The Times - UK (2022-01-19)

2 Wednesday January 19 2022 | the times

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Armed forces minister James Heappey

Matt Chorley and Patrick Maguire

review PMQs in the House of Commons

Jason Isaacs, right, on his harrowing

new film Mass

Phil Williams chats to the Libertines’

co-frontman Carl Barat

Carole Walker’s MPs’ panel reviews

the day’s political news and takes a

first look at tomorrow’s front pages

Wages are lagging behind inflation,

intensifying a squeeze on households,

official statistics have shown.

The number of people in employ-

ment has continued to rise but price

rises outpaced earnings growth,

according to the latest figures.

Inflation was 5.1 per cent in Novem-

ber but earnings rose by only 3.5 per

cent, the Office for National Statistics

said. This amounts to a real terms pay

cut of 1.6 per cent. The unemployment

rate fell by 0.4 points to 4.1 per cent in

the three months to November com-

pared with the previous quarter.

Darren Morgan, ONS director of

economic statistics, said the number of

payrolled employees was now well

above pre-pandemic levels. “The un-

employment rate fell back almost to

where it was before Covid-19 hit, and

those reporting they’d recently been

made redundant fell to their lowest

since records began more than a quar-

ter of a century ago,” he said.

However Paul Dales, chief UK econ-

omist at Capital Economics, a consult-

ancy, said the squeeze on households’

Cost of living crisis bites as

inflation dwarfs wage growth

Arthi Nachiappan

Economics Correspondent

real wages “is only just beginning”. Brit-

ain is experiencing a return to shrink-

ing pay packets, according to Hannah

Slaughter, senior economist at Resolu-

tion Foundation, a think tank. “The lat-

est period of falling real wages — the

third in a decade — is likely to have

started as far back as last summer, and

is likely to continue beyond next sum-

mer too,” she said.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary

of the Trades Union Congress, said:

“Working people deserve a decent

standard of living and a wage they can

raise a family on. But instead, following

the worst pay squeeze for two centuries,

real pay is falling and they now face a

cost-of-living crisis.”

Falling real-terms wages should be

considered in the context of a changing

workforce in the pandemic, according

to Simon French, chief economist at

Panmure Gordon. Wage growth looked

artificially high at the start of the pan-

demic because low-paid staff were laid

off early; now that low-paid workers

have been rehired, wage growth looks

artificially low, he said, adding “real

wages today are higher than they were

before the pandemic hit”.

Strong demand for workers and

limited supply pushed up the number of

vacancies to a record high of more than

1.2 million in the three months to Dec-

ember, but monthly data shows that

vacancies fell in November and Dec-

ember, suggesting that job shortages

began to ease at the end of last year.

A crisis in mental health, which wor-

sened amid the pandemic, is driving la-

bour shortages. About 411,000 people

dropped out of the workforce from Feb-

ruary 2020 to November last year. Just

over half, or 209,000, of those workers

left because of long-term sickness.

The 60,000 rise in the number of

people employed in the three months

to November, which was driven by

part-time workers, looks less positive

when broken down on a monthly basis.

The number of people employed fell by

219,000 in October after the end of the

furlough scheme and employment fell

by a further 118,000 in November. But

most of those workers have entered

inactivity — meaning they are not

available for work — rather than unem-

ployment. About 184,000 members of

staff were added to payrolls last month,

bringing the total number of employees

to 29.5 million, according to monthly

data published by the ONS.

Long waits in A&E increase patients’

chances of dying within a month,

according to a new study of five million

patients in England.

The research comes as NHS emer-

gency department waiting times are at

the worst levels on record, with per-

formance hit by coronavirus pressures.

People who spent between eight and

12 hours in emergency departments

before being admitted to hospital were

10 per cent more likely to die within 30

days, researchers found. One extra

death can be expected for every 82

patients waiting in A&E for six to eight

hours and one for every 72 patients

waiting eight to 12 hours.

In December almost 13,000 patients

waited longer than 12 hours between

doctors deciding that they needed a

hospital bed and one being found for

them on a ward.

Since 2010 A&E departments in Eng-

land have had a target to treat, admit or

discharge 95 per cent of patients within

four hours. Last month only 61 per cent

of patients met this target.

Researchers led by Dr Chris Moulton

of the Royal Bolton Hospital looked at

data on 5.2 million people admitted to

hospital from an emergency depart-

ment in England between April 2016

and March 2018. Overall 434,000 of

them died within 30 days.

On average their wait in A&E was

about five hours. However, as waits

became longer, the death rate in-

creased. The researchers said it was

plausible that long waits meant delayed

vital treatment, including painkillers

and antibiotics.

An NHS spokeswoman said that the

pressure on NHS emergency depart-

ments was high and, in spite of the addi-

tional challenges of the pandemic, staff

were working hard to meet demand.

A&E wait raises risk of death in 30 days

Kat Lay, health editor

secretary, said he still had aspirations to

become Conservative leader.

6 Johnson was accused of dismissing

calls to isolate in March 2020 when he

contracted Covid, allegedly telling col-

leagues he was “strong like a bull”.

The prime minister rejected claims

by Cummings that he lied to parliament

about a party in the No 10 garden in

May 2020, saying: “Nobody told me

what we were doing was against the

rules.” Johnson said he had been inter-

viewed by Gray as part of her inquiry

and appeared distressed as he faced

questions about two leaving parties on

the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s

funeral. “I deeply and bitterly regret

that happened,” he said. “I can only

renew my apologies to both Her Majes-

ty and the country.”

Dominic Raab, the justice secretary,

confirmed that if the Gray report un-

covered evidence that Johnson had

knowingly misled parliament he would

have broken the ministerial code and

would be expected to resign.

Sunak gave Johnson a lukewarm

backing. Asked if the prime minister

should resign if he lied to parliament,

Sunak said: “I am not going to get into

hypotheticals, the ministerial code is

clear on these matters.” Pressed on

whether Johnson had his unequivocal

support, Sunak broke off the interview.

More than 20 Tory MPs met yester-

day in the office of Alicia Kearns, MP

IN HOT WATER

Matt Hancock

rebuked for swim

in Serpentine

PA G E 1 5

NEWS

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Patchy rain across most of the
country will clear. Wintry showers
in the far north. Full forecast, page 56

THE WEATHER

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TODAY’S EDITION

COMMENT 23

LETTERS 26

LEADING ARTICLES 27

WORLD 28

BUSINESS 35

REGISTER 51

SPORT 57

CROSSWORD 68

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The fraudsters who cashed in on Covid

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Oil prices reach

eight-year high

Oil prices hit $88 a

barrel, their highest

since 2014, as analysts

forecast a return to

$100 a barrel this year.

Saudi Arabia launched

air raids on Yemen,

raising fears of supply

disruption. Page 35

MI5 monitored

hostage-taker

Malik Faisal Akram,
who took worshippers
hostage at a synagogue
in Texas before being
shot dead by police,
was investigated by
MI5 after he had spent
six months in
Pakistan. Page 11

West ditches

Russia threat

Europe and the United

States have dropped a

plan to expel Russian

banks from the world’s

biggest international

payments system if

President Putin

invades Ukraine, a

report said. Page 29

TIMES

CAROL MIDGLEY

Prince Andrew

could be in need

of more teddies

PA G E 2

SPORT

FAST START

Emma Raducanu

rises to occasion

at Australian Open

PAGES 66-

fully settled. “The wind-down will be

quite swift and will mean fewer test cen-

tres because we don’t need all of the

sites,” one government source said.

The Department of Health is insist-

ing on being able to increase testing

capacity quickly if a new variant emer-

ges. Health officials argue this will rep-

resent value for money if it means not

having to impose further restrictions.

Yesterday 94,432 infections were re-

ported in the UK, bringing the seven-

day average below 100,000 for the first

time since December 23 after peaking

this month at 180,000. Professor An-

drew Hayward, a member of the gov-

ernment’s Nervtag advisory group, told

Times Radio that there was “genuinely

an optimistic picture” and “very en-

couraging signs” in the data.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first

minister, said that Scotland was on the

“downward slope” of infections and

that all remaining Omicron measures

will be scrapped next week. However,

David Nabarro, the World Health Or-

ganisation’s Covid chief, yesterday cau-

tioned against abandoning restrictions

too quickly. “It’s important that there is

no premature promising that restric-

tions will end at a particular time or

we’ll be able to get back to normal at a

particular time,” he told the BBC.

Coronavirus latest, pages 12-

Healthcare workers must be vaccinated

against Covid, leading article, page 27

for Rutland & Melton. One present said

that they expressed “exasperation”

over the parties, adding that the revela-

tions about those in Downing Street on

the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s fu-

neral had “taken them over the edge”.

Plot to oust Johnson, pages 6-

A PM without integrity imperils

democracy, Daniel Finkelstein, page 23

The dissenters

The known letter-writers Andrew

Bridgen, Tim Loughton, William Wragg,

Douglas Ross, Sir Roger Gale, Caroline

Nokes, Christian Wakeford.

The 2019ers Mark Logan, Ben Spencer,

Chris Loder, Greg Smith, Lee Anderson,

Danny Kruger, Ian Levy, Simon Fell,

Antony Higginbotham, Julie Marson, Paul

Howell, Robin Millar, Anthony Browne,

Robert Largan, Gary Sambrook.

Select committee chairs Julian Knight,

Tom Tugendhat, Karen Bradley, Tobias

Ellwood, Sir Bob Neill.

Payroll vote George Freeman, science

minister; Maria Caulfield, health minister;

Guy Opperman, pensions minister; Paul

Holmes, parliamentary private secretary.

Former ministers Helen Grant, Sir

Desmond Swayne, Stephen Hammond,

Johnny Mercer, Dame Caroline Dinenage,

John Penrose, Andrew Mitchell,

Sir Mike Penning, Sir Robert Goodwill,

Sir Robert Syms, Daniel Poulter,

Mark Harper, Steve Baker, Jeremy Wright,

Andrew Percy, Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

Others Nigel Mills, Giles Watling, Craig

Mackinlay, Richard Graham, Gordon

Henderson, James Gray, Derek Thomas,

Andrew Bowie, Julian Sturdy, Pauline

Latham, Sir Charles Walker.

continued from page 1

Tory revolt against Johnson

continued from page 1

Post-pandemic planning

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