Exclusive: Earnings of lowest paid could rise by £832; lower rates for 18- to 22-year-olds to be scrapped
Labour has drawn up plans to put hundreds of pounds into the pockets of the lowest paid by instructing the Low Pay Commission to factor in living costs when it sets the minimum wage.
They also want to scrap the lower pay categories for workers aged between 18 and 22, so they would all be paid at the higher rate.
Continue reading...Letter to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak calls for action to help households before price cap rises
Labour has urged Boris Johnson to recall parliament next week so the government can offer more help to struggling households before the announcement of the new energy price cap.
The opposition has written to the prime minister and both Tory leadership candidates warning that it is a “crucial deadline” for government action to tackle soaring energy bills, after inflation topped 10% for the first time in 40 years.
Continue reading...Former chancellor says foreign secretary’s tax cut plan would provide no support for pensioners or other vulnerable groups
London’s mayor has warned of a rise in shootings and stabbings amid concerns that the increasing cost of living could lead to more violence and make it easier for gangs to lure vulnerable young people.
Sadiq Khan said millions of pounds more were being put into schemes to turn people away from violence. The Labour mayor has been criticised by some for his record on crime.
I am concerned about a potential increase in violence this summer as the cost of living crisis deepens and threatens to reverse the progress we have made in tackling violent crime. Violence, like poverty, is not inevitable and the government must now do much more to show it shares my commitment to building a fairer, safer London for all.
Continue reading...Party aims to get out message on plan to tackle cost of living before new Conservative PM enters No 10
Labour is planning a campaigning blitz in order to take ownership of its new energy price cap policy in case the next Tory leader bows to pressure and cancels the 80% rise expected in October.
Keir Starmer has vowed that his party “wouldn’t let people pay a penny more” on their gas and electricity bills this winter, proposing freezing the price cap at current levels and preventing the average household bill from reaching £3,600.
Continue reading...Transport secretary urged to press for restoration of full timetable or strip operator of contract after 12 cancellations on Monday
Labour has written to Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, urging him to take immediate action to ensure Avanti West Coast restores more frequent services on its busy intercity rail route, or else strip the train operator of its contract.
The rail firm, which runs trains between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, cancelled another 12 services on Monday morning, on the first full day of an already drastically reduced emergency timetable.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer says people won’t pay ‘a penny more’ and that plan would reduce inflation
Keir Starmer has put a beefed-up £8bn windfall tax on energy company profits at the heart of a new plan to stop people having to pay “a penny more” on fuel bills this winter.
The Labour leader confirmed that under his plan the energy price cap would be frozen at the current level, meaning that an expected 80% rise in October – taking an average household bill to about £3,600 – would not go ahead.
Continue reading...Labour leader hits back at criticism saying his party has been ‘leading’ on the issue
Keir Starmer has teased Labour’s package to tackle the cost of living crisis, saying his party would end energy prepayment premiums which he claims would offer 4m households relief on bills.
The announcement, which came in what is reportedly his first tweet this month, follows criticism of Labour’s inaction on the cost of living crisis.
Every organisation has its culture, but it’s not fixed, it can be changed.
That’s what ministerial leadership is about: it’s about making sure that the policies we represent, the values we stand for, are reflected in what we do.
Annual figures indicate ‘dramatic collapse’ in confidence in criminal justice system, says Labour
Almost 1.5 million victims of crime in England and Wales have decided not to pursue their cases, feeding concern that public confidence in the criminal justice system has collapsed.
Home Office figures unearthed by Labour show there were 1,411,650 victims who did not support continuing action after they had reported a crime in the year to March 2022.
Continue reading...Tory leadership contender says rival had previously dismissed direct support as ‘handouts’
Suella Braverman, the attorney general, is giving a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank on equalities and rights. There is a live feed here.
In a preview of the speech published in the Daily Telegraph, Braverman says she wants to clarify the law on trans rights as it applies in schools. She says:
When it comes to gender-questioning children, we should always have compassion. At the same time, our compassion should never blind us to the harm it is possible to do to children by misplaced affirmation. Many schools and teachers believe – incorrectly – that they are under an absolute legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to the preference of the child. Many are scared of the consequences of not doing so.
I want to make it clear that it is possible, within the law, for schools to refuse to use the preferred opposite-sex pronouns of a child.
The UK and partners have condemned in the strongest terms China’s escalation in the region around Taiwan, as seen through our recent G7 statement.
I instructed officials to summon the Chinese ambassador to explain his country’s actions.
Continue reading...Analysis: Gordon Brown, Martin Lewis and Ed Davey are the voices being heard, as the opposition is left with the same policy as Sunak
Gordon Brown has thrown down the gauntlet with his plan to halt a winter energy crisis – but not just to the Tory leadership candidates. The call to revoke the energy price cap and consider nationalising energy firms will attract a lot of attention but fundamentally it is also a chance for Labour to choose to be radical. It is likely to compound calls from activists for the party to find a new sense of urgency.
In the middle of August, politicians can often afford to take long breaks away from Westminster to recharge – and sometimes get a valuable dose of perspective. But the extent to which politicians – including those in the Labour party – have gone missing this summer is particularly striking.
Continue reading...Former PM has warned of a financial timebomb awaiting families as Labour plans a major intervention to address crisis
Boris Johnson and the Tory leadership candidates should agree an immediate emergency budget tackling the spiralling cost of living, Gordon Brown has said, or risk “condemning millions of vulnerable and blameless children and pensioners to a winter of dire poverty”.
The intervention by the former prime minister comes as new figures seen by the Observer show that more than 4 million households are on course to spend a quarter of their net income on energy.
Continue reading...Win as One hopes to raise money to support candidates from progressive parties who are in favour of change
A grassroots campaign is hoping to raise £1m to bring more supporters of electoral reform to the Commons at the next general election.
The group, called Win as One, will work with candidates from progressive parties who are well-placed to beat the Tories and are in support of proportional representation (PR).
Continue reading...Labour’s request is latest PM contender has faced with regards to management of family’s fortune
Labour is calling on Rishi Sunak to be more transparent about his finances after the prime ministerial candidate declined to answer questions about the source of hundreds of thousands of pounds he loaned to a company that he jointly owned with his wife.
The move is the latest request for the former chancellor to explain details about how he has managed his family’s fortune, which is said to total £730m and has led to him being routinely referred to as the UK’s richest MP.
Continue reading...Labour’s Rachel Reeves says Conservatives are ‘playing blame game’ for UK’s economic problems
Liz Truss has been accused of being “deeply irresponsible” for threatening to tinker with the Bank of England’s mandate on the brink of a recession.
The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, attacked the Tory leadership frontrunner after Truss and her allies repeatedly questioned the performance of the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, and said she would review the institution’s remit.
Continue reading...Labour leader was late in declaring eight interests but watchdog called breaches ‘minor and/or inadvertent’
Keir Starmer has been found to have breached the MPs’ code of conduct by failing to register on time eight interests, including gifts from football teams and the sale of a plot of land.
An inquiry into the Labour leader was opened in June by the parliamentary standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, relating to claims about late declaration of earnings and gifts, benefits or hospitality from UK sources.
Continue reading...Head of party’s biggest union donor warns members feel ‘crushed’ and may vote not to pay millions to Starmer
Labour is becoming “irrelevant to workers” and it is now hard to justify handing the party millions in funding, the head of the party’s biggest union donor has warned.
In an interview with the Observer, Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said she felt Labour’s leadership was, in effect, “sticking two fingers up” at workers with its response to strike action and its abandonment of pledges to renationalise public utilities.
Continue reading...Sacked Labour frontbencher says rail workers had the right to expect Labour to stand with them
Boris Johnson’s reluctance to leave Downing Street in the face of opposition from ministers and Tory MPs seemed a bit “let’s storm the Capitol, chaps”, according to a former senior No 10 aide, likening it to the January 6 insurrection in Washington DC.
The comparison was made by Cleo Watson, a former special adviser to Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings in an article for Tatler magazine.
These workers are being forced to take industrial action. I’m a Labour MP so I’m a member of the Labour trade union. When the call comes out from CWU for solidarity to join the picket lines, of course I respond positively.
The actions of the Labour leadership is disgraceful. We will have to deal with that. I think what will happen is that people will see through Labour unless they change their position because it seems to me that Labour want to win an election without any principles or any policies and people won’t accept that.
Continue reading...Leadership rivals bid to win members’ support in foreign secretary’s home town
Drug-related deaths in Scotland fell by nine in 2021, according to the latest figures released by National Records of Scotland, the first decrease since 2013 but falling well short of the significant reduction that campaigners are calling for.
The latest figure of 1,330 is still the second highest annual total on record, and Scotland continues to have by far the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe and five times the rate in England.
We’ve had a raft of reports, policies and strategies that say what needs to change, and families are more likely to be included round the table, but it’s much harder to track their influence on the ground. We don’t understand what’s getting in the way of good words becoming good deeds.
1,330 of our fellow Scots have died entirely preventable deaths and we should not be celebrating this as an achievement ... The solutions are no secret. We need action, not reports with recommendations that are never implemented.
Continue reading...Local government minister describes scale of financial challenge as ‘unprecedented’
A bankrupt local authority could have to raise council tax by 20% a year and will be forced to sell off thousands of homes and other assets under “unprecedented” plans imposed on it after it ran up catastrophic debts amid overspending running into hundreds of millions of pounds.
The scale of the financial and management chaos at Labour-run Slough council is revealed in a stark report by a team of government commissioners sent in to run the authority after it declared effective bankruptcy a year ago.
Continue reading...Union source claims MPs will join BT staff on Friday despite Labour leader’s call for frontbenchers to stay away
Up to 70 Labour MPs could join union picket lines on Friday as Keir Starmer faces a renewed battle to maintain party unity over support for striking workers.
One shadow minister was believed to be considering joining a Communication Workers Union (CWU) picket line as thousands of BT staff began two days of strikes over pay, which would set up a fresh potential conflict with the Labour leader’s office.
Continue reading...