UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe chief executive of Boots has endorsed Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party in a major blow to Rishi Sunak.Sebastian James, an Old Etonian friend of Boris Johnson and David Cameron, praised Sir Keir’s focus on economic growth and Britain’s high streets.And he welcomed Labour’s plans to “put more money in people’s pockets” to help address the cost of living crisis, which he said Boots customers still complain about daily.The Boots chief is the latest business leader to get behind Labour ahead of the looming general election, four years after industry shunned the party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.But his endorsement is especially significant due to his close relationship to foreign secretary Lord Cameron. Mr James is pictured alongside Lord Cameron and former PM Mr Johnson in the infamous black and white 1987 Bullingdon Club photo.In 2011 it was reported that Lord Cameron and Mr James stayed together in the businessman’s £10,000 a week 15-bedroom luxury Italian villa before having to return early and deal with the London riots. Lord Cameron as PM also appointed Mr James to a panel to decide how money was spent on new schools in 2012. Sebastian James, the Boots chief executive and Old Etonian friend of David Cameron, has endorsed Labour More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMortgage possession claims have hit a five year high in the aftermath of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget. New figures show they soared by more than a quarter in just three months and are now at their highest level since 2019. Experts warn millions of households across the country are struggling with huge mortgage bills after the average two-year fixed rate jumped to more than 6 per cent, although it has since fallen.Ms Truss has refused to take the blame for the higher rates that hit homeowners following her October 2022 mini-Budget. The subsequent fallout saw her ousted from office by her own MPs after less than six weeks as prime minister. High mortgage rates are hitting cash-strapped households across the UK (Peter Byrne/PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailGordon Brown has warned that the West may never be forgiven for not offering African countries urgent relief during the worst debt crisis in a generation. The former prime minister’s rallying call comes as a poll shows nearly half of Britons think the UK should wipe the debts of lower income countries so the money can be used to fund hospitals, schools and tackle the climate crisis. It follows a report which shows many African countries spent more on debt payments than on health or education last year. Mr Brown said the findings showed the urgent need for action. “The scale of this inequality between Africans and the rest of the world is so great that I am not sure the world will ever forgive us for failing to deliver urgent debt restructuring,” he writes in a foreword to the Christian Aid report. The study found that 34 African countries spent more on external debt payments than they did on health or education last year. In Sudan, where millions are facing hunger, more than 10 times more is spent on external debt than on healthcare, according to the charity. The former PM says ‘debt restructuring is a matter of life and death’ More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSir Keir Starmer is set to make a presidential pitch to become prime minister, drawing inspiration from Tony Blair in what is being billed as Labour’s general election campaign launch.In a strategy that deliberately echoes the winning New Labour battle plan from 1997, Sir Keir is betting on himself to front Labour’s push to return to power after 14 years in the wilderness. On Thursday, the party will unveil its most expensive advertising campaign since the last general election alongside a modern version of Blair’s “pledge card”, which will feature Sir Keir’s face and his personal six first steps for an incoming Labour government.After Rishi Sunak said in his own keynote speech earlier this week that the election should not be fought on the basis of “Starmer versus Sunak”, Sir Keir has made it clear that he wants it to be a personal battle between the two men, centred on which of them is better able to run the country.While Mr Sunak made his pitch around defence and security, highlighting the threat of nuclear war, Sir Keir hopes to strike a more personal tone. At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, he lampooned his opponent as “a jumped-up milk monitor” for his party’s efforts to ban civil servants from wearing rainbow lanyards.Labour Party leader Keir Starmer lampooned his opposite number at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA cutting-edge new weapon which uses radio waves to blast drones out of the sky is under development for the UK’s armed forces.The Radio Frequency Directed Energy Weapon (RFDEW) beams radio waves to disrupt or damage the critical electronic components of vehicles and drones used by enemy combatants, which can cause them to stop in their tracks or fall out of the sky.It can be used across land, air and sea and has a range of up to 1km, which could be extended in the future.Release of information about the new weapon comes after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to hike UK defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030.With an estimated cost of 10p per radio wave shot, the technology is also being billed as a cost-effective alternative to traditional missiles, and could be used to take down dangerous drone swarms.The technology can be mounted on to a variety of military vehicles, and uses a mobile power source to produce pulses of a radio frequency energy in a beam that can fire sequenced shots at a single target or be broadened to hit a series of targets.Minister for defence procurement James Cartlidge said: “We are already a force to be reckoned with on science and technology, and developments like RFDEW not only make our personnel more lethal and better protected on the battlefield, but also keep the UK a world leader on innovative military kit.“The war in Ukraine has shown us the importance of deploying uncrewed systems, but we must be able to defend against them too. As we ramp up our defence spending in the coming years, our Defence Drone Strategy will ensure we are at the forefront of this warfighting evolution.”The new weapons system will undergo extensive testing with British soldiers over the summer.It is being developed by a joint team from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), working with UK industry under Project Hersa.DSTL chief executive Paul Hollinshead said: “These game-changing systems will deliver decisive operational advantage to the UK armed forces, saving lives and defeating deadly threats.“World-class capabilities such as this are only possible because of decades of research, expertise and investment in science and technology at DSTL and our partners in UK industry.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailUnemployed Brits have “ample opportunities for people to get on and get ahead in the world of work”, claim Jeremy Hunt and Mel Stride – but is this an accurate picture? In the latest push to tackle unemployment rates, the Tories’ £2.5billion Back to Work plan targets those who claim benefits without work for reasons such as long-term sickness or disability, and increases minimum working hours for Universal Credit claimants.In a joint op-ed today for the Times, the work and pensions secretary and the Chancellor write: “We’ve been clear that unemployment benefits should only be there as a safety net, not a lifestyle choice.”The chancellor and work and pensions secretary wrote that while “times have undeniably been tough”, they suggested that “the economic picture is far better than many would have you believe”, pointing to the 900,000 job vacancies across the UK as a sign.Despite the chancellor’s optimism, the latest ONS data shows that work availability has continued to fall for the past two years, with current vacancies estimated to be 31.1 per cent lower than the March-May 2022 peak of 1.3m. The figure has plummeted by 17.1 per cent in the past year alone, from 1,086,000 to 898,000, with 13 out of 18 sectors seeing fewer openings in the past year. If you’re looking for a job in the food industry, IT and comms, or the arts, you’ll find opportunities disappearing faster than in other sectors.Arts, entertainment and recreation have taken the hardest blow, at -34.5 per cent fewer vacancies now than the same period last year (February to April 2023). Jobs in accommodation and food services, in addition to retail, are down by a fifth. These sectors are typically more active when people have more disposable income and are likely continuing to feel the squeeze from the cost-of-living crisis. But some other sectors which require a level of qualification also have fewer and fewer opportunities. Information and communication vacancies, which range from IT positions to PR, are down by a quarter (-25.2 per cent) from this time last year, and have been broadly falling since mid-2022. Professional vacancies in science and technical fields are also down by a fifth in this period (-19.6 per cent), despite the Prime Minister’s push for the UK to become a ”science superpower”.Real estate is the only sector to see a substantial boost in available jobs, with 30 per cent new vacancies compared to this time last year.Young people struggling to find workWhile unemployment overall has risen to 4.3 per cent, younger groups are facing some of the fastest-rising rates.Over-18s actively seeking employment are facing hurdles, with unemployment at 11.2 per cent among 18-24 year olds in January to March this year. The ONS estimates that 326,000 young professionals (25-34 year olds) are currently unemployed in the UK, up by 21.1 per cent in the same period in 2023, with the unemployment rate at 4.2 per cent. While some young people are “sick of working hard for no money” and have missed out on key office life due to the pandemic, some studies have suggested that millennials are “the hardest working generation”. So why might these generations be struggling to get into work?Lack of clarity on pay, hours and job securityThough the ministers’ claim that there are nearly 900,000 (898,000) job vacancies is correct, it lacks key information about the jobs themselves: salaries, hours, or whether the contracts are permanent/temporary.With 1.49m people in unemployment across the UK – and 166,000 of those becoming unemployed in the last quarter alone – the available vacancies could only meet 60 per cent of the workforce. But even then, is this accurate?Since it is unclear whether the vacancies are for full-time contracts, or what salary they offer, it is not reasonable to argue that the shrinking pool of vacancies will solve the problem of unemployment, since it is not possible to say whether the roles would enable people to support themselves and their dependents full-time.More than a million people across the UK are currently on zero-hours contracts, where a worker does not have guaranteed hours or income, and which have faced controversy due to the lack of financial security and stability for employees. The latest ONS data in May shows that a quarter of zero-hours workers are ‘underemployed’, meaning they want to work more hours than they currently have.Labour previously said that it will abolish zero-hours contracts, later changing its position to say it would retain an opt-in option.A further 1.45m people are on temporary contracts, with 21.2 per cent saying they took the job because they could not find a permanent position. The job vacancy shortfall is likely to be greater than the raw numbers suggest as a proportion of the 898,000 job vacancies will be temporary, part-time or for zero-hours contracts. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak is facing a backlash over “irresponsible” plans to ban sex education for children under nine while limiting it for children under 13.The prime minister has been accused of using children as a “political football” over plans to ban all sex education in primary schools until year five. Lessons would then focus simply on conception and birth, with no explicit discussions of sexual acts until they are 13 and over, according to reports.Domestic violence, coercive control and sexual violence would also not be discussed until children reach 13 under the guidance, due to be announced by education secretary Gillian Keegan. Children would also not be taught about contraception, sexually transmitted infections, and abortion until age 13.Rishi Sunak is facing a backlash over plans to ban sex education for children in schools More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch as Rishi Sunak faced Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, 15 May, as age limits are set to be imposed for the first time on when children can be taught about sex education.According to a report in the Times, schools will be told not to teach children any form of sex education until year 5, when pupils are aged nine.Education secretary Gillian Keegan is also set to announce measures preventing children from being taught they can change their gender identity, and rules out any explicit conversations about sex until they are aged 13, the newspaper said.Lessons about contraception, sexually transmitted infections, and abortion would also not be taught until this age.The new proposals would not make “that much of a difference,” an education expert told the BBC.Rebecca Leek, head of the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association, told Radio 4’s Today programme that sex education is usually not taught in schools until pupils are in year six and parents are able to withdraw their children if they want to.Existing guidance says primary school-aged children should be taught about different types of families and healthy relationships, while those in secondary school should be taught more complex topics such as puberty, sexual relationships, consent, unsafe relationships, and online harms. More