Markus Andrews

The British government has ignored instructions to strengthen UK anti-corruption laws, Europe’s integrity watchdog has said – in a scathing report published after series of scandals.The Council of Europe, which oversees the European Court of Human Rights and keeps tabs on corruption in states, said the UK failed “to demonstrate an acceptable level of compliance” after being told to toughen up sleaze laws.It said weak points left unaddressed by Boris Johnson’s government include a lack of independence for the government’s standards watchdog – who can only take action on the orders of the prime minister – and non-existent controls to stop the revolving door between the government and private sector. In a new report, the council’s corruption monitoring arm GRECO said just five out of 12 recommendations previously handed to the UK government in 2018 had been “dealt satisfactorily with”.It comes after revelations about cash-for-peerages and concerns over the access and influence granted to lobbyists and Tory donors.“Further progress is necessary to demonstrate an acceptable level of compliance with the recommendations within the next 18 months,” the report’s conclusions state, setting a new deadline of 30 September 2022 for the UK to provide evidence it has acted.The UK is still a member of the Council of Europe, which is separate from and predates the European Union, and monitors the human rights and rule of law situation in states.The 42 per cent compliance rate in the report represents a significant backsliding on the UK’s previous record, representing the worst rating the UK has ever achieved a GRECO’s evaluation rounds, which started in 2000. Successive British governments have previously always met between 75 per cent and 100 per cent of previous recommendations.Aside from the weakness of the ministerial employment watchdog ACOBA and the limited autonomy of the PM’s ethics adviser, the report says the government is insufficiently transparent about meetings by senior civil servants – some of whom have been implicated in affairs such as the Greensill Scandal.It also warns that the government’s lobbying register “gives a very partial view of the total number of lobbyists actively engaging with the government to influence decision making” because it does not require in-house lobbyists to register and does not require clients to be declared in the case of meetings with special advisers and senior civil servants. It also criticised the limited powers of and refusal to reform ACOBA, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments meant to stop ministers from cashing in on their government contacts to do jobs in the private sector.

Further progress is necessary to demonstrate an acceptable level of compliance with the recommendations within the next 18 monthsGRECO, Council of Europe anti-corruption watchdogBoris Johnson has in recent months rebuffed calls to toughen up the laws after a series of scandals around the financial services company Greensill Capital, the secret financing of his Downing Street flat by a Tory donor, and questions over how he paid for a luxury Caribbean holiday. George Havenhand, senior legal researcher at Spotlight On Corruption, said it was “extremely disappointing” that the government had “failed to implement measures aimed at preventing corruption and promoting integrity”.“Calls for meaningful reform grow louder by the day; the government must start listening and take steps to fix the regulation of ethical standards,” he said.Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK told The Independent: “It seems everyone apart from the UK government thinks there’s a problem with how standards are safeguarded in public life. “The Council of Europe’s report confirms our long-held view that the UK’s protections against abuse of high office are threadbare and not fit for purpose.”Arguing that the government needed to act “before trust in their probity is damaged beyond repair”, he added: “Until the independent adviser can initiate its own investigations without request from the prime minister, with the full backing of the law and dedicated resources to conduct these inquiries, its wings will be clipped.”A government spokesperson said: “The report recognises that lobbying is well regulated in the UK with a solid legal framework for public affairs transparency.“Since 2010, we have significantly increased the transparency of the workings of government – from extensive transparency publications on contracts, spending and meetings, to a statutory register of consultant lobbyists. “We will also consider any relevant findings of the Boardman review, once it has concluded.” More

Britain risks a repeat of the angry “yellow vests” protests in France if the huge changes needed to prevent a climate disaster fail to tackle the other “injustices” people face, Ed Miliband warns.In an interview with The Independent, the former Labour leader said it will be vital the public believes that desperately needed action to end carbon emissions will also “make their lives better”.Mr Miliband, now the party’s business spokesperson, insisted the transformation could come “with the carrot not the stick”, but acknowledged: “Lifestyles are going to have to change.”“We are doing this to tackle the climate emergency,” he said, but added: “In doing so, we are not going to leave the other injustices that people face in their lives.”Pointing to the 2019 protests that rocked Emmanuel Macron’s government, Mr Miliband said: “Look at what happened with Macron and the so-called gilets jaunes in France.“That was an example of him not recognising that, if you are going to go down this green road – and I believe we absolutely must do – it has got to be seen as fair.”The yellow vests protests, sparked by rising fuel prices and a belief they were hitting lower-earners the hardest, saw roads and fuel depots blocked and even major riots.In the interview, to mark the release of his new book entitled Go Big: How To Fix Our World’, the former leader also:Urged Keir Starmer to commit to building 150,000 low-rent homes a year, as the only way to tackle the housing crisis – while saying: “I think that case is being won.”Said Labour wants to ensure the skeleton Brexit trade agreement “is implemented as well as it can be” – rather than seek additions to help struggling exporters, professionals and touring artists.Suggested the Conservatives are blocking votes at 16, adopted in Scotland and Wales, because they fear the teenagers would vote Labour – saying: “My suspicion is that is their worry.” Attacked the “yawning chasm” between the government’s green rhetoric and its lack of action – pointing to the need for half of new cars to be electric within just four years, to meet climate targets, when under 15 per cent are currently.Acknowledged even his own vast £30bn Green Economic Recovery plan falls short of Joe Biden’s “inspiring” spending – saying: “It’s a start, but we need to do more.”Said Labour’s shadow ministers have “a collective responsibility” to reverse the party’s plight in the polls – because “leadership” is not just a matter for Sir Keir.Called for a permanent “citizens assembly” to make proposals to tackle the climate emergency – saying: “We have got to take people with us.”The book, described as “a vision for how to remake society”, was born out of Mr Miliband’s award-winning podcast called – with typical positivity – Reasons to be Cheerful.On low-cost housing, it calls for Vienna’s approach, where the city owns 220,000 homes and subsidises a further 200,000 – allowing renters to spend just 25 per cent of income on accommodation.In dismal contrast, the 40-year British policy has been to leave the job to the private sector, which has not delivered and never will do, Mr Miliband argued.“The next Labour government is going to have to get to grips with the housing crisis and there isn’t a solution without taking action on social housing,” he warned.On the climate emergency, the book says 200,000 new jobs will be needed, arguing: “This is something to get really excited about.“Imagine a ‘zero-carbon army’ going from house to house, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, to insulate homes and help people change the way they heat them.”He told The Independent: “Lifestyles are going to have to change, but the carrot is much better than the stick – showing people their lives can be better, their homes better insulated, air quality can be better.“I understand the point about sacrifice, and we are going to have to do some things differently, but I think it’s going to be better, we can create a better world.”The alternative, the book says, is that “future generations will look back at us as drunken revellers at the carbon party who smashed up the joint and left them with a mess of epic proportions to clear up”. More

Labour’s Lisa Nandy has called the government’s traffic light rating system for travel “confusing” and “dangerous” and urged ministers to scrap the amber designation.On the BBC’s Andew Marr Show on Sunday morning, the shadow foreign secretary said: “I think we’ve got a real, real problem with the travel system that the government has put in place.“We’ve currently got countries on the amber list which the government is basically urging people not to go to but allowing people to go to with very lax quarantine requirements when they come back.“We think the amber list should be scrapped. We think it’s pointless. We think it’s confusing and that confusion is actually dangerous at the moment.”She added that the current list risked “unravelling all of the progress” that had been made against coronavirus to date.When asked if people returning from holidays in France should have to quarantine upon their return to the UK, Ms Nandy did not provide an explicit answer. “I think that we should have robust quarantine measures in place for people coming back into the country. That’s absolutely right.”She added that clearer messaging was needed around travel to countries where new variants were rapidly emerging. “Travelling overseas, particularly when you’ve got countries like Thailand and Vietnam on the amber list where new variants are emerging and being imported into the UK, is the wrong thing to do, and the government ought to be absolutely clear about that,” she said.The traffic light system that Ms Nandy was criticising was introduced on 17 May, with reviews on the countries on each list taking place every three weeks.There are currently 11 countries on the green list, where holidaymakers can return from without having to quarantine, however entry into many of these countries is impossible for most Britons due to local restrictions.Portugal was the only mainstream European holiday destination on the amber list, until Thursday when the government announced it was announced that it would be moved to the amber list, citing fears about rising Covid cases and a mutation of the Delta variantTalking about the decision to downgrade Portugal, transport secretary Grant Schapps said that he and his cabinet colleagues “simply don’t want to take the risk” of mutated variants evading vaccine protection ahead of the planned lifting of all coronavirus restrictions in England on 21 June.There are more than 160 destinations on the amber list, which includes most of Europe, North America and Asian countries where new variants have been found, like Thailand and Vietnam. Although travel is permitted to these countries, travellers are required to quarantine at home for 10 days following their return, and take two PCR tests to confirm their Covid-negative status.There has been confusion over leisure travel to amber list countries. During a recent prime ministers’ questions, Boris Johnson said: “It is very, very clear – you should not be going to an ‘amber list’ country except for some extreme circumstance, such as the serious illness of a family member. You should not be going to an ‘amber list’ country on holiday.”Yet travellers are allowed to travel to amber list destinations without proof of an essential reason, and some holiday companies are offering holidays to amber list countries.No new countries were added to the green list in the first review of the traffic light system, but seven were added to the red list, including Egypt and Costa Rica. Travellers returning from any of the 50 red list countries are required to quarantine for 11 nights in a hotel at a cost of £1750. According to Mr Schapps, red list countries “should not be visited except in the most extreme of circumstances”.The next update to the traffic light system is expected around 24 June. More

UK foreign aid cuts cast a shadow over the nation’s role at the G7 and risk undermining its credibility on the world stage, hundreds of charities, academics and business leaders have warned.Families are going hungry, girls are missing school, women’s rights are being sidelined and diseases are being allowed to spread because of the almost £4bn a year cuts, a letter to Boris Johnson with 1,700 signatures said.The letter, with signatories including Oxfam GB and Save The Children, said the aid cuts are “a double blow” to the world’s poorest communities in the midst of a pandemic at a time of unprecedented human need.“Week after week, media coverage exposes the devastation caused by the cuts, with nutrition centres and health clinics forced to close, water and sanitation projects cancelled, 78,000 healthcare professionals left untrained and over 700 million donated treatments to treat neglected tropical disease risk going to waste,” it said.The prime minister has been criticised by MPs on all sides for temporarily reducing foreign aid from 0.7 per cent of national income to 0.5 per cent, and thereby shelving his 2019 manifesto commitment to maintain spending at a higher rate.The letter to Mr Johnson said there was “no justifiable economic need” for the cuts and the UK was the only nation to have “rowed back on its commitments” while other G7 countries stepped up aid budgets.“Inevitably the UK’s decision to cut its aid commitment during a pandemic casts a shadow over its ability to deliver at this year’s critical G7 summit,” it said.“A G7 that shows the UK’s support for other countries will be critical to a successful Cop (the UN climate change conference scheduled to be held in Glasgow in November).“Without a reversal to this decision, the UK’s credibility and voice on the international stage will be undermined, and its calls to other G7 leaders to do more on critical issues such as vaccine delivery, civic space, education, gender equality, healthcare, climate change and famine prevention risk ringing hollow.”More than 30 rebel Tory MPs, including former prime minister Theresa May, have supported an amendment that would require new legislation to make up the shortfall left by the cut to the UK’s official development assistance.The letter comes ahead of a potential Commons vote on the amendment on Monday.Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said there was cautious optimism among Conservative rebels.“We’re cautiously optimistic but the reality is that what we’re trying to do here is we’re trying to make sure that Britain’s foreign footprint, that global Britain, really means something,” he told Sky News’ Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme.The government blamed economic damage caused by the pandemic for its decision to cut aid spending.In 2020, the UK spent £14.5bn on overseas aid – a decrease of £712m on 2019 but still meeting its 0.7 per cent of gross national income target, according to provisional data.The government expects just under £10bn to be allocated to departments for aid spending in 2021/22. More

Matt Hancock has denied claiming to have “thrown a protective ring around care homes” from the start of the pandemic – despite saying it live on television.The now-notorious statement – which ignored the discharge of patients from hospital without Covid tests – came “much later about what we were doing for the winter plan”, the health secretary insisted.But TV footage shows Mr Hancock made the claim in May 2020, at a Downing Street press conference, and that he was arguing he had protected care homes throughout.“Right from the start, we’ve tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes,” the watching public was told. “We set out our first advice in February and, as the virus grew, we strengthened it throughout.”On the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mr Hancock was asked: “That phrase ‘protective ring’ – do you at least regret that, it wasn’t true was it?”But the health secretary replied: “I said that much later about what we were doing for the winter plan and it’s been interpreted.”Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary, accused him of “a clumsily blatant attempt to rewrite history”.And Layla Moran, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, said: “Matt Hancock claimed that from the start the government had tried to throw a protective ring around care homes – yet the evidence shows this is far from the case.”Mr Hancock – who faces MPs this week about the explosive allegations of his multiple “lying” made by Dominic Cummings – did issue his first firm denial about the most serious claim.Boris Johnson’s ousted former adviser told the inquiry that the prime minister was promised there would be testing before discharges – and was furious to later find out the truth.Mr Cummings claimed Mr Johnson said, in “less polite” terms: “Hancock told us in the Cabinet Room that people were going to be tested before they went back to care homes, what the hell happened?”But, asked by Mr Marr: “Did you tell Boris Johnson, in March, that people sent from hospitals into care homes were being tested, when you knew they weren’t”, Mr Hancock replied: “No, I did not.”Last month, Mr Cummings told the MPs: “All the government rhetoric of ‘we put a shield around care homes’ and blah blah, was complete nonsense.”Mr Ashworth added: “We were promised a protective ring round care homes, but the tragic reality is the Health Secretary failed to provide care home workers with PPE, adequate sick pay entitlement and – as he admitted today – chose not to test those discharged from hospital into social care.“Families who lost loved ones deserve a full explanation as to why care homes were left so exposed.” More

Children should be vaccinated in areas where the new Delta variant is surging through schools, Labour’s Lisa Nandy says.The party’s shadow foreign secretary spoke out, as health experts consider whether to take the step – and despite world health leaders calling for poor countries to be given jabs first.“I think you have to listen to what people are saying on the frontline,” Ms Nandy said, pointing to support for vaccinating pupils in hotspot areas including Bolton and Blackburn.She also said Labour believed the plan to lift all Covid restrictions on 21 June was in jeopardy because of “rising infection rates” in north west towns, “particularly amongst young people”.However, she rejected any suggestion that those areas should move slower than the rest of the country in completing the roadmap, because “local lockdowns simply didn’t work”.“We’ve been here before,” she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, adding: “And then we saw rising infection rates across every nation or region of the United Kingdom. We can’t afford to be there.”Asked if children should be vaccinated, the shadow foreign secretary replied: “Yes, I think the regulator was absolutely clear that for 12-year-olds and older, the Pfizer vaccine is safe.“And it’s becoming apparent that the rise in transmission rates is being driven amongst older people, not just school-aged children but secondary school-aged children as well.“So I think that it is right to follow the public health officials, particularly those in areas that are saying this is what they want to do.”The Pfizer-BioNTech jab was approved for children aged 12 to 15 by the UK’s medicines regulator last week – but the issue must now be considered by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).It must also weigh up that, while transmission would be reduced, children rarely suffer badly from the disease themselves and giving them vaccines would put them at risk of side-effects.Ms Nandy also urged the government to toughen up its stance on overseas travel, by scrapping the ‘amber list where visits are discouraged but not outlawed.“Travelling overseas, particularly when you’ve got countries like Thailand and Vietnam on the amber list where new variants are emerging and being imported into the UK, is the wrong thing to do, and the Government ought to be absolutely clear about that,” Ms Nandy said.“We think it’s confusing and that confusion is actually dangerous at the moment. It risks unravelling all of the progress that we’ve made.” More

Remaining Covid restrictions will be lifted as planned later this month if there is no increase in hospital admissions in the coming days, Matt Hancock has suggested.The health secretary said the number of serious illnesses is the “crucial” test – pointing out that the number of people in hospital is currently “flat”, despite the surge of the Delta, or Indian, variant.“It is too early to make a final decision,” Mr Hancock said, with the verdict due by Monday next week.Follow live: Vaccines extended to under-30s next weekBut he added: “We’ll keep watching the data for another week or so and, critically, watching that link on the number of cases to the number of people who end up in hospital.“And it is absolutely true that the number of people ending up in hospital is broadly flat at the moment.”Mr Hancock revealed that his latest advice is that the Delta variant is 40 per cent more transmissible – a higher figure than about 25 per cent mooted last month.But, crucially, he said the link between rising admissions and serious Covid cases was being “severed” if not yet “completely broken,” he told Sky News.Furthermore, the evidence suggested two jabs delivered the “same protection” against the new variant, he said, adding: “The good news is that the vaccine still works just as effectively.”Mr Hancock also confirmed that under 30s will be called to receive their first vaccine this week, with the target to jab all adults by the end of July set to be hit early.The decision whether to complete the roadmap – ending social distancing, mask-wearing and limits on numbers at events – has left a large majority of Britons “worried”, a poll for The Independent found.Ministers are known to be considering is a pause of at least two weeks, to allow maximum immunity for more double-vaccinated adults to kick in.Mr Hancock said that, of the four tests set for the decision, cases are “rising slightly” while “the rollout of the vaccine is going incredibly well”.Later, on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he again stressed the key test, saying: “What matters for opening is the data and the link to hospitalisations.”However – even if admissions remain flat – the government could opt to keep compulsory mask-wearing in some settings and work-from-home guidance in place.The greatest pressure from Tory MPs and businesses is to end social distancing rules in venues – while the rule-of-six limit indoors could also be scrapped, Mr Hancock indicated.He said: “We have said that we will give people enough time ahead of the June 21 date which is pencilled in as the next step – which is to be not before 21 June – and the critical thing is to see whether the four tests we have set have been met.“That’s in terms of the number of cases, and cases are rising slightly, the number of hospitalisations, which are much more flat. That’s because the third test, the rollout of the vaccine, is going incredibly well.“Then, of course, we have to look at the impact of new variants and we have seen a very significant impact of a new variant – the Delta variant – over the last month or so.” More

Labour is to force a Commons vote on the government’s school catch-up plans in the hope of embarrasing ministers over “totally insufficient” funding which has already led to resignation of the education recovery tsar.The government announced a new funding package of £1.4bn to help children to make up learning lost due to Covid lockdowns, with most of the money investment going towards tutoring.Sir Kevan Collins resigned as education recovery commissioner in the wake of the announcement, saying the support “falls far short of what is needed”.Labour plans to use an opposition day debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday to pile pressure on ministers to U-turn on the funding package by encouraging Tory MPs to rebel and demand more cash for schools.”The Conservatives have treated children as an afterthought throughout the pandemic and are now neglecting them in our recovery,” Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, said.”Kevan Collins’ resignation makes it clear that the government’s education recovery plan is totally insufficient to help every child bounce back from these impacts of the pandemic.”The Labour MP added: “Conservative MPs will now have the chance to step up and vote for our children’s futures.”Robert Halfon, the Tory chair of the Commons Education Committee chairman has voiced his concerns over current provisions, calling them “piecemeal”.Tory MP Anne-Marie Morris has also questioned whether the Treasury “understands the real world” following reports Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, blocked pitches from Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, for extra cash.Sir Kevan was reportedly pushing for a £15bn learning recovery fund – 10 times more than that announced by the Mr Williamson – and 100 extra hours of teaching per pupil as part of his recommendations for addressing lost learning.He also recommended that schools and colleges should be funded for a flexible extension to school time – the equivalent to 30 extra minutes every day.Of the new funding package, £1bn will go towards expanding tutoring available in schools and colleges, while the rest will go towards allowing some Year 13 students to repeat their final year and staff training and support.The Education Policy Institute (EPI), a think-tank, said the £1.4bn boost worked out at around £50 more per pupil every year and called this “a fraction of the level of funding required to reverse learning loss seen by pupils” since March last year.Taken together with a £1.7bn package announced earlier this year, the EPI estimated the government’s overall funding for education recovery works out at a total of around £310 per pupil over three years.This compares with an equivalent total funding of £1,600 per pupil set aside in the US and £2,500 per pupil in the Netherlands over the same period, the Education Policy Institute said.School leaders have said the latest package would fall short of what is needed for pupils to reverse the damage of the coronavirus pandemic on education, which caused most pupils to spend months out of school in total.When asked about EPI estimations the latest batch of catch-up funding works out at £50 per pupil per year, Gavin Williamson told LBC this week: “It is quite unprecedented to be getting this quantum of money outside of a spending review.”Announcing the £1.4bn funding package, the education secretary said it would “go long way to boost children’s learning” in the wake of Covid disruption and “help bring back down the attainment gap that we’ve been working to eradicate”. A government spokeswoman said: “We have committed to an ambitious, long-term education recovery plan, including an investment to date of over £3bn and a significant expansion of our tutoring programme, to support children and young people to make up for learning lost during the pandemic.”Additional reporting by Press Association More