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    Kemi Badenoch to call for end to energy windfall tax and oil licence ban

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    Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is poised to advocate for the end of the windfall tax on oil and gas firms and the ban on new licences in a major speechInitially established by the prior Conservative administration but extended upon Labour’s ascent to power, the energy profits levy was intended to finance initiatives aimed at reducing household expenses. However, the policy has faced criticism from within the industry.Addressing the Scottish Conservative conference in Edinburgh on Friday, Ms Badenoch is anticipated to champion the oil and gas sector, accusing the UK Government of “killing” it. She is expected to assert that “renewing our party and our country means standing up for our oil and gas industry”.She will add: “When the oil and gas windfall tax, the energy profits levy, was brought in, the oil price was near a historic high, at the exact time as energy bills for the British people were sky-rocketing.“But there is no longer a windfall to tax. It has long gone. And the longer this regressive tax on one of our most successful industries remains, the more damaging it becomes.Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch More

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      History is repeating itself in my hometown and it’s terrifying to watch

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      Once, when I was a teenager, I was in a Spar in Ballymena when a man walked in and announced he would burn the shop to the ground if it didn’t close immediately. My sister and I did not hesitate. Like everyone else, we believed him – and fled. We had been intending to dash in to the store for just a few minutes to stock up on essentials, amid fears of a long few days ahead of us as rioting broke out across Northern Ireland in the 1990s over Drumcree. So it’s terrifying to watch violence unfold in my hometown again, as we have over recent nights. Violence has erupted in Ballymena More

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      Jonathan Reynolds mocks Nigel Farage’s coal mines plan as an ‘absolute parody’

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      Jonathan Reynolds has mocked Nigel Farage for wanting to reopen the coal mines in Wales, dubbing him an “absolute parody”. The business secretary, whose grandfather was a coal miner, admitted that Reform UK are Labour’s biggest opponents – but said Mr Farage fails to understand “the pride in where we’re from and what we represent, but also the aspiration for the future”. Speaking at a media lunch in parliament, Mr Reynolds also defended the UK’s plan for closer trade ties with the US, saying: “We might have different views but we have to engage with them”. Business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds More

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      Family doctors could run hospitals in NHS shake-up, says Wes Streeting

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      Radical reforms could see hospitals taking over GP surgeries and family doctors running hospitals, under new plans to reform the NHS in England.The health secretary, Wes Streeting, said the forthcoming 10-year plan would also see “much of what’s done in a hospital today, will be done on the high street”.He stressed that the government was “not embarking on another top-down reorganisation” of the health service.The plan is expected to be published in July.Speaking at the NHS ConfedExpo conference in Manchester, Mr Streeting said: “The NHS should not be bound by traditional expectations of how services should be arranged.”I am open to our strongest acute trusts providing not just community services, as many already do, but also primary care.”Whatever services will enable them to meet the needs of their patients in a more integrated and efficient way.”Indeed, I would hope that those old-fashioned labels – acute, community – become increasingly meaningless.”Likewise, there is no reason why successful GPs should not be able to run local hospitals, or why nurses should not be leading neighbourhood health services.”Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves meet staff in the outpatients department during a visit to St Thomas’ Hospital in London More

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      Campaigners urge MPs to vote down assisted dying bill over anorexia ‘loophole’

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      People with anorexia could be allowed to die by assisted death under a proposed bill, more than 250 campaigners have warned, urging MPs to vote down the legislation when it returns to the Commons.A letter to MPs, signed by 268 people who have suffered with eating disorders, warned: “If this bill had been law during the years many of us were struggling, we would have used it to end our lives.” Campaigner Chelsea Roff, the founder of the eating disorder organisation Eat Breathe Thrive, warned that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill contains “dangerous loopholes that have enabled suicidal women with anorexia to die by assisted death” in other countries. Kim Leadbeater speaking during the debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill More

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      Tax hikes will come if economy shrinks any further, IFS warns Rachel Reeves

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      The influential Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned Rachel Reeves that any more bad economic news will “almost certainly” spark fresh tax rises. Council tax will already have to rise at its fastest rate in a generation, the IFS said, as it added to concerns the chancellor has left herself with little room for manoeuvre a day after she unveiled her spending plans for the rest of the parliament. The warning came as the government was hit with the bad news that the economy had shrunk by 0.3 per cent, sparking fears of a potential recession.Ms Reeves came into office with a pledge to grow the economy, but it has been sluggish at best in her first year.Paul Johnson, the outgoing director of the IFS, said council tax is set to rise at its fastest rate for 20 years as local government tries to close its funding gaps with annual increases of up to 5 per cent. More councils could also reach a “tipping point” unless demands on their resources fall, the think tank warned. Rachel Reeves insisted she would not need to increase taxes on the same scale as in her first budget, but declined to rule out rises altogether More

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      Ben Wallace accuses Labour of ‘conning’ public over defence spending boost claim

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      Former defence secretary Ben Wallace has branded Labour’s claims that it has boosted military spending “a con” after concerns were raised over how the figures are being calculated.The row has exploded following Rachel Reeves’ spending review on Wednesday where she boasted that defence spending would be 2.6 per cent of GDP. But this included wrapping in security and intelligence spending for the first time.Earlier this year prime minister Sir Keir Starmer controversially slashed international aid to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, two years ahead of schedule. At the time he also promised it would rise to 3 per cent by 2034.Sir Ben Wallace (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More

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      Blow for Rachel Reeves after UK economy shrinks by more than expected

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      The UK economy has shrunk by more than expected in a major blow to Rachel Reeves, just one day after she unveiled her spending review. The chancellor, who set out record investment in the Commons on Wednesday, acknowledged that the latest GDP figures, released on Thursday, were “clearly disappointing” but insisted her plan for the economy would help deliver growth.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3 per cent in April, compared with growth of 0.2 per cent the previous month and marking the biggest contraction since October 2023. It was also worse than the 0.1 per cent contraction expected by most economists.Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivering her Government’s spending review to MPs in the Commons (House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA) More

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      How will Rachel Reeves’s pledge to end asylum hotels work?

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      Rachel Reeves has pledged to end the use of asylum hotels by 2029 as part of a spending review that saw the Home Office budget cut. Speaking to MPs in the Commons on Wednesday, the chancellor said her plans to reform the asylum system would save £1bn a year. However, Treasury estimates show that the Home Office still expects the annual cost to be £2.5bn by the final year of this parliament. Labour had already made a manifesto commitment to end the use of hotels for migrants, but Ms Reeves has now committed to doing this within four years. Refugee charities welcomed the news, saying that hotels are “hugely expensive” and isolate asylum seekers from local communities, but urged ministers to move faster.Where will the government put asylum seekers instead? The Home Office has been exploring the use of medium-sized sites for asylum seekers instead of hotels, including former student accommodation. They are also working with local councils to try to house more people in flats and other accommodation within communities. Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle has said empty tower blocks, former teacher-training colleges and disused student accommodation are being considered as alternatives.Joanna Rowland, a senior civil servant at the Home Office, told MPs on Tuesday that the government’s providers were clear “that we are exiting hotels and we need to do that rapidly due to cost”. But she added: “We need to do the hotel exit and the alternative accommodation in a highly controlled way. If it was just an edict to close hotels, get dispersed, then we would end up with uneven concentration – and some local authorities, I know, are feeling that acutely right now.”Labour has moved away from Conservative plans to repurpose former military bases for migrants, as these sites are expensive to run and very isolated, and are often not close to local services such as doctors’ surgeries and schools. The controversial Bibby Stockholm barge contract was ended, and officials axed plans to use the former RAF Scampton site in Lincolnshire. But the Home Office is yet to provide further details on whether they would buy the new required sites or rent them, or to disclose which sites they are looking at.What else is the government doing to reduce the need for hotels?Ministers are also putting more resources into processing asylum claims and asylum appeals in an effort to clear the backlog of people waiting to have their cases processed. The Home Office has recruited more staff to assess claims, which has resulted in an increase in asylum claims being rejected. Once their claims have been rejected, applicants no longer qualify for Home Office accommodation and must either support themselves or go to local councils for emergency housing support. The number of asylum applications in the UK has hit a new high of 109,343 in the year to March 2025, up 17 per cent from 93,150 in the year ending March 2024.But the backlog of cases waiting for a decision has fallen to its lowest level since 2021. Home Office figures show there were 109,536 people waiting for an initial decision at the end of March 2025 – down 12 per cent from 124,802 at the end of December 2024 and the lowest number since December 2021.How much money will be saved, and how much do we currently spend on hotels? Asylum seekers housed in hotels account for around 35 per cent of all people in asylum accommodation; however, the money spent on hotels makes up a much larger proportion of the overall spend. Around 76 per cent of asylum contract costs, or £1.3bn, was spent on hotels in 2024-25, the National Audit Office found. Around 110,000 people seeking asylum were being housed by the Home Office in December 2024, with some 38,000 in hotels, the watchdog said. New figures from March show that 32,345 asylum seekers were being housed in hotels at that time. Under spending plans published by the Treasury on Wednesday, officials estimated that they would still have to spend £2.9bn on the asylum system in 2027-28, and £2.5bn in 2028-29. This year, asylum costs are expected to total £3.9bn. Is 2029 a realistic target? The Home Office’s top civil servant told MPs earlier this year that the department is aiming to bring hotel use down to “zero” but that this would depend on any “ups and downs”. Sir Matthew Rycroft, who has now left the top job, said: “Ministers will want to keep the committee and parliament updated on the total numbers [of hotels], which have fallen from over 400 to 218, but I do not think you should expect a gradual decline of that number down to zero neatly by the end of this parliament. Our aim is to get to zero by the end of this parliament, but there will be ups and downs.”Why are politicians so keen to clear migrant hotels? Hotels are more costly than other forms of accommodation, and private companies are making significant profits from providing hotel rooms to the Home Office. The day-to-day running of these hotels is often subcontracted, and in some cases, Home Office officials in charge of large hotel contracts have been unaware of who is providing vital services. According to testimony provided to MPs, sexual assaults, threats, and prostitution have taken place inside hotels, and children have experienced malnutrition due to poor food. Hotels can also be isolating for asylum seekers who are keen to get to know people in the community, with sites often located away from city centres. Hotels have also been targeted by anti-migrant rioters and activists, with several being attacked during last summer’s rioting. YouTubers have also visited migrant hotels to film themselves intimidating residents. What has been the reaction to the pledge? Refugee charities have welcomed the news but urged the government to go further. Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said: “Asylum hotels have become a flashpoint for community tensions and cost billions to the taxpayer, so ending their use is good for refugees, the taxpayer and communities. The deadline of 2029 feels far away, and we urge government to make it happen before then.”He added that asylum seekers should be placed “within our communities not isolated in remote hotels”.Charity Care4Calais said moving asylum seekers from hotels to accommodation within communities would be welcome and called for an end to the “for-profit asylum accommodation model that has created billionaires”. Chief executive Steve Smith said: “Asylum accommodation should be provided based on the needs of people seeking asylum, not the profits of private owners and shareholders. Involving local authorities in the delivery of accommodation in their areas would be a first step in that direction.”Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said the Home Office is still squandering money on asylum costs “because this government simply doesn’t have a plan on illegal migration”. More