Liberal Democrats are today [Tuesday] tabling a bill to force Boris Johnson to admit to any fines he receives for lockdown breaches – and they calculate the prime minister could be forced to shell out up to £12,300.

Will Boris need “help” in paying any fines? – Owl

www.independent.co.uk

In a swift U-turn on Tuesday, Downing Street agreed to inform the media if the PM received a fine as a result of the Metropolitan Police inquiry into 12 social gatherings at No 10. The climbdown came 24 hours after No 10 caved in to pressure over its efforts to keep Sue Gray’s final report into the Partygate affair secret.

But it remains unclear whether the size of any fine will be revealed, and Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson said there was no commitment to publicise penalties for any other ministers, officials or members of the PM’s family.

Scotland Yard is not planning to reveal details of any fines, as this is not normal practice.

Under the Ministerial Disclosure Bill being tabled by Lib Dem home affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael and seen by The Independent, any government minister issued with a fixed penalty notice would be required by law to make it public.

Because Covid FPNs can be increased for each subsequent office, Mr Carmichael calculates that Mr Johnson could face a total of £12,300 in fines if police penalise him in relation to six events which he is alleged to have attended.

These include the “bring your own booze” garden party on 20 May 2020 (£100); the celebration of Mr Johnson’s 56^th birthday on 19 June (£200); the leaving do for former communications chief Lee Cain on 13 November (£800) and the alleged party to celebrate Dominic Cummings’ departure in the Johnsons’ flat that evening (£1,600).

Later events for which the Lib Dems believe the PM could incur fines are another leaving do on 17 December 2020 (£3,200) and a gathering in Downing Street on the departure of two No 10 private secretaries on 14 January 2021 (£6,400).

At present, there is no legal mechanism to force Mr Johnson to reveal fines if he chooses not to do so. His official spokesperson said he would release information voluntarily because of the “significant public interest” in him.

Mr Carmichael told The Independent that the repeated flip-flops from No 10 showed that the prime minister “holds the British public with deep disdain and is taking them for fools”.

He challenged Tory MPs to back his bill or face accusations that they are assisting Mr Johnson and his ministers in covering up their misdemeanours.

“We’ve never needed a legal mechanism to force ministers to reveal if they’d received fixed penalty notices because we’ve never had a leader as shameless as Boris Johnson,” said Mr Carmichael.

“He not only flouts the laws he asked us all to follow, but then repeatedly lies about it.

“Conservative MPs have no excuse – they know that this man is not fit for public office. They should back my Bill so Boris Johnson is forced to come clean. If Johnson is found to have broken the law and fined by the police, he will surely have no choice but to resign.”

Mr Carmichael has also written to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, calling on them to rule out the possibility of the Prime Minister using taxpayer-funded expenses to pay any potential fines which Boris Johnson receives.

A tax cut for banks described as ‘sickening’ by one Labour MP was passed in the Commons last night.

Paul Jones www.sidmouthherald.co.uk

The Finance Bill had its third reading in the House of Commons and included a provision to lower the rate of a surcharge on banking profits of more than £25 million from 8% to 3% from next year.

Coming on the eve of an expected increase in the energy price cap which could see bills rise for millions of households, the tax cut provoked anger on opposition benches, but passed by 302 votes to 226.

An amendment, which would have seen the tax cut axed, was defeated.

Labour called on the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to scrap the tax cut and instead use the estimated £1 billion it raises each year to fund support for households struggling to deal with the cost-of-living crisis, amid rising fuel prices and energy bills.

East Devon MP Simon Jupp (Con) supported the bill, as did fellow Conservative Neil Parish (Con, Tiverton and Honiton). 

Did Devon MPs vote in support of the bill?

Ben Bradshaw (Lab, Exeter): No

Sir Geoffrey Cox (Con, Torridge and West Devon): Yes

Simon Jupp (Con, East Devon): Yes

Anthony Mangnall (Con, Totnes): Yes

Anne Marie Morris (Ind, Newton Abbot): Yes

Neil Parish (Con, Tiverton and Honiton): Yes

Selaine Saxby (Con, North Devon): Yes

Sir Gary Streeter (Con, South West Devon): No vote recorded

Mel Stride (Con, Central Devon): Yes

The cut was announced in last year’s Budget by the Chancellor.

Labour said the surcharge raised £8.3 billion since 2016, which could fund solid wall insulation for 110,000 homes, cavity wall insulation for a million homes, or 380,000 new gas condensing boilers.

And after the vote Richard Burgeon (Lab, East Leeds), said: “Sickening. I just voted to scrap a multi-billion tax cut for bankers.

“Not a single Tory MP voted to stop bankers getting even richer.

“How dare they do this when millions can’t even afford to pay their energy bills.”

Owl attempted to read the levelling up white paper. 

The reviewers are right: it lays out the problems in a number of academic style essays but offers no cures.

On page 96 we get to the nub of the issue:

Size the Prize 

Subject to some assumptions, it is possible to “size the prize” by unlocking places from their low-growth equilibrium. For example, consider if the performance of the bottom-performing quarter of places by productivity were to be “levelled up” to the median. The boost to productivity would be equivalent to a pay rise of around £2,300 for individuals in the poorest areas. For the UK economy as a whole, this would deliver a GVA gain of around £50bn per year. 

So we are going to invest in……………..? Owl tried following up the 192 references to “productivity” only to find generalities about improving this and improving that.

(We have been here before with our Local Enterprise Partnership, HotSW, haven’t we?)

Next Owl turned to Chapter 2 to try to learn something about plans for devolution:

Chapter 2 Systems Reform (yes this the place to look)

2.1 Introduction 

“Chapter 1 described the scale and source of the UK’s geographic disparities and the role public policy can play in counteracting them. It showed that there is no simple or singular solution to reversing spatial disparities because local economies are complex systems, shaped by cumulative and interconnected economic, social and institutional factors. Successful policy programmes need to act on the six capitals [See below] which underpin the prosperity of places to reverse these forces. 

This chapter starts by explaining why past attempts to promote spatial convergence in the UK have been unsuccessful and what lessons can be taken from that experience. In sum, decision-makers nationally and locally have typically lacked the information, incentives and institutions to act in ways which support the closure of spatial disparities in a signifcant and sustained way. 

Drawing on these lessons from the past, this chapter recommends wholesale changes to the information, incentives and institutions which underpin spatial decision-making in the UK. This transformation in the system of government, and in the governance of spatial policy, is supported by five pillars:

 a. a mission-oriented approach to setting policy;

 b. a reorientation of central government decision-making;

 c. greater empowerment of local government decision-making; 

d. a revolution in data and transparency at the subnational level; and

e. enhanced transparency and accountability of this new regime. 

These five pillars are mutually reinforcing. Each performs a necessary role in the new policy regime. But it is their combined effect that is necessary to reshape decision-making and deliver the long-term objectives of levelling up, as part of a new system of governance. That is why the focus of this chapter is the improved information, incentives and institutions underlying the new policy regime. “

By this time Owl had forgotten about the Six Capitals and had to return to the Executive Summary:

The Six Capitals 

Levelling up requires a focused, long-term plan of action and a clear framework to identify and act upon the drivers of spatial disparity. Evidence from a range of disciplines tells us these drivers can be encapsulated in six “capitals”. 

• Physical capital – infrastructure, machines and housing.

• Human capital – the skills, health and experience of the workforce. 

• Intangible capital – innovation, ideas and patents.

• Financial capital – resources supporting the financing of companies. 

• Social capital – the strength of communities, relationships and trust. 

• Institutional capital – local leadership, capacity and capability.  

County Deal

Apparently Devon will be one of the first invited to negotiate a “County Deal”.

Now where does the paper explain what such a deal might include and what the conditions might be?…………..

At this point Owl gave up, defeated.

Prime Minister thanks Simon Jupp for raising very important campaign – but will anything happen?

Lewis Clarke www.devonlive.com

The Prime Minister has been asked to help women in East Devon facing an 120-mile round trip to get to their nearest menopause clinic.

Speaking in Parliament, on Wednesday, February 2, Simon Jupp, the Member of Parliament for East Devon, asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson: “My constituent Jinty Sheerin has launched a campaign for a dedicated menopause clinic in Devon.

“Women in East Devon currently face a 120-mile round trip to get to the nearest specialist menopause clinic. It is not good enough, is it?

“Will my right hon. Friend outline what steps the Government are taking to improve access to menopause services in Devon and the south-west?”

The Prime Minister responded: “I thank my hon. Friend for raising this very important campaign. We are committed to improving menopause care so that all women can have access to the support that they need to manage the symptoms.

“Menopause will be a priority in our women’s health strategy, and we are committed to establishing a UK-wide menopause taskforce.”

Paul Millar www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

Exmouth’s need for a new police station has been a longstanding one, but its need for neighbourhood police officers is greater.

Seven years have passed since the station closed to the public, with not a whisper heard from the Conservative government, responsible for closing it.

Over the past two years since I was elected, I have written to the Police & Crime Commissioner on numerous occasions on behalf of local residents, many of whom contacted me appalled at the fact for a town of our large size, we don’t have enough officers to deal with local issues.

Commissioner Hernandez has said that she hopes the new station will improve ‘visibility’. She has suggested that her own officers may be frustrated that the station has been prioritised over new officers. I’m not surprised.

Being a good public servant requires the ability to order priorities according to the need of residents. For a town of Exmouth’s size, it is unacceptable not to have a public police reception with a ‘Lost and Found’ service and an enquiry desk. So this news is to be welcomed.

But it won’t on its own make our streets safer, and in that regard will not fully reassure the public.

What residents experiencing anti-social behaviour need are more neighbourhood police officers on the streets.

As a constituent and retired former Inspector was at pains to tell me, the new police officers announced does not go far enough to replace the frontline officers lost since the Tories came to power.

Indeed, since Commissioner Hernandez has been in post, there has been a drop in the number of police officers in frontline roles.

When Commissioner Hernandez refers to a ‘record number of police officers’, it is neither visible to my constituents, nor is it true.

Exmouth, like the rest of Devon and Cornwall, has much fewer numbers of police officers as a proportion of its population than the vast majority of other areas of England and Wales.

As such, police officers here are often under extreme pressure due to under-resourcing decided nationally, while my constituents suffer.

Demand in Exmouth is getting ever greater. Government policy on developments which so often lead to houses piled on top of each other, with no infrastructure, are also a problem as they create the ingredients for conflict.

If we are to be both tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, central government must commit to greater devolution of its almost Stalinist planning regime to local areas so as to give local people with more local knowledge greater power to design their communities with more care and sensitivity than a civil servant (the Inspector) in Whitehall.

In addition, the police require clear and and proportionate strategic direction on how they prioritise their limited resources.

Neither our police force, nor our democracy, are served by the wicked attempt by the (still) Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel to outlaw peaceful protests which just happen to be ‘noisy’.

While the House of Lords rejected it a fortnight ago, Johnson and Patel appear determined to force through and it is coming back to the House of Commons.

Peaceful protests are a basic human right. While they’re more likely seen in Exeter than in Exmouth, the protests in opposition to the appalling treatment by East Devon District Council of local Exmouth families running businesses on the seafront in Exmouth was effective in raising the important issue of the Conservative run Council’s historic lack of empathy towards ordinary people.

A new law would effectively ban the only action some local citizens have to disagree with actions they, often rightly, perceive as unacceptable.

These days, the new rainbow coalition administration in control of the council ensures that local people are beginning to be treated with more dignity and respect, but much of the old guard still remain.

A new law to ban protest would undermine this work.

Tim Jones, chair of the South West Business Council, said: “There are no nuggets in this for the South West. It’s disappointing. They are taking a very complacent view of the South West being safe in Government circles.” (Today’s Western Morning News)

Edward Oldfield www.devonlive.com

Council leaders say they don’t want Devon to have a new elected mayor as the government unveiled its ‘levelling up’ plans for the UK.

The idea has come up under plans for a new combined authority for the county to take over government powers.

The new body could control cross-council issues like training, housing, transport and business support.

But Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors all say they don’t want to see a new mayor in charge.

The government announced that under its levelling up plans, Devon, Torbay and Plymouth are on a list of nine areas where devolved powers will be handed over to a mayoral combined authority.

The government says it wants to create more of the strong local leadership shown by regional mayors like Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester.

Council leaders in Devon say they are waiting for more details and support greater partnership working.

But they stress they don’t want to see the current system scrapped, and don’t want a new elected mayor.

Labour described the scheme as a “stunt” and said the money would not make up for the millions cut from local government by the Conservatives over 12 years of austerity.

Local government in Torbay and Plymouth is currently delivered by top-tier unitary authorities, in charge of all council services from licensing to waste collection.

In the rest of Devon there is a three-level system of parish and town councils for local issues like grass-cutting, district councils for services like planning and recycling, and Devon County Council for the rest including social services and highways.

A joint bid for a combined authority was submitted to government by all the Devon councils, but in talks with government they ruled out the need for an elected mayor.

John Hart, Conservative leader of Devon County Council, said: “What we have here is Devon having an opportunity to be in the forefront of what changes the government is going to make.”

He added: “It is about building on the strengths of the relationships we have.

“It is also having the government give us the powers to get on with some things, hopefully with a bit of money to give us the powers, to get us to be able to make decisions more locally than nationally.”

He said the new authority could focus on supporting the economy with skills and training, in partnerships with further education colleges like in Exeter, for example in the aviation and pharmaceutical industries, and in the care sector.

Cllr Hart said there were also huge opportunities in renewable energy and marine industries, such as building off-shore wind power generation, and developing the plans for a freeport at Plymouth and the surrounding area.

The Conservative leader said the councils in Devon had worked closely together during the pandemic and shown how support could be delivered effectively to local communities.

Plymouth City Council Labour group leader Tudor Evans, leader of the opposition on the Conservative-controlled authority, described levelling up as a “slogan” and the announcement as a “stunt”.

He said funding cuts over 12 years had seen the government grant to Plymouth drop from £106million 12 years ago to £10million now.

He said in real terms, without a cut, the grant should be £145million, and nationally local government funding had been cut by more than half, leading to the closure of hundreds of libraries, children’s centre, and police stations.

Cllr Evans, who used to be the city council’s leader, said: “The money that is on the table is dwarfed by the amount of money that has been taken from local government.

“The point is that this announcement is giving us a dance for a tiny bit of the money to be put back, forgetting the money that they have cancelled from local government over the last 12 years.

“Nobody must be under the illusion that this intervention will in any way make up for that, but more worrying than that, it won’t make up for the decades of underfunding in the South West.”

In Torbay, which is the most deprived area of the South West, the government has already allocated £22million of regeneration funding in Torquay and £13million in Paignton.

Liberal Democrat leader Steve Darling said all political parties in Devon were not interested in having an elected mayor.

The role was scrapped in Torbay in 2019 after a referendum in 2016 about whether to continue the system.

Cllr Darling said: “It should be about devolving powers to people, and then choosing the structures that work for them, rather than central government imposing what they think they should be.”

A mayoral combined authority is a legal body that allows councils to work together to make collective decisions across council boundaries, taking advantage of powers devolved to them by central government.

Nine mayoral combined authorities have been set up so far in England, with one covering the West of England, and there is one in the North East without a mayor.

The next nine areas to start talks over setting up the system are Cornwall, Derbyshire and Derby, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay, Durham, Hull and East Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire and Nottingham, and Suffolk.

There had been speculation that Devon would be next for a shake-up of local government after the two-tier council system was replaced by all-powerful unitary authorities in Dorset and Somerset.

But it appears any change to the current set-up of county and districts in Devon would now be resisted during talks about setting up a new combined authority.

“Is this it?” – Lisa nandy

“The whole national fund is less than half of the annual budget for Manchester City Council for the next financial year, an institution that serves around 600,000 people.”

Link to summary and full report here.

www.independent.co.uk 

The levelling-up white paper lays out the problem of regional inequality. But it doesn’t offer a cost-benefit analysis for the cure – or the means to buy the medicine.

The consensus from economists and policy-makers is that it’s a start. However, years after the promise to level up the nation was sold to voters in the 2019 election, it is no more than a start.

Swathes of the 332-page document are dedicated to the history of economics rather than a meaningful action plan. That includes an entire page that republishes an infographic from a 2016 Guardian article on ancient history.

The rest of the paper explores the flagship policy’s 12 missions, which range from skills to transport and lay out how small amounts of cash have been given to different areas.

It has three main limitations: cash, local powers and timelines.

The levelling-up fund is worth £4.8bn for a UK population of about 70 million. It is helpful to put that number in some context in order to understand just how small it is in terms of a flagship economic, social and moral policy. The public and politicians will probably end up asking, “Where are the billions?” Economists are likely to be left asking, “Where are the trillions?”

There’s no easy like-for-like comparison, but the whole national fund is less than half of the annual budget for Manchester City Council for the next financial year, an institution that serves around 600,000 people.

It is not just that the investment involved is small. It is that while the missions the paper lays out are given a 10-year rolling deadline there is no clear long-term financial commitment from central government laid out in the document.

This is not a project that can be done quickly or on the cheap. The unified German government has been trying to level up east and west since 1990. It has spent around €2trillion and still not managed it entirely – unemployment remains stubbornly higher in the former communist east.

Boosting skills and industry requires long-term financial settlements. Programmes of study also need to be plugged into trade strategy. The paper falls very short on detail in these crucial areas.

It notes benefits of deals that have not even been successfully negotiated and does not – for instance – ask the question about how exactly the government and private sector will train workers who can benefit from exporting to countries such as those within the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

While politicians and politically-minded economists might disagree about whether levelling-up efforts should drive greater investment or more tax cuts and relaxed planning laws, the paper offers few next steps on either.

It leaves the question of radical changes to the planning process for another day, money to develop brownfield sites is siloed into multiple pots. There is also merely a promise to develop a separate white paper on health inequality.

Local councils often exhaust huge energy and resources into bidding for the small pots of money. The white paper might have been better off showing a radical shift not only in investment, but also the power to allocate that money more freely for local government. It falls short on a meaningful shift in devolved powers.

Like every government strategy paper of the past decade (possibly longer) it falls into a trap of suggesting hubs or clusters or zones as a magic bullet for an industrial strategy and a sprinkling – it really is a sprinkling – of money to create them.

If the government really wants the private sector to play a greater role in terms of cash and training and help build these clusters, it will take more than some fairly general points about making finance more available to small and medium firms. History suggests it will take billions of public funds over the long term alongside a clear and stable outlook for taxation and regulation.

Freeports make a fresh appearance. These zones have been possible in the UK even while it was an EU member. Some argue that more freedom in areas like tax breaks and regulation can shift the dial on their success, but few economist believe they will offer net economic benefits in a low tariff, industrialised and open economy like Britain’s.

In some areas, by laying out the scale of the problem and starting to work out how to measure it in a more accountable manner – with efforts such as the the Spatial Data Unit in order to illustrate progress on a range of inequality measures – it lays some ground for some detailed policymaking in the future.

Few people disagree that levelling up should be a government priority, both among people wherever they live but also between places. But if anyone had hoped that this was a Marshall Plan that would make the UK economy fit for the challenges of the 21st century, they will be disappointed. It does not give communities the ability to take back control and in economic terms it’s unlikely to have any short- or medium-term impact on prosperity.

www.highstreetstaskforce.org.uk 

Each selected local authority will be invited to put forward a high street or centre which can benefit from help to address local challenges and to develop strategies for positive change. The Task Force, which was appointed by government in 2019, will provide these locations with expert consultancy and training, working directly with local government and facilitating engagement with communities and civic societies.

The support, which will start in each selected location from Summer this year, begins with a visit from High Streets Task Force experts who will consult and collaborate with the local authority, businesses, and community groups, with the aim of unlocking the potential of each place.

Support for locations

In order to target high streets with the greatest need for support, regional indicators of deprivation and inequality have been analysed to produce the list of 68 local authorities noted below. This analysis also takes into account the effect of COVID-19 on high streets.

This new help for places continues the work of the Task Force, which has already directly supported 84 local authorities across England and provided further online resources that are available to all towns and cities responding to the impact of COVID-19.

Mark Robinson, High Streets Task Force Chair, said:

“Over the last 2 years, the Task Force has witnessed the resilience of high streets and the diversity of their communities. We’ve engaged over 4,000 placemakers so far and I’m delighted we’ll be supporting a further 68 local authorities to consider their own ambitious plans for recovery and long-term growth.”

“We know from our work that high streets thrive when businesses, councils and community champions work together. The Task Force aims to provide that impetus to partnerships and to help them learn quickly from other local success stories.”

Further 68 local authorities to receive support:

Task Force approach to transformation

Support available to local authorities starts with a diagnostic visit to identify the needs of each selected location and to prescribe follow up products and services relating to relevant expertise and strategies, for example place branding, visioning, governance or spatial design.

Follow up products and services consist of up to 4 days of expert consultancy time, mentoring where there is a need to build local relationships, and specific workshops to support the development of place making activity or a local vision. Locations can also access footfall data and online training courses on the use of place data and sentiment.

The High Streets Task Force, which is led by the Institute of Place Management based at Manchester Metropolitan University, has appointed 150 independent experts from the professional bodies Design Council, Landscape Institute, Institute of Place Management and the Royal Town Planning Institute. Appointed experts work with places, bringing their insight into town centres and how to build capacity for change.

Matt Colledge, Director of the High Streets Task Force, said:

“Our approach to support is designed in recognition that every place is unique. Whether it’s local heritage, a town’s infrastructure and built environment, the broader needs of its community, or its unique culture, services and attractions. We start by meeting with local stakeholders to get a deeper understanding of their place, so we can offer advice that really helps.”

“Of course, places haven’t been waiting for the Task Force before getting started. They’re already well underway delivering investment and high street transformation, and – whether it’s through our data provision, training programmes or expert advice – we want to help ensure their work provides the greatest local impact.”

Visits to each of these newly selected areas will continue until mid-2024.

Cheshire West and Chester Council were part of the High Street Task Force Pilot programme, working with the Task Force in Ellesmere Port. Councillor Richard Beacham, Cabinet Member for Inclusive Growth, Economy & Regeneration said:

“We began working with the High Streets Task Force in Ellesmere Port, as part of its pilot programme in 2020. With their advice and support we began work to establish a framework to develop the vision for Ellesmere Port, based on the principles of partnership and working closely with the community to deliver on our collective ambitions for the area.”

“Ellesmere Port is a proud industrial town on the River Mersey and like many places has faced challenges with empty units and encouraging people to the town centre. Building on our work with the Task Force, we’ve recently supported a new programme of events, centred around our local market, and there is great positivity in the community about our future vision.“

The Queen’s cheddar cheese supplier has admitted more than 20 river pollution offences, including an illegal discharge of poisonous waste that killed hundreds of fish.

Rhys Blakely www.thetimes.co.uk 

The breaches occurred over several years at the Davidstow Creamery in Cornwall, which is owned by Saputo Dairy UK and produces Cathedral City cheddar. It is the only cheddar maker to hold a royal warrant.

The company, previously known as Dairy Crest, has admitted 21 environmental offences at the site, said to be the biggest cheddar factory in the world. They led to fish being killed in the River Inny in 2016 and 2018; each offence could result in an unlimited fine at crown court.

In the summer of 2018 hundreds of dead fish were found in the river, prompting the Environment Agency to designate a “major category 1” incident — the most serious. The bed of the river was found to be smothered in sludge that “appeared brown on the surface but was jet black in colour underneath”.

Martin Harmer, chairman of the Launceston Anglers’ Association, which helped to bring the pollution to light, said that the Environment Agency had been slow to take steps to protect the ecosystem. “As anglers we have been all too aware of problems on the River Inny caused by this site. Chronic and acute pollutions on the Inny have been going on for years,” he said.

“Saputo says it is committed to improvement at the Davidstow site but that will remain to be seen. We hope that this, along with the promise by the regulator of a permit review, will be a turning point for the river and give its ecology a chance to recover.”

The offences included “discharging poisonous, noxious and polluting matter, namely biological sludge” into the river. The anglers’ association found high levels of phosphate pollution and witnessed fish kills first-hand.

The charity Fish Legal investigated, and said it had found “shocking levels of environmental permit breaches”. Residents had complained of a “pungent fishy stink” wafting from the creamery, which had made people nauseous and kept them awake at night.

Saputo is expected to be sentenced at Truro crown court in May.

Last year it apologised to the Environment Agency and the public.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: “We are pleased to see that courts are imposing higher fines but we would like to see them grow higher still. We also want to see the criminal courts applying penalties consistently and proportionately, and would welcome the most serious breaches by very large companies attracting sanctions based on a percentage of turnover.”

Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) and Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) are the latest MPs to publicly withdraw their support for the Prime Minister and submit a letter of no confidence.

Anyone else going to join them?

Maybe your MP is waiting for you to express an opinion to help them decide? Owl is sure they would value your opinion. 

simon.jupp.mp@parliament.uk

neil.parish.mp@parliament.uk

PS this now being called the “Cream Tea Coup”

Damning conclusion as Michael Gove publishes his “Levelling up” White Paper.

“We have not seen the evidence we would expect on the options that had been considered for achieving ministerial aims when government is spending such a large amount of money. This reduces our confidence that the interventions will have the best possible chance of delivering value for money.”

£18 billion spent to little effect. East Devon Watch has been following and criticising local efforts at “regeneration” and “productivity growth” from start of publication so Owl isn’t surprised.  

www.nao.org.uk

Supporting local economic growth

This report considers lessons DLUHC [Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities] has learned from implementing local growth policies, and how it has applied them.

Background to the report

Between 2011 and 2020, government committed some £18 billion of domestic funding to policies designed to stimulate local economic growth in England. This includes £12 billion through the Local Growth Fund, and £3.2 billion through the Regional Growth Fund. A further £10.3 billion was directed to the UK through EU structural funding committed between 2014 and 2020. However, the UK remains less productive than its main competitors and it shows regional disparities in economic performance that are among the largest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (the Department), working with other government departments, is responsible for “raising productivity and empowering places so that everyone across the country can benefit from levelling up”. The Cities and Local Growth Unit is leading for government on a series of UK-wide place-based interventions for which spending was announced at the November 2020 Spending Review to support the regeneration of towns and communities. Government’s commitments through these interventions total £11.0 billion. Local authorities will bid for funding and deliver these initiatives at a local level. The Department is solely or jointly accountable to Parliament for all the funds examined in this report.

Scope of the report

This report considers the lessons the Department has learned from a long history of implementing local growth policies. It examines how it has applied these lessons to the one-year UK Community Renewal Fund and the following place-based interventions:

• Levelling Up Fund;
• UK Shared Prosperity Fund;
• Towns Fund; and
• Freeports

Report conclusions

The Department recognises that its spending decisions should be based on robust evidence about what works for stimulating local economies. However, it has not consistently undertaken formal evaluations of the impacts of its past interventions. As a result, although it has now committed both effort and money to evaluate new interventions from the start, its evidence base for effective interventions is limited. The Department therefore lacks evidence on whether the billions of pounds of public funding it has awarded to local bodies in the past for supporting local growth have had the impact intended. And it has wasted opportunities to learn which initiatives and interventions are most effective.

The Department decided to consolidate local growth funding, and the largest of its new interventions is the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund on which it has worked closely with HM Treasury. Given the limited evidence base, we would have expected even greater scrutiny and independent challenge in the development of the Fund. However, government considered it proportionate to consolidate the three standard stages for business case assessment into one. Also, we have not seen the evidence we would expect on the options that had been considered for achieving ministerial aims when government is spending such a large amount of money. This reduces our confidence that the interventions will have the best possible chance of delivering value for money. In view of this, it is even more important that the Department should follow through rapidly on its recent commitments to improve measurement and evaluation in local growth.

• Report – Supporting local economic growth (pdf – 518.81 KB)
• Opens in new window
• Summary – Supporting local economic growth (pdf – 126.03 KB)
• Opens in new window

Remember that both Simon Jupp and Neil Parish dutifully voted last October against the Lords amendment imposing legal duties on water companies to clean up their act. – Owl

Ben Webster www.thetimes.co.uk 

Water companies will be required to increase investment to prevent raw sewage spilling into rivers and the sea under a new government strategy for the sector that places greater focus on the environment.

The strategic policy statement being laid in parliament today sets the priorities for Ofwat, the water regulator, and water companies and will affect spending for the period from 2025 to 2030.

It says that water companies will be expected to “significantly reduce the frequency and volume of sewage discharges from storm overflows, so they operate infrequently, and only in cases of unusually heavy rainfall. We expect overflows that do the most harm or impact on the most sensitive and highest amenity sites to be prioritised.”

Water companies have collectively cut investment in wastewater and sewage networks by almost a fifth in the 30 years since they were privatised, according to analysis of official data published in December.

They discharged raw sewage into rivers more than 400,000 times last year. They are permitted to spill sewage from storm overflows after heavy rainfall but many spills occur after dry weather and are illegal.

The strategic policy statement says: “The water industry’s environmental performance has stagnated and, in certain cases, deteriorated in recent years. Poor environmental performance is not acceptable and poorly performing companies need to rapidly improve.”

Water companies may seek to increase household water bills to fund the extra investment but an Ofwat source said it would press them to cover the cost by operating more efficiently.

The companies are collectively investing £3.1 billion in storm overflows in 2020-25.

Under the Environment Act, the government is required to publish a plan to reduce sewage discharges from England’s 15,000 storm overflows by September this year.

The policy statement also gives greater priority to addressing excessive abstraction of water from rivers, protecting chalk streams, and ensuring that water companies produce drainage plans that reduce the risk of homes being flooded.

The Angling Trust said the statement “could have been braver and bolder” and it was unclear how much improvement it would bring about in the state of rivers.

Ash Smith, of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, which has led the way in exposing illegal sewage spills, said: “This announcement is no more than window dressing to buy time for regulators and an industry that has been forced under the spotlight and is rapidly running out of excuses for profiting while allowing our vital infrastructure to fall into a black hole, reliant on illegal pollution to cope with under-investment over decades.”

Rebecca Pow, the environment minister, said: “We are the first government to set a clear expectation that Ofwat should prioritise action by water companies to protect the environment and deliver the improvements that we all want to see. I have been very clear of my expectations of water companies and where they do not step up we will take robust action.

“The priorities that we are setting out today build on the work that we have already undertaken to reduce harm from storm overflows, improve monitoring and reporting of pollution incidents making this more transparent, to tackle run-off from agriculture, and protect the health of our rivers and seas.”

An Ofwat spokesman said: “We will continue to allow significant investment in the environment, take action on companies that fall short on their performance and drive them to be more transparent on their delivery and impact on rivers.”

Owl is just asking having seen the following headline in today’s Times:

‘Prosecco-fuelled’ Downing Street party takes Boris Johnson’s tally to six

Footage of culture secretary Nadine Dorries struggling to defend Boris Johnson for making false claims about Keir Starmer has got everyone comparing the MP to a certain TV character.

Matt Bagwell www.huffingtonpost.co.uk 

The PM faced a huge backlash after he accused the Labour leader of failing to prosecute disgraced entertainer Jimmy Savile when he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Johnson made the false claims in the House of Commons on Monday following Labour’s criticism over the Sue Gray report into parties held in government during lockdown.

An extraordinary Channel 4 News interview with Dorries then went viral after presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked her why Johnson had spouted “fake news” and an “old meme repeated by conspiracy theorists” in his attack on Starmer.

Dorries repeatedly shook her head and rolled her eyes during the exchange, insisting: “I don’t know, I don’t know the details”, repeatedly saying “the prime minister tells the truth”.

For many viewers, it brought to mind Catherine Tate’s much-loved comedy character Lauren, a school girl whose catchphrase is “Am I bovvered?”

It didn’t take long for someone to get creative…

And here’s Catherine Tate as Lauren in action for anyone wanting to contrast and compare…

On Tuesday morning, a furious Keir Starmer slammed Boris Johnson for referencing Jimmy Saville and sinking parliament “into the gutter”.

The Labour leader branded the comment “a ridiculous slur peddled by right-wing trolls” in an interview with Sky News presenter Kay Burley.

A fact-check by the Reuters news agency in October last year concluded: “There is no evidence to suggest Sir Keir Starmer, then (director of public prosecutions) DPP of the CPS, was directly involved in the decision not to prosecute Jimmy Savile.”

It spells out how the claim gained traction online but that “the suggestion of a link between the handling of the cases and Starmer is baseless”.

Details to be published today in a 400 page “White Paper”, but there is no new money. – Owl

Peter Walker www.theguardian.com 

Central to the levelling up white paper are what are termed 12 “national missions” to be achieved, all by 2030, many of them phrased in fairly general terms. This is what the missions set out:

• To increase pay, employment and productivity in every part of the UK, with each containing “a globally competitive city” and a smaller gap between top performing and other areas.
• Public transport connectivity across the UK to be “significantly closer to the standards of London” including integrated ticketing and simpler fares.
• A “significant” increase in primary school children reaching expected standards in reading, writing and maths. For England – education policy is devolved – this will mean at least 90% meeting expected standards, with at least a one-third increase for this metric in the worst performing areas.
• A “significant” rise in the numbers completing high-quality skills training across the UK. In England, the target is for 200,000 more doing this, including 80,000 in the lowest skilled areas.
• A narrowing in healthy life expectancy between the UK areas where it is highest and lowest, with the overall average healthy life expectancy rising by five years by 2035.
• An improvement in perceived wellbeing in all parts of the UK, with a narrowed gap between areas with the highest and lowest levels.
• A rise across the whole UK of “pride in place”, defined as “people’s satisfaction with their town centre and engagement in local culture and community”, with a narrowing of gaps between areas with the highest and lowest levels.
• An increase in the number of first-time home buyers in all UK areas. The “ambition” is for a 50% fall in the number of rented homes deemed non-decent, including the biggest improvements in worst-performing areas.
• An overall fall in homicide, serious violence, and neighbourhood crime, focused on worst-affected areas.
• A devolution deal for “every part of England that wants one”, with powers “at or approaching the highest level of devolution and a simplified, long-term funding settlement”.

Last November Owl queried the press description that these car parks were being described as “four council-owned car parks”. This description followed from the fact that EDDC itself was listed as the applicant for planning permission for this work.

Owl has subsequently learned that this was because funding for the improvements has been secured through the South East Devon Habitat Regulations Partnership. The formal members of the partnership are: Teignbridge, East Devon District and Exeter City Councils, with Natural England. But the term is also used as an umbrella term to include other organisations such as The Pebblebed Heaths, Clinton Devon Estates, Devon Wildlife and RSPB.

The car parks are part of the Pebblebed Heaths Trust but Owl understands that formal ownership still lies with Clinton Devon Estates.

How the costs fall for this work is unclear.

Two visitor car parks on Pebblebed Heaths are to be closed for up to six weeks for improvement work. 

Philippa Davies www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

Four Firs Car Park on Woodbury Common and Joney’s Cross Car Park at Hawkerland will be closed from Monday, February 7. 

The work will include new entrance signs and information boards, and better surfacing. 

Further works will take place on roadside parking at Stowford (Colaton Raleigh) and Frying Pans (Bicton Common).  

The car parks are managed by the Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust, and funding for the improvements has been secured through South East Devon Habitat Regulations Partnership. The aim is to protect the rare wildlife on the heath while making access easier for visitors. 

Devon county councillor Martin Wrigley, who is also chair of the South East Devon Habitat Regulation Executive Committee, said: “The improvements to the existing car parks are much-needed due to increased use from people enjoying the Heaths.   

“The redesigned layout and improved surface means visitors will be able to drive and park more safely and the heaths will be better protected for the future.” 

Kim Strawbridge, Reserves Manager, Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust, said: “We would like to thank people for their patience while these car parks are closed and we would like to reassure people that all other parking areas across the heaths will remain open during this time.  

“We have been looking forward to getting this work underway so that people will be able to benefit from this first round of refurbishment work before the spring.   

“The Pebblebed Heaths are such an iconic part of the East Devon landscape, incredibly important for both wildlife and local people. Most people arrive by car so having entrance points to the nature reserve that are welcoming and do this unique place justice will make it clear to people that they have arrived somewhere special.”   

The car park improvements are part of a wider plan to manage visitor access to the Heaths and make sure the area’s wildlife and ancient monuments are safeguarded. The plans include measures to make the car parks more visible from the road, to discourage thefts from cars, fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour. 

goodlawproject.org

The Government has wasted more than £9.9 billion on PPE, which is more than it would cost to give every nurse in the NHS a 100 per cent bonus on their salary. 

The figure comes from the Department of Health’s Annual Report, which reveals it spent:

• £673 million on PPE “not suitable for any use”
• £2,581 million on PPE “not suitable for use in the NHS”
• £4.7 billion paying inflated pandemic prices for PPE we didn’t need to buy
• £750 million buying PPE which will pass its expiry date before we can use it.

It has also “written down” the value of £1.231 billion in PPE, which is still yet to be delivered.

The Department also reports that some of the PPE will need to be recycled and it’s now contracting “waste providers”. Some of it is too complex to be recycled and so will need to be burned.

Thanks to an FOI response, Good Law Project can also reveal that, between April 2020 and August 2021, the Government spent £677.6 million storing excess PPE. It continues to spend £500,000 a day on this.

Civil servants complained at the time that the need to service VIPs, the majority of which were introduced by Government Ministers, was interfering with good procurement. It is unlikely we will ever know the true cost of this taxpayer-funded feeding frenzy for the friends and associates of Ministers.

Sue Gray’s long-awaited report into lockdown-busting parties at Number 10 has finally arrived. And it isn’t exactly ‘War and Peace’.

Martin Williams www.opendemocracy.net

Gray’s report runs to just nine pages long – with fewer than 500 words of findings.

Concerns about its transparency had already been raised by privacy campaigners through openDemocracy. We revealed that Gray had, in previous roles, helped to block the release of information and shield Number 10 from scrutiny.

Gray says in the report that she was “told” by the Metropolitan Police that it would not be “appropriate” to make more than “minimal reference to the gatherings on the dates [the force is] investigating”.

The SNP’s Commons leader, Ian Blackford, today called the report “a fact-finding exercise with no facts”. Here are 11 key things that it doesn’t address.

The four events Gray *was* free to talk about

Twelve of the 16 gatherings that Gray looked at are also the subject of a police investigation. Gray was told not to reveal details about those events so as not to ‘prejudice’ the police investigation. But what about the other four?

There was a gathering in the garden of Number 10 in May 2020, where Boris Johnson was pictured drinking wine with colleagues. Then there was the Zoom quiz on 15 December, as well as two other gatherings, in late November and early December.

We may never know what Gray discovered about these events, because she writes: “I have decided not to publish factual accounts in relation to those four dates. I do not feel that I am able to do so without detriment to the overall balance of the findings.” No further explanation is offered.

What did Johnson do?

Although the report criticises “failures of leadership”, it makes very little mention of Johnson himself, and does not say whose leadership failed. We’re not told which events Johnson attended or knew about. Nor does Gray make a judgement about the prime minister’s personal failings. In fact, he is mentioned just eight times in the entire report.

How many people were at the parties?

It might be understandable to withhold incriminating evidence against named suspects until the police finish their investigation. But is there any legal reason why Sue Gray cannot at least tell us how many people attended each party?

Were the parties late, boozy, or paid for on government expenses?

Likewise, we’re not told anything about what happened at the parties – whether they were a few colleagues having ‘cheese and wine’ or giant alcoholic blowouts. Reports suggest that some events continued into the early hours, with attendees drinking and dancing. Sue Gray has nothing to say about this – yet it’s hard to see how disclosing this information could possibly prejudice the police investigation.

However, Gray, a former pub landlady, does hint at a general boozy culture in Downing Street, saying: “The excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time. Steps must be taken to ensure that every government department has a clear and robust policy in place covering the consumption of alcohol in the workplace.”

Who was actually there?

Allegations have been made that some of the parties were attended by people who didn’t work in Downing Street, such as senior journalists and friends of the prime minister. Gray might not be able to name them before the police have finished investigating, but can she at least confirm whether outsiders were present? No.

Was there any social distancing?

Even if the parties had been socially distanced, they would still have been illegal. That means that the question of social distancing is not really a police matter. However, knowing the facts about this could shed light for the public on the extent to which those at Number 10 felt that the rules in general did not apply to them. Yet the words ‘social distancing’ do not appear anywhere in Gray’s summary.

The role of the police

Police officers stationed at Downing Street have been strongly criticised for failing to stop the parties. But last week, it was claimed in The Telegraph that the officers had been “only too willing” to give “extremely damning” statements to Gray about the parties. Her report makes no mention of them.

So much as a single word from any the 70 interviews Gray conducted

As openDemocracy has reported, Gray has a reputation for blocking transparency. We now know that she interviewed more than 70 people about Downing Street parties – and yet her report does not contain a single quote or reference. Nor do we know who she interviewed, as not a single scrap of evidence has been published.

Were government guidelines breached?

Gray can’t comment on whether the law was broken. But there’s also the question of government guidelines, which are distinct from the law. This might include rules on social distancing, face masks or the way offices are set up to reduce the risk of COVID. It’s possible that some events were legal but against the government’s own guidelines. Gray says that: “Some of the events should not have been allowed to take place.” But she doesn’t tell us which ones, or what rules they broke. Likewise, she does not discuss ministerial rules – or whether she intends to refer the evidence to Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, who could investigate this further.

What was cut?

Nobody was expecting this report to contain all the detailed evidence that the police are investigating, but it doesn’t even tell us what kinds of information she has redacted. Did she have a guestlist for each event? Does she have video or photo evidence? Who were the 70 people she interviewed? Whose WhatsApp messages were accessed? Was any information missing?

Whose decision was it to redact the report this extensively?

Before her report was published, Gray says the Metropolitan Police “told” her to make “minimal reference to the gatherings on the dates they are investigating”. We don’t know if she pushed back in the interests of transparency (when explaining the redactions, she does strike a tone of disappointment that she is not able to publish a fuller document), whether the police provided any further detail about what to withhold and why, or whether their requests for redactions were deemed proportionate by any third party. Nor do we know whether Gray was merely asked to withhold the information, or whether she was ordered to, by the police or otherwise.

What’s more, Gray’s report goes way further than this. Huge swathes of information are omitted entirely, including everything above. Did someone in government ask her to do this? Or was its Gray’s own decision to publish such a hollow report?

(The one’s you may not have read yet)

A party in Boris and Carrie Johnson’s flat is one of 12 events being investigated by the Metropolitan police over alleged lockdown breaches, it has emerged, as the Sue Gray report found “failures of leadership and judgment” in No 10.

Rowena Mason www.theguardian.com 

Gray, a senior civil servant, criticised the culture in Johnson’s Downing Street that allowed social gatherings to take place during lockdown, which were “difficult to justify”.

The findings were released on the government’s website in a shortened and redacted form, after the Met last week said it was investigating some of the gatherings.

Although Gray said she was not able to publish her full report, a string of Conservative MPs said the conclusions were still extremely serious for Johnson – not least because one of the gatherings under police investigation was in the prime minister’s apartment.

In the Commons, Johnson was challenged by Theresa May, his predecessor as prime minister, who said either he “had not read the rules, didn’t understand the rules, or didn’t think they applied to No 10”.

Andrew Mitchell, a Tory MP and former cabinet minister, said Johnson “no longer enjoys” his support.

And in a dramatic moment, Ian Blackford, the SNP Westminster leader, accused Johnson of having “lied and misled” the house of Commons and was ejected from the chamber by the Speaker.

Johnson had previously denied in the House of Commons that any party on 13 November, 2020, had taken place. Johnson was also present at another of the parties under investigation by police – in the Downing Street garden on 20 May, 2020.

Johnson rejected these criticisms in turn but promised that he would overhaul the structure of No 10 to address some of Gray’s criticisms. “I get it and I will fix it,” he told MPs.

In the report, Gray did not criticise the prime minister personally, or pass judgment on his past statements, but highlighted failures of leadership in No 10 and the Cabinet Office.

The 12-page report said: “At least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time.”

It added: “At times it seems there was too little thought given to what was happening across the country in considering the appropriateness of some of these gatherings, the risks they presented to public health and how they might appear to the public.

“There were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No 10 and the Cabinet Office at different times. Some of the events should not have been allowed to take place. Other events should not have been allowed to develop as they did.”

Gray listed 16 gatherings on 12 dates across 20 months in 2020-21 that she had examined for evidence of rule-breaking, of which 12 are being investigated by police. These include a gathering in the No 10 flat – thought to be a reference to the prime minister’s own residence even though he lives at No 11 – and a Christmas party in Downing Street, as well as several leaving parties.

The civil service chief said she had interviewed more than 70 people and examined relevant email information, WhatsApp messages, photographs and exit logs. She said some staff had “wanted to raise concerns about behaviours they witnessed at work but at times felt unable to do so”.

“A number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place, or to develop in the way that they did. There is significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across government.”

Gray said her report was limited by the Met police request for her to make only minimal reference to gatherings they were investigating. She said she had decided not to publish factual accounts of the other four dates as she did not feel able to do so without detriment to the overall balance of findings.

However, she left the door open to returning to the evidence she gathered after the Met police had investigated, saying it was being stored and saved “until such time as it may be required further”.

Earlier on Monday, No 10 had said it was “unclear” whether she would publish a further, more comprehensive, report in the future.