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Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorSir Keir Starmer has been urged to review his decision to scrap winter fuel payments for 10m pensioners after the regulator Ofgem announced household energy bills will rise by £150 in October.The prime minister has been warned the double hit will lead to disaster for pensioners on low and modest incomes or living in vulnerable circumstances due to ill health. Analysis shows energy bills this winter will be the highest on record for older people who previously received the winter fuel payment, worth up to £300.Campaigners and charities, as well as Tory and Labour politicians, have called on the PM to change course.The PM is under pressure to reverse a decision to make the winter fuel payment means tested More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorThe Metropolitan Police has dropped its investigation into betting on the date of the general election, saying the bar for misconduct in public office had not been met.The probe was launched after it emerged senior Tory officials and one of Rishi Sunak’s aides had placed bets shortly before the date of the election was announced, allegations which engulfed the Conservative election campaign in June. The Conservatives eventually withdrew support for Mr Sunak’s former parliamentary private secretary Craig Williams as their candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, along with Bristol North West candidate Laura Saunders, who was also alleged to have placed a bet.Craig Williams, who was an aide to the prime minister in the last Parliament, is alleged to have placed a £100 bet on a July election three days before Rishi Sunak announced the date More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorThousands of steelworkers are set to be laid off just before Christmas after British Steel brought forward plans to close its blast furnaces in Scunthorpe.In a move unions say will be devastating for the local community, at least 2,500 jobs are set to be put at risk by the early closure.British Steel has previously announced it would be building an electric arc furnace (EAF) as part of its decarbonisation plans, replacing the carbon-intensive blast furnaces at the Scunthorpe site.The British Steel steelworks in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire (Danny Lawson/PA) More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorAll UK children should be given a “digital vaccination” of access to technology and digital skills that ensures they are not susceptible to misinformation and to help close the digital divide, a new report has said.The report says a minimum digital living standards framework should be established, which would look to ensure that every household has a set level of digital infrastructure, including high-speed broadband, a functioning digital device and digital skills training.The study has been published by former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield’s Centre for Young Lives think tank, and the Child of the North initiative – which includes a research partnership between eight universities in the north of England.Technology and the internet provide access to a world of opportunity and are now a crucial part of childhood and our futures Anne Longfield, former children’s commissionerIt says millions of children are being left behind because they do not have regular access to technology and the skills needed to make the best use of it – known as the digital divide – and warns these children are therefore more open to the risks of fake news, disinformation and other online harms.In addition, it says these children will be under-skilled when they enter the workplace in an increasingly digital and online world.According to the study, 42% of young people – approximately six million children – do not have access to either home broadband or a home computer, and 75% of young people feel they lack the necessary skills to thrive in the future, with almost half of young people saying they are teaching themselves digital skills.Financial constraints are highlighted by the report as a key contributor to the digital divide, with one million people said to have cut back or cancelled their internet package because of financial pressures, with 12% of people in the north east of England classified as internet non-users, compared to only 7% in London.The report says digital skills shortages are already estimated to cost the UK £65 billion each year.In response, the study urges the Government to consider adopting the minimum digital living standards framework, as well as boosting digital training and support for schools and teachers and a central, national resource platform for digital skills development.Ms Longfield, executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives, said: “Children are growing up digital but we are not giving them the technology and skills they need to make the most of the opportunities it brings or protection they need to navigate the online world safely.“Technology and the internet provide access to a world of opportunity and are now a crucial part of childhood and our futures.It is crucial that we develop more effective ways of preventing children and young people from being exposed to fake news and vaccinate them against its dangersAnne Longfield, former children’s commissioner“The recent outbreaks of violence in England have shown the consequences of disinformation and its impact on the real world. It is crucial that we develop more effective ways of preventing children and young people from being exposed to fake news and vaccinate them against its dangers.“That means providing children with the digital skills they need, providing teachers with the time and training to keep up to date with digital advancement, and ensuring children are learning about disinformation and other potential online harms from an early age.“We also need to equip children for the digital world they live in. Four in 10 children do not have either home broadband or a laptop or desktop computer. This is not just a problem that happened during Covid. This ongoing digital divide is still leaving behind millions of children, which can have profound implications for their educational outcomes and future employment prospects.“We need to be far more creative and much bolder about how we close the digital divide and improve access to tech and learning.“We can’t hope to achieve the aim of becoming a world-beating economy with a well-trained and well-educated workforce for as long as a substantial number of young people are shut out of the digital world.” More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorIndependent readers were divided when we asked for their views on a shorter working week. With campaigners preparing to launch a new pilot for a four-day workweek, hoping the Labour government will be receptive, we wanted to know if you would support making this practice more widespread.Some readers viewed the four-day week as a positive change, believing it could reduce stress and fatigue while boosting productivity and allowing more time with loved ones. However, others expressed concern that it might lead to inefficiencies, particularly in the public sector.Here’s what you had to say:‘There’s more to life than work’Working all the hours under the sun has its origins in the industrial Revolution, and once upon a time, people worked six days a week and sometimes more. Working very long hours was commonplace, especially on the shop floor.Trade unions fortunately came into being to ensure that working people had better working conditions with better pay.Work is something that evolves, and today many people travel long distances to work, and many jobs are very stressful indeed.If many workplaces find that working a four-day week, instead of a five-day week, means more productivity and less stress and fatigue then this has to be a good thing.The other side of the coin is that there is more to life than work. People want to be with their loved ones more often. Christopher1959‘A shirker’s charter’This, along with the new employment law reforms planned by Labour, will be a shirker’s charter. It also sounds very inflationary. Especially in the public sector, where the effective/efficient deployment of resources and management of productivity, are very poor (productivity has fallen off a cliff, since many public servants started working from home e.g. Land Registry, HMRC, DVLA, Passport Office, Local Authorities etc). In the UK in general, the standard of leadership, management, effectiveness and ‘productivity’, is abysmal. In my ‘portfolio’ career I’ve worked in various areas of both the public and private sectors and the contrast is stark. No problem with a four-day week being introduced, but pay, ‘perks’ and pensions, would need to be adjusted accordingly. Pablo‘Somebody has to pay for it’Since I have a zero-day work week after retiring at age 57, I sure can tell you that it’s very nice.But on the other hand, somebody has to pay for it, so one-fifth more pension savings payment per month for both employers and employees would be mandatory.Louisa‘Overlord Musk will never agree’I’d support a one-day week: only work Thursdays.But what about all the homes that need building, they’ll take 1/5th longer to build. Amazon packages take an extra day to arrive. Prescriptions one day longer etc etc.Overlord Musk will never agree anyway.BobaFett‘A boon for the economy’ Why ask people who know nothing about the subject what they think when the answer to this is known already? Not only has study after study shown that productivity is increased, but it is also a boon for the economy in general as people use their extra day to do things, you know, things that cost money. It is also pretty hilarious that people find it so hard to understand that a four-day working week for each individual doesn’t mean businesses will only be open four days a week. More fundamentally, an awful lot of things are counter-intuitive, which is why anyone who uses the term “common sense” can almost immediately be dismissed. People’s “common sense” can and does result in entirely different conclusions dependent on their base knowledge of the given topic. If everything was intuitive or common sense, there would be no need to study anything and we would all reach the same conclusions, rather than experts (and people who can understand the experts) reaching wildly different conclusions to those who know nothing about anything, yet tend to be the loudest and most confident in their, what can only be described as willful in the information age, ignorance.TrevSmith82‘Middle-class charter’A four-day week would suit many office jobs, particularly remote work, as 38 hours over four days would be easily as productive as the same over five. However the same does not apply to factory work and most labouring, so this is a middle-class charter.JMcNeillSome of the comments have been edited for this article. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article.All you have to do is sign up, submit your question and register your details – then you can then take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking ‘log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here. More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorMigrants crossing the Channel in small boats fell by almost a third in Rishi Sunak’s last year as prime minister, figures show, piling pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to continue the downward trend.In the year to 30 June, days before the general election, there were 31,493 arrivals in the UK via small boats. It marked a 29 per cent fall on the year before and a slight decrease from the same period two years ago.Coming just days after Yvette Cooper fleshed out Labour’s alternative to the Rwanda deportation policy, which would have sent some asylum seekers to the east African nation, the figures will add to the pressure on the government to bring the numbers down further.Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper will come under pressure to cut the number of arrivals via small boats More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorUnion delegates are set to call on the government to pursue a raft of pay restoration settlements for public sector workers. In a bid to reverse over a decade of real-term wage reductions, Trades Union Congress (TUC) delegates representing nearly 200,000 workers will decide on a call for above-inflation rises at a conference next month. The move could set the stage for a potential clash between the new Labour government and its union supporters, following a series of pay agreements involving healthcare and rail workers.Leader of the Fire Brigades Union Matt Wrack has suggested that next month’s TUC conference is likely to see delegates pushing for significant pay increases. A motion from the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union argues that public sector wages have decreased by an average of 1.5 per cent annually since 2011, and it calls for a pay restoration to be at the centre of the TUC’s negotiations with the new government. A spokesperson told The Independent: “We have been in dispute with the government on pay for a number of years. The action we have taken has forced numerous concessions and we will take action again should we not secure further concessions at the bargaining table.Union delegates are set to vote to demand for above-inflation pay rises More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorSir Keir Starmer is under fresh pressure to lift the two-child benefit cap in Labour’s first budget in October.The prime minister is facing renewed calls to scrap the austerity-era policy after a senior party figure suggested it would not be removed by chancellor Rachel Reeves in the statement this autumn.MPs and anti-poverty campaigners have warned that delaying the end of the limit will keep hundreds of thousands of children in poverty ahead of the October 30 budget.Sir Keir Starmer has previously called for the two-child limit to be scrapped More