Public money ‘at risk' from failure to implement gender ruling
The Scottish government is facing two 'concrete threats' of legal action due to its failure to abandon policies in place across the public sector which allow biological males to enter women's single-sex spaces by asserting they self-identify as female.
On Tuesday, Joe Griffin, the new permanent secretary, admitted that he was unable to provide Holyrood's finance committee with any 'specific actions' that had been taken to abide by the ruling.
Instead, he said that a working group had been set up to 'prepare the ground' for the publication of official guidance by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on how it should be implemented.
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BreakingNews.ie
21 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Judge keen to ensure trial of Jeffrey Donaldson and his wife not delayed again
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The Guardian
21 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Labour urged to consider wealth tax as Reeves visits Scotland
Update: Date: 2025-08-01T10:17:24.000Z Title: the Treasury should consider a wealth tax to close the growing gap in the public finances, according to a', 'Labour', 'former shadow chancellor Content: Former shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said ministers must be frank about 'really big decisions' in autumn budget Tom Ambrose Fri 1 Aug 2025 11.17 BST First published on Fri 1 Aug 2025 09.28 BST From 9.28am BST 09:28 Good morning and welcome to the UK politics blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I'll be bringing you all the latest news lines throughout the day. We start with news that the Treasury should consider a wealth tax to close the growing gap in the public finances, according to a Labour former shadow chancellor. Anneliese Dodds, who held the role under Keir Starmer in opposition, said ministers must have a 'full and frank discussion' with the public about the 'really big decisions' they had to take at this autumn's budget. With Rachel Reeves aiming to fill a financial hole that economists say could exceed £20bn, the senior Labour MP said there was 'no silver bullet' to funding big-ticket items such as defence, but the chancellor should consider tax rises. Dodds quit her post as international development minister in February over the government's decision to slash the aid budget to pay for increased defence spending – a move she said was a mistake that would have a big impact on global security. With Russia and China already stepping into the gap to boost their own global influence, she said now was not the time for the UK to be 'walking back' from using soft power. Read the full report here: Reeves is visit Scotland later today. She will visit RAF Lossiemouth in Moray and the St Fergus gas plant in Aberdeenshire on Friday. The chancellor is expected to meet with 200 Boeing employees at the Lossiemouth military base, where three E-7 Wedgetail aircraft are being worked on, the National reports. The UK government has previously said that its plan to increase defence spending to 2.6% of GDP could boost the economy by around 0.3% and create 26,100 jobs in Scotland. In other developments: The UK's plan to recognise a Palestinian state is compliant with international law, a minister has said, after a group of peers raised concerns that it did not meet the legal bar. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, defended the fact that the government's plan for recognising Palestinian statehood does not involve firm 'conditions' being placed on Hamas, saying the government could not make the decision conditional on what Hamas does because it does not negotiate with terrorist organisations. Nine out of 10 nurses have rejected their 3.6% pay award for this year and warned that they could strike later this year unless their salaries are improved. 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Analysis from the House of Commons Library, carried out for the Lib Dems, found that several major SEND education providers – including some backed by offshore private equity firms – have seen sharp increases in profits in recent years. One provider reportedly earned more than £44 million in profit on a turnover of £208 million, with profits rising by 60% in just two years. Another recorded £20.9 million in profit from £194.2 million in turnover – a margin of 10.8%. 10.50am BST 10:50 The Green Party's occasionally fractious leadership contest has entered its final stages as members begin voting on Friday. The party's more than 60,000 members face a choice between MPs Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, and an insurgent campaign led by London Assembly member Zack Polanski. Ramsay, a current co-leader of the party, and Chowns have said that the Greens should 'double down' on the 'proven techniques' that saw them quadruple their representation in Westminster last year. 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'We need to get more working-class young people into the Civil Service so it harnesses the broadest range of talent and truly reflects the country,' he told the BBC. 'Government makes better decisions when it represents and understands the people we serve.' Changes are expected to take effect from summer 2026 and will give young people experience writing briefings, planning events, conducting policy research and shadowing civil servants, according to the broadcaster. The existing work summer placement programme, which lasts up to eight weeks and is paid, is open to undergraduates in the final two years of their degree. 10.15am BST 10:15 Richard Adams Confucius Institutes at universities across England are under threat from new free speech rules, setting off urgent talks between ministers, vice-chancellors and regulators over the fate of the China-backed language and culture centres. Universities fear that the new regulations imposed by the Office for Students (OfS) this month will cause legal headaches with their Chinese partners, including the government in Beijing, and could lead to some being closed. University leaders claim they have been left in the dark by England's regulator over whether or not they are breaking the new rules, which bar foreign governments from vetting staff employed at the institutes. The 20 Confucius Institutes operating in England – including at the universities of Manchester, Coventry and Liverpool – are partnerships between each university, a Chinese university, and an arm of the Chinese state that provides funding. They offer Mandarin classes and promote cultural events but critics allege they also act as a Trojan horse within the education system. The Department for Education (DfE) said it 'welcomed a range of international partnerships with UK higher education' but that they had to comply with UK laws and regulations. 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Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, announced last month that one-stop-shop family hubs similar to Sure Start would be introduced throughout England to give parents advice and support. The £500m project will open up to 1,000 centres from April 2026, meaning every council in England will have a family hub by 2028. It will be called Best Start and will build on the existing family hubs and the start for life programme to provide a single point of access for services in health, education and wellbeing services. The policy forms part of the government's push to replace services lost since 2010, which include the closure of more than 1,400 Sure Start centres. At their peak under Gordon Brown, there were more than 3,600 Sure Start centres, which were considered one of the previous Labour government's biggest achievements. 9.46am BST 09:46 Gwyn Topham Heathrow has submitted its 'shovel-ready' plans for a third runway as part of a £50bn investment, as the government said expanding Europe's largest airport could create 100,000 jobs and drive growth. The 2-mile (3.2km) runway expansion would cross a diverted M25 and allow more than 750 additional flights a day over London, helping bring the total annual number of passengers to 150 million. Environmental campaigners called it a 'doomed scheme' that would release millions of tonnes of CO2 while benefiting only a small minority of rich flyers. Heathrow said that with government support it could obtain planning permission by 2029 and have the runway in operation by 2035. Its proposals remain essentially the same as those submitted in 2019 and approved in principle by the government and MPs. That scheme survived a brief block on climate grounds sparked by legal challenges from campaigners, overturned on appeal in 2020. However, the plans were put on hold as passenger numbers dropped during the pandemic. The shareholders in the airport, which include the French private equity firm Ardian and Saudi Arabia and Qatar's sovereign wealth funds, are seeking legislative change, as well as long-term political support, before filing a full planning application. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has strongly endorsed expansion, but Heathrow is seeking firm policy guarantees after previous runway plans were overturned. 9.28am BST 09:28 Good morning and welcome to the UK politics blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I'll be bringing you all the latest news lines throughout the day. We start with news that the Treasury should consider a wealth tax to close the growing gap in the public finances, according to a Labour former shadow chancellor. Anneliese Dodds, who held the role under Keir Starmer in opposition, said ministers must have a 'full and frank discussion' with the public about the 'really big decisions' they had to take at this autumn's budget. With Rachel Reeves aiming to fill a financial hole that economists say could exceed £20bn, the senior Labour MP said there was 'no silver bullet' to funding big-ticket items such as defence, but the chancellor should consider tax rises. Dodds quit her post as international development minister in February over the government's decision to slash the aid budget to pay for increased defence spending – a move she said was a mistake that would have a big impact on global security. With Russia and China already stepping into the gap to boost their own global influence, she said now was not the time for the UK to be 'walking back' from using soft power. Read the full report here: Reeves is visit Scotland later today. She will visit RAF Lossiemouth in Moray and the St Fergus gas plant in Aberdeenshire on Friday. The chancellor is expected to meet with 200 Boeing employees at the Lossiemouth military base, where three E-7 Wedgetail aircraft are being worked on, the National reports. The UK government has previously said that its plan to increase defence spending to 2.6% of GDP could boost the economy by around 0.3% and create 26,100 jobs in Scotland. In other developments: The UK's plan to recognise a Palestinian state is compliant with international law, a minister has said, after a group of peers raised concerns that it did not meet the legal bar. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, defended the fact that the government's plan for recognising Palestinian statehood does not involve firm 'conditions' being placed on Hamas, saying the government could not make the decision conditional on what Hamas does because it does not negotiate with terrorist organisations. Nine out of 10 nurses have rejected their 3.6% pay award for this year and warned that they could strike later this year unless their salaries are improved. Mary-Ann Stephenson has been confirmed as the new chair of the equalities watchdog, after the government overruled the objections of parliament's equalities committee over her suitability for the job.
BBC News
21 minutes ago
- BBC News
Failed RAF Scampton asylum seeker housing plan loses £48m
The failed attempt to house asylum seekers on the RAF Scampton site has cost the Home Office at least £48m, figures 2024 the Labour government scrapped the previous Conservative government's plans to accommodate migrants at the former Dambusters Local Democracy Service has approached the Conservative party for a comment. A Home Office spokesperson said the costs had "surged well beyond initial estimates and no longer delivered value for money for taxpayers". The government has previously admitted that a total of around £60m was spent on the site, of which £48.5m has been recorded as a losses, recently published in the Home Office's accounts for the last year, could have increased to £180m if the project had been pursued for another three years, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service."The cost of exiting this site was minimal compared to the projected minimum," the Home Office spokesperson Labour MP Hamish Falconer said Robert Jenrick – the Conservative minister for immigration at the time – needed to account for the decision."There are real questions for Robert Jenrick about why he kept pushing his disastrous plan for Scampton," he said on social media."Local people were opposed, costs were rocketing, and the taxpayer was losing tens of millions. It took a Labour MP and government to stop the madness."The Local Democracy Service has approached Jenrick for a while minister in 2023, Jenrick said: "The Home Secretary and I have been clear that using expensive hotels for asylum seekers is wholly unacceptable."Delivering accommodation on surplus military sites will provide cheaper and more orderly, suitable accommodation for those arriving in small boats."The former airbase has been placed on the open market to help recoup the costs of the failed buyers could include West Lindsey District Council who have £300m regeneration plans for the site. Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices
