08 October 2015

Week in Brief: UK

EU REFERENDUM: Lord Lawson of Blaby, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for five years under Margaret Thatcher, is to become president of Conservatives for Britain which will join other organisations campaigning to leave the EU. The chief executive of the cross party coalition will be Matthew Elliott of the Taxpayers Alliance and the campaign director will be Dominic Cummings, a former adviser to Michael Gove. Fundraising will be coordinated by Stuart Wheeler, who has in the past given money to both the Conservatives and to UKIP.

NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE COMMISSION: The government has announced the appointment of Lord Adonis, previously Transport Secretary under George Brown, to head up a National Infrastructure Commission responsible for pushing forward major projects which are in the public interest and preventing their being held up by local NIMBY-ism. Lord Adonis will move to the crossbenches and will resign the Labour whip. He will, however, remain a member of the party. The Commission’s remit will include transport links and power stations. The decision on whether or not to accept the recommendation of the Davies commission to build a further runway at Heathrow is, however, excluded.

CONSERVATIVE PARTY: The Conservative party conference has seen the unveiling of a number of government initiatives and the statement of a number of government positions. Inter alia:

* the government is to change arrangements with GPs to provide a full seven-day working week, augmenting its proposal that a full weekend service should be available at all hospitals by 2020. The Royal College of GPs believes a seven-day service to be unachievable;

* Mr Cameron has stood firm against resistance to the tax credit cuts due to come into effect next April. It has been pointed out, however, that there will be an autumn statement and a budget before then, so there is still scope for offering relief to those who would otherwise lose out. David Willetts, now in the Lords but previously a government minister, has warned that, as proposed, changes to the tax credit system may have the effect that in many cases work will no longer pay;

* the government is to abolish the system under which 50% of business rates are paid to the Treasury which then returns much of that in grants. By 2020 it is proposed that all business rates should be retained by local government and that councils should be free to give discounts where appropriate. Cities with elected mayors will be given power to raise business rates in order to finance infrastructure spending, although there is likely to be a limit;

* parents are to be given a right to request that schools provide child care, such as breakfast or after-school clubs, or arrange for such services to be provided externally. The idea is to help parents who work long hours and it sits beside the election pledge to increase free childcare for three and four-year-olds from 15 hours a week to 30 hours a week. At the same time the government will tighten up on the collection of fines for truancy by allowing them to be deducted from child benefits;

* £2 billion worth of shares in the Lloyds banking group are to be sold at a discount of some 5% to the stock exchange price. Those investing less than £1000 will be given priority, and investors who retain their shares for a year will receive a 10% “loyalty issue” up to a value of £200 per person. The sale will be part of a programme to eliminate the government’s stake in Lloyds and follows an announcement by the Financial Conduct Authority that a 2018 deadline will be set for PPI mis-selling claims; and

* Home Secretary, Teresa May, has maintained her pledge to reduce net migration below 100,000 but her speech has been much criticised as pandering to anti-immigration sentiment. In particular proposals which would result in a large number of trained nurses leaving the country were criticised by Simon Stevens of NHS England.

The conference has been besieged by a crowd of some 60,000 protesters.

Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, has indicated that she may run in the leadership election which will follow Mr Cameron’s departure. “The Spectator” has claimed that Mr Cameron expects to go in Spring 2019, a year before the next general election.

PC PHILLIPS: Two men have been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of PC Dave Phillips who was run down when setting up a device to puncture the wheels of a stolen car. PC Phillips leaves a wife and two daughters.

BELEAGUERED GARRISON: The return of the last 5,000 British soldiers from Germany has been delayed by a year to 2020 in order to save money by postponing the provision of a new base for them in Wiltshire.

JOHN WEST: Greenpeace has ranked John West as having the lowest proportion of sustainably caught tuna out of eleven suppliers, claiming that only 2% of its tuna was caught by pole and line against 100% by Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. In 2011 John West said that it would source 100% of tuna from pole and line by the end of 2016.

BALL CASE: the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has ordered a review of the way in which the church handled the case of Peter Ball, previously the Bishop of Gloucester, who, on September 8th, pleaded guilty to two charges of indecent assault and one charge of misconduct in public office. A report will be published next year.

ASYLUM SEEKERS: The three Libyan soldiers sent to prison for sexually assaulting 3 teenagers in Cambridge whilst here for training have claimed asylum on the basis that they fear persecution in Libya as a result of having brought that country into disrepute.

MAYOR OF LONDON: Zac Goldsmith, son of the grocery magnate Sir James Goldsmith, has been confirmed as the Conservative party candidate for the London mayoral elections next May. The Labour Party candidate is Sadiq Khan.

BUS CRASH: An eight-year-old passenger and a pedestrian were killed when a double-decker bus ran out of control on a “shared space” road in Coventry, striking parked cars and a lamp-post before smashing into a supermarket. The bus was said to be travelling at up to 60 mph when it crashed. Six other people were taken to hospital.

TERRORISM: A fifteen-year-old boy from Blackburn has been sentenced by Manchester Crown Court to life imprisonment after plotting a terrorist massacre in Australia on Anzac day. The boy, who had already threatened to kill his teachers, had been recruited by an Australian terrorist known as Abu Khaled al Cambodi.

PLASTIC BAGS: Shops employing 250 people or more must now charge 5p for each plastic bag used. Smaller shops are unaffected. Ocado, which is to continue to use plastic bags, will charge 5p for each one but will refund that amount if the bags are returned to it. There are exemptions for certain products such as raw meat and fish and unwrapped food, to avoid bag reuse giving rise to diseases such as salmonella or campylobacter.

CANCER RISK: Results presented to the 54th annual conference of the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology indicate that the risk of cancer is greater in tall people than in short people, an extra 4 inches in height increasing the risk for women by 18% and the risk for men by 11%. Possible explanations are differing hormonal levels (apparently dwarfs suffer from very little cancer), the higher number of cells making contamination more likely and the higher consumption of calories.

LABOUR: Mr Corbyn has attracted criticism from his own shadow cabinet by stating that he would never use the British nuclear deterrent, Hilary Benn, the shadow Foreign Secretary, commenting that the Prime Minister must have the option of launching a strike since otherwise there would be no deterrent at all.

The Labour Party Conference has passed a resolution that RAF bombings in Syria should be ruled out unless cleared by an unambiguous UN resolution. Mr Corbyn’s campaign pledge to abolish tuition fees is likely to prove contentious with his colleagues as he tries to get his party to accept it as policy. Mr Corbyn’s ratings in the polls are below those previously achieved by a Labour leader.

PRISONS: Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, has indicated that he will pursue a reformist agenda for prisons including a possible extension of release on licence, the sale of Victorian prisons on lucrative sites and increased powers for governors to shape prisons. He expressed particular concern at the lack of purposeful activity among prisoners and is keen to improve the training of inmates to prepare them for release.

SINKHOLE: A sinkhole which opened in a street in St Albans was 20m deep and 10m across. Although the area (which was mined for clay in Victorian times) has had to be evacuated, nobody was hurt.

LIVING WAGE: Costa coffee has increased the amount paid to its baristas to £7.40 an hour once they have completed their initial three-month training period. Until then they will receive the living wage of £7.20 per hour. More experienced staff will earn £7.90 per hour and all staff in London will earn a minimum of £8.20 an hour. Starbucks will pay the living wage to its entire workforce.

CHARITY: The Charity Commission is investigating the effectiveness of centres run by the charity Help for Heroes, the British Legion and the army, following concerns expressed by Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Sutton who was involved in the management of the project as to its effectiveness.

VOLKSWAGEN: The total number of UK vehicles expected to be recalled for the removal of software designed to defeat pollution tests is expected to be just below 1.2 million. The figure includes 508,276 Volkswagen cars, 79,838 Volkswagen vans, 393,450 Audis, 76,773 Seats and 131,569 Skodas. Patrick McLoughlin, the transport Secretary, has indicated that regardless of the results obtained through further testing by the Department of Transport, there will be no increase in road tax payable on existing vehicles. It is possible, however, that the adjustment will result in a greater consumption of fuel.

PARKING: The British Parking Association has amended its rules so that private operators must give a ten minute grace period before charging penalties. That will bring them into line with local authority car parks.

SPEEDING: The Department of Transport is to reissue guidelines under which police officers using speed cameras must wear high visibility vests and be visible at a distance of 60 m.

MURDER: The body of Sebastiano Magnanini, an Italian drug addict and art thief, has been found in the Regents Park Canal tied to a shopping trolley. Scotland Yard are treating the death as suspicious.

RUGBY: England were beaten by Australia on Saturday and so lose any prospect of proceeding to the knockout phase of the Rugby World Cup. Wales, on the other hand, will go through.