UK Politics

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreWhile the focus has been on the crisis in Ukraine and need for European nations to boost their defence budget, Rachel Reeves’s main role has been to sign cheques for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s war effort and increase funding for British military and security.But the focus is about to fall sharply on to the chancellor as she prepares to present her spring statement on Wednesday 26 March – an event which is already shaping up to be an emergency Budget.At stake for her and Sir Keir Starmer is a desperation to spark economic growth after the enormous backlash against her Autumn Budget, with its record £40 billion tax rises, including a massive jobs tax hike by raising national insurance.While businesses are applying pressure for no new tax rises, trade unions are beginning to make noises about public pay settlements again, and Labour MPs are beginning to get nervous about the prospect of “austerity 2” with a round of spending cuts.Already there are potential rebellions over the so-called tractor tax of imposing inheritance tax on farms and the cut to international aid. The issue is what further horrors will Ms Reeves have to perform?Reeves and Starmer sign off money for Ukraine More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreRachel Reeves may be forced into fresh tax hikes or a new wave of austerity amid fears her financial buffer from October’s Budget has been wiped out, top economists have warned.The chancellor faces having to unveil tighter spending plans than Jeremy Hunt did as chancellor due to the deteriorating state of Britain’s public finances, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).In a bid to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules, Ms Reeves is this month grappling with whether to cut public spending or hike taxes again after higher borrowing costs and stagnant economic growth wiped out her £9.9 billion backstop. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver a fiscal statement to MPs on March 26 (PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreThe founder of Lastminute.com has warned that the tech sector is in “peril” as US President Donald Trump cracks down on equality programmes.Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho argued that inclusion is central to growth and innovation, with diverse teams increasing company profits by 20%.However, the industry is now scrapping many of its efforts to diversify its workforce amid Mr Trump’s attack on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) schemes.Lady Lane-Fox told the House of Lords the US has a huge influence on the UK tech sector and implored peers to “feel the peril of this moment and the urgency of this moment”.The independent crossbench peer said: “I had never used the words DEI in my life until the last two months and yet I find myself defending the very notion of equality to journalists, to people I work with, to companions in the sector and outside it.“I cannot understand this disconnect between good business practice and what we are now facing, which is a fundamental row back in the belief and the priorities of these substantial programmes.“Just yesterday, I heard of Google’s edict from on high rowing back in a huge number of different projects that it works with here in the UK, charities and the civic sector, that look at diversity, equality, inclusion, AI for good.“I am angry and I am nervous, and we have to keep fighting.”She added: “I cannot believe that there is a single person who looks like me who has worked on the edges of the digital sector for so long who did not feel like crying as they watched the inauguration and the six men who have completely and totally committed to a president who, at the same time, has degraded the role of women so substantially.”The six men she is referring to include Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai.Her comments came as peers discussed International Women’s Day and the steps being taken to promote women’s participation and leadership in science and technology.Lady Lane-Fox, who co-founded Lastminute.com in 1998, went on to became the UK’s Digital Champion, helping to create the Government Digital Service, the team that launched gov.uk.She told peers that she has seen a “degradation” in both culture and the numbers of women in tech during her time in the industry.The businesswoman said: “I have to say, I am angry. I am not a person prone to rage and fury, but I am angry. I am angry, because this is an urgent and important question that I fear we are ignoring at our peril.“I have now worked in or around the technology sector for over 30 years and I have seen no change in the relationship between the sector and women and the numbers of women, in fact I have seen a degradation, not just in culture, but also in the absolute numbers…“Why does this matter? It matters because, as we know, software is eating the world. We know that it is not an option to digitise, it is happening.“These are the jobs of the future, they are the jobs that will create the services of the future and the jobs that will be paid the most amount of money.“It is about power and it is about justice and it is about fairness.“I am so dismayed when I see the numbers and I keep going back to this disconnect between what I see happening and then I see the benefits and the bonus of employing diversity in your teams and putting it at the heart of the company’s strategy, and I just can’t understand this disconnect.”Lady Lane-Fox highlighted the fact that just 26% of the world’s tech workforce are women, falling to 15% in leadership roles, which falls again to just 6% when it comes to leadership roles in the UK.She said: “If you believe, as I do, that the sector is going to be eaten again by AI, by quantum, by deep tech, the numbers fall off even more considerably, so we are in a very perilous position, and it is very disappointing to see the enormous influence of the US technology sector being integrated into the culture of our own companies here.” More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreThe NHS’s top doctor has announced he is stepping down from the role, just a week after the surprise resignation of NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard. Professor Sir Stephen Powis, the organisation’s national medical director, has announced that he will step down this summer, after more than seven years in the role. He said he it had been an “immense privilege” to do his job and that he had always been “exceptionally proud to work in the NHS… while stepping down from this role, I remain passionate and committed to improving the health of patients and improving the experience of staff.” Sir Stephen is understood to have told Ms Pritchard in January of his decision, but it risks leaving a gap at the top of NHS England, after she announced last week that she was leaving at the end of the month. Sir Stephen regularly appeared on TV screens as part of Downing Street press conferences during the pandemic (PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreA Tory peer has apologised after saying Jewish people should pay for a London Holocaust memorial themselves because they have “an awful lot of money”. Archie Hamilton, a former minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, said taxpayers’ money should not be used to pay for the memorial and education centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to parliament. In a debate in the Lords, he said the park is too small for the proposed project, adding: “I do not understand why the government have volunteered taxpayers’ money, when there is so little of it, to finance this.Lord Hamilton said the Jewish community has ‘an awful lot of money’ More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreActivity in Britain’s construction sector has plunged to its lowest level since the pandemic casting further doubt over the government’s ambitious house building targets. Last month, Angela Rayner warned there was “no excuse” not to meet her goal of 1.5m new homes, while Sir Keir Starmer doubled down on the pledge, committing to the creation of a generation of new towns with spades in the ground before the next election in 2029.But the latest S&P Global construction purchasing managers’ index (PMI) – which measures the activity level of purchasing managers in the construction industry – showed a reading of 44.6 in February, down from 48.1 in January. Angela Rayner has claimed there is no excuse not to meet her ambitious 1.5m homes target More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreRobert Jenrick has clashed with a BBC presenter over claims new sentencing guidelines will lead to a “two-tier justice” system. The shadow justice secretary lashed out at guidance coming into force in April which will require a pre-sentence report before punishment is handed out for someone of an ethnic, cultural or faith minority, alongside other groups such as young adults aged 18 to 25, women and pregnant women.Mr Jenrick called for justice secretary Shabana Mahmood to overrule the independent Sentencing Council, which highlighted the “critical role” of pre-sentence reports. He has argued the guidance will discriminate against straight white men.Robert Jenrick said new sentencing guidelines will discriminate against straight white men More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreGovernment departments have reportedly been asked to identify 20 per cent of their lowest priority spending areas as Rachel Reeves eyes up billions of pounds in cuts ahead of the Spring Statement.The chancellor presented earmarked savings to the government’s spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), on Wednesday before she delivers her statement on 26 March. Treasury sources have said several factors have impacted plans presented under Ms Reeves’ October budget, with increased borrowing costs and weak economic growth likely to require further spending cuts in order to meet commitments on managing the public finances.Curbing the cost of welfare and a drive for greater efficiency across Whitehall are expected to contribute the bulk of the savings.Chancellor Rachel Reeves is likely to cut the cost of welfare to help manage public finances (Yui Mok/PA) More