FACT CHECK NHS Test and Trace has not cost £37 billion
Posts on social media often mention the supposed £37bn cost of NHS Test and Trace. But this is just the two-year budget for the programme - not what has already been spent, or necessarily what will be spent.
The most recent figures cover the first year of NHS Test and Trace, up to April 2021, when £13.5bn had been spent. This is lower than the one year budget of £22.2bn for the project.
According to a National Audit Office report on its progress, this underspend was primarily due to the fact that “the high level of demand for testing forecast for January and February 2021 did not materialise, in part due to national lockdown measures.”
It’s worth noting that NHS Test and Trace is not just the NHS Covid-19 app. It also covers testing services, ‘contain activities’ (including identifying local outbreaks and supporting local responses to the pandemic), and tracing services.
We’ve fact checked a recent example of this £37bn figure being used erroneously.
CORRECTION
In our newsletter last week, the headline of the top story read: ‘Reinfections don’t seriously underestimate the number of Covid deaths’. But the fact check that followed was referring to reinfections and Covid cases, not deaths. We apologise for any confusion caused.
The government recently announced that ‘cutting red tape’ on imports of wine would save consumers £130 million per year. This claim was repeated in the Telegraph, the Express and by Jacob Rees-Mogg on Twitter. But most of this saving isn’t really a saving at all.
Most of this “saving” derives from the UK not requiring EU wine producers to fill in a form when exporting to the UK. But EU wine producers didn’t have to fill out the form anyway.
The Wine and Spirit Trade Association estimated that introducing this form for EU wine producers would add an extra £70m to the cost of importing wine. Far from a saving, this just represents maintenance of the status quo, and the avoidance of a cost which the government had originally planned, before reversing the decision.
So will there be a saving? Since this form has been scrapped entirely, non-EU importers will no longer have to fill it out. This saving has been estimated at £30m.
Those aged 16 and 17 are now being offered their Covid vaccines in the UK. This is in addition to children aged 12 or over at increased risk of becoming seriously ill with Covid-19 or who live with an immunosuppressed person. But what are the rules on medical consent for them?
If you are over 16, you can legally consent to your own medical treatment - and so do not require parental consent to receive a vaccine. This is unless there is sufficient evidence to suggest they are not capable of doing so.
Children under the age of 16 can consent to their own treatment if they're believed to have enough intelligence, competence and understanding to fully appreciate what's involved in their treatment. Otherwise, someone with parental responsibility for them must consent for an immunisation to take place.
Government guidance states that “when someone aged 16 or 17 years consents to vaccination, a parent cannot override that consent.” If they refuse the vaccine, that should also be accepted.
