New scheme for companies, charities and public sector organisations to offer discount on wholesale prices
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is poised to announce a cut to the financial support offered to businesses to help with their energy bills.
A new scheme to provide support for businesses, charities and public sector organisations at a less generous level than the current scheme is expected to be presented in the House of Commons on Monday.
Continue reading...Union chief welcomes hour-long meeting with ministers on Monday but says ‘months have been wasted’
A potential government offer of a one-off payment to teachers is unlikely to be enough to prevent upcoming strikes in England and Wales, the head of the biggest teaching union has warned ahead of talks with ministers on Monday.
Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said while talks with the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, were welcome, she was sceptical about what could be achieved.
Continue reading...PM urged to ‘come clean’ amid suggestions he is out of touch with millions who face long NHS waits
Rishi Sunak has refused to say whether he uses private healthcare amid suggestions he is out of touch with millions of ordinary people who face long waiting times to receive treatment on the NHS.
The prime minister said his own healthcare was “not really relevant” and was a “distraction” from his focus on making sure people across England receive high-quality NHS provision.
Continue reading...Political disagreement about the role of the state, the expense of reform and our unwillingness to confront ageing are at the root of the problem
A confidential No 10 memo on (not) reforming social care reads: “The prime minister agreed that this seemed the right course, but noted that careful thought needed to be given to the presentation in order to avoid charges that the government had pulled back from its original commitments on long-term care.”
That’s not a recent leak: it was from 1996, and shows how far back political failure on social care stretches. Politicians have not incurred any penalties for shirking this responsibility. In fact, the only leader who has really been burned by it is Theresa May – and that’s because she tried to do the right thing and be honest with the public about the cost in the 2017 election.
The past three decades have seen many attempts to reform social care. They all had different solutions and all collapsed in slightly different ways. But there are three things that the failures have had in common.
Ian Wright and MPs David Lammy, Yvette Cooper and Caroline Lucas criticise U-turn by Suella Braverman before 75th anniversary
The government has been criticised by several public figures after the news of the home secretary’s plans to abandon several key commitments made after the Windrush scandal in the run-up to the 75th anniversary of the ship’s arrival in the UK.
On Friday, the Guardian reported that Suella Braverman was planning to abandon several of the key commitments made since the Windrush scandal, including dropping the pledge to create a migrants’ commissioner and a U-turn on the promise to increase the powers of the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration.
Continue reading...Industrial action over pay and working conditions has caused almost four weeks of disruption
The last day in the latest stretch of railway strikes has begun, ending a run of almost four weeks of continuous disruption caused by industrial action over pay and working conditions.
Only about one in five trains across Great Britain will run on Saturday as a 48-hour walkout by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union concludes, with no early morning or evening services and a pared-back schedule on main intercity and urban lines.
Continue reading...DHSC accused PPE Medpro of presenting false document when tendering for PPE contracts
A company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone was referred to the UK’s health products watchdog for an investigation after it allegedly presented a false document to the government when tendering for PPE contracts.
The referral of the company, PPE Medpro, was described in a high court document made public this week, setting out the legal claim against the company by the Department of Health and Social Care. The DHSC is seeking the return of £122m in public money it paid for the supply of sterile surgical gowns, plus £11.6m for storing and disposing of them.
Continue reading...PM offers no hint he will compromise on pay offers as former cabinet minister says nurses key to dealing with NHS pressures
The journalist interviewing Rishi Sunak this morning did not press Sunak on excess deaths because he needed to ask some questions about Prince Harry’s memoir. But Sunak would not go near the topic.
Asked how he felt seeing the royal family “torn apart” by these claims and revelations, Sunak replied:
As you would expect, it is not appropriate for me to comment on matters to do with the royal family.
I wouldn’t comment on matters to do with the royal family. I would just say I am enormously grateful to our armed forces for the incredible job they do in keeping us all safe. We’re all very fortunate for their service.
Continue reading...Angela Crawley’s private member’s bill aims to grant three days of statutory paid leave to grieving parents
Ministers have been urged to back proposals that would grant paid leave to parents who have experienced miscarriage.
Under current UK law, people are not granted maternity leave or pay if they have had a miscarriage.
Continue reading...Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley says UK capital is a place to ‘live, work and enjoy yourself’
The Metropolitan police commissioner has described London as a “fantastically safe” city as the force announced a drop in homicide rates last year.
Sir Mark Rowley said the capital was a place to “live, work and enjoy yourself” as he visited a boxing gym in Ilford, east London, on Thursday.
Continue reading...Specialisms such as dentistry have shortages and EU exit still causes issues with medicines in Northern Ireland, thinktank finds
NHS trusts in England have increased recruitment from low-income “red list” countries to make up for the post-Brexit loss of EU staff, despite a code of practice to safeguard health services in those developing countries.
A report by the Nuffield Trust thinktank also identified shortages in vital specialist areas since Brexit, including dentistry, cardiothoracic surgery and anaesthesiology.
Continue reading...Annalena Baerbock makes appeal as she holds talks in London with UK foreign secretary James Cleverly
Disputes over implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol have become “the achilles heel” of the EU’s relations with the UK, the German foreign minister said on Thursday as she held talks with her UK counterpart in London.
Annalena Baerbock’s appeal to find a solution to the deadlock over the protocol came during wide-ranging and much delayed talks with James Cleverly in London, which also covered the war in Ukraine and the state of Anglo-German relations.
Continue reading...Legislation will allow bosses of key public services to sue unions and sack employees who refuse to work
Rishi Sunak’s new anti-strike legislation to enforce “minimum service levels” in key public sectors including the NHS and schools has drawn a furious reaction from unions as the prime minister scrambles to get a grip on industrial disputes.
The law, which the government plans to introduce in the coming weeks, will allow bosses in health, education, fire, ambulance, rail and nuclear commissioning to sue unions and sack employees if minimum levels are not met.
Continue reading...Labour will not ‘spend its way out of the mess’ but will a more pragmatic approach persuade the core support the party still stands for something?
Keir Starmer was looking assured, shirt sleeves rolled up and cracking jokes, as he stood in front of a giant orange robotic arm in an east London design lab to make his new year speech.
Just 24 hours earlier Rishi Sunak had given his own address on the state of the nation at the building next door, prompting the Labour leader to quip: “I won’t tell the prime minister where I’m going on holiday this year just in case I find him there as well.”
Continue reading...Latest updates: Labour leader to say he plans to move away from the ‘sticking plaster politics’ of short-term decision making
Mick Whelan, the general secretary of Aslef, which represents train drivers, told the Today programme this morning that he did not think the anti-strike legislation proposed by the government (see 8.48am) would make life harder for his union.
He suggested the law would lead to unions like his having to organise strikes across more localised units, instead of nationally.
If we’ve got to sit down in 15, 20 or 30 different undertakings and agree different levels of [minimum service], all it means is that we put more strikes on to pick up the shortfall, create greater strife, the connectivity of the railway falls apart, the logistically it’s impossible.
There have been minimum [service] levels in European countries for several years. They have never been enacted because they don’t work.
Continue reading...Overworked staff allocated extremely short care calls by local authority struggling to meet users’ needs
Care workers are taking as little as three minutes to help vulnerable people in their own homes, the social care ombudsman has found, after discovering a council was allocating extremely short visits to hundreds of people.
Amid chronic staff shortages and rising unmet care needs nationwide, a homecare worker commissioned by Warrington borough council sometimes stayed for just three minutes, despite the family paying for the full visit. The council was found to have allocated 15-minute care calls to more than 300 people in the region, despite national guidance stressing these were “not usually appropriate”.
Continue reading...Ministers missed crucial opportunities but should use energy windfall tax to speed up insulation efforts, committee says
A national “war effort” on energy efficiency is required to cut energy bills, reduce climate-heating emissions and ensure energy security, according to a cross-party committee of MPs.
Boosting efficiency in homes and businesses is the fastest way to cut energy use but the government missed a “crucial window of opportunity” last summer, the report from the environmental audit committee (EAC) said. The energy bills crisis was sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, while political turmoil in the UK resulted in three prime ministers in office between July and October.
Continue reading...PM makes five pledges for public to judge him against, but gives little detail or timescale
Rishi Sunak has asked the public to judge him on results as he revealed his strategy for the run-up to the next general election, hinting at pay rises in the public sector next year and vowing to get the economy growing.
The prime minister staked his premiership on a five-point plan to get through to polling day, expected in the autumn next year, admitting that the government could then be judged to be “delivering for you or not”.
Continue reading...Prime minister urges public to judge him on whether he delivers on new pledges but Labour says most ‘were happening anyway’. This blog is now closed
Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, has issued a statement welcoming the government’s proposal to abandon the privatisation of Channel (without actually putting it in those terms). She says the government should never have floated the plan in the first place, and that it has been a “total distraction” for the broadcaster. She says:
The Conservatives’ vendetta against Channel 4 was always wrong for Britain, growth in our creative economy, and a complete waste of everyone’s time.
Our broadcasting and creative industries lead the world, yet this government has hamstrung them for the last year with the total distraction of Channel 4 privatisation.
Continue reading...PM plans a ‘no tricks’ reset but with an inflation fall already expected this is more about hanging on at an election
In his first big speech since taking over at No 10, Rishi Sunak promised “no tricks, no ambiguity” as he announced his five promises to reset the government after a difficult year.
The prime minister said he would be focusing on halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing debt, cutting NHS waiting lists, and stopping small-boat crossings to the UK.
Continue reading...