UK Politics

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA Post Office manager who helped to wrongfully convict a sub-postmistress during the Horizon scandal is handling victims’ compensation claims.Caroline Richards – who has worked for the Post Office for over 30 years – is reported to have played a key role in the wrongful prosecution of former sub-postmistress Jacqueline McDonald, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison after she was convicted of stealing almost £100,000 from her branch in Lancashire.Her conviction was overturned in 2021.Ms Richards now works as a “senior dispute resolution manager” on the Horizon Shortfall Scheme since 2021, assisting with reviewing cases against the Post Office, according to the i newspaper. The job description for the role states that all cases will be “investigated or reviewed fairly and impartially”.Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has introduced legislation to overturn the wrongful conviction of hundreds of sub-postmasters According to a court report in the Lancashire Evening Post and Ms McDonald’s witness statement handed over to the Horizon IT inquiry, Ms Richards initiated an investigation into Ms McDonald after discovering a mismatch between the amount of cash declared and the amount of cash being held in her safe.Campaigners and MPs told the i that the revelations are “outrageous”. Kevan Jones MP, who has campaigned on behalf of Horizon victims, said it shows the Post Office “just don’t get the sensitivity of these cases” and called for the compensation process to be made completely independent.In January, the inquiry was told that a former assistant at Ms McDonald’s branch wrote a letter of complaint to the Post Office about Ms Richards and investigator Stephen Bradshaw.Katie Noblet complained about “the unprofessional, disgusting behaviour and actions” of the pair and said that they came to her place of work in 2009 and that Mr Bradshaw was “very confrontational” and said she couldn’t have legal advice which was a “complete lie”. There is no suggestion Ms Richards knew the Horizon IT system was faulty at the time of the investigations.An online public petition with over 50,000 signatures has called on the Post Office to axe Ms Richards from the compensation scheme.Petitioner David Innes called her appointment an “insult to all of the 550 Post Office staff who were wrongfully prosecuted, including all those still awaiting compensation.” Former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton said postmasters felt there was a ‘complete lack of respect’ Labour MP Mr Jones told i  that the appointment of Ms Richards to a job in the compensation scheme is “outrageous”.“You couldn’t make it up. It shows the Post Office just don’t get it, especially the sensitivity of these cases” he added.Earlier this year, former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton wrote in an email that two former postmasters who sat on the board as non-executive directors, Saf Ismail and Elliot Jacobs, felt there was a “complete lack of respect for [postmasters]” and that the culture was “toxic”.Chief executive Nick Read has admitted the Post Office is investigating more than 40 cases of alleged inappropriate behaviour by existing employees relating to the Horizon scandal.A Post Office spokesperson said: “Claims in the Horizon Shortfall Scheme are assessed by an independent advisory panel of external experts. There is a full governance process for each and every claim. Our sole aim is that every Postmaster affected by the scandal receives full and fair redress as swiftly as possible.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Warnings about deepfakes and disinformation fueled by artificial intelligence. Concerns about campaigns and candidates using social media to spread lies about elections. Fears that tech companies will fail to address these issues as their platforms are used to undermine democracy ahead of pivotal elections.Those are the worries facing elections in the U.S., where most voters speak English. But for languages like Spanish, or in dozens of nations where English isn’t the dominant language, there are even fewer safeguards in place to protect voters and democracy against the corrosive effects of election misinformation. It’s a problem getting renewed attention in an election year in which more people than ever will go to the polls.Tech companies have faced intense political pressure in countries like the U.S. and places like the European Union to show they’re serious about tackling the baseless claims, hate speech and authoritarian propaganda that pollutes their sites. But critics say they’ve been less responsive to similar concerns from smaller countries or from voters who speak other languages, reflecting a longtime bias toward English, the U.S. and other western democracies.Recent changes at tech firms — content moderator layoffs and decisions to rollback some misinformation policies — have only compounded the situation, even as new technologies like artificial intelligence make it easier than ever to craft lifelike audio and video that can fool voters. These gaps have opened up opportunities for candidates, political parties or foreign adversaries looking to create electoral chaos by targeting non-English speakers — whether they are Latinos in the U.S., or one of the millions of voters in India, for instance, who speak a non-English language.“If there’s a significant population that speaks another language, you can bet there’s going to be disinformation targeting them,” said Randy Abreu, an attorney at the U.S.-based National Hispanic Media Council, which created the Spanish Language Disinformation Coalition to track and identify disinformation targeting Latino voters in the U.S. “The power of artificial intelligence is now making this an even more frightening reality.”Many of the big tech companies regularly tout their efforts to safeguard elections, and not just in the U.S. and E.U. This month Meta is launching a service on WhatsApp that will allow users to flag possible AI deepfakes for action by fact-checkers. The service will work in four languages — English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.Meta says it has teams monitoring for misinformation in dozens of languages, and the company has announced other election-year policies for AI that will apply globally, including required labels for deepfakes as well as labels for political ads created using AI. But those rules have not taken effect and the company hasn’t said when they will begin enforcement.The laws governing social media platforms vary by nation, and critics of tech companies say they have been faster to address concerns about misinformation in the U.S. and the E.U., which has recently enacted new lawsdesigned to address the problem. Other nations all-too often get a “cookie cutter” response from tech companies that falls short, according to an analysis published this month by the Mozilla Foundation.The study looked at 200 different policy announcements from Meta, TikTok, X and Google (the owner of YouTube) and found that nearly two-thirds were focused on the U.S. or E.U. Actions in those jurisdictions were also more likely to involve meaningful investments of staff and resources, the foundation found, while new policies in other nations were more likely to rely on partnerships with fact-checking organizations and media literacy campaigns.Odanga Madung, a Nairobi, Kenya-based researcher who conducted Mozilla’s study, said it became clear that the platforms’ focus on the U.S. and E.U. comes at the expense of the rest of the world.“It’s a glaring travesty that platforms blatantly favor the U.S. and Europe with excessive policy coddling and protections, while systematically neglecting” other regions, Madung said.This lack of focus on other regions and languages will increase the risk that election misinformation could mislead voters and impact the results of elections. Around the globe, the claims are already circulating.Within the U.S., voters whose primary language is something other than English are already facing a wave of misleading and baseless claims, Abreau said. Claims targeting Spanish speakers, for instance, include posts that overstate the extent of voter fraud or contain false information about casting a ballot or registering to vote.Disinformation about elections has surged in Africa ahead of recent elections, according to a study this month from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies which identified dozens of recent disinformation campaigns — a four-fold increase from 2022. The false claims included baseless allegations about candidates, false information about voting and narratives that seem designed to undermine support for the United States and United Nations.The center determined that some of the campaigns were mounted by groups allied with the Kremlin, while others were spearheaded by domestic political groups.India, the world’s largest democracy, boasts more than a dozen languages each with more than 10 million native speakers. It also has more than 300 million Facebook users and nearly half a billion WhatsApp users, the most of any nation.Fact-checking organizations have emerged as the front line of defense against viral misinformation about elections. The country will hold elections later this spring and already voters going online to find out about the candidates and issues are awash in false and misleading claims.Among the latest: video of a politician’s speech that was carefully edited to remove key lines; years-old photos of political rallies passed off as new; and a fake election calendar that provided the wrong dates for voting. A lack of significant steps by tech companies has forced groups that advocate for voters and free elections to band together, said Ritu Kapur, co-founder and managing director of The Quint, an online publication that recently joined with several other outlets and Google to create a new fact-checking effort known as Shakti.“Mis- and disinformation is proliferating at an alarming pace, aided by technology and fueled and funded by those who stand to gain by it,” Kapur said. “The only way to combat the malaise is to join forces.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe spiralling costs of Rishi Sunak’s controversial plans to house asylum seekers on RAF sites and in a “prison-like” barge have been laid bare in a damning report that found that the scheme will be significantly more expensive than paying for hotels – despite the sites housing far fewer migrants than planned.The Home Office initially said that developing the four sites – including the Bibby Stockholm barge, two RAF sites, and former student accommodation in Huddersfield – would save taxpayers £94m.But Whitehall’s official watchdog says the prime minister’s plan is expected to cost £46m more than the current system – which sees migrants put up in hotels while their claims are being processed – and £1.2bn overall over the next decade.The National Audit Office (NAO) said the Home Office will have spent at least £230m developing the four major projects by the end of March – despite just two of the sites being open and providing accommodation for only 900 people.The damning report, published on Wednesday, follows a warning last week from former home secretary Dame Priti Patel that the government’s asylum accommodation system is in need of reform and that there are “serious questions” to be asked of her former department.The Bibby Stockholm barge is one of the two sites that are able to house asylum seekers at presentThe review said the government had spent more money unnecessarily and increased risk by pushing the projects forward too quickly, adding that the Home Office had pursued the policy despite “repeated” assessments that it “could not be delivered as planned”.Labour said the NAO’s findings were “staggering”, accusing the prime minister of “taking the Tories’ chaos and failure in the asylum system to a new level”.Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper added: “On top of the £8m a day on hotel rooms, the government is now paying tens of millions of pounds in set-up costs for new sites in Wethersfield and Scampton, which are still not in use, and millions more for sites that will never be used.”Charities said the report exposed “bad policies being implemented badly at huge financial cost”, and claimed that the accommodation sites were creating additional “fear and trauma” for asylum seekers.NAO boss Gareth Davies said: “The pace at which the government pursued its plans led to increased risks, and it now expects large sites to cost more than using hotel accommodation.”According to the findings, the Home Office originally estimated that the set-up costs at the former RAF bases would be £5m each, but they increased to £49m for Wethersfield and £27m for Scampton.So far only Wethersfield – which has a capacity of 1,700 – and the Bibby Stockholm, which has space for around 500 men, are housing asylum seekers.But the two sites were housing just under half the number of migrants the Home Office expected them to accommodate at the end of January, with 576 living at Wethersfield and 321 on the Bibby Stockholm at that point.An aerial view of the asylum accommodation centre at MDP Wethersfield in Essex, a 335-hectare airfield owned by the Ministry of Defence, where the Home Office has begun to house adult male migrantsThe government is currently facing legal action over the conditions at Wethersfield, which has been condemned as a de facto detention centre and not suitable for long-term accommodation. The Independent has previously revealed that nearly 100 asylum seekers, including suspected victims of torture and human trafficking, were moved out of the RAF base after the Home Office admitted the accommodation was unsuitable for them. According to the NAO report, the Home Office is “now considering reducing the maximum number of people it accommodates” at Wethersfield, but has not confirmed the new number.The department expects Scampton to start housing asylum seekers from April, with Huddersfield following in May, it added.The NAO also found that:The Home Office rated its own performance as “red” as it recognised the challenges of the work, repeatedly revising accommodation targets “downwards”The department “prioritised awarding contracts quickly, and modifying existing contracts over fully competitive tenders”, with “overly ambitious accommodation timetables” leading to “increased procurement risks”Emergency planning rules were used so that sites could be found, and so that work could begin quickly before speaking to affected communities about the plans, in order to “reduce the risk of local opposition affecting negotiations”. In January, the Home Office was “still working with providers to develop specific measures assessing residents’ safety at large sites”The Home Office is “resetting” its programme and developing a “longer-term accommodation strategy”, which will see it reduce the number of spaces it intends to provide at such sites amid proposals to “identify smaller sites accommodating between 200-700 people”There are “uncertainties” about how the Illegal Migration Act is being implemented, making it harder for the Home Office to assess what asylum accommodation it needs. The report said the law changes will make it “more difficult to assess how much and what type of accommodation the Home Office will need” as it does not know how effective the deterrent will be or how it will affect the amount and type of accommodation requiredThe costs for Wethersfield, the Bibby Stockholm and Scampton are £777.2m for 2023-2027. Costs for a new site at Huddersfield are £358.4m for the period until 2033 – taking the total costs in the next decade up to £1.2bn. On Monday, it emerged that Home Office minister Tom Pursglove had confirmed in a letter to Gainsborough Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh that the “regular occupancy” at RAF Scampton would be a maximum of 800 asylum seekers instead of the original 2,000 men destined for the site, which has been beset by legal challenges.Ms Cooper said: “This report is staggering. The British taxpayer is already paying out eye-watering sums on asylum hotels, and now it turns out the sites they promised would save money are costing the taxpayer even more. Rishi Sunak has taken the Tories’ chaos and failure in the asylum system to a new level.”Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper says Rishi Sunak’s plan has ‘failed on every level’ Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said: “There would be no need to spend exorbitant sums of money on housing people in barges, military bases or hotels if cases were dealt with in a timely manner.”A Home Office spokesperson said that the use of asylum hotels is “unacceptable”, adding that the department had acted to “reduce the impact on local communities by moving asylum seekers onto barges and former military sites”. They added: “The cost of hotels will fall – and we are now closing dozens of asylum hotels every month to return them to communities … While the NAO’s figures include set-up costs, it is currently better value for money for the taxpayer to continue with these sites than to use hotels.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMore than one in ten teachers believe grades need to be reformulated to take into account the assumed use of artificial intelligence , a survey has found.Nearly two in three (63%) teachers think artificial intelligence (AI) is “too unreliable and not well-equipped” to assess pupils’ work or to help with lesson planning, according to a poll.The rise of generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini, has sparked concerns about cheating among pupils in the education sector.The poll, of 1,012 UK teachers, suggests that 13% think a new grading system for exams should be formulated which “assumes the use of AI”.AI is probably going to force more change than previous tools because teachers will quickly realise the futility of setting certain tasksDavid Weller, University of ExeterDavid Weller, learning & development manager (digital skills) at the University of Exeter, said: “AI is probably going to force more change than previous tools because teachers will quickly realise the futility of setting certain tasks.The survey, carried out by YouGov online in November, asked teachers how the Department for Education (DfE) could incorporate AI into the curriculum.More than half (54%) said students should be taught the ethical implications of AI, while 38% said pupils should be given a foundational understanding of how AI works through coding and computer science lessons.Only 19% said they did not think AI should not be incorporated into the curriculum by the DfE.The survey, commissioned by international examination board Trinity College London, suggests that 29% of teachers think schools should ban students from using AI in the classroom.Notably, the research indicates that a quarter of teachers are already incorporating AI into their instruction, signalling a readiness for change, provided these tools meet their exacting standardsErez Tocker, Trinity College LondonErez Tocker, chief executive of Trinity College London, said teachers’ scepticism towards AI tools “underscores not a rejection but a call for precision and reliability.”He added: “Notably, the research indicates that a quarter of teachers are already incorporating AI into their instruction, signalling a readiness for change, provided these tools meet their exacting standards.”David Weller, learning and development manager (digital skills) at the University of Exeter, said: “AI is probably going to force more change than previous tools because teachers will quickly realise the futility of setting certain tasks.“Much as the calculator made setting homework for simple arithmetic redundant, so teachers will have to come up with more interesting ways to set homework that doesn’t rely on lower order skills such as memorisation and regurgitating facts.”A DfE spokesperson said: “Artificial intelligence has the power to transform education. However, for that potential to be realised, we need to understand both its opportunities and risks, which is why we have launched an extensive exploratory research on the uses of AI in education to develop policy on this emerging technology.“The DfE’s first-ever hackathon on AI in education, and an investment of up to £2 million in Oak National Academy, are helping us to develop tools which aim to save teachers’ time so they can focus on what they do best – teaching and supporting their pupils.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA former police chief has said he did not report his wife’s stolen credit card, because the thief spent less than she did.With a deadpan delivery, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate left the chamber unsure whether he was joking or not as he recalled the incident in the House of Lords.The non-affiliated peer said: “My wife, on one of her rare visits to London, had her credit card stolen.“And I monitored the use of the card and I have to say I didn’t report it to the police, because the thief was spending less than she was.”Peers across the House erupted into laughter at his comment.Treasury minister Baroness Vere of Norbiton responded: “I think, in these circumstances, one should always report these matters to the police.”Lord Mackenzie is a former chief superintendent in Durham and was also the president of the Police Superintendents Association for three years. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as Jeremy Hunt answers questions on the economy from MPs in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 19 March.It comes after the chancellor announced the spring Budget on 6 March, which included a national insurance cut, fuel and alcohol duty freezes, the abolishment of the non-dom tax status, and guaranteed pay rates to childcare providers for the next two years, among other measures.Mr Hunt attempted to rally support for his languishing party – which has dropped to a 45-year low – with the £10bn cut to national insurance, but the Budget watchdog warned the average worker will still be hundreds of pounds worse off overall.By repeating his previous cut to the tax in his autumn statement, the chancellor said the two reductions would together save workers an average of £900 a year.Mr Hunt has claimed the cuts taken together would lead an extra 200,000 people to join the workforce.However, a report from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) calculated the typical worker on a £35,000 salary will be £383 worse off over this year and the next due to stealth tax rises.At 3pm, Mr Hunt will appear at the Economic Affairs Committee for an annual scrutiny session. More