“Rishi Sunak is drawing up plans for a radical reform of A-levels with a new style of British baccalaureate under which children would study more subjects after the age of 16. As part of his pledge to unveil a series of long-term decisions to “change” Britain, the prime minister is expected to set out proposals to move towards a more continental-style system of education. Under the reforms being drawn up…children would be required to study a wider range of subjects in post-16 education, and English and maths would become compulsory up until the age of 18. The proposals are partly in response to the prime minister’s commitment that all children should study…maths up to the age of 18. It is not possible to meet that commitment under the existing A-level system.” – The Times
“Rishi Sunak’s changes to net zero policy can help the Conservative Party win the next general election, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has said. The Prime Minister yesterday postponed a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035 while also announcing some households will be exempt from the forthcoming oil and gas boiler ban. Sir Jacob, a former business secretary, told GB News: “I think these changes could win the Conservatives the next election. The Prime Minister’s announcements are so encouraging. He’s putting the interests of consumers, of the British people, first.”… During an interview at an agricultural college in Essex this lunchtime, Mr Sunak said that people with “more ideological zeal” about climate change “just don’t care about the impact on families”…” – The Daily Telegraph
>Today:
>Yesterday:
“My take is that while in one sense the timing of Sunak’s change of gear is good — in that it’s never wrong to make the right argument — in another it’s terrible, because the best time to do so is going into opposition, with four years to develop your case, rather than three years in to a fourth term of government. Furthermore, he risks his case being written off as tactics, rather than strategy — a cynical gambit to put Labour on the spot after the Ulez row. No 10 is well aware that if the next election is framed as Conservative v Labour the latter will win, if only because voters believe that the former have had their time. But if it comes to be seen as Change v Sir Keir Starmer, then Downing Street hopes the terms of trade will change.” – The Times
>Yesterday:
“Kemi Badenoch has suggested that former net zero tsar Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park is too rich to understand the need to soften a string of flagship climate commitments. The Business Secretary implied the ex-Foreign Office minister is out of touch with ordinary people because he has “way more money than pretty much everyone in the UK”. Lord Goldsmith, a Tory environmentalist who resigned his ministerial post in June with a scathing attack on Rishi Sunak’s climate “apathy”, is among several high-profile Conservatives to publicly criticise the shock net zero shake-up. The Prime Minister has said he will scale back a series of green measures to spare the public the “unacceptable costs” of the transition.” – The Daily Telegraph
“Four in every five vehicles sold must be electric by the end of the decade, ministers have told car bosses, despite Rishi Sunak’s decision to delay a ban on new petrol sales. Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, is understood to have told companies building charging points that the Government is pressing ahead with the so-called zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which sets sales targets that ramp up each year. The mandate will require 22pc of cars sold by manufacturers to be electric from next year. By 2030, the quota will gradually rise to 80pc. Carmakers that cannot hit the annual targets must either sell more electric vehicles in future years, purchase credits from rivals, or pay a fine of £15,000 per car.” – The Daily Telegraph
“Labour will not reverse Rishi Sunak’s changes to the phaseout of fossil fuel boilers, the party said on Thursday, in a sign of the acute political sensitivities around heating policy. A spokesperson for Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, confirmed the opposition party would follow Sunak in weakening UK targets for moving households to lower-carbon heating alternatives. Labour’s decision not to challenge the Conservative prime minister’s weakened goals is in contrast to its pledge to reverse the government’s five-year delay on the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars. The move highlights how fraught Britain’s move away from fossil fuel heating has become and mirrors the political challenges around net zero targets in other countries.” – The Financial Times
>Yesterday:
“If Sunak goes to Whitehall and asks why money is being squandered to no real purpose, what might be next for the chop? He sees this as lobbyists vs taxpayers and is happy with the fight. All this cuts to the core of who Sunak is as a person and a politician. If he has an -ism, it’s tradeoff-ism: a belief in being frank about the costs and benefits of policies, of being honest about the price that will be paid and sacrifices made. Failure to level with voters, he thinks, isn’t being strategic or naughty: it’s just fraud. Organised deceit. It’s what he has come into politics to confront, rather than perpetuate. He has a word for it: “fairy tales” that politicians tell. Promises that are mirages and corrode public trust.” – The Daily Telegraph
“Jeremy Hunt has said that tax cuts ahead of November’s Autumn Statement are “virtually impossible” and has warned that he faces difficult decisions. The Chancellor said there was no “extra headroom” to cut taxes, because of the need to prioritise the pledge to halve inflation this year to a level of around 5.3 per cent. The Bank of England decided not to put up interest rates on Thursday, ending a run of 14 successive increases and raising the prospect that they may have peaked. The decision to hold rates at 5.25 per cent means the amount of interest the Government has to pay on its debt will be lower than previously forecast – raising the possibility that the Treasury will have more to spare for tax cuts.” – The Daily Telegraph
“The cost of building HS2 is “getting totally out of control”, the chancellor has admitted, amid speculation over the high-speed rail line’s future. Jeremy Hunt told LBC that he understood concerns from some Tory MPs in the north and the Midlands over whether the project would be cancelled or scaled back. But he said MPs in the so-called red wall “will also be worried if we have an infrastructure project where the costs are getting totally out of control”. It has been suggested, according to a leaked photograph published by The Independent, that the government is considering scrapping the Birmingham to Manchester leg in an effort to save £35 billion, despite £2.3 billion having already been ploughed into stage two, which includes that part of the leg.” – The Times
“Artificial intelligence is developing too fast for regulators to keep up, the UK’s deputy prime minister is to announce as he aims to galvanise other countries to take the threat seriously in advance of the UK’s AI safety summit in November. Oliver Dowden will use a speech at the UN general assembly on Friday to sound the alarm over the lack of regulation of AI, which he says is developing faster than many policymakers thought possible. Dowden will urge other countries to come together to create an international regulatory system, something the UK is keen to promote when it hosts the summit at Bletchley Park… Dowden’s comments reflect growing concern at the top of the British government over the possibility that cutting-edge technology could be used for harm.” – The Guardian
“Big reforms to the UK pension system, expected to boost the retirement pots of young workers by tens of thousands of pounds, may not be implemented until 2025, warn experts. Young adults joining the workforce at 18 years old were identified as the biggest winners from changes enacted by the UK government this week. Under the reforms, the age at which employers are obliged to enrol eligible workers automatically into a company pension will reduce from 22 to 18. In addition, under the changes, minimum pension contributions from both employers and employees will gradually increase to 8 per cent of earnings from the first £1 of salary, rather than being based on 8 per cent of earnings over £6,240 per year, as is the case today. “ – The Financial Times
“Civil servants have complained about a government crackdown on working from home. Jeremy Quin, the Paymaster General, told mandarins at a Cabinet Office meeting they are expected to return to their desks after officials raised concerns about plans to scale down remote working. The senior minister argued there are real benefits to being in the office, especially for younger colleagues, while teams are likely to work better face to face. He made the comments, first reported by Politico, during a “fireside chat” with permanent secretary Alex Chisholm at an all-staff meeting at the Queen Elizabeth II centre in Westminster on Thursday. Officials attending in person and dialling in remotely were invited to submit queries…with many asking about working from home…” – The Daily Telegraph
“Yobs will be forced to clean rubbish off beaches under a community payback drive. Ministers want offenders to “give back to society” by picking up wet wipes and bottles from Britain’s blighted coastlines. Thugs given unpaid work orders will be sent out in high-vis jackets emblazoned with “Community Payback” so residents can see justice being done. Between them louts will put in more than a thousand hours of graft over 10 days this month as part of the Great British Beach Clean. The Probation Service has teamed up with the Marine Conservation Society to put offenders to work. More than 50,000 unpaid work requirements are handed out by courts each year for criminals guilty of theft, damage and drunken disorder.” – The Sun
“Hundreds of British Army tanks and armoured vehicles could contain asbestos, the Ministry of Defence has admitted. Ministers confirmed Challenger 2 tanks, Warrior infantry fighting vehicles and Bulldog armoured personnel carriers, all of which are still in use, have asbestos containing materials (ACMs). Asbestos was used throughout the twentieth century in the construction of tanks, ships and planes. The naturally occurring material breaks down into tiny fibres when disturbed and prolonged exposure can lead to incurable damage of the lungs. Symptoms of asbestosis — a severe scarring of the lungs, or mesothelioma, a cancer — can occur years after exposure to asbestos. In total, 2,699 pieces of equipment owned by the army contain ACMs.” – The Times
“Rupert Murdoch has been accused of doing “enormous damage to the democratic world” by a former Australian prime minister, as senior political figures in his country of birth greet news of the mogul stepping down as chair of his media empire with scepticism. Malcolm Turnbull, a former Liberal prime minister and advocate for a royal commission into the Murdoch media empire, said the media mogul had created an “anger-tainment ecosystem” that had left the US “angrier and more divided than it’s been at any time since the civil war”. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, described Murdoch as a “controversial but influential” figure… Turnbull, who served as prime minister from 2015 to 2018, is a longstanding critic of Murdoch…” – The Guardian
“Leading Conservatives have launched a new attack on Sir Keir Starmer for wanting to “rejoin the EU in all but name” after the Labour leader said he did not want Britain to diverge from EU rules. Starmer last weekend told the Financial Times at a conference in Montreal that he wanted to rewrite Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal with the EU, which he said was “far too thin” and he wanted a “closer trading relationship”. The Labour leader also said at a public session at the same centre-left forum that he would not undercut the EU by diverging from key standards, a comment which drew little attention at the time…Although Labour said this was not a new policy, footage of the comments…were seized upon by Tories as new evidence of Starmer’s increasingly warm approach to the EU.” – The Financial Times
“Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has vowed to prevent a repeat of last year’s disastrous mini-Budget by beefing up the powers of the UK’s fiscal watchdog, declaring: “Never again.” Reeves, writing in the Financial Times, said a Labour government would strengthen Britain’s fiscal architecture as part of an effort to prove she would be responsible with the public finances. She said Labour would legislate to guarantee that any future chancellor making significant tax and spending changes would be subject to an independent forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility. Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget, presented on September 23 2022, contained £45bn of unfunded tax cuts but was not accompanied by the usual OBR forecasts, which added to market concern.” – The Financial Times
“The Liberal Democrats have become the first party to commit to keeping the pensions triple lock beyond the next election, in an effort to win over Tory heartlands. The party will commit to the mechanism in an early version of its manifesto document, due to be published at its conference this weekend. It comes after Rishi Sunak in the Commons last week refused to guarantee that the triple lock would remain in place beyond next year. Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, also refused to tie her party to the policy after the next election… The Liberal Democrats’ commitment to the triple lock is likely to put pressure on both Labour and the Conservatives to clarify whether they will follow suit.” – The Daily Telegraph