Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set out the range of assumptions of virus spread and severity of illness used in his covid-19 response planning.

Maggie Throup, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care: The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) provides advice to the Government on its response to the COVID-19 epidemic. Its operational subgroup, Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M-O), modelled potential scenarios for the Omicron variant using a range of assumptions on indicators. These include parameters such as the transmission advantage and intrinsic severity of the Omicron variant over the Delta variant. SPI-M-O modellers use contemporaneous academic studies when setting their assumptions.

Such modelling is regularly updated to reflect changes in assumptions as and when more detailed studies are released. Where there is uncertainty in a parameter value, sensitivity analysis is used to explore the range of impact and inform the Government’s response. Given the large number of assumptions made for the parameters that feed into the modelling, the latest underlying assumptions used by SPI-M-O academic groups is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-m-o-chairs-statement-on-covid-19-19-december-2021

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) also informs the scientific advice presented to the Government. The UKHSA undertakes studies and risk assessments on selected emergent variants, assessing transmissibility, immune evasion, growth advantage and infections severity based on available data from the UKHSA and academic partners. Variants are selected for assessment on the basis of growth, and the number and type of genetic mutations present. Risk assessments are updated regularly until stable assessments are reached and are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-sars-cov-2-variants-of-concern-variant-risk-assessments

Detailed analyses of the indicators are published in the Technical Briefings, which are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-sars-cov-2-variants-technical-briefings

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): The Home Secretary has a lot of support on the Government Benches for the compassionate and sensible way in which she is going about this. Will she confirm that she is listening both to what the refugees want, which is often not a long-term settlement a long way from Ukraine, and with regard to the security issues that this all poses?

Priti Patel, The Secretary of State for the Home Department: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I must emphasise that every single crisis requires a bespoke and unique response. There are two very big calls coming from the region and from our counterparts. First and foremost, they are asking for help on security measures right now; that consistent theme is coming over. That comes down to checks—they are undertaking checks—but they are also very concerned about wider security issues, some of which I simply cannot discuss in this House, for clear reasons. The second point—even the Ukrainian ambassador made this point to me yesterday and I hear it every single day from my counterparts—is that there is a call to keep people in region. There is a big demand for that, and that is where the wider aid effort has to focus, in addition to the work that we are doing on humanitarianism.

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): The Home Secretary has a lot of support on the Government Benches for the compassionate and sensible way in which she is going about this. Will she confirm that she is listening both to what the refugees want, which is often not a long-term settlement a long way from Ukraine, and with regard to the security issues that this all poses?

Priti Patel, The Secretary of State for the Home Department: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I must emphasise that every single crisis requires a bespoke and unique response. There are two very big calls coming from the region and from our counterparts. First and foremost, they are asking for help on security measures right now; that consistent theme is coming over. That comes down to checks—they are undertaking checks—but they are also very concerned about wider security issues, some of which I simply cannot discuss in this House, for clear reasons. The second point—even the Ukrainian ambassador made this point to me yesterday and I hear it every single day from my counterparts—is that there is a call to keep people in region. There is a big demand for that, and that is where the wider aid effort has to focus, in addition to the work that we are doing on humanitarianism.

The government will be a big winner from the sky high oil and gas prices. The profits of the U.K. producers will be swollen . The U.K. charges a windfall rate of Corporation tax on these profits at twice the normal rate.

Then there is the big surge in petrol and diesel prices. Over half the pump price is tax, so that will be another big win for the Treasury.

With General inflation heading for 7% all those items that attract VAT will also be chipping in more tax .

If the government gets around to substituting U.K. gas for Russian and Qatari imports that will also be a big boost to the receipts.

Indeed if you added all these up you would probably be close to another £12bn of tax raids on voters, enough to cancel the National Insurance rise.

The Chancellor must change his mind on  the big tax raid in April when real incomes will be badly hit by energy prices. He is more than £ 50 bn better off than budget this year already, and now has the further windfall.

He should accept he is overtaxing and start to do something to cut the burdens. Otherwise he will go down in history  as architect of one of the worst hits real incomes we have seen.

The government will be a big winner from the sky high oil and gas prices. The profits of the U.K. producers will be swollen . The U.K. charges a windfall rate of Corporation tax on these profits at twice the normal rate.

Then there is the big surge in petrol and diesel prices. Over half the pump price is tax, so that will be another big win for the Treasury.

With General inflation heading for 7% all those items that attract VAT will also be chipping in more tax .

If the government gets around to substituting U.K. gas for Russian and Qatari imports that will also be a big boost to the receipts.

Indeed if you added all these up you would probably be close to another £12bn of tax raids on voters, enough to cancel the National Insurance rise.

The Chancellor must change his mind on  the big tax raid in April when real incomes will be badly hit by energy prices. He is more than £ 50 bn better off than budget this year already, and now has the further windfall.

He should accept he is overtaxing and start to do something to cut the burdens. Otherwise he will go down in history  as architect of one of the worst hits real incomes we have seen.