Markus Andrews

Lorry drivers from Europe are not keen to return to the UK to help the country “get out of the s***”, said a union leader representing hauliers across the EU.Boris Johnson’s government is thought to be considering whether to call in soldiers to deliver fuel to petrol stations to address the drastic shortfall in tanker drivers.The government has also agreed to offer temporary visas to 5,000 foreign heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers in a bid to ease the fuel crisis.But Edwin Atema, from the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions (FNV), which represents lorry drivers across the EU, said it would not be enough to tempt drivers.“The EU workers we speak to will not go to the UK for a short-term visa to help the UK get out of the s*** they created for themselves,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.The FNV leader added: “It’s not like offering a visa … and the issue will be solved. Drivers need way more than a visa and a pay slip.”Mr Atema cited poor levels of pay, lack of good facilities and the absence of any collective bargaining agreement for the road transport industry in the UK.“Drivers from across Europe have completely lost all trust in this industry,” he said. “Long before coronavirus and Brexit this industry was sick already, plagued by exploitation … which ended up with drivers voting with your feet and leaving.”The FNV representative added: “Drivers need way more than just a visa and a payslip. A Marshall Plan is needed for the whole of Western Europe to drag this entire industry back to the surface where it needs to be.”The European Road Haulers Association (UETR), which represents 70 per cent of trucking companies across the EU, has also said lorry drivers who left Britain are unlikely to return.“I expect many drivers will not return to the UK even if the UK government allows them to,” said Marco Digioia, general secretary of UETR.“While offering visas to drivers on the continent would be a welcome step, there are many other issues, such as working conditions, pay and the costs of getting into and working in the UK.”Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said British motorists currently queuing for hours for petrol “couldn’t care less” if tanker drivers are foreign.“What they want to know is that they can fill up their car or their van and go about the business – so let’s plug those gaps,” said the Labour frontbencher.Industry leaders have said drafting in the military to deliver fuel to petrol stations across Britain will not on its own end shortages on the forecourt.The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) chairman Brian Madderson confirmed some training had been taking place “in the background” for military personnel.But he warned it was not an “absolute panacea” and that there was no “single lever” the government could pull to resolve the crisis.Some fuel supply brands are seeing pumps run dry at as many as 90 per cent of their petrol stations, according to a straw poll by the PRA.Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng announced on Sunday that he was temporarily suspending competition laws to allow the industry to share information so it can target areas where fuel supply is running low.Elizabeth de Jong, policy director at trade association Logistics UK, told BBC Breakfast consumers must stop panic-buying to ease the fuel crisis while the government implements longer-term solutions to tackle HGV driver shortages.“There’s the shorter-term panic-buying, which if we go back to our normal amounts and almost relax our behaviour and bring it back to normal then that can calm down quite quickly.” More

Boris Johnson will finally meet the campaigning families who lost loved ones to Covid more than a year since he first promised to do so.The prime minister will welcome members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group to Downing Street on Tuesday – 398 days on from his promise to meet them.Mr Johnson said last August that he would “of course” meet with families member who had lost loved ones to the virus.But the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice accused the prime minister of being “heartless” after he initially ignored their repeated requests to meet.The families – who successfully campaigned for public inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic – vowed to use the face-to-face meeting with Mr Johnson to demand the investigation is launched “immediately”.Mr Johnson announced in May that a public inquiry into his government’s response to the crisis will begin in spring of 2022 – promising it would put “the state’s actions under the microscope”.But the families fear it could be pushed back beyond the promised date. Lawyers representing the group recently met with the Cabinet Office officials to discuss the inquiry’s potential scope, and were told work has not yet begun on the basic terms of reference.Mr Johnson is expected to be joined by senior civil servants from the Cabinet Office and government’s legal department to discuss the terms of the inquiry at Tuesday’s meeting. The families have asked for it to take place outdoors with social distancing.Jo Goodman, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: “It has been over a year since the prime minister first said he would meet us and in that time over 100,000 people across the country have lost their lives with Covid.”The campaigner, who lost her father Stuart to Covid last year, said it had been hard to see families go through “the same pain and grief that we’ve experienced” over the past 18 months.“We first called for a rapid review last summer so that lessons could be learnt from the deaths of our loved ones to protect others, and we can’t help but feel that if we’d been listened to then, other lives might have been spared,” Ms Goodman said.She added: “We hope that the prime minister will listen to us tomorrow, and start the process to begin the inquiry immediately, whilst ensuring that the perspective of bereaved families is at its heart.” More

Drivers queuing for hours for petrol “couldn’t care less” if tanker drivers are foreign, Labour’s shadow Chancellor says, as she called for looser immigration rules to ease the crisis.Rachel Reeves urged the government to refer the issue of how many overseas drivers are needed to the independent Migration Advisory Committee – after a miserly 5,000 visas were issued.Asked why Labour was not, in Gordon Brown’s phrase, advocating “British workers for British jobs”, Ms Reeves said the priority is to end the immediate crisis, as petrol stations run dry.“Right now, we’ve got a situation where there are 100,000 too few HGV drivers on our roads and we haven’t got enough people who want to be driving those trucks and have got the qualifications to do so,” the shadow Chancellor told BBC Radio 4.“Most people who are queuing up this morning, whether that’s in Brighton or Leeds or wherever, to fill up their car, they couldn’t care less whether the HGV driver that’s got the petrol to the forecourt is British or foreign.“What they want to know is that they can fill up their car or their van and go about the business – so let’s plug those gaps.”Ahead of her conference speech, in which Labour will pledge to slash business rates to help the high street, Ms Reeves was also asked about the party’s divisions on trans rights.On Sunday, Keir Starmer said the MP Rosie Duffield, who has not travelled to Brighton after receiving threats and being branded transphobic, was wrong to say “only women have a cervix”.Pressed on whether the comment was transphobic, Ms Reeves told LBC Radio: “I don’t even know how to start answering these questions.”Challenged again, she replied: “I wouldn’t say that. If somebody identifies as a woman or a man, they should be able to do so whatever their body parts are.”Asked about Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, calling the government “scum, Ms Reeves said: “I wouldn’t use that language.“But I think that sentiment is shared by many people who are struggling at the moment, queuing for petrol, who are worried about cuts to universal credit next month and worried about increases in taxes next year.”The comments about the driver shortage came as Boris Johnson holds an emergency meeting with Cabinet ministers and senior officials to discuss bringing in the army to drive tankers.Competition rules are being relaxed so petrol companies, hauliers and retailers can share data and redistribute supply where there are gaps across the country.The measure is similar to the policy to ease the panic-buying of loo roll and pasta at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. More

Some working families will be more than £1,700 worse off by next April – losing £1 in every £20 of their income – a new Labour analysis says.The party will hammer home the message that the country is heading for a cost-of-living crisis, because of a “perfect storm” of tax hikes, benefit cuts and soaring fuel bills.The analysis calculates the hit to a single parent of two children, working full time and earning average wages, while claiming support for private rented housing.Tax and benefit changes – including the £20-a-week cut to universal credit, the freezing of personal allowances and next year’s National Insurance increase – will swipe £1,440.61, Labour says.On top of that, the average energy bill is rising by £139 a year and a second jump of at least £178 is expected when the price cap goes up next April.“Working people in Britain are facing a perfect storm created by this government which will see the average family nearly £2,000 a year worse off,” said Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow work and pensions secretary.Labour is still pressing the government to halt the universal credit cut, which will kick in from October, although ministers are exploring a partial climbdown.“It is not too late for the government to change course, cancel their cut to universal credit and back struggling families this winter,” Mr Reynolds added.Ministers have contradicted each other over whether what some have called a new winter of discontent looms in the next few months.The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, warned of “a difficult winter”, admitting some families would have to choose between eating and heating their homes.But Boris Johnson dismissed the fears, when asked if “people are going to really struggle this winter”, replying: “No, because I think this is a short-term problem.”The claim was rejected by the Resolution Foundation think-tank, which warned of “a cost of living crunch” – even if the immediate gas supply problems ease.One charity told The Independent that juggling falling income with higher costs would be “an impossible task” for many, while a second said rising prices would be “devastating and in some cases lethal”. More

More than half of all non-motorway petrol stations have run dry after a weekend of panic-buying by spooked motorists, forcing ministers to consider putting the army on notice to drive tankers to forecourts.The government has suspended competition laws to allow fuel companies to co-ordinate deliveries, and Boris Johnson is set to decide on Monday whether to send in soldiers to ease the crisis.The Petrol Retailers Association reported alarming shortages among its independent members as oil giant BP warned that almost a third of its sites had no supplies.Government pleas for drivers to stop filling their cars “when they don’t need it” fell on deaf ears as long queues formed at forecourts, operators rationed supplies – and police were called to one scuffle in London.With Christmas just three months away, shoppers were also warned of turkey shortages, while toy sellers report delays and higher prices shipping goods into Brexit Britain.Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng announced at 9pm on Sunday that petrol firms are temporarily exempt from the Competition Act 1998. Officials said the “Downstream Oil Protocol” would make it easier for firms to share information and prioritise delivery of fuel to parts of the country most in need.Brian Madderson, the PRA’s chairman, revealed a survey of its members, who make up the majority of the UK’s 8,000-odd petrol stations.“They serve the main roads, the rural areas, the urban roads, and anywhere between 50 per cent and 90 per cent of their forecourts are currently dry – and those that aren’t dry are partly dry and running out soon,” he told the BBC.“One of them mentioned to me that yesterday they had a 500 per cent increase in demand compared to a week ago, which is quite extraordinary.”BP, which operates 1,200 petrol stations, said: “With the intense demand seen over the past two days, we estimate that around 30 per cent of sites in this network do not currently have either of the main grades of fuel.”Earlier, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, sparked anger when he claimed industy leaders were responsible for the chaos, despite the government having admitted to a lack of lorry drivers. He was accused of a “disgraceful attack” on hard-pressed hauliers and of “shamefully passing the buck” for the queues.The row blew up after The Mail on Sunday quoted a government source claiming the Road Haulage Association (RHA) is “entirely responsible for this panic and chaos”.The transport secretary backed the claim, saying: “There was a meeting which took place about 10 days ago, a private meeting, in which one of the haulage associations decided to leak the details to media.“And that has created, as we have seen, quite a large degree of concern as people naturally react to those things.”Calling the leak “irresponsible”, Mr Shapps told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “The good news is there is plenty of fuel. The bad news is, if everyone carries on buying it when they don’t need it, then we will continue to have queues.”But the RHA hit back quickly, pointing out its managing director Rod McKenzie had not even been at the meeting where a BP executive had discussed stock levels.“He was not, as the government source claimed, “aware of the comments” and certainly did not “weaponise” them in subsequent TV interviews,” a statement said.“Indeed he repeatedly stressed the need not to panic buy and that there were adequate fuel stocks.“The RHA believes this disgraceful attack on a member of its staff is an attempt to divert attention away from their recent handling of the driver shortage crisis.”Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat business spokesperson, said: “Grant Shapps is shamefully passing the buck for the government’s own failures.“The Conservatives have repeatedly ignored calls from businesses to address the shortage of drivers. It is a bit rich for ministers to now blame the public and the road haulage industry for the mess we find ourselves in.”Mr Shapps’s comments came after the announcement of emergency visas for foreign lorry drivers to come to the UK to ease the crisis was dismissed as a damp squib.As expected, the offer will be made to 5,000 HGV drivers – plus 5,500 poultry workers – but the visas will run out on Christmas Eve, triggering criticism they are too little, too late.Keir Starmer suggested 100,000 foreign drivers are needed – the RHA estimate of the shortfall – saying: “We are going to have to do that. We have to issue enough visas to cover the number of drivers that we need.”The Labour leader said: “I’m astonished the government, knowing the situation, is not acting today. The prime minister needs to say today what he is going to do.”Meanwhile, a poultry association said big firms have already scaled back production of turkeys for the festive season, because they would not have enough staff to for more orders.Kate Martin, chairwoman of the Traditional Farm Fresh Turkey Association, said: “It’s looking like there is a national shortage of turkeys when we’re talking about supermarket shelves, rather than buying direct from your farm.”Footage circulated on social media showed two men in helmets tussling with each other at a petrol station in north London, before the police were called to the scene.A man was arrested on suspicion of assault and taken into custody, but no injuries were reported. More

Ministers are reportedly planning to lower the salary level at which graduates start to repay their student loan, in a move that has already sparked opposition MPs to accuse the Tories of “widening the gap” further for low-earning workers.Chancellor Rishi Sunak reportedly wants to overhaul student financing in his spending review ahead of October’s Budget, according to the Financial Times, over concerns in the Treasury that the taxpayer foots too large a bill for university courses.Currently graduates begin paying back their loans when they earn £27,295 or more, but one unnamed minister told the paper that “the plan” is to reduce that figure – with estimates appearing to suggest the government wants to go back below the £25,000 mark.The 2019 Augar review of post-18 education recommended the threshold be lowered to £23,000 while the Higher Education Policy Institute think-tank this year modelled a cut to less than £20,000.No final decisions are understood to have been made yet, however one minister told the FT a £20,000 threshold was considered “a bit low”.The news comes at a particularly stretched time for graduates earning the current £27,295 threshold, who, after the recent health and social care levy was introduced, learned they would be paying a marginal tax rate of at least 42.25 per cent when National Insurance (NI) costs go up – 33.25 per cent for non-graduates.For those earning more than £50,270, the rate is 52.25 per cent which works out at 43.25 per cent for non-graduates earning up to £100,000.Matt Western, the Labour MP for Warwick and Leamington, tweeted out the development and criticised the Conservative Party for “widening the gap” between the working class and the wealthy.“Widening the gap: govt plans to drop the student loan repayment threshold to £20k which will impact hardest on women graduates, those on lowest and middle incomes ultimately paying c. £10,000 more,” he said. “But wealthy students would be virtually unaffected!”Meanwhile, a maths teacher took aim at the government for its failure to protect workers such as herself from the latest cost of living squeeze.“Fully aware I’m very privileged compared to many in society,” Bec Greenhalgh, who works in Manchester, said. “BUT increasing NI and lowering the salary threshold for student loan repayment coupled with a teacher pay freeze is not what I had in mind when I accepted my mortgage offer.”A Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson told The Independent the student loan system was “designed to ensure all those with the talent and desire to attend higher education are able to do so, whilst ensuring that the cost of higher education is fairly distributed between graduates and the taxpayer”.It also said DfE was continuing to consider “the recommendations made by the Augar panel carefully”. The National Union of Students said it would be “totally opposed” to any reduction. “The injustice is simply astounding,” Hillary Gyebi-Ababio, vice-president for higher education, told the FT. Back in 2017, the student loan repayment threshold was significantly lower than it is now – until then-prime minister Theresa May announced changes in October. The ex-Tory leader upped the repayment salary level from £21,000 to £25,000, before it eventually became the £27,295 figure it is now in April of this year under Boris Johnson.The average student’s debt on graduation day in England is thought to be more than £45,000 in maintenance and tuition loans, which are repaid to the government with additional interest through a 9 per cent cut of earnings and written off after 30 years.Another disgruntled social media user, Sam, branded ministers “scum” after seeing the news – hours after Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner defended calling Mr Johnson’s government the same thing.“Absolutely grim,” Sam wrote. “Increasing NI and now this. Coupled with spiralling inflation and unaffordable housing. Attacking the younger generations because they’re too scared to tax their donors.” More

In its most ambitious attempt yet to woo the business vote, Labour has announced plans to scrap business rates and shift the tax burden away from bricks-and-mortar companies and onto internet giants like Amazon.Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will set out the plan in a keynote speech to the party’s conference in Brighton on Monday in which she will challenge the Conservative claim on the business vote, describing Labour under Keir Starmer as “pro-worker, pro-business”.She will announce a plan to raise £2.1bn from online behemoths like Amazon, Google and Facebook with a one-year hike from 2 to 12 per cent in the digital services tax, to pay for an immediate freeze on business rates and an increase from £15,000 to £25,000 in the threshold for reliefs.Labour would conduct a review of the £174bn-a-year reliefs and scrap those which fail to deliver for taxpayers or the economy, she will say.The announcement is part of a push by Reeves to establish Labour as a pro-business party and shake off its reputation from the Jeremy Corbyn years.Ms Reeves will say: “Our high street businesses do so much to enrich our lives and our communities, facing huge adversity in the past year. They are struggling right now, with a cliff edge in rates relief coming up in March.“The next Labour government will scrap business rates.“We will carry out the biggest overhaul of business taxation in a generation, so our businesses can lead the pack, not watch opportunities go elsewhere.”The move bore fruit today as the Federation of Small Businesses described her rates promise as “what a pro-small business tax policy looks like” and the CBI applauded the “pro-growth, pro-investment package of reforms”.Highlighting her background as a Bank of England economist, Ms Reeves has also announced new fiscal rules that would require a Labour chancellor to balance day-to-day spending and borrow only for capital investment, committing the party to reduce the national debt as a proportion of national income. An Office for Value for Money would scrutinise spending proposals on behalf of the taxpayer.And she signalled a move towards a wealth tax, declaring that people who get incomes from stocks, shares and rental income will be targets for tax rises.But Sir Keir said on Sunday that Labour has not ruled out rises in income tax after Ms Reeves told the Sunday Times she did not have any plans to increase rates. The party leader said that income tax hikes were not currently under consideration but “nothing is off the table”.Ms Reeves said that the “biggest overhaul of business taxation in a generation” was needed because the UK’s outdated system currently sees retailers pay £2.30 in business rates for every £1 in corporation tax, skewing payments heavily in favour of e-commerce and against brick-and-mortar businesses.With eight tech giants avoiding an estimated £1.5bn in tax a year, aides said that the system was not only unfair to small businesses but was also destroying Britain’s town centres, with shoppers in many areas having a choice of “Amazon or nothing”.The shadow chancellor will also offer a guarantee that Labour’s new system will incentivise investment, rewarding businesses which move into empty premises and encouraging green improvements while ensuring councils do not lose out.Longer-term reform would rely upon the introduction of a 21 per cent global minimum for corporate tax – up from the 15 per cent agreed earlier this year – which would effectively destroy the advantages of tax havens for multinational companies.Of the 1,000-plus tax reliefs currently in operation – some of them unreformed since the 1980s – Ms Reeves has so far earmarked only the breaks enjoyed by private schools and the £440m carried interest loophole for private equity bonuses for abolition.But she made clear she expected her review to identify many more, saying that “too many simply provide loopholes for those who can afford the best advice”.FSB national chair Mike Cherry gave a warm welcome to Ms Reeves’s package.“The gauntlet has been thrown down by the opposition, and we hope government ministers are listening,” he said. “This is what a pro-small business tax policy looks like.”CBI director-general Tony Danker said reform of business rates was “chronically overdue”. “The Labour Party should be applauded for grasping the nettle and putting forward a pro-growth, pro-investment package of reforms that will reflect our green ambitions, spur the economic recovery, and help level up our regions,” said Mr Danker. More

A number of experts and equality groups have accused the government of failing to protect high-risk ethnic minority groups during the Covid-19 pandemic while rates of vaccine hesitancy continue to grow among parts of these communities.The latest figure for hesitancy among Black or Black British adults is 21 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics — an increase on previous figures — while among white adults it remains at four per cent. Hesitancy is also higher for adults identifying as Muslim (14 per cent) or “other” (14 per cent) for their religion, compared with adults who identify as Christian (4 per cent).Mistrust in Government and healthcare systems have been cited as key reasons for hesitancy while a recent study by University College London University College London suggested the importance of addressing racial discrimination more broadly in order to increase vaccine uptake amongst ethnic minority adults. Currently, people from these communities account for the highest proportion of intensive care patients since pandemic began, according to the latest data from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre, while Covid safety measures were scrapped by the Government last month.Dr Zubaida Haque, a member of Independent SAGE, told The Independent that ministers have done little to mitigate the risks facing many despite extensive research highlighting the problems.“It’s almost a quadruple whammy – minority ethnic communities are more overexposed because of their circumstances, less protected in that they’re less likely to take up the vaccine because their fears and concerns are not being robustly addressed, then we’ve got higher infection rates and few mitigations,” she said. More