The Jackdaw gasfield will be given the go-ahead on Wednesday, signalling Andy Burnham’s commitment to the North Sea fossil fuel industry and threatening to trigger a row with climate campaigners and Labour MPs.
Miatta Fahnbulleh and John Healey, the energy secretary and chancellor respectively, will make the announcement from Aberdeen on Wednesday morning after more than a year of deliberations over whether doing so would violate the UK’s climate commitments.
Stricken UK water supplier lines up John Hutton as independent chair designate if takeover goes ahead
The group of Thames Water creditors pursuing a £10bn rescue deal for Britain’s largest water supplier has lined up a former senior Labour minister to chair the company, as it tries to win over the government.
The creditor consortium, called London & Valley Water, said on Tuesday that Lord John Hutton had been selected as independent chair designate of the Thames Water board, if the consortium’s deal is approved.
Andy Haldane writes that Conservative economic plans would be best for growth ahead of Healey budget
Badenoch says Britain needs tax cuts.
We need to get out of the way of job creators who make our country richer. We need to encourage risk taking, wealth creation, enterprise.
Britain’s tax burden has never been higher. You are taxed on the heating in your home. You’re taxed at the petrol pump filling up your car. You’re taxed when you insure that car. You’re taxed if you take the family away on holiday. You’re taxed if you stay in the UK thanks to Andy Burnham’s tourist tax. You’re taxed to buy a home, taxed to live in a home, taxed to pass on your home. This is clearly not working. Britain does not feel better off.
Andy Burnham wrote in The Times yesterday about the moral outrage of the current benefit system. But as far as I could work out, his answer is to spend even more on benefits.
John Healey will not raise capital gains tax in next week’s budget, despite previous calls to do so from cabinet colleagues including Louise Haigh and Wes Streeting.
The chancellor has decided that any increase might ultimately cost the Treasury if wealthy individuals defer the sale of assets or move them out of the country, according to Treasury sources.
In today’s newsletter: The prime minister’s campaign against noisy passengers has struck a chord with commuters. Whether anyone hears him remains to be seen.
Good morning.
Me again, back from the October school holiday (a week in glorious Wales, thanks for asking) and ready to hear your commuter woes. For our prime minister, it’s “one of the most annoying things on public transport”: maybe you’re trying to work, or read, or you’ve finally got your kid to sleep, when someone starts blasting sound from their phone at full volume.
France | The prime minister has said he has asked regional authorities to impose partial curfews in some cities after the government admitted police had “lost control” in several places during violent weekend protests around the country.
UK politics | Andy Burnham has told officials to rip up their plans for how to fix Thames Water and present him with more radical options for what to do with the stricken company.
Yemen | At least 53 people have been killed in a Houthi ballistic missile attack on a training camp for Yemeni government forces in the largest single loss of life since the country’s civil war reignited in September.
Israel | Israeli police have detained 10 people in a rare raid against settlers, after a weekend of extreme violence in the occupied West Bank including an attack on US photojournalist Heidi Levine.
Reform | Nigel Farage undermined his own claims that a £5m gift was for security when he referred to the money as a reward for Brexit, according to one of his closest aides.
EU ministers have discussed how to make labour standards compatible with modern technological conditions and workplace culture, such as telework and AI-led staff oversight, without losing competitiveness.
The law in question, called the Quality Jobs Act, covers a wide range of work protection measures, such as common standards for being able to ‘go home’ and disconnect from remote work, and limits to AI role in recruitment or its scrutiny of workers’ performance.
Technological innovation should “benefit both workers and businesses,” said Portuguese labour minister Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, addressing the ministers’ council on Monday (19 October) in Luxembourg.
Human oversight is essential, especially where AI systems decide on recruitment or workers’ assessment, she said.
Next to innovation, labour rules needed to ensure “fair and transparent practices, respect for human workers’ rights … and effective social dialog,” said Roxana Mînzatu, the EU commissioner for employment.
“This revolutionary technology has to be regulated” so that it “delivers for all,” Isabelle Schömann, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) deputy general secretary had also said during a conference organised by the centre-left S&D group in the European Parliament on 14 October, commenting on the need for the Quality Jobs Act to curb AI.
The draft Quality Jobs Act that the European Commission plans to present in December aims to update the long out of date 1989 and 1990 health and safety workplace rules.
It would also protect subcontractors and create standards for working in heatwaves, becoming more frequent with climate change.
EU legislators need to ensure minimum standards so that “neither jobs nor businesses are jeopardised” with extreme weather, Yolanda Díaz Pérez, the Spanish labour minister, said ahead of Monday’s debate.
This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership
Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has attacked Shabana Mahmood's migrant crackdown, saying making foreign nationals wait threatens "integration", deepening the split within Andy Burnham’s Cabinet about border controls.
Andy Burnham has announced "big changes" to welfare to get one million NEETs back into work – but only once he's "rebuilt the education system". Sounds expensive, says Mary Gilleece. It’s clearly never going to happen.
Downing Street delivered a rare rebuke to a senior member of Donald Trump’s administration
Asked why the Lib Dems were opposed to a third runway at Heathrow when they professed to be in favour of growth, Cooper said she did not accept that a third runway would produce all the benefits its supporters claimed.
She explained:
On Heathrow, it is clear from looking at all of the economic analysis of airport growth over the last few years that many of the promises made by all sorts of different airport companies simply haven’t come to bear.
The promise of higher wage jobs hasn’t been substantiated. Often it’s lower paid jobs, and often not as many as they’ve claimed.
‘Sovereignty without the ability to act on it is not autonomy,’ paper by Institute for Public Policy Research says
Britain cannot deal effectively with geopolitical crises such as Russian aggression and political turmoil in the US without rejoining the EU, according to an influential thinktank.
The Institute for Public Policy Research has become the latest organisation close to the Labour party to call for the UK to re-enter the bloc, after Andy Burnham said he wanted to examine all possible options.
Passengers urged to ‘share the carriage, not the noise’ as guidance sets out £100 penalties for nuisance behaviour
Andy Burnham has announced a crackdown on “headphone dodgers” who play loud music on public transport, as he extends his promise to give voters “breathing space” in the confines of a train carriage.
The prime minister will unveil a campaign against nuisance behaviour on public transport on Monday, alongside guidance allowing local transport authorities to levy fines of up to £100 for non-compliance.
Exclusive: Former health secretary says upfront investment in support is needed ‘if we are going to end the Neet crisis’
Ministers should cut welfare spending to fund more employment support if it wants to end the youth Neet crisis, the author of a government-led review has said.
Alan Milburn, the Tony Blair-era health secretary, told the Guardian he believed ministers should reduce benefits payments to help pay for more employment support, opening a potentially contentious debate within the Labour party over welfare cuts.
Andy Burnham's Government has been accused of waging a £500 million "class war" on wealthy councils, slashing funding from rural Tory and Lib Dem areas to bankroll urban Labour Party strongholds.
As Andy Burnham talks up closer alignment with the EU and a poll suggests half in UK would rejoin, the B-word is back on the agenda
In February 2016, days after David Cameron announced the UK would hold a referendum on leaving the EU, he told workers in Slough not to imagine they could change their minds a few years down the line if they did not like how things panned out. Voting to stay in or leave was a once in a generation thing, he said. “This is a decision that lasts for life.”
Well times change, as the last prime minister but five could testify. A decade after Britain told Brussels where to go, Brexit is back on the political agenda. After years in which many politicians avoided any mention of the B-word, Andy Burnham broke the omertà in his party conference speech last month, saying he would look again at Britain’s relationship with Europe.
Beijing warns against ‘discriminatory’ step after France drops opposition to British role in Made in Europe package
No 10 has left the door open to imposing tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of the Made in Europe package, prompting a warning from Beijing that such a move would be “discriminatory”.
Beijing warns against ‘discriminatory’ step after France drops opposition to British role in Made in Europe package
No 10 has left the door open to imposing tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of the Made in Europe package, prompting a warning from Beijing that such a move would be “discriminatory”.
Shevaun Haviland argues PM is right to revisit Labour’s EU red lines as current trading relationship is bad for business
Repairing the economic damage of Brexit should be the top priority for Andy Burnham as he reconsiders Labour’s red lines on EU membership, the head of one of Britain’s leading business groups has said.
Shevaun Haviland, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said she welcomed the prime minister reopening the Brexit battle lines despite the uncertainty it could create, arguing that the UK’s current trading relationship with the EU was bad for business.
Endless illegal immigration, unaffordable energy, draconian speech policing – we're being conditioned to accept outrageous things as normal, says Nick Rendell. Now add to that economic crashes.
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