Category: UK News

MPs voted for the government proposals by 435 votes to 73. The bill will now go to the Lords, where it is expected to face tough opposition…reports Asian Lite News

MPs have backed plans to get rid of all hereditary peers from the House of Lords. A bill making its way through Parliament would abolish the 92 seats reserved for peers who inherit their titles through their families. 

MPs voted for the government proposals by 435 votes to 73. The bill will now go to the Lords, where it is expected to face tough opposition. The Conservatives opposed the plans, with shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart claiming the government was “seeking to remove established scrutineers in order to replace them with Labour appointees”. 

But during a debate in the Commons, some MPs also called for the government to go further. Conservative Sir Gavin Williamson put forward proposals for Church of England bishops to be removed from the Lords but these were rejected by MPs. 

He argued it was “fundamentally unfair” for a block of clerics to “have a right and a say over our legislation”. “For me, as someone who is an Anglican, I cannot see why I have a greater right for greater representation than my children who are Catholics,” he said. He added that the 26 bishops in the Lords only come from England and are “probably not reflective of today’s world”. 

SNP MP Pete Wishart said the unelected House of Lords should be abolished completely, adding that “if you represent the people, you should be voted by the people”. He told the Commons the government’s proposals were “pathetic” and “should have been done centuries ago”. 

As well as promising to bring about “immediate modernisation” to the Lords by abolishing hereditary peers, Labour’s general election manifesto pledged to introduce a mandatory retirement age of 80 for members of the upper house. It also said the party was committed to replacing the House of Lords with “an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”. 

But these changes are not included in the bill and the government has not set out a timeline for when they will be delivered. Defending the government’s approach, Cabinet Office minister Ellie Reeves said previous attempts to reform the Lords “all in one go” had failed and the government wanted to see “immediate reform”. 

She added that the government would then consult on how to deliver its other manifesto commitments on the House of Lords. Reeves said the government “values the good work done by hereditary peers” but the bill was “a matter of principle”. 

“In the 21st Century it cannot be right for there to be places in our legislature reserved for those born into certain families,” she told the Commons. Meanwhile, peers were also taking part in their own debate on the issue of Lords reform. Conservative peer Lord True was among those to criticise the government’s plans. 

The shadow leader of the House of Lords argued the aim of the bill was “partisan” removing “88 peers who do not align themselves with Labour and four who do”. He also said the move would cause “great hurt”. 

“The execution will have to be done at close quarters, brushing shoulders in the lobbies as we go to vote for the removal of much-respected colleagues.” Fellow Conservative peer and former cabinet minister Lord Forsyth of Drumlean accused Labour of “a disgraceful piece of political gerrymandering” aimed at “weakening the scrutiny” of the government. “If the party opposite continues with this act of constitutional vandalism they ain’t seen nothing yet,” he warned. 

The job of the House of Lords is to scrutinise the work of government and recommend changes to proposed legislation. Most peers are appointed by the monarch on the prime minister’s advice. The majority of hereditary peers were abolished in 1999 under the last Labour government, leaving only 92 in a compromise deal with the Conservatives. 

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Allies of Starmer’s ex-chief of staff say she has turned down nations and regions role…reports Asian Lite News

 

Sue Gray has decided not to take up the post of nation and regions envoy after it became clear Keir Starmer was planning to withdraw his offer, the Guardian understands. 

Sources said the prime minister’s former chief of staff, who was on a “short break” between roles after standing down almost six weeks ago, had been told No 10 was likely to rescind the job offer before she had even taken it up. 

Downing Street insiders had grown concerned about the media attention that would follow Gray, which could have made it harder for her to carry out the role. They were also unclear about what exactly the job would entail. 

Sources told the Guardian that Starmer, who is in Baku at the Cop29 climate summit, was expected to give Gray a peerage. This would give her the freedom to promote issues that were important to her – including devolution – from the House of Lords. 

One government source said Gray had been told Starmer planned to rescind his offer. “Sue wasn’t told for sure that the job was no longer on offer, but she was warned that was the direction of travel,” they said. “The way some people are behaving towards her is really horrible.” 

Allies of the former senior civil servant had previously told the Guardian she had questions over how much power she would actually have as envoy, and whether she would have sufficient access to the prime minister. However, with speculation swirling over her position, her allies admitted that she had jumped before she was pushed after weeks of prevaricating over the role. 

“Sue has taken a decision not to take the role,” one said. “She’s going to focus on other things. She’s taken time to think about it properly, talking to stakeholders, but ultimately she’s decided she doesn’t want to do it.” 

Starmer’s spokesperson later confirmed that Gray was not taking up the job, presenting it as her choice. “While we would not usually comment on individual members of staff … I can confirm that she has now decided not to take up the role,” she said. 

She indicated that no one else would be put into the job, saying: “I don’t have any immediate plans to update you on as to further recruitment, but to be very clear, resetting our relationships and working with the regions and nations has been at the heart of everything the government does.” Gray had been “uniquely placed for that role”, she added. 

Gray had been a popular choice with regional and national leaders – particularly Labour ones – who credited her with bringing them “into the room” with Starmer, and making sure their views were taken into account. 

However, anxiety that her departure could make it harder to engage with Downing Street appeared to have been unfounded. One regional politician said: “I was very concerned her absence would affect our access to No 10 – she really did make a difference – but that hasn’t happened.” 

Another added: “We had a great relationship with Sue but are relaxed about this because we also have a very good relationship with Morgan and No 10 who seem as committed to mayors and regions as before.” 

Gray resigned as Starmer’s chief of staff after finding herself at the centre of a political storm. Starmer shook up his entire top team after facing intense pressure to put an end to the hostile briefings that had at times overshadowed his first 100 days in office. 

The senior official, who had spent decades as a civil servant and became a household name after Boris Johnson asked her to investigate the Partygate scandal, was replaced as chief of staff by Morgan McSweeney, who masterminded Labour’s general election victory, and with whom she sometimes found herself at odds in government. 

Downing Street announced at the same time that Gray would take on a new government role as the prime minister’s envoy for the regions and nations. Yet she did not attend Starmer’s inaugural gathering of the council of nations and regions, which was intended to reset relationships and boost growth in every part of the UK. 

After her appointment, Gray said she was standing down as chief of staff because it had “become clear to me that intense commentary around my position risked becoming a distraction to the government’s vital work of change”. It is unclear whether she was paid in the interim. 

Starmer’s inaugural gathering of the council of nations and regions, intended to reset relationships and boost growth in every part of the UK, risks being overshadowed by the absence of his new envoy Sue Gray. 

The summit follows a Labour manifesto promise to restructure government by bringing the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland together with regional mayors in England. Starmer will convene it without Gray by his side. 

His former chief of staff was handed the role with responsibility for the nations and regions last weekend after she was sidelined after an internal power struggle in No 10. 

She had been expected to attend the summit in Scotland on Friday but a No 10 source said that she was taking a break between roles. 

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The warning came amid reports that the government is to offer a financial lifeline to protect hospice charities…reports Asian Lite News

Charities have warned of “life-changing consequences” for a million vulnerable children and adults as a result of cuts to state-funded disability services driven by tax changes and wage rises announced in the budget. 

The Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG), which represents 100 charities in England, said Rachel Reeves’s decision to raise employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) had been “ill thought through” and would put many local charity services at risk. 

The warning came amid reports that the government is to offer a financial lifeline to protect hospice charities, who had said the rise in NICs would cost them £30m a year and lead to end-of-life services being cut or even closing. 

VODG, which represents household names like Mencap and Sense as well as scores of smaller disability charities, said the NICs and national minimum wage increases would leave many members having to cut back on staff and services. 

The quality of services for disabled people who are being supported to live independent lives would be reduced, it said. Many disability charities would be forced to hand contracts back to local authorities because services they provide could not be delivered safely on the funding available. 

“Social care is designed to protect the most vulnerable members of our community, and this Labour government is letting them down,” said the VODG chief executive, Rhidian Hughes. 

Nurseries have warned of higher fees to parents and possible closures as a result of the increases to NICs and the minimum wage, which will push the early-years sector “to the brink”, according to the Early Years Alliance (EYA). 

Voluntary sector providers of public services, who unlike the NHS and local authorities are not protected from the impact of the NICs rise, and unlike private companies cannot pass costs on to consumers, say they are increasingly alarmed at the impact of the extra costs on their financial viability. 

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which met the minister for civil society, Stephanie Peacock, last week to discuss the crisis, said more than 7,000 of its member charities had now signed an open letter to the government warning of the “dire situation” facing the voluntary sector as a result of rising costs. 

While the Treasury has so far been adamant it cannot exempt charities and private businesses from NICs rises, the prospect of an exemption for voluntary hospices has given fresh hope to the charity sector that a broader agreement can be reached. 

The sector sees the national insurance rises as the third financial disaster to hit it in the past five years, after Covid and the cost of living crisis. It believes failure to address it could sour attempts to establish what Keir Starmer, the prime minister, earlier this year called a “renewed social contract” with charities. 

The charity sector employs 1 million people and delivers about £17bn of services a year in areas such as social care, addiction, health, homelessness and hospice care. Charities estimate they face an extra bill of £1.4bn as a result of the changes. 

Separately, more than 100 homelessness charities, including Crisis and St Mungo’s, delivered an open letter to Reeves, the chancellor, on Monday warning the NICs rises could take up to £60m a year from frontline services such as street outreach, emergency beds and supported housing. 

Rick Henderson, the chief executive of Homeless Link, which organised the letter, said he had “rarely seen the sector as angry and frightened” as they were by the planned NICs rise. “It is a very real threat that could impact thousands of people who are currently homeless or threatened with homelessness, leaving them without support,” he said. 

An online survey of 1,000 nurseries in England found that 95% of EYA members were likely to have to increase fees to cover the extra costs, while two in five (40%) were likely to close permanently without additional support from the government to cover increased costs. 

The sector is working to deliver the biggest expansion in its history, as it implements the government’s funded childcare scheme. Working parents of children over the age of nine months are now able to access 15 hours of government-funded childcare, increasing to up 30 hours a week for eligible families from next September. 

Assisted dying bill has strict safeguards, MP says 

A historic bill to legalise assisted dying will set out hardline safeguards, including lengthy prison sentences for coercion and powers for judges to cross-examine patients. 

The Labour MP Kim Leadbeater said she believed she had put forward “the best possible legislation” but warned wavering MPs that parliament may not get another chance to vote again on the issue for another decade. 

She pledged it would contain the “strictest protections and safeguards of any legislation anywhere in the world” amid growing concerns from some MPs over the potential for mission creep and coercion. 

The bill is expected to run to 40 pages – believed to be one of the longest ever private members’ bills – and Leadbeater will stress to colleagues over the coming days that the bill has been the subject of exhaustive consultation. 

But critics in parliament have raised alarm about the process of the bill, which has limited time for debate, and many have significant concerns about the potential for undue pressure and the risk of the scope of the bill widening under legal challenges. 

Some critics of the bill however have said there are still questions over the safeguards – and have said there must be provisions against “doctor shopping” if patients do not get the preferred answer from their first choice of medic. 

They are also expecting to ask questions as to whether a six-month prognosis includes those refusing treatment and whether doctors will have an assumption of mental capacity. An even more hardline approach would require a patient to be cross-examined in court by an advocate who would put the case before a judge for refusing the procedure. 

Leadbeater saidthe vote on 29 November would be just the first step and would allow the bill to receive further scrutiny at later stages. 

In comments responding to criticism over the lack of scrutiny of the bill, Leadbeater said it had been a “through and robust process” involving medical and legal experts, the palliative care and hospice sectors, and disability rights activists and faith leaders, as well as those with personal experience of watching a loved one die in difficult circumstances. 

She said MPs still had three weeks to look at the bill before debate and added: “I hope MPs will agree with me that we can offer the safest choice to those who want it at the end of their lives, while at the same time working to make our already excellent palliative care provision even better and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, mental illness and other challenges to have all the support and care they need throughout their lives,” she said. 

The pro-assisted dying side in parliament has an organised system, with designated MPs running the numbers for each of the parliamentary intakes. Those who have seen the most recent tallies say there are a number of members they expect to make final decisions within days of seeing the bill. 

“For some it is a principle about not saying yes until they have seen the legislation,” one supportive MP said. 

MPs with concerns about the process and potential widening of the scope of the legislation are being invited this week to meet Dr Sally Talbot, one of the architects of assisted dying in Western Australia and currently a member of the panel undertaking review of the law. 

Those opposed have been hosting events with a number of disabled parliamentarians who oppose the changes, including the peer Tanni Grey-Thompson and Pam Duncan-Glancy, a Scottish Labour MSP, as well as academics and lawyers who have concerns about the process. 

There are believed to be at least 100 Labour MPs who remain undecided and both sides say the numbers are a real unknown, with a significant number declining to attend any of the parliamentary events run from either side. 

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