Almost 18 months after the furore of the Owen Paterson scandal led to promises of a crackdown on MPs having second jobs, their income from work outside parliament has continued to rise, Guardian analysis has found.

Sophie Zeldin-O’Neill www.theguardian.com

The analysis looked at all MPs who had made more than £1,000 in the past year, excluding income from completing surveys, and found that they had collectively made £10m in this period, driven largely by a figure close to £5m made by the former prime minister Boris Johnson in his final months as an MP.

While some MPs gave up well-paid consultancy work in 2021 after the anger about Owen Paterson’s lobbying on behalf of a company that paid him, others have begun building up portfolio careers in the past 12 months.

October 2021: the Owen Paterson scandal

The former Tory cabinet minister Owen Paterson is found to have breached parliament’s rules after using his position as an MP to lobby ministers and government departments on behalf of two companies that employed him as a consultant.

Paterson’s proposed sanction from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is a 30-day suspension from the House. However, this is delayed by a government motion (led by then-PM Boris Johnson), which proposed redesigning the disciplinary process for MPs. This is widely seen as an attempt to save Paterson’s career.

The government later U-turns on its decision, and Johnson describes it as a “total mistake” and calls for there to be “reasonable limits” placed on how much time an MP can spend on a second job versus their day-to-day role. Soon after, Paterson resigns.

November 2021: the Geoffrey Cox furore

The focus soon shifts to the former UK attorney general Geoffrey Cox. Guardian analysis of the MPs’ register of interests finds he has made nearly £6m from his work as a barrister outside parliament in the 16 years since he became a Conservative MP. An investigation by the Guardian finds that a quarter of Conservative MPs hold second jobs.

In an attempt to silence increasingly critical headlines, Boris Johnson writes to the Commons Speaker proposing rules that would update the code of conduct for MPs and ban MPs working as paid political consultants or lobbyists. Ministers say they will back reasonable limits on outside earnings and it is suggested that around 10-15 hours a week would be fair.

March 2022: plans to cap UK MPs’ income from second jobs are dropped

But six months later ministers tell the Commons standards committee that a time limit or ceiling on such earnings would be “impractical”.

Steve Barclay, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and Mark Spencer, the leader of the House of Commons, say: “The imposition of time limits would not necessarily serve to address recent concerns over paid advocacy and the primary duty of MPs to serve their constituents. It could be possible, for example, for a member to conduct work within the accepted time limits but that does not necessarily mean such work is ‘appropriate’ even if it did not constitute ‘paid advocacy’.”

They add: “Earnings from activities such as writing books for example, would not preclude members from meeting their principal duty to their constituents.”

May 2022: plans to limit the amount of time MPs can spend on second jobs are dropped

Changes to the MPs’ code of conduct were considered by the Commons standards committee after outcry over the Paterson and Cox scandals but they agree that without cross-party agreement on reform, the system should stay as it is.

January 2023: Keir Starmer proposes a ban on second jobs

The Labour leader calls for a ban, but adds that there may be some “exceptions”.

In this same month, the Guardian reports that Tory MPs have been paid £15.2m from second jobs since the 2019 general election, dwarfing the combined income of politicians who represent other parties. The former prime minister Theresa May is the biggest recipient at this point, with her office receiving £2.5m on top of her parliamentary salary, mainly from giving speeches to organisations in the US such as JP Morgan bank and the private equity firm Apax Partners.

March 2023: new MPs’ code of conduct comes into effect

The refreshed code introduces an outright ban on paid parliamentary advice, tightens loopholes and improves transparency. For the first time, the code now explicitly prohibits members providing parliamentary advice to an outside employer. This includes providing or agreeing to provide services as a parliamentary adviser, consultant or strategist. It also requires MPs to have a written contract for any outside work, stating that they cannot lobby for their employer or give paid parliamentary advice, and that their employer cannot ask them to do so.

July 2023: head of ethics watchdog calls for limits on MPs’ second jobs

Lord Evans calls for some form of limit on MPs’ second jobs, telling Sky News it is “hard to argue” some politicians are putting parliament first. The crossbench peer, who spent his career in the secret service and was head of MI5 for six years, says MPs should be given an “indicative” ceiling on how much time to spend on their extra-parliamentary roles.

Guess who benefits from converting barns into airbnbs? Well, it’s certainly not the environment nor the local communities.

The Conservatives are still hell bent on destroying our countryside for profit. – Owl 

England’s national parks would be “destroyed” by proposed government rules that would allow landowners to convert barns into houses without planning permission, critics have said.

Helena Horton www.theguardian.com 

The levelling up department has launched a consultation into new legislation that would change permitted development rights to allow farmers to turn agricultural buildings into homes.

The consultation proposes to loosen the planning systems on national parks and other conservation areas to bring prosperity to towns and villages within them. It states: “Allowing our town and village centres within protected landscapes (such as national parks) to benefit from the right could help ensure the longer-term viability and vitality of these community hubs, supporting the residents and businesses that rely on them.”

It specifically cites the aim to give farmers the ability to change their agricultural buildings into houses: “We want to give farmers greater freedom to change the use of their existing buildings to residential use and support the delivery of new homes in rural communities.”

However, national park chiefs have said the proposals are “bonkers” and could cause thousands of new developments to mar the views in some of England’s most beautiful areas.

David Butterworth, the CEO of the Yorkshire Dales national park, told the Guardian: “If I was trying to devise a policy that would essentially lead to the destruction of Yorkshire Dales national park, this would be the policy. These are permitted development rights to convert a property without any planning restriction. This means the 6,500 field barns in the Yorkshire Dales could be converted into homes. The idea they could be homes with no restrictions would decimate the landscapes.

“It is one of the most bonkers examples of environmental destruction I could think of. I am extremely concerned that this has been introduced now with an eight-week consultation. It is just crackers.”

Kevin Bishop, the CEO of Dartmoor national park authority, added: “National parks were designated for their outstanding natural beauty. The proposed extension of permitted developments could destroy these landscapes and cause untold harm to the local economy and local communities. The ability to convert any equestrian field shelter or agricultural barn to an open market house would cause untold damage to our landscapes and yet do nothing to support the provision of affordable housing.”

Politicians have also vowed to oppose the proposed legislation. The Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesperson, Tim Farron, said: “The government needs to stop this now. Our national parks cannot become a developer free-for-all. Sadly we have a Conservative government which is bankrolled by developers, who don’t give a damn about the environment, let alone national park areas.

“As an MP representing both the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, I will fight this tooth and nail. We simply cannot trust this government with our precious environment.”

Environment charities are also likely to challenge the idea. Paul Miner, the head of policy and planning at CPRE, the countryside charity, said: “These proposals, if enacted, would irrevocably damage our most treasured and protected landscapes. And no matter how serious the damage, there would be nothing anybody could do to stop it. The government cannot be serious.

“The countryside does not need more millionaires living in plush barn conversions. It needs affordable and social housing. These nonsensical changes to planning policy would entrench division and disempower local people. They would allow farm buildings to be converted with no scope to insist on affordable housing or any other measures that might alleviate the housing crisis.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “This consultation remains open and we will consider all responses, including that from National Parks UK, before coming to a decision. We have been clear that any developments must be beautiful and enhance the environment.”

Hospitals in the South-West of England recorded the highest hospital admission rate, with an interactive map showing a 104% increase in Covid cases in Devon in the seven days leading up to 29 July.

Holly Evans www.independent.co.uk (see original article for more charts and graphs)

With a new Covid-19 variant emerging across the UK, certain areas have seen an increase in cases and hospital admissions on the rise over the school summer holidays.

Named Eris after the Greek goddess of strife and discord, the descendant of the Omicron variant now accounts for as many as one in seven cases after it was first recorded in the UK last month.

The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency suggests that Eris, referred to as EG.5.1, represents 14.6% of all cases, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) adding it to the list of variants under monitoring.

However, health bosses at the UKHSA have said it is “not unexpected” to see new variants of Covid-19, with experts claiming it showed no signs of being more dangerous than previous strains.

This comes as hospital admissions have seen a recent spike, with an increase to 1.97 per 100,000 as of July 30. Data from the previous week recorded the hospital admission rate as 1.47 per 100,000, while those aged over 85 were the highest affected age group.

Hospitals in the South-West of England recorded the highest hospital admission rate, with an interactive map showing a 104% increase in Covid cases in Devon in the seven days leading up to 29 July.

Other Covid hotspots include Surrey, with a 103.3% increase, Derbyshire, with a 121.4% increase, as well as Cornwall, Somerset, Staffordshire, Darlington and Cumbria.

Experts have attributed the recent rise to a number of different reasons, including waning immunity, increased indoor mixing and the possibility that cinema trips to watch Barbie and Oppenheimer have caused the virus to spread.

Hospital admission rates had increased to 1.97 per 100,000 as of 30 July, with those aged over 85 being the age group with the highest rate (UKHSA)

According to the Zoe Health Study, estimated case numbers jumped by almost 200,000 last month, from 606,656 predicted cases on 4 July to 785,980 on 27 July.

Globally, the new variant Eris accounts for around 20% of Covid cases in Asia, 10% in Europe and seven per cent in North America. Common symptoms include a headache, mild or severe fatigue, a sore throat and a runny nose.

Independent Sage member Professor Christina Pagel told The Independent that she believed the UK is “definitely starting another wave” driven by the Omicron sub variants, Arcturus and Eris.

Sharing the latest Covid data, she said that there had been a 40 per cent jump in hospital admissions last week, with a 28 per cent jump in the number of patients in hospital primarily due to the disease.

However, the numbers overall remain low, with authorities continuing to monitor the situation as infection rates change.

Dr Meera Chand, Deputy Director of UKHSA, said: “It is not unexpected to see new variants of SARS-CoV-2 emerge. UKHSA continues to analyse available data relating to SARS-CoV-2 variants in the UK and abroad.

“EG.5.1 was designated as a variant on 31 July 2023 due to continued growth internationally and presence in the UK, allowing us to monitor it through our routine surveillance processes.”

“Vaccination remains our best defence against future COVID-19 waves, so it is still as important as ever that people come take up all the doses for which they are eligible as soon as possible.’’

Prof Francois Balloux, Professor of Computational Systems Biology and Director, UCL Genetics Institute, UCL, said: “The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant emerged nearly two years ago and rapidly became dominant worldwide. It has spawned a very large number of sub-variants constantly replacing other.

“The latest Omicron sub-variant to attract media attention is called EG.5.1. It is a direct descendent of the XBB.1.9.2 sub-variant, and carries one additional mutation in the spike protein. EG.5.1 is increasing in frequency and currently represents about 15% of the cases in the UK.

“Covid cases and hospitalisations have been going up slightly in the UK over recent days, but this is starting from the lowest baseline since March 2020. As such, the recent increases in case numbers and hospitalisations may sound ominous when expressed in percentage increase, but the numbers remain small in absolute terms.

“The EG.5.1 variant plays only a minor role in the current increase in cases, which is driven primarily by the weather and constantly waning immunity. There is nothing that feels particularly concerning about EG.5.1, relative to the many other Omicron sub-variants in circulation.”

Who crashed the economy? – Owl

Fourteen people remain on her resignation honours list, which is being vetted by the House of Lords appointments commission. The list could have been even longer, however, as at least two people turned down a nomination by the former prime minister, The Times has been told.

Matt Dathan www.thetimes.co.uk

One source said they felt it would be “humiliating” to receive an honour from Truss, who served as prime minister for 49 days, the shortest spell in British history. Another said they did not deserve it.

Truss nominated four people for life peerages and 12 for honours such as knighthoods, damehoods, OBEs, CBEs and MBEs. According to previous reports the nominated life peers include Sir Jon Moynihan, a big pro-Brexit donor to the Conservative Party, and Matthew Elliott, who ran the Brexit campaign in 2016.

The others are said to be Ruth Porter, Truss’s deputy chief of staff in No 10, and Mark Littlewood, the outgoing head of the Institute for Economic Affairs, a think tank that backed her mini-budget.

Truss also wishes to recognise a “handful” of “local community heroes” in Norfolk, where her constituency is, according to a source close to her.

It is understood that Kwasi Kwarteng, who served as chancellor under Truss and oversaw the disastrous mini-budget, has not been included on the list. It is not known if he asked not to be included.

Mark Fullbrook, who also worked for Truss in No 10, had pushed for advisers to get honours in the days leading up to her departure last October. However, one aide rejected the honour as they did not feel they had earned it.

A source insisted the list was “very modest” and said it was customary for those departing No 10 to be given the chance to draw up a resignation list.

However, it is likely to renew criticism of the honours system, which was under fire over Boris Johnson’s list of more than 40 awards, which is said to have been whittled down from an original list of almost 100. It included seven peerages, including to an aide aged 30.

Opposition parties have called for Truss’s honours to be blocked. It is understood that she submitted the list to the commission several months ago and the names are still being vetted. Those on the list have not been given any indication of how long it will take. Truss’s office declined to comment.

Moynihan, 75, gave £20,000 to Truss’s leadership campaign last summer. He has attributed her demise to the Bank of England being “asleep at the wheel”, saying the end of her government would “reverberate to the detriment of many people’s view of democracy in this country”.

Elliott, 45, was chief executive of Vote Leave and founded the TaxPayers’ Alliance. Porter worked for Truss at the Ministry of Justice before her stint at No 10. Littlewood, 51, a former Liberal Democrat adviser, has known Truss since they were Oxford University undergraduates.

Since leaving office, Truss has spoken out predominantly about the need to stand up to China. She has been given tens of thousands of pounds by the investment banker behind the right-wing Reclaim Party, as well as a friend of the Duke of York as she seeks to portray herself as a victim of the “anti-growth coalition”.

• Therese Coffey has been lampooned for not attending countryside festival
• Game Fair enthusiasts were left disappointed after she didn’t attend the event
• The environment secretary was travelling back from a G20 summit in India 

www.dailymail.co.uk 

London pulls away from rest of Britain in competitiveness index

The London economy and parts of the south-east have become more attractive to investors than the rest of Britain over the past year, according to a study.

Phillip Inman www.theguardian.com

A report by academics at the University of Cardiff and Nottingham Business School found that out of 362 areas across England, Wales and Scotland, nine of the top 10 in a competitiveness index were London boroughs.

Runnymede, a borough to the west of London, was ninth, below new entrant Hackney and above Southwark.

The study’s authors said London and the home counties, including the top-ranked City of London, Westminster and Camden, stretched their lead over the rest of the regions and nations of Britain as the most economically attractive areas.

Only East Anglia and Cambridgeshire managed to keep pace with the capital, which the report’s authors said was due to their integration with London.

“The east of England regions are becoming increasingly decoupled from the rest of the nation. It is clear that a location’s proximity to London is becoming an important determinant of its competitiveness and future economic growth. The nation will become further reliant on the relative growth hotspots in the capital and surrounding areas,” they said.

Camden was considered to have a cultural life that would be attractive to entrepreneurs, along with the transport, skilled workers and homes needed to support high-wage employees.

“In some regards, Camden, with its cultural amenities and bohemian flavour, might be regarded as the archetypical locality that would attract the high-skilled creative classes who not only innovate themselves, but also create an environment that is attractive to other high skilled groups,” the authors said.

A surge in start-up businesses in Hackney in the past year and similar cultural attributes to Camden meant that it jumped 10 places between 2019 and 2023.

The local areas ranked in the bottom 10 were scattered across much of England and Wales.

East Lindsey, which includes the east coast resort of Skegness, had the worst ranking.

The authors said: “It is a largely rural locality with a significant proportion of its economy associated with agriculture and food production.

“As this is one of the sectors which have been hit hardest by the loss of access to cheap labour from the European Union, this is likely to explain some of its loss in competitiveness.”

The report said Skegness held little attraction for businesses, like many resorts on the east coast affected by economic developments over the past 20 years.

Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, and Torbay and Gosport on the south coast of England, were also among the least competitive localities.

The authors said they defined competitiveness as “the capability of a local economy to attract and maintain firms with stable or rising market shares in an activity, without sacrificing the standards of living of those who participate in it”.

They added: “It is true that an area with low wages and property prices may be attractive for some businesses, but such activities tend to be low value-added and footloose, and are not necessarily going to improve standards of living and achieve levelling up. In other words, being cheap doesn’t equate to competitiveness.”

Rishi Sunak has said he wants the UK to be a high-wage economy, attractive to domestic and foreign businesses prepared to invest in high-skilled workers.

Mark Gregory, a visiting professor at the University of Staffordshire and a former chief economist at the consultancy EY, said the study was unable to capture some important aspects of a local economy that attract businesses.

He said that while London scored highly as a cultural centre, it was increasingly unattractive as a place for young, skilled graduates to work, mainly due to soaring housing costs.

Some areas that fell into the bottom half of the competitiveness rankings were attractive places to live and work even though wages were low, Gregory said.

“How an area is perceived by businesses is another important element driving decisions about where to locate. Tech firms will go where young people want to be and where infrastructure is best, while pharmaceutical businesses will want to be near universities,” he said.

“Manufacturing, which attracts most foreign direct investment, is highly sensitive to wage levels and will want to locate where they are relatively low, not in cities.”

The report found that between 2019 and 2023, the biggest improvements in the competitiveness rankings were in Folkestone and Hythe, Bury, Wolverhampton and Worcester.

Wolverhampton’s improvement was probably due to the potential benefit from the HS2 railway line, the authors said, while Worcester had become more attractive to skilled workers after the pandemic because of its proximity to rural areas.

MPs have been paid £10m from second jobs and freelance work over the past year, largely driven by the size of Boris Johnson’s earnings as well as former Tory ministers taking up a slew of highly paid roles, a Guardian analysis has found.

Rowena Mason www.theguardian.com 

Almost 18 months after the furore around second jobs led to promises of a crackdown, MPs’ earnings from work outside parliament have continued to rise.

The analysis looked at all MPs who made more than £1,000 in the past year, excluding income from completing surveys. Even stripping out Johnson’s £4.8m, about 90 other Conservative MPs brought in approximately £4.75m – an increase from nearer to £4m in 2021.

A much smaller number of Labour, SNP and Lib Dem MPs also brought in outside income of just over £400,000.

The government last year ditched plans to cap MPs’ income from second jobs, just months after the issue provoked a sleaze scandal that plunged Johnson’s government into crisis. The promised clampdown followed the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal and a furore over Geoffrey Cox being paid nearly £6m as a lawyer since joining parliament, voting by proxy on days he was undertaking paid work.

The rise in incomes over the past year appears to have been partly driven by a minority of Conservative MPs taking on very highly paid work, from lucrative consultancies to well paid media gigs for the rightwing GB News channel, as well as Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV.

Some of the highest-paid include the former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is paid about £29,000 a month to host a programme for GB News – which would make him about £350,000 in a year.

Brandon Lewis, a former party chair and ex-cabinet minister, now has three business strategy jobs, including one working for a property developer, making him in total £150,000 a year, while Chris Skidmore, a former minister who carried out a net zero review for No 10, has three jobs in clean energy and policy making him about £200,000 a year.

Sajid Javid, a former chancellor, is being paid £25,000 a month – or £300,000 a year – as adviser to Centricus Partners, a Jersey-based investment firm, related to “global economic outlook, geopolitics and financial markets”.

The figures, compiled from the Register of MPs’ interests, also highlight how some ministers have been part of a revolving door – leaving office during the Johnson era, taking on second jobs, and then returning to government during Rishi Sunak’s tenure.

Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, was paid £8,000 to advise the hedge fund Caxton Associates on policy and £5,000 by an art services business in the short period he was out office last autumn under Liz Truss.

Meanwhile, Gavin Williamson, a former education secretary, resigned his £60,000-a-year second job working for RTC Education, a firm run by a Tory donor, when he went to work for Sunak in October 2022 and then signed back up again in February 2023, a few months after he was ousted from cabinet again.

Some MPs shed their second jobs shortly after Johnson said he was looking at limiting outside income in terms of hours or pay – a policy that was later dropped by the government. But a string of others have taken on new roles in the past year, such as the former Home Office minister Sir Mike Penning, who took a third extra job last October being paid £5,000 a month as a non-executive of a firm called Tenacious Holdings, which markets cannabidiol (CBD) products.

The high earnings are also driven by former prime ministers and senior ex-cabinet ministers making money from speeches and television appearances. Theresa May and Liz Truss were both paid six figures to run their post-No 10 offices from giving speeches, while the former health secretary Matt Hancock registered about £450,000 from media appearances, speeches and his book.

There were at least 18 MPs whose outside incomes totalled more than their £86k MP salary in the year to the end of July, compared with 11 in the autumn of 2021, when Owen Paterson was found to have committed an “egregious” breach of lobbying rules by lobbying for two firms he was paid to advise.

The highest Labour earner over the last year was David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, who made more than £90,000 from presenting on LBC radio and giving speeches. Labour has signalled that if it wins power it will not allow MPs to take up paid directorships or consultancies. Those Labour MPs conducting outside work at the moment are largely making money from freelance work, from books or professional jobs such as working shifts as a doctor.

Transparency campaigners called for tighter rules as more MPs will be looking to supplement their income over the next year: many Conservatives fear losing their seats at an election, with Labour favoured in the polls.

Jonathan Evans, the former MI5 chief and chair of the committee on standards in public life, renewed his call last month for new curbs on MPs’ outside work, suggesting to Sky News there should be an “indicative ceiling” on how much time they should devote to them.

At the same time, Eric Pickles, the Conservative peer and chair of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), has asked for a new regime to fine ex-ministers who contravene lobbying restrictions on outside employment to be in place by the autumn reshuffle. A Sky News and Tortoise investigation found last month that MPs had worked about 89,000 hours in their second jobs since the beginning of the parliament.

Sue Hawley, of the campaign group Spotlight on Corruption, said parliament and regulators needed to tighten up the rules on second jobs as MPs within the next year, as some parliamentarians seek to maximise their earnings potential before leaving office.

“It’s increasingly clear that parliament, and its standards regulators, need to be looking closely at when MPs earning huge sums outside of their role in parliament damages the reputation of the House of Commons,” she said. “There is a real risk that MPs and ex-ministers earning such huge sums fuels cynicism about parliament and risks undermining faith in democracy.

“It’s also clear that as ministers eye the possibility of being ejected at the next election, the rules on the revolving door need toughening up urgently to prevent potential conflicts of interest. That’s why the government needs to heed Lord Pickles’ call to lay out a timetable for urgent implementation of these rules over the autumn.”

Tom Brake, the director of Unlock Democracy and a former deputy leader of the House of Commons, also made the case for reform, saying it was undermining faith in the democratic system.

“For too many, being an MP is a sideline or an afterthought. For them, earning big money elsewhere or brushing up their TV presenter skills is their priority, not fighting for constituents struggling with a cost of living crisis.

“Former PM Boris Johnson’s pledge to tackle MPs’ second jobs was always suspect. These latest figures show it was entirely bogus,” he said.

Richard Burgon, a Labour MP and former shadow justice secretary, said the figures showed why the government should adopt his bill that would ban MPs from having second jobs. “While millions face a cost of living crisis, it’s a disgrace that some MPs are still busy lining their own pockets through second jobs,” he said.

Controversial planned cuts to Devon’s homelessness budget should be delayed, an influential group of councillors has recommended.

“Money we can’t afford,” – Councillor James McInnes (Conservative, Hatherleigh & Chagford),

Ollie Heptinstall www.midweekherald.co.uk 

The county council has consulted on proposals to scrap its £1.5 million contribution to projects which prevent people becoming homeless. 

However, the cabinet member responsible, Councillor James McInnes (Conservative, Hatherleigh & Chagford), recently said it was “money we can’t afford,” adding he was “very clear” it would not come out of existing budgets for the council’s statutory services.

A draft cabinet report presented to a health and adult care scrutiny committee this week revealed the funding could be cut at the end of September, but members of the committee decided this is too soon.

A majority instead urged the cabinet to delay the cuts until at least the end of the financial year in April, but another proposal to keep the funding until the end of the 2024/2025 financial year was rejected.

The £1.5 million currently pays for contracts with five providers who support around 250 people at any one time.

Their services are provided in multiple occupancy hostels in Exeter, East Devon, Torridge and North Devon, as well as through a countywide support service. None of the money pays for accommodation.

Local charities have hit out at the proposed cuts. YMCA Exeter, which receives £150,000 from the council, says “the consequences for vulnerable young adults will be huge”, while St Petrock’s, a charity in Exeter, warned it could lead to a “homelessness crisis”.

They believe it will end up costing other services such as district councils, the police, NHS and social care “significantly more” in the medium to long term, while Cllr McInnes has admitted there is a “risk that hostels may close”.

The meeting heard from one woman who said that, without receiving support from living at the Gabriel House shelter, she “most likely would not be here today”.

“I have significant traumas in my life,” she added. “This has led to me suffering the loss of my daughter and a breakdown of any relationship with my family.

“I’m now only able to share my story with you in the hope you can listen to me on why the proposal to stop the funding would have such a devastating impact on every resident at Gabriel House, who I see as my family.”

Peter Stephenson, chief executive of St Petrock’s, said the council’s claim that the funding is not part of its statutory powers is “dubious at best”.

He added: “Going ahead with this proposal will not only contravene your legal duties, but will make it abundantly clear that Devon County Council considers people experiencing homelessness as unworthy of the protection the rest of society rightly receives.”

Another charity, YMCA Exeter, has said it will take legal action if Devon goes ahead with the cuts.

In a statement, Cllr McInnes, who’s also the council deputy leader, said: “We fully understand that homelessness is a blight on people’s lives, particularly among younger people and others who need support, and that this is a real issue for all local authorities, locally and nationally.

“No decision has yet been made, and we are continuing to engage with district councils to explore all the inter-dependencies between housing and social care, particularly for our care leavers and other young people.”

The cabinet is expected to reach its decision on Wednesday, August 23.

Proposals to close North Devon’s link centres for people with complex mental health issues have been withdrawn to allow for further consultation with users.

Alison Stephenson, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

To cut costs, Devon County wants to integrate mental health services in North Devon to be “more in line with the national focus” but in Bideford, one of three link centre locations, some residents are concerned it will lead to more hospital admissions and greater costs to the health service.

Torridge District Councillor for Bideford East Cllr Jamies Craigie (Independent), along with clients of the Bideford Link Centre, challenged the initial consultation as they said it didn’t extend to people who used the services before covid or those seeking after care after coming out of hospital.

Cllr Craigie is pleased everyone will now have an opportunity to put their views. The county council will come back with revised proposals for Bideford, Barnstaple and Ilfracombe link centres and further consultation later in the year.

“It is only fair that everyone is consulted, as the numbers that attend now are half the number pre-covid as the activities at Bideford have been scaled down,” said Cllr Craigie. “We feel the figures will show the case for keeping our centres open and there will be no manipulation of figures giving the county council a fig leaf for closure.”

Torridge District Council’s overview and scrutiny committee heard earlier this week that the centre in Bideford, which has traditionally provided therapy as well as well-being and creative activities, had not reopened all services in 2021 despite pleas to Devon County Council.
Users said the centre had worked successfully for 30 years keeping people with a range of moderate-to-severe mental health problems safe, but it has been scaled back to a three times a week drop-in centre.

Cllr Craigie said: “The link centre provides a good service in a building which is ideal for its purpose as we don’t have any community centres in the town. People are more in need than ever since the pandemic where they became isolated and separated from others. And lots are struggling financially which is one of the many causes of stress.

“When you consider that it costs £800 a day to keep a mental health patient in hospital and £250 to have a mental health assessment at the RD&E, it makes no sense to get rid of the link centre which is preventing people having to go into hospital or have additional care.”

Devon County Council says it is facing “huge financial pressure” and must get the best outcome for every penny spent, hence it is reviewing all areas of its work. The centres in Bideford and Ilfracombe will cost around £306,000 to maintain over the next five years, it says.

A spokesperson said: “There is a national focus on improving and developing mental health services that are much more integrated within in local communities than they are currently in North Devon.”

They continued: “Several reviews in North Devon found that many of the services delivered by the link service to support people with their mental wellbeing, such as craft clubs, coffee mornings and choir groups, help with form filling and IT support, can be delivered by the community and voluntary sector.”

The council said Holsworthy’s link service had moved to the town’s youth centre that offers a wide range of community support, including drop-in sessions that help reduce loneliness and isolation.

A spokesman for the council said: “We are grateful for the input of all those who have contributed to the consultation so far, these responses will be considered in addition to the responses to the further consultation before decisions are made.”

At least 57 people fell ill with sickness and diarrhoea after competing in sea swimming events at the World Triathlon Championship Series in Sunderland, health officials confirmed this weekend.

Jon Ungoed-Thomas www.theguardian.com 

About 2,000 people participated in the events last weekend, which included a swim off Sunderland’s blue flag Roker beach. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it would be testing samples from those who were ill to establish the cause of the illness and any common pathogens.

An Environment Agency sampling at Roker beach on Wednesday 26 July, three days before the event, showed 3,900 E Coli colonies per 100ml, more than 39 times higher than typical readings the previous month. E coli is a bacterial infection which can cause stomach pain and bloody diarrhoea,

But British Triathlon, the governing body for triathlons in Great Britain, said the agency’s sampling results were not published until after the weekend’s events and were outside the body of the water where its competitions took place. It said its own testing results passed the required standards for the event.

The event was on a stretch of coastline that has been at the centre of a long-running battle over sewage discharges between campaigners and the government concerning regulatory failures.

Northumbrian Water insisted it was not to blame for the illnesses and that it had not recorded any discharges that might have affected the water quality at Roker beach since October 2021.

Jacob Birtwhistle, 28, an Australian triathlete, posted the Environment Agency’s results on Instagram and said he had felt unwell after the event. He wrote: “Have been feeling pretty rubbish since the race, but I guess that’s what happens when you swim in shit. The swim should have been cancelled.”

One athlete responded: “At least I know what got me and a bunch of other athletes who raced sick and ill.” Another wrote: “That now explains why I spent Monday night with my head in the toilet after racing Sunday morning!”

Ailith Eve Harley-Roberts, 51, from Leeds, who competed in the standard category with a 1,500-metre sea swim, said she had not fallen ill but fellow competitors suffered stomach upsets. She said: “I like to swim outdoors but don’t have any confidence in the cleanliness of seas, rivers, lakes etc because of the dumping of sewage or other effluents.”

Eva Perrin, science and research officer at campaign group Surfers Against Sewage, said: “The sample taken on 26 July showed unprecedented levels of E coli well over what is natural for this water body or safe for human recreational use, and urgently needs to be investigated.”

Bob Latimer, 79, a campaigner, pursued legal action for several years against the government over sewage discharges off Whitburn, which is north of Roker beach. A pre-action letter was sent on his behalf by the Environmental Law Foundation to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the regulator Ofwat in June for a proposed judicial review, alleging there were 122 discharges in 2021 alone from the Whitburn sea outfall, totalling 821,088 tonnes of sewage and storm water.

Latimer says the sewage discharges from the Whitburn outfall increased between 2017 and 2021, and there has been a failure by the government to comply with waste water regulations. He said: “There is still too much sewage being discharged into the sea.”

Data published by the charity the Rivers Trust based on returns from water firms shows a sewer storm overflow discharged into the Wear Estuary, near the triathlon event, 28 times in 2022 for a total of 370 hours. Northumbrian Water said these sewage discharges would not affect Roker beach because they were “intercepted” and discharged by a long-sea outfall.

The triathlon event at Sunderland was the British leg of the World Triathlon Championship Series, and took place within the qualification window for the Paris 2024 Olympic games. There were also participation races in a variety of distances, including a family event. It was the first time Sunderland had hosted the UK leg of the series.

British Triathlon said it was working closely with Sunderland city council and the UKHSA to establish the cause of the illnesses. Environment Agency officials say its sampling on 26 July was not published until 31 July because it required a laboratory analysis.

The UKHSA said: “UKHSA is working with British Triathlon to encourage anyone who participated and has or had symptoms after the event to contact the organisers who will then pass details onto the UKHSA North East Protection team. The team will undertake an investigation of cases.”

There are various factors that can affect water quality, including the use of sewage overflows operated by water firms, as well as run-off from roads and fields. Northumbrian Water said it did not consider any of its infrastructure was involved in any pollution incidents that could have affected the triathlon events.

A spokesperson for Northumbrian Water said: “We have had no discharges from any of our assets that might negatively impact water quality at either Roker or the neighbouring Whitburn North bathing water since October 2021.

“Both bathing waters were designated as ‘Excellent’ in the latest Defra classifications, and sampling to date in the current season indicate this high quality is being maintained.”

The UK is nearly “flying blind” when it comes to Covid this autumn, experts have said, amid an increase in cases.

Why waste money on public health? – Owl

Nicola Davis www.theguardian.com 

While the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) continues to track some metrics of Covid, including hospitalisation numbers, many of the community surveillance studies tracking infection levels have finished.

Now experts have said the situation is leaving the country in the dark about how Covid may play out in the months ahead.

Christina Pagel, a professor of operational research at University College London, said a new wave of Covid appeared to be under way – possibly driven by waning immunity, new variants of Omicron, and factors including poor weather keeping people inside.

With the autumn coming on and people returning to school and work, Covid pressures may increase, Pagel added.

“We might see the wave continue to grow, and grow faster, in September,” she said.

As well as public health measures including reintroducing high-quality masks within healthcare settings, Pagel said she would support bringing back the nationwide infection survey published by the Office for National Statistics for autumn and winter, as well as expanding it to cover flu and RSV.

Failing that, she said, wastewater monitoring should be reinstated across the UK as a cheaper alternative that is used in many countries to track Covid prevalence and variants. Such schemes have recently been cut in England and Wales.

“What worries me most is if we get a repeat of the last winter NHS crisis this winter again, with Covid, flu and RSV all hitting around the same time,” said Pagel. “We are definitely flying near blind.”

Prof Rowland Kao, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, also highlighted the decline in surveillance.

“With seasonal flu, we have of course a certain amount of predictability with the many years of data. However, with Covid, now that we don’t have those multiple data streams to rely on, it’s harder to say what is happening [in the general population],” he said.

Kao added that the variant emergence patterns for Covid were largely unknown and Covid was not simply following seasonal patterns.

Experts have also raised concerns about the UK’s vaccination programme as the autumn approaches.

Prof Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, said while Covid was on the rise, it had started from quite a low level and the “mildness” of Covid now was largely because most people were still within a year or so of having had three vaccine doses.

“The immune-evasion mutations continue to emerge and cross-protection is looking ever more precarious. Meanwhile, immunity beyond one year wanes appreciably,” Altmann said, adding it was important to plan for another round of boosters and consider which specific vaccine it should involve.

Prof Adam Kucharski, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said exposure to Covid would also affect the level of population immunity. But he agreed there were uncertainties about how Covid may play out, including whether there will be multiple waves of Covid a year.

“I think we don’t really have enough data points to say confidently what normal looks like for Covid, other than the fact that normal is probably going to be significantly higher infection and disease burden layered on top of all the other things that are already causing us problems every year,” he said.

However Kucharski noted the UK is no longer in the phase of pandemic where rapid actions are being taken – a period when very detailed surveillance was crucial – adding surveillance now is more about understanding vaccine effectiveness, waning immunity, and pressures that drive waves of infection.

“If we go into winter, and it isn’t an [unusual] variant and it isn’t an unusually large wave, then probably some of the surveillance we have will give us the sort of indications we need for a lot of that kind of management,” he said.

“We’re still in that kind of period of uncertainty where we might want the ability to deploy something that can give us more insight in future,” said Kucharski.

Another vaccination campaign, with eligibility based on health conditions or age, is expected to be launched later this year, according to UKHSA. The agency says it understands conversations about scaling up testing are continuing.

Prof Steven Riley, the director general of data, analytics and surveillance at the UKHSA, said protecting the public from Covid-19 remained one of the agency’s top priorities.

“We continue to monitor the threat posed by Covid-19 through our range of surveillance systems and genomics capabilities, which report on infection rates, hospitalisations and the risks posed by new variants.”

Could Liz Truss star in this year’s I’m A Celebrity? Now ITV bosses are ‘bidding to sign up former PM’ after Matt Hancock’s controversial run on reality TV show www.dailymail.co.uk 

This comes after various reports that Boris Johnson has been in talks with ITV but is likely to turn down an offer (too busy on he lucrative speaking tour) www.independent.co.uk

Analysis of Environment Agency data by the Liberal Democrats revealed that South West Water was the worst water company in absolute terms, responsible for 31 of the total 112 faulty monitors on storm overflows at bathing waters.

Simon Jupp spins like a top as he plays catch up with public opinion

In October 2021 Johnson’s Conservative government, with the votes of Simon Jupp and Neil Parish, succeeded in voting down a Lords amendment designed to stop private water companies from dumping raw sewage into the UK’s waterways. The amendment would have placed a legal duty on companies “to make improvements to their sewerage systems and demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage.“

In January 2023 Simon Jupp started spinning his voting record when he said, rather archly, that he “would never vote to pollute our water”. 

In March 2023 Simon Jupp, chairing a Westminster Hall debate on the performance of South West Water, said: …Of course, in a perfect world, we would stop sewage spills completely and immediately. Sadly, that is virtually impossible in the short term; because of the pressure on our water infrastructure, we would risk the collapse of the entire water network, and the eye-watering costs involved mean we would need not just a magic money tree, but a whole forest.

By June 2023 Simon Jupp had obviously changed his mind when he said he wanted to see action.

In July Simon Jupp said: “I’m working with Ofwat & @EnvAgency to get South West Water to clean up their act & our water, 

Later in July Simon Jupp met with South West Water’s Chief Executive, Susan Davy, in Sidmouth urging South West Water to move swiftly on their £30 million investment plans for water infrastructure in Sidmouth & Tipton St John.

Little wonder South West Water seem to take no notice of him – Owl

Faulty monitors leave sewage spilling into bathing water

Adam Vaughan www.thetimes.co.uk

More than a hundred monitors tracking sewage spills at bathing waters around England were faulty last year, meaning people may have been unwittingly swimming in polluted seas.

Analysis of Environment Agency data by the Liberal Democrats revealed that South West Water was the worst water company in absolute terms, responsible for 31 of the total 112 faulty monitors on storm overflows at bathing waters. United Utilities, which serves the northwest of England, was second on 21, and Northumbrian Water was third at 21.

A monitor is considered faulty if it works less than 90 per cent of the time.

Northumbrian Water was the worst offender in relative terms, with more than 20 per cent of its monitors not functioning last year. It was followed by Anglian Water on 14.6 per cent and South West Water on 11.9 per cent.

The government has pushed to have monitoring increased on storm overflows.

The pipes are designed as emergency relief valves in the sewer network to spill raw sewage into rivers and seas at times of heavy rainfall to stop it backing up into homes and businesses.

Despite the government drive, the number of faulty monitors at designated bathing waters was up 27 per cent last year on the 88 in 2021.

The analysis shows that in some places monitors remained broken for a protracted period of time. A total of 52 at swimming spots were faulty in both 2021 and 2022, which the Lib Dems said showed “water firms’ negligence in their infrastructure”.

At Seaford in East Sussex, where beaches were hit by raw sewage spills during last August’s summer holidays , sewage monitors run by Southern Water were broken for the whole of 2021.

At neighbouring Newhaven Beach, they have been faulty for two years.

“This is a national scandal. These profiteering firms have been too busy stuffing their pockets instead of fixing basic infrastructure.

“With all these broken monitors, we have no idea just how much sewage people are swimming in. As millions of people flock to the beach this month, we need these monitors fixed immediately,” Tim Farron, the Lib Dem environment spokesman, said.

Water companies have a legal obligation to ensure all of the almost 15,000 storm overflows across England have monitoring in place by the end of the year. In March the Times revealed that monitoring was still not in place at more than 600 sites , though that figure will have now fallen dramatically.

The Times’ Clean It Up campaign has been calling for stronger regulation and faster investment by water companies to improve the nation’s rivers and seas. Only 14 per cent of rivers in England are considered by the Environment Agency to meet good ecological status.

Dozens of beaches around the UK have a sewage spill alert in place following heavy rainfall. The warnings on the Surfers Against Sewage map range from Summerleaze beach at Bude in Cornwall to Hunstanton beach in Norfolk.

The vast majority of bathing waters at English beaches meet minimum water quality standards , with 302 rated excellent last year, 87 good and 18 sufficient. Just 12 were considered poor. However, there are concerns that some sites could be downgraded. Local officials in Portsmouth recently warned that Southsea East beach could become considered unsuitable for swimming, partly over concerns about seagull droppings .

A spokesperson for the trade body Water UK said: “[The economic regulator] Ofwat has confirmed that 92 per cent of monitors worked correctly last year; however, given the speed of installation, 8 per cent of monitors did not report reliably.

“This particularly occurred where mobile phone reception, which is needed to transmit results, proved patchy. Companies have been working to fix this, and the regulator has taken new powers to levy steep financial penalties if reliability does not improve.”

A South West Water spokesperson said: “With one-third of the UK’s bathing waters, we have focused on achieving 100 per cent monitoring across all of our storm overflows, and achieved that last year, ahead of plan.”

A government spokesperson said: “Where faulty or inactive monitors are identified by the Environment Agency, they are then investigated further, and we will hold water companies to account to deliver that.”

The floodgates at some East Devon towns will be closed this weekend, as a yellow weather warning has been issued for East Devon. 

Adam Manning www.sidmouthherald.co.uk

The floodgates will be closed at Mamhead Slipway (Exmouth) from 5pm on Friday, (August 4) until Sunday morning. Sidmouth’s floodgates will be closed from Saturday, (August 5), morning until Sunday morning.

STORM Antoni is set to bring strong winds to Devon tomorrow (Saturday, August 5), according to the latest Met Office forecast.

A weather warning for strong wind was already in place, but an updated one now, in place from 8am to 8pm, said: “Storm Antoni will bring unseasonably windy weather to southern parts of the UK.”

This weekend you can expect

• Injuries and danger to life from flying debris are possible
• Some damage to buildings, such as tiles blown from roofs, could happen
• Road, rail, air, and ferry services may be affected, with longer journey times and cancellations possible
• Some roads and bridges may close
• Power cuts may occur, with the potential to affect other services, such as mobile phone coverage
• Injuries and danger to life could occur from large waves and beach material being thrown onto sea fronts, coastal roads, and properties

Multiple Tory MPs admitted they were increasingly concerned about the impact of high interest rates and inflation on the party at the ballot box, and suggested the public needed to accept they were worse off in the interim.

Eleanor Langford, Chloe Chaplain, Poppy Wood inews.co.uk (Extract)

“The reality is to get inflation under control, people do have to be poor,” one backbench Tory MP told i. “You have to have less money. But that is not a particularly politically sellable strapline.”

They added that the party was “struggling to come up with something that would ease the burden but still have the right effect on inflation”.

This was echoed by a former minister, who said that reducing inflation “almost inevitably means a drop in people’s living standards for a period of time”. “It is a really difficult sell to the public. No-one likes to admit it,” they added….

…It comes after Rishi Sunak faced criticism on Wednesday for telling a man facing a £1,300 increase in mortgage payments due to high interest rates that the average increase was only £200.

He also suggested he could extend his mortgage by a further “five or 10 years” and that it would “save you hundreds of pounds”.

Spot the fake – Owl

As the bank rate goes up again there is new ministerial advice to “get on your bike”.

Where has Owl heard that advice before?

Ah yes 1981, when interest rates were 14%.

Those were the Tory “Glory Days”! – Owl

The over-50s should consider delivering takeaways and other flexible jobs traditionally targeted at young people if they want to maintain their lifestyle into old age, a cabinet minister has said.

Geraldine Scott www.thetimes.co.uk

In an interview with The Times, Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, said older people needed to be thinking about jobs they “might not have otherwise thought of” if their finances were stretched.

Stride urged employers to give older workers greater flexibility, to attract them back to the workplace. He also suggested that companies should avoid getting dragged into political debates, to make older workers feel at home.

About 8.6 million people, equivalent to one in five working adults, are classed as economically inactive, according to the Office for National Statistics. More than 3.4 million of them are over 50 but under the retirement age.

The figures are of acute concern because of the strain they have already placed on a labour market where many employers are struggling to recruit. The Bank of England has warned that the situation will make high inflation persist.

Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank has found that nearly half of older people who dropped out of the workforce at the start of the pandemic are struggling financially.

Stride said he did not want to imply there was anything wrong with retiring early, but that it was his “mission” to “try and open people’s eyes to what their current situation is and what the opportunities are”.

The minister was speaking on a visit to the food delivery firm Deliveroo’s headquarters in London. The company has recorded a 62 per cent increase in riders aged over 50 since 2021.

Asked if the over-50s should apply for jobs traditionally seen as being for younger people, Stride replied: “There are loads of great opportunities out there for people and it’s of course good for people to consider options they might not have otherwise thought of.”

He said of firms such as Deliveroo: “What we’re seeing here is the ability to log on and off anytime you like, no requirement to have to do a certain number of hours over a certain period of time, which is driving huge opportunities . . . From an employer’s point of view in a tight labour market, it’s absolutely essential if you want to access all the available talent that you provide as flexible an offer as you can.”

The government has introduced digital “midlife MoTs” that allow people to take a realistic look at not only their health but their finances. Stride said: “You really do need to sensibly stop, take where you are in life, and assess whether for example you’ve got enough money to get you through with the kind of lifestyle and living standards that you’re expecting.

“We tend to think everything is going to continue roughly as it is and you’ll always be able to find a job later on in life. I think it’s always valuable just to take stock every now and again and have a look at that.”

Although some have opted for early retirement, a record 2.5 million people are not working because of long-term sickness. Stride said he was keen to see companies implement occupational health schemes to keep people in work.

He said he “found myself identifying” with Abdul Javaid, 51, a Deliveroo rider who had lost 10kg since taking up the job. Javaid, a grandfather based in Kingston upon Thames in southwest London, said: “It can help with fitness, it can help with flexibility, it can help with fitting into a part of their life where it serves a useful purpose, amongst other things, and not every kind of job offers that.”

Stride said it was also down to employers to make older staff feel welcome, urging them to ensure that their workplace culture or stance on social issues did not alienate the over-50s.

“I think most people find it deeply unattractive to go and work for an employer that’s all about politics and all of that kind of stuff,” he said. “It has to be a sensible balance, and I think older people have generally had enough life experience to roll with those kinds of things anyway.”

For his part, Stride, 61, said he had no intention of retiring early and was planning to stand at the next election. “I’m very happy doing what I’m doing at the moment,” he said. “Of course, as we know in politics, nothing is certain, so who knows where I’ll be in many years’ time — but I very much hope and aspire to be continuing to do this job, because it’s the greatest job in the world.”

He said the government was making progress on reducing waiting lists but then strikes happened across the health service.

Nurses in England voted to end strike action by accepting a 5% pay rise earlier this year, but this now transpires to be the smallest rise across the public sector.

by Matt Bodell nursingnotes.co.uk

Speaking on LBC yesterday morning, Mr Sunak said: “If you look at what happened, we were actually making progress – we eliminated the number of two-year waiters, people waiting a very long time, we practically eliminated the number of people waiting one and a half years.

“And we were making progress on bringing the overall numbers down – what happened? We had industrial action and we got strikes.”

He added that “unfortunately” doctors were still on strike – “that is the reason waiting lists are going up, it’s as simple as that”.

Nurses in England voted to end strike action by accepting a 5% pay rise earlier this year, but this now transpires to be the smallest rise across the public sector.

According to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), junior doctors have already received an average of an 8.8% pay uplift but they continue to fight for pay restoration.

A low blow.

Unions have dubbed Mr Sunak’s comments as “a low blow” as staff were striking over deteriorating care standards alongside pay and working conditions.

Responding to the Prime Minister’s comments, Royal College of Nursing Director for England, Patricia Marquis said: “This comment adds insult to injury. Blaming nurses for the state of the NHS is a low blow. Nursing staff voted to strike last year out of concern at deteriorating care standards and spiralling waiting times.

“Waiting lists were growing long before the pandemic and strike action – and the prime minister should take responsibility for the knife-edge position of the NHS and not point the finger.

“Nursing staff are doing everything they can but simply don’t have enough people to give patients the care they need. And the distress that this causes affects staff’s health, eventually leading to complete demoralisation and to nurses leaving the NHS.

“One way the government can address the crisis in the health service, and help ensure patients get the care they need, is by valuing the nursing profession properly and paying nurses fairly – otherwise we’ll see nurses continue to leave in their droves.”

Rishi Sunak’s advice to “jack” who, during the PM’s interview on LBC, said he faced increases in mortgage payments from £1,500 to £2,800 when his two-year fixed rate comes to an end this month.

When was the last time anyone passed a bank, let alone tried to actually speak to someone? – Owl