19 May 2016

Week in Brief: UK

Queen’s Speech

MEASURES INCLUDED: the Queen’s speech included: a legal right to faster broadband (although residents in the remotest properties may have to contribute); restrictions on access to porn sites; measures to encourage driverless cars; a streamlining of planning; measures to make it easier to switch banks and energy providers; charges for overseas users of the NHS; speeded-up adoption; the reform of tertiary education as recommended in the White Paper (below); a reform of the prison system with more freedom for governors and more emphasis on training, rehabilitation and education; new powers to tackle the radicalisation of children; a new offence for companies which failed to stop their staff facilitating tax evasion; and ratification for the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property.  The government is also to bring forward a draft Bill to replace the European Convention of Human Rights but will be consulting in relation to this.

EU Referendum

BUDGET: The European Commission has deferred the publication of the EU budget proposals for 2017 from 25 May to the end of June, a date after the UK referendum. According to reports in “The Times”, spending will increase to meet the costs of the migration crisis, regional projects and better security for EU buildings. Supporters of Leave suggest that the delay is to stop the new budget from influencing the vote.

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND: A decision by the IMF to produce a detailed report on the financial consequences of Brexit, seven days before the referendum, has been criticised as an attempt by the government to get round the purdah rules. Christine Lagarde denies that the Treasury will have any input into the IMF’s conclusions.

BANK OF ENGLAND: Mark Carney has warned that Brexit could put Britain into recession with dropping living standards and house prices and a rise in unemployment and inflation.

FUNDING: The Election Commission has said that the official Remain campaign has raised £6.9 million whereas the official Leave campaign has only received £2.8 million. However the figures reverse when donations to other organisations concerned with the referendum are taken into account with Remain raising £7.5 million and Leave raising £8.1 million.

GIBRALTAR: Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said that Brexit would involve sharing the sovereignty of Gibraltar with Spain since Britain would no longer be able to rely on EU rules to keep the border open.

IMMIGRATION: Migration from the rest of the EU over the last five years has been understated because the figures have ignored short term migrants. That, according to the Office of National Statistics, explains why the 2.2 million national insurance numbers issued in the four years to June 2011 appears to be out of kilter with the immigration figures. More than 61% of migrants from Romania and Bulgaria work here for less than a year.

MIGRATION DEBATE: Boris Johnson has challenged the Prime Minister to make the case for higher immigration, saying that there was no popular consent to current levels.

GRANDEE BARRAGE: Lord Heseltine has accused Boris Johnson of losing his judgement and making extravagant claims in the Referendum debate. In particular he targeted Mr Johnson comparison of the EU and Hitler in their efforts to create a superstate and the suggestion that President Obama’s Kenyan heritage made him anti-British.

ARCHBISHOP: John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, has indicated that he will back Remain. He is currently on pilgrimage in the North of England.

EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: The winner was Ukraine with “1944”, a song about Stalin’s deportation of the Tartars.

POLLS: The latest polls show 44% for Remain, 40% for Leave, 3% not expecting to vote and 12% don’t knows.

See also The Non-Existent Carrot.

Education

WHITE PAPER: A new White Paper on higher education, which proposes that new higher education providers should be encouraged into the market, on occasion pushing out existing institutions, represents a further step in the separation between teaching and research.  With its accent on value for money for students, it introduces a new Teaching Excellence Framework to provide much more information about courses and about the subsequent careers of graduates.  It also contains proposals for the reform of the regulatory structure, with the Office for Students regulating teaching, and UK Research and Innovation regulating research. Fair access for children from disadvantaged backgrounds is to be strengthened with the introduction of a Director of Fair Access whose duties will be defined by law.  Universities which achieve required standards will be able to increase fees by inflation. Others will only be able to increase them by a lesser amount.

ABSENCE FROM SCHOOL: The High Court has upheld a decision of local magistrates to throw out the prosecution of Jon Platt under section 444 of the Education Act of 1996 on the basis that he had no case to answer. The section makes it an offence for a parent not to ensure that a child attends school regularly (although with exceptions for absence with leave, sickness and religious holidays) and the court found that the magistrates were entitled to regard a pupil whose attendance record was over 90% as attending regularly despite taking an odd week off for a Disneyland trip.  The law is likely to be tightened up.

Health

NURSES’ ROLES: Under proposals put forward by NHS Employers, senior nurses would take over certain work done by junior doctors, such as the administration of drugs and tests. The plan which was drawn up by the Nuffield Trust is designed to help with the lack of junior doctors and to help meet their concerns about pressure.  It should, perhaps, be seen in the context the 2013 decision that all entrants to the nursing profession should be graduates.

JUNIOR DOCTORS’ STRIKE: Agreement has now been reached between the Government and the BMA on the basis of: a new system of supplements to cover weekend work; extra pay for night shifts dropping from 50% to 37%; more support for doctors (especially new parents) who take time out; and better access for junior doctors to those who monitor doctor’s work.  The agreement has yet to be voted on by the junior doctors themselves.

AMBULANCES: Figures released by NHS England revealed that, in March, urgent calls for ambulances rose to 27,800 per day compared to 22,400 a year earlier.  Attendance at hospital emergency departments has risen by 500,000 to 23,000,000 a year.

SLAUGHTERHOUSES: The British Veterinary Association has called for a law to force slaughterhouses to give CCTV film to independent vets. The move is a reaction to the filming of cruelty in slaughtering sheep at the Simply Halal abattoir in Norfolk.  Currently many slaughterhouses are restricting access to film.

General Politics

ELECTION EXPENSES: Enquiries continue into Conservative expenditure at the last election. Although the overall spending by the party falls well below the national limit, questions are being raised as to whether some of that spending was accounted for centrally when it should have counted towards local expenditure, where limits are less generous. At issue are the costs of the Conservative battle bus and also letters from David Cameron to voters in marginal seats.

ANTI-SEMITISM: The enquiry into anti-semitism in the Labour party has now begun with the chairwoman, Shami Chakrabarti, being criticised for widening it to include Islamophobia.  The review is expected to take six weeks.

LABOUR LEADERSHIP: According to a poll carried out by You Gov, Mr Corbyn’s popularity within the Labour Party has grown and 64% of members say they would vote for him in any further leadership ballot.

BBC WHITE PAPER: The White Paper on the BBC has been published with a renewal of the licence fee for eleven years, over which period it will rise with inflation. The BBC is to trial paid-for services over the next five years. Salaries of more than £450,000 will be published and the BBC will be regulated by Ofcom and audited by the National Audit Office. The government will appoint six members of a new BBC board, which will replace the present Trust, leaving the BBC to appoint the majority. The BBC is to “tread more lightly and considerately” around its competitors and to increase differentiation between Radio 1 and Radio 2 and commercial stations.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR FRAUD: At the Lancaster House summit on corruption, the Prime Minister has announced new proposals under which banks and multinationals will take responsibility for fraud and corruption by their employees. With an accent on greater transparency, proposals include data sharing and a register disclosing the beneficial ownership of companies which hold land in the UK.

HEATH ALLEGATIONS: Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, has written to the Chief Constable of Wiltshire querying the rationale for continuing to employ sixteen officers and staff on investigating allegations against former Prime Minister Edward Heath. So far the enquiry has cost £370,000. The Independent Police Complaint Commission has rejected as baseless allegations that in the 1990s charges against a woman involved with prostitution were abandoned because she threatened to out Mr Heath as a paedophile.

CHINESE COMMENTS: The content of the conversation between the Queen and police commander Lucy Dorsi about the difficulties of dealing with Chinese officials over the recent state visit have appeared in the press, although the conversation was private. The words were recorded by a BBC cameraman and identified back at the BBC.  The report was censored in China. See comment The BBC – Not Quite Gentlemen.

POLICE: In her address to the Police Federation annual conference, the Home Secretary announced an investigation into the sexual exploitation of the victims of crime by police officers. The investigation will be undertaken by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary who would previously raised concerns about the issue. She also criticised spending, proposing measures to ensure that large items were approved at national level.

NATIONAL UNION OF STUDENTS: Students at Newcastle University have voted by a margin of 2 to 1 to disaffiliate from the National Union of Students. Students at Exeter voted to retain their affiliation by a very small majority, and affiliation votes are expected at Oxford and Cambridge shortly. Opponents of the NUS point to its obsession with political correctness and minority left-wing causes. The President of the NUS has been accused of anti-Semitism, something which she denies.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION: Students at Cambridge have been upset by a dinner at Queen’s College which served food and drink from Senegal, Morocco, South Africa and Nigeria, possibly because it intermixed different African cultures. The college had tried to work with the African Society of the University but the latter had withdrawn their support.

DOUBLE MISTRESS: Serena Cowdy , a journalist, is said to have had relationships with both Angus McNeil MP and Stewart Hosie MP. Both the MPs represent the SNP and both are separated from their wives.

General

HINKLEY POINT: As the French company EDF wrestles with the economics of the project, Lord Howell, the former energy secretary, has said that he believes that China, which is to provide finance under the proposal, has a “plan B” under which it would build two reactors at Hinkley. The Department of Energy say they have no knowledge of such a proposal.

FOOTBALL SCARE: An imitation bomb left by a security firm at Old Trafford at the end of an exercise was discovered by a member of the public.  The scare resulted in the postponement of United’s final match of the season, against AFC Bournemouth.

BRITISH AIRWAYS: BA is to withdraw complimentary food and drink on short flights in an attempt to keep fares down.

JUDICIAL SPAT: A row between Mr Justice Peter Smith and Blackstone Chambers centres on an article by Lord Pannick accusing the judge of injudicious conduct. The allegations, which include suggestions of personal animus against teams from the chambers, are behind an appeal against the judge’s award of £25 million to a “secret wife” of the late King Fahd.  Lord Grabiner QC, head of chambers at 1 Essex Court, said in the course of the appeal that he understood the Lord Chief Justice to have directed that no member of Blackstone chambers should appear before the judge.

FRANKENSTEIN FOODS: A prestigious US advisory body has concluded that GM food is safe for human consumption and that there is no conclusive evidence that it poses a risk to wildlife. See feature GM Foods.

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