Lawson served in a number of cabinet roles in Margaret Thatcher’s government during a political career spanning 18 years
Tributes have poured in for the former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson, who has died at the age of 91.
Lawson was the MP for the Blaby constituency from 1974 to 1992 and served in numerous cabinet positions in the government of Margaret Thatcher.
Continue reading...Prime minister says offenders have been protected by ‘political correctness’ as he announces ‘grooming gangs taskforce’
Starmer says he has not talked to Jeremy Corbyn for two and a half years.
Q: Is he a friend?
Continue reading...Recent banking turmoil fuels decision to delay offloading portions of its remaining 41% stake
A plan to whittle down the government’s stake in NatWest has been extended by another two years, after weeks of banking turmoil that hit the lender’s shares and temporarily fuelled fears over a fresh financial crisis.
UK Government Investments (UKGI), which manages the shares on behalf of the Treasury, said the scheme to strategically sell portions of the British taxpayer’s shareholding – after NatWest’s near-£46bn state bailout in 2008 – would now run until August 2025.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak claims victims previously ignored ‘due to cultural sensitivity and political correctness’
Downing Street has denied using dog-whistle generalisations to launch a crackdown on grooming gangs, after the NSPCC and experts warned that framing the issue as one based on ethnicity could hamper efforts to tackle it.
After Suella Braverman said “almost all” members of such gangs were British Pakistani men who held attitudes incompatible with British values, critics pointed to a 2020 Home Office report that concluded it was impossible to say if any particular ethnic group was disproportionately represented in such offending.
Continue reading...Home secretary says Brexit did not cause chaos seen at port as angry customers see trips cancelled
Thousands of people have faced a second day stuck in queues at Dover, as Suella Braverman denied post-Brexit checks were to blame for the chaos.
Despite extra sailings put in place overnight on Saturday, P&O Ferries said on Sunday afternoon that coaches arriving at cruise terminal 1 would likely face a total wait of over 10 hours.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Labour says record number of disclosures before Easter recess is effort to evade accountability
Labour has accused ministers of being “desperate to avoid scrutiny” after government departments published a record number of “transparency disclosures” over a 48-hour period before parliament rose for the Easter break.
The Cabinet Office website shows that 150 documents were released over 30-31 March, more than in the previous 44 days and beating the previous record, set exactly a year ago, when there was a data dump of 120 documents just before the recess.
Continue reading...Home secretary refuses to give a deadline for when her controversial policy for asylum seekers will begin
Suella Braverman has been unable to confirm that the first promised deportation flights to Rwanda will take off this summer, as the controversial policy continues to face scrutiny in the courts.
The home secretary, whose officials briefed that plans were on track during her trip to the African country last month, played down the prospect of the flights going ahead shortly.
Continue reading...Hailed by Tory MPs as a Brexit benefit, CPTPP membership actually turns the UK into a willing pawn in Washington’s geopolitical game
Tory MPs hailed the UK’s entry last week into the Indo-Pacific trading bloc as a major step on the road to re-establishing Britain as a pioneer of free trade.
It was a coup for Rishi Sunak, said David Jones, the deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Tory Eurosceptics, who was excited to be aligned with “some of the most dynamic economies in the world”.
Continue reading...Council tax and planning changes aim to make housing more affordable for those on local incomes
Radical measures giving councils in Wales a raft of extra powers designed to stop second homes hollowing out communities, especially in coastal and rural areas, have come into force.
Local authorities across Wales are using the powers to increase the amount of council tax that second home owners must pay and will also be able to bring in changes to planning rules to make it harder for houses and flats to be snapped up as holiday boltholes.
Continue reading...Experts say developers deterred by changes to planning system brought in by successive Tory governments
Planning applications in England have fallen to their lowest level in at least 16 years, according to figures published this week by the levelling up department that highlight the scale of the country’s housing crisis.
Local authorities received fewer applications to build new buildings or improve old ones in 2022 than at any point since before 2006, the earliest year for which the government provides statistics.
Continue reading...Lib Dems call for Thérèse Coffey to resign after raw discharges sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year
Keir Starmer has accused the government of “turning Britain’s waterways into an open sewer”, as data showed raw discharges were sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year.
Private water companies have been consistently accused of failing to take action, and the Environment Agency admitted there were more than 300,000 spillages into rivers and coastal areas in 2022, lasting for more than 1.75m hours.
Continue reading...Comments threaten to worsen already tense relationship between senior ministers and civil servants
Kemi Badenoch has cast doubt on her department’s projections for how much the Asia-Pacific trade deal the UK government has signed will help economic growth.
The government announced overnight it had joined the 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTTP), which includes Australia and Japan, after two years of negotiations.
Continue reading...Questionnaire system at heart of effort to reduce backlog is ‘fundamentally flawed’, say immigration lawyers
Immigration lawyers have accused the Home Office of building delays into a scheme meant to speed up decisions on 12,000 asylum claims.
The plans announced last month to cut the asylum backlog – which now stands at a record 160,000 cases – by sending questionnaires to refugees requires claimants to reply in English within 20 working days or risk refusal.
Continue reading...Department of Health and Social Care in England has removed 269,500 pallets of PPE from its stock
The government has disposed of more than 3bn items of personal protective equipment (PPE) it bought during the pandemic, figures have revealed.
An estimated 3.14bn items have been shed through a mixture of recycling, energy from waste processes – including some incineration – donations and sales.
Continue reading...Possible byelection looms for Rutherglen and Hamilton West after MP travelled back to Scotland on train after positive test in 2020
The MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West Margaret Ferrier should be suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days for breaching Covid rules, the committee on standards has recommended.
Ferrier could face a byelection as the Commons watchdog recommended she should be suspended for 30 days for breaching Covid rules. She was found to have damaged the reputation of the Commons and put people at risk after taking part in a debate and travelling by train while suffering from Covid.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Labour leader to launch campaign for local elections with tax pledge that Conservatives have criticised as worthless
The Commons standards committee says Margaret Ferrier should be suspended for 30 days for breaches of Commons rules related to the incident where she travelled by train from London to Scotland after testing positive for Covid in 2020.
Last year a court sentenced her to 270 hours of unpaid work in relation to the offence, but the standards commmittee says a further sanction by the Commons is required.
The threshold for a breach of paragraph 17 of the code [which says MPs should “never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole”] is necessarily high. However, any finding that a member’s actions have brought the house into disrepute must be considered to be a serious breach. The 2019 Code states that “members have a duty to uphold the law”; something the public rightly expect. If Ms Ferrier had been a public sector employee in a position of trust or leadership, she could have faced severe disciplinary consequences, potentially including dismissal, for these or similar actions.
We therefore recommend that Ms Ferrier is suspended from the service of the house for 30 days.
Labour’s announcement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. They have no plan to introduce this if elected. They’re taking the British people for fools.
If Labour were serious about cutting council tax Labour councils would be doing it now.
Continue reading...Faith in bloc higher than that in UK parliament for first time in three decades of World Values Survey
People in Britain have more confidence in the EU than the UK parliament, reversing a state of affairs that has lasted for more than 30 years, research reveals.
Since the UK voted for Brexit, the proportion of people declaring confidence in parliament has slumped by 10 percentage points to 22% while there has been a seven percentage point rise in confidence in the Brussels-based bloc, to 39%. Confidence in the UK government also fell from 2017 to 2021.
Continue reading...Despite MoD assurances, applicant and former British Council worker still being asked for Taliban-stamped papers
An Afghan who worked with the British Council and is applying to come to the UK has been told to retrieve documents from the Taliban or risk rejection, despite assurances earlier this month that such demands would end.
The Ministry of Defence apologised on 18 March after an investigation found that applicants to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) scheme were required to provide birth and marriage certificates in English and bearing stamps from Afghan government departments.
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Eagle how the pay settlement for health workers will be funded.
Hunt says, as with all pay settlements, departments fund them from the money they get in the spending review. But in exceptional circumstances they can speak to the Treasury about extra help.
But we make a commitment that there will not be a degredation of frontline services for the public.
Continue reading...Scheduling makes Wales hearing look like ‘poorer relative’, say unions, while NI families say at least six weeks is needed
Bereaved families have strongly criticised proposals by the UK Covid-19 inquiry to set aside only three weeks each for its public hearings on the responses to the pandemic in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru argued that the Labour-led Welsh government would escape proper scrutiny unless more time was allocated. Trade union leaders suggested there was a risk Wales could be seen as the “poorer relative” in the inquiry.
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