Red tape ‘holding back bid to level up economy’
Minister vows to learn lessons from virus crisis
NORTHERN POWERHOUSE Minister Grant Shapps has warned that the nation’s economy is being plagued by “bureaucratic bindweed” as he pledged to learn the lessons of the coronavirus pandemic to tackle glaring regional inequalities.
Mr Shapps revealed yesterday that the recovery from the coronavirus crisis will be boosted by a multi-billion pound infrastructure package from the Government.
He added that “the pressing need (for) communities to level up across the country dictates that infrastructure will be even more important in stimulating our recovery and securing supporting new jobs”.
Mr Shapps, who is also the Transport Secretary, said £96m of improvements had been delivered on the North’s railways during April.
However, Labour said public transport was facing a crisis as swathes of people piled on Tube carriages and buses in the capital to return to work, and it was wrong for the Tories to “pat themselves on the back”.
There was a stark warning from the Office for Budget Responsibility that the Government’s borrowing could hit £298.4bn this year.
It was also confirmed there were a further 428 deaths of people who had tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the UK total to 33,614.
Speaking at the daily Downing Street briefing, Mr Shapps set out plans for nearly £2bn of extra spending – £196m of which is earmarked for Yorkshire and the Humber.
However, he hit out at said “bureaucratic bindweed” which he said was holding back British infrastructure.
He said: “If building a new hospital takes just two weeks, why should building a new road still take as long as 20 years?
“If GPs’ surgeries can move online, why are most rail passengers still travelling on cardboard tickets? We must exploit our newfound capacity to respond at pace and apply it to rapidly improving our infrastructure.
“We must examine why it is that bureaucratic bindweed makes British infrastructure some of the costliest and slowest in Europe to build.”
But Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, Jim McMahon, said: “Rather than patting themselves on the back about road and rail upgrades, Ministers need to focus on the chaos on public transport especially on the Tube, a mess of their own making.”
FRONT-LINE WORKERS, including those in the NHS, will be the first to get a new antibody test for Covid-19, England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer has confirmed.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said it was clear that people who had the virus generated an antibody response but it would take time to understand whether in all cases people developed immunity against coronavirus.
He said data needed to be gathered over time to understand whether any immune response offered lifelong protection or just for a few years.
The test, developed by pharmaceutical giant Roche, was approved by Public Health England yesterday.
Number 10 said the new antibody test would certainly be available on the NHS but commercial discussions with Roche were ongoing.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the idea of an “immunity certificate” was also still under consideration if science showed that people developed immunity to Covid-19.
Professor John Newton, the national co-ordinator of the UK Coronavirus Testing Programme, said although it was still unclear to what extent the presence of antibodies indicated immunity, the test was a “very positive development” and was a “very reliable marker of past infection”.
Roche said it could supply hundreds of thousands of the tests each week. The tests run on fully automated equipment already widely installed by Roche at NHS sites across the UK.
The pharmaceutical firm said it would prioritise tests for distribution via the NHS before looking at how they might be sold to individuals.
Health Minister Edward Argar said the Government intended to roll out the new test to front-line workers first.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Argar said: “It’s only just gone through
the Public Health England assessment as being reliable, as doing the job, and therefore we are having those discussions.
“But we are keen to get as many as quickly as we can and get them out, primarily to the front line first, the NHS, social care and then more widely.”
Mr Argar stressed that the public could not yet get their hands on the test, saying: “We’re not in a position yet to roll it out to the public and have those tests ready to go.”
The development came as a further 428 deaths were recorded of people who had tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the UK total to 33,614.
Some 27 new deaths were recorded in Yorkshire yesterday. The region’s total is now 2,218.
It was also revealed yesterday that A&E attendances in England fell to their lowest figure on record as people stayed away from hospitals in the face of coronavirus.
Data published by NHS England showed 900,000 attendances were recorded in April 2020, down 57 per cent from 2.1m in April 2019.