Category Archives: UK news

UK energy bills to fall to about £2,200 from July as wholesale gas costs drop

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Mild weather in Europe reduces gas demand but bills will remain higher than 2021 energy price cap

Annual energy bills are expected to fall to about £2,200 from July in a fillip for the government and households struggling with ballooning costs.

The energy consultancy Cornwall Insight has predicted that, excluding government subsidies, typical annual household energy bills will have fallen from £4,279 now to £3,208 from April, and then will ease to roughly £2,200 for the remainder of the year.

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Hiker missing in California named as British actor Julian Sands

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Actor, known for roles in Leaving Las Vegas and Warlock, was reported missing on Friday evening

A hiker reported as missing in southern California has been named as the British actor Julian Sands.

The 65-year-old was reported missing in the Baldy Bowl area of the San Gabriel mountains on Friday evening, with searches by local authorities continuing over the weekend.

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Mental health racial bias in England and Wales is ‘inexcusable’, says report

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MPs and peers say draft mental health bill must go further to strengthen patients’ choices

Ministers must use legislation to address an “unacceptable and inexcusable” failure to address racial disparity in the use of the Mental Health Act, MPs and peers have said.

The joint committee on the draft mental health bill says the bill does not go far enough to tackle failures that were identified in a landmark independent review five years ago, but which still persist and may even be getting worse.

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King Charles redirects £1bn windfarm profits towards ‘public good’

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Wind energy agreements have generated windfall that would normally go towards monarchy

The King has asked for profits from a £1bn-a-year crown estate windfarm deal to be used for the “wider public good” rather than as a funding boost for the monarchy.

Under the taxpayer-funded sovereign grant, which is currently £86.3m a year, the King receives 25% of the crown estate’s annual surplus, which includes an extra 10% for the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.

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‘Medieval institution’: Commonwealth Guardian readers on Prince Harry’s Spare

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Comments range from ‘the monarchy is valuable’ to ‘Harry and Meghan are having their cake and eating it’

Last week, the tell-all autobiography by Prince Harry, Spare, was released and sold a combined 1,430,000 copies on its first day on sale in the US, Canada and the UK.

Here, readers from Commonwealth countries share their thoughts on Prince Harry, his new book and whether the controversies surrounding the royal family have changed their views towards the monarchy.

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Labour seeks inquiry into Boris Johnson and credit facility guaranteed by cousin

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Ex-prime minister used £800,000 facility backed by a relative, wealthy Canadian businessman Sam Blyth, while at No 10

Labour is calling for an investigation into an alleged arrangement by which Boris Johnson used a relative to act as a guarantor for an £800,000 credit facility when he was prime minister.

The party has written to the parliamentary standards commissioner after the Sunday Times reported Canadian businessman Sam Blyth, a distant cousin, had agreed to act as a guarantor for a credit facility for Johnson.

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Rishi Sunak constituency bid raises ‘levelling up’ favouritism fears

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Town in prime minister’s Yorkshire constituency to receive £19m from latest £2.1bn package, which Labour says overlooks neediest

Rishi Sunak’s wealthy rural constituency is receiving £19m of funding from the government’s latest round of levelling up funding, prompting accusations of favouritism towards Conservative seats.

Catterick Garrison, a small army town in the prime minister’s Richmond constituency in North Yorkshire, will receive money to regenerate its town centre as one of 100 projects awarded a share of the £2.1bn package after months of delays.

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PMQs live: Sunak faces Starmer as minister says rail strikes have cost more than settling pay dispute

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Prime minister facing questions from leader of the Labour party and other MPs

Huw Merriman, the rail minister, told MPs this morning that the government has lost more money due to the impact of rail strikes than it would have cost to settle the disputes months ago, PA Media reports. PA says:

Merriman told MPs the row has “ended up costing more” but insisted the “overall impact” on all public sector pay deals must be considered.

Ben Bradshaw, a Labour member of the committee, put it to Merriman that “we’re talking of a cost to the government of over a billion (pounds) so far” from the impact of strikes, which have repeatedly decimated services for several months.

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Rush for bags and scarves helps Burberry offset China Covid slump

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British luxury goods firm reports 1% increase in global sales in last quarter of 2022

Burberry offset a plunge in Chinese sales of more than a fifth amid Covid disruption, thanks to the return of tourists to Europe who snapped up bags, scarves and trenchcoats in the run-up to Christmas.

The British luxury goods firm reported a 1% increase in global sales in the three months to the end of December, below its 2% target and sharply down compared with the 11% growth reported in the previous quarter.

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NHS bosses implore ministers to ‘do all you can’ to end nurses’ strikes

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Group representing trusts in England warns of disruption to patient care as two days of stoppages begin

NHS bosses have implored ministers to “do all you can” to end the strikes that are disrupting care for patients and help rescue the service from its “vicious cycle” of overload and delays.

The NHS Confederation issued its plea on the day nurses in England went on strike for the third time as they seek a bigger pay rise for 2022/23 than the £1,400 on offer.

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TonyBet fined for asking winners for ID leaving other gamblers unchecked

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Regulator fines online betting firm £442,750 for imposing unfair terms and failures in anti-money laundering measures

An online betting firm has been fined £442,750 for demanding ID from winning punters before it would give them the cash, while failing to carry out similar checks on potentially vulnerable people depositing money.

The Gambling Commission punished TonyBet, which is based in Estonia but has a licence to operate in Great Britain, for imposing unfair terms and failures in anti-money laundering and social responsibility measures.

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Aldi increases pay for UK warehouse workers for third time in a year

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Supermarket’s rise to £13.18 on 1 February puts hourly minimum rate 20% ahead of January 2022

Aldi is increasing pay for UK warehouse workers for the third time in a year – with the hourly minimum rate now 20% ahead of last January.

The German-owned discounter, which is the UK’s fourth-largest supermarket chain, said pay would rise to £13.18 on 1 February, up 4% on the current minimum of £12.66, which was introduced in September.

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UN agency and US labour secretary deny backing UK anti-strike bill

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Remarks at odds with government claims that new minimum service law has ‘international seal of approval’

The UN agency for workers’ rights and the US labour secretary have distanced themselves from the UK government’s claims that its strikes bill has the “international seal of approval”.

The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and the business secretary, Grant Shapps, have repeatedly justified rolling out the anti-strike legislation claiming the International Labour Organization (ILO) backs minimum service levels being provided during stoppages by workers, a key plank of the proposed new measures.

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How will drop in inflation affect plans to raise UK interest rates?

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Bank of England must proceed with caution as households are still cutting back and business confidence is weak

There is hope for households across Britain that inflation, finally, has peaked. After hitting a 41-year high of more than 11% in October as energy bills soared, the fall in the annual inflation rate in December for a second consecutive month will come as a relief.

However, prices remain high and are still rising fast. Lower inflation rates do not mean prices are falling for consumers; it is just that they are not rising quite as fast as a month ago. The cost of living crisis may be fading but it is very far from over.

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Brixton Academy security guards alleged to have routinely taken bribes

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After a fatal crowd crush at the London venue in December, the BBC has spoken to a guard who says hundreds were let in for cash

A security guard at London’s O2 Academy Brixton, which has been closed since a fatal crowd crush occurred at the venue in mid-December, has alleged in a BBC report that other guards regularly took bribes to let people in without tickets.

Rebecca Ikumelo, 33, and security guard Gaby Hutchinson, 23, both died after a show by Afrobeats star Asake on 15 December, with several more injured.

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Scottish government to challenge Westminster decision to block gender recognition bill in court – UK politics live

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Nicola Sturgeon says her government will be ‘vigorously defending’ democracy as well as the bill passed in Scotland

I am sorry the comments are closed at the moment. There has been an update this morning that has created a glitch with the system, but the developers are trying to fix it as quickly as possible.

Labour has been anxious to avoid taking sides on the Scottish gender recognition reform bill. Although Keir Starmer has criticised aspects of the bill, and argued it might have an impact on UK equality laws, he has accused both the UK and Scottish governments of politicising the issues and implied that Labour would adopt a more consensual approach.

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England’s PCR Covid testing network drops one of three labs as demand falls

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Rosalind Franklin laboratory in Leamington Spa no longer to be part of laboratory network processing Covid tests

England’s PCR testing network for Covid is to be scaled back due to a fall in demand, public health officials have said.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that the Rosalind Franklin laboratory in Leamington Spa – which at its peak was processing about 75,000 Covid PCR tests a day – will cease to operate as part of the processing network.

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English National Opera to receive £11.46m from Arts Council England

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Investment will sustain its work in London for another year after ENO was removed from ACE’s national portfolio

The English National Opera (ENO) has announced it will receive an £11.46m investment from Arts Council England (ACE) to sustain its work in London for another year.

The ENO is one of a number of organisations that have been removed from ACE’s national portfolio, losing its £12.8m annual grant and told it must move outside London if it wants to qualify for future grants. ENO chiefs have said the 100% funding cut would decimate the 100-year old company, while many big names across the arts world called the decision a “simplistic move”.

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Where does the Britishvolt collapse leave UK’s dream of an electric future?

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Britain’s car industry relies on petrol or diesel vehicles – and every failure to be part of the electric revolution makes it more exposed

The battery startup Britishvolt eyed a big opportunity. With the looming UK ban on sales of internal combustion engine cars after 2035, big demand for batteries was guaranteed. The problem was actually building the batteries.

The company’s efforts have now come to nothing. It collapsed into administration on Tuesday after funding talks failed, leaving a string of disappointed backers ranging from the FTSE 100 companies Glencore and Ashtead to the property investor Tritax, owned by investment group abrdn, which had committed to fund a battery “gigafactory” in Northumberland.

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Conversion practices ban will include transgender people, Donelan confirms

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Latest government U-turn on policy comes amid row over Scotland’s gender recognition bill

The government’s plans for a ban on so-called conversion practices will now also include transgender people, the culture secretary has confirmed.

The policy, which has been proposed several times by successive Conservative governments since 2018 when Theresa May was prime minister, will outlaw attempts to change someone’s sexuality or gender identity in England and Wales.

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