Sajid Javid has said he resigned after concluding that he had had “enough” of serving under Boris Johnson.
In a devastating speech that offered a bleak assessment of Johnson’s operation, Javid said treading the “tightrope” between “loyalty and integrity” had become “impossible” in recent months following a series of scandals.
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Javid, who was the first Cabinet minister to resign last night, indicated he blamed Johnson for the difficulties endured by the Tory party.
He told MPs: “I also believe a team is as good as its team captain and a captain is as good as his or her team. So, loyalty must go both ways.
“The events of recent months have made it increasingly difficult to be in that team.
“It’s not fair on ministerial colleagues to go out every morning defending lines that don’t stand up and don’t hold up.
“It’s not fair on my parliamentary colleagues, who bear the brunt of constituents’ dismay in their inboxes and on the doorsteps in recent elections.
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“And it’s not fair on Conservative members and voters who rightly expect better standards from the party they supported.”
Javid said he would “never lose his integrity” and that following the allegations over Chris Pincher and what the prime minister knew, he had concluded “enough is enough”.
“This week again, we have reason to question the truth and integrity of what we’ve all been told,” he said.
“And at some point we have to conclude that enough is enough. I believe that point is now.”
Boris Johnson was publicly supported by top Tories on Monday morning shortly before it was confirmed that a confidence vote in his leadership was going ahead tonight.
Top backbencher Sir Graham Brady announced he had received at least 54 letters of no confidence from Tory MPs, meaning the whole parliamentary Conservative Party will vote on Johnson’s future tonight.
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But speaking to broadcasters on Monday, health secretary Sajid Javid said he was not aware of any leaders who had 100% backing among their parties, and that is not “unusual”.
The health secretary maintained that Johnson has delivered since being elected – including Brexit and the Covid vaccination programme.
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He said the 14 million who voted for the Conservative Party in 2019 makes them one of the “most successful parties in Western Europe”.
Just half an hour before it was confirmed, he then went on to tell BBC Breakfast that he thought it was “likely” such a vote of no confidence would go ahead – although he didn’t think the country needed one.
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Addressing partygate – and the hit it has had on Johnson’s popularity – Javid claimed that he’s “still upset when I think about those things”, but suggested it was time to move forward.
“What the country wants is the government to get on with the job at hand,” the cabinet minister said.
The health secretary also told Sky News that the prime minister will still “fight and stand his corner with a very strong case”, if push comes to shove and that he would be supporting him.
He was not the only person to publicly back the prime minister ahead of Sir Graham’s announcement on Monday.
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Writing for Conservative Home, chief of staff for No.10, Steve Barclay, pleaded for the Tories to stay united under Johnson.
He said: “As we return to Westminster today, the Conservative parliamentary party faces a choice: we can focus on delivering the policies needed to meet the challenges faced by those communities – and of people across the whole United Kingdom.
“Or we can choose to waste time and energy looking backwards and inwards, talking to ourselves about ourselves.
“The problems we face aren’t easy to solve. Democracies around the world are all currently facing similar challenges.
“But under Boris Johnson’s leadership, our plan for jobs shows how we are navigated through these global challenges.
“To disrupt that progress now would be inexcusable to many who lent their vote to us for the first time at the last general election, and who want to see our prime minister deliver the changes promised for their communities.”
Although speculation over Johnson’s future was growing last week, concern among Tory ranks seems to have soared over the bank holiday after the prime minister and his wife were greeted with a wall of boos when arriving at an event to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee.
Plans to make Covid vaccinations compulsory for NHS and social care staff have been scrapped in a major government U-turn.
Health secretary Sajid Javid today confirmed he would no longer go ahead with the policy, due to come into force from 1 April, following warnings it would lead to a mass staff exodus.
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The U-turn comes just days after Javid reaffirmed his commitment to the policy, arguing that it was the “professional duty” of all frontline staff in England to get vaccinated.
However, the health secretary had been under pressure to ditch the mandate following concerns that up to 80,000 unvaccinated workers could leave the industry rather than receive the jab.
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In a statement to MPs, Javid said it was the “right policy at the time”. But Omicron is “intrinsically less severe” so it is “no longer proportionate to require vaccination as a condition of deployment”.
He said: “Omicron’s increased infectiousness means that at the peak of the recent winter spike, one in 15 people had a Covid-19 infection, according to the ONS (Office for National Statistics). Around 24% of England’s population has had at least one positive Covid-19 test, and as as of today in England, 84% of people over 12 have had a primary course of Covid-19 vaccines and 64% have been boosted, including over 90% of over-50s.
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“The second factor is that the dominant variant, Omicron, is intrinsically less severe. When taken together with the first factor that we now have greater population protection, the evidence shows that the risk of presentation to emergency care or hospital admission with Omicron is approximately half of that for Delta. Given these dramatic changes, it is not only right but responsible to revisit the balance of risks and opportunities that guided our original decision last year.
“While vaccination remains our very best line of defence against Covid-19, I believe that it is no longer proportionate to require vaccination as a condition of deployment through statute.
“So I’m announcing that we will launch a consultation on ending vaccination as a condition of deployment in health and all social care sectors. Subject to the responses and the will of this House, the government will revert the regulations.”
The government made it mandatory for frontline NHS workers to be fully vaccinated by 1 April back in the Autumn, meaning workers would have to get their first jab by this Thursday, February 3.
Up to 40,000 care workers are thought to have left their jobs since the policy was introduced for the care sector last November.
Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, welcomed the reversal but said the policy had already caused “upset and heartache for those who lost their jobs”.
“We need to know now if they can have their jobs back,” he said.
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And he said there was a “huge gap” between how NHS care and social care are treated.
“We were robbed of thousands of staff back in November when the policy came in for care and nursing home workers and nobody lifted a finger,” he said.
“But when a similar threat is levelled toward NHS staff, the policy is reversed.
“It is another in a long history of slaps in the face for social care, which, given the services it provides, should have the same respect as NHS care.”
Approximately 77,000 workers — 5% of the NHS workforce — in the health service are currently unvaccinated, Javid said earlier this month.
The number of UK daily Covid cases has reached another record high.
The government said lab-confirmed coronavirus cases were 119,789 as of 9am on Thursday, and a further 147 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid.
It comes as Covid infection levels reached a record high in the UK – but the government maintained no further restrictions will be set out before Christmas.
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An estimated 1.4 million people in the UK had the virus in the week ending December 16, the highest number since comparable figures began in autumn 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The data emerged within hours of Sajid Javid telling broadcasters the government is not planning to make any more announcements on restrictions in England this week.
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It follows a warning from NHS national medical director Professor Stephen Powis that the service is on a “war footing” as the Omicron variant sweeps through the country.
In other developments:
– Javid welcomed studies suggesting Omicron may cause less severe illness than earlier strains but he warned it could still lead to “significant” hospital admissions.
– The ONS said the percentage of people testing positive for Covid in the latest week is estimated to have increased in all regions of England except the north-east, south-west and West Midlands, where the trend is uncertain.
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– New figures from NHS England showed one in five patients waited at least half-an-hour to be handed over from ambulance teams to A&E staff at hospitals in England last week.
In England, around one in 45 people in private households had Covid in the week to December 16, up from one in 60 the previous week, according to the latest ONS estimates.
Equivalent to about 1.2 million people, this is the highest number since the ONS began estimating infection levels for England in May 2020.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost UK on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Streeting highlighted comments by Tory MP Marcus Fysh who compared Covid health passes – aimed at limiting the spread of Omicron – to atrocities in Nazi Germany.
Streeting told the Commons: “It should not be for me as the shadow secretary of state to point out that we’re not living in the 1930s and the secretary of state and his team are not Nazis.
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“On their shoulders rests the health of our nation and the responsibility to protect our NHS. Indeed, it’s a responsibility we all share.
“They need our support and they are owed better treatment than they’ve received from some on their own side in recent days and even this afternoon.”
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Mr Streeting said Labour will “act in the national interest” by supporting the motions under consideration in the Commons.
“We are not living in the 1930s and the Secretary of State and his team are not Nazis,” Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting tells Conservative MPs. pic.twitter.com/ngIsrHba2p
They include working from home when you can, face masks in certain settings and what is being dubbed “vaccine passports” for large gatherings.
However, Tory MPs have been in open revolt with some touring the airwaves and writing columns on why they will be voting against the measures.
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Fysh argued that the passes, which include being fully vaccinated or receiving a negative lateral flow test, would be “segregating society based on an unacceptable thing”.
“We are not a ‘papers please’ society. This is not Nazi Germany,” the MP told BBC Radio 5 Live.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews called his remarks “completely unacceptable” and he was criticised by a fellow Conservative rebel.
Tory MP Christian Wakeford, who plans to vote against the government alongside Fysh, responded: “Whilst I will be in the same lobby as Marcus, these types of comments are untrue, unhelpful, and truly deeply offensive to the Jewish community.
“Covid restrictions should never be compared to the darkest period in human history.”
The government has warned it will be prepared to activate Plan B measures if it needs to, which would involve reintroducing compulsory mask-wearing and working from home guidance as well as bringing in vaccine passports.
“If we needed to take further measures with Plan B then we would do so, but we’re not at that point,” Javid said.
Asked whether the UK should be “dusting off Plan B just in case”, Javid replied: “Well the first thing I’d say if I may is we made a tough decision back in the start of the summer.
“Other countries didn’t follow our course and we decided that of course we want to start opening up, and if you are going to do that, it is best to do it into summer — it is far safer to do it in summer.
“Sadly, other countries in Europe did not do that. But looking ahead, as we look down towards winter, we need to make sure that we remain cautious, we are not complacent in any way.”
He added: “I have mentioned the importance of the booster programme, but in terms of any other potential measures, we have said all along we have got Plan A and that is where we firmly are at the moment.”
Protests have been erupting across Europe this week after several countries decided to reimpose lockdown rules as another wave hits the continent.
There has been unrest in the Netherlands after its government imposed a three-week shutdown last weekend, meaning bars and restaurants must close at 8pm and crowds are banned at sports events.
Meanwhile, in Austria, an initial lockdown for the unvaccinated has been superseded by a full national lockdown that will kick in on Monday.
As part of the lockdown, there will be a legal requirement for people to get vaccinated 1 February 2022.
Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show, Javid said compulsory vaccines for the general population was not “something we would ever look at”.
“It is up to Austria, other countries, to decide what they need to do,” he said.
“We are fortunate that in this country, although we have vaccine hesitancy, it is a lot lower than we are seeing in other places.”
Dustbin collectors, prison officers and the armed forces will be able to use daily Covid tests to avoid isolation under a dramatic expansion in workplace testing sites.
All those who have been doubled jabbed in the critical services sectors will be exempted from rules requiring home quarantine following close contact with people with the virus.
Some 2,000 testing sites will be created across the country in total, building on the 800 sites lined up for the food industry, transport workers, Border Force staff, frontline police and fire services.
The decision to provide special test sites for refuse collectors followed pleas from council chiefs, and followed fears that household waste could pile up due to a shortage of staff.
In addition, people working in energy, pharmaceuticals, telecoms, chemicals, communications, water, space, fish, veterinary medicine and HM Revenue and Customs will also be prioritised for the extra 1,200 new daily contact testing sites.
Daily testing using rapid lateral flow tests will enable eligible workers who have received alerts from the NHS Covid 19 app or have been called by Test and Trace and told they are a contact and to isolate, to continue working if they test negative each day.
Key NHS staff are already allowed to exempt themselves from the isolation rules, as long as they are double jabbed and can show that their absence would affect clinical care.
The move follows the latest meeting of the “Covid-O” operations committee which oversees key policy responses to the pandemic.
Ministers acted after Oxford University research for the department of health and social care (DHSC) found that in schools, daily contact testing was just as effective at controlling transmission as the current 10-day self-isolation policy.
Organisations are being contacted by the DHSC so they can mobilise sites this week to ensure critical workers can continue their vital roles safely, although it is understood that less than 50 have so far been set up.
The workplace testing scheme is separate from another government programme to allow individuals to apply for exemptions in key industries.
Health secretary Sajid Javid said: “Whether it’s prison guards reporting for duty, waste collectors keeping our streets clean or workers in our energy sector keeping the lights on, critical workers have been there for us at every stage of this global pandemic.”
Communities secretary Robert Jenrick said: “Critical workers up and down the country have repeatedly stepped up to the challenge of making sure our key services are delivered and communities are supported.
“We all owe them a huge debt of gratitude and will continue to support them to do their jobs safely and securely. This expansion of the daily contact testing centres is vital and hugely welcome.”
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace added: “Our Armed Forces have worked tirelessly throughout this pandemic, ensuring operations and training at home and abroad continue while at the same time providing round the clock support to the nation’s response to Covid.
“Expanding the daily contact testing scheme is hugely welcome, allowing our personnel to continue that vital work across the UK and abroad.”
Connoisseurs of parliamentary proceedings will know that while ministers use an opening statement to set out broad policy, the devilish detail is often held back until their answer to their opposition shadow. And for anyone interested in the scale of the government’s planned ‘Covid passports’, today was a perfect example.
In answer to Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth, vaccinations minister Nadhim Zahawi gave a very strong hint that it was not just nightclubs that would require the NHS Covid pass as a condition of entry. He said indoor music venues, as well as “large unstructured outdoor events such as business events”, “music and spectator sport events” were “the ones that we are most concerned about”.
That will ring alarm bells among Labour’s party conference organisers I suspect (it’s due to have a full in-person conference in Brighton, whereas the Tories have pointedly planned a hybrid event and the LibDems a fully online one), as well the UK’s huge but struggling events business. Football matches, gigs, all sound like they’ll need a passport for entry.
And despite suspicions that the nightclub plan for late September was just a bluff to get young people jabbed, it looks like it really is going ahead. One of the few areas where business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng stuck to the script on Thursday was when he said that instead of a specific vote for nightclub passes, there might be “a general vote on the concept”. “I’m very confident we can pass the legislation we require,” he added.
With many Tories worried that a blanket Covid ‘ID card’ could be used for entry to pubs (and with Labour going for the populist line that it would be “unfair” on pubs and pubgoers), Kwarteng’s confidence will be subjected to a serious stress test when the Commons returns after its summer break.
But given Zahawi’s detailed hints, the PM’s own line on Monday – “some of life’s most important pleasures and opportunities are likely to be increasingly dependent on vaccination” – now feels like it’s not a threat but a promise. Zahawi also put Covid passports at the heart of the government’s strategy to be the first country in the world to “transition” from pandemic to endemic, “from pandemic to manageable menace”.
Vaccination does remain the best hope of getting there (new stats showed it had prevented 52,600 hospitalisations), yet there are real worries in Whitehall at the slowing uptake among under-30s. Some 34% of 18-29s have not had their first jab. And as NHS England warns hospitals they may be entering the “most difficult period” of the pandemic for more than a year, it also said high rates of admissions are ”closely linked” to low vaccine uptake.
Just as worrying, the surge in Covid cases has a direct impact on the vaccination programme because anyone infected has to wait 28 days until they can be given the jab. PHE said a total of 1154.7 infections per 100,000 people were recorded among those aged 20 to 29 – the highest figure recorded for any age cohort since the beginning of the pandemic.
In a bitter twist on the PM’s line this week that he’s “turning jabs, jabs, jabs into jobs, jobs, jobs”, the pingtastic third wave is forcing young people to not only delay vaccination but also forcing them to stay off work, with all the consequences for the economy that entails.
One subject that Zahawi didn’t want to touch in any detail on Thursday was NHS pay. He ignored both Ashworth and Jeremy Hunt when they asked just where the £2.2bn needed to fund the 3% rise was coming from. Downing St confirmed for the first time the cash would come from the DHSC budget but not from money “earmarked for the NHS front line”.
The cash will probably come from a mixture of the extra emergency Covid funding for this financial year for the NHS (although trusts are still waiting for the post-September half of that), plus the long term plan. But given the massive £37bn earmarked for Test and Trace over two years, I wonder if Sajid Javid will see that as a target?
Few people realise that Test and Trace actually reported a huge, 39% underspend of its 2020-21 budget of £22bn, mainly because the lockdown earlier this year meant “cancelled activity”. That’s a cool £4.3bn, more than double the pay rise bill.
The Treasury will probably just bank the underspend, but politically just imagine what a win-win it would be to hand cash from a failing service to pay the wages of the tired, heroic staff of the NHS?
“Do you want me to have another go?” Boris Johnson’s plaintive plea in PMQs was directed at the Speaker, as a Zoom glitch cramped his usually combative style. David Cameron famously once said his Christianity was like “Magic FM in the Chilterns, it comes and goes”, and the PM’s volubility suffered similarly from his remote access to the Commons.
The erratic nature of Johnson’s contributions turned out to be uncannily apt as it matched yet another chaotic day for the government. Keir Starmer was relentless about ministerial mixed messaging on use of the NHS app. He also ridiculed No.10’s failure to define which “critical workers” (clearly the PM wasn’t one of them) would be exempt from being pinged into isolation.
Johnson tried to hit back by stressing that his own forced quarantine in Buckinghamshire just proved how important it was to comply with requests to stay at home, even if not everyone has use of a country home.
But while the PM was playing Chequers, Starmer was playing chess. His attack on Johnson’s WhatsApp messages (joking about leaving the over-80s to die from Covid) prompted the PM to let slip that “we were thinking in those ways” last year – damning admission that is sure to haunt him in any public inquiry.
Starmer also put the opportunist into Opposition, seizing on Tory backbench unease about Johnson’s U-turn over Covid “passports” by ridiculing his previous vow to eat any ID card he was forced to carry. Later, Labour announced it would not support compulsory use of double-jabbed certificates for entry to nightclubs, creating the prospect of a government defeat on any such legislation.
It was perhaps that realisation that prompted the PM to later tell the backbench 1922 Committee that basically his threat on nightclubs was all about jolting the young into getting vaccinated. If enough came forward, he wasn’t ruling out ditching the plan. Playing a game of chicken with the under-30s seems to be where his pandemic policy is right now.
What Johnson didn’t do was read the riot act to those MPs, like Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg, who opted not to wear face masks in PMQs. At one point I counted only a quarter of Tory MPs following the Speaker’s clear guidance, and at most just under half. With his backbenches restive over other Covid curbs, that suggested who is really calling the shots right now.
With more non-mask wearers on trains and buses this week despite government “encouragement”, the sight of senior MPs doing the same is yet another corrosive bit of message indiscipline. The bare-faced cheek of both is the public health equivalent of tailgating on the Tube, when fare dodgers ride the slipstream of those who do the right thing. The division and resentment it can breed can only get worse.
The Speaker is likely to be even more unhappy about the farcical way in which the 3% NHS pay rise was non-announced to parliament, before being announced finally in the form of a press release. Labour’s Rosena Allin-Khan, who is a part time A&E doctor, could hardly contain her anger as health minister Helen Whately said the pay rise was merely “considering” the rise.
Perhaps taking to heart the PM’s request to have “another go” at things, the department of health took just three hours to reveal the 3% was indeed happening after all. I understand the reason for the delay was not an admin error or anything to do with the fact that Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak are themselves isolating. It feels like there was serious tension over where and when the funding might come from.
With non-NHS staff like police and teachers being told their pay was frozen (a tactic perhaps designed to make nurses think their deal was a king’s ransom in comparison), the overall impression was not one of end-of-term good news for key workers who were once clapped for their public service in the pandemic.
And it’s that U-turn, the U-turn in sentiment towards those who helped everyone else over the past year, and the suspicion that a pay rise has been dragged out of him for the NHS and is non-existent for others, that could cause the government serious trouble. The Tories are still ahead in the polls but there’s a sense that the ‘vaccine bounce’ may be coming to its natural end.
The upside of the vaccine programme is it touched nearly everyone. The downside of the ‘pingdemic’ is that it too appears to be touching nearly everyone. Calmer heads in government think the sense of disruption, confusion and chaos can’t last much longer. But as MPs head for the metaphorical beaches this summer, some Tories worry that the PM’s flip flops may linger in the public memory.
Boris Johnson has been accused of making “empty promises” to British bioscience firms after it emerged that new rapid Covid tests offered to NHS staff are manufactured by a Chinese firm.
Lateral flow tests made by Zhejiang Orient Gene Biotech, based near Shanghai, have been bought up at undisclosed cost by the Department of Health and Social Care.
HuffPost UK has learned that the DHSC is shifting away from its reliance on tests made by Innova Medical Group, a US-registered company that has won nearly more than £2bn in contracts for its own Chinese-made products.
The move had sparked hopes that home-grown firms, which claim to offer more reliable and cheaper tests, would finally get a share of Test and Trace’s huge £37bn budget.
But only one small British firm, SureScreen in Derby, has been contracted to provide rapid tests, and the much bigger ‘Orient Gene’ – as it is known – is being used to provide large numbers of diagnostics instead.
OLI SCARFF via Getty ImagesInnova’s tests
The first clue to the shift away from Innova came in new guidance for NHS managers and staff, which says they should expect a new test which differs in “the method of swabbing”.
The Innova test requires a swab from the back of the throat as well as the nose, a practice that is seen as uncomfortable for many. The OrientGene and SureScreen tests only need nasal swabs.
The new guidance, seen by HuffPost UK, states that all NHS staff can from July order their boxes of tests directly from the gov.uk website rather than have them supplied by their hospital trust.
Staff will be expected to use up their current Innova boxes, which contain 25 tests, before shifting to the new system.
HuffPost UKNHS lateral flow test guidance
HuffPost UKNHS lateral flow test guidance
The change also appears designed to ensure that tests are more accurately registered, following scathing criticism from the National Audit Office that nearly 600 million Innova tests were not being tracked.
Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “Handing this work to a Chinese company right after saying they wanted more lateral flow tests made in Britain is typical of this government’s empty promises to support British jobs and industries.
“Instead of using the powers they have to boost industry in Britain, they are instead happy to leave our economy weak and see British businesses losing out.
“Labour has a plan to buy, make and sell more in Britain to get our economy firing on all cylinders and for us to build up skills and businesses for the future as we recover from the pandemic.”
Speaking at the government’s Porton Down laboratory in November, Boris Johnson said: “We are seeing real progress on a UK-made lateral flow test. We’re not quite there yet but in the months ahead we’ll be making them in this country as well.”
Johnson went further earlier this year, when he declared: “We’ve created an indigenous industry not just to conduct lateral flow testing, but to make lateral flow tests.”
The DHSC told HuffPost UK it was “committed to ensuring that the UK has the testing supplies and equipment it needs”.
“As part of this, people may receive the DHSC branded Innova self LFD test, or an Orient Gene branded self LFD test. If the test will be conducted in an assisted setting, Innova, Orient Gene tests may be used.
“Collaboration between industry and government continues to be a priority and we are hugely grateful to all the manufacturers and suppliers who have come forward to offer their assistance in producing Lateral Flow Devices (LFDs).
“We are planning to diversify the supply of LFDs and have started to procure through fair and transparent competition via our LFD Dynamic Purchasing System.”
The DHSC insisted British innovation was at the forefront of its response to the pandemic and partnerships with British firms would help it “to build back better by tapping into the UK’s domestic talent, ingenuity and industry”.
Orient Gene tests have already been used by Test and Trace in its supplies to some schools and colleges, partly because their nasal swabbing is easier to use than back-of-the-throat swabs.
As part of the PM’s ‘moonshot’ plan to offer mass testing to the public, two free lateral flow tests per week have been offered in recent months, but that scheme is set to end in September.
If individuals are forced to pay for their own tests, a lucrative market could open up for those tests approved by regulators.
British firms have spent many months trying to persuade the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to move away from the Chinese-made tests.
Earlier this year, DHSC agreed contracts with Omega Diagnostics, headquartered in Alva in Scotland and Global Access Diagnostics in Bedfordshire to provide manufacturing capacity for mass production of British alternatives.
Omega plans to use provide capacity for rapid tests tests using key pieces of manufacturing equipment loaned by the UK government, but it is still waiting for confirmation on which test it will be required to manufacture.
One UK company, Mologic, was so infuriated with the delays in approving its own test – which it says has passed WHO standards – that it threatened to sue the government.
One problem has been that British-made tests have failed to win full approval from the government lab at Porton Down, even though their own independent studies suggests they work well.
Frustrated biotech firms may end up selling their tests in Europe and the US rather than the UK, and some in Whitehall sympathise with their complaint that Porton Down processes are overly bureaucratic.
Neale Hanvey, MP for the Alba party, raised in prime minister’s question time on Wednesday the issue of Innova’s big government contracts and the failure to use rival tests made by Scottish-based firms such as Omega Diagnostics.
Hanvey pointed to the lack of progress since health minister James Bethell tweeted in March that British companies would be used to supply tests by May.
We’re investing in 2m LFDs per week by end May from British firms @OmegaDiagnostic (🏴) and @mologic to stop the spread of COVID-19. Details 👇
Investment in 🇬🇧 talent will help “build back better” & create 100s of jobs. 🙏 to all involved.
Hanvey asked: “Can the Prime Minister explain why his government is undermining the superior domestic diagnostics tests, while propping up discredited Chinese imports, to the tune of 3 billion pounds?”
Johnson replied: “I don’t think that’s an entirely fair characterisation of what the government is is doing. On the contrary, we have worked night and day to build up our domestic lateral flow capacity, and continue to do so.”
Innova, which is based in California and funded by a private capital group by a Chinese born businessman, uses tests produced by Chinese Biotime Biotechnology, in Xiamen city, Fujian province.
Concerns about cost and reliability have been raised repeatedly by critics, underscored when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to approve its test after the firm made unfounded claims about its clinical data.
Americans were told last month to stop using Innova tests and throw them in the bin, but the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) did its own risk assessment and found no similar action was needed here.
Despite the criticism, the UK government leaned heavily on Innova during the recent second wave of Covid in early 2021.
The gov.uk website shows that the most recent contract was worth a massive £1.2bn for tests supplied from March to April. However, there are no published contracts for Orient Gene.
Following pressure from the government to get costs down, industry sources say that British manufacturers have managed to now offer their own tests at around £5 each, cheaper than Chinese rivals.
British company Avacta had its own AffiDX rapid test approved for professional use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in June. But there is slow progress in wider approval for public use.
Innova’s tests have come under fire for their reliability during the pandemic, with some academics pointing out that while they can pick up cases they are unsuitable for ‘test and release’ policies.
A new study published in the British Medical Journal on Wednesday, which looked in depth at Innova tests used in mass testing in Liverpool, found “the LFT missed 10% of people with a high viral load…and most of the cases with a viral load…who might have contributed to virus transmission.
“This suggests that care is needed when conveying negative LFT results so as not to give false reassurance,” it said.
However, a technical update published by DHSC on Wednesday defended the continued use of the Innova test, also known as the ‘Biotime Lateral Flow Device’, a reference to the Chinese factory where it is made.
“The Biotime LFD remains suitable for deployment as part of the asymptomatic testing programme to identify infectious individuals in the population and to reduce onward transmission risk at a local and national population level.
“There is no difference in performance in its ability to detect the Delta variant in comparison to the Alpha variant.”
However the update did hint at the greater use of British-made tests to cope with more variants of the virus.
“As further new variants emerge, and with increased diversity of LFD product manufacturers planned for deployment in the future, the combination of routine in vitro and clinical post-market surveillance will remain a critical tool for rapid surveillance of device performance in a changing landscape.”
