wjfox wrote: ↑Tue Mar 12, 2024 8:26 amNew gas power plants needed to stop blackouts, Claire Coutinho to say
3 hours ago
[...]
The new stations will replace existing plants, many of which are aging and will soon be retired.
But the government says the CO2 produced will not be captured - a measure which limits climate change.
That could threaten a legally binding commitment to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, critics say.
[...]
The decision, which Ms Coutinho will announce in a speech at Chatham House in London, is part of a wide-reaching review of how the UK's energy market works.
But the Green Alliance think tank said it "flies in the face" of the government's promise to reach zero-carbon electricity by 2035.
UK government accused of trying to ‘stoke culture war on climate issues’
Wed 13 Mar 2024 19.04 GMT
Green MP Caroline Lucas has accused the government of stoking a culture war on climate issues by calling for more investment in new gas-fired power plants before a general election.
Lucas used an urgent question in the House of Commons to challenge the energy minister, Graham Stuart, on the plans set out on Wednesday, which could see a string of new plants built in the coming years despite the government’s commitment to phase out fossil fuels.
She called on Stuart to admit that “this is the government’s latest attempt to stoke a culture war on climate”. The MP for Brighton Pavilion warned that the plans to encourage more investment in unabated gas power in the 2030s would jeopardise Britain’s climate goals.
The shadow climate change minister, Alan Whitehead, echoed the concerns and accused the government of trying to “conjure a culture war” with energy policy. He challenged Stuart to set out how many new gas plants the government was hoping to build, adding: “There is no mention of that in the 1,500 pages of documents that were published yesterday.”
The government plans to extend the life of many existing power plants, but it estimates it will need to have about 5 gigawatts of new gas power capacity in reserve to provide a limited amount of backup power when renewable energy is in short supply.
There was a rise in new outlets opened by UK chains last year, dominated by coffee drive-throughs, bubble tea shops and fast food restaurants, mostly located outside city centres.
But they were not enough to outweigh the places where chains shut up shop, new figures show.
High profile failures at Wilko, Lloyds pharmacy and Paperchase meant in total there were more closures than openings.
The result was a net decrease of 5,000 in stores across the UK.
Stores were lost at a rate of 14 per day over the year, underlining a long-term trend for both retail and services shifting to online, said accountants PwC, which analysed data compiled by the Local Data Company.
NHS England staff to receive paid leave after miscarriages
1 day ago
NHS England has said any of its staff who miscarry in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy can take 10 days' paid leave.
Partners can take five days. And staff who miscarry after six months will still be offered paid maternity leave.
The policy, adopted by Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust last year, is now being rolled out nationally.
An official for the NHS in Wales said it would consider offering a similar scheme. BBC News has also contacted NHS Scotland and Northern Ireland.
UK workers who miscarry before 24 weeks have no legal right to maternity or parental-bereavement leave - although, a number of large companies, including Tesco, Lidl, John Lewis and Santander, offer it.
Michael Gove names groups under consideration for ‘extremism’ ban
1 minute ago
The government have named a number of groups that will be under consideration for restrictions following the publication of the new “extremism” definition.
The white supremacist group British National Socialist Movement and Patriotic Alternative will be considered as part of a ban on engaging with the government, as well as anti-War on Terror group CAGE , Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) and Muslim Association of Britain, which he says “give rise to concern”.
MEND have been accused of being a front for Islamic extremism after a review of the government’s counter-extremism programme found that the group had “a well-established track record of working alongside extremists” and of “seeking to undermine the state’s considerable efforts to tackle all hate crime”.
Under the new definition, extremism is now defined as “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance” that aims to “negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others” or “undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights”.
The government also says the new version of extremism will “clearly articulate” how extremism is “evidenced” through the public behaviour of extremists.
Michael Matheson breached code of conduct over iPad bill
5 minutes ago
Former Scottish health secretary Michael Matheson has been found to have breached the MSPs code of conduct in relation to a £11,000 bill he racked up on a parliamentary iPad.
Mr Matheson stepped down from his cabinet post last month, citing the investigation as the reason.
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) published its findings on Thursday.
Its full report will be considered by Holyrood's standards committee.
The iPad charges, initially paid out of the public purse, were incurred during a family trip to Morocco in late 2022.
James Heappey becomes latest Tory MP to stand down as he leaves defence post
29 mins ago
James Heappey is set to leave his role as armed forces minister and quit as an MP.
As first reported by The Times, Government sources have confirmed that the Conservative MP for Wells, Somerset, will leave his role at the end of the month.
The veteran has also confirmed in a letter to his constituents that he will stand down from the Commons at the next general election.
He said while it was a “painful decision” not to contest the election, he wanted to “prioritise my family and pursue a different career”.
“After much reflection, I am afraid I have taken the painful decision not to stand as a candidate in the forthcoming general election,” he said in a letter shared on social media on Friday.
Only 10% of flagship levelling up funds spent, say MPs
3 hours ago
Only 10% of funding promised to reduce inequality as part of the levelling up agenda has been spent, MPs have said.
The Public Accounts Committee found ministers were "unable to provide any compelling examples of what levelling up funding has delivered so far".
It also criticised a "worrying lack of transparency" in how cash was allotted.
The government said it expected spending to pick up in later years of the programme, adding: "Buildings don't go up overnight."
But the MPs found that, on average, a bid for funds cost a local authority around £30,000 and that rule changes while bids were being assessed "wasted scarce public resources".
Vaughan Gething is set to be Wales' next first minister after narrowly winning the Welsh Labour leadership election with 51.7% of the vote.
Mr Gething, who will become the first black person to lead Wales, beat his rival Jeremy Miles, who took 48.3%.
He was congratulated by UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
But Plaid Cymru expressed "deep concerns" over donations from a controversial waste company in Cardiff.
Mr Gething's campaign was marred by headlines about £200,000 of cash from Dauson Environmental Group, owned by a man that had twice prosecuted for environmental offences.
Time_Traveller wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2023 11:52 amVodafone and Three agree UK merger to create biggest mobile player worth £15bn
Wednesday 14 June 2023 12:46
A deal that would create the country's biggest mobile phone operator has been struck by Vodafone and the owner of Three UK, CK Hutchison.
The new combined group, which will comprise only their respective UK operations, will be majority-owned by Vodafone with 51% of the equity.
The merger, if approved by regulators, will create a group with a combined 27 million mobile customers.
It would mean that BT-owned EE would lose its number one position in the market by customer numbers. The merger would also see the combined group overtake O2.
But the Competition and Markets Authority is likely to be concerned that the proposal will lead to weaker competition.
Three UK boss piles on pressure for Vodafone merger approval
Mar 21, 2024 12:35pm
The U.K. Communications and Markets Authority (CMA) has set March 22 as the deadline by which it should reach a decision on the first phase of its probe into the proposed merger of Three UK and Vodafone UK — in other words, by the end of this week.
As the CMA indicates, it is by no means certain that a decision will actually be announced by or on this date. However, it seems likely that the two merging partners will soon find out if they will face a more in-depth merger investigation that could last up to 32 weeks.
As they wait, both Vodafone UK and Three UK have availed themselves of the opportunity to hammer home, repeatedly, the message that they will struggle to survive as standalone operators in the face of competition from two large, converged rivals: BT/EE and Virgin Media O2.
Vodafone, for instance, has warned several times that its ambitions for a speedy rollout of a standalone 5G network will be hampered if the merger is not permitted to go ahead — even though it seems that Scotland would not get full 5G SA coverage until 2034 even with the merger.
Bill to ban trophy hunting imports back in front of MPs
4 hours ago
Plans for a ban on the import of animal hunting trophies will return to the Commons later.
The body parts of lions, elephants and zebras killed for sport would no longer be allowed into the UK under a new law proposed by Labour MP John Spellar.
This is the third attempt to get such imports outlawed, following a Tory manifesto commitment in 2019.
But critics say UK MPs should not interfere, as paid-for hunting finances efforts to combat poaching.
Up to 25,000 animal parts have been brought into the UK as hunting trophies since the 1980s, according to the database of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Rwanda trips by UK ministers and officials have already cost over £400,000
Fri 22 Mar 2024 16.34 GMT
Sending ministers and officials to Rwanda has cost the government more than £400,000 before a single deportation flight has taken off, figures show.
Ministers have spent a total of £413,541 on travel in the two years since the policy to send asylum seekers to Kigali started to be developed.
The total, calculated by the Labour party, is based on government transparency releases. It includes trips by senior government officials and a succession of ministers and home secretaries including James Cleverly, Suella Braverman and Priti Patel.
This week it emerged that Cleverly spent £165,561 on chartering a private jet for a one-day trip to sign a new treaty with Rwanda in December. The cost of the flight was published in a transparency document on Thursday.
The shadow immigration minister, Stephen Kinnock, said: “Having clearly decided that committing £600m of taxpayers’ money to the Rwandan government for just 300 refugees wasn’t insulting enough, it now emerges that three home secretaries have blown hundreds of thousands of pounds on their various publicity stunts in Rwanda. This government’s enthusiasm for wasting taxpayers’ money knows no bounds.
wjfox wrote: ↑Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:41 pm
About damn time. It's the 21st century and we still have an unelected upper chamber.
This would be a huge change!
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Keir Starmer: I will abolish House of Lords to ‘restore trust in politics’
Sat 19 Nov 2022 19.30 GMT
Keir Starmer will abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a new elected chamber as part of plans to “restore trust in politics”, the Observer understands.
In a sweeping constitutional overhaul, the Labour leader has told the party’s peers that he wants to strip politicians of the power to make appointments to the Lords as part of the first-term programme of a Labour government. Starmer said that the public’s faith in the political system had been undermined by successive Tory leaders handing peerages to “lackeys and donors”.
It is understood that Labour will hold a consultation on the composition and size of a new chamber as well as immediate reforms to the current appointments process. Final proposals will be included in the party’s next election manifesto.
Carmen Smith: Youngest peer's job is to 'lead' efforts to 'get rid' of House of Lords, Plaid Cymru leader says
Friday 22 March 2024 00:28, UK
The job of the youngest peer in the House of Lords will be to "lead" efforts to "get rid" of it, Plaid Cymru's leader has said.
Baroness Smith, 28, of Llanfaes officially took her seat in the Lords on Wednesday.
Her party's leader Rhun ap Iorwerth told Sky News she would be front and centre of his party's efforts to end the "undemocratic, unelected House of Lords".
"While it exists and Welsh decisions are taken there, while it has influence on legislation that affects Wales, it is simple. We have to be around the table," he said.
Mr ap Iorwerth, 51, was speaking before the party's two-day spring conference in Caernarfon, which begins on Friday.
Bahrain state fund takes full ownership of supercar-maker McLaren
Friday 22 March 2024 08:19, UK
Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund has completed a deal to take full ownership of McLaren Group, one of the most revered names in British manufacturing, after years of negotiations to put the company on a stable long-term footing.
Sky News understands that McLaren will announce later on Friday that the recapitalisation of the supercar manufacturer and Formula One team shareholder has been concluded.
The deal will pave the way for McLaren to pursue a technology partnership with a global automotive giant that could also involve Mumtalakat offloading a minority stake in the Woking-based company.
In a statement issued to Sky News, Paul Walsh, McLaren's executive chairman, said the deal would strengthen the company's governance and ownership structure.
"This will further enable us to focus on delivering our long-term business plan, including investment in new products and technologies, whilst continuing to explore potential technical partnerships with industry partners," said Mr Walsh, the former Diageo chief executive.
