Hiding £400m from taxman – slap on wrist and extra fine he can easily afford.  Make a £1 error on your Universal Credit – benefits stopped.

Oh brave new world that has such people in it. – Owl

Commercial property bought by Torbay Council in far-flung places across the country are earning the council millions of pounds in rent, but have lost £37 million in value since they were bought.

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

Over the past few years, the bay has bought a pasty factory in Cornwall, a cinema in Somerset and a warehouse for Amazon in Exeter as part of a large portfolio of property it acquired to make money to compensate for dwindling financial support from the government.

Critics at the time said it was a high-risk strategy and accused the council of ‘playing Monopoly’ with council taxpayers’ cash.

The practice was outlawed by Westminster early in 2020, preventing any new purchases, but Torbay’s faraway holdings – worth almost £175 million – continue to make money.

The portfolio spans the south and west of England and was started in 2017 as a so-called ‘debt for yield’ project using discounted loans to buy property and collect rents from them.

The council’s scrutiny committee has been given a report on how the portfolio is doing in a ‘volatile’ market hit by inflation and rising costs.

Income from rents in the last year topped £13.5 million, nearly £800,000 more than when the properties were first bought. However, a number of tenants’ leases expire in the coming years, and the council is prepared to use its reserves to offer companies incentives to stay.

When the properties were bought, the total value of the portfolio stood at £212 million, but changes in the market mean it is now worth much less – with £174.5 million the latest figure published.

Officers partly blame the drop on the pandemic, with more people working from home and fewer using offices. A slump in the retail market and global economic issues are also blamed.

There was a suggestion that the council might sell some of the properties, but cabinet member for finance Cllr Alan Tyerman (Con, Churston with Galmpton) told the meeting: “Offloading them at a time in which capital values have fallen doesn’t seem a very sensible thing to do.

“When they were purchased, the idea was that we might want to sell, but the changes in the regulations mean that if we sell, we can’t replace that revenue.”

Cllr Chris Lewis (Con, Preston) added: “These investments bring in millions of pounds a year. If we hadn’t bought them we would have had to cut services by millions.

“This has been a real benefit to the bay.”

And Cllr Darren Cowell (Independent, Shiphay) said: “Without that money plugging the hole left by the reduction in government grant, some of Torbay’s services would be in a dire state.”

The contents of the property portfolio currently include: Wren Park retail centre at Torquay; shopping centre run by Tesco at Ferndown, Dorset; Gadeon House office block near the M5 at Exeter, let to EDF Energy; Fugro House office block at Wallingford, Oxfordshire; distribution warehouse London Medway in Kent; new Travelodge hotel at Chippenham, Wiltshire; Twyver House office block, Gloucester, let to the government; Woodwater House, Exeter, offices let to solicitors Michelmores; The Range, Torquay; food factory let to Proper Cornish Ltd in Bodmin, Cornwall; industrial warehouse occupied by Crown Records at Marsh Barton, Exeter; the national distribution centre for Chef Direct at Didcot in Oxfordshire; Amazon warehouse near Exeter and Odeon Cinema, Taunton.
 

Developers are offering to pay buyers’ mortgages as they resist reducing the prices of their homes. 

By Madeleine Ross, www.telegraph.co.uk

One housebuilder, Fairview New Homes, is offering cash sums of up to £30,000 equivalent to a discount on mortgage rates of 2.5pc for two years. 

The developer says buyers can use the savings to cover the cost of buying a new car, having their groceries covered for up to two years or holidays.

This comes after the developer launched its “Buddy Up” scheme, which offers £2,000 for legal fees and advice and either a 5pc deposit boost and a £5,000 John Lewis voucher or a Stamp Duty grant and a £5,000 furniture pack for those buying with friends.  

Another firm, Stonebond, promises discounted mortgage rate of 3pc for two years, compared to rate of of around 5-6pc available at high-street lenders.

On a £500,000 property with a 25pc deposit, the developer says it will pay up to £16,875 to take a mortgage rate of 5.25pc down to 3pc. The incentive will be paid as an allowance when the sale is completed.

Hayfield Homes recently advertised a Tesla, worth £40,000 to £60,000, for the buyer of a £660,000 four-bedroom home at a development in Bromham, Bedfordshire.

Other incentives being launched by housebuilders include so-called “Rent to buy” schemes, in which a tenant pays rent to the developer for a set period which constitutes their deposit, before applying for a mortgage.

Large developer Barratt Developments has launched a pilot program which allows buyers to put down just a 2.5pc deposit upfront, before using six months’ rent to form the other half of their 5pc deposit.

Adrian MacDiarmid, head of mortgages at Barratt, said: “Instead of paying private rent that eats up all their savings, they [buyers] can put that money to good use as part of their deposit, all while they are enjoying living in their new home.”

The tricks of the trade to keep prices high

Emma Fildes, a buying agent in London, said developers were using all the tricks of the trade to keep prices high.

“It looks better land register-wise,” she said, adding that buyers must disclose any incentives they are offered to their mortgage brokers.

The agent said smaller companies were more likely to bring down their prices as offering more significant incentives, including carpeting and fittings, was more difficult for them.

She said: “The key to wearing them down is your position and being able to move at speed and incentivise them in that way that you got the money you can do this, and then chip accordingly.”

Buying agent Alex Mosley, of Perrygate in London, said buyers who are offered incentives should be aware that the property price might not offer a fair value.

“Always try to understand a new build’s premium against the second hand market before making an offer.”

New builds are often sold at a premium compared to second hand homes but the average agreed sales price of a new build dropped 9pc between March and July this year, according to market analysts TwentyCi.

The Government unveiled a housebuilding target of 300,000 new homes annually in its 2019 election manifesto.

In July the cross-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee said it was unlikely to hit this target.

But the committee conceded that the government might still hit its target of 1m new homes by the end of 2024.

Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings’s secret Covid WhatsApp messages revealed

Eye-opening messages sent between Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings about the government’s handling of the start of the pandemic have been released for the first time.

Archie Mitchell www.independent.co.uk

In a WhatsApp exchange between the former prime minister and his then chief of staff, released by the Covid inquiry, Mr Cummings described the Cabinet Office as “terrifyingly s***”, and said it had no proper plans in place for lockdowns.

The messages also revealed that Mr Cummings told his boss that some civil servants wanted to delay ordering people to stay at home as they “haven’t done the work and don’t work weekends“.

The shocking messages also reveal Mr Johnson thought it was “wrong” for the prime minister to meet Scotland’s leader Nicola Sturgeon and Wales’s first minister Mark Drakeford regularly during the pandemic.

Mr Drakeford had been frustrated by what he saw as a lack of meetings with Mr Johnson’s government, but the PM believed working closely with the heads of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland would leave the UK looking like a “mini-EU of four nations”.

“That is not, in my view, how devolution is supposed to work,” he said.

In his witness statement to the Covid inquiry, Mr Johnson added that he often left Michael Gove to chair four-nation Cobra meetings, partly because he was a “target of nationalist ire” and did not want to provoke the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Mr Johnson said: “It is optically wrong, in the first place, for the UK prime minister to hold regular meetings with other DA [devolved administration] first ministers, as though the UK were a kind of mini EU of four nations and we were meeting as a ‘council’ in a federal structure.

“That is not, in my view, how devolution is meant to work. More importantly, I am afraid I was conscious that I tended to be a particular target of nationalist ire. Rather than provoking the SNP, I wanted to mollify and gain consent. I believed Michael would do a good job.”

As well as claiming civil servants wanted to delay the government making a stay-at-home announcement, Mr Cummings said the then civil service chief Sir Mark Sedwill “hasn’t a scooby” what was happening.

Mr Cummings said: “Mark is out to lunch – hasn’t a scooby what’s going on and his own officials know he doesn’t. We must announce TODAY – not next week – ‘if feel ill with cold/flu stay home’.

“Some CABOFF want delay cos haven’t done the work and don’t work weekends. We must force the pace today. We are looking at 100-500 thousand deaths between optimistic/pessimistic scenarios. 1918 was 250k for comparison.”

In a message on the morning of 12 March 2020, the day Britain moved from a contain phase to a delay phase in the fight against Covid, Mr Cummings said: “We got big problems coming. CABOFF is terrifyingly s***, no plans, totally behind pace.”

He added that political advisors including Lee Cain and James Slack were having to “drive and direct” the response.

The comments on civil servants’ working patterns sparked a row, with the head of the FDA union for senior civil servants hitting back. Dave Penman said: “The only lazy thing here is Cummings’ tired old tropes, self-aggrandising as the only saviour of the country.

“Our evidence shows a quarter of senior civil servants work more than 16 hours unpaid every week and more than 80 per cent work an extra day unpaid each week.”

Simon Jupp was a Special Adviser to  First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, in 2019, before he was selected as a candidate for the East Devon constituency

Dominic Raab quit Rishi Sunak’s cabinet over bullying claims in May and subsequently announced that he would not stand for parliament at the next election.

In May Simon said he was “Very sorry” his former boss was going to stand down at the next election.

Was his earlier tweet an example of dual standards? – Owl

And the election may be a year away.

Link

The post refers to disputed claims of bullying made in 2021, which now need to be read in the context  of the last Chapter in the Changing of the Guard and the allegations reported by the BBC.

[More on the 2023 background to that can be found by simply typing Verita into the EDW search box]

This elicited this string of replies:

Owls advice to Simon Jupp is to beware of innuendo 

Chris Collman www.eastdevon.radio 

In an open letter to MPs, East Devon District Council’s Leader, and the Portfolio Holder for Strategic Planning, express the Strategic Planning Committee’s concerns about the pressures imposed by new houses.

The letter to Mel Stride, MP for Central Devon, Richard Foord, MP for Tiverton and Honiton, and Simon Jupp, MP for East Devon, reads:

Dear Mel, Richard and Simon,

Standard Method for Calculating Housing Need

We are writing on behalf of East Devon District Council following a debate at a meeting of the Council’s Strategic Planning Committee on the 5th September in which Members agreed to write to all of our local MP’s asking for your support in seeking a review of the standard methodology for calculating housing need and a more positive approach to solving the housing crisis.

The standard methodology is a crude and blunt instrument designed to deliver the government’s target of 300,000 homes a year. Using a mathematical equation to determine how many homes are built and where is a fundamentally flawed approach that pays no regard to key factors such as land availability and environmental constraints that need to be taken into account. The result is a housing need figure for East Devon that can only be met through harming our attractive landscape areas including two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB’s) and areas where development has been shown to have a significant detrimental impact on designated wildlife habitats. Between them these areas make up well over 90% of East Devon. We have next to no brownfield sites to develop and so housing has to be built on attractive green field sites to the detriment of the landscape and wildlife. The natural environment is what attracts people to East Devon and makes it such a wonderful place to live but the standard method means that we have to sacrifice that to satisfy a housing need generated by a flawed algorithm.

The main input into the standard method is household growth projections but these projections are based on past trends. The impact of this on the housing need figure is massive and yet all that this means is that growth is directed to the locations that have historically seen growth. As a result those areas of the country that have historically done as successive governments have asked and accommodated growth are punished by ever increasing housing need figures. This is because growth leads to a growing population which in turn increases household growth projections thereby creating a need for even more homes.

East Devon has accepted huge amounts of growth in recent times through Cranbrook new town, large housing developments of thousands of homes on the edge of Exeter and urban extensions of many of our market towns. The number of homes delivered in east Devon per year has grown from around 700 a year less than 10 years ago to well over a 1000 in 2019. These developments have however used up the available land and led to a pattern of population and household growth that under the standard method fuels a supposed need for more and more homes in the future. These levels of growth are unsustainable and harmful to the environment and communities of East Devon.

As a district we have huge infrastructure requirements which are largely going unmet due to lack of funding. Our Infrastructure Delivery Plan (IDP) shows that we have a funding shortfall of over £70million just for priority 1 projects and that is based on 2017 prices. Hospitals and GP practices are oversubscribed, and schools are over-capacity in some areas and have substandard and insufficient accommodation and facilities. The main roads in and out of Exeter are heavily congested at peak times while public transport is infrequent, un-co-ordinated and does not serve many rural areas. We have substantial problems with the drainage system with foul drainage running down the streets in some villages after storm events as the combined sewers cannot cope while to deal with the excess flows Southwest Water discharge sewage off the coast causing massive environmental damage. All of these issues and more need to be addressed but at the moment the government simply wants to see more homes built which put more and more pressure on our failing infrastructure.

The standard method approach is disconnected from government policy in that it distributes housing numbers across the country with no regard to key government objectives around sustainability, climate change, bio-diversity, the ability of infrastructure to cope and the levelling up agenda. There is a desperate need to look to allocate new housing based on future needs and aspirations, the ability of locations to accommodate the growth and to protect the environment rather than based on past trends. To do this we need a joined up approach that looks at the ability of different areas to deliver growth that best meets the government’s national planning policies and aligns with the levelling up agenda. This could be achieved through a national housing strategy or through other mechanisms that use sound planning principles to determine where new homes are accommodated rather than maths.

Michael Gove announced at the end of last year changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) that would have given local authorities greater flexibility in terms of housing numbers and yet these changes have not come forward. Urgent action is needed before the character of East Devon is irreparably eroded to make way for new housing that is unaffordable to local people and cannot be accommodated without significant environmental harm.

East Devon District Council is calling on you to press the government to find a more positive approach to solving the housing crisis and a move away from algorithms that pay no regard to the consequences of new housing numbers on the environment and the communities affected by growth. We look forward to hearing from you.

Mark Williams, Chief Executive, East Devon District Council (EDDC) has announced his resignation, after 21 years, through the EDDC press office, see below.

Mark Williams was not only Chief Executive and Head of Paid Services, a combination of roles quite common in local government, but unusually he was also Head of Development Management (under the new guard labelled Planning). 

Last night BBC Spotlight presented his resignation alongside unconfirmed reports that he was facing a formal complaint about his conduct. 

BBC Spotlight reported that allegations had been made in a formal complaint that he had “intimidated and browbeaten” the conduct of an independent investigation into child sex abuse allegations. This refers to the Verita  investigation into “who knew what and when” concerning the police investigation into John Humphreys, following his arrest, leading to safeguarding issues.

On Wednesday last week an Extraordinary Council Meeting was called to discuss “Confidential Staffing Issues”. Spotlight reported that it understood these included discussions of a severance package exceeding £100K.

EDDC has neither confirmed nor denied these reports and Mark Williams has declined to comment.

Last November EDDC agreed the formal procedures on how to conduct investigations into “Protected Officers” (CEO, Monitoring Officer and Chief Financial Officer).

According to the EDDC web site, until a new CEO is appointed, the vacancy will be covered by Simon Davey (Director Finance), Melanie Wellman (Director of Governance with electoral role responsibilities) and Tracy Hendren (Director of Housing), 

This can be considered the final chapter in the “Changing of the Guard” in EDDC. 

Mark Williams has announced his retirement as Chief Executive of East Devon District Council

eastdevon.gov.uk 11 October 2023

Mark joined the Council as Assistant Chief Executive in August 2000 and was promoted to the position of Chief Executive two years later.

During his 21-year career as Chief Executive, the Council has achieved national recognition as one delivering high quality and value for money services. During this period the Council has contributed to the growth of the local economy and the enhancement of the natural environment, whilst ensuring that the quality of life of local residents has been at the forefront in thinking and action within the Council. Mark is particularly proud of the Council’s strong financial position and the achievement of the highest level Investors in People accreditation.

Mark retires as the longest serving district Chief Executive in England and Wales. He also served for five years as the Chief Executive of the former South Somerset District Council.

In his own time Mark volunteered for ten years as a lifeboatman with the Sidmouth Lifeboat and for six years as a trustee of Devon Air Ambulance.

Mark said “I would like to thank all the wonderful people I have worked with over the years. A captain is only as good as their team, and I have been blessed to have great support from councillors and officers alike. The Council is facing significant future challenges and the time is now right to pass the baton.”

“Sir Humphrey” speaks – Owl

By Jim Dunton www.civilserviceworld.com

Former cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell has told the Covid 19 Inquiry that the difficulties his successors faced during the early months of the pandemic made him thankful for his own relationship with No.10 during his time as the nation’s top civil servant.

Lord O’Donnell told the public inquiry that he had talked to current cab sec Simon Case about intense cabinet-level disagreements about the best course of action in relation to the pandemic during the autumn of 2020.

Inquiry lead counsel Hugo Keith KC read out an extract from the diaries of former government chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance at today’s session. Dated 11 November 2020, it read: “Simon Case says No.10 at war with itself. A Carrie faction with Gove and another with spads… PM caught in the middle.

“He has spoken to all of his predecessors as cabinet secretary and no-one has seen anything like it.”

O’Donnell, who was cab sec from 2005 to 2011, confirmed he had spoken to Case at the time – when Covid infections were rising and tiered restrictions were being introduced.

The ex-cab sec said he believed Case’s motivation for levelling with Vallance would have been driven by chief scientific adviser’s need to “understand how to operate” when “the top is not functioning as well as you would like it to”.

O’Donnell said the backdrop would have been ensuring that the best decisions were made for the country despite cabinet-level turmoil.

“That means that sometimes you have to be clear with the key officials, like Patrick Vallance [and chief medical officer] Chris Whitty, that there are problems with these relationships and that therefore things might not happen as quickly as you would like,” he said.

O’Donnell said the primary focus of the cabinet secretary’s role is to maintain relationships between No.10, the cabinet and departments, and ensure that decision-making is effectively supported.

“I look back on this and think I was blessed,” he said of his time as cab sec. “I actually had a relatively easy time. All of the prime ministers I worked with, I think there was that sense of mutual trust and respect and ability to get prime ministers to focus on the decisions that they needed to make and the information and evidence they needed.”

He said the evidence appeared to suggest that mutual trust, respect and focus “was clearly an issue” in No.10 during the pandemic.

O’Donnell said there were always disagreements in cabinet, but that Case faced an extreme situation when he became cabinet secretary in September 2020.

“Simon Case was dealing with a far, far more difficult situation than I ever had to face,” he said.

O’Donnell was also asked about his knowledge of the breakdown in relations between Case’s predecessor as cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, who resigned as cab sec in June 2020 and left the role in early autumn.

He said Sedwill had tried to make sure that the damage from a change of cabinet secretary at a time of crisis “was as small as possible, given the behaviour of other participants in it”.

“If a cabinet secretary and a prime minister ultimately can’t work together – and from what we’ve heard about the prime minister’s style from what other witnesses have said, I can understand why that might be very, very difficult – then, you can understand why there’s a decision for that cabinet secretary to go and for a new one to come in,” O’Donnell said.

“The other side of it is when prime ministers should go, which is either decided by a general election or their own party.”

O’Donnell added “that was done”, in an evident reference to Boris Johnson’s ousting from No.10 by his own MPs last year.

Civil service ‘reflex to slowly manage ministers’

Lead counsel Keith read another extract from the Vallance diaries. It recorded that in December 2020, a permanent secretary had become annoyed that Vallance and Whitty had told the prime minister about a new variant of Covid.

The KC said Vallance wrote: “Sounds familiar. Really, we had no choice and he needs to know. The civil service reflex to slowly manage ministers is really awful.”

O’Donnell spoke in defence of senior civil servants managing the flow of information to ministers, particularly when advice on how they should proceed in light of the new data was not readily available.

“You need to work with what you’ve got in terms of ministers,” O’Donnell said. “And you need to understand how the machine can help those ministers make the right decisions, which may well mean that you often pause for a second before you give them some new piece of data.”

Elsewhere in today’s session, O’Donnell spoke of his belief that the UK government should create a National Security Council-type structure that that could sit above the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies in future medium- and long-term crises. 

“The people you will want around the table will depend on the nature of the crisis,” O’Donnell said.

“Each crisis I would want to sort out the structure but based on it being very clear strategic objectives of what we are trying to achieve and that feeds down to what committee structure you need, what experts you need around that table.”

The former cab sec said SAGE lacked clear strategic direction.

Meanwhile the current Covid infections continue to rise – Owl

Sir Keir Starmer will pledge to build Georgian-style townhouses in urban areas and a string of new towns as he sets out plans for a decade in power.

Steven Swinford, Chris Smyth www.thetimes.co.uk 

The Labour leader will use his conference speech today [Tuesday] to announce a “new generation” of large towns and suburbs in areas with high growth.

They will be developed by state-backed companies with compulsory purchase powers, with a cap on what landowners can charge, to free cash for local amenities. Doctors’ surgeries, schools, transport links and other infrastructure would be “hardwired” into the plans, Starmer says in the speech.

Labour will run a six-month consultation to identify suitable sites for new towns with potential for high economic growth and “areas with significant unmet housing need”. The Times has previously been told that they could include Cambridge and the M1 corridor around Milton Keynes, with dozens of potential sites being considered.

Developers will be given “planning passports” to build on brownfield land if they meet the new design standards, with a “stronger presumption in favour of permission”. Guidance will specify a focus on “gentle urban development” emulating five-storey townhouses built during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Promising “a big build”, Starmer would also allow low-quality green belt such as scrubland and car parks to be released for development. The party has branded the areas “grey belt” and will specify that half of homes built are to be sold at affordable prices.

The first new towns were created by the postwar Labour government, which designated areas for building and set up development corporations to oversee settlements such as Stevenage, Crawley, Basildon and Milton Keynes.

Three million people now live in such towns and Labour will promise a similar model to create “entirely new, large-scale housing settlements”, insisting it can overcome inertia that has prevented previous attempts to revive the idea.

Referring to his childhood home, Starmer says in the speech: “That pebble-dashed semi was everything to my family. It gave us stability through the cost of living crises of the Seventies, served as a springboard for the journey I’ve been on in my life. And I believe every family deserves the same.” He promises a “decade of national renewal”, suggesting that his party would be in power until the mid-2030s, after previously telling activists it would take more than one parliament to achieve his goals.

He acknowledges that voters need a reason to back Labour at the next election and says the “tide is turning” towards his party and away from the Tories and the Scottish National Party.

Starmer promises “a Britain strong enough, stable enough, secure enough for you to invest your hope, your possibility, your future” where “things will be better for your children”.

He says: “People are looking to us because they want our wounds to heal and we are the healers. People are looking to us because these challenges require a modern state and we are the modernisers. People are looking to us because they want us to build a new Britain and we are the builders.” Labour would be “totally focused on the interests of working people”, he says.

A Labour victory would give the chance to “turn our backs on never-ending Tory decline with a decade of national renewal” and give the British people the “government they deserve”.

Following his shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech setting out plans to reform the “antiquated” planning system so that new infrastructure gets built, Starmer contrasts the approach with Rishi Sunak’s decision to abandon the northern leg of HS2.

He pledges Labour would “get Britain building” and “the winner this time will be working people, everywhere”. Promising a “big build” for the country, he says: “What is broken can be repaired, what is ruined can be rebuilt.”

Starmer signals that he would resist tax rises while living standards are squeezed and tells activists: “We should never forget that politics should tread lightly on people’s lives, that our job is to shoulder the burden for working people — carry the load, not add to it.”

He says: “That’s what getting our future back really means. It boils down to this: can we look the challenges of this age squarely in the eye and amid all the change and insecurity find the hunger to win new opportunities and the strength to conserve what is precious.”

The damage caused by the climate crisis through extreme weather has cost $16m (£13m) an hour for the past 20 years, according to a new estimate.

Damian Carrington www.theguardian.com 

Storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts have taken many lives and destroyed swathes of property in recent decades, with global heating making the events more frequent and intense. The study is the first to calculate a global figure for the increased costs directly attributable to human-caused global heating.

It found average costs of $140bn (£115bn) a year from 2000 to 2019, although the figure varies significantly from year to year. The latest data shows $280bn in costs in 2022. The researchers said lack of data, particularly in low-income countries, meant the figures were likely to be seriously underestimated. Additional climate costs, such as from crop yield declines and sea level rise, were also not included.

The researchers produced the estimates by combining data on how much global heating worsened extreme weather events with economic data on losses. The study also found that the number of people affected by extreme weather because of the climate crisis was 1.2 billion over two decades.

Two-thirds of the damage costs were due to the lives lost, while a third was due to property and other assets being destroyed. Storms, such as Hurricane Harvey and Cyclone Nargis, were responsible for two-thirds of the climate costs, with 16% from heatwaves and 10% from floods and droughts.

People wait to be rescued from their home in Houston, Texas, after the area was flooded by Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. Storms areresponsible for two-thirds of the climate costs. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The researchers said their methods could be used to calculate how much funding was needed for a loss and damage fund established at the UN’s climate summit in 2022, which is intended to pay for the recovery from extreme weather disasters in poorer countries. It could also rapidly determine the specific climate cost of individual disasters, enabling faster delivery of funds.

“The headline number is $140bn a year and, first of all, that’s already a big number,” said Prof Ilan Noy, at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, who carried out the study with colleague Rebecca Newman. “Second, when you compare it to the standard quantification of the cost of climate change [using computer models], it seems those quantifications are underestimating the impact of climate change.”

Noy said there were a lot of extreme weather events for which there was no data on numbers of people killed or economic damage: “That indicates our headline number of $140bn is a significant understatement.” For example, he said, heatwave death data was only available in Europe. “We have no idea how many people died from heatwaves in all of sub-Saharan Africa.”

Extreme weather: glacial flooding, wildfires and hailstorms cause havoc across the world – video

There has been a sevenfold increase in reported losses from extreme weather disasters since the 1970s, according the World Meteorological Organization. However, separating the effect of global heating from population growth, urban migration and better reporting of disasters is difficult.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, took a different approach based on how climate change had exacerbated the extreme weather events. Hundreds of “attribution” studies have been done, calculating how much more frequent global heating made extreme weather events. This allows the fraction of the damages resulting from human-caused heating to be estimated.

The researchers applied these fractions to the damages recorded in the International Disaster Database, which compiles available data on all disasters in which 10 people died, or 100 were affected, or the country declared a state of emergency or requested international assistance.

The central estimate was an average climate cost of $140bn a year, with a range from $60bn to $230bn. These estimates are much higher than those from computer models, which are based on changes in average global temperature rather than on the extreme temperatures increasingly being seen in the world.

The years with the highest overall climate costs were 2003, when a heatwave struck Europe; 2008, when Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar; and 2010, when drought hit Somalia and a heatwave hit Russia. Property damages were higher in 2005 and 2017 when hurricanes hit the US, where property values are high.

skip past newsletter promotion

after newsletter promotion

The analysis used a statistical value of a life lost of $7m, an average of the figures used by the US and UK governments. “A lot of people are very uncomfortable with the idea that we put a price tag on a life,” said Noy. “But this is very standard economic practice and comes about because, ultimately, we need make decisions about [the value of] investments in various things.”

Heatwaves, flood and fire: what it’s like to survive 2023’s extreme weather – video

Noy said that only considering the economic damage caused to infrastructure would heavily skew the cost estimates to rich countries, despite much of the damage from extreme weather hitting poorer ones. He contrasted the $140bn damage estimate with the $100bn promised by rich countries to poorer ones, but yet to be delivered in full, and noted that 90% of that money was for cutting emissions. The figures also contrast with the subsidies of $7tn a year enjoyed by the fossil fuel industry.

At the UN climate summit Cop27 in 2022, countries agreed to set up a loss and damage fund to help poorer ones rebuild after climate-related disasters. “You can use our methodology to start putting numbers on how much money we need in the fund,” Noy said.

Ideally, he said, a quick attribution study on an extreme weather event would estimate the climate-related damage and lead to a rapid delivery of funds: “It would be a kind of insurance scheme for countries.” The methodology might also be useful for determining damages in climate lawsuits, he said.

Dr Stéphane Hallegatte, at the World Bank and not part of the study team, said: “The key message is that climate change is visibly increasing global economic losses from disasters. This has been a topic of controversy, with some claiming that climate change effects are negligible compared with other factors like economic growth and urbanisation.

“This study looks at the attribution for the physical event – it’s much simpler, robust, and it provides a convincing case. It is an emerging field and uncertainties are really large. One lesson of the study is that global research centres – mostly located in rich countries – need to work more on what is happening in poorer countries.”

[Sasha Swire perceptively described Hugo’s succcessor as “Jumping Jupp Flash”].

Now Claire Wright has had to correct young Jupp’s spelling of “Cullumpton”.

Simon Jupp has been making grandiose claims for the part he played in securing (if that’s the right word) funding for the reopening of Collumpton station. While his rival, Richard Foord the incumbent MP, has paid tribute to all those who have worked on the project including his predecessor Neil Parish.

Who are the adults in the room?

Link to Claire

Devon MPs claim victory in rail success

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

Two Devon MPs, who will be battling for the same seat in the next general election, have both claimed victory in the campaign to get the railway station reopened at Cullompton.

Simon Jupp, Conservative MP for East Devon and Liberal Democrat MP for Tiverton and Honiton Richard Foord say they have both championed the cause in parliament for a ight cordirect rail link from the expanding town to London Paddington.

Last week the Tories announced they are abandoning plans for the northern section of the HS2 rail project  to focus on transport improvements across the country, and Devon is getting some funds to boost infrastructure.

Stations will reopen at Cullompton, Wellington and Tavistock 60 years after they were closed during the Beeching cuts.

It’s going to be all-change for Cullompton at the general election. In futrue, the town will fall under the new Honiton and Sidmouth constituency because of a boundary shake up which will see the abolition of Mr Foord’s Tiverton and Honiton seat, and Mr Jupp’s East Devon area.

They will go head-to-head to become the MP for Honiton and Sidmouth. Hence the battle to take credit for improvements in Cullompton.

Welcoming the HS2 announcement, Mr Jupp, who as parliamentary private secretary in the Department for Transport is a member of the government, said he had campaigned to improve connectivity and economic opportunity across the area by introducing a direct rail link between Cullompton and London.

He said his campaign included meetings with the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and two people in the department he works in, transport secretary Mark Harper and rail minister Huw Merriman.

“I warmly welcome the fantastic news that under this Conservative government, Cullompton will get its own dedicated train station,” he said.

“I recently conducted a transport survey in and around the town and I’m delighted we are delivering what local residents want. By improving the link to London Paddington and Exeter, we can boost our local economy whilst better connecting our communities.”

For his part, Mr Foord said he built on the work of former Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton Neil Parish by co-chairing the board that brings together Network Rail, Great Western Rail, and Mid Devon District Council.

He wrote: “I have been pleased to champion the cause in parliament and I am delighted that it seems the government in Westminster has given way under the pressure of local campaigners.  I would like to thank those people who did not give up on the project – including those from Cullompton Town Council, who have been very invested in it.”

Mid Devon District Council ‘s cabinet member for planning and economic regeneration Cllr Steven Keable (Lib Dem, Taw Vale) said it is important work on the new station begins quickly.

“This significant jigsaw piece for the future of Cullompton can happen in 2025 and we now urge the government to formally confirm funding and get spades in the ground. This announcement rewards the local community for their hard work over a number of years.”

He continued: “Without this suite of planned interventions, the Culm Garden Village, to the east of the M5, will not be able to provide the planned local new homes and extensive community facilities, nor will Cullompton see the levelling up opportunities pledged by the government.”

A total £6.5 billion from the HS2 savings of £36 billion will come to the south west. In Devon the mainline rail route will be made more robust at Dawlish and money will be spent on new road schemes and road resurfacing.

• Change of use and conversion of building to accommodate 3 x bedrooms, games room and indoor swimming pool for use in association with existing holiday let. Hill View Southleigh Road Southleigh EX24 6JBRef. No: 23/2084/FUL | Validated: Fri 29 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• There is an existing line that has been encompassed by the River Axe, this now means that at least one of the supporting poles sits within the River itself and is now at risk of being undermined. Proposal is to relocate this overhead line approximately 23m away from the existing line but within the 60m tolerance as outlined within the exemption regs of the Electricity Act 1989. Land At Sisterhood Farm Axminster EX13 5RPRef. No: 23/2096/OHL | Validated: Fri 29 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• There are currently two poles sited in close proximity together in Chardstock, Axminster, EX13 7BW. We wish to reverse the format of the poles, the Current ‘H’ pole being changed to a single pole and the current single pole changed to a ‘H’ pole. These works are necessary due to access issues to the poles during fault and maintenance conditions. Land At Pinneys Cottage Chardstock Axminster EX13 7BWRef. No: 23/2095/OHL | Validated: Fri 29 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• CLASS E / Single Storey Employment Development. Land South Of Hansford Way Ottery St MaryRef. No: 23/2077/OUT | Validated: Thu 28 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1, Yew tree and T2, Yew tree : to be removed / coppiced – limbs are continuously growing into the powerlines and into the road forcing vehicles across to the other side of the road. Removal / coppice is preferred as the pruning points on the trees are poor and the crowns would mainly be filled with deadwood after a prune to overcome the road and powerline issues. Yew Tree Cottage New Road Beer Seaton EX12 3JRRef. No: 23/2079/TCA | Validated: Thu 28 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Demolition of pole barn and erection of new barn on old footprint Milton Furze Payhembury Devon EX14 3HERef. No: 23/2064/FUL | Validated: Thu 28 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1, pine – shorten first order branches over neighbours garden by 1-2m to a suitable side branch on west side. Remove dead branches over 50mm as necessary. T2, pine – shorten back upper branches over drive by approximately 1m. Remove dead branches over 50mm as necessary. T3, pine – shorten first order branches on west side, over neighbours garden by approximately 1m to a suitable side branch. Remove dead branches over 50mm as necessary. T4, pine – shorten first order branches on west side over neighbours garden. Remove dead branches over 50mm as necessary. 3 Station Road Budleigh Salterton Devon EX9 6RJRef. No: 23/2050/TRE | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposed single storey rear extension 5 Featherstone Road Exmouth Devon EX8 3JHRef. No: 23/2052/FUL | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• x7 beech – coppice to 1m high to recreate former hedge. (x1 Ash and x1 Holly, not in TPO). 1 Willoughby House Peak Hill Road Sidmouth EX10 0NWRef. No: 23/2057/TRE | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Installation of a conservation type rooflight to a second floor room including alteration of internal partition and enlargement of a door opening 8 Newtown Sidmouth EX10 8QFRef. No: 23/2056/LBC | Validated: Thu 28 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Installation of a conservation type rooflight to a second floor room including alteration of internal partition and enlargement of a door opening 8 Newtown Sidmouth EX10 8QFRef. No: 23/2055/FUL | Validated: Thu 28 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Silver birch: fell. 11 Banfield Way Honiton EX14 2GARef. No: 23/2034/TRE | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1 & T2- Sycamores: re-pollard to previous points. 110 Yonder Street Ottery St Mary EX11 1HHRef. No: 23/2039/TCA | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1: Oak – prune and reduce the crown height and spread, removing all significant deadwood found within the crown and removing branch lengths of up to 6m in length and making natural target pruning cuts of up to 150mm in diameter. Highbank Hillhead Colyton EX24 6NJRef. No: 23/2036/TRE | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1: Silver Birch: prune and crown reduce via thinning by approximately 10%, making natural target pruning cuts of up to 25mm in diameter, removing branch lengths up to 2m. T2: Black Pine – fell. 3 Glenview Honiton EX14 2NTRef. No: 23/2037/TRE | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Remove existing pergola and replace with balcony with glass and stainless steel handrail. Pindox Farm Offwell Honiton EX14 9STRef. No: 23/2044/FUL | Validated: Fri 29 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Construction of dormer window and installation of a roof light to the side elevation [retrospective]. 101 Ashleigh Road Exmouth EX8 2JZRef. No: 23/2035/FUL | Validated: Wed 27 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Demolition of rear extension and erection of single storey replacement rear extension alongside changes to fenestration on the main house. Kelp Cottage Lyme Road Uplyme Devon DT7 3XARef. No: 23/2041/FUL | Validated: Wed 27 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1: Sycamore – reduce and thin canopy, removing approximately 3m branch sections to reduce overall height by approximately 1 to 2m and reshape. T2: Sycamore – reduce by approximately 2 to 3m and reshape. T3: Silver Birch – reduce by approximately 1 to 2m and reshape. Angel Lodge Millford Road Sidmouth EX10 8DPRef. No: 23/2038/TCA | Validated: Wed 27 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T5: Turkey Oak – reduce canopy by 3m over no.18’s back to boundary with cuts taken back to growth points, no larger than 75mm diameter. 18 Carberry Avenue Exmouth EX8 3EHRef. No: 23/2045/TRE | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Provision of new purpose-built donkey shelter, improved field access and tracks from existing yard. Woods Farm Bowd Sidmouth Devon EX10 0JSRef. No: 23/2027/FUL | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Demolition of modern side extension. Replace with a new single storey side extension adjoining a proposed rear single storey extension with timber cladding and sedum roof. Hembercombe Farm Cottage Broadhembury Devon EX14 3NJRef. No: 23/2024/FUL | Validated: Thu 28 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Construction of single storey extension on east elevation Little Ridge Venlake End Uplyme Devon DT7 3SFRef. No: 23/2026/FUL | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Demolition of modern side extension. Replace with a new single storey side extension adjoining a proposed rear single storey extension with timber cladding and sedum roof. Replacement of existing cement render where necessary with lime render. Relocating bathroom and utility, and infilling ground floor window all with associated works Hembercombe Farm Cottage Broadhembury Devon EX14 3NJRef. No: 23/2025/LBC | Validated: Thu 28 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Construction of fenced sand school and paddock areas within grounds of dwellinghouse. Change of use of fenced area to equestrian use. Chanters House The College Ottery St Mary EX11 1DQRef. No: 23/2017/FUL | Validated: Wed 27 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Excavation into raised ground level (and possibly into root protection area of woodland order 23/0006/TPO); extending rear patio area by up to 5m in distance. 10 Perrys Gardens West Hill Devon EX11 1XARef. No: 23/2011/TRE | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Roofing over silage clamp phase 2. East Budleigh Road, Pulhayes Farm Access To Bankly East Budleigh Budleigh Salterton Devon EX9 7BARef. No: 23/2007/FUL | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Roofing over silage clamp phase 1. Pulhayes Farm East Budleigh Budleigh Salterton Devon EX9 7BARef. No: 23/2006/FUL | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Demolition of single storey garage extension on east elevation, to be replaced with single storey garden room. Construction of new porch to north elevation. Rose Cottage Ebford Lane Ebford Devon EX3 0QXRef. No: 23/1987/FUL | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposal for replacement windows and doors throughout, reinstatement of 2 doorways in north and south elevations and creation of 2 new doorways in 20th century extension. Infill existing entrance to west elevation and demolish rear porch and single storey garage extension on east elevation. Including retention of the first floor ceilings, alterations to 20th century partitions and replacement of damaged external cement render with lime as retrospective works. Rose Cottage Ebford Lane Ebford Devon EX3 0QXRef. No: 23/1988/LBC | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposed agricultural storage building. Land South Of Knapps Lane HarpfordRef. No: 23/1985/FUL | Validated: Thu 28 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Reroofing and cladding existing side extension to match proposed single storey rear extension. Infilling existing window opening on south elevation, creating new opening on east elevation and adding two new roof lights to existing building. Construction of glazed veranda to rear of property, relocation of kitchen and oil tank with all associated works Coryton Lodge Kilmington EX13 7RDRef. No: 23/1955/LBC | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• New single storey rear extension, reroofing and cladding existing side extension to match proposed rear extension. Glazed veranda to rear of property and two new roof lights to existing building Coryton Lodge Kilmington EX13 7RDRef. No: 23/1954/FUL | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Demolition of existing bungalow and erection of 37 dwellings with new access, affordable housing, open space, drainage, infrastructure and ancillary works Land At Frog Lane Bishops Court Road Clyst St MaryRef. No: 23/1948/MFUL | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Change hinges on 3no. windows in office 6, 7 and 8 to enable them to be fire escape windows; box in cables in atrium; replace front doors on ground floor south elevation (apartments 1, 2, 3 and 4); install extract fan in refuse room and upgrade floor in refuse room including drainage channel Otter Mill Tumbling Weir Way Ottery St Mary EX11 1GTRef. No: 23/1943/LBC | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Yew : trim and reshape some of the more extensive branches of the tree. Flat 1 9 Louisa Terrace Exmouth EX8 2AQRef. No: 23/1852/TRE | Validated: Fri 29 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposed rear extension of existing flat. 85 Exeter Road Exmouth Devon EX8 1QDRef. No: 23/1842/FUL | Validated: Wed 27 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Erection of detached garage building with room on upper floor, with construction of driveway. Demolition of existing garage 6 The Coach House Portland Avenue Exmouth EX8 2BSRef. No: 23/1820/FUL | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Two storey garage & bedroom extension, new first floor accommodation over existing bungalow, addition of exterior cladding and complete re- roofing from tile to artificial slate Pemarita High Street Newton Poppleford Devon EX10 0BDRef. No: 23/1779/FUL | Validated: Wed 27 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Erection of enclosed deck area. (Retrospective) 126 Salterton Road Exmouth EX8 2PDRef. No: 23/1742/FUL | Validated: Wed 27 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Replacement of existing chimney stacks and additional bracing. Nutwell Lodge Exmouth Road Lympstone Devon EX8 5AJRef. No: 23/1649/LBC | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Replacement of existing chimney stacks and additional bracing. Nutwell Lodge Exmouth Road Lympstone Devon EX8 5AJRef. No: 23/1648/FUL | Validated: Tue 26 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Replacement of 7 single glazed wooden sash windows with 7 double glazed sash windows. The windows will contain exactly the same number of panes as the existing (12 pane or 18 pane) and will to all intents and purposes look identical both internally and externally. Rydon House Talaton Devon EX5 2RPRef. No: 23/1304/LBC | Validated: Mon 25 Sep 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision

The former governor of the Bank of England has endorsed the Labour party in a mayor coup for Keir Starmer and his shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Adam Forrest www.independent.co.uk 

Mark Carney – who enjoyed a close working relationship with Tory chancellor George Osborne – said it was “beyond time” for Ms Reeves to run the economy in a Labour government.

The Canadian, who ran the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, said Ms Reeves was a “serious economist” who “understands the big picture” in a surprise video message after her conference speech in Liverpool.

His comments came after Ms Reeves promised a Labour government would “rebuild Britain” – warning the country to “never trust the Tories with our economy ever again”.

In a speech which received several standing ovations, Ms Reeves:

• Promised a crackdown on government waste to save an estimated £4bn
• Announced Labour will hold an inquiry into the failure to build HS2
• Revealed a planned crackdown on the use of private planes by ministers as she mocked Rishi Sunak
• Pledged a new Covid corruption commissioner with a “hit squad” of investigators
• Vowed to protect the independence of the Bank of England and Office for Budget Responsibility

In a move met by gasps in the conference hall, her speech was followed by a video message from Mr Carney, the 58-year-old who was hand-picked by Mr Osborne to be governor.

He said: “Rachel Reeves is a serious economist. She began her career at the Bank of England, so she understands the big picture. But, crucially she understands the economics of work, of place and family. It is beyond time we put her energy and ideas into action.”

His backing represents a major coup for Labour. A spokesperson for Ms Reeves said the endorsement sends “a very clear signal” that Labour is ready to fight the Conservatives on the economy.

Mr Osborne at the time described Mr Carney, who was the first foreigner to run the central bank in 318 years, as “quite simply the best qualified person in the world” for the job. Such was Mr Osborne’s admiration for the Canadian, that he struck a deal to secure Mr Carney allowing him to serve a five-year term instead of the expected eight.

Ms Reeves borrowed an attack line used by David Cameron ahead of the 2015 general election, telling voters they can choose between “five more years of Tory chaos and uncertainty” or “a changed Labour Party offering stability”.

In a stinging attack, Ms Reeves asked those gathered: “Is there anything in Britain that works better than when the Conservatives came into office 13 years ago?”

Labour vowed to protect the independence of institutions such as the civil service and the Office for Budget Responsibility, which have been dubbed part of a “blob” by senior Tories.

She said Labour will mandate that all significant tax and spending decisions are subject to independent forecasts to avoid “a repeat of the devastation Liz Truss and the Tory Party have inflicted on family finances”.

Ms Reeves also announced that Labour would launch an independent expert inquiry into lessons learnt from the government’s failure to build HS2, to be led by shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh.

Attacking the Tories for allowing costs to balloon, she said: “If I were in the Treasury, I would have been on the phone to the chief executive of HS2 non-stop, demanding answers and solutions.”

She also announced a £4bn clampdown on government waste, with a target to reduce spending by half over the next parliament. Labour will appoint a “Covid corruption commissioner” in the hope of recovering up to £2.6bn lost to fraud.

She confirmed plans for reforms to the “antiquated” planning system to make it quicker and easier to build the infrastructure needed for modern industries and clean energy networks.

Ms Reeves also confirmed that her first budget would crack down on the tax perks enjoyed by private schools – telling Rishi Sunak to “bring it on” if he wanted a fight on the issue at a time when children in state schools were being taught in temporary classrooms due to crumbling concrete.

She also revealed a planned crackdown on the use of private planes by ministers as she mocked Mr Sunak’s travel habits, suggesting his love of flying was because he was scared of meeting voters.

Mr Carney’s endorsement came after high street supremo Mary Portas introduced Ms Reeves to the stage, saying she is going to be “Britain’s first female chancellor in 800 years” and would be “the best qualified chancellor Britain has ever had”.

Responding to the speech, Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt attacked Labour’s plans to borrow £28bn a year by the end of its first term in government to invest in green energy “a fairy-tale for the British economy with no happy ending”.

Mr Hunt said: “Borrowing more doesn’t solve problems, it creates them – the worst kind of short termism when instead we should be taking long-term decisions that will actually tackle inflation and unleash growth”.

He also pointed out that Ms Reeves failed to use the term “inflation”. But Labour fired back that Mr Hunt “doesn’t know what inflation means” – pointing out that she talked about prices going up.

Ms Reeves won union and business backing for her speech. CBI chief executive Rain Newton-Smith said business leaders will be “encouraged” to hear her speak so “ambitiously” about investment. The TUC’s general secretary Paul Nowak said Labour had offered the “boost to living standards this country has been crying out for”.

A Labour government would create a powerful Covid corruption commissioner to help recoup billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money that has been lost to waste, fraud and flawed contracts during the pandemic, Rachel Reeves is to announce.

Good luck with that! – Owl

Pippa Crerar Political editor Guardian

The new commissioner would be given the power to bring together public agencies including HMRC, the Serious Fraud Office and the National Crime Agency to pursue at least £2.6bn of “lost” public funds. They would examine contracts line by line and would have to update parliament on their progress in clawing back money.

An estimated £7.2bn was lost in fraud from Covid support schemes including from business loans and grants, furlough and “eat out to help out”, although the figure could be as high as £10.8bn, according to the House of Commons library. Labour believes a lower estimate of £4.7bn could be achieved if losses are contained.

In her conference speech in Liverpool on Monday, Reeves will announce that Labour would review sentencing on fraud and corruption conducted against UK public services, as well as reform public procurement rules to include a strong “debarment and exclusion” regime for those complicit in fraud against the state.

There would also be more robust oversight of public grant and loan schemes in future with counter-fraud experts, data management and analytics all involved to prevent financial losses.

“The cost to the taxpayer of Covid fraud is estimated at £7.2bn with every one of those cheques signed by Rishi Sunak as chancellor and yet just 2% of fraudulent Covid grants have been recovered,” Reeves will say.

“We will appoint a Covid corruption commissioner equipped with the powers they need and the mandate to do what it takes to chase those who have ripped off the taxpayer, taking them to court and clawing back every penny of taxpayers money that they can. That money belongs in our NHS, it belongs in our schools, it belongs in our police and conference – we want that money back.”

During the pandemic the government suspended its usual procurement processes and introduced a highly secretive VIP “fast lane” for procurement of goods including protective equipment. It later wrote off £8.7bn it had spent on defective or overpriced PPE.

Jolyon Maugham, the founder of the Good Law Project campaign group, said: “The scale of PPE waste and corruption is sickening: over £10bn lost; more than four in every five pounds spent. If you’re serious about looking after public money – yours and mine – you want those billions back. Recovering them starts with political will. Until now that has been sorely lacking – so this is a very positive development.”

Now you see them, now you don’t! – Owl

Documents detailing projects to be funded with savings from scrapping HS2 deleted from government website.

Ben Quinn Political Correspondent Guardian

Government documents that were abruptly deleted after appearing online with announcements of new transport projects were just giving “examples” of what savings from the scrapping of HS2’s northern leg could be spent on, a minister has claimed.

The documents detailed an extra £100m of funding for a mass transit “underground” project in Bristol. Mention of plans to invest £36bn in projects around the north and Midlands, including reopening Transport North East’s Leamside line, were also removed from the government’s website.

“We gave some examples to people about the sorts of things – and we know these things are priorities locally – the sorts of things that that money could be spent on, and to bring it to life for people,” the transport secretary, Mark Harper, told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire on Sunday.

The deletions on Wednesday night included removing an entire page where the government pledged to “revolutionise mass transit in Bristol’. It appeared to have been replaced with a broader pledge to give the west of England combined authority £100m, which it could spend on various projects in the region.

Asked if Bristol was going to get a new mass transit system, Harper said: “My department published a document which set out very clearly what we are going to spend the £36bn on that we are saving from cancelling the second phase of HS2.

“The money that was promised for Bristol is for £100m extra for the elected mayor of the west of England combined authority and that is money that he will have available to spend on his projects including on a mass transit system… some of those things are already being delivered.”

The shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, described the deleted plans as “fantasy promises” by the government.

“They can’t hide from the fact that they released a document that looked like it had been scribbled in crayon by advisers that had never left London,” she said on Twitter.

Questioned on Sky News, Harper said ministers would “develop the business case” for restoring the Leamside line, despite the documents last week saying it would be reopened.

“We’ve made a big commitment to the north-east elected mayor for a significant amount of money, £1.8bn, and it will be for them to decide how they spend that money,” he told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips show.

Every pupil in Devon is effectively worth £238 less than the average English pupil.

Forget levelling up. – Owl

Fairer funding is essential for education in Devon 

John Hart, Leader of Devon County Council www.northdevongazette.co.uk 

You may think education is a national service and it’s funded accordingly. Government financial support for a child is the same in Devon as in Dover, in Cornwall compared to Cumbria.

Well I’m afraid it’s not.

For what are complex historical reasons, every local education authority is funded differently.

When I was first in charge of education in Devon we were regularly placed in the bottom five of the 151 councils responsible for schools in this country for the funding we received.

We started regularly campaigning with parents, school leaders and governors and the support of our MPs for fair funding for Devon. And we have had some success. The current figures show us at 121 out of 151 for school funding – up 25 places. So our report might read: progress but still work to be done.

And Devon is vigorous in campaigning for fair funding for our schools as it is in every other service area. We have been at the forefront of the all-party f40 campaign – that’s the grouping of the 42 worst funded councils in the country. Indeed my deputy leader, James McInnes, was the national chairman for a number of years, Devon MP Sir Gary Streeter is a vice chairman and our current Cabinet member for schools, Andrew Leadbetter, is a leading member.

The facts are these: if you have a child or grandchild in a school in Devon the funding we receive for them nationally is £5,410 per pupil. That compares to an average in the South West of £5,431 per pupil and an England average of £5,648. So every pupil in Devon is effectively worth £238 less than the average English pupil.

For a primary school with 200 pupils that’s £47,600 lost every year. For a 1,000-pupil secondary school that’s a staggering £238,000. A newly qualified teacher earns £30,000 a year so the primary is missing out on one and a half teachers, the secondary school almost eight extra staff. We have around 95,000 children at school in Devon so, collectively, that’s an awful lot of teachers and classroom assistants that our schools could employ if only they were funded at the national level. And yet, historically, our schools perform well thanks to the hard work of staff and pupils.

When it comes to what’s known as the High Needs Block, that’s the funding we receive for children with special needs, we are placed 118th out of 151 LAs with an average allocation of £768 compared to the South West average of £806 and the England average of £855. Again you can see that Devon children miss out both compared with our neighbours in the South West and even more compared to the national figures.

That’s why we have been working with f40 in holding briefing meetings for all MPs at Westminster as Parliament returned in September and providing them with up to date figures and statistics.

The briefings included not only details on the fair funding campaign for all mainstream schools but also on the need for financial support for our special needs’ children. f40 – which I emphasise is all-party – estimates that the budget deficit faced by all top-tier councils providing support for children with special needs will be £2.5 billion by March 2025. As I wrote in a previous column, that is because need and expectation is outstripping capacity and funding across the country.

That’s why I have appointed a new Cabinet member, Lois Samuel, to concentrate solely on special needs. Together with Andrew Leadbetter and I, she will emphasise Devon’s case for all our children to be properly funded.

Women who are bullied and sexually harassed in the workplace will be given new protections as whistleblowers under a Labour government.

In a major coup for Labour, eminent barrister Marina Wheeler KC, Boris Johnson’s former wife, is to be appointed Labour’s “whistleblowing tsar” to advise on their reforms.

Kate Devlin www.independent.co.uk 

In another landmark change, common-law wives who live with their partners will also get the same rights, including over property, as married women should their relationship end.

In a major coup for Labour, eminent barrister Marina Wheeler KC, Boris Johnson’s former wife, is to be appointed Labour’s “whistleblowing tsar” to advise on their reforms.

Ms Wheeler is the second high-profile woman to take a key job with Keir Starmer’s team.

Last month, Sue Gray, the Whitehall mandarin who wrote the Partygate report on drinks parties in No 10 which contributed to Mr Johnson’s downfall, started work as Starmer’s chief of staff.

In a speech to the Labour conference on Tuesday, shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry will say the whistleblowing and common-law wife reforms will mean women do not have to “live in fear… suffer in silence and … hope for the best when it comes to keeping a roof over her head”.

She will declare: “That is the difference between a Tory government that pretends to care about women’s rights, and a Labour Party that delivers them.”

Ms Wheeler said it was a “privilege” to help Labour protect women from abusive colleagues.

Women in the workplace “too often suffer sexual harassment and assault and they pay a heavy price for speaking out. Knowing this, and to keep their jobs, they suffer in silence,” Ms Wheeler told The Independent.

She highlighted the revelation earlier this year that one in three female surgeons had reported sexual harassment or assault at the hands of colleagues over the last five years.

Ms Wheeler, an expert in employment law, said she was “delighted to be working with Emily Thornberry to help formulate solutions – including law reform where necessary – to encourage women to come forward, trusting that they will not be penalised for having done so. It will be a privilege to help deliver this.”

In recent years, several MPs have been accused of using their power to sexually harass and bully members of staff and others.

The Labour move also follows allegations of rape and sexual scandal against comedian Russell Brand. The claims came to light after a number of women broke years of silence over the matter. Mr Brand denies the allegations.

In her speech, Ms Thornberry will say victims of sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination in the workplace are entitled to the same protection as whisteleblowers.

“No woman should be forced to stay quiet for fear of being sacked,” she will add.

Whistleblowers are entitled to protection against losing their job or otherwise suffering as a result of speaking out.

But the law currently applies to only a small number of areas, such as health and safety and potential miscarriages of justice.

The government’s current guidelines on whistleblowers warn that “personal grievances”, including bullying and harassment, are not covered by whistleblowing laws unless the case “is in the public interest”.

Female surgeons recently lifted the lid on harassment, which they said was rife in their profession, but many said they feared speaking out because of the damage it could do to their careers.

Ms Thornberry will also pledge to reform the law for couples who live together. She will say that, for too long, women “have been left with no rights when those relationships come to an end”.

“No woman should be forced to get married or stay in an unhappy relationship just to avoid being put out on the street.”

Countries including New Zealand, Scotland and Ireland have changed laws to offer extra protections to cohabiting couples.

Surveys show many people still believe the ‘‘common law’’ myth that if a couple have lived together for long enough they are effectively treated as married under the law.

Tory MP Caroline Nokes, chair of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, recently called on the government to give greater protections to the growing number of cohabitating partners.

Details of Labour’s latest announcement came a day after deputy leader Angela Rayner unveiled plans to clamp down on sexual harassment in the workplace.

Her proposals include a statutory code of practice for employers, clear processes on how to deal with sexual harassment at work and training to help assess “foreseeable risks”.

Ms Rayner told The Independent sexual harassment was “rife” as she warned such behaviour is “destroying careers and ruining women’s lives”.

She said recent high-profile cases which have hit the headlines “are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the experiences of millions of women in workplaces the length and breadth of Britain”.

Dramatic findings point to Conservatives losing every red wall seat that they secured at the last election

Michael Savage Policy Editor Guardian

Labour is currently on course to win a landslide victory on the scale of 1997, according to dramatic new modelling that points to the Conservatives losing every red wall seat secured at the last election.

The Tories could also lose more than 20 constituencies in its southern blue wall strongholds and achieve a record-low number of seats, according to a constituency-by-constituency model seen by the Observer. Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, defence secretary Grant Shapps and leadership contender Penny Mordaunt are among those facing defeat. Some 12 cabinet ministers face being unseated unless Rishi Sunak can close Labour’s poll lead.

According to the model’s central projection, which takes into account the new boundaries that the next election will be fought on, Labour would win 420 seats – equating to a landslide 190-seat majority. The Tories would take just 149 seats and the Lib Dems 23. The results mirror the 1997 landslide, when Tony Blair’s party secured a majority of 179 with 418 seats. The new analysis also suggests that the cost of living and the state of the NHS continue to be the clear priorities for voters.

The huge study, commissioned by the 38 Degrees campaign group, has been carried out by the Survation polling company using a mega poll made up of more than 11,000 voters. A modelling technique called multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) has then been applied to reach constituency-level findings. Pollsters using the method successfully detected the swings ahead of the 2017 election.

While a 190-seat Labour majority is its average estimate, the modelling – based on polling carried out shortly before the Tory conference last week – suggests Labour could have between 402 and 437 seats. The Tories could have between 132 and 169 seats. The results suggest a Labour majority between 154 and 224 seats.

Every one of the 44 red wall seats that the Tories won at the last election would return to the Labour party, the analysis found. A further 22 so-called blue wall seats – defined as those held by the Tories in 2019, have a majority of Remain voters and a higher than average number of graduates – are also lost by the Conservatives.

The findings will be controversial among both parties’ members. Many Labour insiders are expecting the polls to close over the coming months as the election approaches. Senior figures in Sunak’s team also believe they can target Labour leader Keir Starmer, whom they don’t believe has been embraced by the public.

Despite Sunak’s attempts to switch focus to his plans to ban smoking, overhaul A-levels and ditch the northern leg of HS2, the analysis suggests that voters remain overwhelmingly focused on the cost of living and the state of the NHS.

In every single constituency, these two issues were most important to voters. Across the country, a third said they are “getting by, but making cutbacks” and 8% described themselves as “financially desperate”. More than two fifths (42%) said they had struggled to get a GP appointment in the past six months.

In a major blow for Sunak, Labour has some significant leads in red wall seats. In Blyth Valley, the first red wall seat to be declared for the Tories in 2019, large Labour majorities are predicted. In Blyth and Ashington, Labour are ahead 49% to 22%. In Hartlepool, whose predecessor seat was won by the Conservatives for the first time in a 2021 byelection, Labour have a 38-point lead. In both constituencies, a quarter of voters said they were “worried about their financial future”.

Bassetlaw, whose predecessor seat saw the country’s largest swing from Labour to the Tories in 2019, is predicted to return to Labour. The model suggests a 23-point lead with 12% of residents reporting they are “financially desperate”. Meanwhile, North Dorset – whose predecessor seat last elected a non-Conservative MP in 1945 – is predicted to fall to the Liberal Democrats. At 64% the NHS was a top issue for the highest proportion of this constituency.

Matthew McGregor, chief executive of 38 Degrees, said the findings suggested voters were “crying out for change” and warned Labour against being overly cautious. “With the spotlight this week on the Labour party’s conference pledges, it’s clear what voters will be looking for: real guarantees of action to help those most in need and bring the dual cost of living and NHS crises under control for all of us,” he said. “If they can’t deliver that, there’s no promise these polling results will hold.

“These are the issues which will dominate at the next election. Parties who are unconvincing, out of touch or distracted on these issues will rightly suffer at the polls.”

The results make it even less likely that Sunak and his team will opt for a spring election. Figures close to the PM are said to be opposed to a May vote, despite many MPs believing it may be in the party’s interests to go for an earlier vote. Meanwhile many figures in the Labour party accept that a lack of clarity over Starmer’s vision for power remains a vulnerability.

Damian Lyons Lowe, chief executive of Survation, said: “Red wall seats, which were crucial to the Conservative’s Brexit coalition, are all predicted to return to Labour. Furthermore, it is in seats with the highest proportion of Leave voters that the swing back to Labour is largest. Even traditional Conservative strongholds in the south-east and south-west are under threat from the Liberal Democrats and Labour.”

Survation polled 11,793 people between 11-25 September

More than 100 leading companies urge PM to reinstate net zero measures to avoid hardship for many.

“Our industry has been working hard to gear up for that acceleration [of effort needed to meet net zero], but your announcement signalled less not more action needed,”

 “In order to bring forward big financial investments, to recruit and train hundreds of thousands of people and to bring the public along with us in this journey we need confidence in long-term active policy support from government. Your announcement has set that back.”

“Long-term decisions for a brighter future” – Ha Ha Ha! – Owl

Fiona Harvey Guardian

Some of the UK’s biggest construction companies, property developers and estate agencies have written to Rishi Sunak to warn that his weakening and postponement of green policies will harm investment in housing and cause hardship for many people.

More than 100 companies, including some of the UK’s biggest construction specialists, have urged the prime minister to reinstate the net zero policies, or find alternatives that “make upgrading Britain’s homes affordable”.

The Guardian revealed earlier this week that housebuilders and property developers have benefited by billions of pounds from delays to low-carbon building regulations in the past eight years of Conservative government, while the sector became one of the biggest sources of donations to the Tory party – almost £40m since 2010, according to a Guardian analysis.

In the last fortnight alone, Sunak has dismayed businesses and investors by rolling back several key low-carbon measures, including scrapping the proposed requirements for landlords to insulate and upgrade their properties to be more energy-efficient. He also announced a delay to the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars, from 2030 to 2035, softened measures to phase out gas boilers, and is pressing ahead with plans to scrap rules on sewage from new housing.

These delays are only the latest example of a number of low-carbon measures that have been held up or ditched over years of Conservative government, with the result that homeowners and taxpayers will have to pay tens of billions of pounds to bring newly built homes up to low-carbon standards.

The delays have resulted in years of unnecessarily high greenhouse gas emissions, and higher energy bills for residents.

There is some division on the subject within the construction and development sector; while some developers may welcome any delay to low-carbon measures, others are looking more to the future.

The letter to Sunak, seen by the Guardian, notes that many construction and property companies were planning to make substantial investments in net zero, which are now in doubt. The 114 signatories include Arup, Laing O’Rourke Construction, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Landsec, BAM, Buro Happold, Grosvenor, Avison Young, Great Portland Estates, Knight Frank, AECOM, Clarion Housing Group, and CBRE Group.

“Our industry has been working hard to gear up for that acceleration [of effort needed to meet net zero], but your announcement signalled less not more action needed,” the letter says. “In order to bring forward big financial investments, to recruit and train hundreds of thousands of people and to bring the public along with us in this journey we need confidence in long-term active policy support from government. Your announcement has set that back.”

The signatories also take issue with Sunak’s insistence that his delays would save money for households. “The longer we delay and the more we see stop-start piecemeal policy-making, the harder and more expensive the task becomes,” they say.

The signatories urge Sunak to “bring forward a comprehensive national strategy to retrofit our homes and buildings including much higher sustained government investment and market drivers to stimulate private investment as well as regulation. This would pay dividends to the treasury in tax returns.”

They also call for a new “future homes and building standard”. This was supposed to be in consultation by now, but a government spokesperson told the Guardian the aim was now to publish a consultation by the end of this year.

Simon McWhirter, the deputy chief executive at the UK Green Building Council, which organised the letter, said: “It’s beyond disappointing and simply reckless to see this false narrative from government that delaying climate action would reduce costs to households.

“Decisions now – whether around retrofit or the quality of our new buildings – will dictate the quality and legacy of what we’re able to achieve for generations. Delaying policies just means they’ll have to be implemented much faster, later, pushing up the cost for everyone – householders and businesses alike.”

Tor Burrows, the group sustainability director at the property company Grosvenor, said: “Diluting the UK’s commitment to net zero is not the way to build our economy, create jobs or address climate change. Businesses desperately need clarity and stability to help them plan how they will invest in green practices, tech and skills. Without this we risk losing out on crucial investment which will ease the cost of living and increase the country’s global reputation and competitiveness.”

Jonathan Gibson, the principal and global director for environmental, social and corporate governance at Avison Young estate agents, said: “While we understand the challenges posed by the cost of living crisis and approaching elections, we must not compromise our long-term sustainability goals for short-term political gains. I urge the incoming government, especially in the context of the forthcoming general elections, to reconsider this regressive stance on net zero policies and demonstrate a genuine commitment to tackling climate change.”