Latest updates: Grant Shapps, transport secretary, defends system, saying situation would have been ‘one heck of a lot worse’ without it
- No evidence £22bn test-and-trace scheme cut Covid rates in England, say MPs
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This is from Nick Macpherson, a former permanent secretary at the Treasury, on NHS Test and Trace.
The wins the prize for the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time. The extraordinary thing is that nobody in the government seems surprised or shocked. No matter: the BoE will just print more money. #soundmoneyhttps://t.co/m0Hc7ch0kd
Good morning. The Commons public accounts committee has published a report on the government’s NHS test and trace (which, of course, is not run by the NHS) that says there is no proof that it is worth the £37bn that has been allocated for it (£22bn in this financial year, and £15bn in 2021-22). Here is my colleague Rajeev Syal’s story.
Related: No evidence £22bn test-and-trace scheme cut Covid rates in England, say MPs
The £23 billion test and trace has cost us so far is about the annual budget of the Department for Transport. Test and trace still continues to pay for consultants at £1,000 a day.
Yet despite the unimaginable resources thrown at this project test and trace cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic, and the promise on which this huge expense was justified – avoiding another lockdown – has been broken, twice.
9.1 million people have been contacted by test and trace. These are people who otherwise would be wandering round often unaware that they had coronavirus and spreading it around further.
Whatever the coronavirus experience we have had as a nation, good or bad, it would have been one heck of a lot worse if we didn’t have a test and trace system which has contacted so many people and prevented the disease spreading further.
Related: Coronavirus live news: UK ministers asked to justify ‘staggering’ £20bn test and trace system cost
