Markus Andrews

Ministers have bowed to pressure in a row to introduce tougher action against water companies dumping untreated sewage into rivers.In an eleventh-hour compromise ahead of a Lords vote, it was announced a new “legal duty” would be introduced to ensure firms “secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of sewage discharges” from storm overflows.It comes after the government provoked fury from environmental campaigners and a social media backlash for voting down an amendment last week, which had been passed by peers seeking more severe action against pumping raw sewage into rivers and seas.However, the compromise did not prevent members of the upper chamber from defeating the government on a new version of the amendment – spearheaded by the Duke of Wellington – attempting to force companies improve their sewage systems “as soon as possible”.Members of the upper chamber voted by 213 to 60 on Tuesday evening to approve the measure, setting the stage for a Commons vote on the issue in the coming weeks.The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) added that its alternative amendment will also be voted on when the Environment Bill returns to the Commons – but it was not immediately clear whether ministers’ efforts were enough to win over Tory rebels.George Eustice, the environment secretary, said: “Earlier this summer, the government published a new strategy for Ofwat mandating them to progressively reduce the discharge of sewage from storm overflows in the next pricing review.“Following a debate in the House of Commons last week during the final stages of the Environment Bill, today we are announcing that we will put that commitment on a statutory footing with a new clause.”Hours earlier, No 10 said it “completely” agreed that is was unacceptable for water companies to dump raw sewage into the country’s rivers, but said the amendment put forward in the Lords by the Duke of Wellington was “uncosted”.The spokesman added “the initial assessments are over £150bn and that would mean that individuals – every one of us as taxpayers – paying potentially thousands of pounds each as a result.”Downing Street said that, as a result, “it’s not right to sign a blank cheque on behalf of customers without understanding the trade-offs and the bills that would be involved”, but “tougher legal duties” are being placed on water companies and “we will continue to listen to MPs who have legitimate concerns”.Sewage was released into rivers and streams more than 400,000 times last year – as 84 per cent of English rivers and lakes failed to meet the government ecological targets.There was fury when Southern Water dumped 7,400 swimming pools-worth of human waste from 17 sites in between 2010 and 2015, in what the Environment Agency called the biggest pollution case in 25 years.Luke Pollard, the shadow environment secretary, said: “It should not have taken a public outcry for this government to take the scandal of raw sewage being discharged into our rivers seriously. Having spent the past few days defending their position, this screeching U-turn will do little to convince the public that the health of our rivers, rather than the health of Conservative polling, is at the forefront of ministers’ minds.“The government still has no clear plan and no grip on the issue of raw sewage being pumped into our seas and rivers.” More

Rishi Sunak has been urged to put the climate emergency at the heart of his Budget and end suspicions he is resisting the switch to net zero, with the Cop26 summit just days away.The chancellor will unveil measures to raise wages, rescue the NHS, boost skills and improve transport links in a three-year spending settlement setting the battleground for the next general election.He is also expected to continue the decade-long freeze on fuel duty – after prices at the pumps leapt to a record 143p a litre – despite criticism that the move clashes with climate policy.With the post-Covid economy bouncing back faster than expected, the backdrop is rosier than his last Budget, six months ago, when the UK had yet to emerge from lockdown.But none of a blizzard of measures already announced – to the fury of the Commons speaker – have targeted the transition to a green economy, to meet the commitment of net zero emissions by 2050.Mr Sunak has been criticised for resisting finding the billions needed for that switch, after a strategy to replace CO2-pumping gas boilers in people’s homes fell flat.The Green Alliance group said an extra £21bn of government investment is needed each year through to 2024 to “get on track to net zero” and stimulate private sector finance.And Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, urged the chancellor to match the party’s plans to spend £28bn a year on creating the jobs “of the future”.At Labour’s conference, she promised “gigafactories to build batteries for electric vehicles, a thriving hydrogen industry, offshore wind with turbines made in Britain, planting trees and building flood defences”.Mr Reeves told The Independent: “I believe the only responsible chancellor is a green chancellor.“Value for money means knowing when and where not to spend. But it also means knowing when and where to invest – to prevent far greater costs further down the line. There is no better example of this than in the case of climate breakdown.”Among the expected spending announcements are:* An increase in the minimum wage from £8.91 to £9.50 an hour – worth an extra £1,000 a year for a full-time worker, the Treasury says.* An end to the public sector pay freeze – although the cash will have to come from departmental budgets and any increases may not match inflation, a minister admitted.* An extra £5.9bn for the NHS, as it struggles with a record patient backlog – on top of the earlier £12bn a year for health and social care to be funded from a national insurance hike.* An extra £1.5bn from train and tram upgrades in major cities – although the brakes have been slammed on hopes for a new fast route across the Pennines.Crucially – although day-to-day spending is rising at more than 3 per cent a year – the NHS is swallowing up more than 40 per cent of it, leaving little for other lower-priority departments.The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that local government, further education, prisons and the courts are again in the firing line for further cuts of around £2bn next year.It is also feared that education will be a Budget loser, with Mr Sunak expected to throw out the department’s request for £7bn for post-Covid catch-up.Mr Sunak is expected to slash billions more from overseas aid – on top of the existing £4bn-a-year reduction – despite warnings that the move risks failure at the crucial Cop 26 summit.Several “accounting tricks”, including foreign currency handouts to developing countries from the International Monetary Fund and the cost of Covid vaccine donations are expected to be used.Another shadow over the chancellor is a likely cost-of-living crisis in the months to come, with energy bills set to rise sharply when the price cap is raised again next Spring.Inflation is at 3.2 per cent and is likely to continue to rise for the rest of the year – wiping out government boasts about pay rises, hailed as a benefit of Brexit.In a tweet, the chancellor said: “Tomorrow’s Budget and spending review will deliver a stronger economy for the British people.” More

A video showing untreated sewage being released into Langstone harbour near Portsmouth for 49 hours straight has been captured by a local filmmaker. The drone footage shows sewage being pumped from Budds Farm treatment plant into the harbour by water company Southern Water. It comes as campaigners call on MPs to vote in favour of an amendment to the Environment bill that would make it a legal obligation for water companies to stop dumping raw sewage into Britain’s rivers. Chris Pearsall, a filmmaker and photographer, said he was “horrified” when he saw the video that his drone was capturing above Langstone harbour last Thursday. He told The Independent: “I knew the second I was out there looking at the screen that I was going to capture something pretty special. I was horrified. “I had a very similar reaction to everyone on social media. You really can’t see what’s happening from landslide, ground level, you need to be up in the air and it was the drone that did the job.”Southern Water’s information about wastewater releases on their Beachbuoy programme showed that the dump at Langstone Harbour lasted a total of 49 hours from 02:15am on October 20 to 03:15am on October 22. Mike Owens, of Hayling Sewage Watch, helped Chris Pearsall to record the shocking footage. As a regular windsurfer, paddleboarder and swimmer, Mr Owens regularly keeps an eye on the water quality in the harbours around Portsmouth. He explained the problems the water companies are having, saying: “In wet conditions, they get overwhelmed. Portsmouth’s almost entirely covered in concrete so the drains fill up and they get overwhelmed really quickly. They have to ditch the sewage straight away, otherwise roads start flooding. “There is no capacity to deal with large influxes of water and to save houses being backed up with sewage they have to let it go.”Conservative MPs have defended their decision to vote against the Environment bill’s amendment by arguing that it would cost up to £150bn to replace the victorian sewage network. They say that placing this burden on water companies would result in higher costs for consumers. However Mr Owens argued that there is a much easier, cheaper way to solve the problem. He said: “In Fort Cumberland, they used to dump Portsmouth’s refuse all the time. In west beach lands you could tell when there had been a discharge. “Southern Water did something about that in 2007 and they built a massive tank to keep hold of all the rain water and sewage mix. When it was a drier season, they sent that stored water to Budds Farm for treatment.”“That’s the solution,” he added. “It cost them around £10-15m to do it in a few years. The solution is already there.”A spokesperson for Southern Water said: “Our key priorities are serving our customers, preventing flooding to their homes, schools, and businesses and protecting the environment which is so important to our regional economy. “By 2025 we will reduce pollutions by 80 per cent and we’re developing proposals to reduce storm releases by 80 per cent by 2030. “Between 2020 and 2025 we are investing almost £2bn on wastewater services and environmental protection.” More

A top EU commissioner has branded Brexit a “catastrophe”, pointing to shortages in supermarkets and on petrol station forecourts in Britain.Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commission, told a broadcaster in his native France that Britain’s departure from the EU was causing “real drama”.It comes amid acute supply chain problems in the UK, including a shortage of lorry drivers, soaring fuel costs and depleted petrol stations.”Look at what is happening on the supermarket shelves, look at what is happening at the petrol pumps, look at what is happening with the shortage of nurses and doctors, look at what is happening with the shortage of truck drivers, look at what is happening in the construction sector,” Mr Breton told BFM TV.Branding the policy an “economic catastrophe” for Britain, he added: “What is currently happening is a real drama.”Mocking the promises of Brexiteer politicians, he added: “Consider that after they said they could regain prosperity, which meant to some extent that every EU national would be kicked out — at least a large part of them — well now they need to come back, because nurses are missing. There’s 100,000 truck drivers missing … It is what it is and we deplore it.”Mr Breton also accused the UK of “a lot of bad faith” in a row over fishing right around the Channel Islands, which has seen French fishermen refused licences they say they are entitled to under the Brexit agreement. London and Brussels are also locked in seemingly never-ending talks about the situation in Northern Ireland, with the UK wanting to rewrite aspects of the deal it agreed to and implemented just ten months ago. More

Wednesday’s autumn Budget is set against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, thanks to the lasting impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The Treasury has sought to build days of positive coverage of giveaways in the days before the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, gets to his feet in the House of Commons. Here’s the headline pledges so far with a sense of what they may mean in practice.Public sector payWhat’s new? On Monday the Treasury confirmed, as widely trailed, that it would be thawing the public sector pay freeze. The justification used for the freeze had been that private sector wages were fragile, dampened by employer’s nervousness due to Covid-19 restrictions. Now, the economy has opened up and the cost of living is climbing sharply. With even private sector pay growth struggling to keep pace with inflation, the argument to hold firm on public sector pay has become too hard to defend. Still, it’s not clear exactly what the settlement will look like and how it will measure up against rising inflation.This price growth, as measured by the Consumer Price Index could reach as high as 5 per cent early next year, the Bank of England’s chief economist has said. The small print: However, business minister Paul Scully avoided saying in interviews on Tuesday whether or not the pay rise would match the increased cost of living.He said on Sky News that it “could be anything”, and that the exact figure would be determined after reports from pay review bodies, next April. So, the government has not ruled out a real terms cut in pay: if pay doesn’t rise by more than the growth in prices.The bottom line: A real terms cut could increase the risk of industrial action among public sector workers.Minimum wageWhat’s new? The Chancellor will accept a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission to increase the National Living wage to £9.50 an hour from £8.91 from next April for workers aged 23 and over. The small print: However, it is important to compare what’s happening to the lowest earners in the UK in pre- and post-tax terms and what the impact will be for those people on Universal Credit. Before tax, a full-time worker on the minimum wage will now earn £1,074 more a year from next April. But there’s a ‘taper’ for those people on Universal Credit, so for every £1 earned above a threshold for the benefit, a worker loses 63p. If that effect is combined with the increase in taxes, particularly national insurance contributions planned from April next year, the £1,074 increase then drops to around £260 per year after tax. (This assumes the increase is above the earnings allowance for someone in receipt of Universal Credit).That’s compared to being around £1,000 per year worse off if you receive Universal Credit after the government scrapped a £20 per week uplift introduced amid the pandemic. There are also lots of Universal Credit recipients, around one in five according to government figures, who cannot work. They will therefore not see their lot improved by an increase in the minimum wage. The bottom line: This increase in the minimum wages means there are fewer low paid workers in the UK, part of a long-term trend if you compare hourly rates of pay over time. However, this does not address the concern that benefits are too low for those who are out of work, unable to work enough hours or who are unable to work at all. The basic rates of benefits are at their lowest level since 1990, according to Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank.NHS fundingWhat’s new? There will an additional £5.9 billion allocated to the NHS in the Budget. This is on top of the £12 billion expected to be raised from what will become the Health and Social Care Levy. This money is for physical infrastructure and other long-term spending such as new equipment. That means it is technically investment, rather than so-called day-to-day spending. The small print: It’s not going to be spent on costs such as near-term staff recruitment. That means it will not fix the huge backlog of delayed care due to the pandemic, which has been linked to chronic staff shortages across the health services, as NHS trusts across the country report challenges in hiring specialist workers.The bottom line: Along with the need to have MRI and Ultrasound machines is the need to have staff to operate them. That, and when scans and tests are completed, many surgeries will require intensive care treatment afterwards, a challenge if there are not enough specialist ICU nurses or too little space due to Covid-19 patients.What’s new? The government has topped up a pledge on transport to increase funding for trams, trains, buses and cycleways. The small print: Only a small share of this cash is, in fact, new money. The Chancellor’s £7bn pre-Budget pledge for new transport projects contains only £1.5bn of additional funding.The bottom line: It does not look like HS2 is set to deliver what was promised. The Independent revealed earlier this week that the eastern leg of the project is set to be scaled back. The high-speed trains will therefore have to slow down to run on old tracks between Yorkshire and the Midlands.Other announcements: Health research: £5 billion for research into healthcare including into genomic testing, cancer and obesity.Housing: £1.8 billion to build new homes on brownfield sitesEducation: £2.6 billion over three years for education for children with special needs and disabilities Childcare: £500m for childcare projects including family hubs, which Labour have criticised as similar but less ambitious than Sure Start centers, which were closed as a result Conservative spending cuts closed. More

A senior scientific adviser to Boris Johnson’s government has admitted that the idea of so-called ‘plan C’ restrictions has been discussed should the surge in Covid cases get worse.Ministers have denied reports that the government is preparing plan C curbs that would ban the mixing of households in England this winter if cases continued to rise.But Prof Lucy Chappell, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that further measures beyond plan B had been “proposed”.Asked by MPs if there was a plan C in government, Prof Chappell said: “It has been proposed. The name has been mentioned. It is not being extensively worked up … People have used the phrase.”The senior adviser would not be drawn any further on the matter, and did not say what measures could be included in any possible plan C.Asked if there was a set of plan C measures beyond plan B that was being put together at the DHSC, she said: “At the moment the focus is on plan B.”Dr Thomas Waite, deputy chief medical officer for the DHSC, told MPs: “I haven’t been consulted on anything about a plan C.”Last week a report in The Telegraph claimed that plan C curbs on daily life were being considered by government, which would ban the mixing of households at Christmas.It would be a significant step beyond the government’s plan B measures currently under debate and consideration – including mandatory masks, work from home guidance and vaccine certification.Prof Chappell told the science and technology select committee that there is “no single metric” that would lead to plan B being enacted, as MPs expressed their frustration at the lack of information on the decision-making process in the days ahead.It comes as the government was accused of trying to “scupper” its own Covid plan B by leaking the economic cost to the press.Documents reported on Tuesday morning suggest internal divisions and the Treasury believes the so-called plan B approach would cause up to £18bn of economic damage.Obtained by the Politico news website, the internal Treasury impact assessment suggests the measures lasting throughout winter until the end of March would cost the economy between £11bn and £18bn.The papers drawn up by the Treasury and the Cabinet Office’s Covid task force detail the potential cost of mandatory mask wearing and vaccine passports, along with the return of work from home guidance.Opposition politicians accused elements of the government of trying to delay any “meaningful action” by leaking the private analysis.“Throughout this pandemic, the government has made countless errors that have cost lives. They’ve failed to listen to the experts – and now they’re trying to scupper their own Plan B by leaking memos,” Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dems’ health spokesperson told The Independent.Downing Street insisted there is “no planned five-month timeline” as it disputed the assumptions in the document and maintained there is still currently no need for plan B.The PM’s official spokesman said plan B would only be bought in when “pressure on the NHS is unsustainable” as he defended the measures as allowing “venues to remain open and remain trading”.The DHSC has been approached for comment. More

Britain has experienced a series of shortages these past few months, from a lack of fuel at gas stations to not enough workers picking the fall harvest, but Treasury chief Rishi Sunak is unlikely to dwell on them when he delivers his annual budget statement on Wednesday.The Chancellor of the Exchequer as he is formally known, will instead likely use one of the most high-profile, choreographed events in the country’s political calendar to paint a relatively rosy picture of the state of the British economy following the devastating shock of the pandemic.With government borrowing less than anticipated a few months ago — following a fairly solid recovery from Britain’s deepest recession in around 300 years — Sunak has a bit of wiggle room on the taxes and spending front. However, with the next general election not due until 2024 at the latest, Sunak is not expected to turn into Father Christmas — big tax giveaways in Britain are traditionally timed for the run-up to a general election.Sunak’s overall focus on Wednesday is expected to be stabilizing public finances following the battering they took during the pandemic, which saw the Conservative government respond with an arsenal of support measures for workers and businesses. Tax increases on business profits and people’s incomes have already been announced to get borrowing to more sustainable levels over coming years.With many of the pandemic-related firefighting measures, such as a salary support scheme, now finished, Sunak is expected to flesh out the funding arrangements of the long-term priorities of his boss, Prime Minister Boris Johnson notably his ambition to “level up” the U.K. — that means spreading prosperity beyond the wealthy south that is the traditional Conservative heartland.“Although the COVID-19 crisis is far from over and still presents a serious risk to the outlook, the economy is recovering strongly and the urgent need for emergency fiscal policy support has subsided,” said Kallum Pickering, a senior economist at Berenberg Bank. “Sunak can thus focus on the government’s longer run economic objective — to lift U.K. growth potential by ‘levelling up’ laggard regions,” he added. When he emerges from his office at 11 Downing Street on Wednesday, Sunak will hold up his red budget box that contains the speech that he will give to parliament. But many of his proposals have already been revealed, much to the fury of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle “At one time ministers did the right thing if they briefed before a budget — they walked,” Hoyle told lawmakers on Monday.Sunak has already announced that the minimum wage for low-income workers will go up by an inflation-busting 6.6% beginning in April and that the public sector pay freeze for military personnel, police officers and teachers will end.Given that inflation is set to rise further in the coming months, potentially to over 5%, there are concerns as to whether the pay increases will be enough to keep track with inflation.“That means a pay rise for all public sector workers that at least matches the cost of living,” said Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the umbrella Trades Union Congress. “If Rishi Sunak does not increase department budgets, the pay freeze will be over in name only.”Business executives have expressed concerns about the planned increase in the minimum wage, given that they are already set to pay more taxes over the coming years at a time when they are still trying to recoup the losses generated by the pandemic and deal with current rising costs.One perk of delivering the budget is that the Chancellor — alone — may drink alcohol. It’s the only time of the year that anyone in the House of Commons can do so. Sunak, however, does not drink, so he won’t be indulging in that tradition, though anything he says on the taxes he will impose on alcoholic drinks will be keenly noted in pubs up and down the land. More

Ahead of UK chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Autumn Budget, the Treasury announced that the national minimum wage for those aged 23 and over will rise to £9.50 an hour, an increase of 6.6 per cent on the current £8.91 per hour.Those aged 21 to 22 will see an 83p rise from the present £8.36 to £9.18, those aged 18-20 will earn 27p per hour more, taking them from £6.56 to £6.83, and those aged 16-17 will receive 19p more, a boost from £4.62 to £4.81.The government said the increases were “broadly consistent” with previous rises – which usually take place in April – which it said had impacted between 1.5 and 2.5 million workers.“This is a government that is on the side of working people,” Mr Sunak said. “This wage boost ensures we’re making work pay and keeps us on track to meet our target to end low pay by the end of this parliament.”The increases will come into effect at the national level, but are distinct from the voluntary Living Wage, which is set by the Living Wage Foundation and currently stands at £10.85 for London-based workers and £9.50 for those living anywhere else in the UK.Labour has said it wants a minimum wage of at least £10 but Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership has resisted calls from his own members and unions to commit to gradually raising the rate to £15 an hour.“This underwhelming offer works out at £1,000 a year less than Labour’s existing plans for a minimum wage of at least £10 per hour for people working full-time,” said Bridget Phillipson, the party’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury.“Much of it will be swallowed up by the government’s tax rises, universal credit cuts and failure to get a grip on energy bills.”Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Christine Jardine also said the wage rise would be offset by the national insurance rise and universal credit cut.“Ahead of the budget, people will be looking to the chancellor’s announcement of a pay rise to help them. Instead they will be bitterly disappointed to see almost half of any rise snatched away by the Treasury before it even reaches their bank accounts,” she said.Prime minister Boris Johnson previously trailed the increase during his speech to the Conservative Party Conference on 6 October when he said he wanted to move the country towards a “high wage, high skill, high productivity economy” as the gradual recovery from the coronavirus pandemic continues.Mr Johnson’s speech to colleagues in Manchester – loaded with fruity turns of phrase, knowing historical allusions and jokes at the expense of his Cabinet secretaries but light on new policy – arrived on the same day that his government’s universal credit cut came into effect.That decision saw an estimated 6m unemployed and low-paid workers losing out on £20 a week in benefits after an “uplift” was introduced at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak last March to support families when lockdown sparked a wave of redundancies, furlough and lost income.Under pressure to reverse the cut from political rivals and charities, who warned of dire consequences like 500,000 people, including 200,000 children, being driven into poverty, Mr Johnson’s administration remained unmoved, insisting it is employers paying higher wages, not claimants receiving taxpayer-funded benefit rises, that will put Britain back on its feet after being blasted by the “fiscal meteorite” of the coronavirus.Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab had foreshadowed his boss’s message during an interview with Sky News that morning in which he declared: “As we come through the pandemic, with youth unemployment going down, employment going up, we need to transition. We don’t want to see people reliant on the welfare trap.”Mr Raab also spoke of a need to wean Britain away from the “cheap drug of unskilled labour from abroad” in the wake of Brexit, suggesting more enticing salaries was the key to making the most of the UK’s native workforce.A contemporaneous story in The Times suggesting Mr Johnson was only weeks away from signing-off on a minimum wage rise reported that the lowest earners on the National Living Wage, paid to those over the age of 23, could soon receive £9.42 an hour, an increase of just over five per cent, but the Treasury’s new announcement surpasses that.The Low Pay Commission, which advises the government on the issue, had previously recommended that same £9.42 per hour figure in a report published earlier this year. More