New hosepipe ban as map shows areas affected

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Large areas of Devon will be hit by a hosepipe ban from next week despite weeks of heavy rain across the county. Last summer’s drought is being blamed for the continuing low water levels in some reservoirs across Devon and Cornwall.

Guy Henderson www.devonlive.com

Water levels at the huge Roadford reservoir are currently at just 66 per cent full, and all parts of the county served by Roadford will see the hosepipe ban come into force at a minute past midnight on Tuesday April 25. South West Water took out a full-page advertisement in our sister paper the Western Morning News today to announce the news.

The ban is on hosepipes, sprinklers and automatic irrigation systems, and covers watering gardens, washing cars and filling ponds, paddling pools and fountains. Householders will not be able to use hosepipes to clean walls, windows, paths or patios, but they can use buckets and watering cans instead, as long as they don’t use hosepipes to fill them.

There are exceptions for health and safety reasons, for commercial gardens and for filling and maintaining certain pools, including those used for medical treatment.

A spokesman for South West Water said: “Our region remains officially in drought and a hosepipe ban has been in place for Cornwall and a small part of North Devon since August 2022. To further ensure our reservoir levels’ recovery, and in accordance with our drought plan, we will be introducing a Temporary Use Ban throughout other parts of Devon on April 25.

The area in pink – served by Roadford – is subject to the hosepipe ban

“The South West Water region is still seeing the impact of last year’s exceptionally dry weather and reservoir levels are lower than normal for this time of year. South West Water is acting now to protect water resources and the environment, to help rivers and reservoirs to recharge ahead of the summer months.”

SWW says reservoir levels are recovering across the two counties, but remain lower than this time last year. At Roadford – between Okehampton and Launceston – the water level is at 66 per cent, whereas at this time last year it was 96 per cent. Colliford, on Bodmin Moor, is at 60 per cent, as opposed to 79 percent in April 2022. Wimbleball on Exmoor, however, is 100 per cent full, as are the Kennick, Tottiford and Trenchford reservoirs on Dartmoor.

The spokesman continued: “Our customers’ actions to save water really are making an extraordinary difference to the rate of this recovery. We continue to work closely with the National Drought Group and all relevant agencies to ensure comprehensive plans are in place to manage water resources throughout 2023.

“You really are making an extraordinary difference. We are grateful to all our customers and communities for their efforts in reducing daily water usage over the drought period.

“We must ask you to keep saving water where you can, so that our water resources can recover sufficiently for the spring and summer ahead.”

The most regrettable – indeed dangerous – consequence of the government’s “living with Covid” approach is that it leaves the country so poorly prepared for the next pandemic, or indeed a recrudescence of Covid, such as via the Arcturus coronavirus subvariant that is now emerging.

Editorial www.independent.co.uk 

As our package of reports highlights, there is worrying evidence that the authorities are taking unacceptable risks with public health. Sad to say, it is as if Britain has learned nothing from the initial response to the coronavirus crisis in the spring of 2020. Have we really learned so little, and forgotten so much?

While the return to normality – thanks to the combined efforts of the NHS, the public compliance with the emergency lockdowns and the vaccines – is obviously welcome, Covid has not gone away. Far from it.

People are still being hospitalised, even as milder variants have come into circulation, and new strains, variants and subvariants will continue to evolve. Some may be less damaging to human health than previous ones but some may be more so, either because they are more infectious or more inherently lethal, more vaccine evasive, or any combination of those factors.

In the case of the Arcturus subvariant of Omicron, also known as subvariant XBB.1.16, it seems the issue is one of infectivity and of pathogenicity – that is to say, its capacity to harm a larger number of individuals, and each one more severely.

Virologists have told The Independent that the Arcturus variant is responsible for a surge of 10,000 new Covid cases a day in India: it could easily become the dominant strain in the UK. Even if the effects on mortality were relatively small, the arrival of Arcturus could well mean an increase in hundreds of cases per day, with corresponding incremental pressure on the NHS.

What of future variants? The next virus, zoonotic or otherwise? Perhaps that will be even more infectious and more lethal than its predecessors. The recent concerns about avian flu should remind all concerned that the intrusion of humans and their livestock into the habitats of wild animals, most notably in “wet” markets, is a constant threat to human life as well as to agriculture.

Are the Department of Health and Social Care, the devolved administrations and the UK Health Security Agency doing all that is required to monitor the situation and prepare for the worst? On that, there is some cause for concern. The fact is that a pandemic on the scale of the recent Covid outbreaks may not necessarily be a once-in-a-generation or once-a-century event. In fact, the next one could come much sooner, and be even more devastating. We are underprepared.

According to some of the most respected experts in the field, the UK has moved too rapidly to dismantle the infrastructure that was eventually built up, at enormous cost, during the pandemic.

Some would say the world has been through many such scares in recent decades, and nothing came of them – but that is partly because vigilance and rapid actions prevented a more widespread outbreak. The coronavirus also demonstrates that the experts aren’t always “crying wolf”.

Yet, despite recent traumas, the government has decided to disband tracking systems, including the Covid survey, and mothball testing labs. It also intends to sell off the UK Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre – before it had even opened. It seems a long time now since Boris Johnson was championing the UK’s world-leading work on Covid vaccines as a symbol of Global Britain’s scientific prowess.

Overlaying all of this is the inescapable fact that the NHS is in an even more vulnerable position than it was three years ago. Today there is also a disturbing wave of wild misinformation on social media about the lockdowns being unnecessary, the Covid vaccines being unsafe, and even that the entire pandemic was merely some exercise in mass control, even though the mass control has been all but abandoned. Such absurd conspiracy theories are being put around with scant effort to contest them. Again, this is a further risk to public health.

To all of this, ministers may simply shrug and plead lack of funds. The public services, including the NHS, have to contend with a formidable range of more immediate challenges than the inchoate possibilities of a new pandemic. This is patently true, but we have only to reflect on the vast cost – at least £400bn – of the last pandemic to Britain to understand the force of the old medical adage about prevention being better than cure.

The Liberal Democrats have called for an investigation after accusing the Prime Minister of flouting purdah rules by making a policy announcement in the run-up to local elections.

Nina Lloyd www.independent.co.uk 

Christine Jardine MP said she is “deeply concerned” that the move breaches the Government’s own guidance on the pre-election period of sensitivity.

Purdah rules restrict what communications activity can take place in the weeks before polling day.

Government resources cannot be used for party political campaigning and particular care is meant to be taken in the run-up to an election to ensure the impartiality of the civil service.

In a letter addressed to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case on Monday, Ms Jardine called for an investigation to be opened “immediately” into the Government’s “maths to 18” announcement.

The plans, outlined in a speech by Rishi Sunak at a north London college, would see all pupils studying the subject in some form up to the age of 18.

“I am highly concerned that this announcement is breaching purdah rules. As you will be aware, we are now in the pre-election ‘purdah’ period, which began on Thursday 13 April in relation to local elections in England,” the Lib Dem’s Cabinet Office spokesperson wrote.

“Today’s announcement on mathematics has been fully supported by Government resources, including a Downing Street press release. Education is also clearly an area of relevant importance to local authorities and, accordingly, a local election campaign.

“I am therefore very concerned that the purdah rules have been breached by the Government in regards to this announcement.

“I therefore urge you to open an investigation as to whether this announcement breached purdah rules. If concerns were expressed by officials, were they ignored by Conservative ministers?”

Labour MP Angela Eagle also hit out in a tweet: “This (Government) completely ignores all the purdah rules”.

Purdah rules apply to new policy announcements but the Lib Dems had issued a statement hours earlier describing Monday’s pledge as a “rehashed” plan.

Other critics including Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, accused Mr Sunak of “reannouncing” a “vague and poorly thought-out policy” first set out in January.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters the Government ensured that announcements were within the rules.

“We are aware of the rules that guide local election purdah and abide by them,” the spokesman said.

Probe comes after questions over Sunak’s wife’s stake in a childcare business set to benefit from Budget announcements.

The list of ministerial interests is long overdue for publication, having not been updated for almost 12 months. In February, Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden promised the Commons it would come before next month. I.e. Before the Local elections – better hurry up – Owl

“This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.” Rishi Sunak

John Johnston www.politico.eu

LONDON — Rishi Sunak is being investigated for a potential breach of the MP code of conduct amid scrutiny of his wife’s stake in a childcare firm that received a boost in last month’s Budget.

The parliamentary standards commissioner — tasked with policing MP behavior — announced Monday that it had opened an investigation under paragraph six of the code, which says MPs “must always be open and frank in declaring any relevant interest” they hold.

Although the watchdog does not detail the specific interest under investigation, the prime minister has recently faced questions over his wife Akshata Murty’s stake in childcare business Koru Kids following a £4bn boost for the sector in last month’s Budget.

A Downing Street spokesperson said Monday: “We are happy to assist the commissioner to clarify how this has been transparently declared as a ministerial interest.”

 Sunak wrote to the House of Commons liaison committee earlier this month saying his interest in the firm had been declared in the yet-to-be-published list of ministerial interests. It is not currently listed in the separate register of interests filled out by each MP.

The list of ministerial interests is long overdue for publication, having not been updated for almost 12 months. In February, Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden promised the Commons it would come before next month.

 In the committee letter, written on 4 April, Sunak noted “media interest” in his wife’s “minority stake” in the firm, adding: “I would like to clarify for the parliamentary record that this interest has rightly been declared to the Cabinet Office.”

 He added: “The latest list of ministerial interests will be published shortly by the independent adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus.”

Koru Kids is expected to benefit from new incentive payments of £600 for childminders joining the profession, a sum which doubles if they have signed up through an agency.

 The firm, which is one of six agencies listed on the government’s website, praised the “great” new incentive on their own site, adding childminders would receive double if they “come through an agency like Koru Kids who offer community, training and ongoing support.”

News of the probe was seized on by Labour, with Deputy Leader Angela Rayner saying of the register of ministers’ interests: “If Rishi Sunak has got nothing to hide, he should commit to publishing the register before May’s elections so the public can see for themselves.”

Labour’s Keir Starmer has faced his own recent brush with the MP code of conduct.

Last summer the standards commissioner found that the opposition leader failed to declare eight interests on time. The watchdog concluded that the breaches were “minor and/or inadvertent, and that there was no deliberate attempt to mislead.”

Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.