Category Archives: UK news

Minister rejects claim that Sue Gray showed ‘stunning arrogance’ accepting higher salary than Keir Starmer – UK politics live

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Jonathan Reynolds, business secretary, suggests Starmer himself did not decide pay for his chief of staff

The government is going to consult on '“tough” new laws designed to reduce the extent to which small firms get their bills paid late.

Making the announcement, Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said late payments were “simply unacceptable” and that the new moves would help small businesses.

When the cashflow runs dry, small firms go under which is why we need to hold larger business to account with their payment practices and foster an environment that supports growth and jobs.

The government will consult on tough new laws which will hold larger firms to account and get cash flowing back into businesses – helping deliver our mission to grow the economy.

In addition, new legislation being brought in the coming weeks will require all large businesses to include payment reporting in their annual reports - putting the onus on them to provide clarity in their annual reports about how they treat small firms. This will mean company boards and international investors will be able to see how firms are operating.

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Bank of England keeps interest rates unchanged at 5%

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Policymakers vote 8-1 against back-to-back cuts in borrowing costs after inflation stayed above Bank target

The Bank of England has kept interest rates unchanged at 5% as it put its efforts to ease the pressure on household budgets on hold.

The Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted by a majority of eight to one against launching a back-to-back reduction in borrowing costs amid concerns over lingering inflationary pressures.

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Home Office urged to scrap long, expensive and ‘racist’ visa route

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Most applicants who feel forced to use 10-year immigration route are people of colour, analysis of FoI data shows

A long and expensive visa route for immigrants has been called “racist” after analysis showed most applicants who feel forced to go through it are people of colour.

The “10-year route” visa is used by hundreds of thousands of people who are not eligible for other immigration schemes because of a lack of income or professional qualifications. Many work in low-paid jobs, such as cleaning or care work. Other common routes to settlement in the UK take five years.

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Starmer’s free tickets for Arsenal and Taylor Swift part of job, says minister

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Business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, defends PM over gifts he has received since becoming Labour leader

Keir Starmer’s attendance at Arsenal football matches and Taylor Swift concerts is “part of the job”, the business secretary has said.

Jonathan Reynolds described the occasions for which Starmer had accepted tickets, including a Coldplay gig and football matches, as “major cultural, sporting events”.

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Billionaire Guy Hands’ property firm takes housing reforms to European court

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Annington Property fears recent legislation will force it to offload some of the 38,000 freeholds it owns on UK military homes

A property company founded by the billionaire Guy Hands has taken a legal fight with the UK government to the European court of human rights over fears it could lose significant sums as a result of planned housing reforms.

Annington Property, which owns the freehold of about 38,000 military homes, has filed the claim against the housing minister, Angela Rayner, over concerns that the new Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act could force it to off-load the homes well below market value. Last month it launched a challenge in the high court on the same grounds.

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The great divide: are office workers more productive than those at home?

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Amazon has told staff they must return five days a week – but experts don’t all agree that flexible working cuts output

Four years ago when the world of work was upended by the Covid pandemic, confident predictions were made that a permanent shift in remote working would follow the removal of lockdown restrictions.

Much has clearly changed since. Some of the earliest preachers of the brave new teleworking world – including the US tech companies Google and Microsoft – are among the most vocal to repent.

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‘Frockgate’ and Starmer’s love-in with Meloni – Politics Weekly UK

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The row over ‘frockgate’ continues to trouble the prime minister this week, while his decision to visit his far-right Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, has upset many in his party. The Guardian’s John Harris talks to the political correspondent Aletha Adu, who was travelling with Keir Starmer. Also, the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, joins John Harris to look at the rise of the far-right on the continent

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Teachers in England offered lie-ins to make job more appealing

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Other perks including nine-day fortnight and more planning time at home offered to attract recruits

Teachers in England are being offered a range of incentives to make the job more appealing, including two free periods a week to give them a lie-in, a nine-day fortnight and more planning time at home to help with work-life balance.

An escalating crisis in teacher recruitment and retention is forcing schools and academy trusts to come up with novel ways to attract new recruits into the profession and keep experienced staff in front of classes.

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UK urged to promote speaking of Irish and Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland

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Council of Europe also calls for more support for Cornish, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Manx Gaelic

The UK is being urged by Europe’s leading human rights organisation to push ahead with strategies to promote the use of Irish and Ulster Scots languages in Northern Ireland despite continued tensions over the issue.

The Council of Europe experts also want to see the strengthening of teaching of all minority languages in the UK including Cornish, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Manx Gaelic in the Isle of Man.

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Poor NHS maternity care in danger of becoming normalised, regulator warns

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CQC issues damning report on maternity services in England as minister admits anxiety over ‘risk of disaster’

Maternity services in England are so inadequate that cases of women receiving poor care and being harmed in childbirth are in danger of becoming “normalised”, the NHS regulator has said.

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) report based on inspections of 131 maternity units sets out an array of problems, adding to the sense of crisis that has enveloped an NHS service that cares for the 600,000 women a year who give birth and their babies.

Some women, frustrated at facing such long delays in being assessed at triage, discharge themselves before they are seen.

65% of units are not safe for women to give birth in, 47% of trusts are rated as requiring improvement on safety and another 18% are rated as inadequate.

Some hospitals do not record incidents that have resulted in serious harm.

There is a widespread lack of staff and in some places a lack of potentially life-saving equipment.

Hospitals do not always consider women’s suffering after receiving poor care.

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UK summer’s ‘last hurrah’ set to give way to heavy rainfall at weekend

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Met Office says ‘gentle decline’ in temperature expected, ushering in more typical autumn weather

The UK is enjoying “summer’s last hurrah” before heavy rainfall is expected to drench the country over the weekend, the Met Office has said.

On Wednesday, temperatures hit 25.5C in Inverness, which is 14C above average for this time of year, according to the forecaster. Warm and bright conditions are expected to continue into Thursday after a cloudy morning – with highs of 26C in London, the weather service added.

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Top UK food firms urged to do more to cut ‘staggering’ emissions

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Food campaign Bite Back says 10 firms account for more carbon emissions globally than aviation industry

Britain’s biggest food and drink firms are doing too little to tackle the climate emergency and are producing “staggering” amounts of greenhouse gases, campaigners claim.

The 10 companies that manufacture more of the UK’s food than anyone else produce more carbon emissions between them than even the aviation industry, a report says.

Three of the firms increased their annual emissions in 2022 – Ferrero, Kraft Heinz and PepsiCo.

Seven are on course to miss meeting emissions targets they have set themselves to achieve by 2050.

Only four have a verifiable commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050 – Danone, Mars, Mondelēz and Nestlé.

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Cat that comforts trafficked women in London safe house is feline of the year

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Marley, whose ‘incredible gift of empathy’ is said to help exploited women, beats thousands of cats to prize

A cat that offers comfort to trafficked women has been named cat of the year at a national ceremony.

Marley, a black and white cat who lives at a safe house for women who have been enslaved, exploited and trafficked, won the award because of his “gift of empathy”.

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UK must stop being naive over resetting relations with EU, thinktank says

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European Centre for International Political Economy outlines a plan to bring the two sides closer

The UK must stop being “naive” about negotiations to reset relations with the EU and show more flexibility in its approach to Brussels, a trade policy thinktank has said.

As EU leaders question how much has changed in the UK despite the new government, the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) has outlined a plan to bring the two sides closer after a series of reports that the EU doubted Keir Starmer’s commitment to a reset.

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British activist denied bail after years in Indian jail without trial

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Jagtar Singh Johal is being arbitrarily detained and targeted for his human rights activism, say campaigners

Delhi’s high court has denied bail to the British activist Jagtar Singh Johal, who has been imprisoned in India for nearly seven years, in seven cases brought against him by the country’s National Investigations Agency.

The ruling has shocked family and supporters who claim it should jolt the British government into recognising that Johal is not receiving justice at the hands of the Indian legal system.

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London’s fourth plinth artwork aims to ‘unite trans community around the world’

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Trafalgar Square piece by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles is made of masks depicting faces of transgender and non-binary people

A towering cuboid made of more than 300 masks depicting the faces of transgender and non-binary people, this year’s fourth plinth artwork, has been described as a piece designed to “unite the trans community around the world”.

The Mexican artist Teresa Margolles was flanked by members of her country’s trans community as Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant) was unwrapped in Trafalgar Square on Wednesday.

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UK inflation stays at 2.2% as lower petrol prices offset by higher air fares

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Annual rate in August unchanged, and hovering above Bank of England’s 2% target

The UK’s annual inflation rate rose by 2.2% in August, matching the increase in July, as lower petrol prices at the pump were offset by higher air fares.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the government’s preferred measure of the cost of living remained steady, matching forecasts by City economists and hovering just above the Bank of England’s 2% target.

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Wednesday briefing: Why Labour seems to be walking the walk on the climate crisis

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In today’s newsletter: The party talked up its plans for the climate during this summer’s election – and now seems to be backing that up with real action

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Good morning.

During their election campaign, Labour made it clear that the climate crisis would be a key focus should they make it into government. It looks as if they are making good on that promise. A number of senior cabinet ministers have come out this week, banging the drum for the government’s climate policies and reminding the public and the media that the climate crisis and its effects are at the top of their agenda.

Labour | Keir Starmer has declared more free tickets and gifts than other major party leaders in recent times, with his total now topping £100,000 after recent support for his lifestyle from Labour donor Waheed Alli.

Middle East | Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel after pagers used by its members exploded across Lebanon simultaneously, killing at least nine people and wounding almost 3,000. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The apparent sabotage attack followed months of targeted assassinations by Israel against senior Hezbollah leaders.

Music | Sean “Diddy” Combs has been charged with sex trafficking and racketeering, according to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday. Combs had been arrested late Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal authorities conducting a sex trafficking investigation raided his luxurious homes in Los Angeles and Miami.

NHS | A fifth of GPs are using artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT to help with tasks such as writing letters for their patients after appointments, according to a survey.

Aid | UK aid spending will fall to its lowest level since 2007 unless the government takes urgent remedial action in the autumn budget, a group of more than 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the aid and humanitarian sector jointly warned on Wednesday.

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Superyacht and private jet tax could raise £2bn a year, say campaigners

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Oxfam says ‘commonsense solution’ would reduce emissions and raise urgently needed climate finance

Fair taxes on superyachts and private jets in the UK could have brought in £2bn last year to provide vital funds for communities suffering the worst effects of climate breakdown, campaigners say.

Private jet use in the UK is soaring. It was home to the second highest number of private flights in Europe last year, behind only France, according to figures from the European Business Aviation Association.

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‘Butterfly emergency’ declared as UK summer count hits record low

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Conservation group calls on government to ban insect-killing neonicotinoid pesticides outright

A national “butterfly emergency” has been declared by Butterfly Conservation after the lowest Big Butterfly Count since records began.

An average of just seven butterflies per 15-minute count were recorded by participants in this summer’s butterfly count, the lowest in the survey’s 14-year history.

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