Questions about potential conflict of interest as council’s cabinet member for social care owns private care company
Lancashire’s Reform-run council has been accused of “selling off the family silver” through its plans to save £4m a year by closing five council-run care homes and five day centres and moving residents into the private sector.
One of the care home residents, a 92-year-old woman, said she would leave only by “being forcibly removed or in a box”.
Continue reading...Lammy, standing in for Keir Starmer, avoided answering questions on the mistaken release during PMQs
David Lammy starts by saying the PM is in Brazil.
He says the thoughts of all MPs are still with the victims of the appalling attacks in Huntingdon and Peterborough, where, he says, he was at school for seven years.
Continue reading...Prospect says proposals to make payouts less generous would damage public finances rather than save money
Reform UK’s plans to make public-sector pensions less generous could cost billions extra a year and cause a ticking timebomb in the public finances, a leading trade union has warned.
Prospect said the plans unveiled by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, would damage the public finances rather than save money “and end up costing taxpayers tens of billions of pounds in the years to come”.
Continue reading...Algerian man, 24, ‘released in error’ from HMP Wandsworth two days after stronger checks for jails were brought in
Police have launched an urgent manhunt for a second foreign prisoner freed mistakenly, two days after the justice secretary, David Lammy, brought in stronger checks for jails.
The 24-year-old Algerian was wrongly released from Wandsworth prison in south London last Wednesday, with the Metropolitan police informed only this week.
Continue reading...Health secretary and NHS England chief warn of winter pressures and rising levels of abuse
An “ugly” racism reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s has become worryingly commonplace again in modern Britain and NHS staff are bearing the brunt of it, Wes Streeting has warned.
Incidents of verbal and physical abuse based on people’s skin colour now happen so often that it has become “socially acceptable to be racist”, the health secretary said.
Continue reading...Agreement that will increase drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027 comes after strike action in September
The RMT union has accepted a three-year inflation-plus pay deal for London Underground workers, ending the dispute that led to travel chaos in London in September and increasing drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027.
The deal, with an initial 3.4% increase backdated to this April, means London Underground staff pay will rise in line with RPI inflation – higher than the CPI rate normally used for index-linked pay rises – with guaranteed minimum rates if inflation falls, making the total deal worth at least 9.2%.
Continue reading...Minister responds to calls from watchdog’s chair to approve new guidance on transgender rights ‘as soon as possible’
Bridget Phillipson has urged the equalities watchdog to focus more on helping ministers do their jobs and less on having public debates as a row continues about how long it will take to implement new rules on gender recognition.
The comments by Phillipson, who is the equalities minister as well as the education secretary, come after the Equality and Human Rights Commission took the unusual step of urging the government to “act with speed” in approving its statutory guidance on responding to a landmark supreme court ruling on transgender rights.
Continue reading...Chancellor to promise ‘fairness and opportunity’ but will not repeat manifesto pledge on tax, after PM’s hint at breach
Rachel Reeves will lay the groundwork for a tax-raising budget that could break Labour’s election promise on income tax, in a major speech in which she will be “candid” about the tough choices ahead.
The chancellor will give the speech as the markets open on Tuesday, when she will promise to make fair choices at this month’s budget but decline to repeat her manifesto pledge of no rise in income tax, VAT or national insurance.
Continue reading...Nassim Mimun, who left with Lammy’s and his wife’s bags after ‘tone escalated’, acquitted owing to lack of evidence
A French taxi driver accused of stealing money and luggage from David Lammy has been acquitted due to lack of evidence, a prosecutor said.
Nassim Mimun, 40, drove the deputy prime minister and his wife, Nicola Green, more than 600km (370 miles) from Forli, near Bologna in northern Italy, to the ski resort of Flaine in the French Alps on 11 April.
Continue reading...Reform leader refuses to commit to keeping mechanism that guarantees how pensions are increased
Farage is speaking now. He says another “depressing budget hoves into view”. It will be a budget that “doesn’t have the guts to cut public spending”.
He says Britain has been living under an illusion.
I think for some years we’ve actually been living under an illusion. We’ve not been prepared to face up to just how much of an economic mess we genuinely in.
As we slipped down the global league tables, we kid ourselves that it’s OK, we’ve got GDP growth.
Continue reading...Party leader says proposal had been an ‘aspiration’ and accuses Tories and Labour of ‘wrecking the public finances’
Nigel Farage has rowed back from his party’s election promise to cut £90bn of taxes, accusing Labour and the Tories of “wrecking the public finances” and saying Reform UK would need to get public spending under control first.
The Reform leader rejected suggestions he had been forced to break manifesto promises in order to gain economic credibility, suggesting the proposal had only ever been an “aspiration”.
Continue reading...YouGov poll say only 26% of people say immigration is an issue locally but more than half believe it to be a national issue
There were six council byelections yesterday. Here are the results, from Election Maps UK.
Reform gained two seats, from Labour and from an independent group.
Continue reading...Exclusive: No cyber-attack assistance cash has gone into carmaker’s accounts or to struggling suppliers
Jaguar Land Rover has not drawn down any of a £1.5bn loan facility guaranteed by the government, with suppliers expressing anger over ministers’ claims to have supported the carmaker’s supply chain after a crippling hack.
Britain’s biggest automotive employer was forced to shut down all of its wholly owned factories from 1 September for more than a month, after cyber-attackers compromised key computer systems.
Continue reading...Agency says staff member offered to apply for licence to allow chancellor to rent out family home, but failed to do so
Keir Starmer appears to have escaped the huge political damage of potentially losing his chancellor weeks before the budget, after 24 hours of intense scrutiny over whether Rachel Reeves broke the law when she rented out her family home.
The Conservatives said Reeves must be sacked if she committed an offence by not obtaining a council licence before letting out her four-bedroom house in south London when the family moved into 11 Downing Street. No 10 was initially unable to explain why Starmer believed an apology from the chancellor was sufficient.
Continue reading...Despite pledges to run a squeaky clean administration the prime minister and some in his cabinet have been caught out
There is a theory in British politics, often attributed to Tony Blair, that you need to be careful about throwing a boomerang in opposition, because when you make it to power it could come back and hit you in the face.
As opposition leader, Keir Starmer became adept at landing blows on the Conservatives. Over the Partygate scandal in particular, he called for Boris Johnson to quit over his rule-breaking. “You cannot be a lawmaker and a lawbreaker and it’s time to pack his bags,” he said.
Continue reading...Previous visa policy had forced the students ‘to choose between their education and their family’
Some Palestinian students taking up scholarships at UK universities will be allowed to bring their families with them from Gaza after the government announced it would consider case-by-case exemptions to its evacuation policy.
After lobbying by MPs and supporters, the UK government has said partners and children could be allowed to accompany students on government-backed Chevening scholarships or studying for longer research degrees, such as PhDs.
Continue reading...Former PM says he has not seen party ‘soaring in the polls as a result of saying what rubbish net zero is’
Boris Johnson has warned the Conservatives they will not win the next election by “bashing the green agenda”.
The former prime minister said he had not seen the Conservatives “soaring in the polls as a result of saying what rubbish net zero is”.
Continue reading...Starmer signs agreement with visiting Vietnamese leader after surge in clandestine arrivals from country
Vietnamese people who arrive in the UK by irregular means will be fast-tracked for deportation under a new agreement, Downing Street has said.
After a surge in clandestine arrivals from the south-east Asian country last year via small boats and in the back of lorries, the deal is supposed to cut red tape and make it faster and easier to return those with no right to be in the UK.
Continue reading...Ed Miliband says pushing for renewable energy and lower emissions will reduce household bills and boost economy
The UK government will go “all in” on clean energy and climate policy, the energy secretary has said, as he unveiled plans to put the UK back on track to reach its net zero commitments.
In the face of intensifying attacks on climate policy from the poll-leading Reform UK party and the Conservatives, the government insists that pushing for renewable energy and lower carbon emissions will reduce household bills and boost the economy.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more of our UK political coverage here
Mark Sedwill, the former cabinet secretary and former national security adviser, goes next. He is now a peer, and a member of the committee.
He says the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Collins, thought there was enough evidence for the case to go ahead. But the CPS did not agree. Who was right?
In 2017, the Law Commission flagged that the term enemy [in the legislation] was deeply problematic and it would give rise to difficulties in future prosecutions.
And I think what has played out, during this prosecution exemplifies and highlights the difficulties with that.
Continue reading...