Jersey chief minister denies tenancy reform 'rebellion'
Deputy Jonathan Renouf referred to comments made by the chief minister in April, in which Farnham said the majority of ministers would support Deputy Mezec's plans with only one or two exceptions.Deputy Renouf asked the chief minister if "he was still confident that only one or two ministers would vote against the plan and if not how big a rebellion is he expecting from his own ministers".The chief minister responded: "I'm not expecting a rebellion because we are more grown up around this Council of Ministers table.
"We have processes and procedures for dealing with bona fide disagreements where views are strongly held between ministers and it's called an agreement to differ."He admitted the situation "had evolved" since his previous comments were made."But there is not a rebellion. It's a very grown-up, mature way of how we do business around the Council of Ministers table."When asked what the rebellion would suggest about the chief minister's ability to lead, he said: "It says we are an extremely pragmatic Council of Ministers."In this small island, that's the right way to go about things."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
6 minutes ago
- Telegraph
JD Vance chooses Cotswolds for family summer holiday
JD Vance and his family have chosen to spend their summer holiday in the UK, according to sources familiar with their itinerary. They are expected to visit in August, not long after Donald Trump completes a five-day stay in Scotland, illustrating what a US official said were the deep bonds between Sir Keir Starmer's Government and the Trump administration. Mr Vance has at times angered the British public, making apparently dismissive comments about America's allies and fierce attacks on what he claims are restrictions on free speech in the UK. The vice-president, his wife Usha and their three young children are expected to join millions of American tourists in crossing the Atlantic to see the sights of London in mid-August. They are then expected to rent a cottage in the Cotswolds before leaving to spend time in Scotland. Mrs Vance has taken the lead in finding a cottage in the Cotswolds where they can unwind with Ewan, eight, five-year-old Vivek, and Mirabel, three. The children have been a feature of Mr Vance's public life since he became vice-president, skipping ahead of their parents and boarding Air Force Two in their pyjamas ready for long-haul flights to Europe and beyond. Three sources described the Vance family plans to The Telegraph, although one stressed that the itinerary had not been finalised. It is understood the vice-president had also been keen to visit David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, at Chevening, his grace-and-favour estate in Kent, but their calendars did not align. Mr Lammy and his wife visited the Vances at their official Washington residence earlier this year, and people who know both men say they have bonded over their humble backgrounds and shared faith. The visits by the president and his potential successor in 2028 are seen as something of a summer coup by British officials, who are delighted at how they have been able to woo an administration that uses the slogan 'America First'. 'The ties run deep,' said a Whitehall source. 'Whatever any policy differences, the history, heritage and appeal of the United Kingdom are a huge draw to the current administration … unlike with their predecessors.' Mr Trump has spoken of his deep admiration for Elizabeth II and how he watched the late Queen's coronation at his royalist mother's side in 1953. The US president is due to fly to Scotland on Friday, where he will check up on his business interests and meet the Prime Minister in Aberdeen. He will visit his Trump Turnberry golf club in Ayrshire on the west coast before opening the new second course on his Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire, on the north-east coast. Aides, who shy away from using the term 'vacation' for a president who they say never stops working, are billing the trip as a low-key affair. He will return to the UK in September for a state visit. British officials have made no secret of their use of the UK's history and heritage in seeking concessions from the Trump administration. When Sir Keir met the president in the Oval Office in February, he came with a letter from the King inviting Mr Trump for an unprecedented second state visit. Barely seven weeks later, the UK became the first nation to do a trade deal with Washington, which lifted planned swingeing tariffs.
The Guardian
6 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
6 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.
