A Whitehall Harvest: Farmers gathered outside Westminster again this week, calling for the Government to reverse its decision on inheritance tax. © Ron Fassbender / Alamy Stock Photo
The fall of the Assad regime in Syria dominated news at the beginning of this week, with the Foreign Secretary delivering a ministerial statement to MPs, and Keir Starmer answering questions at PMQs on Wednesday, following a pre-planned and unrelated trip to the UAE and Saudi Arabia on Monday. With Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS as it’s commonly known) a proscribed terrorist group in the UK, the Government has no formal dealings with the group, leading to a current vacuum in communication, something Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden said could change quickly if required, and the former head of MI6 Sir John Sawers suggested will almost certainly be reviewed in Whitehall post haste. The Prime Minister was keen to stress on Monday that it was still “far too early” to make a decision on the matter. One thing that is clear is that the speed of the Assad regime’s collapse appears to have taken diplomatic and intelligence leaders by surprise after 13 years of civil war, with the tide turning in just a few weeks, and clips of palaces being looted splashed across the media reminiscent of Iraq in 2006 and Libya in 2015.
The revised National Planning Policy Framework was finally published with great fanfare on Thursday, setting out measures to tackle the housing crisis and build 370,000 homes per year. As widely trailed in the media, the NPPF restored mandatory housing targets, with a baseline set at a percentage of existing housing stock levels and target areas in places that face the most acute affordability pressures. It also made the default answer to proposals to build on brownfield ‘yes’, set a clearer description of how to assess whether land meets the “grey belt” definition, introduced a 15% premium on top of existing affordable housing requirements, up to a maximum of 50%, required councils to provide at least 80% of the new standard method figure in their local plans, and required authorities with old plans to provide an extra year’s worth of homes in their five-year housing pipeline. The changes are a key part of Labour’s plans to build 1.5 million homes by 2029; however they have been dismissed by the Conservatives who tried to move the focus onto the Government’s plans for immigration. Given the last Government failed to reach their 300,000 target in any year, it remains to be seen whether the Government will be able to claim success at the next election…
0.1% – fall in GDP in October – the second consecutive monthly decline
61% – rate housebuilding will have to increase in London under new planning regulations
10,000 – number of civil service jobs that could be cut as departments seek 5% savings
53 years – length of time the Assad family ruled Syria, nearly 14 years of which were spent in civil war
20 – Tory MPs in the Opposition Whips office… 16.5% of the parliamentary party
Up to £70,000 – amount LGBT veterans who were dismissed from the Armed Forces for being gay will receive in compensation
14,000 – number of prison places the Government aims to construct by 2031
The PM began the week with a visit to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, where he met with the President and Crown Prince respectively. During his trip he discussed further cooperation on defence and security with both nations, visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, and invited the Saudi Crown Prince to the UK, including “to watch a game of football in between meetings”.
The Home Secretary signed a joint action plan with Germany to deliver strengthened investigative and prosecutorial responses to organised immigration crime, enhanced intelligence sharing between agencies, and greater coordination of efforts to tackle irregular migration at source. As part of the plan, Germany has agreed to clarify their law to strengthen the ability of law enforcement to tackle people smuggling gangs – by making it a criminal offence to facilitate the smuggling of migrants to the UK.
Energy Sec Ed Miliband published his plan for how the UK will achieve clean power by 2030. The plan includes measures to prioritise the most important energy projects and end the ‘first-come-first served’ system, speed up decisions on planning permission, and expand the renewable auction process to ‘stop delays and get more projects connected’. DESNZ have said the reforms ‘will unleash £40bn a year of mainly private investment in homegrown clean power projects and infrastructure across the country’.
HM Treasury launched the second phase of the Spending Review, with Government departments ‘expected to find savings and efficiencies in their budgets, in a push to drive out waste in the public sector and ensure all funding is focused on the government’s priorities.’ The Treasury stated that every single pound of Government spending will be ‘subjected to a line-by-line review to make sure it’s being spent to deliver the Plan for Change and that it is value for money’ – the first so called ‘zero-based review’ for 17 years.
A 10-year prison capacity strategy was launched by the MoJ, under which a further 6,400 prison places will be built in new blocks on current sites, 1,000 rapid deployment cells will be rolled out, and over 1,000 existing cells will be refurbished. Changes to planning rules will see prisons deemed as sites of national importance, and new land acquired for potential future prisons.
The Justice Secretary also launched a 'once-in-a-generation review' of criminal courts, led by Sir Brian Leveson. The review will consider the case for new “intermediate courts” where cases too serious for magistrates’ courts but not serious enough for the Crown Court could be heard by a judge, flanked by magistrates. It will also look at where technology can be used to drive efficiencies and improve how the Crown Court functions.
Ministers will launch a review of the UK Internal Market Act in January, to ‘work with devolved governments to deliver better outcomes for businesses and citizens across the United Kingdom’. The Government has pledged to engage with a wide range of stakeholders as part of the review, 'aiming to improve transparency of the UKIM process and ensuring policy divergence can be aligned with better outcomes for businesses and consumers’.
The triennial UK Food Security Report was published this week, concluding that the UK's balance between trade and production is broadly stable, though it continues to be highly dependent on imports to meet consumer demand for fruit, vegetables and seafood. The report noted however that there has been a notable decrease in food secure households, with most not meeting Government dietary recommendations.
Education Ministers published the results of a rapid review into vocational qualifications that were due to be defunded by the previous Government, announcing that 70% of vocational qualifications due to be defunded under the last Government will no longer have their funding cut. The Department for Education announced that qualifications in subjects such as engineering, manufacturing, health and social care, legal, finance and accounting, business and administration, and creative and design that were previously scheduled for defunding will remain ‘until replacements become more established'.
The Welsh Government published its Draft Budget, confirming an uplift in funding for all departments. It includes more than £600m in extra revenue and capital funding for health and social care; £81m in additional capital funding to build more homes for social rent; £100m more for the education budget, and a 4.3% increase in the local government settlement, to help fund schools, social care and other services. Welsh Rates of Income Tax will remain unchanged, however, the higher residential rates of Land Transaction Tax applying to purchases of additional residential properties increased by 1%, from 11 December.
Baroness Hodge has been appointed the UK's new Anti-Corruption Champion. The former chair of the Public Accounts Committee will work with Parliament, the private sector and civil society to help drive delivery of the Government’s priorities to clamp down on corruption and the organised criminals who benefit from it.
With so many Government announcements taking place this week, it’s unsurprising that the main business scheduled for the Commons was a pretty dull affair, with two days of the Finance Bill’s committee stage taking up time. Monday did see MPs debate the remaining stages of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill – or Martyn’s Law as it’s known. The Bill will have its second reading in the House of Lords at the beginning of January.
The Lords had the unenvious task of debating their own in the second reading of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill on Wednesday which will abolish hereditary peerages in the Lords from the next Parliament. The Bill passed without division and will be considered in committee.
Coming up next week… the Devolution White Paper is due to be published on Monday, and Keir Starmer will have his first appearance before the Liaison Committee next Thursday in what should be the final big parliamentary event before we all take a long, well deserved break over Christmas.
You’re never too old for an advent calendar, and a poll from Ipsos has confirmed this, with 50% of Britons surveyed saying that parents should never stop buying them for their children. In a festive poll, 61% of those asked preferred a chocolate advent calendar, 9% wanted a more traditional one with pictures behind the windows, and 18% preferred one with other gifts.
Mayors in England should be given more powers and funding certainty, the Institute for Government argued in a report, emphasising that this would enable them to ‘play a leading role in the regeneration of disused, deprived and deindustrialised urban areas.’ The report uses London, Tees Valley, Bradford and Greater Manchester’s Stockport and Atom Valley as case studies, and highlights the positive impact of mayoral development corporations, such as the London Legacy Development Corporation that has been used to regenerate East London after the Olympic Games.
Risk aversion is driving the UK’s regulatory framework, according to a Policy Exchange report that finds this is the result of an ‘increasingly safetyist’ political culture, a system where it’s ‘remarkably easy’ to create new regulations, and the lack of incentives to remove ‘redundant or pernicious’ regulations. It highlights that, in order for the Government to achieve its goal of economic growth, there is a need to reverse this, and makes a series of recommendations to ‘stem the flow of new regulatory requirements, bear down on the existing stock of rules, and to produce better regulation in the future.’
Lunchtime turned controversial this week when Opposition Leader Kemi Badenoch dismissed lunch as “for wimps”. Doubling down, she argued that sandwiches aren’t “real food” and that she preferred steak during her *working* lunch. Not one to let a food debate pass, Keir Starmer chimed in to defend sandwiches as a “great British institution” and shared that he enjoyed a simple yet classic tuna sandwich.
Lee Anderson seems to be positioning himself to be Reform’s next Spokesperson for Men. When asked on X, “Women have to deal with periods, pregnancy and menopause. What do men have to deal with?” Lee shot back with, “Try the Battle of The Somme.” That’s right - the bloody World War I battle fought 100 years ago… over five decades before Mr Anderson’s birth…
Not everyone’s a 28 Years Later fan - just ask Victoria Atkins. The Tory Minster scolded a Labour donor who shared a still from the zombie-filled trailer, using it to describe framers’ reactions when told they have to “pay tax like everyone else...” Check out the exchange here
