance’s witness statement describing them.
UPDATE: Vallance also said he agreed with some of the points he made in his diaries, but had changed his mind on other points. He said:
Some of it, I look back and think: ‘Well, that seems like a sort of sensible series of reflections over that period’.
Others I look back and I can see I might have written something one day and then two days later written something that said: ‘Actually, I don’t agree with myself on that’, which may have been how somebody had behaved or somebody made an observation.
So they were very much instant thoughts.
DWP alert about forthcoming statistical release implies Hunt may change how benefits uprated, former minister says
There has been speculation that in the autumn statement on Wednesday Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, will uprate benefits for next year in line with the CPI inflation figure for October, which was 4.6%, rather than the figure for September, 6.7%, the month normally used as the benchmark for annual uprating. Charities and campaigners claim this could cut benefits payments next year by £2bn.
Steve Webb, the former Lib Dem MP and pensions minister in the coalition government, has just posted this on X. He says there is an announcement from the DWP about a publication it is releasing on Wednesday. Webb says it implies the government will uprate in line with the October figure.
Benefit cuts alert – DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an ‘ad hoc’ publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday – in years where they simply pay inflation, they don’t do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
Benefit cuts alert – DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an ‘ad hoc’ publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday – in years where they simply pay inflation, they don’t do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure. pic.twitter.com/O0JAJw3RQK
— Steve Webb (@stevewebb1) November 20, 2023
Patrick Vallance gives evidence to Covid inquiry
It is a big week for government economic policy, but it is also a big week for the Covid inquiry, where the government’s two most important scientific advisers during the pandemic – Sir Patrick Vallance and Prof Sir Chris Whitty – are giving evidence on how the government responded as the crisis escalated. Vallance starts at 10.30am.
Vallance, who was the government’s chief scientific adviser at the time, kept a private diary during this period and some short extracts have already been released. We will probably hear further highlights today. From what we have seen, it is a much better read than the Matt Hancock “diary” and some of it makes gruesome reading for Boris Johnson and his colleagues.
In a thread on X starting here, the BBC’s Jim Reed has flagged up some of the excerpts published already.
Monday should be VERY interesting at #covidinquiryUK as Sir Patrick Vallance, then chief scientific adviser, gives evidence. We’ve already seen extracts from his private diaries or evening notes – described as a ‘brain dump’ to protect his mental health. Let’s take a look… 1/n pic.twitter.com/xMC2Mnh6Bw
— Jim Reed (@jim_reed) November 18, 2023
Here is the one from August 2020 where Vallance describes “quite a bonkers set of exchanges” in a WhatsApp group including Johnson. The PM was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life”, Vallance records.
This (below) becomes a recurring theme over the autumn, according to diaries and other documents. The idea that Boris Johnson is increasingly convinced we need to keep the economy open, because it’s mainly/only older people affected by Covid. pic.twitter.com/eEIfP8qbji
— Jim Reed (@jim_reed) November 18, 2023
And here is the entry from December 2020 when he quotes Johnson as saying that Tory MPs think Covid is “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and that he tends to agree.
By mid Dec England has emerged from 4-week national lockdown and back into the regional tier system. Clear Vallance is again frustrated with decision-making. Here he’s saying one minute Johnson is dismissive of Covid risks, the next he’s advocating tougher tier 3 restrictions. pic.twitter.com/4FsqinIzVc
— Jim Reed (@jim_reed) November 18, 2023
Sunak could block Human Rights Act to force through Rwanda asylum plan
Rishi Sunak is considering blocking a key human rights law to help force through plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda amid growing pressure from rightwing Conservative MPs, Rajeev Syal reports.
The Times has more on the row that this plan has generated within cabinet. In his story Steven Swinford reports:
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, is pushing for emergency legislation to disapply the Human Rights Act and direct courts to ignore the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in asylum cases.
However, cabinet ministers including James Cleverly, the home secretary, Victoria Prentis, the attorney general, and Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, are said to have reservations about a hardline approach. One senior government source described the strategy as “mad”, saying the courts would go “ballistic” and questioning whether Sunak would be willing to endorse it.
Here is a round-up of what the papers are saying about the autumn statement.
One government source said a cut in income tax was less likely than a cut in national insurance. There are concerns over the cost, £13 billion for a 2p cut, and because it would probably increase inflation as people had more money to spend. They suggested that Hunt was more likely to cut national insurance, particularly for self-employed workers, in an attempt to stimulate growth, because it would probably be cheaper and less inflationary.
The chancellor has been considering cutting inheritance tax and has assessed options including halving the rate from 40 per cent to 20 per cent. However, the issue became increasingly controversial after Labour attacked it as a tax cut for the wealthy during a cost of living crisis and some Tory MPs grew concerned. Inheritance tax cuts appear increasingly likely to be left until the budget in the spring.
The chancellor is expected to reduce business taxes. He is likely to extend “full expensing” — a tax relief allowing businesses to offset their investments against corporate tax — having concluded that the policy is less inflationary, and expensive, than previously thought.
The chancellor has shelved plans to cut inheritance tax until next year, raising Tories’ hopes that he could instead honour Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s promise to start cutting the 20p basic rate of income tax.
Sunak said last year that he wanted to lower the rate to 16 per cent by the end of the next parliament. A 1p cut from next April would be seen by MPs as a downpayment on that pledge. It would cost about £6bn, according to HMRC estimates.
Tory strategists had initially planned to hold back headline-grabbing income tax cuts until the spring Budget — closer to the likely date of the next election — but the party’s dire opinion poll ratings have put pressure on Hunt to act now …
A senior Tory insider said: “They’ve been looking at a 1p income tax cut. Number 10 needs a silver bullet. They need to do something to calm down the right of the party.” Hunt declined to rule out an income-tax cut.
Treasury officials have been examining how feasible a 1p or 2p cut would be ahead of Wednesday’s statement. They have ruled out relaxing the frozen thresholds around the levies.
Cutting income tax by 2p in the pound would cost £13 billion to £14 billion a year and save UK households around £450 annually on average. It would also give the Tories a much-needed boost ahead of the election, expected to be in autumn next year, as it trails Labour by 20-plus points in the polls.
Government rejects minister’s idea that rich pensioners should lose winter fuel payments
Good morning. After one of the most intense weeks for political news since Rishi Sunak became PM (Suella Braverman being sacked, David Cameron returning, the rest of the reshuffle, and the supreme court’s Rwanda judgment), we’ve got another news-packed five days starting now, mostly focused on the autumn statement on Wednesday. The Guardian doesn’t normally agree with Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg on anything, but the former business secretary has summed up what’s at stake in this quote for the Daily Mail.
We’ve had the net zero relaunch, the party conference relaunch, the King’s Speech relaunch and the reshuffle relaunch, none of which has made a difference to the polls. We now need the autumn statement relaunch which will actually connect with voters.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, hinted yesterday that the announcement could include personal tax cuts and there is a lot of speculation in the papers today, particularly the pro-Tory ones, about what this might involve.
Most of the reporting is somewhat speculative, but this morning a junior Treasury minister, Gareth Davies, has been giving interviews and on at least one issue he was able to be categorical.
This morning the Daily Telegraph has a report based on what John Glen told Cambridge University Conservatives at a private meeting last month when he was chief secretary to the Treasury. (He was moved sideways to paymaster general in the Cabinet Office in the reshuffle.) Glen suggested rich pensioners should stop getting the winter fuel allowance. The money would be better spent on addressing child poverty, he said. In his story, Ben Riley-Smith quotes Glen as saying:
I think we also need to come to terms with the fact that the triple lock is very expensive and how sustainable is that going forward in terms of pensions and all the other benefits?
Because my mother, she’s not very rich but she’s perfectly comfortable. She just texted me today aged 75 to say ‘I’ve just heard about my £500 winter fuel payment’ and I’m just like ‘you don’t need that’.
But finding a mechanism to try and ration that (the winter fuel payment) is very difficult because our HMRC system will look at household incomes. These are the sorts of mechanics of government you’ve got to look at.
Is it better if we spent more of that money on child poverty? It probably is. But these are the sorts of things I think we need to look at.
Good idea, you might think. But it is not going to happen. Davies told Sky News this morning:
We are not going to be touching the winter fuel allowance … We will always stand by our pensioners to ensure they have a dignified retirement and security in retirement.
There will be more on the economy because Rishi Sunak is giving a speech on the subject this morning, and taking questions from journalists. I will also be focusing quite a lot on the Covid inquiry where Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, is giving evidence.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Rishi Sunak speaks at the opening of a global food security summit where he is due to launch the international development white paper.
10.30am: Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry. His evidence is due to last all day.
Mid morning: Sunak gives a speech on the economy and holds a Q&A with journalists.
11.30am: No 10 holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: David Cameron is introduced as a peer in the House of Lords.
4.45pm: Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, speaks at the County Councils Network conference.
Also, David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, is on a visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
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