"ITV News reveals £8.7 billion of losses on PPE in government accounts
Buried on page 199 of the Department of Health and Social Care’s annual report published yesterday is the shocking disclosure that it has incurred £8.7 billion of losses - £8.7 billion! - on £12.1 billion of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) bought in 2020/21. Think about how that money could have been deployed in hospitals. Surely there needs to be a statement from Sajid Javid to Parliament about this. Here is the excerpt from the DHSC annual report: “The Department estimates that there has been a loss in value of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE purchased in 2020-21."
The impairment relates to: £0.67 billion - "PPE which cannot be used, for instance because it is defective." £2.6 billion - "PPE which is not suitable for use within the health and social care sector but which the Department considers might be suitable for other uses (although these potential other uses are as yet uncertain)." £0.75 billion - "PPE which is in excess of the amount that will ultimately be needed." £4.7 billion - "Adjustment to the year-end valuation of PPE due to the market price of equivalent PPE at the year-end being lower than the original purchase price."
The last one is not a real loss. If it was, we'd all be wailing all the time about the value of the milk in the fridge had declined since we'd bought it.
If it relates to stock still held, then we rather badly overstocked the fridge with milk.
We did.
But then again, it was a sensible precaution to have too much PPE. If other countries had banned exports, we'd have complained about lack of preparation.
France did ban exports which is why the NHS had to scrabble for PPE when the huge precautionary order they had placed in January from their main French supplier was blocked by Macron.
How lucky for Starmer that these "successes" happened under a Tory administration. Under a Labour govt, they would undoubtedly be seen as exemplars of the failure of socialism....
The boundaries aren't gerrymandered FFS. They do favour the Tories at the moment (in that they would have by far the most seats on an identical vote), because their vote is more efficient. But that isn't set in stone by any means whatsoever. It wasn't pre-2010. If you don't approve, support PR. That goes for Labour whingers now, and Tory whingers in 2005 and 2010.
I do support PR, but I also think the boundaries are gerrymandered, not by the Boundaries Commission (who are merely doing their job) but by the use of registered electors rather than eligible population to determine the size of constituencies. Constituencies with highly mobile populations (typically young and/or immigrant) have much lower registration levels, since it's only obsessives like us who rush to register every time they move. They are then merged as "having too few electors", giving a bias to more settled areas - which are older and less urban. I'd use the census data instead of the registration number to determine constituency size.
That’s not gerrymandering though.
That’s you not liking the system and resorting to smears because you can’t persuade the Commons to change it
More voter suppression than gerrymandering, as is requiring photo ID when there is close to zero evidence of voter fraud that way.
Current boundaries are quite geared to make the Tory vote more efficient, but just a few decades ago were the opposite. Mostly it seems to benefit those with a plurality, and the gearing reverses at a point.
Is requiring photo ID at the sorting office "parcel collection suppression"?
We are not a country where ID cards are essentially universal. (Unlike France or the US.)
It is therefore an added burden on people who do not carry ID on them all the time.
If the demographics of people who didn't regularly carry photo ID looked like the population as a whole, then it would be one thing.
But when the group of people who don't carry photo ID are poorer than average, are more likely to work in menial jobs with antisocial hours and are more likely to be dependent on public transport to get to the polling station, then one has to ask whether it is done solely to prevent fraud?
Especially when there is a form of voter fraud that is perhaps 1,000x more common, and which seems to not be being tackled at all.
As long as free photo ID is issued as part of the electoral registration process (as I understand is the proposal) then it's not meaningfully an "added burden".
As for the last point, if only the most important problem in a field may be addressed, government would be doing a whole lot less.
It is an unequal burden because it applies to some voters and not others (those who already have driving licences).
Tick an extra box and send a photo? I can't see what is so outrageous. And if it's that outrageous, why is nobody proposing changing the system in NI?
I said it was unequal; outrageous is your term. To turn it round, however, if it is so un-outrageous, why should the requirement to send a photo not apply to everybody? Though these days even sending a photo poses an unequal burden because it is a piece of urine for smartphone users while others will have to get the bus to somewhere with a photobooth.
In Northern Ireland, historically personation was a problem but this is not the case in mainland Britain.
The boundaries aren't gerrymandered FFS. They do favour the Tories at the moment (in that they would have by far the most seats on an identical vote), because their vote is more efficient. But that isn't set in stone by any means whatsoever. It wasn't pre-2010. If you don't approve, support PR. That goes for Labour whingers now, and Tory whingers in 2005 and 2010.
I do support PR, but I also think the boundaries are gerrymandered, not by the Boundaries Commission (who are merely doing their job) but by the use of registered electors rather than eligible population to determine the size of constituencies. Constituencies with highly mobile populations (typically young and/or immigrant) have much lower registration levels, since it's only obsessives like us who rush to register every time they move. They are then merged as "having too few electors", giving a bias to more settled areas - which are older and less urban. I'd use the census data instead of the registration number to determine constituency size.
That’s not gerrymandering though.
That’s you not liking the system and resorting to smears because you can’t persuade the Commons to change it
More voter suppression than gerrymandering, as is requiring photo ID when there is close to zero evidence of voter fraud that way.
Current boundaries are quite geared to make the Tory vote more efficient, but just a few decades ago were the opposite. Mostly it seems to benefit those with a plurality, and the gearing reverses at a point.
Is requiring photo ID at the sorting office "parcel collection suppression"?
We are not a country where ID cards are essentially universal. (Unlike France or the US.)
It is therefore an added burden on people who do not carry ID on them all the time.
If the demographics of people who didn't regularly carry photo ID looked like the population as a whole, then it would be one thing.
But when the group of people who don't carry photo ID are poorer than average, are more likely to work in menial jobs with antisocial hours and are more likely to be dependent on public transport to get to the polling station, then one has to ask whether it is done solely to prevent fraud?
Especially when there is a form of voter fraud that is perhaps 1,000x more common, and which seems to not be being tackled at all.
As long as free photo ID is issued as part of the electoral registration process (as I understand is the proposal) then it's not meaningfully an "added burden".
As for the last point, if only the most important problem in a field may be addressed, government would be doing a whole lot less.
It is an unequal burden because it applies to some voters and not others (those who already have driving licences).
Tick an extra box and send a photo? I can't see what is so outrageous. And if it's that outrageous, why is nobody proposing changing the system in NI?
I said it was unequal; outrageous is your term. To turn it round, however, if it is so un-outrageous, why should the requirement to send a photo not apply to everybody? Though these days even sending a photo poses an unequal burden because it is a piece of urine for smartphone users while others will have to get the bus to somewhere with a photobooth.
In Northern Ireland, historically personation was a problem but this is not the case in mainland Britain.
I used the term "outrageous" because of the level of vitriol the policy gets with its opponents.
But sure, if they want to make a council-issued electoral ID the only valid photo ID, I wouldn't see a problem in theory.
Your last point addresses why photo ID was introduced in NI, not why it shouldn't be abolished now (you don't state that personation is still a risk there).
The boundaries aren't gerrymandered FFS. They do favour the Tories at the moment (in that they would have by far the most seats on an identical vote), because their vote is more efficient. But that isn't set in stone by any means whatsoever. It wasn't pre-2010. If you don't approve, support PR. That goes for Labour whingers now, and Tory whingers in 2005 and 2010.
I do support PR, but I also think the boundaries are gerrymandered, not by the Boundaries Commission (who are merely doing their job) but by the use of registered electors rather than eligible population to determine the size of constituencies. Constituencies with highly mobile populations (typically young and/or immigrant) have much lower registration levels, since it's only obsessives like us who rush to register every time they move. They are then merged as "having too few electors", giving a bias to more settled areas - which are older and less urban. I'd use the census data instead of the registration number to determine constituency size.
That’s not gerrymandering though.
That’s you not liking the system and resorting to smears because you can’t persuade the Commons to change it
More voter suppression than gerrymandering, as is requiring photo ID when there is close to zero evidence of voter fraud that way.
Current boundaries are quite geared to make the Tory vote more efficient, but just a few decades ago were the opposite. Mostly it seems to benefit those with a plurality, and the gearing reverses at a point.
Is requiring photo ID at the sorting office "parcel collection suppression"?
We are not a country where ID cards are essentially universal. (Unlike France or the US.)
It is therefore an added burden on people who do not carry ID on them all the time.
If the demographics of people who didn't regularly carry photo ID looked like the population as a whole, then it would be one thing.
But when the group of people who don't carry photo ID are poorer than average, are more likely to work in menial jobs with antisocial hours and are more likely to be dependent on public transport to get to the polling station, then one has to ask whether it is done solely to prevent fraud?
Especially when there is a form of voter fraud that is perhaps 1,000x more common, and which seems to not be being tackled at all.
As long as free photo ID is issued as part of the electoral registration process (as I understand is the proposal) then it's not meaningfully an "added burden".
As for the last point, if only the most important problem in a field may be addressed, government would be doing a whole lot less.
It is an unequal burden because it applies to some voters and not others (those who already have driving licences).
Tick an extra box and send a photo? I can't see what is so outrageous. And if it's that outrageous, why is nobody proposing changing the system in NI?
Because the people who govern NI are far more interested in abusing one another and feathering their nests than doing any actual governing.
"ITV News reveals £8.7 billion of losses on PPE in government accounts
Buried on page 199 of the Department of Health and Social Care’s annual report published yesterday is the shocking disclosure that it has incurred £8.7 billion of losses - £8.7 billion! - on £12.1 billion of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) bought in 2020/21. Think about how that money could have been deployed in hospitals. Surely there needs to be a statement from Sajid Javid to Parliament about this. Here is the excerpt from the DHSC annual report: “The Department estimates that there has been a loss in value of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE purchased in 2020-21."
The impairment relates to: £0.67 billion - "PPE which cannot be used, for instance because it is defective." £2.6 billion - "PPE which is not suitable for use within the health and social care sector but which the Department considers might be suitable for other uses (although these potential other uses are as yet uncertain)." £0.75 billion - "PPE which is in excess of the amount that will ultimately be needed." £4.7 billion - "Adjustment to the year-end valuation of PPE due to the market price of equivalent PPE at the year-end being lower than the original purchase price."
The last one is not a real loss. If it was, we'd all be wailing all the time about the value of the milk in the fridge had declined since we'd bought it.
If it relates to stock still held, then we rather badly overstocked the fridge with milk.
We did.
But then again, it was a sensible precaution to have too much PPE. If other countries had banned exports, we'd have complained about lack of preparation.
France did ban exports which is why the NHS had to scrabble for PPE when the huge precautionary order they had placed in January from their main French supplier was blocked by Macron.
How lucky for Starmer that these "successes" happened under a Tory administration. Under a Labour govt, they would undoubtedly be seen as exemplars of the failure of socialism....
Indeed. I am not sure how an accounting error of £9b or the equivalent of 14 new hospitals can be put down to a quirk of precautionary stockholding.
"ITV News reveals £8.7 billion of losses on PPE in government accounts
Buried on page 199 of the Department of Health and Social Care’s annual report published yesterday is the shocking disclosure that it has incurred £8.7 billion of losses - £8.7 billion! - on £12.1 billion of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) bought in 2020/21. Think about how that money could have been deployed in hospitals. Surely there needs to be a statement from Sajid Javid to Parliament about this. Here is the excerpt from the DHSC annual report: “The Department estimates that there has been a loss in value of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE purchased in 2020-21."
The impairment relates to: £0.67 billion - "PPE which cannot be used, for instance because it is defective." £2.6 billion - "PPE which is not suitable for use within the health and social care sector but which the Department considers might be suitable for other uses (although these potential other uses are as yet uncertain)." £0.75 billion - "PPE which is in excess of the amount that will ultimately be needed." £4.7 billion - "Adjustment to the year-end valuation of PPE due to the market price of equivalent PPE at the year-end being lower than the original purchase price."
The last one is not a real loss. If it was, we'd all be wailing all the time about the value of the milk in the fridge had declined since we'd bought it.
If it relates to stock still held, then we rather badly overstocked the fridge with milk.
We did.
But then again, it was a sensible precaution to have too much PPE. If other countries had banned exports, we'd have complained about lack of preparation.
France did ban exports which is why the NHS had to scrabble for PPE when the huge precautionary order they had placed in January from their main French supplier was blocked by Macron.
How lucky for Starmer that these "successes" happened under a Tory administration. Under a Labour govt, they would undoubtedly be seen as exemplars of the failure of socialism....
Indeed. I am not sure how an accounting error of £9b or the equivalent of 14 new hospitals can be put down to a quirk of precautionary stockholding.
It's not an accounting error. The government was under pressure to buy PPE at any cost to protect our sainted NHS at the same time as pretty much every other country was doing the same thing. You don't get it cheap in those circumstances.
"ITV News reveals £8.7 billion of losses on PPE in government accounts
Buried on page 199 of the Department of Health and Social Care’s annual report published yesterday is the shocking disclosure that it has incurred £8.7 billion of losses - £8.7 billion! - on £12.1 billion of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) bought in 2020/21. Think about how that money could have been deployed in hospitals. Surely there needs to be a statement from Sajid Javid to Parliament about this. Here is the excerpt from the DHSC annual report: “The Department estimates that there has been a loss in value of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE purchased in 2020-21."
The impairment relates to: £0.67 billion - "PPE which cannot be used, for instance because it is defective." £2.6 billion - "PPE which is not suitable for use within the health and social care sector but which the Department considers might be suitable for other uses (although these potential other uses are as yet uncertain)." £0.75 billion - "PPE which is in excess of the amount that will ultimately be needed." £4.7 billion - "Adjustment to the year-end valuation of PPE due to the market price of equivalent PPE at the year-end being lower than the original purchase price."
The last one is not a real loss. If it was, we'd all be wailing all the time about the value of the milk in the fridge had declined since we'd bought it.
If it relates to stock still held, then we rather badly overstocked the fridge with milk.
We did.
But then again, it was a sensible precaution to have too much PPE. If other countries had banned exports, we'd have complained about lack of preparation.
France did ban exports which is why the NHS had to scrabble for PPE when the huge precautionary order they had placed in January from their main French supplier was blocked by Macron.
How lucky for Starmer that these "successes" happened under a Tory administration. Under a Labour govt, they would undoubtedly be seen as exemplars of the failure of socialism....
Indeed. I am not sure how an accounting error of £9b or the equivalent of 14 new hospitals can be put down to a quirk of precautionary stockholding.
Did you want the PPE or not? Because you had to pay through the nose for it in mid 2020. Only £600m in defective equipment is surprisingly low.
UKIP might get 15-20% in Southend West although Southend East would have been a much better prospect for them theoretically speaking. West is the posher of the two constituencies. For a long time Teddy Taylor was MP for East and Paul Channon for West and they were both good fits for their seats.
"ITV News reveals £8.7 billion of losses on PPE in government accounts
Buried on page 199 of the Department of Health and Social Care’s annual report published yesterday is the shocking disclosure that it has incurred £8.7 billion of losses - £8.7 billion! - on £12.1 billion of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) bought in 2020/21. Think about how that money could have been deployed in hospitals. Surely there needs to be a statement from Sajid Javid to Parliament about this. Here is the excerpt from the DHSC annual report: “The Department estimates that there has been a loss in value of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE purchased in 2020-21."
The impairment relates to: £0.67 billion - "PPE which cannot be used, for instance because it is defective." £2.6 billion - "PPE which is not suitable for use within the health and social care sector but which the Department considers might be suitable for other uses (although these potential other uses are as yet uncertain)." £0.75 billion - "PPE which is in excess of the amount that will ultimately be needed." £4.7 billion - "Adjustment to the year-end valuation of PPE due to the market price of equivalent PPE at the year-end being lower than the original purchase price."
The last one is not a real loss. If it was, we'd all be wailing all the time about the value of the milk in the fridge had declined since we'd bought it.
If it relates to stock still held, then we rather badly overstocked the fridge with milk.
We did.
But then again, it was a sensible precaution to have too much PPE. If other countries had banned exports, we'd have complained about lack of preparation.
France did ban exports which is why the NHS had to scrabble for PPE when the huge precautionary order they had placed in January from their main French supplier was blocked by Macron.
How lucky for Starmer that these "successes" happened under a Tory administration. Under a Labour govt, they would undoubtedly be seen as exemplars of the failure of socialism....
Indeed. I am not sure how an accounting error of £9b or the equivalent of 14 new hospitals can be put down to a quirk of precautionary stockholding.
Did you want the PPE or not? Because you had to pay through the nose for it in mid 2020. Only £600m in defective equipment is surprisingly low.
In mid-2020, there were no vaccines, we'd had a debilitating Covid wave, and the French had banned PPE exports.
Yes, we probably overpaid. But if the world had turned out even slightly differently, this purchase would have been seen as a masterstroke.
There is much to criticise about our government. Overpaying somewhat for PPE equipment at the height of Covid is not near the top of the list.
Comments
In Northern Ireland, historically personation was a problem but this is not the case in mainland Britain.
But sure, if they want to make a council-issued electoral ID the only valid photo ID, I wouldn't see a problem in theory.
Your last point addresses why photo ID was introduced in NI, not why it shouldn't be abolished now (you don't state that personation is still a risk there).
Yes, we probably overpaid. But if the world had turned out even slightly differently, this purchase would have been seen as a masterstroke.
There is much to criticise about our government. Overpaying somewhat for PPE equipment at the height of Covid is not near the top of the list.