Markus Andrews

Thousands of “invisible yet indispensable” NHS cleaners, porters and caterers whose jobs have been outsourced to private contractors should get the same 3 per cent pay rise as the medical staff they work alongside, a union is demanding.Unison has written to the 19 largest outsourcing companies with NHS contracts – including Serco, Sodexo and Mitie – to urge them to match the rise announced by health secretary Sajid Javid last week.The hike broke the pay freeze imposed on other public sector workers, in recognition of the health service’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but was condemned by health unions for failing to keep pace with the rising cost of living.Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said that outsourced NHS staff deserve the same recognition for keeping hospitals and clinics running during the outbreak, but in many cases risk missing out on any increase at all in hourly rates.“Thousands of cleaners, porters and caterers have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic, alongside their NHS colleagues,” said Ms McAnea.“NHS staff have the benefit of a national pay system but those not directly employed are missing out, often because of complex contracting arrangements, penny-pinching practices and the hard-nosed pursuit of profit.“Staff in the NHS work on one site as one team, from maintaining clean and safe wards to ensuring patients are fed and cared for. No one delivering NHS services should be paid less than their directly employed colleagues.“A pay rise should apply to all NHS staff. Health workers employed by contractors must not be left behind. The public will expect everyone in the NHS to get the pay rise they’ve all more than earned.”Unison’s letter asks contractors to ensure that the pay rates of staff delivering services to the NHS are no lower than those offered under the Agenda for Change scheme for directly employed staff across all the contracts they deliver within the NHS. More

A Conservative revolt is threatening Boris Johnson’s plans to introduce domestic vaccine passports to gain entry to domestic venues and events.Downing Street is pushing for vaccine passports to be required for entry into large-scale events – amid fears that allowing large numbers of unvaccinated people in an enclosed space could spread the virus.But Andrew Bridgen, one of the 43 Tories who previously signed a declaration opposing vaccine passports, accused the Conservative Party of “trying to aggressively coerce young people” into getting coronavirus jabs.The MP for North West Leicestershire said members needed to debate the “threat” of British people having to show proof of their vaccine status to gain entry to domestic venues and events.Speaking to LBC radio on Sunday, he said: “I think if the government is serious about the threat of bringing in domestic vaccine passports, then of course Parliament should be recalled. This is a very serious infringement on people’s liberties, it is basically unprecedented in this country, and I and a number of colleagues would oppose it.”He continued: “I think it is a very blunt instrument, to threaten people with domestic Covid passports. I personally don’t think it would get through the House of Commons in any event and that’s why the government has moved on to this ‘carrot’ inducements for young people.”He predicted a vote on vaccine passports in the Commons would result in an “embarrassing defeat” for Boris Johnson’s administration.In July, more than 40 Conservatives signed a declaration by campaign group Big Brother Watch saying they are opposed to using “Covid status certification to deny individuals access to general services, businesses or jobs”.Tory grandee Sir David Lidington said introducing a “government certificate of approval” to access certain events would set a “dangerous precedent”.Speaking on Times Radio, he said: “I’m much more cautious about the government laying down a law that people should actually have access to particular events in civil society only if they’ve got some sort of government certificate of approval.“I think that’s a pretty dangerous precedent and it also raises all sorts of really difficult practical problems about implementation. I mean, whose responsibility is it to actually carry out these checks? What sanctions do they have against an individual who resists having a check?”He added that he thought there were “better ways of persuading young people to take up the vaccine” than denying them entry to nightclubs. More

Labour has accused the government of failing to get behind business ambitions to bring offshored jobs back to the UK, after a scheme to support “reshoring” was quietly shelved.Reshore UK was launched by David Cameron in 2014 as a “one-stop shop” for companies hoping to shift business activities back to Britain. Mr Cameron said it would offer “dedicated support for businesses that want to capitalise on the opportunities of reshoring, creating new jobs and ensuring that hard-working people can reap the benefits of globalisation”. And Matt Hancock, business minister at the time, said the following year that it was forecast to create more than 6,500 jobs.But research by the House of Commons Library found that it no longer exists, and that there was little evidence to show what impact its work had. The Department for Business provided no date or rationale for its closure, after being approached by The Independent for details of its fate.Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said there was considerable evidence of an appetite for reshoring among UK companies.She cited recent surveys showing that anything between 20 and 37 per cent of companies are considering changes to their supply chains to reshore overseas activities to the UK.Sectors most likely to consider reshoring were industrials at 32 per cent and cleantech – environmentally sustainable technology – at 47 per cent.But the Commons Library research into reshoring concluded that “in short, there does not seem to be any specific targeted government funding for reshoring, or schemes specifically designed to facilitate it”.International trade secretary Liz Truss told a Commons committee in June 2020 that the government’s Project Defend strategy to strengthen supply chains in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic did not take onshoring as its principal goal.“It is not onshoring all our industry because that makes you less resilient, as you are subject to a shock on the UK,” said Ms Truss last year. “The way we make ourselves more resilient is by having more trade with a greater diversity of trade partners, so we are not dependent solely on some countries for imports and we are not dependent on certain markets for exports.”Ms Reeves told The Independent that ministers needed to “grab hold of opportunities” to bring jobs back to the UK as part of Labour’s plan to buy, make and sell more in Britain, particularly in the industries of the future like offshore wind power generation.“When the government could be creating quality jobs of the future here in Britain, they simply shrug their shoulders and go overseas to invest in lower worker and environmental standards instead,” said the shadow chancellor.“When I speak to our brilliant British businesses, I know how much they’ve done during through the pandemic – and how crucial helping them thrive is for our economic recovery.“A Labour government would get behind British businesses to help them meet their reshoring ambitions through our plan to buy, make and sell more in Britain.”A government spokesperson pointed to Boris Johnson’s plans for jobs and growth as examples of how ministers are working to support and create jobs in the UK, including in industrial supply chains.The government has launched the Business Support Helpline, Peer Networks programme and the new Help to Grow schemes to provide expert training, support and advice, said the spokesperson.“The whole of the government is focused on protecting and creating jobs across the country, including by strengthening supply chains and onshoring manufacturing to the UK,” said the spokesperson.“In recent months, we’ve been ramping up our domestic manufacturing base in the offshore wind, electric vehicle and life sciences sectors through a major programme of investment.” More

Major airlines in the UK have issued a joint plea to the government for a last-minute rescue of summer holidays, warning that tight restrictions beyond this week could result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the sector.Aviation sources said that failure to open key destinations in the Mediterranean, as well as other major markets like the US and Caribbean, in Thursday’s review of the government’s traffic light system, would deal a body-blow to the industry by effectively enforcing “five winter seasons in a row”.In a letter to Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, airlines also called for the removal of requirements for double-vaccinated arrivals to take expensive PCR tests, which they said amounted to a £100-a-head tax on flights.The letter came as chancellor Rishi Sunak wrote to the prime minister urging him to ease travel restrictions. In his letter, seen by the Sunday Times, Mr Sunak said that UK border policy was “out of step with our international competitors” and warned restrictions were having a damaging effect on jobs.The chancellor’s views were echoed by Conservative MP Henry Smith, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the future of aviation, who told The Independent that a “pragmatic and sensible” easing of traffic light restrictions was the right way forward in the light of successful vaccination campaigns in many European countries.Industry sources warned against the creation of an “amber watchlist” category – potentially including Spain and Italy – of countries of concern where restrictions could be tightened swiftly in the case of an upsurge of coronavirus. The mooted addition to the system would add confusion and deter potential travellers, who would not be willing to take on the risk of a sudden switch to the red list during their holiday, which would result in a £1,750 hotel quarantine on return.The letter to Mr Shapps said that it was “essential” for much of Europe to be placed on the green list on Thursday, allowing arrivals in the UK to avoid quarantine. The joint letter signed by trade body Airlines UK, alongside chief executives of Virgin Atlantic, easyJet, British Airways, Jet2, Loganair, Ryanair and TUI, warned that – despite the recent decision to admit fully vaccinated EU and US nationals – the UK is still “not on a path to a sustainable recovery of aviation, due to the continued restrictions that are being imposed on international travel”.With increasingly high levels of vaccine coverage in Europe and the US, the airlines told Mr Shapps: “The world has changed since the inception of the traffic light system, and ‘green status’ should increasingly become a default, given the changing risk equation, and mirroring the approach to domestic restrictions.“On this basis there is no reason why – and it is essential – much of Europe, including the key volume markets, the US, Caribbean and other major markets, cannot turn green next week in time for the remainder of the summer peak.” The requirement for a PCR test on arrival from a green list country – and two tests for travellers from the amber zone, which covers most of Europe – was “onerous and increasingly disproportionate” and will have a “huge impact” on UK aviation if allowed to continue.Calling for a switch to low-cost lateral flow tests, they said: “We have seen no evidence that this regime is necessary for fully-vaccinated travellers or those from green countries, or that effective, cheaper, rapid tests cannot be used from higher-risk destinations.”The letter warned that the UK was “far behind” other European countries in its aviation sector recovery, with bookings at just 16 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, compared to 60 per cent in Germany and 48 per cent in France.“Time is fast running out to put the UK’s aviation, travel and tourism industries back on track for a sustainable recovery to protect the millions of jobs they support,” it said. “We cannot afford to stand still over this vital summer period.”Airlines UK chief executive Tim Alderslade told The Independent that this week was the “last chance saloon” for the sector to salvage something from the disastrous summer of 2021, as the three-weekly review schedule puts the next decision point right at the end of the holiday season.“Summer is when airlines make their money,” he said. “They lose money in the winter. If we get the right decisions this week, we should have a decent September and perhaps there will be a rush of bookings from people who have been holding on to see what happens with the rest of August.”There was the potential for redundancies in the tens of thousands if carriers, which have taken on tens of billions of debt, see their last chance of a lucrative summer vanish at exactly the point when they are facing the end of furlough on 30 September, he warned.More than half of aviation jobs are still furloughed – more than in any other sector – and employers’ contributions to wages for hours not worked were increased from 10 to 20 per cent this weekend.Loganair chief executive Jonathan Hinkles said that the timing of this week’s review made it critical to move not only sunshine holiday countries like Spain and Greece onto the green list, but also business destinations which will play an important role in keeping up traffic as the autumn arrives.Mr Hinkles said: “A lot of operators are hoping for salvation from a relatively strong September and October after a wash-out summer. This is the last chance for that. There are reports of a number of airlines having to seek additional financing to secure their balance sheets and their ability to do that will depend heavily on Grant Shapps’s review.” An unfavourable review, coupled with the loss of furlough, would be “extremely damaging” not only to airlines, but to airports and support services like baggage handling and catering, he said.Mr Smith, whose Crawley constituency is home to many Gatwick Airport workers, endorsed the airlines’ proposals as “absolutely essential for saving as many jobs in the travel and aviation sectors as possible”.And he welcomed indications that hub airports like Dubai or Istanbul may soon be exempted from the red listing of the countries where they are situated, allowing long-haul passengers from places like Australia and New Zealand to change planes without incurring a requirement for hotel quarantine on arrival.“It’s a concept that is worthy of serious exploration, so long as there can be confidence in the segregation of passengers passing through these transit points,” he said.Agreement is understood to be close on the exemption for hubs, but the Department for Transport refused to discuss the timetable for any decision.Responding to the airlines’ letter, a DFT spokesperson said: “We have committed to reviewing travel lists every three weeks and any decisions are taken by ministers based on the latest risk assessment from the Joint Biosecurity Committee. We continue to work with the travel industry and private testing providers to further reduce testing costs.”Labour’s shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: “The Tories are in chaos over their border policy with families stuck between the prime minister and the chancellor who are in open disagreement. Rishi Sunak’s latest self-promotion campaign will just create more anxiety for people.“Rather than brief the Sunday newspapers against each other, the Tories need to get a grip and bring this summer of chaos to an end.”Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Christine Jardine said: “Airlines needs certainty, something the government has repeatedly failed to provide.  The last thing the industry needs is another lost summer, which will put thousands of jobs at risk.“The traffic light system is backed by scientists, and we must do all we can to prevent huge numbers of cases coming in from overseas. The government needs to put in place additional support for airlines so they can get through the next few difficult months.” More

The government’s 2050 target date of reducing the UK’s net carbon emissions to zero is “too far away”, Boris Johnson’s climate change spokesperson Allegra Stratton has said.Ms Stratton said that the science was clear that faster action is needed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions in order to stop global temperature increases by 2030.Her comments are likely to alarm backbench Conservative MPs who fear that voters are being asked to shoulder too great a financial burden to give the UK a world-leading role in the fight against climate change in the year when Mr Johnson is hosting a crucial United Nations summit on global warming.The UK was the first major industrialised country in the world to sign the 2050 target into law in 2019, and is aiming to persuade other nations to follow suit at the COP26 summit which Mr Johnson is chairing in Glasgow in November.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World This Weekend, Ms Stratton said that the technology needed to reduce emissions was becoming cheaper all the time, making the net zero target no more expensive than the previous 80 per cent target, at about 1 per cent of GDP.And she made clear that urgency was needed to meeting the COP26 target of keeping global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels.“We have to feel the fierce urgency of now,” she said. “I feel the fierce urgency of now.“We have to bring countries to COP26 in November in Glasgow with real substantial plans.”Ms Stratton, who speaks on COP26 on the prime minister’s behalf, pointed to the government’s 10-point plan for a “green industrial revolution” and to pledges from FTSE100 companies to go net-zero as signs of progress towards the 2050 goal.But she added: “Every bit of society is moving in tandem towards this net zero in 2050, but let’s be honest that’s too far away.“Net zero is the glide path. What we have to be doing more quickly – the science is clear – (is) we have to be changing our carbon emissions output right now, so that we can stop temperature increase by 2030.”Amid growing concerns that the UK is lagging behind in its drive to secure international agreement on ambitious targets at Glasgow, Ms Stratton acknowledged that progress had been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.But she said that plans will be unveiled when parliament returns in September for projects like the replacement gas boilers with more climate-friendly alternatives over the coming 10-15 years.Ms Stratton admitted that minister had to overcome distrust from voters in the light of fast-changing advice on issues like diesel cars – which were promoted as environmentally-friendly for many years before the harmful effects of their exhaust became known.“My granny says to me ‘Why would we believe government when look what they encouraged us to buy and how quickly they changed their opinion?’” she said.“But that only underscores the reason why this has to be done properly so we take people with us because it would be so damaging to have another version of that.”She said that the government had a “balancing act” between moving swiftly enough to respond to the scale of the challenge and taking enough time to ensure that new technology like electric cars works as it should.“This is a long-term journey we are all on,” she said. “This is a journey to 2050.“This is not going to happen overnight. This is going to be a conversation we have with the British people about what is fair, protecting vulnerable families from some of the more difficult decisions they will have to make.”Ms Stratton declined to discuss reports that chancellor Rishi Sunak is holding out against green taxes to pay for action on climate change.“What worries me and what worries members of the government is the extreme climate change and weather events that we are seeing in this country now,” she said.“The climate has warmed by 1.2 degrees. We are trying to limit that increase to 1.5. Everyone can see that the margin we have right now is not big. We are headed for 3. If we think about the weather we’re seeing right now at 1.2, what the weather be like at 3 doesn’t bear thinking about.”Ms Stratton said she understood public cynicism about the chances of international conferences effecting real change.But she said: “It’s different with Glasgow. Glasgow is actually the one where they come with the plans. So we have the chance to deal with all the things that people are saying make them anxious.“We have the chance right now. We just have to seize it.” More

The UK could help finance the construction of a prison in Albania to house offenders sent back to the country from British jails.Albanians make up the largest foreign national group in UK jails, with more than 1,500 behind bars in England and Wales making up around 10 per cent of total inmates from overseas.UK and Albanian justice ministers Chris Philp and Etilda Gjonaj last week approved a prisoner transfer agreement which will allow offenders from either side to be sent back to their home countries to serve out their full sentences.But Ms Gjonaj revealed in an interview with the west Balkan country’s media that the discussions also touched on the possibility of financial assistance from London to house returned felons, many of them convicted of involvement with criminal gangs active in drug-smuggling and people-trafficking routes into the UK.With very few UK nationals in Albanian prisons and transfer of offenders is likely to be largely one-way, and Tirana is understood to be concerned about the additional financial burden which the arrangement could create.Ms Gjonaj told an interviewer that British ministers “welcomed my proposal for the UK to build a prison in Albania or renovate an existing prison”.Discussions are understood to be at an early stage, and the Ministry of Justice declined to confirm or deny whether the proposal was raised in Monday’s talks.But an offer of financial help would not be unprecedented.In 2015, David Cameron offered Jamaica around £25m from the UK’s aid budget to part-fund a prison for offenders returned from Britain, though the deal was eventually rejected by the administration in Kingston. Since then, discussions have taken place with Nigeria about funding for a jail in Lagos, though again the proposal came to nothing.Under the terms of last week’s agreement, Albanian authorities will have to foot the bill for housing returned offenders in its own jails, saving the UK taxpayer an average £44,600 per inmate.Mr Philp, said: “We are committed to removing foreign criminals who have abused our hospitality and inflicted misery on our communities.“Someone who commits a serious crime in the UK should be barred from returning so that the taxpayer no longer has to pay for them and victims can be confident justice has been done.”No legislation is required to put the agreement into effect, and ministers expect transfers under the scheme to begin in the autumn.Since January 2019, the UK has removed 7,985 foreign national offenders from prisons, immigration removal centres and the community.The deal with Albania builds on an earlier agreement and means that offenders must spend at least the same amount of time in custody as they were sentenced to by a judge in the UK.It also clarifies that prisoners can be transferred without their consent. More

The government’s Australia deal could lead to a similar trade pact with South America, where tropical forests are increasingly being razed for intensive farming, driving the climate crisis, environmentalists fear.And concerns have been raised that UK schoolchildren, hospital patients and restaurant and canteen customers could eat products from animals that have been treated in ways that would be illegal in the UK.The EU reached a deal in principle two years ago with the so-called Mercosur bloc of Latin American countries, covering tariffs and trade barriers.And ministers say the government’s trade deal with Australia will boost UK attempts to join the CPTPP trade alliance, which covers Pacific nations from Japan to Mexico.The UK Eurogroup taskforce – a coalition of animal-protection representatives – has warned the UK will follow the EU and end up funding ecologically damaging and cruel practices.The RSPCA sounded the alarm over the UK supporting lower standards when the Australia deal was imminent earlier this year.The Animal Equality organisation said a South America deal would “trigger further deforestation, put greater pressure on Brazilian biodiversity, and create an increased likelihood of zoonotic diseases arising and a significant reduction in the standards of imported products into Europe”.In the Amazon, swathes of land are routinely cleared to rear cattle for beef exports and to plant soya to feed them. The deforestation, biodiversity loss and human-rights violations in Brazil have prompted the UK, the EU and the US all to consider legal action.The forest loss creates even more of the emissions driving the climate crisis, because trees and vegetation soak up carbon.Last year figures showed a football pitch-size area of forest was lost every six seconds. Cornelia Maarfield, trade and climate project manager at the global Climate Action Network coalition, said the current trade pattern, even before any agreement, was already driving deforestation, and that future deals could make the problem even worse.She pointed to a report commissioned by the French government on the EU-Mercosur trade agreement showing that the growth of beef production in South America due to the EU-Mercosur deal would accelerate tree loss by at least 25 per cent a year and destroy 36,000 sq km of forest a year. “The report concludes that taking deforestation into account, the climate costs would outweigh the economic benefits,” she said.Intensive animal agriculture has repeatedly been linked to the risk of pandemics, with the world’s leading scientists calling for a worldwide cut in meat consumption.Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International/UK, said intensive farming practices in south and central America risked creating new diseases, and warned that any UK deal would go against the standards the public wanted.“The EU and UK have made significant progress in reversing some of the most egregious production practices in intensive animal agriculture such as confining hens in battery cages so small they are unable to even stretch their wings,” she said.“However, hundreds of millions of hens, pigs and other animals endure miserable lives of perpetual confinement in countries like Mexico and Brazil, including battery cages and sow stalls which have been banned in the UK for many years.”As well as being cruel, intensive confinement of farm animals was also linked to the generation of more virulent diseases because of the sheer number of animals crowded together in insanitary environments, she said.“Any trade policy that allows the import of animal products that do not comport to the animal welfare policies of the UK and EU simply prop up an industry that the public has already firmly rejected, and further undermine the science behind those decisions.”In Mexico sow stalls – banned in the UK since 1999 – are still legal, and most hens both there and in Brazil are kept in battery cages, banned in the UK since 2012 on welfare grounds, she said.EU experts last year in a report described Brazil’s regulations on slaughter and transport as “insufficient”. The World Animal Protection charity grades the country only as D – on a scale where A is the best and G the worst.It noted that the EU’s Food and Veterinary Organisation found Brazilian authorities “cannot guarantee that meat products exported to the EU have been produced in accordance with EU requirements”.Some substances are authorised in cattle that cannot be used in the EU, it reported.As far back as last year, a Compassion in World Farming briefing warned that Brazil was increasingly moving towards the use of feedlots, which “would completely undermine our farmers if these products were imported into the UK”.A spokesperson for the Trade and Animal Welfare Coalition, part of the Eurogroup for Animals, said: “The UK should be using its trade policy to promote better welfare internationally, not to further incentivise or outsource lower welfare and unsustainable production systems in other parts of the world, impacting wild animals as well.”A government spokesperson said: “In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards,” the wording contained in the Conservatives’ manifesto. More

The Conservative Party chairman has been accused of making money from organising meetings between wealthy businessmen and the Prince of Wales – his uncle.Ben Elliot, the Duchess of Cornwall’s nephew, is said to have introduced clients of his concierge company Quintessentially to the future king – but only after they spent tens of thousands of pounds on a membership scheme, according to a report in The Sunday Times.One of those clients, who is a major Tory donor, told the newspaper he paid an annual fee of £15,000 to be an elite member of Mr Elliot’s luxury business for several years. Mohamed Amersi, 61, a telecoms millionaire, then claimed that in 2013, Quintessentially arranged for him to fly to meet Prince Charles over “an intimate dinner” at Dumfries House in Scotland.Mr Amersi, who as a result of the meeting became a trustee of one of Charles’ charities, has since donated more than £1.2m to causes supported by the prince.Leaked emails reportedly show Mr Elliot congratulated Mr Amersi on his first donation by writing: “Well done.”The events took place before Mr Elliot became Tory chairman, in 2019.Mr Amersi told The Sunday Times that without “somebody like [Mr Elliot], it’s not possible, it’s not easy” to get access to senior figures such as Charles.Asked if Mr Elliot was operating a pay-to-play scheme, the businessman replied: “You call it pay-to-play, I call it access capitalism. It’s the same point. You get access, you get invitations, you get privileged relationships if you are part of the set-up, and where you are financially making a contribution to be a part of that set up. Absolutely.”His allegations are supported by an anonymous whistleblower with “close knowledge of Quintessentially’s operations”, according to the newspaper.Mr Amersi, who has donated large sums to the Tories, including £10,000 each to Boris Johnson and Michael Gove during the 2019 Conservative leadership election, said he would never have met Charles without paying for the top tier membership of Mr Elliot’s business.Clarence House declined to comment to The Independent, while the Conservative Party did not respond to a request.A spokesperson for Mr Elliot told The Sunday Times: “Mr Elliot does not raise money from Quintessentially members in his role as Conservative Party chairman. Mr Elliot has helped raise more than £13m for charities through the Quintessentially Foundation, which has supported more than 50 charities. He is proud of this work. He has also worked to support many other charities and good causes across the UK.”The introduction of Mr Amersi to the Prince of Wales “was entirely about helping to raise money for charity”, the spokesperson said.Earlier this year, leaked emails relating to Mr Johnson’s lucrative flat refurbishment showed that Mr Elliot was copied into crucial emails discussing ways party donations could be used for the redecorations.It was later revealed – in a complex payment plan – that the estimated £58,000 renovation was initially paid for by the government and the Conservative Party before Mr Johnson eventually met the costs himself. More