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The House of Lords inflicted a series of defeats on the government over the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill.It would allow public authorities, ranging from police and MI5 to HMRC and the Food Standards Agency, to authorise agents and informants to commit crimes while undercover.The proposed authorisations would not only be issued in the interests of national security or preventing and detecting crime, but also preventing “disorder” and in the “interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom”.In October, MPs voted by 317 votes to 256 against an amendment to limit the kind of crimes that could be authorised.But on Wednesday, the House of Lords approved the same curbs by a narrow majority of 299 votes to 284.The cross-party amendment, brought by Lord Dubs, Baroness Massey, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick, said the new criminal conduct authorisations may not include actions that intentionally cause death or grievous bodily harm, pervert the course of justice, include rape and sexual offences or torture.Lord Paddick said: “We do need legislation to govern the tasking of police informants to commit crime, but this bill goes beyond what is reasonable.“The Liberal Democrats have managed to add important safeguards to the bill, but the sheer number of fundamental issues that have been raised from all sides should force the government to stop and think again.”Dan Dolan, of the Reprieve legal charity, said allies including the US, Australia and Canada had inserted “common sense limits” to similar laws.
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Families receive ‘hamper’ containing handful of items including half a pepper and carrot ‘stub’ More

Councils across England are facing having to make unprecedented cuts to services in the coming years, after coronavirus left them with multimillion-pound black holes in their funding.The cost to local authorities of the pandemic has been revealed as £1.1bn to £2.2bn, prompting leaders to describe their financial situations as the worst they have ever seen.Early intervention and prevention projects for vulnerable families, as well as recycling schemes, are among the cutbacks most likely to be in the firing line as local authorities seek to claw back cash to avoid meltdown.And council taxpayers will be asked to stump up more, with bills increasing by as much as 5 per cent, just as household incomes have been squeezed by job losses and instability.Already struggling after years of austerity, local authority finances have been badly hit as income from car parking and leisure facilities have fallen off a cliff, at the same time as councils faced unplanned bills for costs such as PPE, helping support care homes and launching test and trace systems.The Local Government Association (LGA) said councils would be forced to absorb £1.1bn in 2020-21 – and warned that given the continued impact of the pandemic, the figure could grow to £2.2bn.  Cheshire East Council, which is down by £13m this year thanks to the pandemic, is among many local authorities consulting residents on where to make cuts.Next year’s budget would be the most challenging it has ever had to set, said deputy leader Craig Browne and warned of having to make “some very tough choices” with no area of responsibility exempt. Sam Corcoran, the Labour leader of the Council, said despite several government grants, the council had not been fully recompensed for the pandemic costs, and told The Independent the axe could fall on household waste recycling centres.Cutting family early prevention services, such as Sure Start centres, would save money now but store up trouble and costs for later, he said.
“We’ve been in austerity for a number of years and it gets harder after the easy things have been cut. Residents have to face either cuts to services or increases in council tax, or both.”
John Clarke, the Labour leader of Gedling Borough Council in Nottinghamshire, told The Independent that cuts might have to be made to the support given to police and the police and crime commissioner, as well as anti-knife crime schemes.Other services such as maintenance of parks and open spaces could be threatened, as well as eco-friendly initiatives such as educating people on recycling and installing solar panels on council buildings.
Mr Clarke could not rule out redundancies among managers at the council, where the senior team has already been restructured through some natural job shrinkages.
Last month, Croydon Council in south London declared “effective bankruptcy” and imposed emergency spending limits.
In a survey by the County Councils Network, eight in 10 councils said they would have to make “damaging” cuts to services. Social care could be among the areas to suffer, the group said, unless the government stepped in.
A spokesperson for the LGA said: “It is not a pretty picture. Councils have worked closely with government throughout the pandemic to protect our local communities and save lives.”As well as a drop in income from parking and leisure, local authorities are having to deal with more people defaulting on council tax and business rates because of the lockdowns. The government is giving local authorities up to 75 per cent of that lost revenue.
Overall, ministers say local government has been given £7bn to cover Covid costs, which is being paid in four tranches. They say councils have also been given extra spending power – but it takes the form of increasing council tax precepts for social care by 3 per cent, on top of a base rate rise of 2 per cent, totalling up to 5 per cent.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned households across the UK may face an average £70 rise in council tax next year.  The spending review also provided councils with £300m of new grant funding for social care.
David Williams, leader of Hertfordshire County Council and chairman of the County Councils Network, said: “If you had told me a year ago we’d spend about £130m we hadn’t budgeted for, I’d have thought you were having a laugh. But I’ve been astounded at the amount of support we’ve had from central government. For councils that deliver social care, the government has dealt with them pretty fairly.”
He said he would be reluctant to cut services for vulnerable families, and would look for central government funding initially.But others say the support is not enough.
Leeds City Council, which has a £119m deficit, earlier this month announced a potential 914 staff redundancies, as well as council tax rises.
Newcastle City Council has revealed it has to save a further £40m over the next two years by raising fees and charges and not filling vacancies, and will raise council tax by 5 per cent.
Leader of Newcastle City Council Nick Forbes said: “Coronavirus has cost councils across the country over £11bn this year alone. The government have so far refunded less than half of that. They have done nothing to fundamentally change the fact that councils will be forced to make severe cuts in 2021 to balance their books.”
City councillors are considering £8.4m of cuts to adult social care spending and £3.8m of cuts to children’s social care.
Extra costs and loss of income have increased costs by £90m this year, it said, despite furloughing some staff.  Byron Rhodes, cabinet member for finance, said the council was stopping non-essential recruitment and spending, and stepping up spending controls.
“Government support has been significant but not enough. Without funding reform or a major efficiency initiative, more savings will be required including service reductions.”
And Brighton and Hove council revealed it had a £20m funding gap, the “biggest black hole the council has seen for a very long time”, deputy leader Hannah Clare said.Paul Hodgkinson, leader of the Lib Dems on Gloucestershire County Council, said he feared roads and road safety measures could be the biggest victim of any cuts in his rural area.
“Our roads have a high accident rate, sadly some fatal, with a lot of single carriageways, which tend to be worse than motorways for accidents, and I would fear measures to make them safer could be in jeopardy.”
The borough council in Crawley, the town identified has having been the hardest hit by the pandemic because it is largely dependent on Gatwick Airport, this month decided to close two children’s playgrounds and close five “superloos” among other measures.
In its budget consultation, Kent County Council said it was potentially facing a financial challenge “bigger than anything we have seen over the last 10 years”.
Leader Roger Gough said the concern was less for the immediate future than for the medium and long term. “We had an in-year budget this year, which we’ve never felt the need to do before.
“We were very concerned about children’s social care. After lockdown, cases coming in were more complex because they’d been left for longer.“Local government tends to be a lower priority for government than the NHS and defence, so it’s likely council tax as a whole will increase – we’ll look at that very carefully. A 5 per cent increase will be a cause for concern and distress for many people already in financial distress.”The LGA spokesperson said early communication with councils was key, and initially, the sharing of testing data with councils was poor.“Lessons must be learnt from the past months, particularly around the importance of tapping into and using local expertise.  “We are calling on the government to address in full the financial challenges facing councils as a result of Covid-19, including all lost income and local tax losses.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “Councils have played a critical role during the pandemic, and we are ensuring they have the resources needed to deliver effective services for their communities.  “We’ve given councils an unprecedented £7.2bn package of support. This includes £4.6bn in un-ringfenced funding, recognising that councils are best placed to decide how to meet the major Covid-19 service pressures in their local area. “Next year we’re giving councils access to an additional £2.2bn to deliver services including social care and £3bn of additional support for Covid-19 pressures. This takes the total support committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of Covid-19 to over £10bn.” More

Teachers and council leaders have criticised the government’s approach to school closures amid soaring cases of Covid-19, saying it has “no logic”. About a million primary school pupils in the areas hardest hit by coronavirus will not return to lessons as planned next week, and the expected staggered reopening of secondary schools in England will also be delayed.The announcement by the government on Wednesday, less than a week before the start of the new term, was described as a “last-minute mess” by teachers, who accused the government of failing to heed warnings from school leaders that remote learning may need to be implemented.In London, mayor Sadiq Khan said he was “urgently seeking clarification as to why schools in some London boroughs have been chosen to stay open”, while others “just down the road won’t”.Council leaders in the capital have also been critical of the government’s guidance. Danny Thorpe, the leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, which was threatened with legal action by the government earlier in December after it issued advice to schools to move to online learning for the last days of term, said London had been treated as “one area” throughout the pandemic and fragmenting it now would be “a massive step backwards in the boroughs’ combined efforts to fight the virus”.“In a case-by-case comparison, there appears to be no logic to how this list was brought together,” he said.“Kensington and Chelsea has one of the lowest infection rates for the whole of the capital, yet their children and young people are being afforded the extra protection that apparently Royal Greenwich students don’t need.“While we are very glad that they will benefit from these extra precautions, we can only speculate why this borough was included, yet with an infection rate more than 200 cases higher per 100,000, Royal Greenwich was not.”Richard Watts, the leader of Islington Council in north London, said: “We are now seeking urgent clarification from the government about why Islington’s primary schools are to reopen in the week of 4 January, while those in many other London boroughs will not reopen.“It is deeply frustrating that the government has made this announcement at the last minute, just days before the start of term, weeks after it was clear coronavirus cases were surging in London.”Philip Glanville, the mayor of Hackney in northeast London, said the area should be included on the list where primary schools do not have to reopen.Greenwich had 2,176 new cases recorded in the seven days to 26 December, Hackney and City of London had 2,217 and Islington had 1,499, according to Covid-19 rates compiled by the Press Association.By comparison, areas on the list included Kensington and Chelsea, which had just 768 new cases in the same period, while Richmond upon Thames had 1,219 and Hammersmith and Fulham had 1,097.Mr Khan said it was right to delay school reopening for the worst-hit areas but said council leaders, headteachers and governing bodies were not consulted about the decision.A list of 50 areas where it is expected that some primary schools will not open as planned to all pupils next week was published by the Department for Education and featured places in London, Essex, Kent, East Sussex, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.There are 1.05 million children aged between four and 11 in these areas, according to analysis of population figures by PA.The figures may include some four-year-olds who have not started school or 11-year-olds who are no longer at primary school.Liz Keeble, a headteacher of a primary school in Basildon, Essex, said she learned from the television on Wednesday afternoon that her school would not reopen next week, before hearing from her bosses.“It’s a very difficult situation for everybody, these decisions are made right up to the wire,” she told BBC Breakfast.However, the education secretary said he is “absolutely confident” there will be no further delays to school reopeningsGavin Williamson moved to reassure teaching staff, pupils and parents the rescheduled staggered return dates for England would remain in place, despite concerns about safety and transmission rates among younger people.“We are absolutely confident that all schools are returning,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.“You’re going to see over 85 per cent of primary schools returning on Monday morning, you’re going to be seeing exam cohorts going back right across the country on January 11.”Asked if he can guarantee that, Mr Williamson said: “We are absolutely confident that is what is going to happen.” More

Life in the UK should be “much, much better” by Easter as coronavirus vaccines gradually restore normality to the country, England’s chief medical officer is said to have told Boris Johnson.The prime minister expressed optimism that people could see more freedoms by spring, depending on the availability of the Covid-19 jabs.Chris Whitty , the chief medical officer, set a target of 5 April for the relaxation of coronavirus restrictions, Mr Johnson revealed in an interview with ITV News.But he sought to manage expectations by stressing changes would depend on the success of the tiered lockdown system and that the coming weeks and months would be tough.“Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, set a sort of terminus of 5 April – Easter – when he thought things would be much, much, much better,” Mr Johnson said.
Asked how long lockdown restrictions would go on for, he said it would depend on “how fast we can get the virus under control with tough tiering, with testing that we’re rolling out, the vaccination programme”.
“I’m not going to give you a deadline, but you’ve heard what I’ve said about April – that is the terminus ante quem [before that date],” he added.The PM suggested that date could potentially be earlier if the vaccine programme gathers pace.“If – and it’s a big if – if the tiering can work to bring the virus under control, if the vaccine rollout proceeds fast enough and, in the end, we are able to inoculate to protect those millions, the most vulnerable groups, then there’s a world in which that date could be brought forward – who knows by how many weeks, but that’s obviously what we’re aiming for. I can’t give you that date today,” he said.
Mr Johnson declined to commit to vaccinating 2 million people a week – the rate calculated necessary to prevent a third wave – but said the government would go as fast as it could with rolling out inoculations, saying it depending on how fast they could “crank up” supply.  And he stressed there were still “tough weeks and probably months” ahead for the UK as the new Covid variant spreads across the country and puts hospitals under immense pressure.“But do I think that by the spring things will be much better? Am I succumbing to my optimistic bias? Yes, I do think things will be much better, I do think this country will get through it very strongly indeed, and I do think people will have a great deal to look forward to,” Mr Johnson said. “But are things going to be tough for the next few weeks and months? Yes, they undoubtedly are.”Asked about the potential for a 24-hours-a-day vaccine rollout, Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS England, told journalists: “We’re working in the NHS to roll things out as quickly as possible.”We need the supplies to come through from manufacturers.
“These are still unlicensed products; remember they have an emergency authorisation so it’s important that we do this properly by the book. But we are going as quickly as we possibly can.” More

After more than a week of disruption, the final lorry drivers who became stuck in their vehicles in Kent over Christmas are set to cross the Channel and return home to France and beyond. The backlog of lorries – of which there were 1,500 lined up along the M20 at one point last week – was caused by France temporarily closing its borders on 20 December in response to the discovery of a fast-spreading coronavirus variant in the UK. But the Department for Transport (DfT) said on Monday that the systems put in place to return traffic flow to normal were keeping pace with demand.It comes after the PA news agency reported that some 3,000 hauliers were waiting to enter the Eurotunnel or gain access to the Port of Dover on Christmas Day evening. Despite restrictions being eased on 23 December and borders reopening, the large accumulation of lorries meant thousands have remained stuck in Dover and Folkestone for over a week. Under new legislation, drivers seeking to enter France from Britain must now show proof of a negative Covid test taken in the last 72 hours. As of Monday, a total of 21,849 coronavirus tests on hauliers had been carried out with 66 positive results – which amounts to just 0.3 per cent of those tested so far. Some of the stranded drivers were held at Manston Airport during Christmas week where they waited to receive tests before heading to Dover to board ferries. DfT said there were now only 59 heavy goods vehicles left across Manston and the M20 waiting to cross to France, and added that as of Monday a total of 14,659 HGVs had departed via Dover and the Eurotunnel since both were reopened.Transport secretary Grant Shapps tweeted on Sunday that the M20 motorway had been reopened, but warned those travelling to Kent to follow updates from Kent County Council and Highways England.“Current delay for Eurotunnel & Ferry is 30mins for test result,” he added.Volunteers from local communities – including the Salvation Army, Muslim group Al-Khair Foundation, HM Coastguard and Kent County Council – delivered thousands of warm meals and water to the drivers stuck in their vehicles in the days leading up to Christmas. Tesco also provided 600 food parcels, 24 pallets of staples and thousands of sausage rolls, which were sent out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.Images of lorry drivers coming together to celebrate Christmas did the rounds on social media, with one particularly memorable image (as seen above) showing a group of men who had made a Christmas tree out of beer cans.  More

Former diplomat Andy Wigmore has told of his family’s last-minute dash from a skiing holiday following the news hundreds of Britons broke Covid guidelines to flee Switzerland and avoid having to quarantine there. Mr Wigmore, a well-known Leave.EU figure, was with his family at the popular Swiss Wengen ski resort when he was informed that a mandatory 10-day quarantine was coming into effect in the area, on 22 December, following the discovery of the new coronavirus variant. It was at this point the Brexiteer and his family decided to travel home to Oxford, in the UK, via France immediately. Taking to Instagram on 23 December, the father-of-two posted that he was among “a number of Brits” who managed to “escape Switzerland”. He said he had arrived in London that morning after catching a train from Paris. “Just like the Sound of Music, the Wiggy von Trapps decided to make a run for it, from the slopes to the Swiss border in less than 3 hours,” he said. “Ended up in Paris at midnight and then caught the last EuroStar to London this morning, just in time for Christmas.”Mr Wigmore, his wife and two children had been in Switzerland for a “few days”, he wrote on Instagram – but cut the trip short after news of the quarantine broke. Speaking to The Independent on Monday night, Mr Wigmore said he had done “nothing wrong” and that he and his family had tests “before and after the trip, which were negative”. “Switzerland was open when we went and there were no restrictions on travelling there, we all had tests before departure and on our return. I am part of the Oxford Vaccine trial so I’m fully aware of responsibilities re travel etc,” he said.About his journey back to Britain, Mr Wigmore said a “Swiss friend” advised the family to “make a run for it before the quarantine became official and at that point we decided to get across the Swiss border into France using the train network”. He said the group then went to Paris and got “the Eurostar to London”.“I have a house in Wengen and have done so for over 20 years. I visit 3 to 4 times a year,” he added.It comes after separate reports over the weekend that some 200 Britons holidaying in Verbier – also in Switzerland – decided to abandon a coronavirus quarantine and return home. According to a spokesman in Valais canton, 420 British guests had been booked into Verbier accommodation before Christmas and only about a dozen remained. More

Margaret Thatcher branded EU plans for a single currency as a “rush of blood to the head” newly-released archive materials have revealed.The former prime minister also criticised the “politburo” in Brussels and vowed not to be dictated to during talks with her Irish counterpart.The Tory leader likened giving away powers of taxation to gifting sovereignty to Europe, Dublin archives from 1990 show.Evidence of Thatcher’s dislike for the EU comes just days after Britain secured a Brexit trade deal with Brussels.The Irish government note recorded that Thatcher said: “In talking of a single currency, Delors must have had a rush of blood to the head.“We are not going to have a single currency.”Jacques Delors was European Commission president at the time and an advocate of deeper integration.The Tory leader was engaged in discussions with Irish premier Charles Haughey in June 1990, state files showed.She wanted to turn the commission into a professional civil service, without the power of initiative, whose job would be to service the Council of Ministers which represents national governments in Europe.And she told Haughey that cultural differences between member states over the internal market in goods would remain.“The Italians will continue not to pay taxes.”Boris Johnson announces historic Brexit trade deal with EUShe accused the European Court of Justice of giving more powers to the commission.“The days of appointed commissioners must be numbered.“We must give power to the Council of Ministers.“I am not handing over authority to a non-elected bureaucracy.”Taoiseach Haughey said the commission was contacting Irish local authorities and inviting groups over to Brussels.“They are going behind the back of the government.”Thatcher said the deciding body must be the Council of Ministers.“We must take away the power of initiative of the commission.“I am getting completely fed up with the European Community trying to tie us up with bureaucratic regulations.”At the time, Soviet Union control over eastern Europe was collapsing.The prime minister added: “We are trying to get eastern Europe to accept democratic standards and here we are recreating our own politburo.“They are just too much.“She said she would not accept a central bank of the 12 EU member states and wanted to keep inflation down by allying with the deutschmark.Thatcher noted Germany had experience of inflation – hyper-inflation prompted by printing of paper money heralded the rise of Nazism – and kept its currency like a gold standard, where cash had a value directly linked to that of the precious metal.She said the central bank of the 12 would not have the same will to fight inflation as the Germans had.“They would think of economic growth and jobs and inflation as equal objectives and mix them all up.“All we want is an effective gold standard and the deutschmark provides us with that.”The newly published papers are contained in National Archives file reference number 2020/17/31. More