More stories

  • in

    Lords accused of trying to block Labour’s zero-hours contract ban for ‘bad bosses’

    Peers in the House of Lords have been accused of trying to block key protections for millions of workers as they push through major changes to Labour’s Employment Rights Bill.The Lords last week voted in favour of several amendments brought forward by Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers which row back on reforms to zero-hours contracts, day-one protections and more.It comes as a blow to the government – which pledged in its 2024 manifesto to end ‘exploitative’ zero-hours contracts – and sets up a showdown between the Lords and Commons.General secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Paul Nowak said: “the sight of Hereditary Peers voting to block stronger workers’ rights belongs in another century. It’s plain wrong.”Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, accused Lords peers of ‘doing the bidding of bad bosses’ (Peter Byrne/PA) More

  • in

    Welfare cuts will still plunge thousands into poverty despite U-turn, MPs warn

    Tens of thousands of people are still at risk of being pushed into poverty due to Labour’s welfare cuts despite last-minute changes to the plans, a group of MPs has warned.Around 50,000 people who become disabled or ill will face poverty by the end of the decade because of the remaining reforms, the cross-party Work and Pensions Committee has found.A cut to the health-related element of Universal Credit (UC health) which will take effect from April next year and will see monthly payments nearly halved for most new claimants, dropping from £423.27 to £217.26.At the same time, the standard rate of Universal Credit will increase for all claimants by £17.39 a month, from £400.14 to £417.53. This marks the first time the benefit has been uprated above the inflation rate (CPI).Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has spearheaded Labour’s welfare plans More

  • in

    Tasers to be issued to staff in male prisons in government crack down on violence

    Tasers are set to be issued to some staff in male prisons as the government attempts to crack down on “unacceptable” record levels of violence.Specialist officers from the Operational Response and Resilience Unit based in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, and Doncaster, South Yorkshire, will be the first to become equipped with electric stun guns when the pilot launches on Monday.Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood said she is “determined to keep prison staff safe” as she attended the base in Kidlington last week.The trial in England and Wales will run until enough data has been collected to determine if Tasers should be more widely used, according to the Ministry of Justice – but Ms Mahmood said she hoped to have updates in the autumn.The launch comes after rates of assaults on prison staff reached record levels last year, rising by 13 per cent in the 12 months up to December 2024, according to government data. There were also 10,496 assaults on staff in the 12 months to September 2024 – a 23 per cent increase from the previous 12 months and a new peak.A taser demonstration during the launch of the trial on Thursday More

  • in

    Trump supporters tell president ‘Don’t trust Starmer’ as he hits the golf course for second day

    Donald Trump was cheered on by supporters urging him ‘not to trust’ Sir Keir Starmer as he took to the green at his golf resort in Scotland for the second day.Wearing a white baseball cap branded USA, the US president waved to journalists as he arrived at his Turnberry golf resort in a white golf buggy.A woman standing nearby repeatedly shouted “We love you Trump” and “thank you”, while another onlooker chanted “Trump Trump Trump Trump” as the US president took a shot.One placard read: “Starmer is a w****r”, while another said: “Starmer is a**ho”. More

  • in

    Voices: Poll of the day: Is hosting Trump good diplomacy – or a diplomatic disaster waiting to happen?

    Donald Trump is making two visits to the UK this year – a private trip focused on his Scottish golf courses, and a full-blown state visit in September, complete with a welcome from King Charles III.The US president is spending time at his resorts in South Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire and is expected to meet Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney. He also plans to open a new course dedicated to his Scottish-born mother.While Downing Street has hailed the trip as a “historic” opportunity to strengthen UK-US ties, the invitation has sparked backlash. Protesters have accused Trump of spreading hate, accelerating climate breakdown and undermining democratic norms. A wave of demonstrations has been planned around both visits – with activists saying the UK should not be “rolling out the red carpet” for a leader with such a controversial record.In Westminster, several MPs have spoken out against the state visit, with some calling it “inappropriate” and even urging parliament to deny Trump a platform altogether. But White House sources say no parliamentary address is expected, and insist the trip is purely diplomatic.So, is Trump’s upcoming state visit a smart move to preserve international relations – or a mistake that sends the wrong message?Vote in our poll and tell us what you think in the comments below. More

  • in

    Voices: ‘A system set up to fail?’ Readers say Ofwat should go – but can’t agree on whether water should be nationalised

    The call to scrap Ofwat has struck a chord with Independent readers, who overwhelmingly agree the water regulator has failed to hold companies accountable after decades of pollution, crumbling infrastructure, and rising bills.A landmark review led by former Bank of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe concluded that Ofwat should be dismantled and replaced with a powerful single regulator covering the entire water system. The current setup, the Independent Water Commission said, is “fragmented and overlapping” and has allowed private companies to extract billions in shareholder payouts while sewage spills surged and investment lagged behind.When we asked for your views, 86 per cent of readers said Ofwat should be scrapped entirely, with only 14 per cent favouring reform over replacement.Many also backed wider changes, including new regional authorities, stronger environmental oversight and tougher rules on company ownership and debt. But the strongest opinions focused on ownership itself: whether water, a vital natural resource, should ever have been privatised in the first place.Some readers argued that the damage is now too deep to reverse, with nationalisation legally fraught and prohibitively expensive. Others insisted that public control is the only way to fix a system that has lost public trust.Here’s what you had to say:Only reward acceptable performanceI don’t care how it is structured, as long as they are only rewarded for delivering acceptable levels of purity, availability, leakage, and pollution. Jim KitThe horse has boltedMany individuals here mistakenly think nationalisation is the answer. It isn’t. Nationalising privatised water companies would force the government (and so taxpayers) to buy them back at market value or face legal battles with domestic and foreign investors under international trade agreements.These companies carry massive debts, which would transfer to the public, burdening taxpayers with billions in liabilities. Further, compensation claims and lawsuits from investors would escalate costs, making nationalisation an expensive and legally risky process with no guarantee of improved service.Privatisation was craftily set up so as to be more or less irreversible. The horse has bolted, I’m afraid. MusilForeign ownership makes it worse”National strategic assets should never ever be in the hands of private companies” – I agree, and it’s worse if those companies are based outside the UK. They will be even more disinterested in any sort of service. Vital infrastructure should be publicly owned: rail, buses, trams, electricity, gas, water. I don’t think we’re quite there yet with broadband.But nationalising needs to be done very carefully. I don’t think anyone can claim that old BR and BT were paragons of efficiency. And local councils have their part to play by carefully scheduling road dig-ups across utilities – there’s a lot of pipework that’s been left to rot whilst dividends are paid. PremiumMismanagement should mean re-nationalisationPass a law to legislate that if privatised public utilities or services are mismanaged, they pass back into public ownership. Simple. BigDogSmallBrainNobody should own waterNobody should be the owner of water. Water should just be managed in the name of the people, and any profit should be entirely coincidental. There is zero need to have financially motivated ownership of water, along the same lines as why nobody owns air, oxygen, or sunshine. ItReallyIsNotCrumbling infrastructure is the real crisisThe elephant in the room is the increasing population/increasing housing requirements, along with combined sewers carrying sewage and rainwater. More people/homes means more sewage/rainwater run-off, and when it rains hard, any treatment works are unable to cope with the volume of water piped to them.For example, the Trafford Centre’s rainwater is kept separate from sewage and can go straight into the nearby canal, being clean water. That water is as much as 10 cubic metres per second! Now consider the tens of thousands of homes, businesses, roads, car parks, etc. that add up to a lot more area, all funnelling their rainwater into the local sewage works, and you can see what the problem is.To properly solve it would require every household and business to have expensive work done to install separate rainwater drains, and for every single road in the area to be dug up to install a parallel piping system to keep rainwater separated from sewage.Much of the main piping has been in place since before WW2, when there were far fewer people, homes, and large businesses. SteveWDriven by profitNational strategic assets should never, ever be in the hands of private companiesThey are driven by profit above all else… and when they fail… we end up footing the bill anyway. All privatisation does is make a few people very rich. captaintrippsProductivityI agree in principle, but the trouble with nationalised industries is that down the line, they will all cause problems. The issue is productivity: “Why should I work hard when I’ve got a guaranteed job for life?” Maybe not so much on the water supply side, but all other nationalised industries suffered from this communist idea. It sounds good on paper, but in practice, it doesn’t work. Now, nationalising industries without union interference or job protection, and you’ll have something. StevetheBarbarianNationalise now!There is absolutely no benefit in privatising a public utility that is also a monopoly. Privatised water companies are in competition with no one, so there is no pressure to decrease prices or improve services. They serve two masters: increased pay at the top and profit for shareholders. Nationalise it now! bloodwortBreak up regional monopoliesLike most basic utilities, privatisation provides none of the potential benefits and all of the worst drawbacks. It is difficult to innovate with a product as simple as water, while the most important features – safety, the environment, and keeping down the price – are anathema to profit-driven organisations.At the very least, the regional monopolies need to be broken up. AimeryanThey are just laughing at us allIt will never get fixed until those responsible for running the industry are properly held accountable. Until then, they are just laughing at us all – literally laughing all the way to the bank. captaintrippsIt can’t be fixedIt can’t be fixed. And there’s no way to nationalise it without spending about a trillion pounds to buy the companies and pay off the bondholders. There is no solution; it’s only going to get worse. BlueWhale Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.Want to share your views? Simply register your details below. Once registered, you can comment on the day’s top stories for a chance to be featured. Alternatively, click ‘log in’ or ‘register’ in the top right corner to sign in or sign up.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here. More

  • in

    UK admits foreign aid cuts could see deaths rise – with Africa hit hardest

    The government has admitted that slashing foreign aid spending will likely see global deaths rise – as it confirmed the cuts will fall disproportionately on women and girls’ education and on projects across Africa. Its own assessment of the cuts’ impact said: “Any reductions to health spending risk an increase in disease burden and ultimately in deaths, impacting in particular those living in poverty, women, children and people with disabilities.”The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has set out cuts of £575 million in 2025 to 2026, The government is cutting aid spending by 40 per cent in total, from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income by 2027. That is around £6 billion, meaning the deepest cuts are still to come.Spending on health overall is set to drop by 46 per cent from £975 million to £527m in 2025/26. This includes health security – the type of work designed to prevent future pandemics. The pot also includes sexual and reproductive health and the Ending Preventable Deaths Support Programme, designed to stop avoidable deaths of women, newborns and children. Both face cuts as yet undefined. Spending on education, gender and equality will fall by 42 per cent, or £200 million, with girls’ education funding specifically almost halving to £186m. That includes the closure of a girls’ education programme in Democratic Republic of Congo which the government said would have “negative impacts on 170,000 children” in post-conflict rural areas. Spending in Africa overall will fall from £1.6bn to £1.4bn, while spending in Europe will rise slightly. “The world’s most marginalised communities, particularly those experiencing conflict and women and girls, will pay the highest price for these political choices,” said Gideon Rabinowitz, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Bond, the UK network for international development organisations. “At a time when the US has gutted all gender programming, the UK should be stepping up, not stepping back.”Sarah Champion, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons International Development Committee, said the changes “will hurt education, health, social protection and support for women and girls” which she described as “the pillars of healthy and secure societies”. And Andrew Mitchell, the former deputy foreign secretary, said: “The fact that a Labour government has made these cuts which will undoubtedly lead to numerous deaths amongst very vulnerable people is an affront to the internationalist reputation of the Labour Party and will do huge damage to the UK’s reputation as a reliable development leader in the poorest parts of the world.” The FCDO report confirmed the UK will send £1.8bn to the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) – providing grants and low-interest loans to low-income countries – in part of a shift in funding towards big multi-country spending programmes including the global vaccine alliance Gavi. This means less money going from the UK directly to projects in specific countries. “Despite making cuts of roughly half a billion pounds, it’s encouraging to see that the government is prioritising multilateral spend and honouring its pledge to the World Bank. Yet, it is unfortunate that Africa – home to over two-thirds of those in extreme poverty – will receive under half of FCDO’s country and regional budget,” said Ian Mitchell, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. Prime Minister Keir Starmer More

  • in

    Local authorities should be given greater powers over ‘unfair’ council tax, MPs warn

    Councils should be granted greater control over council tax, MPs have warned, arguing that the current disconnect between local charges and service quality risks undermining the very foundations of local democracy. An inquiry into the financial sustainability of local government concluded that interim powers should be devolved to councils, ahead of a more comprehensive overhaul of what it described as “the most unfair and regressive tax in use in England today”.The Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s report recommended that individual authorities be empowered to revalue properties in their areas, define property bands, set the rates for those bands, and apply discounts. Beyond council tax, the report suggested that a broader devolution of fiscal powers, such as the ability to apply a tourist tax, should also be considered to address the growing financial strain on local government, exacerbated by austerity measures introduced in the 2010s.Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner recently voiced her support for “more push” towards fiscal devolution, aligning with the government’s commitment to transfer central decision-making to local areas. Furthermore, the committee advocated for replacing central government ringfencing of funding with “a rigorous outcomes-based system of accountability”. This would ensure local authorities are held responsible for achieving agreed outcomes within their overall budgets, rather than simply meeting spending targets.Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner recently said she wanted ‘more push’ towards fiscal devolution as part of the Government’s pledge to transfer central decision-making to local areas More