The five considerable problems with the chancellor's U-turn on winter fuel payments
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South Wales Guardian
24 minutes ago
- South Wales Guardian
Starmer and Macron to hammer out migrants deal in crunch summit
The Prime Minister hopes the French president will sign up to a 'one in, one out' deal when they hold a Franco-British summit at Downing Street on Thursday, the last day of Mr Macron's state visit to the UK. Under the terms of the deal, Britain would accept migrants with links to the country in exchange for sending others back across the channel. French newspaper Le Monde reported that some 50 migrants a week would initially be returned to France under the terms of the proposed deal, which it described as largely symbolic. If such a deal were struck, it would only result in the return of a fraction of the 21,000 people who have made the channel crossing so far in 2025, a record for this point in a year. But it would also represent a concession by the French that such returns are possible, after years of MPs on the right of British politics insisting France is a 'safe' country where migrants can be sent back to. The Times reported the scheme would be scaled up after an initial pilot had shown 'proof of concept', citing Government sources. In return, Mr Macron is said to be pushing for the UK to do more to address 'pull factors' which are attracting people to make the dangerous crossing to the English coast. When Mr Macron and Sir Keir met in Downing Street on Wednesday, the small boats crisis appeared to be the mainstay of their conversations. The pair agreed the crossings are a 'shared priority that requires shared solutions', a Downing Street spokesperson said. They added: 'The Prime Minister spoke of his Government's toughening of the system in the past year to ensure rules are respected and enforced, including a massive surge in illegal working arrests to end the false promise of jobs that are used to sell spaces on boats. 'The two leaders agreed on the need to go further and make progress on new and innovative solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model of these gangs.' Both Mr Macron and Sir Keir aim for 'concrete progress' on the matter at Thursday's summit, No 10 said, as well as in other areas like support for Ukraine. Following the French-UK summit, the two leaders will host a call with coalition of the willing partners, the proposed peacekeeping mission to deter Russia from attacking Ukraine in future. In a sign of close alignment on defence, Britain and France have announced they will buy new supplies of Storm Shadow missiles, which both have loaned to Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia. The two nations will also work closely to develop a successor to the long-range missile, the Ministry of Defence said.
South Wales Guardian
25 minutes ago
- South Wales Guardian
Home buyer inquiries increase overall for first time this year
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics), which released the report, said the figures point to a period of stabilisation rather than a strong recovery. Its report for the month of June found that a net balance of 3% of property professionals saw new buyer inquiries rise rather than fall. This was the first time since December 2024 that buyer demand has moved out of negative territory, the report said. It is also a noticeable improvement compared with May, when a balance of 22% of professionals reported a fall in new buyer inquiries, the report said. Despite the positive trend, surveyors expect sales momentum to remain subdued in the near-term, with a broadly flat outlook for sales volumes over the next 12 months. New instructions to sell have seen a slight decline, with a net balance of 3% of professionals seeing a rise in June, down from 7% in May. While this signals a slowdown in the flow of new listings, 16% of professionals reported an increase in market appraisals compared to the same period last year, indicating that supply levels remain relatively healthy. House prices continued to follow a flat or slightly negative trend in June, with a net balance of 7% of professionals seeing price falls rather than increases. The South East, East Anglia and London have seen a more pronounced decline in prices, while Northern Ireland, the North West, Scotland, and the East Midlands experienced clear growth, Rics said. Looking ahead, professionals expect the slightly negative trend at the UK-wide level to continue in the short-term. But when asked about the 12-month outlook, 24% of survey participants expect to see house price increases. Stamp duty changes from April caused some sales to be bunched up earlier in the year as buyers rushed to beat the deadline. Stamp duty applies in England and Northern Ireland. In the lettings market, tenant demand remained largely flat, with a net balance of 2% of professionals seeing a fall rather than an increase. Landlord instructions continued to decline, with a net balance of 24% of professionals seeing a fall. Tarrant Parsons, Rics head of market research and analysis, said: 'The UK residential market appears to be entering a more settled phase, with demand showing signs of stabilising following a period of volatility. 'The earlier distortion caused by transactions being brought forward ahead of the stamp duty changes now appears to have largely dissipated, allowing underlying trends to re-emerge. 'Encouragingly, near-term sales expectations have begun to edge higher, pointing to a modest shift in sentiment. That said, confidence in the market remains somewhat delicate, with economic uncertainty at both the domestic and global level still seen as a potential headwind.' Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank said: 'Demand is recovering after the March stamp duty deadline meant transactions were pulled forward into the first quarter of the year. 'However, as buyers return, they have a lot of stock to choose from, which is putting downwards pressure on prices. Rate cut expectations have grown over the last six weeks due to weak UK economic data, which should support demand over the second half of the year and produce modest single-digit price growth in 2025. A re-run of last year's game of 'guess the tax rise' ahead of the Budget is the biggest risk for sentiment.' Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown said: 'The number of renters looking for a home has remained stable, but landlords continue to pack up and leave the business, so there's still real competition for properties, rents continue to rise and they're expected to keep climbing. 'This is the last thing tenants want to hear, because their finances are already so stretched. The HL (Hargreaves Lansdown) savings and resilience barometer shows on average they only have enough savings to cover two-and-a-half months of essentials – falling short of the amount they need to withstand any nasty surprises. 'Meanwhile, those with a mortgage have enough for more than six months on average, so they have somewhere to turn when times are tough.'
BBC News
32 minutes ago
- BBC News
Reform's momentum is making the political weather
For the second time this week, Reform UK have announced a former Conservative cabinet minister has joined other day they said that former Welsh Secretary David Jones had signed up, back in other former Tory MPs defected recently too – Anne Marie Morris and Ross it is Sir Jake Berry joining Nigel Farage's party.A man knighted by Boris Johnson.A man whose son counts Johnson as his godfather.A man who used to be the chairman of the Conservative Party and who was a Tory minister in three different government yet a man who now says this: "If you were deliberately trying to wreck the country, you'd be hard pressed to do a better job than the last two decades of Labour and Tory rule."Read that sentence again and consider it was written by someone who was not just a Tory MP for 14 years but a senior one, occupying high this is probably not the end of it – both Reform and Conservative folk I speak to hint they expect there to be more to are trying to put the best gloss on it they can, saying Reform might be attracting former MPs – Sir Jake lost his seat at the last election – but they are losing current MP James McMurdock suspended himself from Reform at the weekend after a story in the Sunday Times about loans he took out under a Covid support has said he was compliant with the the trend is clear: Conservatives of varying seniority are being lured across by Nigel Farage and are proud to say so when they make the leap. Reform are particularly delighted that Sir Jake has not just defected but done so by going "studs in" on his former party, as one source put it."For us this is really crucial. If you want to join us you need to be really going for the other side when you do. Drawing a proper line in the sand," they regard Sir Jake's closeness to Boris Johnson as "dagger-in-the-heart stuff" for the perhaps the more interesting and consequential pivot in strategy we are currently witnessing is Labour's approach to the very highest level in government they are reshaping their approach: turning their attention away from their principal opponent of the last century and more, the Conservatives, and tilting instead towards Nigel Farage's tells you a lot about our contemporary politics that a party with Labour's history, sitting on top of a colossal Commons majority, is now shifting its focus to a party with just a handful of ministers take the rise of Reform incredibly seriously and are not dismissing them as a flash in the pan all, Reform's lead in many opinion polls has proven to be sustained in recent months and was then garnished with their impressive performance in the English local elections in May and their win, on the same day, in the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in Labour folk then were still in need of the jolt of a wake-up call, that night provided their immediate response to Sir Jake's defection, Labour are pointing to Reform recruiting Liz Truss's party chairman and so are inheriting, they claim, her "reckless economics".But they know the challenge of taking on and, they hope, defeating Reform, will be work of years of slog and will have to be grounded in proving they can deliver in government – not easy, as their first year in office has so often for the first time in recent months, Reform UK have momentum and are making the political weather. Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.
