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Boris Johnson’s government must “prioritise” delivering on previous commitments ahead of the Queen’s Speech, including bringing forward long-awaited legislation to ban the practice of gay conversion therapy, MPs have urged.The chair of the influential Commons Liaison Committee Sir Bernard Jenkin said that while responding to the immediate demands of the pandemic had “understandably” impacted ministers’ agendas, promises must now be “brought forward”.Anticipating the end of the current parliamentary session, he highlighted a number of issues raised by senior MPs — including the delayed Environment Bill — “which are awaiting time in the government’s legislative programme”.In a letter the Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative MP said: “The government’s programme has been understandably impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.“But now that this is closer to being under control, we would urge the government to deliver on its commitments to and demands from select committees on other vitally important legislation which committees are keen to see brought forward.”Among the “outstanding proposals”, Sir Bernard added in his letter: “The Petitions Committee continues to receive two very popular petitions on two issues where the government has committed to acting, but legislation is yet to be introduced, on proposals for stronger sentences for drivers who kill or seriously injure and on banning the practice of conversion therapy.”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 weekdayMr Johnson has since recommitted to ending the practice, describing it as “abhorrent” in July 2020 and stressing conversion therapies have “no place in  in this country”, but ministers are yet to produce proposals on how any ban will be implemented.In response to the liaison committee letter, a government Equalities Hub spokesperson told The Independent in response: “Conversion therapy is an abhorrent practice that the government will take action on to stop. We will outline our proposals in due course.”Among other measures, Sir Bernard also urged ministers to allow parliamentary time to pass the Environment Bill, which aims to introduce a broad range of legal targets for air quality, biodiversity and water quality.The government provoked widespread criticism from environmental groups last month for postponing the legislation in the year Britain hosts the crucial UN Climate Change Conference — Cop26 — in Glasgow.On the Sentencing Bill, he added: “The subject of sentencing, and post-sentence and post custodial provision has also come up repeatedly in the [Justice] Committee’s running inquiries into the probation service and court capacity.“The committee understands the Bill is now likely to touch on all the MOJ’s [Ministry of Justice] major policy areas — prisons, probation and courts. An indication of both the final scope of this Bill and its likely timing are becoming increasingly important.”A government spokesman said: “The Queen’s Speech will outline the legislative programme for the next session in the usual way. The government welcomes scrutiny from select committees and will bring forward its legislative commitments when parliamentary time allows.” More

Northern Ireland’s first minister has lodged a complaint with Facebook over a video shared by Sinn Fein which accused the Westminister government of planning a “mass purge” of voters in the country.Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, urged the social media company to remove the clip which she said was promoting false allegations of voter suppression.The Electoral Office is due to carry out a review of the electoral register this summer. It had been scheduled to take place last year but was delayed to the Covid-19 pandemic.Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister and Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O’Neill has called for a meeting with Nothern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis to discuss the review, which she said was “very concerning as it could lead to tens of thousands of people losing their vote”.A message accompanying the video shared on Sinn Fein’s social media channels alleged: “The British government is planning a mass purge of voters in the north.”This is a blatant attempt to suppress the voice of citizens in next year’s historic assembly election.”It added: “The right to vote was hard fought for and must be protected. Sinn Fein will robustly challenge this proposal.”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 weekdayWriting on Twitter, Ms Foster accused Sinn Fein of using Facebook to “create and spread false statements”.In a direct plea to Sir Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, who is now working as Facebook’s vice-president for global affairs, the first minister said the platform must act and not be “complicit”.Ms O’Neill’s colleague and West Belfast MP Paul Maskey said also alleged the electoral review would result in a “purge of voters”. He said the last canvass, carried out in 2013, removed some 60,000 voters from the register.The canvassing of households is legally required to update details of voters. People who do not return their forms will be removed from the list.Sinn Fein said it would continue to oppose the plans, adding the Electoral Office should be “looking at new and innovative ways of making it easier for people to register and to vote instead of making it harder”.The Electoral Office dismissed Sinn Fein’s claims of voter suppression as “not true”.A spokesperson said: “Canvass is not about removing people, but ensuring the register is as accurate as possible.”Registering to vote is fundamental to the democratic process and people cannot remain on the NI register indefinitely without refreshing their registration.” More

Welsh ministers will discuss easing some coronavirus lockdown restrictions on non-essential retail in the coming weeks, Mark Drakeford has said.The first minister said hairdressers could be among the shops to reopen as early as 15 March, but warned any easing would be gradual.”I don’t believe it will be a wholesale reopening, we are going to do things in the way that Sage and the WHO recommend – carefully, step-by-step, always assessing the impact of any actions that we take,” he told BBC Breakfast.He added: “I will set out today some discussions that we will have with non-essential retail over the next couple of weeks to see how we might begin the reopening of non-essential retail.”If it is possible from 15 March to begin the reopening of some aspects of non-essential retail and personal services such as hairdressing then of course that is what we would want to do.”But it will be, as I say, in that careful step-by-step way and always making sure that we are carefully monitoring the impact of any lifting of restrictions on the circulation of the virus.”He said the devolved government would also work with tourist companies to look at easing of rules around Easter.Additionally, all primary school children in Wales will return to face-to-face teaching from mid-March provided the coronavirus situation in the country “continues to improve”, with Covid-19 cases at their lowest level since September, Mr Drakeford said. The youngest are set to go back on Monday next week.Some secondary pupils and college students may be able to return to class from 15 March.Wales, like the rest of the UK, is currently under a stay-at-home order which is to remain in place for the next three weeks.
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Andrew Neil has unveiled the all-male team leading the political coverage at GB News, his new 24-hour channel aimed at rivalling Sky News and the BBC.GB News chiefs have warned against “false imagining” of the channel as a British version of the opinion-led, right-wing US network Fox News.However, the latest appointments suggests right-wing voices will feature heavily at the soon-to-launch media outlet.Tom Harwood, senior reporter at the right-wing website Guido Fawkes, has joined the political team. “I’m thrilled to be able to announce I am off to GB News as political correspondent,” he tweeted. “Honoured to be joining such a high calibre, exciting team.”Dan Wootton, Talk Radio presenter and former executive editor at The Sun, will be one of GB News’ on-air presenters.Journalist Darren McCaffrey has been appointed political editor and one of the presenters at GB News. He joins from Euronews, where he presents the Raw Politics show.“Journalism is at its best when it reflects the widest range of views rather than just the loudest ones,” said Mr McCaffrey. “I know only too well that local voices are sometimes left out and GB News’ mission to change that is something I’m incredibly excited to be part of.”Sky News journalist Colin Brazier has also confirmed his is leaving to present a daytime news and debate programme on GB News. “It will be an important punctuation mark in the evolving story of news broadcasting in Britain and I’m thrilled to be there at the start,” he said.The channel has yet to reveal a launch date, but Mr Neil – who is GB News chair and is also set to host its flagship evening programme – said last year he was aiming to get it on air in March 2021.Earlier this month Mr Neil attacked a left-wing social media campaign, using the hashtag #DontFundGBNews, which targeted potential GB News advertisers and asked them not to partner with the channel.“The woke warriors trying to stir up an advertising boycott of GB News, a channel that hasn’t even started broadcasting, are hilarious,” the former BBC interviewer tweeted.GB chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos also wrote to The Guardian to complain about a characterisation of the channel as “anti-impartiality”.Mr Frangopoulos stated: “To call us an ‘anti-impartiality news channel’ is not only untrue but baseless given we haven’t launched yet. It also misunderstands Ofcom’s due impartiality rules which do not allow a biased news station in this country.” More

The government cannot give “100 per cent certainty” that the current nationwide lockdown will be the last, a Foreign Office minister has admitted.While insisting the roll-out of vaccines was having a “positive effect” — some 16.4 million have now received a first dose — James Cleverly said it was not possible to predict how the virus could evolve. His comments came as Boris Johnson prepares to publish the government’s roadmap to easing the third national lockdown in England on Monday, outlining how restrictions will be gradually eased.The prime minister stressed earlier this week that he wanted the unlocking to be “irreversible”, but told a Downing Street Covid-19 press conference he could not offer an “absolute cast iron guarantee”.Pressed on the issue on Sky News, Mr Cleverly said: “Well, we do want it to be the last lockdown — that’s what we’re working towards. We can see that the action we have taken have had a positive effect. The vaccine rollout has been very, very successful and will be having a positive effect. “But ultimately no-one can predict with complete certainty what the [virus] will do, how it might evolve. We are taking the right action… and we very much hope this will be the last lockdown.“We can’t give complete 100 per cent certainty because viruses don’t work like that but we know we are doing the right things, we can see it’s having an effect and we are assessing just how that effectiveness is playing out in the real world.”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 weekdayAs the prime minister prepares to address the nation next week, government scientific adviser professor Neil Ferguson told BBC Radio 4’s Today he was “encouraged” by the cautious approach being taken to easing the lockdown.“It still may well be that by the end of May, we’re in a very different country than we are today,” he said. Professor Ferguson, whose modelling helped persuade the government to impose a lockdown at the onset of the pandemic last year, added that dataon vaccine effectiveness and how quickly infection, deaths and hospital cases were declining was “looking promising at the moment”.“The trade off we have is between how quickly can we relax and how quickly we can immunise and protect the population.“And there’s still risks at the moment in relaxing too quickly when we don’t have enough immunity in the population bearing in mind that no vaccine is a panacea, no vaccine will offer perfect protection.”He said it was still “early days” when it came to the data on vaccine effectiveness but suggested that a figure of two-thirds efficacy from a single dose of a vaccine was “not too far off”.Mr Cleverly also declined to be drawn on speculation Britons would be permitted to take holidays overseas in the summer, saying: “At this stage we are not able to say what the situation will be for holidays this summer.”He told BBC Breakfast: “I get how frustrating this is, it’s completely natural. We all want to get a break from this, I get that. But it would wrong for me to start speculating now.“We are assessing the numbers, we are making a judgment based on the science and we will be making an announcement on Monday. I can’t go further than that.” More

A potential overhaul of planning rules that would allow developers to turn empty high street buildings into flats risks creating “characterless” market districts across the country, the National Trust has warned.The heritage body was responding to a government consultation on the expansion of permitted development rights, which could be extended to include conservation areas – parts of a village, town or city with particular historical and architectural merit.Permitted development allowed buildings to be converted to homes without planning permission, as in the existing office-blocks-to-flats policy brought in some years ago.In its response to the consultation, the National Trust said it believed the inclusion of conservation areas would have a detrimental effect on “local distinctiveness” and residents’ “pride and identity”.It added: “Undermining this relationship has … the potential to create stagnant and characterless areas in both urban and rural areas.”While historic centres have often incorporated homes over the centuries – with people “living over the shop” – the National Trust said it believed the normal planning process was the best way to balance development with heritage.
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Court proceedings have been launched against a climate charity lawyer for leaking a decision to expand Heathrow Airport.In December, shortly before the Supreme Court’s judgment was delivered giving the go-ahead to a third runway, Mr Crosland deliberately broke an embargo on the decision, making it public.He was referred to the attorney general for contempt of court, and now the solicitor general Michael Ellis has launched proceedings that could lead to his being sent to prison.Mr Crosland said he had no choice but to protest against “the deep immorality of the court’s ruling” when he broke the embargo. The Court of Appeal had initially blocked any Heathrow expansion, ruling that the government had acted unlawfully in failing to take into account the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rises to no more than 2C by limiting greenhouse gas emissions.But the Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeal decision.The government says the Supreme Court’s draft judgement was circulated to those involved on a confidential basis, and it was made clear that breaching the embargo might be treated as a contempt of court.Mr Crosland, a barrister, said he broke the court’s embargo as “an act of civil disobedience”.In an article forThe Independent, he wrote that had he not revealed the Heathrow decision early, he believed he would have been complicit in a “cover-up”. He claimed the Supreme Court ruling “concealed” that when the government approved Heathrow’s expansion, it relied on a “dangerous and discredited” climate target.But Mr Ellis said: “After careful consideration, I have concluded that in order that the rule of law be upheld, contempt of court proceedings should be brought against Tim Crosland.“Irrespective of any personal views on any issue, there is no excuse for knowingly undermining court processes and proceedings.”Mr Crosland has also accused the government of hypocrisy in approving Heathrow expansion while hosting climate talks, Cop26, later this year, when it will urge other countries to limit their carbon output.He said: “The government is doing three things. It’s claiming to be a climate leader ahead of Cop26.“It’s supervising the opening of a new coal mine, continuing to spend billions of taxpayer money on fossil-fuel developments overseas and progressing carbon-intensive projects such as investment in the roads, expansion of Heathrow and HS2; meanwhile it’s suggesting that those who call out this treasonous hypocrisy and stand up for the future of our young people, our country and vulnerable communities everywhere, should be treated as organised criminals.”The government and supporters of Heathrow expansion say it would create thousands of new jobs.“It’s the government’s primary responsibility to safeguard the lives of its citizens from threats too complex for us to address as individuals,” Mr Crosland said.Supreme Court judges are due to consider the contempt of court case. More

The ban on new petrol and diesel cars and vans will come into force in the UK in nine years’ time, but there is no such timescale in place for heavy goods vehicles.Now the National Infrastructure Commission, which advises ministers, has said sales of diesel lorries should be banned from 2040 – 10 years later than their smaller road-using counterparts.In November 2020 the prime minister, Boris Johnson, said the 2030 ban for cars and vans would help kick-start the electric vehicle (EV) market, which despite recent growth still only accounts for about 7 per cent of the sector in the UK.The government also announced an investment of £1.3bn to install charge points in homes, streets and motorways across England in a bid to overcome consumer reluctance to adopt the cleaner technology.At the time, the government said it would consult on a date for a similar phase out of combustion engines used in heavy goods vehicles.“With almost a quarter of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions currently coming from surface transport, decarbonising travel by developing lower emission public transport systems and preparing for widescale use of electric vehicles is an urgent priority,” the report states.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 weekday“Electric vehicles offer a low carbon transport solution, are cheaper for consumers to run [and] reduce poor air quality,” it adds.However, due to the technology available, creating powerful enough electric HGVs has long been considered more difficult due to the size of the batteries required.Tesla is among the companies working towards producing an electric HGV, with prototypes of the model, called the Semi, already being tested on roads in the US.Other major manufacturers including DAF, MAN, Scania and Swedish firms Volta and Volvo are all also developing and rolling out new electric HGVs.“While the government has made good progress on the decarbonisation of cars and vans, it has made less progress on the decarbonisation of HGVs,” the NIC report says.“There is an opportunity for government to demonstrate the same level of ambition it has shown with cars and vans by giving industry a clear goal for ending the sale of diesel-powered HGVs.”It adds: “In 2021 the Commission hopes to see government … publish a comprehensive cross-modal freight strategy with a firm commitment to phase out diesel HGVs by 2040 along with detailed decarbonisation plans consulted on with the road haulage and logistics industry.”A Department of Transport spokesperson said: “The government recognises that all transport modes,including heavy goods vehicles, must play their part in delivering net zero emissions by 2050. “In November 2020, the prime minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution included a commitment to consult on a date for phasing out the sale of new diesel heavy goods vehicles. This will be published in the coming months.” More