Steve Reed, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, said: “The Conservatives’ sticking-plaster approach to flooding has left communities devastated and cost the economy billions of pounds.”

Brace, brace, brace for storm Ciarán, especially if Thérèse Coffey looking the wrong way! – Owl

Josh Halliday www.theguardian.com 

More than 4,000 of England’s vital flood defences are so damaged they are almost useless, including hundreds in areas battered by Storm Babet.

Nearly 800 critical assets – defined as those where there is a high risk to life and property – were in a “poor” or “very poor” condition in the 10 English counties worst affected by last week’s historic downpours.

The analysis will add to growing anger from flood-hit communities who have accused the authorities of being ill-equipped and complacent in the run-up to Storm Babet.

It comes as Britain braces for yet more heavy rain and flooding this week ahead of the arrival of Storm Ciarán, which is set to bring strong winds and heavy rain when it arrives on Thursday.

Parts of Britain faced further severe downpours at the weekend, hampering the recovery from the devastating floods that left at least seven people dead, hundreds homeless and scores of properties damaged.

MPs and residents across England and Scotland have demanded a review of the protections in place in the aftermath of Storm Babet, which overwhelmed defences and caught forecasters off-guard.

Steve Reed, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, said: “The Conservatives’ sticking-plaster approach to flooding has left communities devastated and cost the economy billions of pounds.”

Extreme weather events are becoming more likely and frequent due to climate breakdown, and have caused food shortages and price increases.

An analysis of Environment Agency data obtained by Unearthed, the investigative arm of Greenpeace UK, showed that 4,204 of England’s most important flood defences were in a poor or very poor condition in 2022. This accounts for about one in 15 of the total.

Across the country, 856 were judged very poor, meaning they had “severe defects resulting in complete performance failure”, essentially rendering them useless.

The remaining 3,348 were in poor condition, meaning they have defects that would “significantly reduce” their performance.

In the 10 English counties worst affected by Storm Babet, spanning from Suffolk to Northumberland, 646 were in a poor condition and 135 were judged to be very poor.

The Environment Agency, which owns and maintains more than half of the flood defences in England, said inspections from the latest financial year showed an improvement, from one in 15 being in disrepair to one in 20.

It added that contingency plans will be put in place if required when critical defences are found to be in poor condition.

Paul Morozzo, Greenpeace UK’s senior climate campaigner, said: “Our crumbling flood defences are a symbolic and literal demonstration of the government’s failure to tackle the climate crisis.

“Storm Babet was a sobering reminder that the climate crisis is on our doorstep and that the cost – both in terms of lives lost and damage caused – is huge.

“Without bold action to cut emissions as fast as possible, extreme storms and flooding will become more common and more intense. And without the necessary investment and upgrades, our flood defences will continue to fail.

“By rowing back on its climate commitments and failing to ensure we have infrastructure needed to mitigate its impacts, the government has all but given up on the communities it is supposed to protect. This is a shameful dereliction of duty and will cost votes in the coming election unless Sunak wakes up and has the guts to change direction.”

The Environment Agency, which is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, aimed last year to repair scores of its flood defences leaving only 30 in poor or very poor condition. In reality, 1,766 remained in that category.

The environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, suggested last week that the Met Office and the Environment Agency had been caught off-guard by Storm Babet because the rain came in from the east.

She also said it looked as if her department “may not be hitting” its target of protecting 336,000 properties by 2027.

The Met Office has said the 18 to 20 October period was the third-wettest independent three-day period in England and Wales since 1891. The Midlands provisionally recorded its wettest three-day period on record.

Defra said it was investing £5.2bn between 2021 and 2027 to protect properties from flooding and that more than 96,000 buildings were shielded from Storm Babet.

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We maintain approximately 76,000 flood assets across England, 95% of which we would expect to function as designed during a flood, which is an increase on the previous year.

“We prioritise maintenance where there is significant threat to lives and livelihoods, which was supported by a £200m investment between April 2022 and March 2023 to ensure our assets were winter ready.”

Boris Johnson asked why damage was being inflicted on the economy during the pandemic “for people who will die anyway soon” in a meeting with Rishi Sunak, the Covid inquiry was told on Monday.

Ben Quinn www.theguardian.com (Extract)

At the start of what is set to be a bruising week for the former prime minister, with former political aides and senior civil servants to give evidence on his government’s handling of the pandemic, the diary of a former private secretary revealed the damaging remarks made in March 2020.

The note was from a meeting during which Johnson was believed to have said: “We’re killing the patient to tackle the tumour. Large ppl [taken to mean large numbers of people] who will die, why are we destroying economy for people who will die anyway soon.”

Imran Shafi, the official who wrote the memo, told the inquiry he thought it was Johnson who made the comments. It came after a series of diary entries and WhatsApp messages suggested the low regard in which the former Tory leader was held by senior advisers…..

Covid inquiry live: Boris Johnson’s pandemic response was ‘Trump-level mad and dangerous’

www.independent.co.uk 

A series of scathing WhatsApp messages sent between Boris Johnson’s top team have accused the former prime minister of making it “impossible” to tackle Covid, as he created chaos and changed direction “every day”.

Archie Mitchell www.independent.co.uk

The extraordinary messages sent between the likes of Dominic Cummings, Lee Cain and Simon Case reveal the strong disquiet among Mr Johnson’s advisers, with Mr Case, the cabinet secretary and top civil servant, at one point declaring: “I am at the end of my tether.”

The ex-PM’s top officials also branded him “weak and indecisive” and referred to him as a “trolley”. Chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance, meanwhile, said Mr Johnson was “all over the place” and “so completely inconsistent”.

The WhatsApp messages and diary entries, shown to Mr Johnson’s former principal private secretary Martin Reynolds at the official Covid inquiry, laid bare the chaos behind Downing Street’s response to Covid.

In a bombshell three hours of testimony about his time as Mr Johnson’s PPS, Mr Reynolds was asked about everything from the government’s preparedness for the pandemic to his own role in the Partygate scandal of lockdown-busting events.

The ex-top civil servant, since dubbed “Party Marty”, apologised “unreservedly” for sending an email to more than 100 Downing Street staff inviting them to a “bring your own booze” garden party during lockdown.

And he admitted the government’s readiness to tackle Covid was “grossly deficient”, and that officials were operating “without a proper playbook”.

The inquiry was shown extraordinary WhatsApp exchanges and notes taken around the time of key decisions being made.

In one diary entry, Sir Patrick wrote: “Number 10 chaos as usual.

“On Friday, the two-metre rule meeting made it abundantly clear that no-one in Number 10 or the Cabinet Office had really read or taken time to understand the science advice on two metres. Quite extraordinary.”

In other entries Sir Patrick described how he felt scientists were “used as human shields” by ministers.

On 19 September 2020, when a potential “circuit-breaker” lockdown was up for discussion, he wrote: “Johnson is all over the place and so completely inconsistent. You can see why it was so difficult to get an agreement to lock down the first time.”

And in a devastating exchange of messages between Mr Case, the cabinet secretary, and Mr Cummings, who was Downing Street’s chief of staff at the time, Mr Johnson was described as “creating chaos”.

Mr Case said: “I am at the end of my tether. He changes strategic direction every day (Monday we were all about fear of virus returning as per Europe, March etc – today we’re in ‘let it rip’ mode because the UK is pathetic, needs a cold shower etc.)

“He cannot lead and we cannot support him in leading with this approach. The team captain cannot change the call on the big plays every day. The team can’t deliver anything under these circumstances.”

Piling in to the other cabinet ministers, he said: “A weak team (as we have got – Hancock, Williamson, Dido, No10/CO, Perm Secs), definitely cannot succeed in these circumstances. IT HAS TO STOP! Decide and set direction – deliver – explain. Gov’t isn’t actually that hard but this guy is really making it impossible.”

Mr Cain replied: “Totally agree. Am already getting lots of despairing messages from people in meetings with him. And he’s careering around on WhatsApp as usual creating chaos and undermining everybody. “

In another exchange shown to the inquiry, Mr Cummings accused Mr Johnson of going “full trolley mode”, referring to his tendency to veer between issues.

Pressed toward the end of the session on his now infamous BYOB email, Mr Reynolds said: “I would first like to say how deeply sorry I am for my part in those events and for the email message, which went out that day.

“And I would like to apologise unreservedly to all the families of all those who suffered during Covid for all the distress caused.”

A property developer said he would fund a prospective Conservative MP’s election campaign, a trial has heard.

By Matt Precey www.bbc.co.uk 

Howard Grossman is alleged to have made the remark at a fundraising dinner for David Mackintosh, who went on to win Northampton South in 2015.

Both men are accused of concealing the true source of political donations.

Mr Grossman, from Hertfordshire, and Mr Mackintosh, from Northampton, both deny the charges.

The court previously heard how in 2014, nine donations totalling £39,000 were paid into Mr Mackintosh’s political fighting fund by a string of donors, when the source of the money was Mr Grossman.

The former chairman of Northampton South Conservative Association (NSCA), Suresh Patel, was cross examined on the fifth day of the trial at Warwick Crown Court.

He described a fundraising dinner at the Carlton Club which he and Mr Mackintosh attended in December 2014 along with two dozen others.

‘I was used’

Mr Patel, 66, said he had never met Mr Grossman before this event and alleged the Bushey based businessman told him “I’ve said to David I’ll fund his campaign” after Mr Mackintosh introduced them.

It was “one of the worst fundraising events I’ve ever been to in my life. I felt like I was used” he recalled.

Mr Patel said he was asked at short notice to attend and collect ticket money off the guests but was subsequently told Mr Grossman would gather the money instead and transfer it to the Northampton South “fighting fund”.

Mr Grossman’s defence counsel, Neil Hawes KC, challenged Mr Patel about his attendance at the opening of Northampton’s bus station in 2013 which Mr Mackintosh was closely involved in as the then leader of Northampton Borough Council.

Mr Grossman was also there alongside the then owner of Northampton Town Football Club, David Cardoza, Mr Hawes said.

Mr Hawes continued: “At the bus station opening I suggest you were approached about a donation (by Mr Grossman).”

“No-one approached me,” Mr Patel answered.

‘Never, never ever’

The barrister also asked whether the planned redevelopment of Northampton Town’s Sixfields stadium was politically important?

He asked if he knew Mr Grossman was connected to 1st Land Ltd, the company involved in the Sixfields work, at that stage.

“No idea,” was the answer.

Mr Hawes put it to Mr Patel that it was he who suggested to Mr Grossman that he would have to use third parties to make any donations to Mr Mackintosh, because of his close involvement in the Sixfields project.

“Never, never ever. I don’t believe in doing things like that,” said Mr Patel.

Mr Mackintosh, of Station Road, Northampton, and Mr Grossman, 61, of Caldecote Gardens, Bushey, Hertfordshire, are both charged with two offences under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

Both are accused of failing to ensure NSCA was provided with the correct information as to the source of donations, which were made between January and September 2014.

The trial is scheduled to continue on Monday.

Bankruptcy, Ernest Hemingway once wrote, comes gradually, then suddenly. For years, England’s dysfunctional housing market was a distant concern for most district councils in the relatively affluent home counties; now, unexpectedly, it is in their faces, out of control and threatening to overwhelm them.

Patrick Butler www.theguardian.com 

Hastings, a coastal district in East Sussex, has warned it could become effectively insolvent this year as the housing crisis rips through. High house prices, soaring rents, housing benefit cuts, a 120% year-on-year rise in evictions, shortages of social housing and a shrinking, volatile, local private rented sector have created a perfect storm.

It expects to spend £5.6m – almost a third of its £17m net budget this year – picking up the pieces, providing emergency housing for more than 1,000 homeless people. By contrast, in 2019, it spent just £730,000 supporting 170 people. A homelessness service that ticked over relatively uneventfully for years could now break the council.

The crisis is so acute that earlier this year Hasting borough council’s Labour leader, Paul Barnett, even appealed to local residents with spare rooms to consider letting them to homeless people. The council hopes to buy 50 homes to house homeless families and has longer-term plans to build more social housing, but this seems too little and too late.

“The financial difficulties that we are facing are a result of national housing crisis. The system is broken, and as a result is forcing many of our residents out of secure accommodation into temporary housing provided by the council,” Barnett said in a statement this week.

His point is that the housing whirlwind crashing through councils such as Hastings is structural. The town may be an outlier but the crisis is national, affecting scores of authorities all feeling the effects of a “seismic shift” in housing affordability caused by rising demand and shrinking supply.

The shift is driven by many things: demographic change, the long-term erosion of social housing and housing benefit levels, the failure to build sufficient new homes, the growing impossibility of home ownership for many, the rise in “no fault” evictions and the defunding of local authorities.

The consequence is human pain and social disruption. Stephen Robinson, the Liberal Democrat leader of Chelmsford city council, said a pensioner recently presented as homeless at the council’s housing office, facing eviction after their rent was raised by £200 a month. But in the main it deals with familieswho have been priced out of the area and placed in temporary housing, often miles away in Ipswich or Peterborough.

The imminent closure of Home Office-funded hotels for Afghan asylum seekers in the coming weeks could exacerbate the housing problem. Robinson said this was a relatively tiny part of the risk facing the council: “Most of the 465 households we have in temporary accommodation are local families in work, or who have lost a job.”

Andrew Baggott, the Tory leader of Basildon borough council in Essex, said that radical solutions were needed, including regulation of the private rented sector to keep rents affordable, long-term government investment in social housing, and an increase in local housing allowance to reflect local rent levels.

Asked whether a government long-wedded to the idea of a deregulated housing market and a smaller benefits bill would listen to such demands, he replied: “Times change. Any government that does not change with the times is not fit for purpose, by definition.”

Some people have been living there for more than a decade

Councillors have voted to take action over five unauthorised homes in Exminster, despite being warned that doing so could make people homeless.

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

Teignbridge’s planning committee was told that holiday accommodation at Pottles Barn had been used as permanent housing for years. In fact, they heard, seven of the 12 units had been used permanently for more than 10 years, making them exempt from council action.

But the other five haven’t been used as long, and now the council is demanding they return to holiday use.

Planning permission for holiday occupancy was granted in 2007, when the council decided the rural location was ‘unsustainable’ for permanent homes.

In 2019 the council was alerted and the owner of the barns was contacted. An application to remove the holiday-only condition was refused in 2021.

A report said: “Whilst seven of the units may be immune from enforcement action, this does not mean the remaining units should also be allowed to become lawful permanent residential dwellings.”

Enforcement action would mean the occupants would have to leave and “this could result in a number of occupants becoming homeless.”

Instead there will be a ‘breach of condition’ notice with no right of appeal, which will still mean occupants have to find new homes within 12 months.

Agents for the owners of Pottles Barn said national planning policies had changed since 2007, and might now allow a change of use. The owners had been approached by local people looking for small and affordable homes.

Committee chairman Colin Parker (Lib Dem, Buckland and Milber) said: “It’s a shame that we have got to this situation. All those years that people were living there, and it shouldn’t have happened.

“It is difficult to say that some people can stay there and some can’t.”
 

Fee income for 20 largest operators – many private equity-owned – soars as councils struggle to meet costs

The biggest private providers of children’s homes in England made profits of more than £300m last year, as concern mounts over the conditions some children are being placed in and the spiralling costs for councils.

Michael Savage www.theguardian.com 

Fee income for the 20 largest operators of independent children’s homes totalled £1.63bn last year, a 6.5% increase on the previous year. And 19% of that – £310m – was recorded as profit, according to an independent analysis. Half of the top 20 providers have some private equity or sovereign wealth fund ownership.

Council spending on privately-run children’s homes in England has more than doubled in six years. In 2021-22, spending on independently-run residential care for vulnerable children increased by 11% on the previous year.

This comes with the number of children in care at its highest level since before the pandemic: 82,170 in England. There are also concerns among councils over the indebtedness of some of the main providers.

The report was commissioned from Resolution Consulting by the Local Government Association (LGA), which worried that increasing fees were putting council budgets under immense pressure. The report also raised concerns about financial transparency in the sector, given a significant rise in mergers and acquisitions.

One company to increase profits last year was Your Chapter Holdings. Accounts out this month show profits rising from £1.7m to £2.2m. The company was formerly called Care 4 Children but changed its name after criticisms over the care it provided.

Just last month, Ofsted warned that Your Chapter had failed to sufficiently improve one home, which it had deemed “inadequate”. It stated: “There are serious and/or widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded.”

A spokesperson for the provider said: “We strive continuously to improve and to provide the best possible care and education for the children and young people in our care.”

Katharine Sacks-Jones, chief executive of the Become charity for children in care and young care leavers, said: “There are serious questions to ask when we have a care system in crisis, a chronic shortage of homes for children, local councils struggling and private providers making ever-increasing profits. We know children in private provision are more likely to be placed away from their local area and the people and places that matter to them.

“Children in care, who have experienced significant trauma, must not be seen as a commodity. This is public money that should be spent on providing a system where children get the support and stability they need.”

Local authorities report spending £12.8bn on children’s social care in 2022-23, compared with £6.6bn in 2012-13. Senior figures fear children’s social care is affecting all other areas of spending.

“What matters most for children who can’t live with their birth parents is that they feel safe, loved and supported, in homes that best suit their needs,” said Louise Gittins, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board. “While many providers work hard to make sure this is the case, it is wrong that some are making excessive profit from this.

“As the report shows, spending on residential care placements for children has increased dramatically in recent years as councils have sought to find the best homes for record numbers of children in care, while mergers and acquisitions have seen some large independent providers grow significantly. Yet while councils are having to divert more and more money away from early help services and into homes for children in care, the largest privately-run companies continue to bring in huge profits.”

The Children’s Homes Association said it shared these concerns, particularly at levels of debt carried by large private equity providers, but that this did not reflect the sector as a whole.

“The majority of our members are micro or small providers that achieve small margins to ensure the viability of their organisations, and critically are not carrying significant levels of debt,” it said. “The independent sector consistently provides care at a significantly lower cost than local authorities. This, combined with caring for a higher-need cohort of children and young people, demonstrates value for money.”

Plans for 63 homes on the edge of Ottery St Mary have been rejected for the third time. The development was voted down after a lengthy discussion that saw several residents and local councillors raise concerns.

Bradley Gerrard www.devonlive.com

A key focus of the near two-hour debate by East Devon councillors centred on whether Sidmouth Road, which would provide access to the site, could adequately deal with increased traffic, and whether a proposed footpath was adequate to keep pedestrians safe. The three-hectare site is classified as good quality, or Grade 2, agricultural land, a factor several objectors highlighted as a reason to reject the application.

Residents also complained that the site was outside the agreed local plan that guides where future houses should be built, that it could be seen from a large area, including from the nearby Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and that Ottery St Mary’s primary and secondary schools are oversubscribed.

ALD Developments, the firm behind the scheme that would have been half affordable housing, had sought to appease concerns about the roads after the scheme was last rejected in 2021. It proposed a priority scheme that would mean traffic heading towards Ottery would give way to vehicles leaving the town, and had attempted to ensure adequate pedestrian access.

But objectors claimed that the width of the road meant it wasn’t possible to provide safe access for pedestrians and cyclists. John Pearson, a highway consultant for 40 years, said that in this case, the “constraints are insurmountable. It’s never good to squeeze in sub-standard solutions,” he said.

“The evidence is clear that the footway width is well below guidance, and that the remaining carriageway width prevents anything larger than a car from passing a non-motorised vehicle safely.”

Highways officers from Devon County Council acknowledged that a small section of the proposed footpath was below statutory guidance, but only by eight centimetres, and that it was safer than the current situation on this stretch of Sidmouth Road where no pavement existed.

Richard Grainger, Ottery St Mary mayor, said there had been “hundreds of objections” to the plan from residents. “This application has already been rejected – correctly – twice and I really feel that there is no grounds for bringing it back to this committee,” he said.

Devon County Council councillor Jess Bailey (Independent, Otter Valley) said it was the first time in two and a half years that she had needed to attend East Devon’s planning committee in person, which showed how “exceptionally bad” the application was.

“I would go so far as to say that if it is approved, it would be disastrous for Ottery,” she said. “I disagree with the decision by Devon County Council’s highways officers to withdraw their objections, and my greatest concern is for pedestrians along the proposed substandard pavement.”

In mitigation, Graham Cridland, the agent for ALD Developments, said his client had “worked hard to address all the previous reasons for refusal”.

“We’ve done a great deal of work on specific mitigation measures and all the statutory consultees, such as Devon highways and Natural England, support the application and so there should be no legitimate reason for refusal,” he said.

Wendy Ormsby, East Devon District Council’s development manager, said that the planning committee had to consider the authority’s requirement to demonstrate that it had five years’ worth of land supply for future development.

Given this figure stood at 4.28 years, Ms Ormsby said the council had to assess whether some of its concerns about the development significantly and demonstrably outweighed the benefits of delivering housing.

However, councillors voted against the plans, citing the loss of agricultural land, its overwhelming impact on the landscape, and that there had been no mechanism to secure the affordable housing or published efforts about mitigating the impact on nearby Pebblebed Heath, a special area of conservation.

Duo say they can serve the bay better outside the Tory ranks

Torbay Council’s Tory leader has called on two of his former party colleagues to face by-elections after defecting from the Conservative ranks.

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

Rebels Katya Maddison and Patrick Joyce, who were voted on to the council as Conservatives in May, have resigned from the party ranks to set up their own Prosper Torbay group.

The decision means the Tories have lost their overall majority.

Cllr Maddison (Shiphay) and Cllr Joyce (Wellswood) said they felt they would be better able to serve the interests of Torbay residents by being outside the Conservative group.

They are calling on the Tory administration to focus on supporting local High Streets and tackling the problems of homelessness and housing.

Their statement said: “There’s a lot of good stuff going on in Torbay with devolution and big capital projects lining up, but if history has taught us anything it’s that the devil is in the detail, and we would encourage the administration to be focused on that too.

“We want to be free to challenge projects while they’re still being formulated so we can avoid the fiascos of the past.”

Council leader David Thomas (Con, Preston) said: “I am really disappointed that they don’t want to remain within the group. One thing is for certain – Katya, Patrick and I have not had a huge blazing row where we have all fallen out with each other.”

And, he said, there would be questions for the pair to answer from the people who elected them in May.

“Are they going to their communities for a by-election?” he asked. “I think they should.

“It was only five months ago that they stood and were elected on a Conservative ticket, and a lot of people will have been voting for a manifesto and a certain direction of travel.

“They stood on that manifesto, and yet in five short months they want to do something different.”

Cllr Thomas said the new administration’s focus on ‘delivering’ big projects across Torbay would have town centres and High Streets at their heart.

There is potentially around £200 million to be spent, with the council’s new regeneration partner having access to £100 million in investment and the £100 million we have from the government.

“The opportunities to do something are just coming on line now,” he added. “We are well aware of the problems in the town centres. We are not blind to them.”

The change shifts the balance of power on Torbay Council significantly. Up until today there were 19 Conservative councillors, 15 Liberal Democrats and two Independents, giving the Tories an overall majority of two.

However, with 17 Conservatives, 15 Liberal Democrats, two Independents and two Prosper Torbay councillors, the overall majority is gone.

It would now be possible in theory for the 19 non-Conservative councillors to launch a vote of no confidence in Cllr Thomas, but that seems highly unlikely.

“I’m very disappointed that they think they can do things better on their own,” said Cllr Thomas. “But I hope they will continue to support what we are looking to bring forward.”

Your reading for the weekend! – Owl

The government announced on 26 October that the bill had now received royal assent.

www.planningresource.co.uk 

The bill was first published in May 2022, prior to its first reading in the House of Commons, alongside its explanatory notes. Since then, both parliamentary houses have debated its provisions and made a number of amendments to the legislation. The final version of the bill was agreed earlier this week following the conclusion of the stage known as “ping-pong”, which refers to the term for the to and fro of amendments to Bills between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

According to the 2022 explanatory notes, “changes to planning procedures will begin to take place from 2024, once the Bill has Royal Assent and associated regulations and changes to national policy are in place”. 

In a blog post, Nicola Gooch, partner at law firm Irwin Mitchell, said that, while getting royal assent is a “big achievement, there is a still a lot of work left to do… bringing the provisions in LURA into effect will require a huge raft of further consultations, detailed technical work and secondary legislation”.

Indeed, according to consultancy Lichfields, “most of the sections [in the Act] directly related to development management and plan-making have not commenced and will require secondary legislation”. 

While the final version of the Act is yet to be published, and secondary legislation has not yet been enacted, here are 35 things you need to know about how the new laws are intended to change the planning system.

1. Local planning authorities will be required to have a design code in place covering their entire areas. The bill’s original explanatory notes say that the legislation will require “all local planning authorities to have a design code in place covering their entire area”.

The document states: “The area-wide codes will act as a framework, for which subsequent detailed design codes can come forward, prepared for specific areas or sites and led either by the local planning authority, neighbourhood planning groups or by developers as part of planning applications. This will help ensure good design is considered at all spatial scales, down to development sites and individual plots.”

2. A new levy will replace section 106 planning obligations and the Community Infrastructure Levy. On “infrastructure”, the document confirms that the Bill will replace the current section 106 and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) regimes with a new Infrastructure Levy.

It says that the rates and thresholds of this new levy will, as with the existing CIL regime, be set in charging schedules “and set and raised by local planning authorities (rather than nationally), meaning that rates are tailored to local circumstances and deliver at least as much onsite affordable housing”.

The notes add: “Charging schedules must have regard to previous levels of affordable housing funded by developer contributions such that they are kept at a level that will exceed or maintain previous levels. All schedules will be subject to public examination.”

There will also be “a process to require developers to deliver some forms of infrastructure that are integral to the design and delivery of a site”.

A government amendment to the Bill, agreed at committee stage, will allow money raised by the levy to be spent on additional matters as well as affordable housing and infrastructure.

The government later proposed a further amendment to the bill designed to strengthen its provision of affordable housing and permit authorities to disapply the levy in cases where they consider it will make development “unviable”. 

3. A new requirement will be placed on local authorities to prepare infrastructure delivery strategies. The Bill also places “a new duty on local authorities to prepare infrastructure delivery strategies to outline how they intend to spend the levy”. This is to “make sure that infrastructure requirements and levy spending priorities are considered carefully”, the notes say.

4. More weight will be given to local plans, neighbourhood plans and spatial development strategies proposed by mayors or combined authorities. Under the “democracy” heading, the notes say that local plans, neighbourhood plans and spatial development strategies proposed by mayors or combined authorities “will be given more weight when decisions are made on applications so that there must be strong reasons to override the plan, providing communities more certainty”.

Meanwhile, local plans, minerals and waste plans, supplementary plans and neighbourhood plans will all be required to “take account” of  new local nature recovery strategies. 

5. The scope of local plans will be limited to ‘locally specific’ matters, with ‘issues that apply in most areas’ to be covered by a new suite of national policies. The document says that the Bill “requires each local planning authority to prepare one local plan, with the content limited to locally specific matters such as allocating land for development, detailing required infrastructure and setting out principles of good design”.

It adds: “General policies on issues that apply in most areas (such as general heritage protection) will be set out nationally and contained in a suite of National Development Management Policies (NDMPs), which will have the same weight as plans so that they are fully taken into account in decisions. Local plans will not be able to repeat these.

NDMPs will be subject to consultation in “all but exceptional circumstances”, but will not be subject to parliamentary approval, despite repeated attempts by the House of Lords to insert such a provision. 

6. Ministers will have to have regard to climate change when preparing NDMPs. Although the government rejected an amendment originally tabled in the House of Lords which would have required ministers to “have regard to climate change when preparing planning policy”, it accepted a watered-down version of the provision. 

Instead, the agreed-upon amendment which will form part of the final Act, will require the drafting of policies that are to be designated as NDMPs to “have regard to the need to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change, taking into account the range of climate scenarios and risk relevant to the policies being developed.”

7. The ‘duty to co-operate’ will be dropped, and time limits prescribed for different stages of plan preparation. The notes also say that the Bill makes “several other changes to improve the process for preparing local plans: new powers will enable the introduction of ‘Gateway’ checks so that issues are identified earlier during plan preparation, and allow time periods to be prescribed for different parts of the plan preparation process, enabling delivery of a time-bound end-to-end process; digital powers in the Bill will allow use of more standardised and reusable data, and there will be a new requirement for local planning authorities to produce a consolidated policies map of the full development plan for their area, improving the clarity and transparency of plans; and the ‘duty to co-operate’ contained in existing legislation is being repealed”. 

Earlier this year, the government published a consultation on its proposed implementation of these plan-making reforms, which set out further details about the timetable authorities will be expected to follow when preparing their local plans. 

8. There will be a new power for planning authorities to quickly create ‘supplementary plans’ for some or all of their areas. In addition, the notes continue, local planning authorities “will have a new power to prepare ‘supplementary plans’, where policies for specific sites or groups of sites need to be prepared quickly (e.g. in response to a new regeneration opportunity), or to set out design codes for a specific site, area or across their whole area”.

9. Groups of authorities will also be able to produce voluntary spatial development strategies on specific cross-boundary issues. “Groups of authorities” will also be allowed “to collaborate to produce a voluntary spatial development strategy, where they wish to provide strategic planning policies for issues that cut across their areas (echoing the powers conferred on some mayoral combined authorities already)”, the notes say.

10. The EU processes of environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment will be replaced by ‘environmental outcomes reports’. Under “environment”, the notes say: “A new system of Environmental Outcomes Reports will replace the EU processes of Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment whilst retaining the UK’s obligations under the UN Aarhus and Espoo Conventions.”

The notes say that the Bill, now the Act, introduces an “outcomes-based approach that will allow the government to set clear and tangible environmental outcomes which a plan or project is assessed against”. This will “allow decision-makers and local communities to clearly see where a plan or project is meeting these outcomes and what steps are being taken to avoid and mitigate any harm to the environment. These outcomes will be set following consultation and parliamentary scrutiny but will, for the first time, allow the government to reflect its environmental priorities directly in the decision-making process.”

11. A ‘simpler to prepare’ alternative to neighbourhood plans will be introduced. Under “neighbourhoods”, the notes say that the Bill introduces “a new neighbourhood planning tool called a ‘neighbourhood priorities statement’, providing communities with a simpler and more accessible way to set out their key priorities and preferences for their local areas. Local authorities will need to take these into account, where relevant, when preparing their local plans for the areas concerned, enabling more communities to better engage in the local plan-making process.”

Alongside this, the notes add, the Bill will “prescribe in more detail what communities can address in their neighbourhood plans and amend the ‘basic conditions’ to ensure neighbourhood plans are aligned with wider changes to the planning system”.

12. A ‘street votes’ system will permit residents to propose development on their street and hold a vote on whether planning permission should be given. The original version of the draft legislation included “placeholder for a substantive clause which will introduce a ‘Street Votes’ system that permits residents to propose development on their street and hold a vote on whether it should be given planning permission”. The document says: “This will provide a positive incentive for neighbours to consider the potential for development, especially in areas of higher demand, and support a gentle increase in densities through well-considered, well-designed and locally supported proposals.”

The government later amended the bill to make provision for “street vote development orders”, replacing the placeholder clause in earlier versions of the bill, and further clarified how these orders will work in practice.

The amendment confers “regulation-making powers relating to the preparation and making of an order, including provision for independent examination and a referendum”. Development granted by a street vote development order will also be subject to the Community Infrastructure Levy.

A further amendment, conferring a new “regulation-making power on the secretary of state to specify or describe development to be excluded from the remit of street vote development orders” was later agreed. 

13. Decision-makers will face a new duty to act in line with the development plan and national policies. On “the planning application process”, the notes say the Bill will impose “a new duty on decision-makers to make planning decisions in accordance with the development plan and national development management policies unless material considerations strongly indicate otherwise”. The document says that this is to “increase certainty in planning decisions”.

14. A new route will be created to allow the Crown to apply directly to the secretary of state for determination of nationally important development. Further, the notes say that the Bill will “speed up the process of dealing with applications for nationally important Crown developments in the planning system”, including through “a new process for nationally important and urgent developments, and a new route which allow the Crown to apply directly to the secretary of state for determination of nationally important development”.

15. ‘Loopholes’ preventing planning enforcement will be closed. Under “enforcement”, the notes say that the Bill “amends and strengthens the powers and sanctions available to local planning authorities to deal with individuals who fail to abide by the rules and process of the planning system”.

This includes “facilitating enforcement action by closing existing loopholes which can be exploited to prolong unauthorised development, allowing more time for the investigation of breaches, introducing enforcement warning notices, making the enforcement timescales that currently apply more consistent, and increasing fines”.

16. Registered parks and gardens will get the same level of planning protection as listed buildings. On “protecting heritage”, the notes says that the Bill will “make changes so that designated heritage assets, such as registered parks and gardens, World Heritage Sites, protected wreck sites, and registered battlefields, enjoy the same statutory protection in the planning system as listed buildings and conservation areas”.

17. The compulsory purchase order system will be changed. According to the explanatory notes, the Bill “streamlines and modernises Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO) and grants the power to local authorities to use CPO for regeneration purposes”. These changes “would empower local decision-making and improve transparency regarding local authorities’ power to acquire brownfield land compulsorily for regeneration in their area”, the notes say. The measures include changes to publicity requirements around CPOs and how inquiry procedures are held.

The government’s amendment 412D will allow ministers to disapply the “hope value” of land obtained via a compulsory purchase order – and see landowners compensated for just the existing use of their land – for schemes that include affordable housing, health or education provision. 

18. Urban development corporations’ planning powers will be revised, and a new type of corporation introduced. The notes explain that, currently, there are four types of development corporation: “The New Town Development Corporation, the Urban Development Corporation, the Mayoral Development Corporation and the locally-led New Town Development Corporation”. The document says: “Each model reflects the time and circumstances when they were introduced, and thus have varying powers and remits.”

This Bill “makes provision for a new type of locally-led Urban Development Corporation, with the objective of regenerating its area and accountable to local authorities in the area rather than the secretary of state”, the notes say. It also “updates the planning powers available to centrally and locally-led development corporations, so that they can become local planning authorities for the purposes of local plan-making, overseeing neighbourhood planning and development management. This is to bring them in line with the Mayoral Development Corporation model.” The Bill also “amends the process for establishing locally-led New Town Development Corporations, [removes] the cap on the number of board members and [removes] the aggregate limits to borrowing”.

19. Planning authorities will get the power to instigate auctions to take leases on vacant high street properties. The notes confirm a new measure, heavily trailed by the government prior to the publication of the Bill, to give “local authorities powers to instigate auctions to rent vacant commercial properties in town centres and on high streets, for leases from one to five years to attract new tenants”. The notes say these new powers “can be exercised at the discretion of local authorities, based on their local context and need, but only on properties which have been vacant for over 12 months”.

20. A council tax premium on second homes can be introduced. The Bill introduces a “discretionary council tax premium on second homes and changes the qualifying period for use of the long term-empty homes premium”, the notes say. The document says that “local authorities may levy a premium of up to an additional 100 per cent on council tax bills for second homes and for empty homes after one year (as opposed to two years which is the current requirement)”. The government will consult on exemptions to this, the notes add.

21. A new route will be created for upper-tier councils to combine without the consent of lower-tier authorities in their areas. The notes say that, at present, “the available model for establishing a combined authority is primarily designed for urban areas”. To address this, “the Bill creates a new model for a ‘combined county authority’, which is made up of upper-tier local authorities only”. 

The notes explain that the “main difference between combined county authorities and combined authorities is the membership: a combined county authority must include one two-tier county council and at least one other upper-tier county council or upper-tier unitary authority (i.e. district councils cannot be members and do not consent to the forming of a combined county authority), whereas a combined authority has to include all the local authorities within the area it is to cover (i.e. in a two-tier area, the county council and all district councils must be members, and consent to the forming of the combined authority)”. 

The Bill “also includes measures to enable local authorities to move into directly elected leadership governance models more quickly to support devolution deals”, the notes say.

22. New measures intended to make land ownership more transparent will be introduced. The notes say that the Bill “includes measures that will facilitate a better understanding of who ultimately owns or controls land in England and Wales”, supporting a 2017 housing white paper commitment by “collecting and publishing data on contractual arrangements used by developers to control land, such as rights of pre-emption, options and conditional contracts”.

23. The secretary of state will gain new powers to control changes to street names. The Bill grants a power to the secretary of state “to set out the process to secure consent on any proposed changes to a street’s name”. The notes say: “This will ensure all local authorities follow the same process for changing street names and that they cannot do without the consent of those who live on the street.” 

The measure follows moves by some councils to change street names considered to be offensive in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. A survey by the Guardian in January 2021 found that 30 statues, plaques and other memorials had been altered or removed following the protests. Some 130 Labour-led councils across the UK plus the mayor of London had commissioned reviews of their monuments, buildings or street names, the newspaper said.

24. Planning application fees will be raised by more than one-third. The government intends to increase planning fees for major and minor applications by 35 per cent and 25 per cent respectively, subject to consultation, the companion document to the Bill said.

It adds: “We will seek to bring forward powers to charge developers and promoters for statutory consultee advice in certain circumstances.”

The existing performance framework for planning authorities will be expanded to measure performance across a broader range of quantitative and qualitative measures, the document says. It also repeats previous government promises to develop a planning skills strategy for local planning authorities.

Earlier this week, the statutory instrument which would provide for the proposed fee increase was approved by both parliamentary houses and will now proceed to the committee stage. 

However, MPs refused to accept an amendment proposed in the House of Lords which would have allowed councils to set their own application fees. 

25. The emphasis of the National Planning Policy Framework will shift to guiding plan-making. Policies in the current National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) that are intended to guide decision-making will be stripped out to form the basis of the promised National Development Management Policies that will take precedence over local plans as the primary policy guide for decision-making, the companion document to the Bill says. A draft version of the NPPF revisions was published in December 2023.

26. Tools to force developers to complete schemes will be made easier for authorities to use. The Act will make it easier for planning authorities to issue completion notices to developers to require them to complete their projects. And it will introduce commencement notices which will be required when a scheme with planning permission starts on site, which it says will address “perceptions of ‘land banking’ and slow build-out by larger developers”.

27. Benefit to the public purse will become a factor in authorities’ land allocation decisions. Planning authorities will be able to partially base their land allocation decisions on the option price of sites offered to them by developers, under legislation promised by the Bill to enable the piloting of “Community Land Auctions”.

“Landowners will be able to submit their land into an allocation process as part of an emerging local plan, offering the local planning authority an option on the land at a price set by the landowner,” the companion document to the Bill says.

“The local authority will allocate land based on both planning considerations and the option price,” it continues. “It will then auction the development rights onto a successful bidder once land is allocated in the adopted plan. The difference between the option price offered by landowners, and the price offered to develop allocated land, will be retained by local authorities for the benefit of local communities”.

28. Powers to require developers to engage with communities pre-application will be made permanent. For decision-making, the Act will also enable pre-application engagement with communities to be required before a planning application is submitted, removing the sunset clause, making the powers that currently expire in 2025 permanent.

The companion document also promises new guidance on community engagement in planning, “including the opportunities which digital technology offers”. But it adds that any new digital engagement tools “will sit alongside existing methods of engagement (such as site notices and neighbour letters)”.

29. Councils will have the power to decline to determine applications from applicants who have been slow to implement previous permissions across their entire authority areas. In December 2022, the government amended the bill to include new Clause 67, to allow “local planning authorities in England to decline to determine applications for planning permission in cases where an earlier permission has not been implemented or the development has been carried out unreasonably slowly”.

This provision was later extended, via amendment 261A, to cover the whole council area, rather than a particular site. Authorities will therefore be able “to refuse to determine an application for planning permission in certain cases where there was a previous application relating to land within the authority’s area and the development was not begun or has been carried out unreasonably slowly”.

30. Provisions to allow councils to benefit financially from land allocations will be introduced. The amendments make temporary provision for the piloting of “community land auctions”, which will allow landowners to “grant options over land…with a view to the land being allocated for development in the local plan”.

The participating local planning authority will then have the power to “exercise or sell” the option, allowing it to capture “some of the increased value that would result from allocation for development”.

The difference between the option price and the post-allocation price could subsequently be used by authorities to “support development of the area”.

Authorities will be permitted to take into account the “financial benefits arising from options” when making decisions about the local plan.

However, the government also amended the bill to make clear that authorities cannot be forced to pilot controversial community land auctions (CLAs) and will have to “actively volunteer”. 

31. Statutory consultees can charge for advice related to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project applications. The secretary of state will be given the power to make regulations permitting “certain public authorities to charge fees for the provision of advice, information or other assistance in connection with applications for development consent orders”.

This will also apply to changes to Development Consent Orders for NSIPs and “other prescribed matters to do with nationally significant infrastructure projects”.

32. New duty on councils to grant sufficient permission for self- and custom-build housing and include pre-existing unmet demand for this housing when calculating their current level of demand. Amendment 68 revises section 2A(2) of 2015’s Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act. The revised clause says local planning authorities must give sufficient permissions for self-build and custom housebuilding on serviced plots to meet the demand for such development in their area over a given period. 

The explanatory notes for the amendment say the government’s intention is that planning permissions will only qualify towards meeting demand for self-build and custom housebuilding as set out in the 2015 Act if they are actually designed for this purpose. The revised wording deletes a subsection, which proponents of the sector argue allows councils to count any planning permission that ‘could’ be used for self-build and custom housing, even if it was for market housing. 

A separate provision, introduced by amendment 281CC, “provides that the demand for self-build and custom housebuilding in an authority’s area in a particular 12-month base period should be treated as including any demand from an earlier 12-month base period which has not been met within the time period allowed for complying with the duty to meet that demand”. 

A further amendment, number 281CB, will allow the secretary of state to “specify descriptions of planning permissions or permissions in principle that will count as development permissions for the purpose of a local planning authority complying with its duty to meet the demand for self-build and custom housebuilding in its area”. 

33. The legislation makes provision for registration of short-term rental properties. Amendment NC119 adds a new clause to the bill requiring the secretary of state “to make provision by regulations requiring or permitting the registration of specified ‘short-term rental properties’”.

The amendment sets out that a “short-term rental property” means (a) a dwelling, or part of a dwelling, which is provided by a person (‘the host’) to another person (‘the guest’) (i) for use by the guest as accommodation other than the guest’s only or principal residence, (ii) in return for payment (whether or not by the guest), and (iii) in the course of a trade or business carried on by the host, and (b) any dwelling or premises, or part of a dwelling or premises, not falling within paragraph (a) which is specified for the purposes of this paragraph”.

The amendment says that the secretary of state “must consult the public before making the first regulations under this section”.

34. The secretary of state can allow planning inspectors the power to conduct proceedings “wholly or partly remotely”. Tabled by DLUHC junior minister Baroness Scott of Bybrook, amendment number 285B inserts a new clause that will confer a “power on the secretary of state to require or permit a person who takes part in certain proceedings relating to planning, development or the compulsory purchase of land to do so wholly or partly remotely”.

The amendment’s explanatory note states that the power could be “exercised by a person appointed by the secretary of state and it is intended that the Planning Inspectorate will be appointed for this purpose”.

According to the amendment, this could apply to “any inquiry, hearing, examination, meeting or other proceedings…which relate to planning, development or the compulsory purchase of land”.

However, councils will not be given the same right, after MPs blocked an amendment which will have allowed virtual committee meetings. Housing minister Rachel Maclean told the Commons that ministers hold the “strong view” that one of the “core principles” of local democracy is that citizens can attend council meetings “to interact in person with their local representatives”, and MPs voted against the amendment. 

35. The secretary of state can ask authorities to reimburse the government for local plan advice costs. An amendment to the bill, number 216A, will allow the secretary of state to “require a local planning authority to reimburse the secretary of state for expenditure incurred in connection with appointing a person to provide observations or advice on a proposed local plan or to pay any fees and expenses of that person”. 

At last we have “the yeast that lifts the whole mattress of dough, the magic sauce – the ketchup of catch-up”, but does it cut the mustard? 

It has gone through many twists and turns in the Ministerial merry-go-round, through: Jenrick; Gove; Clark then back to Gove again. It amounts to 534 pages of legislation.

Secondary legislation is also required to flesh out some details. 

A future change of Government could also likely want to change things again.

So here is Civic Voice’s take on the new bill:

This substantial 534-page legislation serves as the cornerstone of the government’s ambitious levelling-up agenda, ushering in comprehensive changes to planning and plan-making procedures, reforming developer contributions, and enshrining the government’s “levelling up missions” in legal statute.

Michael Gove, the housing secretary, hailed the Act as a game-changer, emphasising its potential to bring about a plethora of positive transformations. These include providing more homes in communities across the country, initiating levelling-up efforts in disadvantaged areas, revitalising high streets and town centres, streamlining the planning system, ensuring developer accountability, and creating beautiful homes near essential amenities and eco-friendly enhancements. It all sounds almost too good to be true! The newly enacted Act introduces a suite of national development management policies with a broader impact on civic societies.

These policies address common planning considerations applicable across various authorities, such as the green belt and flood risk.

The Act streamlines the preparation, examination, and adoption process, reducing evidence requirements and aiming for plans to be adopted within 30 months. Notably, the duty to cooperate with neighbouring authorities to meet housing needs is removed. Amendments to the National Policy Planning Framework eliminate the requirement for a rolling five-year housing land supply when the local plan is current. Planning fees for major and minor applications can be increased by 35% and 25%, respectively, while councils gain the authority to consider slow build-out rates during planning approvals.

Furthermore, the Act mandates every local planning authority to create a design code for their area, which will integrate with local or supplementary plans. Additionally, it introduces ‘street vote’ powers, enabling residents on a street to propose property redevelopment aligned with their design preferences. Finally, the Act addresses planning enforcement matters.

Only time will reveal whether the Levelling Up idea truly levels up the country or further leaves certain regions behind.

Rishi Sunak’s government will use next week’s king’s speech to advance expansion of North Sea oil and gas exploration, as well as pro-car policies, in the hope of opening up a clear divide over the green agenda with Labour, the Observer understands.

Toby Helm www.theguardian.com 

Energy industry sources and senior figures in Whitehall say they expect ministers to announce legislation to usher in a new annual system for awarding oil and gas licences, despite the UK’s commitments to move away from fossil fuels and reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The king’s speech, the final legislative programme before the next general election, is also expected to include measures that will explicitly favour motorists, including making it more difficult for local authorities to introduce 20mph speed limits or supposedly unpopular schemes such as the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), recently expanded in London.

Laws to bring in tougher sentencing for serious crimes including rape, and moves to allow the government to rent prison space abroad to ease the current problems of overcrowding are also expected.

With his party lagging way behind Labour in the polls, Sunak announced a major U-turn on green policy in September, postponing the deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars and the phasing out of gas boilers, prompting fury from the car and energy industries. He hoped to win over voters worried that green policies would add to the cost of living.

But since relaunching his premiership and axing the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2, the Tories have made no progress. In today’s Opinium poll for the Observer, they remain 15 points adrift of Keir Starmer’s party.

Despite this, Whitehall insiders and the energy industry say there are now clear signs that Sunak intends to double down in the hope that he can create “wedge issues” with Labour.

Labour suspects the king’s speech will be packed full of bills that will be there almost entirely for political reasons. One senior opposition figure said: “Many of these are not bills that are even necessary, nor does the government think they will ever come on to the statute book. They will be there because they want to be able to ask us: do you dare oppose this or not?”

Environmental campaigners point out that more oil and gas exploration licences are not only irresponsible, given the climate crisis, but that new laws are not needed to award more licences. This has been shown by the fact that the results of a new round of licences, launched just over a year ago during Liz Truss’s brief stint as PM, are due to be announced imminently.

The government argues that awarding more licences will enhance the UK’s energy security and reduce dependence on higher-emission imports, while protecting more than 200,000 jobs in a vital industry.

But the plans have been cast into doubt by new analysis that shows that 13 years of North Sea licensing under the Tories has led to the discovery of very small amounts of gas, the equivalent of just nine weeks’ worth of typical usage across the country.

New data from Uplift – an NGO that supports the transition from fossil fuel production – shows that hundreds of North Sea licences have been issued in six rounds since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. However, this has led to the discovery of only five new oil and gas fields and enabled a further seven previously discovered fields to be developed.

These 12 new fields contain just nine weeks of gas, but only half have begun producing. To date, just 16 days worth of gas has been produced from them since 2010. And half of this has been produced by the Sillimanite gas field, which is 30%-owned by Russian gas giant Gazprom, and has been exported to the Netherlands.

After five decades of drilling, the North Sea’s dwindling reserves, which are largely (70%) oil, mean significant new discoveries are unlikely.

Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, said: “Over the past 13 years under this government, new licences – hundreds of them – have led to a couple of months’ worth of new gas being discovered, and only just over a fortnight’s worth actually being produced.

“The Conservatives are selling us a pipe dream when they need to be straight with people about how we’re going to power this country. Rather than coming up with a coherent plan for ensuring we have a secure and, crucially, affordable power supply, they’re trying to score political points.

“An estimated 6 million households in this country now can’t afford to heat their homes in winter, and bills are likely to stay high for the rest of the decade. Does this government care, or is it more concerned with playing political games with energy policy?”

New data on water quality, to update the 2019 assessment,  is unlikely to be published before the election, indeed a complete update is not now planned until 2025. – Owl

The UK government is to diverge from the EU’s standards for monitoring water quality in England, it can be revealed.

Helena Horton www.theguardian.com

Campaigners fear the change of approach could lead to more pollution in England’s rivers and waterways if the new measuring methods are less rigorous.

While in the EU, England was covered by the water framework directive (WFD), which meant a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually. After Brexit, the WFD was transposed into English law but the government removed the requirement to conduct annual tests.

This is the latest example of the UK diverging from EU environmental standards. Recent analysis found that many toxic chemicals and pesticides banned in the bloc since Brexit are not outlawed for use in the UK. Ministers have also sought to rip up EU-derived sewage pollution rules for housebuilders.

In 2019, the last time the full water assessments took place, just 14% of rivers were in good ecological health and none met standards for good chemical health. The government has said it does not intend to deliver a complete update until 2025, the latest permissible date under the new WFD.

The Guardian can reveal that the government will be using its own, as yet undisclosed methodology to assess river health. Activists say this may make it harder to compare the state of the country’s rivers against those in the EU, and will leave the public in the dark over pollution from sewage and agriculture.

Government officials met stakeholders to tell them about the change. A source from an NGO present in the meeting said: “When asked how this would affect assessments against the target set out in the government’s environment improvement plan, officials commented that this data would no longer be used for that purpose, and that Defra were looking to use the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) process to assessment performance. I question how developed the work on the NCEA is and whether this is suitable.”

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency confirmed to the Guardian that WFD data would no longer be used for the assessments. They said: “A pioneering partnership between Defra, Natural England, Environment Agency, Forest Research and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, NCEA blends capability, expertise and experience to build a richer, more comprehensive picture of our natural environment, monitoring quality and quantity, assessing the impact of or need for interventions and helping to manage and protect our natural capital.”

It is now unlikely that any data revealing whether or not the situation has improved since the 2019 study published in 2020, that shamed the government by showing no English river was in good chemical condition, will be published before the next general election.

Stuart Singleton-White, of the Angling Trust, said: “WFD has been the bedrock of us understanding the state of our rivers, lakes and groundwater. It does not give a full picture, but it does provide a useful starting point. Past assessments have shown things are getting worse, not better. To now not have a full assessment in 2022 and have to wait to 2025 … simply sows confusion and leaves the public in the dark when it comes to properly understanding whether our rivers are getting better or worse.”

Government officials told the stakeholder meeting that in 2022 only a limited number of water bodies were assessed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and budget cuts. They told those present that they would use other monitoring data to keep their assessments of water quality on track, but that they would not use the limited 2022 assessments to extrapolate to a national picture as this risked creating a bias in the data. The 2022 data showed that the condition of the sites assessed had worsened.

The Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesperson, Tim Farron, said: “Instead of clamping down on sewage dumping, ministers have let water companies off the hook and scaled back assessments so we could know exactly how much damage has been done. It is frankly a disgrace. The whole system needs a complete overhaul. That means abolishing Ofwat and setting up a new regulator with real teeth and ensuring that testing is carried out regularly so we can get a full picture of the damage being done to our countryside.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “Improving water quality is one of our highest priorities. We work through plans established under the water environment regulations to guide our permitting and enforcement. This work must be driven by a clear evidence base and we are working with partners to provide better information to enable this, including more real-time data. The next comprehensive update of classifications in all water bodies will be 2025. No significant changes to the classification methodology are planned – including changes to one out, all out. Every single water body will receive a classification.”

NHS bosses are using misleading figures to hide dangerously poor performance by A&E units in England against the four-hour treatment target, emergency department doctors claim.

Denis Campbell www.theguardian.com 

Some A&Es treat and admit, transfer or discharge as few as one in three patients within four hours, although the NHS constitution says they should deal with 95% of arrivals within that timeframe.

How well or poorly A&Es are doing in meeting the 95% target is not in the public domain because the data that NHS England publishes is for NHS trusts overall, not individual hospitals.

That means official figures are an aggregate of performance at sometimes two A&Es run by the same trust or include data for any walk-in centres, minor injuries units or urgent treatment centres that a trust also operates. Forty-eight trusts have two A&Es and many also run at least one of the latter.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), which represents A&E doctors, wants that system scrapped. It is urging NHS England to start publishing data that shows the true performance of every individual emergency department against the 95% standard.

“The current data is misleading,” Dr Adrian Boyle, the college’s president, told the Guardian. “It’s a good example of a lack of transparency and also of performance incentives. Being open about the long delays in some A&Es would shine a light in some dark places.”

Walk-in centre-type settings have much better performance against the four-hour target. That is because, although they also provide urgent and emergency care, most patients who use them have minor ailments and are quicker to treat, whereas those attending hospital-based A&Es are more seriously unwell and take longer to treat and discharge or find a bed for.

Boyle said the current system was flawed because it meant hospital leaders may be tempted to focus on improving four-hour performance in places such as walk-in centres, as high marks there may help to mask what were often low scores in hospital A&E units.

“The problem with the current data is that it encourages hospital managers to chase down the quick wins – to focus on low-acuity patients, such as people with a sprained ankle or cut finger, while neglecting the patients who are waiting on trolleys [in A&E] for admission to hospital,” he said.

NHS England collects but does not publish site-level data. But its practice of combining performance figures from A&Es and other settings “provides a figleaf and a smokescreen that hides poor performance and real harm that’s being done to patients through them having long stays in A&E,” Boyle added.

Earlier this month the Health Service Journal acquired and published site-level data for every individual A&E in England. It showed that between April and June this year Pilgrim hospital in Boston, Lincolnshire, managed to deal with only 33% of patients within four hours, the lowest proportion in the country. However, the performance of the United Lincolnshire Hospitals trust that runs it was much higher, at 45.3%.

Similarly, North West Anglia trust’s overall 56.3% performance disguised the fact that the A&E at its Peterborough city hospital site scored just 38.1%.

Publishing figures for each individual hospital would improve patient safety, Boyle said. “We know that there’s an increased risk of mortality once someone has spent more than six hours in A&E waiting for a bed. Our efforts must be to prioritise the sickest, the oldest and the most vulnerable patients, to reduce the risk of them dying. Our system as it is currently designed is making sick people more sick.”

Boyle said Steve Barclay, the health secretary, fully supported the RCEM’s call for greater transparency around A&E data. The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond when asked about the minister’s view.

NHS England said it would continue publishing aggregated data for trusts. A spokesperson said: “Data is published at the level of accountability – in this case trusts, which use site data to identify and tackle variation.

“As part of a national support package and measures in the urgent and emergency care recovery plan, the NHS offers on the ground tailored support at both site and trust level through tiered interventions and sharing good practice, which reduces variation both within and across systems.”

Britain’s most senior civil servant called Boris Johnson “mad and dangerous” and compared him to Donald Trump during the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been claimed.

Hugo Gye, Arj Singh inews.co.uk

Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, allegedly sent the message in summer 2020 when the then-Prime Minister was seeking to end all social distancing rules.

The WhatsApp message to colleagues is expected to be published in the coming days as the official Covid inquiry resumes its evidence sessions, The Times reported.

In it Mr Case apparently said that the idea of ending the pandemic rules when coronavirus infections were increasing was “Trump Bolsonaro level mad and dangerous” – a reference to the leaders of the US and Brazil, who both sought to downplay the danger posed by the pandemic.

The Government ended up allowing most businesses to reopen and weakening social distancing guidelines, but later had to reverse course and impose two more lockdowns as pressure on hospitals continued to grow.

Among those giving evidence to the inquiry next week are former No 10 chief of staff Dominic Cummings, communications director Lee Cain and Mr Johnson’s former principal private secretary Martin Reynolds, who acquired the nickname “Party Marty” during the scandal over lockdown-breaking gatherings in Downing Street.

Mr Reynolds will appear on Monday morning followed by Mr Cain in the afternoon, with Mr Cummings giving evidence on Tuesday morning.

Other notable figures appearing next week include former deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen MacNamara, ex-permanent secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care Sir Christopher Wormald and former NHS chief executive Baron Stevens of Birmingham.

Module two of the inquiry is focused on decision-making and political governance at the heart of the Government.

So we can expect questions about some of the biggest policy decisions and how they were made, including particularly when and how the Government decided to impose lockdowns – which has been a key focus of the inquiry so far.

Mr Cummings has in the past given scathing evidence in this area, infamously bemoaning the fact there are “no ninjas” and “no door” to a “quiet calm centre” in No 10 where there are officials “who actually know what they are doing”.

Former Chancellor George Osborne has claimed that Mr Cummings and Mr Johnson sent “disgusting and misogynistic” WhatsApp messages that will be released by the inquiry next week.

WhatsApp correspondence in which Mr Case refers to Mr Johnson’s wife Carrie as “the real person in charge” and said the Government was a “terrible, tragic joke” in a group including Mr Cummings and Mr Cain have already been published.

It emerged last week that the Government’s current chief scientific adviser Dame Angela Maclean referred to the Prime Minister as “Dr Death the chancellor” over the then-chancellor’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, when the Professor was an adviser to the Ministry of Defence.

Mr Cummings and Mr Cain have also previously criticised Mr Sunak’s claims that he was stopped from talking about “trade-offs” when the Government was deciding to impose lockdowns, meaning the Prime Minister’s conduct could come up.

As Chancellor at the time, Mr Sunak was also at the heart of Government decision-making and there could be revelations about his role from a number of witnesses.

Richard Foord has secured an Adjournment Debate early in the new parliament.

These last half an hour and provide an opportunity for an individual backbench MP to raise an issue and receive a response from the relevant Minister.

Monday, 13 November 2023: Upcoming business  www.theyworkforyou.com

Commons: Main Chamber

• Debate on the Address
• Seaton Community Hospital – Richard Foord Adjournment debate

“I’ve had to choose to prioritise and I can assure you, species reintroduction ain’t one of my top priorities and therefore we’ve stepped back away from that,” Thérèse Coffey  told the committee on Tuesday. “Ultimately we have a broader range of activities and we have to choose where we can put our resources.” (Source BBC) [See: Are our beavers under threat from Therese Coffey?]

committees.parliament.uk 

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee today publishes the Government’s response to its report on Species Reintroduction, in which MPs considered Defra’s approach to the ongoing and often contentious reintroduction of species such as beavers, eagles and bison. The Committee drew attention to the potential benefits that species reintroduction could offer but noted that reintroductions require careful long-term plans to identify and manage potential adverse effects on local communities and other land users.

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• Find all publications related to this inquiry, including oral and written evidence
• Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

MPs called for the Government to produce a list of priority species for reintroduction

In their report, published in July, the EFRA Committee cited that species reintroduction could help government to meet its biodiversity and species abundance goals and could benefit local communities, restore ecosystems and secure the future of organisms in the wild. The Committee made a series of detailed recommendations on the Government adopting a long-term strategic vision on species reintroduction. MPs called for the Government to produce a list of priority species for reintroduction.

It also noted, however, that species reintroduction can be controversial and can carry the risk of potential adverse effects on local communities, as in the case of beaver reintroduction. The EFRA Committee’s report recommended categorising species according to levels of risk to stakeholders, (low, medium or high) and emphasized the importance of a pre-reintroduction management plan for each species.

Species reintroduction not a Government priority

In its response to the report, DEFRA states that ‘the reintroduction of species is not a priority for the government’ and that the Government aims to reach its biodiversity targets through other methods including habitat restoration and biodiversity corridors. DEFRA says it will not be producing a strategy or a list of priority species for reintroduction and referred instead to the Government’s Code for Reintroductions. To the proposal of a three-tiered list of risk levels, DEFRA disagreed, responding that the level of risk from any species is dependent upon local circumstances.

EFRA’s report recommended that a Species Reintroduction Strategy by Government should include budgetary provision to support farmers and landowners in case of adverse effects of reintroduction. Responding to EFRA’s proposal, the Government stated that the primary mechanism for Government funding for farmers would be through ELMS (environment land management schemes).

Chair’s comment

Sir Robert Goodwill, Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said:

“The Government has said that species reintroductions are not a priority and so it will not produce a strategy for managing them. This is despite the fact that reintroductions are currently taking place in the UK and raising concerns in farming and rural communities, particularly in relation to increased flooding risks arising from beaver reintroductions.

The Government have in the past played a role in supporting the reintroduction of lost native species, including the red kite and pool frog. However, given the important potential benefits of species reintroduction and considering the Government’s own targets on biodiversity, it is concerning that they do not have a plan on species reintroduction and disappointing that they have not responded positively to our report and taken more steps to manage the reintroductions taking place as we speak.”

Rishi Sunak will miss his key pledge to cut NHS waiting lists as a new analysis shows the backlog is set to hit a record 8 million by next summer – regardless of further strikes.

Rebecca Thomas www.independent.co.uk

The number of patients waiting for an operation or appointment will peak at an all-time high by August 2024 – up from 7.75 million this August, according to the Health Foundation think tank.

The analysis will come as a blow to the prime minister who has so far failed to meet promises he made in January 2023 to cut the backlog and get people treated more quickly by March 2024.

The latest figures show 500,000 more people are waiting to be seen since he made the pledge.

Wes Streeting, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said the report “blows out of the water the Conservatives’ attempts to blame doctors and nurses for the crisis in the NHS”.

“Rishi Sunak’s failure to stop the strikes has only made a terrible situation worse, leaving even more patients waiting in pain and discomfort, unable to live their lives to the full,” he added.

The Health Foundation’s predictions, calculated by measuring new monthly surgery and appointment referrals against completed treatments, found the NHS waiting list has been steadily rising for the past decade. And efforts to tackle the backlog could be further hampered by a new wave of Covid or bad winter flu season or hospitals having to cut back care as a result of financial pressures, it added.

Charles Tallack, director of data analytics at the Health Foundation, said: “Ministers have been quick to blame industrial action for the lack of progress in reducing the waiting list but the roots of this crisis lie in a decade of underinvestment in the NHS, a failure to address chronic staff shortages and the longstanding neglect of social care. The pandemic heaped further significant pressure on an already stressed system but waiting lists were already growing long before Covid.”

“Eliminating the backlog for elective care and returning waiting times to 18 weeks is entirely possible – it was done in the early 2000s and it can be done again. However, it will be very challenging and will require sustained focus, policy action and investment.”

The report warned that ongoing junior doctors’ strikes could cause the waiting list to increase after August 2024 by 180,000. It also said they would have indirect impacts on services such as “squeezing NHS finances and diverting management attention away from productivity improvement”.

So far, strike action by junior doctors, which started in March, and action by consultants which started in July, has increased the waiting list by 210,000 people – 3 per cent – according to the analysis.

Responding to the report, Tim Mitchell, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said waiting lists had “ballooned” in the past decade due to “underinvestment and workforce shortages” – pressures which were compounded by the pandemic.

“While industrial action has contributed to delays, the roots of this crisis precede the strikes,” he said.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents health services across England said: “With the elective waiting list increasing by around 100,000 a month, NHS finances already hit to the tune of £1.4bn and nearly 1.2 million people experiencing a cancelled operation as a result of industrial action, it’s in everyone’s interest to bring the strikes to an end. If not, we are facing a waiting list of over 8 million next year.”

“As the Health Foundation report rightly says, the root cause of the delays to treatment that patients are now experiencing is a decade of under-investment in the NHS.”

Representatives from the British Medical Association and the government met last week after months of stalemate over the strikes.

BMA chair, Prof Phil Banfield, said: “For months we have been hearing ministers blame strikes for the length of the elective waiting lists, which are now nearing 8 million. While there is no doubt that industrial action has had an effect on the ability to reduce waiting lists – something that could have been avoided entirely if the government had come to the table willing to listen to doctors in the first place – it pales in comparison with a decade of failure of policy on the NHS from the top

“This should be a ‘carpe diem’ moment for the PM and chancellor. They must seize the moment to demonstrate they are planning and investing for the long-term future of the UK. I appeal directly to them to unblock the obstacles that stop us getting on with treating patients. It is up to them.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.

Two of Torbay’s Conservative councilors have resigned from the ruling Tory group.

The two rebel councillors are also calling on the Tory administration to focus on supporting local High Streets and tackling the problems of homelessness and housing.

“There’s a lot of good stuff going on in Torbay with devolution and big capital projects lining up, but if history has taught us anything it’s that the devil is in the detail, and we would encourage the administration to be focused on that too.

“We want to be free to challenge projects while they’re still being formulated so we can avoid the fiascos of the past.”

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

Katya Maddison (Shiphay) and Patrick Joyce (Wellswood) were elected as Conservatives in the local council polls in May, but have now decided to form a new group called Prosper Torbay.

They claim they will be better able to serve the interests of Torbay residents by being outside the Conservative group.

The change shifts the balance of power on Torbay Council significantly. Up until today there were 19 Conservative councillors, 15 Liberal Democrats and two Independents, giving the Tories an overall majority of two.

However, with 17 Conservatives, 15 Liberal Democrats, two Independents and two Prosper Torbay councillors, the overall majority is gone.

The two rebel councillors are also calling on the Tory administration to focus on supporting local High Streets and tackling the problems of homelessness and housing.

In a statement they said: “There’s a lot of good stuff going on in Torbay with devolution and big capital projects lining up, but if history has taught us anything it’s that the devil is in the detail, and we would encourage the administration to be focused on that too.

“We want to be free to challenge projects while they’re still being formulated so we can avoid the fiascos of the past.”

The two councillors say there are old issues which aren’t going to be solved by building projects.

Their statement goes on: “To get the best result from all this investment a response to anti-social behaviour must be baked into the programme.

“Our high street businesses are fragile. We’ve worked hard to understand some of their challenges and would like to see effective measures being taken by a council listening and adapting and supporting our communities.

“Particularly at this time of economic challenge we could be developing new thinking to help them respond to the pressures they are facing.”

Cllr Maddison says she believes better information flows and transparency are things the council could improve to the benefit of residents and businesses, while Cllr Joyce says he believes new ideas are needed if the issues of homelessness and housing are to be addressed.

“We will continue to strive for a council focused on improvement,” the statement goes on.

“What lies ahead of us is so exciting, but we must link investment with the other crucial changes that will make the difference, and that doesn’t happen unless there are people actively pushing for them.

“Our purpose is working for all residents of Torbay who are at the heart of everything we look to do and achieve, and we continue as ward councillors to serve our communities in very difficult and uncertain times.”