Rishi Sunak is facing questions about his role in the Greensill lobbying affair. But just what is it?This week the Financial Times reported that specialist bank Greensill Capital had lobbied the Treasury to include the firm in state-backed emergency Covid loan schemes.Under these schemes, the Treasury underwrote loans issued by banks to help businesses facing disruption due to the pandemic. More
Communities secretary Robert Jenrick will make a decision “shortly” on whether to use his powers to intervene in the running of the local authority.It comes after the minister ordered an inspection of the council to determine whether it was complying with its legal “best value duty”.The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government confirmed toThe Independent on Saturday night that Mr Jenrick had received the inspection report, which had been due by 31 March.”This is being considered carefully and next steps will be set out shortly,” the department said in a statement.The Sunday Telegraph reported inspectors had returned a “damning indictment of the council” and that Mr Jenrick was “expected” to send commissioners to take over day-to-day operations at the local authority. Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayRead more:Liverpool City Council declined to comment.A similar measure was taken in relation to the east London borough council of Tower Hamlets in 2014, when commissioners took over financial control after an independent inspection found a “culture of cronyism”. They stayed for just over two years.One of those Tower Hamlets commissioners was Max Caller, who was appointed by Robert Jenrick to carry out the inspection of Liverpool City Council in December. He is a former chairman of the local government boundary commission.Mr Jenrick told MPs the inspection would cover the authority’s planning, highways, regeneration and property management functions. He said: “It is a matter of public record that Merseyside Police have for many months been conducting an investigation which has resulted in a number of arrests made on suspicion of fraud, bribery, corruption and misconduct in public office. This investigation involves a significant connection to Liverpool City Council.“This raises significant concerns as to whether the authority is currently complying with its best value duty under section 3 of the Local Government Act 1999.”Mr Anderson remains on police bail following his arrest in December on suspicion of conspiracy to commit bribery and witness intimidation. Deputy mayor Wendy Simon has taken over the role of mayor on an interim basis while the investigation continues. More
Wales is to launch a new international learning exchange programme following the UK government’s decision to withdraw from Erasmus after Brexit.The Welsh government plans to invest £65m in the new scheme, which will run from 2022 to 2026.The programme will aim to send 15,000 participants from Wales overseas and have 10,000 participants from other countries come to study or work in Wales.Boris Johnson decided not to partake in Erasmus last year when talks were concluded over a post-Brexit trade deal – ending financial support for students to study abroad in all EU countries and many others, including Norway, Iceland, Tunisia and Israel. Instead, the government rushed out a new “Turing Scheme”, named after the legendary Second World War codebreaker Alan Turing.Announcing the initiative from the Welsh government, Mark Drakeford, the first minister, said studying abroad “broadens horizons, expands key skills and brings benefits to communities and organisations here in Wales”.Read more:He said: “This is a down payment on our young people’s futures, offering opportunities to all, from all backgrounds. “Securing these opportunities is particularly important in the context of the difficulties experienced by young people and learners across Wales as a result of the pandemic.”Cardiff University will lead the detailed development of the programme over the next 12 months. Exchanges will be carried out in a similar way to the Erasmus scheme and will be extended to cover not just Europe but also further afield.The programme will provide funding to enable students and staff across universities, colleges, adult education centres and schools to undertake a period of structured learning or work experience overseas.Kirsty Williams, the Welsh education minister, added: “We have been clear that international exchange programmes, which bring so many benefits to participants, as well as their education providers and wider community, should build on the excellent opportunities that the Erasmus+ programme offered.“Our students and staff are vital ambassadors for us overseas, promoting the message that Wales is an inviting destination for students and partners across the world, and their education and cultural awareness are improved in many ways as a result of spending time abroad – just as our education providers are enriched by students and staff visiting Wales to study and teach.”Last week talks were held between higher education institutions in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland aimed at allowing students to take part in the EU’s student exchange scheme through Irish colleges.The Irish government announced late last year that students from Northern Ireland would be given access to Erasmus by allowing them to temporarily register with Irish colleges and travel to an EU member state.Northern Irish students are set to be able to avail of the scheme from September.Scotland has also vowed to explore alternatives with Richard Lochhead, the Scottish minister for further and higher education, calling the UK’s replacement Turing scheme a “poor shadow” of the EU programme. More
The billions of pounds being raised by green energy auctions should be used to set up a sovereign wealth fund and invested across the UK, Ed Davey will say on Monday.In his speech to the Liberal Democrat spring conference the party leader will attempt to reignite his party’s fortunes with a series of eye-catching policy ideas.Pointing to the £9bn raised from a recent seabed licence auction last month, Sir Ed will argue the money should be ploughed into green projects to get Britain ready for net zero greenhouse gas emissions.He says the plans would be used to create manufacturing jobs and fund a ten-year programme to insulate every home, cutting energy bills and usage. “Just last month, an auction for the right to build windfarms off the coast of England and Wales attracted bids far, far higher than anyone expected – raising £9bn, with more to come,” he will tell his party at the gathering, which is being held online this year because of Covid-19.”This green wealth doesn’t belong to Rishi Sunak, or the Tories. It belongs to the British people. So I say: let’s invest it in a sovereign green wealth fund.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayRead more:”Let’s invest the windfall from wind power into more climate action. To build new infrastructure and attract more private investment. To grow our green wealth even further, and create thousands of manufacturing jobs here in the UK.“By investing in the green technologies and industries of the future – tidal power, hydrogen, green flight – Britain can not only recover but become the world’s first green powerhouse. “And with our new green wealth fund, we can also invest in an emergency ten-year programme to insulate every single home.“Lower heating bills for everyone – and an end to fuel poverty. Warmer homes for everyone – and green jobs in every village, town and city across the UK.”Sir Ed will accuse the Tories of instead slipping “the cash quietly into the chancellor wallet”, emulating Margaret Thatcher’s approach to North Sea oil.”If the Tories had invested the windfall from North Sea oil in the Eighties, they could have created a wealth fund worth more than £500bn today,” he will add.“But they squandered the nation’s wealth then, just as they are doing now.”Other policy plans in the speech include tax cuts for small businesses, such as quadrupling the employment allowance for national insurance contributions (NICs) from £4,000 to £16,000.This would mean no small business paid a penny in NICs on their first five employees, he will say.Sir Ed will also call on Mr Johnson to give NHS staff a pay rise, and admonish the Tories for scrapping green energy projects.The Lib Dems have faced a political rollercoaster in recent years, capitalising on their staunch opposition to Brexit at the 2019 European Parliament elections but struggling at the same year’s general election. The party has struggled to be heard through the noise of pandemic, however. More
A cross-party group of MPs and peers have written to Priti Patel to ask her to lift a ban on protests during the coronavirus lockdown. The letter to the home secretary says protest is a human right and that the current position “is not acceptable and is arguably not lawful”.It comes after confrontations with police at a vigil in south London following the killing of Sarah Everard.Further protests are also planned on Saturday by some anti-lockdown campaigners.Protesting is not listed as a “reasonable excuse” for leaving home under the government’s coronavirus regulations.Signatories of the letter include Tory MPs Charles Walker, Steve Baker, Christopher Chope and Desmond Swayne and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayRead more:Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler, and Baroness Chakrabarti are among Labour MPs and peers to put their name to the call. Green MP Caroline Lucas is also a signatory.The letter was organised by campaign groups Liberty and Big Brother Watch.The letter says: “The absence of clear guidance on these issues has created an entirely unsatisfactory situation, which has persisted to varying degrees for almost a year now.“The police have no legal certainty as to their duties and powers, protesters have no legal certainty as to their rights, and there is inconsistent application of the regulations across the country. This cannot continue.”The restrictions are separate from a government bill going through parliament that will criminalise protests that cause “serious annoyance or inconvenience”.Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said: “The harrowing scenes of police officers using force against women at Clapham Common recently were avoidable and wrong. Over the past week, many more demonstrators and even legal observers have been arrested or fined.“This stain on our democracy is a direct consequence of this government’s disrespect for the most basic of British democratic freedoms.”Sam Grant, from Liberty, said: “Last week, the police conceded protest is not banned under the lockdown regulations, but used them to threaten then arrest demonstrators anyway.“The home secretary must immediately issue guidance to all police forces to ensure socially distanced protests can go ahead, and create an explicit exemption for protest in the current regulations.”In response to the letter, a government spokesperson said: “While we are still in a pandemic, we continue to urge people to avoid mass gatherings, in line with wider coronavirus restrictions.” More
It is a northeast town that, historically, is about as red as the red wall gets.Hartlepool has never voted for anything other than a Labour MP in the almost half century since the constituency was created in 1974. When The Independent visited in the run-up to the 2019 general election, one woman captured the mood: “I could never go Tory,” Dorothy Scott, a retired sewing machinist, told this publication. “My father would turn in his grave.”After Mike Hill suddenly quit the seat this week paving the way for a May by-election, this Tees Valley port town of 92,000 people suddenly looks the shakiest of grounds for Sir Keir Starmer.The talk here is of the once unthinkable: that Hartlepool might be the latest Labour brick to go blue.And, make no mistake, if it did so, the repercussions would reverberate around Westminster – and may offer a glimpse of how a future general election would play out.Read more:Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayA Tory victory, analysts reckon, would add to questions already being asked about Sir Keir’s appeal in these one-time party heartlands; while simultaneously suggesting that Boris Johnson has retained his ability to attract voters in seats that were once Tory no-go areas – despite what many view as a bungled handling of the pandemic.“A Conservative win would be massive,” says Professor Matthew Flinders, director of the University of Sheffield’s Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics. “It would be a defining moment because it would show that, even in spite of Covid and the rather shaky opening to Boris’s tenure as prime minister, he is still managing to knock those red dominoes down – even though he’s not really had time yet to invest in the levelling up agenda.“And the flip side of that for Sir Keir is that there are already concerns about his ability to connect with the public at an emotional level, especially so in those northern areas. Losing Hartlepool would absolutely amplify those concerns.”The problem is the numbers don’t look good right now for Labour, which has already announced former Stockton South MP Paul Williams as its candidate.Mike Hill – who stood down amid allegations of sexual harassment – held on to the town in 2019 with a hugely reduced majority of 3,595. But received wisdom suggests that if the Brexit Party had not stood – and won 10,000 votes – the Tories would almost certainly have clinched victory here.This time round there will be no Brexit Party to split the poll; and, although its Farage-less successor Reform UK is considering chucking its hat in the ring, it would almost certainly be a bit player.The upshot? If it comes down to a two-horse race, even Labour members in Hartlepool do not appear confident.“It would be an absolute scandal if this town, which has been treated the way it has been treated by the Tories down the years, voted for them,” says Lesley Hamilton, a Labour councillor with Hartlepool Borough Council. “But we probably have to accept there’s a good chance that’s going to happen. It will be a struggle to hold.”Why the potential shift?Getting Brexit done (or, rather, getting the first part done) will have helped Mr Johnson in a town that voted 69.6 per cent in favour of leaving the EU. So, too, will the so-called vaccine bounce that has left the Tories as much as 14 per cent up in nationwide polls.More pertinently, in Hartlepool itself, there appears to be a feeling that decades of Labour MPs have only brought decline: the town was ranked as the 10th most deprived in England in 2019, according to government figures. For that reason, above all others perhaps, many here want a change. They have, in fact, wanted it for a long time. At three separate local elections, over 12 years from 2002, they voted for a man dressed as a monkey to be the town’s directly elected mayor. Stuart Drummond – the man in the suit – ostensibly won power by offering free bananas to school children. More likely, though, he won because he was neither of the two main parties. More
Money raised from the sale of council homes will be diverted away from building new social housing under new plans announced by the government.Under the policy confirmed by ministers on Friday councils will not have to use the receipts from Right To Buy sales to build council homes to replace those sold off.Housing and homelessness campaigners have criticised the move and say it will make the housing crisis worse for people on low incomes and lengthen council waiting lists.Under the announcement, councils will soon be able to use the cash to fund schemes to help people buying houses, which are generally targeted at people on higher incomes.The cash will be available to use for shared ownership homes, which in some parts of the country can be unaffordable to even relatively wealthy buyers.It will also be available to fund ministers’ First Homes scheme, which offers market rate properties with a 30 per cent discount for qualifying buyers. Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayWhile individual councils will on paper be able to choose to keep funding social housing instead, the ministry of housing acknowledged concerns that there could be “a potential implicit pressure for councils to favour supplying shared ownership properties because of their lower debt costs” with council budgets under pressure.The ministry said it would explain why this would not be a problem in the future.Polly Neate, chief executive of the charity Shelter, said the policy was “a step in the wrong direction”. “We are already selling off more social homes than we build every year. Now the money from these sales will be funnelled into home ownership schemes that are far out of reach for average renting families, rather than building more of the secure and affordable social homes we so desperately need,” she said. “With more than a million households on the waiting list, and potentially many more people facing homelessness in the aftermath of this pandemic, this new proposal is the last thing we need. “The government should instead be focusing on building a new generation of social homes that could actually tackle the housing crisis.”Council homes sold under Right To Buy tend to end up in the hands of private landlords, with an estimated 40 per cent of all those sold under the scheme now rented out for profit.
We are already selling off more social homes than we build every year. Now the money from these sales will be funnelled into home ownership schemes that are far out of reach for average renting familiesPolly Neate, ShelterThe number of council homes sold under the policy increased five-fold in six years after David Cameron’s government lifted a cap on the policy and increased discounts.A pledge by the government that homes sold would be replaced like-for-like is nowhere near to being met, with around two thirds not replaced as of 2020.As of June 2020, 85,645 homes have been sold through the policy since it was updated in 2012, but only 28,090 built to replace them.In a consultation response posted to its website, the ministry for housing, communities, and local government said the government intends to “allow local authorities the option to use Right to Buy receipts to provide properties for shared ownership as well as for social and affordable rent.”Since the receipts consultation was issued, the government has announced the new First Homes scheme, which will enable first-time buyers to access discounts of at least 30 per cent on new build properties in their area compared to market prices. “Local authorities, who know their local areas best, will have the flexibility to shape the scheme to support those most in need of help in their area. To support them in helping to deliver First Homes, the government will also allow local authorities to use Right to Buy receipts to fund First Homes.”The ministry added: “We recognise that some respondents were concerned about a potential implicit pressure for councils to favour supplying shared ownership properties because of their lower debt costs, while others noted practical questions not previously encountered in Right to Buy, such as whether receipts from staircasing would count as Right to Buy receipts. We recognise that local authorities may also have questions around using receipts to fund First Homes.”We will publish guidance clarifying all these practical questions and making it clear that there is no obligation on any local authority to use Right to Buy receipts for shared ownership properties or First Homes and that it will be down to individual authorities whether they make any use of this flexibility based on the needs of the local area.” More
Labour is calling on ministers to sharpen the focus of the Covid vaccination campaign on poorer areas of England that are undergoing a “double whammy” of high infection rates and low take-up of jabs. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, told The Independent that “alarm bells” should be ringing in government about disadvantaged areas that have suffered some of the most entrenched outbreaks of coronavirus and may now be slower than other parts of the country in emerging from the pandemic.Speaking as the anniversary of the first lockdown approached, Mr Ashworth said the problem reflected a pattern of “complacency and inept decision-making” from Boris Johnson’s government throughout the crisis and threatened the prime minister’s declared agenda of “levelling up” less well-off areas.Among the relatively high-infection, low-vaccination areas identified by Labour were northern towns like Oldham, where, according to the latest figures, just 69 per cent of over-55s have had the jab, compared to 85 per cent across England as a whole, while infections remain at 101 per 100,000, against a national rate of 59.Other locations on the list included “red wall” constituencies lost by Labour to the Tories in the 2019 election, such as Darlington (79 per cent vaccination of over-55s, 112 infections per 100,000), Wakefield (75 per cent and 133) and Stockton (80 per cent and 116).Mr Ashworth’s own home city of Leicester has recorded 84 per cent vaccinations of over-55s while cases remain high at 119 per 100,000. And Hartlepool, the battleground for a parliamentary by-election in May, had 81 per cent jab take-up and 119 cases per 100,000.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayRead more:Mr Ashworth told The Independent: “My big, big worry now is that there are many poorer areas today which have the highest infection rates still, relative to elsewhere in the country. And at the same time, their vaccination rates are below the average.“The worry is that in a place like Oldham or Leicester or Hartlepool, these areas are facing a double whammy that they have infection rates that are still high, but they’re not getting the vaccination rates up to the levels that they need to get to.“Not only will it mean the disease continues to circulate there, with all the risks of people catching it becoming severely ill, it also raises the question: will these towns and cities be left behind as the rest of the country eases out of lockdown?”Leicester has already suffered economically from enduring the longest coronavirus restrictions of any part of England after remaining in lockdown last summer, while places like Oldham and Blackburn were also subjected to tougher tier restrictions than other areas during the period of regionalised controls, he pointed out. Although Mr Johnson has set the ambition of taking the whole of England out of lockdown together on 21 June, he has not ruled out a return to localised controls if hotbeds of the disease remain.A slow emergence from lockdown would compound the difficulties experienced over the past year, warned Mr Ashworth.“This really should be ringing alarm bells in government,” he said. “Because we don’t want those people to become ill. But also, we don’t want areas left behind as the country unlocks. “Leicester, Oldham and Blackburn have already had a year’s worth of tougher restrictions than the rest of the country, which is impacting on the livelihoods of people who live there. “Ministers have got to do something pretty quickly to support these local areas, support the health teams, support communities to drive up vaccination rates.”Factors behind low vaccination rates could include lack of access to primary care in “under-doctored” deprived areas, low incomes and absence of sick pay forcing people to work while ill, as well as suspicion of vaccines among some ethnic minority groups.“It’s a complex picture, obviously, but it cannot just be ignored,” said Mr Ashworth. “I think there has to be a plan now to really drive up these vaccination rates in these areas.”Looking back over the year since the first lockdown was announced, the shadow health secretary told The Independent: “What we’ve seen throughout the crisis is complacency and inept decision-making from Boris Johnson and ministers.”And he added: “We went into this crisis with our ability to respond to the virus hindered because of years of underfunding our health service, failing to invest in our public health provision, and because years of austerity meant that our people were sicker. Health inequalities widened; life expectancy stalling.“We know that the virus particularly is a risk for those with long-term conditions like diabetes, heart disease, COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]. Well, these are all conditions which cluster in poorer areas and have increased in recent years. “What we’ve seen throughout the crisis, is that the more deprived areas have had the worst Covid outcomes and disproportionate deaths.”He urged ministers to ensure that the new National Institute for Health Protection, which will replace Public Health England, is given a responsibility to prepare the UK for the next pandemic. Epidemiologists fear another one may emerge in a matter of years.“It should have a statutory responsibility to prepare for pandemics,” he said.“And it should be audited regularly by an independent Office for Budget Responsibility-type process, which reports to parliament, so we can assess how prepared we are for future pandemic risks.” More
