Face-to-face with Javid

It’s sticks and carrots from the Health Secretary as he attempts to boost face-to-face surgery appoinments.

Richard Sloggett: The doctor won’t see you now. Why the Government needs an urgent plan for primary care.

Speaking to a Conservative MP, his view of the biggest issue facing the party was simple: ‘access to a GP’. His mailbox was filling up.

David Gauke: Johnson’s party is more socially conservative, populist and economically interventionist. But how much?

There is evidence, however, that suggests that the move to abandoning all recent Tory traditions is not quite so straightforward.

David Gauke: Sunak’s options for a Budget windfall. Lower debt, tax cuts and higher spending. Which will he choose?

The Chancellor will have have more money to play with than was forecast. How he uses these additional resources will tell us a great deal about his priorities.

Snap guide to this session’s Government legislation 12) Health and Care Bill

Our introduction to: what each Bill is, the politics of it, who’s responsible, arguments for and against – and a controversy rating out of ten.

Bim Afolami: After the reshuffle, back to the future – NHS queues, rising energy bills, and higher prices

For all the focus elsewhere, the most important domestic department for the next two years will be the Department of Health.

James Frayne: Johnson’s headroom to raise taxes, in the wake of the new levy, has been dramatically reduced

Most obviously, this complicates their Net Zero strategy; you would have expected fiscal policy increasingly to have rebalanced towards green taxes.

A new market in long-term fixed rate mortgages?

Building more houses is a necessary but not sufficient means of ensuring rising home ownership for younger people.

Andrew Griffith: If public services aren’t radically reformed, the new healthcare levy may be in vain

Delivering our popular and bold programme will require better instrumentation, clearer goals and new ways of working.

Johnson, Sunak, tax and spending. The former strains to soar skywards. The latter keeps tugging him back to earth.

Conservative governments can raise tax rates temporarily as part of a clear plan – which wasn’t the case with last week’s announcement.

David Gauke: Johnson’s health and social care plan. A betrayal of Conservative principles? No – because, at one level, there aren’t any.

This can give the Tories a tremendous advantage in a democracy because the public, as a whole, does not have fixed views either.

Heath and Social Care 2) Damian Green: I worry that the spending switch from the NHS to social care may never happen.

I cannot envisage the circumstances in which those at the top of the NHS agree to divert a higher proportion of the Levy to care.

Andrew Haldenby: Health and Social Care. Central planning and targets didn’t work for Blair – and won’t do so for Johnson, either.

The Government has a choice. Local solutions with limited funding – or £10 billion on centralised non-solutions.

Social care reform – and why we can’t simply tax our way to better public services

The cat of Tory tax rises has fewer than nine lives. Especially if these breach manifesto pledges and are generationally unfair.

Nat Wei: To make lockdowns a thing of the past, we need a smart revolution in healthcare

It would be better to move diagnosis and treatment of healthcare problems away from hospitals, among other steps.