We must harness vaccines and the potential of the North to prevent a Great Covid Depression - Mark Casci

Not only is our NHS equipped with far better knowledge of how to treat this disease than it was at the start of the last lockdown but we are already seeing vaccination programmes being rolled out en masse (a subject to which I will return later on).

An end is, or should be, in sight for our nation after such a joyless and soul-straining year.

A fresh national lockdown at time of writing looks inevitable, bringing with it a whole host of hammer blows to our economy.

But, rather than dwell on the negative, let me look to some ways and means in which we can extricate ourselves from this nightmare.

With unemployment set to reach 7.1 per cent of the working population and having suffered the worst contraction in economic growth in three centuries a stimulus package like no other is required. And gimmicks like Eat Out to Help Out need not apply.

Following the collapse of the worldwide economy in the 1920s, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1933 and set into train what became known as the New Deal. It instituted a programme of relief, recovery and reform that restored the US economy to pre-crash levels within seven years and laid a foundation that made America the dominant economic player on the planet for more than a half a century.

A similarly bold and broad programme is needed for the UK now. Rather than rely on Cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister must assemble a ‘Brains Trust’, as FDR did when he forged his New Deal. He canvassed the views and the ideas of politicians like then Labour Secretary Frances Perkins but also businessman Hugh Johnson. The best economic minds in the country must be harnessed to get our country back to work and to growth,

The Government was elected on a manifesto that committed to ‘levelling up’ and an empowered and properly invested North of England is as clear a pathway as any to achieving these goals.

Former Northern Powerhouse minister Jake Berry was quoted this week as saying he is tired of being told that “now is not the right time” to be investing in the North. He is absolutely correct and indeed I can think of no more ideal a time than right now.

This means no more dither and delay on infrastructure projects. Rather than listen to increasingly discredited opponents of HS2, work on the Northern legs of the project, both in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire, must begin as soon as possible and be carried out in conjunction with the work already underway in the south. Rather than wait a decade or more for Northern Powerhouse Rail, let us accelerate the process and begin within two years.

And why stop there? New roads should be built and the fine plans to expand both Yorkshire’s Leeds Bradford Airport and Doncaster Sheffield Airport should be approved and commenced.

None of these programmes are new ideas. Some have been discussed for more than a decade. The time for discussion now has to end and be replaced with action. We will never have more of an imperative to do so.

However, none of these measures, nor any other solution to bolster our recovery, will work under present conditions. Lockdowns, social distancing, tier system and the like are designed to aid public health but are insurmountable barriers to economic growth.

Consider manufacturing and the huge added cost and decreased output social distancing has entailed. Consider further hospitality, shutdown for most of the last years and leaving thousands of upon thousands of businesses on the edge of disaster.

Now that we have the vaccine Government can have absolutely no margin for error in ending this public health crisis and restoring us to normal life. It failed at track and trace and made numerous errors on mass testing.

Ministers have made great play of the fact we were first to approve the vaccine but being first does not always mean being right. The vaccination programme must be executed flawlessly or else the Great Covid Recession becomes the Great Covid Depression.