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MPs expressed their astonishment last night after it emerged that Boris Johnson was preparing to spend more than £ 40 billion on his massive Covid testing program.
The ‘absolutely staggering’ sum – nearly three times the annual police budget – will help fulfill its promise of ‘Operation to the Moon’ to help fight the pandemic.
But the deputies warned that more indebtedness would be necessary and increased the risk of tax increases.
Parliamentarians are increasingly concerned about the huge amounts the government is spending on the coronavirus crisis.
MPs expressed their astonishment last night after it emerged that Boris Johnson (pictured today) was preparing to spend more than £ 40 billion on his massive Covid testing program.
In July, ministers revealed that £ 15 billion had been spent on personal protective equipment, largely because suppliers had raised the price so much, while billions more had been spent on the license and loan scheme for Help shore up struggling businesses. The Government has already borrowed more than £ 200 billion so far this year.
Under his ‘moonshot’ strategy to control the virus and open up the economy, the Prime Minister has promised a massive testing program to screen millions of people a week.
The extraordinary costs of the plan began to become clear yesterday when Public Health England issued a contract worth £ 22 billion for a new national test framework, which includes the manufacturing and development of tests for the NHS over the next four years. The NHS has issued another £ 20bn tender that includes diagnostic equipment and on-site testing.
Lateral flow tests have a response time of less than one hour and do not require labs. Two thousand soldiers were recruited to help with the pilot test plan (pictured)
A third billion-pound tender, covering just three and a half months, is for the supply of rapid response ‘lateral flow’ tests. The contract could be sufficient to provide tests for the entire population.
The scale of the contracts dwarfs the £ 15.2 billion budget of the police in England and Wales and that of various government departments. And it is equivalent to one third of the annual revenue budget for NHS England.
Former Minister Steve Baker, a MP who sits on the Commons Treasury committee, said: ‘That sum is absolutely staggering. The returns will have to become very clear very quickly or we will jettison our century-old reputation for fiscal prudence.
It follows the first city-wide test run in Liverpool where its 500,000 residents are offered tests Pictured: Soldiers at the Liverpool Exhibition Center which is one of the test centers that are part of the tests massive Covid-19 in Liverpool
“Currently, the Bank of England is printing money at gunpoint to keep the bond market going.
“This printing of money and this loan will come back and hit us on the back of the neck before we’re all that much older.”
Yesterday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed that mass testing for the coronavirus will be rolled out in 67 more parts of the country.
Areas including Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, the West Midlands and various London boroughs will receive rapid Covid-19 tests in a few days. At least 600,000 lateral flow tests will be dispatched this week to kick-start the next stage of mass coronavirus testing, which ministers hope will eliminate asymptomatic cases.
It follows the first city-wide trial of tests in Liverpool, where tests are offered to its 500,000 residents.
Hancock told the House of Commons yesterday afternoon: ‘The next step is to implement this mass testing capability more widely.’
Authorities said about 10,000 tests will be made available to each area to help them start testing the priority groups, which will then be followed up with a weekly assignment.
Lateral flow tests have a response time of less than one hour and do not require labs.
Mr Hancock told the House of Commons yesterday afternoon: ‘The next step is to deploy this massive testing capability more widely.
‘So I can tell the House that I wrote last night to 67 directors of public health who have expressed an interest in making 10,000 tests available immediately and making lateral flow tests available for use by local officials, according to local needs, at a rate of 10 percent of its population per week. That same capacity, 10 percent of the population per week, will also be made available to decentralized administrations.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the areas had been prioritized based on the local prevalence of Covid-19 and the expressions of interest from their public health directors. Any manager who wants to begin implementing lateral flow testing can do so by contacting the department.
Local teams could direct and conduct tests “according to their local knowledge,” the department added.
Areas to be tested include Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, Sunderland, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Luton and various London boroughs.
Coventry City Council, which is among the local authorities that will be part of the mass testing program, praised the news of the additional testing.
George Duggins, Labor leader of the council, welcomed the initial batch of 10,000 tests, but added: ‘It is remarkable [the extra testing capacity] it comes without additional funds to implement or implement it, which means an additional expense for all local authorities.
“Of course we will, but all local authorities must be reimbursed for the considerable work they are doing to help fight the pandemic.”
