Starmer pressed over UK sanctions against Israel for war crimes targeting Palestinian children
Speaking to the prime minister from the Commons on Wednesday (16 July), Imran Hussain said that Israel is committing 'war crimes' by 'killing Palestinian children as they queue for food'.
'Our government quite rightly imposes thousands of sanctions on Russia for its war crimes in Ukraine. How many more horrors must be witnessed before the prime minister acts with the same scale of sanctions against Israel to stop this genocide?,' the Bradford MP said.
Sir Keir responded by saying he is 'appalled' by scenes in Gaza and said investigations into reports of civilians being killed must be 'transparently' carried out.
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The Guardian
4 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Outwitted': have water companies managed to sidestep Labour's bonus ban?
It started before the election. Against a background of growing fury about the conduct of the water companies, Labour promised to end the injustice of their executives getting bonuses while sewage was dumped in England's rivers and seas. In March 2024, Steve Reed, the then shadow environment secretary, said: 'Since the last election the water bosses have paid themselves £25m in bonuses. Labour will ban the payment of bonuses to polluting water bosses until they have cleaned up their filth.' The policy became a significant part of the election campaign two months later. The manifesto promised: 'We will give regulators new powers to block the payment of bonuses to executives who pollute our waterways.' Once in power, Labour went straight into action. One of the first big laws it passed was the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. The legislation contains provisions to ban performance-related payments to senior executives of water companies that repeatedly pollute England's waterways with sewage. Reed, now environment secretary, described it as a means to end the 'undeserved' payments. Under the act, the government banned six water firms including Thames Water from awarding bonuses for this financial year after seven major pollution incidents. However, it was not long before flaws in this plan began to emerge. Thames Water has faced particular challenges this year, with regular discussions over its possible collapse, even as customers' bills soar to pay for infrastructure. In February, as the legislation was going through parliament, a court ruled that Thames could proceed with a controversial £3bn loan from a group of creditors, at a 9.75% interest rate, in order to stabilise the company. In May, the chair of Thames, Adrian Montague, told MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) committee that bosses were in line for 'substantial' bonuses linked to the loan, on the insistence of creditors. The company needed to pay the bonuses, he said, 'because we have to keep staff. It is a very competitive marketplace out there … If we are unable to pay bonuses, people will come knocking and try to pick out of us the best staff we have. That is not in customers' interests.' Soon afterwards, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced plans to use the act to block Thames bosses taking bonuses. A week later, Reed appeared in front of the same committee, telling MPs that the bonuses had been withdrawn. At the same hearing Montague conceded in a letter that he may have misspoken when he said the bonuses were insisted upon by creditors. Reed told the committee that Thames Water had 'appeared to be attempting to circumvent that ban, calling their bonuses something different so they can continue to pay them'. Thames responded, saying that rather than having been withdrawn, the bonuses were paused. But in July the Guardian revealed that Thames had already paid bonuses totalling £2.46m to 21 managers on 30 April, and was refusing to claw the money back. Although it had paused the bonus scheme, or management retention plan (MRP), it did not promise that the next tranches would not also be paid, with the managers due to receive the same sum again in December and a further £10.8m collectively next June. Under the Water (Special Measures) Act, the only bonuses that can be stopped to those at the very top of the company, such as the chief executive, the chief financial officer and the chair. Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, has voluntarily declined his 300% bonus, because, he said, it would have been a 'distraction'. The water campaigner and former Undertones frontman, Feargal Sharkey, campaigned with Keir Starmer during the general election. But Sharkey has been left unimpressed by the bonus ban. He said: 'Driving forward eye-catching policies designed to do nothing more than grab headlines is no way to fix the biggest problem facing this country in the 21st century, the government has been outwitted and outmanoeuvred by the water companies.' Was the Thames package designed to circumvent the rules? Documents it released to the Efra committee show that when designing the payments package, the company hired top consultants and law firms including Rothschild & Co, Linklaters and Mercer to help it come up with a retention programme that was legally sound and would get past regulators. During Thames board meetings set up to discuss the bonuses, members asked 'if any pressure to waive bonus would be a risk generally or under the water (special measures) bill', according to the documents The board was told the bonuses were in line with the specifications of the legislation: 'The [remuneration] committee requested to reconfirm whether the MRP was consistent with the Water (Special Measures) Act and related Ofwat consultation and it was confirmed that the MRP was a retention payment rather than a bonus, and had no performance-related element. As such, it was not restricted by the Water (Special Measures) Act.' Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Thames Water and its lawyers and advisers believe they could pay its chief executive and chief financial officer under the scheme if they wanted, because they are retention payments. If this loophole remains open, any water company that breaches pollution rules could continue to pay out millions in bonuses to their executives, as long as the payments are not labelled performance related. In a letter to the Efra committee in July, Reed would not directly answer whether these bonuses would be banned. He said: 'Should Ofwat determine Thames Water have breached the performance-related payments rule, then I expect them to take appropriate enforcement action.' A Defra spokesperson followed up and said: 'It is for companies to follow these new rules and help rebuild trust with their customers.' Water companies can also get round the bonus ban by hiking the pay of executives to make up for the lack of compensation. The Guardian revealed this week that Southern Water has nearly doubled its chief executive Lawrence Gosden's annual pay package to £1.4m. Southern has already been allowed to increase average bills by 53% over the next five years and is appealing to the Competition and Markets Authority to charge more. Ofwat says it may bring forward a planned review of the bonus ban, currently set for 2027, to look at the scope of the rules and see whether the net needs to be widened. The regulator added that executive salaries were a matter for the water companies, but said it expected them to be appropriate when taking bonus bans and company performance into account. A Defra spokesperson said: 'Undeserved bonuses for water company bosses have now been banned as part of the government's plan to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good. Any instances of companies trying to circumvent the new rules are completely unacceptable. 'The government will leave no stone unturned against any bosses being made these outrageous payments.' Southern Water said the rise in its chief executive's salary was not an attempt to evade the bonus ban but part of a 'long-term incentive plan' as part of an effort to turnaround the company. It added that the payments were 'common industry practice'. A Thames Water spokesperson said: 'The company's CEO is not party to the MRP and has received no payments. None of the retention payments have been funded by customers. Full details of the plan have been shared with our economic regulator and the Efra committee.'
Telegraph
4 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Inflation risks are taking Britain towards the debt-crisis cliff edge
The UK's consumer price index was 3.6pc higher in June than the same month last year – significantly above the Bank of England's 2pc inflation target. The broader retail price index rose even more, by 4.4pc. Unemployment is also up, hitting 4.7pc during the three months to May, a four-year high. And last week's double dose of downbeat data came against a backdrop of broader economic weakness, with GDP having shrunk in both April and May. It's now screamingly obvious that Labour's crude Keynesianism – 'pump priming' the economy by upping state borrowing and spending – isn't working. Worse than that, this Government's actions are pushing Britain towards a budgetary crisis every bit as serious as that in 1976, when the UK was forced to go 'cap in hand' to the International Monetary Fund for a bail-out. Chancellor Rachel Reeves's higher tax rates have been hammering economic activity, causing tax revenues to fall. Yet Labour's leadership, driven by ideological fervour and fearing the party's increasingly strident far left, keeps pushing spending up regardless. The sharp rise in the rate of employer National Insurance contributions (NIC) has caused hiring to plunge since it was announced in last October's Budget, undermining NIC revenues overall. Labour's higher capital gains tax (CGT) rates mean investors aren't selling assets, causing CGT revenues to plunge. A far more punitive non-domicile tax regime and much higher inheritance tax on businesses has sparked an exodus of wealthy individuals, with countless UK entrepreneurs moving abroad. The top 1pc of earners generate 30pc of all income tax receipts, with the top 5pc paying almost half. But when you push the seriously rich overseas with a student-politics tax regime, they often stop investing and close their UK-based businesses. So the revenue loss goes way beyond income tax, spreading across the gamut of employment and corporate taxes too. As a former asset manager, I talk to many senior people at the global pension funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors that lend governments serious money. They ask me about UK politics and public policy and I ask them what they are doing and why. So when I say financiers are not only deeply unimpressed but seriously alarmed at this Government's actions, that's directly from the horse's mouth. Anyone remotely financially literate can see investors are demanding ever higher returns to bankroll this increasingly spendthrift Government. The interest rates our Government pays to borrow are now at their highest level since the late 1990s, but on a far greater volume of debt. The UK's benchmark 30-year gilt yield last week breached 5.5pc – and has been way above 5pc for the whole of this year. Borrowing costs, then, are consistently much higher than the 4.85pc peak they momentarily touched during Liz Truss's 'mini-budget' crisis in October 2022. Yet the broadcast media's reaction, hysterical back then, is now ridiculously complacent. Draw your own conclusions as to why. Last August, just after Labour took office, the 30-year yield was below 4.5pc. Since then, increasingly sceptical investors have pushed it a full percentage point higher. During this same period, the Bank of England has cut its benchmark borrowing cost from 5.25pc to 4.25pc, a percentage point in the opposite direction. 'Market rates' and 'policy rates' moving against each other are a clear sign of brewing systemic danger. The warning signals are flashing red, yet almost no one in a political and media class addicted to government spending wants to acknowledge what's going on. In April 2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast the Government would borrow £87bn over the subsequent 12 months. When that financial year ended in April 2025, the figure was £148bn, an astonishing 70pc more. Endless discussions about whether 'fiscal headroom' in 2029/30 is £5bn or £10bn is utter displacement activity. We can't even get within £60bn of our borrowing estimate within the current financial year. The reality in front of us is that Britain borrowed £148bn last year and £110bn or three quarters of that increase in our national debt went on interest payments on debt previously incurred. Our public finances resemble a Ponzi scheme. Reeves and Keir Starmer cite crowd-pleasing nonsense about 'school breakfast clubs' and 'world-class public services'. As if it's fine to drive the UK into bankruptcy, provoking a full-on bail-out and all the resulting financial and economic chaos because the money is being spent under virtue-signalling headings. 'Borrowing costs are going up around the world', bleat fresh-faced government spin doctors. Yes, but UK gilt yields and total debt service payments are now easily the highest in the G7. Plus, much of the private money invested in UK gilts is 'levered' – or also borrowed. And when the backers of the Government's backers get worried, as they now are, they will eventually 'margin call' creditors, igniting a sudden and self-reinforcing sell-off that sends yields and economy-wide borrowing costs into orbit. On top of all that, Britain is a stark outlier when it comes to the share of 'index-linked' state debt – with regular interest payments rising in line with RPI inflation. Around 30pc of UK gilts are 'linkers', compared to just 12pc in Italy (the G7's next highest) and 5pc in Germany and the US – reflecting long-standing market concerns about vast UK government off-balance-sheet liabilities, not least the trillion-pound-plus bill for still insanely generous pensions for state employees. Britain's sky-high share of index-linked state debt, a long-standing ruse to keep headline yields as low as possible, is coming home to roost. As inflation rises, debt service costs ratchet upward, resulting in ever more borrowing to pay those costs as our tax-strapped economy struggles. That's why, when last week's higher-than-expected inflation number emerged, yields rose sharply. The UK is close to the debt-crisis cliff-edge – and ministers can't say they weren't warned.
Telegraph
34 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Labour pledges to halve sewage in rivers by 2030
Labour has pledged to halve the amount of raw sewage being pumped into rivers, lakes and seas by the end of the decade. Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, said that delivering his vow would make Britain's waterways 'the cleanest since records began'. The announcement is a victory for The Telegraph's long-running Clean Rivers Campaign, which has called for a crackdown on polluting water companies. It comes after the dire state of Britain's polluted waterways played a significant role in ousting the Tories from many rural seats at last summer's election. Chichester, a city which had been Tory for a century, was captured by the Lib Dems after the party capitalised on anger over contamination of the River Lavant. Labour has also made river pollution a campaign pledge and has launched a crackdown on the bosses of water companies which are guilty of spillages. Mr Reed has unveiled a promise to ensure that there is at least a 50 per cent reduction in the number of spills from storm overflow drains every year. There are around 14,500 storm overflow drains in England, which are used to pump raw sewage into rivers and the sea when there is heavy rain. Last year there was a record 3.6 million hours of sewage spills into waterways, suffocating wildlife and making bathing waters unsafe for humans. The Environment Secretary has also pledged to halve the levels of phosphorus – a chemical contained in treated wastewater – entering rivers. Writing for The Telegraph, he said that public confidence in water companies had 'collapsed' amid public fury at the mounting levels of sewage spillages. 'I'm making a clear commitment to the British people – this Government will halve sewage pollution within five years, making our rivers the cleanest since records began,' he wrote. 'Over a decade of national renewal, the Government will restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health. This is the first time any UK Government has made a clear pledge to cut sewage pollution which you can hold us to account for.' It comes after a new report by the Environment Agency found that 'systemic water company failure' has been behind a surge in river pollution. The green quango said that the number of 'serious' pollution incidents increased by 60 per cent last year compared with the previous year. It said that just three firms were behind four-fifths of those cases, though all nine providers in England had demonstrated 'consistently poor performance'. Scandal-hit Thames Water was the worst offender, registering 33 such incidents, followed by Southern Water with 15 and Yorkshire Water with 13. The same firms have been criticised for announcing controversial hosepipe bans while also overseeing major leaks and paying senior executives six-figure salaries. Across all companies, the number of pollution spillages increased by almost a third, up 29 per cent from 2,174 in 2023 to 2,801 last year. Mr Reed said that he was tackling the problem by unlocking £104 billion of investment from water firms into fixing pipes and building sewage plants. Labour has also introduced new laws that will force firms to ring-fence money from customers' bills to pay for upgrades to their networks. Bosses at water companies which perform poorly now have their bonuses blocked, whilst £100m of fines is being spent on clean-up projects. I have laid down the building blocks to clean up waterways By Steve Reed Our water system is broken, with record levels of sewage and pollution in our rivers, lakes and seas and customers' bills soaring. Public confidence collapsed as water company bosses oversaw decades of under-investment while paying themselves undeserved multi-million pound bonuses. Other countries' water sectors aren't like this, but the British people have been left to pay the price of failure as our waterways – a source of national pride – were blighted. After one year in the job, I have laid down the building blocks to clean up polluted waterways across England. We have strengthened the rules to restore accountability and fairness. Undeserved bonuses for water company bosses have been banned, a record 81 criminal investigations launched into sewage pollution and, under our flagship new laws, polluting water bosses who cover up their offences now face up to two years in prison. We have begun rebuilding the entire water network with £104 billion of private sector money to repair crumbling pipes and build sewage treatment works across the country. And today, I'm making a clear commitment to the British people – this Government will halve sewage pollution within five years, making our rivers the cleanest since records began. Over a decade of national renewal, the Government will restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health. This is the first time any UK Government has made a clear pledge to cut sewage pollution which you can hold us to account for. Without a major investment, the UK could run out of clean drinking water by the middle of the next decade. I am stepping in to speed up the building of major reservoirs and water transfer systems in England's driest areas. We are also holding water companies to account by making them put money back into people's pockets when they fail their customers. On Monday, the Government will kick off a once-in-a-generation reset of our water sector with root and branch reform. We will work in partnership with the water industry, its investors and customers, so that we can clean up our water as part of the Government's Plan for Change. After years of failure, we're building a water system fit for 21st century Britain – one that serves the people who rely on it every single day.
