Apparently our Prime Minister, who pledged that “this government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”, is “confused” about the rules on declaring financial interests.

He seems to have confused the concept of registration with the concept of declaration, a concept most of our councillors seem to understand and apply. – Owl

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak failed to correctly declare his wife’s financial interest in a childminding agency, the MPs watchdog has ruled.

By Damian Grammaticas and Kate Whannel www.bbc.co.uk

Daniel Greenberg, parliamentary commissioner for standards, said this arose out of “confusion” about the rules and was “inadvertent”.

In a letter to Mr Greenberg, Mr Sunak said he accepted the ruling and apologised.

The inquiry is now closed and the PM will not face further action.

A complaint was submitted to Mr Greenberg following Mr Sunak’s appearance before MPs on the Commons Liaison Committee in March.

During the session, the prime minister was questioned about his policy to provide payments to encourage people who became childminders. The cash would be doubled for those who signed up through six private childcare firms listed on the UK government’s website, with the money being used to cover the firms’ fees.

Mr Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty was a shareholder in one of those private firms, Koru Kids but when asked if he had any declarations to make Mr Sunak said “no, all my disclosures are declared in the normal way”.

Following an investigation, Mr Greenberg said he had concluded that Ms Murty’s shareholding was a relevant interest that should have been declared to MPs.

The commissioner said that, even if Mr Sunak had not been aware of the shareholding at the time of his appearance before the committee, he was aware of it when he later wrote a letter to the Committee chairman Sir Bernard Jenkin to clarify things and should, at that stage, have declared it.

Mr Sunak had recorded the shareholding under arrangements for ministers to declare their interests. That record is not publicly declared but held by civil servants.

Some of these interests are made public on the list of ministers’ interests. The independent adviser on ministers’ interests advises on which interests need to be included in this publicly-available list.

Mr Sunak said three different independent advisers had told him his wife’s shareholdings did not need to be added.

Mr Greenberg said he accepted Mr Sunak believed that, by registering the interest, he had complied with his obligations, and so did not declare it in his letter to Sir Bernard Jenkin.

He added that Mr Sunak “had confused the concept of registration with the concept of declaration” and so the “the failure to declare arose out of this confusion and was accordingly inadvertent on the part of Mr Sunak”.

Mr Greenberg said he was concluding his inquiry using what is called the “rectification procedure” – a process used to correct minor failures to declare interests.

It means the commissioner stops short of submitting a full report to MPs on the Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges for them to consider any possible further action.

Replying to Mr Greenberg, Mr Sunak said that during the Liaison Committee hearing he had “no idea” of the connection between Koru Kids and his government’s childcare policy.

“It was was only after the hearing that I became aware of the link, as set out in my subsequent letter to Sir Bernard, the Chair of the Liaison Committee.

“I now understand that my letter to Sir Bernard was not sufficiently expansive regarding declaration (as distinct from registration)… On reflection, I accept your opinion that I should have used the letter to declare the interest explicitly… I apologise for these inadvertent errors and confirm acceptance of your proposal for rectification.”

“Here in Devon, the rise of Airbnb and short-term lets has priced people out of their communities. LibDems have warned of the effect this is having on the rental market, now is the time for Ministers to act to stop our communities being hollowed out.” – Richard Foord comments on Devon Housing Commission.

Prompting this reply from Jack Earnshaw: “No chance! Half the lets owned by ministers or their friends. Little oiks like us can go to hell.”

Nothing on the subject from Simon Jupp, probably still perambulating around Cullompton handing out leaflets explaining Tory plans for Honiton and Sidmouth.

Britain’s policymakers have been put on recession alert after a closely watched measure of economic health showed the UK gripped by a Europe-wide slump in private sector activity.

Larry Elliott www.theguardian.com

In a sign that higher interest rates are now leading to a rapid slowdown in growth as well as choking off inflation, the latest monthly business health checks showed weakness in the UK services and manufacturing sectors and the poorest performance since the lockdown in early 2021.

Problems in Britain were mirrored in the eurozone, where activity has dropped to its lowest level since November 2020. Germany, the single currency’s biggest economy, is being particularly hard hit by the slump in demand for its manufactured goods.

The warnings of problems ahead were flagged up by surveys of purchasing managers, seen as a good guide to future trends in the economy. The surveys use 50 as the cutoff point between growth and contraction.

The UK’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) conducted by S&P and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply fell from 50.8 in July to 47.9 in August. Service sector activity fell from 51.5 to 48.7, while the manufacturing PMI fell from 45.3 to 42.5.

Chris Williamson, the chief business economist at S&P global market intelligence, said: “The early PMI survey for August suggests that inflation should moderate further in the months ahead but also indicates that the fight against inflation is carrying a heavy cost in terms of heightened recession risks.

“A renewed contraction of the economy already looks inevitable, as an increasingly severe manufacturing downturn is accompanied by a further faltering of the service sector’s spring revival. The survey is indicative of GDP declining by 0.2% over the third quarter so far.”

Williamson said companies were feeling the impact of Britain’s cost of living crisis, lower export demand, higher interest rates and fears about the economic outlook. Firms were seeing their ability to raise prices curbed and inflation was on course to drop to 4% in the months ahead.

“A further pullback in hiring in August, meanwhile, indicates that the labour market is losing steam, which should feed through to lower wage pressures. While a further hike in interest rates in September looks to be on the cards, the August PMI data will add to speculation that rates could soon peak.”

The PMI for the eurozone, conducted by Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCB), showed overall business activity slipping from 48.6 in July to 47.0 in August. The services PMI fell from 50.9 to 48.3, while the manufacturing PMI rose slightly from 42.7 to 43.7.

Cyrus de la Rubia, the chief economist at HCB, said: “The service sector of the eurozone is unfortunately showing signs of turning down to match the poor performance of manufacturing.

“Indeed, service companies reported shrinking activity for the first time since the end of last year, while output in manufacturing dropped again. Considering the PMI figures in our GDP nowcast leads us to the conclusion that the eurozone will shrink by 0.2% in the third quarter.”

Supported housing planned for the site of the former Crossways shopping centre in Paignton will never see the light of day.

It’s what happens when the Tories regain power.

Developers know best! – Owl

Guy Henderson, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

Instead a new developer will be sought to come up with fresh ideas for the town centre location, which is likely to include affordable housing and possibly flats for key workers.

The derelict shopping centre had been earmarked for extra care and sheltered housing accommodation under the former Liberal Democrat/Independent coalition running Torbay Council. The council had planned to build the new development and then put it in the hands of someone else.

But the new Conservative administration – in place since the elections in May – has no plans to undertake construction itself and will instead seek a developer.

Deputy council leader Chris Lewis (Con, Preston) said: “The council is here to provide services, not to build houses and factories.

“We’re here to help other people do that.”

Torbay Council made a compulsory purchase of the crumbling sixties’ shopping centre in 2021, and planning permission has been given for 90 housing units as well as commercial space on the ground floor.

Bulldozers moved in earlier this year and the centre has been largely razed to the ground.

TorVista Homes, a company the council owns, had been expected to become the owner of the completed properties, which would have been affordable housing for local people.

But Cllr Lewis said: “The project that went through the planning committee cannot be delivered.

The finances to build it simply don’t stack up.”

He said it would cost the council £10 million to proceed with the approved scheme; money it does not have.

“We can’t go ahead with a shortfall like that,” he added. “We are talking to developers about coming up with a new scheme, but it’s early days.

“It takes time to get an investor, an end user and the support of the council.”

Social media commentators have been speculating that Crossways could end up bulldozed but left as an empty site for years to come.

But Cllr Lewis said he was hopeful that would not happen.

“We will do everything possible to deliver something on that site,” he said. “It’s a good site.

“The previous plans did not stack up, but there will be plans that do stack up.

“People are all talking doom and gloom, but we have only just taken on the job.

“Judge us after four years, not four months.”

Eel experts say they are shocked to find no evidence of eels in the Somerset Levels, which once teemed with the critically endangered fish.

Helena Horton www.theguardian.com

DNA sampling by the Sustainable Eel Group and Somerset Eel Recovery Project found no traces of eel DNA.

The Levels are a unique flat landscape that extend throughout the north and centre of Somerset, comprising 69,000 hectares (170,000 acres) of wetland and coastal plain land. While once it was marshland wilderness, it has been drained and farmed by humans since ancient times – drainage of the Levels has been detected before the Domesday Book was written.

They were also once a hotspot for eels, and anglers fishing for bream and roach gave small eels the nickname “bootlaces” as they tangled around their lines, knotting them. They were even once used as currency in Somerset; in the 12th century, tenants of Glastonbury Abbey were expected to pay the monks 14,000 eels a year in rent.

Experts believe barriers in the wetlands, built to keep water back from farmland and homes, are the reason there are no eels in the drains of the Levels.

Using the DNA sampling company NatureMetrics, the eel campaigners took water samples that were filtered and tested for fragments of eel DNA.

Andrew Kerr, chair of the Sustainable Eel Group, said: “We were very, very surprised to see no evidence of European eel in the Somerset Levels. Off the River Axe, there is an incredible network of drains built by man to drain the Somerset Levels. And we thought we would find eels throughout the whole area.

“Something like 100 million eels a year come up the Bristol Channel, going into the Parrett and the Somerset Levels and then on up the Severn, all the way up to Wales. And just as there are 1.3m barriers to fish migration in the rivers of Europe, the Somerset Levels are full of barriers, but we thought all these drains that surround the area of Wedmore, one of the great Somerset Levels, would be full of eels.”

While they found eels in varying quantities in the rivers feeding the Levels, there were none in the complex drainage systems of the wetland areas.

“In the drainage ditches, we found no eel DNA. The river simply isn’t feeding the eels into the levels, because they cannot cross the barriers,” said Kerr.

He also blamed an electric pumping station for killing the eels: “The drainage system is separate from the river system and is separated by barriers and walls and a great big pumping station.

“That electric pumping station has been there for 50 years. But obviously there were eels behind those walls before it went in, and eels have a lifecycle of 10 to 20 years, it takes some time for the pumps to kill them all. And that’s obviously what happened. We were very shocked to find no eel in that latticework of drains, its ideal habitat.”

Kerr is not calling for all the barriers to be removed and the farmland flooded, but for the water network to be made more eel-friendly with solutions to the barriers. “Nobody would expect you to turn it into a wilderness because you’d lose all that productive farmland. But what we have to do is find solutions to the blocked migration pathways.”

Ali Morse, water policy manager for The Wildlife Trusts, told the Guardian: “The Somerset Levels have been a stronghold for eels for thousands of years, but illegal fishing and the loss of wetland habitat have contributed to catastrophic declines. It is estimated that populations have decreased by as much as 90% since the 1980s. Somerset Wildlife Trust and partners are working hard to give eels a future in the Levels, including through release programmes and targeted reedbed management. It is critical we create and restore wetlands to give eels and other wildlife that depend on this vital habitat a future.”

Next week, the Sustainable Eel group will work with local people from Somerset to weave traditional ropes, which can be slung over the barriers. The idea is for the eels to slither up the ropes, over the barriers, and migrate.

Kerr said: “We are building a great deal of local interest in eel. And that’s what’s triggering all this because the locals want their eels back. We’ve managed to connect them to their history and their tradition. And they’ve obviously are aware of it and frustrated that so little has been done, given the scale of the problem.”

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Natural England, have been contacted for comment.

Planners have thrown out a proposal to store energy batteries in a field in East Devon for a second time over safety fears.

Alison Stephenson www.midweekherald.co.uk 

Members of East Devon District Council’s planning committee are not convinced that enough measures have been put in place to prevent a “catastrophe” should an explosion, fire or pollution incident occur.

The fire service, despite having no objections, commented on the lack of detail and councillors say they have “grave concerns” about enough water being available to fight a fire as no fire hydrants are nearby.

Neither is there sufficient holding capacity to prevent contaminated water from lithium batteries entering local rivers and an ‘aquifer’ which sits below the site and stores groundwater for domestic purposes.

A previous application for a battery energy storge system (BESS) on land at Hawkchurch to the north east of Axminster National Grid Sub Station by Enso Energy was turned down in February due to it not being low carbon, as well as insufficient information on safety and its impact on the landscape. This is now the subject of a planning appeal which will be heard in two weeks’ time.

Councillors criticised the new “almost identical” new plan and turned it down by eight votes (with two abstentions) saying they would let a planning appeal decide its fate.

An expert for EDDC will argue the case at the appeal that, contrary to new government guidance that battery energy storage systems are low carbon, the site will trade power from the grid which uses fossil fuels, so it would be detrimental to the environment.

Ward member Cllr Duncan Mackinder (Lib Dem, Yarty) said local residents bared all the risks for no gain.

“If a fire occurs there are two choices – let it burn or fight it with water,” he said.

“If they let it burn, the next large amount of rainfall will force contamination into the water courses and aquifer but there will also be untold damage to the water supply by the amount of water that would be needed if they fight it.

“At an incident at a site like this in Liverpool, the fire service was able to be on scene within eight minutes and used water from local hydrants, it still ran out of water and the fire burned for over 48 hours.

“We are not in that position, we would arrive much later and the situation would be much worse by the time the fire crews arrive.

”Some 1.3 billion litres of water would needed if the entire site was affected.”

He said the site was at risk of thermal runway – a fire that generates its own oxygen if charging or temperature control fails and vapour cloud as well as explosion.

He added: “We already have phosphates in the Exe Valley rivers.

”Think what would happen if lithium laced fire water got in there too. It would be catastrophic for the area.”

Cllr Alastair Bruce (Con, Feniton) has concerns about the whole enterprise. He said he had experience of an aquifer which had to be taken out of service when it became contaminated by the sea.

“Water had to be pumped to local residents from 43 miles away. With climate change on the rampage these kind of resources are even more precious us to.

“The risk to the aquifer is far too great to approve this application.”

Hawkchurch Action Group employed a planning consultant who was among several people to speak against the application.

Opponents, which include the parish council, say it is wrong that BESS sites are now determined by local authorities without the necessary expertise as the technology is relatively new and there are regular incidents involving them.

However, an officers’ report says that while there are objections on safety grounds, many of the concerns are either regulated by other bodies or can be addressed by imposing conditions to planning permission.

They recommended approval of the latest plan saying comments from the Devon and Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service and the additional information provided by the applicant satisfied them that health and safety matters are satisfactory.

A safety management plan will be put in place before the proposal can go ahead and Enso Energy said it will meet all legal safety requirements, and details can be addressed by planning stipulations.

Fire experts said whilst individual schemes should be assessed on their own merits, a second site access was recommended, a perimeter road around the site and a distanceof 1.4 metres between battery cells.