2 Wednesday June 8 2022 | the times
News
Public money ‘gambled’ on levelling up
Oliver Wright Policy EditorMinisters are accused of “gambling”
billions in taxpayers’ money on ill-
thought-out “levelling up” projects that
amount to “little more than a slogan”.
The public accounts committee says
that the way in which the Department
for Levelling Up, Housing and Commu-
nities is allocating large sums of public
money is still “unsatisfactory”.
In a report published today, the Com-
mons committee highlighted how the
principles for allocating the first round
of the £1.7 billion levelling-up fund were
decided after the department knew the
identities of shortlisted bidders.
The committee said the department
had “past form” for this, suggesting thatthe way the money was allocated might
have been driven by political priorities.
The fund — which will total £4.8 bil-
lion — is for projects to “improve every-
day life across the UK” including by
“regenerating town centres and high
streets, upgrading transport and invest-
ing in cultural and heritage assets”.
The committee report said that some
first-round bidders may have succeed-
ed on the basis of unrealistic claims
about their projects, at the expense of
other more practical claims. “We are
concerned that some bidders may have
got through the selection process by
being overoptimistic about how ‘shovel
ready’ their projects were,” it said.
Dame Meg Hillier, committee chair-
woman, said: “The committee hasAt least £330 million should be paid
immediately by the government as pre-
liminary compensation to thousands of
NHS patients infected with HIV and
hepatitis C in contaminated blood
treatments, a report commissioned by
the Cabinet Office has said.
The final bill for the worst treatment
disaster in NHS history could be well
over £1 billion.
Up to 25,000 NHS patients were in-
fected, and at least 2,400 people have
died as a result of receiving blood treat-
ments contaminated with deadly virus-
es in the 1970s and 1980s. Many still die
every year. No compensation has yet
been paid, and victims fear that they
“will not survive long enough to see, let
alone enjoy, the fruits of an award of
compensation”, according to Sir Robert
Francis QC.
Francis’s report, known as the Com-
pensation Framework Study, was com-
missioned by the Cabinet Office as part
of the Infected Blood Inquiry and pub-
lished yesterday. It recommends that at
least 3,300 survivors of the infected
blood scandal should each receive an
immediate payment of £100,000. ItInfected blood victims should
get £330m now, ministers told
Kaya Burgess Science Reporter adds that a case can be made for further
payments to a much wider pool of
people including partners and children
of living and dead victims.
The publication of the report marks
“a historic day” in the long battle for
justice, a lawyer representing the vic-
tims said.
Michael Ellis, the paymaster-general
and Cabinet Office minister, said
Francis’s report made “heartbreaking
and sometimes shocking” reading and
would help the government set up a
compensation scheme quickly if the
inquiry were to recommend one, as it is
expected to. The government will not
respond to Francis’s report in full until
the barrister has given evidence to the
inquiry next month.
The report says: “I recommend that
the government accepts that there is a
strong moral case for a publicly funded
scheme to compensate both infected
and affected victims of blood and blood
products infected with hepatitis C or
HIV.”
It adds that there is “a compelling
case for awarding interim payments as
soon as possible” because “many wish
to settle their affairs before they die”
and recommends: “Such a paymentshould be made now, reflecting the
minimum any infected person could be
expected to receive under the scheme.
“I have suggested this is unlikely to be
less than £100,000 in any case.”
The report says those eligible for
compensation should include spouses,
civil partners, cohabitees and children,
the parents of child victims and others
“whose relationship with [a victim] was
so close” that they would have been “se-
riously affected by the consequences of
the disease”.
They should be compensated not
only for damage to their physical and
mental health but also for the “stigma
and social isolation” they experienced
after diagnosis. One victim told Francis
that “everything came crashing down”
when they were diagnosed with HIV,
adding: “I lost all physical contact with
the world around me. With my family
and friends.”
Des Collins, senior partner at Collins
Solicitors and legal adviser to more
than 1,500 victims of infected blood,
said: “This is undoubtedly a historic day
for the many campaigners who have
fought so hard for up to 40 years to have
their suffering and that of their loved
ones recognised.”inflationary pressures on family bud-
gets is to take less money off people in
the first place in the form of tax,” he
said. “I hope we will turn a corner soon
and see the tax burden falling.”
Despite Johnson’s and Sunak’s claims
to be tax-cutting conservatives, in-
creases to national insurance and cor-
poration tax and a freeze in income tax
thresholds have raised the tax burden
to a level not seen since Clement Attlee
was in power. The government has
argued that the rises are necessary
because of high public spending during
the pandemic and the need to address
NHS backlogs.
The morning after more than four in
ten of his MPs voted to remove him
from office, Johnson told his cabinet
that by spending taxpayers’ money
wisely and levelling up the country “we
will start to see huge, huge changes,
beneficial changes, in our economy”.
He said: “We will have the scope by de-
livering tax cuts, I think, to deliver con-
siderable growth in employment and
economic progress. That is the way
forward.”
Sunak is planning to use his autumn
budget to announce changes that will
allow companies to write off more of
the cost of investment against their tax
bills. He is resisting calls to bring for-© TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED, 2022.
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THETIMES.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBEMuslims say life
has got better
More than half of
British Muslims
believe their lives have
improved over the past
five years, citing more
job opportunities, an
increasing number of
public role models and
growing acceptance in
wider society,
according to a survey
of 1,503 people. Page 4
Trans row pupil
‘harmed herself’
A sixth-form pupil
who felt forced to leave
her school after
challenging a
visiting speaker’s views
on transgender issues
has claimed that the
incident drove her to
self-harm. She also
said that she was told
to stay at home for
weeks. Page 11Mixed result for
private schools
The number of pupils
at private schools in
Britain has risen even
though the proportion
winning places at top
universities has fallen,
a survey has revealed.
The independent
sector sent 4.3 per cent
of leavers to Oxbridge
last year, down from
5.3 in 2020. Page 18Kane penalty
spares blushes
Harry Kane earned
England a 1-1 draw
with Germany in their
Nations League match
last night by scoring a
penalty in the 88th
minute. The captain
became the second
player to have scored
50 goals for England,
behind Wayne Rooney
on 53. Page 68Russia accused
over food crisis
Charles Michel, the
president of the
European Council, has
accused Russia at a
heated meeting of the
UN security council of
weaponising Ukrainian
grain exports and
fuelling a global food
crisis in an effort to
force the West to lift
sanctions. Page 30
World Bank cuts
growth forecast
The global economy is
at risk of falling into a
1970s-style stagflation
trap, the World Bank
has said in its first
economic outlook
since Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine. It has cut
its growth forecasts
and raised the alarm
over growing sovereign
debt defaults. Page 35COMMENT
We need dependable, decent and competent
leadership to get us out of this age of anxiety
ALICE THOMSON, PAGE 27COMMENT 26
LETTERS 28
LEADING ARTICLES 29WORLD 30
BUSINESS 35
REGISTER 51SPORT 57
CROSSWORD 68
TV & RADIO TIMESDAB RADIO l ONLINE l SMART SPEAKER l APPTo day’s highlights
7.20am
8.40am12pm2pm3.15pmSajid Javid, health secretary
Peter Kenyon, chief executive of the pawnbroker
Ramsdens, on the rising cost of living
PMQs Unpacked: Matt Chorley and Patrick
Maguire analyse the action in the Commons
Winston Marshall, right, formerly of Mumford
& Sons, on how a tweet changed his life
Cressida Cowell, the children’s laureate,
who is calling for a £100 million annual
fund for primary school librariesdisappointing” and could drive passen-
gers away for good. He said: “The
pandemic has changed travel habits
with 25 per cent fewer ticket sales and
the taxpayer stepping in to keep the
railways running at a cost of £16 billion,
equivalent to £600 per household. We
must act now to put the industry on a
sustainable footing. We are working
with industry to reduce disruption
caused by strike action but unions are
jumping the gun by announcing this
when talks have only just begun.”
RMT members voted overwhelm-
ingly to strike in the ballot, which closed
last month. The union accuses Net-
work Rail of intending to cut at least
2,500 maintenance jobs as part of a
£2 billion reduction in spending on the
network, while saying staff at train
companies have been subject to pay
freezes, threats to jobs and attacks on
their terms and conditions.
The strikes will hit 13 of England’s 15
train operating companies. Steve
Montgomery, chairman of the Rail De-
livery Group, which represents the in-
dustry, said “no one wins in the event of
a strike,” adding: “Staff lose pay, the in-
dustry loses vital revenue making it
harder to afford pay increases, and pas-
sengers and businesses are disrupted.”
Drivers face £2 a litre, page 15reported too often on the problems the
government has with delivery of its
major projects, programmes and
promises. Without clear parameters,
plans or measures of success it’s hard to
avoid the appearance that government
is just gambling taxpayers’ money on
policies and programmes that are little
more than a slogan, retrofitting the
criteria for success and not even both-
ering to evaluate if it worked.
“The nation is being squeezed harder
than it has for decades, there is no more
to throw away like this. The govern-
ment must learn again to account to
taxpayers for its use of their money.”
The spokesman for the department
said its assessment process was “trans-
parent, robust and fair”.ward income tax cuts. In a speech at the
Onward think tank last night he said
the government must focus on “people,
capital and ideas”. He added: “In the
autumn we will be setting out a range of
tax cuts and reforms to incentivise busi-
nesses to invest more, train more and
innovate more. Because getting this
right won’t just mean the economy im-
proves, but real places too.”
Lord Frost, who resigned as Brexit
minister in December over Johnson’s
policies, told the BBC yesterday: “It is
not Conservative to be raising taxes,
and it is undermining growth and
prosperity. We need to improve produc-
tivity and investment, not weaken it.”
Esther McVey, a former cabinet min-
ister, wrote in the Daily Express that the
government needed “to find their way
back to the Conservative path”, adding:
“Covid turned them into socialists —
removing even the most basic free-
doms, spending money as if there was
no tomorrow and putting up taxes to
the highest levels in 70 years. The coun-
try is begging us to move on from party-
gate and to face the consequences of it... we need to acknowledge and accept
the damage that was done to trust in the
government as we seek to win it back.”
Political coverage, pages 6-
Why we shouldn’t write off Johnson
just yet, Daniel Finkelstein, page 25
A radical change of approach is
required, leading article, page 29
continued from page 1
Railway strikescontinued from page 1
Pressure on JohnsonBanca do Antfer
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