24 March 2016

Week in Brief: UK

DWP: Iain Duncan Smith has resigned as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions following a proposal in the Budget to tighten the criteria for personal independence payments to disabled people of working age. Although Mr Duncan Smith had originally approved the change, he was unhappy at its juxtaposition with tax reductions and with the fact that it had been pressured through by the Treasury. His resignation came after the Government had indicated that it would reconsider the proposal which it has now dropped.  Stephen Crabb, the MP for Preseli and former Welsh Secretary, now appointed as Mr Duncan Smith’s replacement, has said that no further cuts in the welfare budget are currently proposed.  See comment article ‘IDS Falls on his Sword’.

HEALTHCARE: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has approved the drug Abiraterone for use against prostate cancer. The drug had previously been rejected for use by the NHS in early treatment because it cost £36,000 a year. However the manufacturers have offered a 20% discount and will repay the costs of treating patients who require the drug for more than ten months.

LABOUR PARTY: Vicki Kirby, a Labour activist, has been suspended from party membership because of allegations of anti-semitism. Last month, the chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club resigned in protest at a large proportion of the members were anti-semitic. Mr Corbyn has said that these attitudes have no place in the Labour Party.

GAMBLING: The Campaign for Fair Gambling has made a complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, alleging that Philip Davies, MP for Shipley and an advocate for the Gaming industry, had sought preferential treatment from Ladbrokes in relation to his own gambling activities.  Mr Davies has denied that his personal betting has ever influenced his work.

WAFIC SAID: Barclays Bank has stated that it does not wish to act as bankers to Mr Said, his family or the Said Foundation, a charity which he has set up in London. It is understood that the bank was concerned as to whether Mr Said would satisfy its anti-money laundering procedures. Mr Said, who funds the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, has threatened to sue Barclays.

CHARITIES: Cancer Research UK is to join the RNLI in not pursuing donors for further cash unless the donors agree to be approached.  The change will bring them into line with EU regulations, requiring charities to move to an opt-in model within three years.

SPEEDING: The number of motorists caught speeding rose last year to an average of 56,000 per police force. The figure for 2014 was 52,000 and that for the year before that was 46,900.

GOLF: Wentworth golf club has agreed that existing members should not have to invest £100,000 in debentures as a condition of membership. Reduced annual rates will also be available for those living on the Wentworth Estate.

ABUSE ENQUIRIES: A  report has been published criticising last year’s investigation by the Church of England which labelled George Bell, the former Bishop of Chichester who died in 1951, a paedophile, on the grounds that the claims were sloppily investigated and are untrue. The authors of the report and others have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury asking that the matter be reconsidered.

The police are ending Operation Midland, their investigation into claims that senior politicians, spies, military and civil servants abused children in a flat in Dolphin Square. The claims included allegations against Edward Heath and Leon Brittan. Harvey Proctor, formerly a Conservative MP and the last surviving suspect, will not be charged.

The amount currently being spent on abuse enquiries is about £1 million a year, according to police estimates.  The figure is expected to rise to 3 billion by the end of 2020, by which time police expect to be carrying out 200,000 investigations.

SUBSTITUTE BISHOP: The diocese of Truro is investigating whether Peter Ball, who resigned as Bishop of Gloucester after a caution for gross indecency in 1993, subsequently performed various episcopal functions by pretending to be his brother. His brother, Michael Ball, who is an identical twin, was Bishop of Truro.

POLICE FEDERATION: The vice chairman of the Police Federation has been arrested over allegations that he siphoned £1 million to a separate police welfare charity.

OLD BAILEY: A pilot project will allow television cameras into the old Bailey and certain other criminal courts. The cameras will only film the sentencing process and not the giving of evidence.

HINKLEY POINT: The French government has indicated that it is prepared to fund EDF to allow it to carry out the development of the proposed nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset following concerns that the project would bankrupt the company.The project has been criticised in the UK because of the high price which will be paid to EDF for the electricity generated, some three times current market price. EDF is currently building a similar power station in Normandy where it is €7.2 billion over budget and six years late.

MIGRATION FIGURES: Net migration to the end of September 2015 was 323,000, of which 172,000 immigrants came from the European Union. The Office for Budget Responsibility has indicated that it believes that the net migration figure will be 105,000 by 2020.

ANTI-VIRUS: The City of London police force have suggested that manufacturers of computers should install security software as a standard feature in order to reduce increasing levels of computer fraud:

COFFEE CUPS: Rory Stewart, a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of the Environment, has suggested in the House of Commons that a levy might be introduced on plastic coffee cups on the same lines as that charged in respect of plastic bags.  The plan was subsequently denied by the Department of the Environment.

DOPING: Travis Tygart, the head of the US anti-doping agency has called for Russia to be excluded from the Rio Olympics because of alleged state sponsored doping.

RECYCLING: For the first time in many years the proportion of British waste to be recycled has fallen, dropping from 45% to 44.3%. One cause is thought to be the large number of inconsistent schemes.  If the figure does not rise to 50% by 2020, Britain will be liable to be fined for missing EU targets.

RUGBY: England completed a grand slam in the Six Nations, beating France 31-21 in Paris on Saturday. It is their first grand slam for thirteen years.

TENNIS: Novak Djokovic, the current men’s Wimbledon champion, has added his voice to suggestions that, contrary to current practice, male tennis stars should be paid more than their female counterparts because they pull bigger crowds and the game which they play is quite different.  At Wimbledon the prize money for men and women is the same.

 

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