Key events
The NHS is expecting a surge in demand following the strike by ambulance workers
Demand for NHS services is expected to rise after yesterday’s ambulance strike in England and Wales. In an interview this morning, Saffron Cordery, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents health trusts, said demand was “significantly down” yesterday but that would change. She said:
What we think that today, tomorrow and the next few days will bring us is actually a big jump in seeking emergency treatment, people going to 911, potentially calling ambulances because they are in a condition that is significantly aggravated.
My colleague Caroline Davies has the full story here.
Rees-Mogg dismisses analysis showing UK GDP 5.5% lower than it would have been without Brexit as ‘absurd’
As reported here yesterday, the Center for European Reform published analysis claiming that UK GDP is 5.5% lower than it would have been without Brexit.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former business secretary and leading Brexiteer, published an article in the Daily Express criticizing the methodology used by the CER. CER identifies a clutch of countries whose economic performance is close to that of the UK in the decade or more before Brexit, and compares the performance of this ‘twin’ UK (a statistical fiction based on the performance data of the comparator countries) since 2016. with the representation of the real United Kingdom. Rees-Mogg argues that this approach is “absurd”. He says:
[The model] claims that the UK economy will do better with EU membership, but then goes on to argue that this country should not be compared to the economies of Germany, France and Italy, but to faster-growing nations . These two arguments contradict each other.
If, as the CER says, the major continental economies are inherently slower growing than the UK, surely we would like to be less tied to them and freer to operate globally. The fact that since we voted to leave we have outperformed all major European economies except France shows our success.
From the third quarter of 2016 to the second quarter of 2022, the UK saw growth of 6.2%, Germany – 5.4%, France – 7.6%, Italy – 4.2% and Spain – 5.9 %.
Rees-Mogg is not the first person to criticize the CER methodology on these grounds and in his report John Springford of the CER responds to these arguments. He does not accept that France, Germany and Italy would be better comparison countries to provide data on what would happen to a “double” UK that did not vote for Brexit in 2016. He argues:
Just because countries are of similar size in a similar region, they do not necessarily have similar economic patterns or growth rates. The algorithm can find better twin countries elsewhere. Indeed, the UK’s growth rate between the introduction of the euro in 1999 and 2016 was significantly different from that of France, Germany and Italy. It was much closer to that in the US.
Updated at 10.34 GMT
The UK had the worst growth in the G7 in Q3, latest figures show
The UK is currently the worst performing G7 nation in terms of quarterly economic growth, writes my colleague Graham Worden on his business live blog. He says:
The UK’s third-quarter GDP contraction of 0.3% reported this morning was worse than Japan’s 0.2% decline, while Canada and the US expanded slightly, by around 0.7%.
France (+0.2%), Germany (+0.4%) and Italy (+0.5%) also saw growth in July-September.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said it showed the Tories had lost control of the economy.
NEW: GDP figures have been revised down, leaving the UK with the worst growth in the G7 in the last quarter.
The Tories have lost control of the economy and are leaving millions of working people to pay the price.
Only Labor has a proper plan to grow our economy.
— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) December 22, 2022
Graham has more on this story on his live business blog.
The minister admits more is needed to ease trade after the damning Brexit business survey
Good morning. Two years ago on Saturday, Boris Johnson announced that he had finalized a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. Never one for superlatives, he said it was “the biggest trade deal ever, worth £660bn”. In his statement, he described it as:
A deal that, if nothing else, will allow our companies and our exporters to do even more business with our European friends.
It also claimed – falsely – that under its terms there would be no “non-tariff barriers to trade”.
This morning the British Chamber of Commerce published a damning report on how this trade deal (the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, or TCA, to give it its official title) is being presented, and it’s damning. As my colleague Heather Stewart reports in her writing More than 1,000 business leaders were surveyed and three-quarters of them said the deal was not helping them increase sales or expand.Here’s her story.
And here is the graph that shows the key result.
Study on the impact of the Brexit trade deal Photo: BCC
I will post more from the survey soon.
There hasn’t been much of a response from the government, but Mark Spencer, the agriculture secretary, has been giving interviews and he told Times Radio this morning that he claims the government wants to cut “red tape” for exporters to the EU. He said:
There is always more to do to try to facilitate the passage and passage of trade. We are very keen to do this. We are a free and open trading nation, we want to work closely with our EU colleagues and we want to try to reduce that red tape, if there is any red tape, on their side of the Channel. So of course we want to keep those trade channels open both ways.
Parliament is not in session in London. But in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister, answers questions at 12pm and then MSPs are due to wrap up the debate on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The final vote is at 2:45 p.m. It was expected yesterday, but as my colleague Libby Brooks reports, the debate has continued over time.
I will try to follow the comments below the line (BTL), but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, include “Andrew” somewhere in it and I’m more likely to find it. I try to answer questions and if they’re of general interest I’ll post the question and answer above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise I’ll do this for everyone.
If you want to get my attention quickly, you’re probably better off using Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.
Updated at 10.43 GMT
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