15 December 2016

Week in Brief: UK

WEARING THE TROUSERS: Nicky Morgan, sacked from the role of education secretary by Mrs May, has been banned from meetings at Downing Street after publicly criticising the Prime Minister’s trousers. Apparently Mrs Morgan, an aspirant for the leadership following the resignation of David Cameron, was troubled by their £995 cost.  She has not, as far as we are aware, criticised male ministers over the price of their suits.

BREXIT: The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, has said that there may need to be temporary arrangements following Britain’s exit from the EU.  His position conflicts with that of David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, but is in line with recommendations made in a recent report of the House of Lord’s European Union committee.

EU CITIZENS: The think tank, British Future, has recommended that the 3 million European Union citizens expected to be in the UK at the time when notice is given to leave the EU under article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon should be allowed to remain here without passing new tests for citizenship.  EU citizens arriving after that would have to comply with new criteria. The basis of the recommendation is the impracticability of processing such a large number of applications.  See comment Thinking Forward.

Health

DEADLY MISTAKES: The Care Quality Commission has said that mistakes are being repeated in hospitals because they are not properly investigated and also because of confusion over which deaths should be investigated. Bereaved family are often seen as a nuisance and treated with minimal courtesy.

CARE HOMES: The Government is proposing to allow local authorities to add to their precepts in order to fund care homes for the elderly. Care homes have been closing rapidly in the face of increasing bills, and in particular the increasing staffing costs resulting from increases in the national minimum wage.  The shortage of care has meant elderly people blocking beds in hospitals because they have nowhere to go, which puts huge strains on the NHS, and poor care for vulnerable elderly people. Although George Osborne authorised a precept of 2% last year, it is thought the further funding will have to go well beyond that.  Mrs May is understood to have accepted the proposal reluctantly because of the additional cost on families who are “just about managing”.

Meanwhile HMRC is carrying out an enforcement campaign to ensure that workers are receiving the minimum wage. So far a total of £650,000 has been paid out to 3400 workers.

WAIST OF SPACE: Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies has reported that although 50% men and 33% of women between the ages of fifty and seventy are overweight, the figures for central obesity (excessive waist measurements) are 80% to 92%. This, with its implication of fat accumulating round vital organs, puts the patient at risk of type II diabetes and other health problems.

Strikes

POSTAL STRIKE: Postal workers have voted for five days of industrial action over the Christmas period in disputes over redundancies and pensions.

SOUTHERN RAIL: Action by Aslef and the RMT is shutting down the Southern Region for three days this week and will be followed by a six-day strike from January 9.  Those conductors who are represented by the RMT will strike on Monday and Tuesday.  The industrial action is part of a campaign against driver controlled trains.  The unions insist that the guard should retain control of the doors of the train for safety reasons, although the Office of Rail and Road says that there is no evidence that this is necessary.  Trains with no guards at all have been run between Bedford and St Pancras since 1982. The unions’ real concern seems to be about the possibility of trains being run without guards and, although Southern has pledged that no guard will lose his or her job, they want to be able to run guard free trains to keep a full service running in exceptional circumstances.

Meanwhile the threshold for compensation for passengers on Southern Rail is to be cut so that 25% of the ticket price will be refunded when passengers are delayed by fifteen minutes.  Previously the threshold was thirty minutes.  Under the new system a delay of between thirty minutes and one hour will lead to a 50% discount.  Beyond that the price of the ticket will be refunded.  If the delay goes beyond an hour the refund will extend to the return fare.

Miscellaneous

PEOPLE SMUGGLING: 33 suspects have been arrested in Britain and Greece after a gang provided passports to Iranians immigrants for prices of up to £12,500. One of those arrested was an Islamic extremist.

MISCONDUCT: Philip Shiner of the firm Public Interest Lawyers has admitted eighteen charges of professional misconduct in relation to the al-Sweady enquiry. Disciplinary proceedings against Leigh Day, another firm, are due to start in March. See comment Iraq Historic Allegation Team (IHAT) and Operation Northmore.

MOVEMENT BANNED: National Action, a group which has praised the murder of MP Jo Cox in the run up to the EU referendum, will be the first right wing organisation to be proscribed under terrorist legislation. Membership of or canvassing support for any proscribed organisations is a serious criminal offence.

MCDONALD’S: The decision by McDonald’s to move its non-US headquarters from Luxembourg to the UK is all about tax. Tax deals done in Luxembourg have long been used to reduce the corporate tax rates of American multinationals, something which boosts the bottom line since the earnings will not suffer US tax unless remitted to the States.  McDonald’s own arrangements are to be scrutinised by the European Commission to see whether state aid rules have been breached. Whatever the answer to that, the company has decided to move to the UK, a jurisdiction which is less associated with tax avoidance but has a low Corporation tax rate.  This may become part of a trend. Action by the OECD to reduce tax avoidance is likely to make Luxembourg a far less attractive jurisdiction for international business. If people no longer go there to reduce their tax bills, why will they go there at all?  The new tax morality could be very damaging indeed for their economy.

HYAMS BEQUEST: Harry Hyams, the property magnate who build Centre Point and died last year, left £387 million to a foundation to convert his former home into an art gallery.  It is the biggest UK charitable bequest ever made.

 

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