Remember the only town in the South West to receive this government largess is Torbay.

Here is what the Torbay Lib Dem Leader has to say:

Steve Darling, leader of the Liberal Democrats on Torbay Council, said the funding was welcome, but its annual gap in funding was about £96m a year, “so £20m over a decade is just a drop in the ocean”.

He said: “Over many years, Torbay Council have faced hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts – it’s the equivalent of having £96 stolen out of your wallet and expected to be grateful when you’re given £2 back.

“We need much more serious money over many years to actually tackle the challenges that we face rather than effectively the crumbs from the table… this is not good enough.”

www.bbc.co.uk

Cabinet ministers were forced to give speeches in half-empty halls while a major split emerged over tax as the Tory Party conference got off to a shaky start.

Kevin Schofield www.huffingtonpost.co.uk Sunday

Foreign secretary James Cleverly and defence secretary Grant Shapps were confronted with rows of empty seats as the annual get-together kicked off in Manchester.

And Rishi Sunak’s attempts to re-launch his stuttering leadership were dealt a blow as levelling up secretary Michael Gove called for taxes to be cut before the next election.

Interviewed by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg this morning, the prime minister was asked: “Have you really got your party under control?”

The Tories are gathering for what could be the last time before the election with Labour still well ahead in the polls.

Sunak is attempting to re-set his leadership nearly a year after he replaced Liz Truss as PM.

Last week he announced he was watering down many of the government’s green policies and has also pledged to end the “war on motorists” he claims is being waged by councils around the country.

But his attempt at a fightback is at risk of being thrown off course by his internal party critics.

A “Great British Growth Rally” at the conference tomorrow will see Truss joined by Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg in demanding tax cuts.

They were joined this morning by Gove, who told Sky News he would “like to see the tax burden reduced by the next election”.

“We should make sure that [workers] are better rewarded for the enterprise, effort and endeavour they put in,” he said.

Asked about Gove’s comments on “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg” on the BBC, Sunak refused to back his colleague.

He said: “We are all Conservatives, of course I want to cut taxes [but] the best tax cut I can deliver right now for the country is to halve inflation.

“It is inflation that is putting the prices of things up, inflation impacting the cost of living, inflation eating into people’s savings, their bank accounts, their wallets.

“And that’s why the first of my priorities is to bring inflation down – to halve it – and I am pleased we are making progress.”

Meanwhile, Tory activists appeared to vote with their feet by snubbing a succession of cabinet ministers.

Twitter link to video here

Both Cleverly and Shapps – two of the cabinet’s big beasts – were left embarrassed as they gave their big speeches in the sparsely-populated main conference hall.

Both used their addresses to launch outspoken attacks on Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

Cleverly said they were “a group of political chancers and visionless ideologues” who did not deserve to win the next election.

Meanwhile, Shapps said Starmer was “a man focused on the short-term and lacking the backbone to make the big changes that Britain needs”.

The defence secretary added: “In Rishi Sunak, we have a leader who has weathered a brutal baptism of fire and is coming through. His mettle has been tested and not found wanting.

“He has stuck to his course, trusting in what he believes to be right for the country. It doesn’t always make him popular in the short term – but that is the price of doing the right thing.”

How much has been milked from water companies since privatisation?

Average household bills have risen 40% above inflation since 1989.

Water firms have also accrued £54bn in debt since privatisation – but paid out dividends to shareholders of £66bn, according to an analysis by The Guardian newspaper last year, with 20% of bills going towards servicing debt or paying out dividends on average. (Sky news July) – Owl

Water companies want bills to increase by £156 a year by 2030 to pay for upgrades and reduce sewage discharges.

By Vishala Sri-Pathma www.bbc.co.uk

The increase would allow infrastructure spending to almost double to £96bn and fund the construction of 10 new reservoirs, the water industry says.

But the proposals come amid public anger at the amount of sewage being discharged into rivers and seas and continued cost of living pressures.

Water industry regulator Ofwat has been asked to approve the plans.

If given the green light, water companies say the “record-breaking investment proposals” will secure the country’s water supply in the long-term.

Industry body Water UK said it is planning the “most ambitious modernisation of sewers since the Victorian era” and by the end of the decade said it could reduce leaks by a quarter compared with 2020.

It also said it would cut sewage spills into waterways by more than 140,000 each year by 2030. Water companies spilled sewage into rivers and seas more than 300,00 times in 2022.

The cost of the upgrades will be spread over decades, but if the regulator approves the plans the average annual bill will go up by £84 in 2025 rising to £156 extra by 2030.

While Environment Secretary Therese Coffey broadly welcomed the investment plans, she said Ofwat should ensure customers do not “pay the price for poor performance”

The regulator, she said, “should use the full powers we have given them on behalf of consumers”.

Ms Coffey added: “Now is the time for water companies to step up and deliver lasting changes for future generations.”

Last week Ofwat ordered water companies to pay back £114m to customers through lower bills after missing key targets.

The regulator said firms were “falling short” on performance measures around leaks, supply and reducing pollution.

The regulator said in its assessment that not one company reached the highest measure of performance.

Dŵr Cymru, Southern, Thames, Anglian, Bristol, South East and Yorkshire Water fell into the lowest category of “lagging” and the remaining 10 were rated “average”. None were considered “leading”.

If water companies fail to meet the targets it sets, Ofwat restricts the cash that they can take from customers.

All but five of the water providers reviewed will have to give money back to customers by reducing their bills in 2024-25, rather than each bill payer getting a lump sum refund.

Almost nine in 10 voters who intend to switch their support from Conservative to Labour candidates in the next general election believe that “green growth” is important for the future of Britain’s economy, according to a poll.

Jillian Ambrose www.theguardian.com 

Carried out by pollsters Opinium, the survey found that 82% of all respondents backed the growth of Britain’s green industry to boost the economy, in the same week that the prime minister announced a series of U-turns on the government’s green commitments in an attempt to create a dividing line with Labour before the election.

The survey of more than 5,000 adults found support for the green economy was even stronger among swing voters who supported the Conservatives in 2019 and are now planning to switch to Labour, at 88%.

The survey was carried out between 8 and 20 September, when the prime minister confirmed a major about-turn on the government’s climate commitments. Rishi Sunak said the UK would push back the ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars and the phasing out of gas boilers. He also plans to dilute energy efficiency standards.

Business leaders and green groups criticised the move for undermining Britain’s green economic agenda, while senior members of the Conservative party raised concerns that Sunak’s gamble may cost the Tories voters in the upcoming election.

When asked which of the chancellor’s five “priority sectors” of the economy were most likely to encourage growth overall, twice as many people thought green industries would have the biggest positive impact on overall growth than any other sector, including life sciences, digital tech and advanced manufacturing.

Growing investment in renewable energy was backed by 71% of respondents, according to the poll, which was commissioned by trade association Renewable UK. Only 40% of respondents agreed that the Tory party had even partially delivered on this commitment. Renewable UK is expected to reveal the findings of the poll at an event at the Conservative party conference.

The Conservative MP, Alok Sharma, president of the Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow in 2021, said: “The prime minister’s recent call for the UK to embrace the incredible opportunities of green industry with even greater enthusiasm is clearly backed by people across the country.

“However, attracting inwards green investment does require further action and I therefore look forward to the government’s promised response in the autumn statement to the US’s Inflation Reduction Act which is hoovering up many billions of pounds of private sector investment and causing some companies to think about prioritising expanding in the US ahead of the UK,” he said.

Sunak’s green U-turn came just weeks after the government’s annual renewable energy auction failed to secure bids from any offshore wind developers. Greenpeace described the outcome as “the biggest disaster for clean energy policy in the last eight years” because it risked jeopardising the UK’s plan to triple its offshore wind power capacity by 2030, and cast doubt on Britain’s climate targets.

Nathan Bennett, a director at Renewable UK, said the polling demonstrates “very clearly that people see the success of green industries as vital to the UK’s economic growth”.

“Although we welcome the prime minister reiterating his support for green industries in his net zero speech, this has to be backed up with tangible measures to make the UK a more attractive market for green investment or we will see factories and jobs which could have been in the UK go overseas,” Bennett said.

“This polling shows not only that there is a wealth of public support for new incentives to secure renewable energy projects and manufacturing, but that people be would disappointed if we fail to secure these investments,” he said.

A herpes virus which can be lethal to Pacific oysters has been confirmed in Devon’s River Exe for the first time.

www.bbc.co.uk

The government confirmed it had defined a “containment area” covering the river’s tidal waters and coastal zone.

Samples were taken from the site after a shellfish farmer reported “unusual mortalities”.

The Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI) said there was no risk to other marine life or humans.

Chris Evans, lead inspector at the FHI told the BBC they took samples from the site in August which tested positive for the oyster herpesvirus-1 microvariant among Pacific oysters.

The “containment area” means these oysters, which are labelled as an “invasive species” by some conservationists, cannot be moved to places where the disease has not been recorded.

“Farmers can still sell Pacific oysters for human consumption as they normally do because the risk of the disease transferring through that route is very minimal,” Mr Evans said.

The virus is spread through the movement of oysters, shipping movements, or even people not cleaning their boots, he said, with no known link to contamination or dredging.

He added: “Oyster herpes virus microvariant is what we call a listed disease.

“So the government wants to place controls and stop the spread of it, because it has the potential to impact upon not only oysters, but also businesses operating in the coastal zone.”

He said outbreaks can lead to “upwards of about 90% mortality”, impacting farmers who “lose a significant amount of stock” and leading to economic damage.

“When I worked on an oyster farm myself it was horrible to see the amount of stock die,” he added.

“There’s no treatment for it.”

Mr Evans said the first known occurrence of the virus was in Kent in 2009.

It then spread along the coastline to areas including Essex and Poole Harbour, and is also present in Jersey.

This was the first time the virus had been recorded in the Exe, although the Teign has been classed as a “containment area” since 2015, he confirmed.

Once an area is designated, it remains for as long as it is listed, and it is a “warm water disease”, Mr Evans said.

His team monitors the coastline to try and keep it free from the virus, working closely with farmers on biosecurity measures, and raising public awareness of containment zones.

Martyn Syvret of Aquafish Solutions, is establishing a pilot oyster farm within the containment zone on the Exe.

He said: “This disease can create large scale mortalities and has an economic impact.

“Being a disease-free area means farms can only buy seed from certain hatcheries, whereas having the virus means they can buy more cheaply from French hatcheries.”

He added: “The French industry is putting a lot of resource into developing new strains of Pacific oysters that are less susceptible to the virus.”

‘Disappointment’

David Jarrad, chief executive of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, said: “I think it is sad.

“But it’s not surprising as oyster herpes is endemic in other European countries.”

He stressed the virus only affects Pacific oysters, adding: “Any oysters on the market are, of course perfectly safe to eat.

“It hasn’t been found anywhere else over recent years, which we had hoped was a good thing, so this was a disappointment to see that is has now been found in the Exe,” he added.