Use development orders to tackle housing crisis, ministers told November 15, 2024 The UK government should use development orders to circumvent the planning regime, build homes and address the housing crisis, a new report has argued. Ministers should deploy existing powers – known as local development orders, which allow specific development in certain areas without a planning application – to turbocharge housebuilding, the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) [...]
‘Not the 1970s’: Minister slaps down four-day week calls from civil servants November 14, 2024 Civil servants won’t get a four-day working week as we’re “not living in the 1970s”, the pensions minister has said. Emma Reynolds slapped down the demand from Whitehall bureaucrats on Times Radio, after it emerged staff at one department claimed the policy could save the government millions. Workers at the Department for Environment, Food and [...]
Exclusive: Reeves to reveal new mutual council with Nationwide and Co-op November 14, 2024 Chancellor Rachel Reeves will set out plans for a new mutual council today made up of some of Britain’s biggest customer and member-owned firms, including Nationwide, Royal London and the Co-op Group, City AM understands. In her maiden Mansion House speech, Reeves is expected to set out a growth plan for mutually owned business as [...]
Elon Musk and Fox News host chosen for Trump cabinet and advisory roles November 13, 2024 Tech billionaire Elon Musk and Fox News host Pete Hegseth have been asked to serve as advisors and in Donald Trump’s cabinet. Musk is set to lead a new US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which will advise the President on how to reform and make savings in the government, after he previously claimed he [...]
Badenoch claims Reeves’s Budget was designed to ‘milk private sector’ November 13, 2024 The Labour government’s “ideological” Budget was “designed to milk the private sector”, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has claimed. Quizzing Sir Keir Starmer during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) today, the Conservative leader accused the Labour leader of “having nothing to offer but platitudes”. She said: “Their ideological Budget was designed to milk the private sector and [...]
Streeting rolls out health service league tables to boost efficiency November 13, 2024 NHS trusts should be “turned into businesses”, a free market think tank has argued, amid Wes Streeting’s announcement of health service league tables in a bid to boost efficiency. The health secretary has confirmed failing hospitals will be named and shamed in league tables and managers sacked if they don’t improve patient care and take [...]
New £500m university science grant can ‘commercialise discoveries’ November 13, 2024 The government has announced it will stump up £500m for 4,700 post-graduate engineering and science university places in a bid to drive long-term economic growth. Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle made the announcement today, with universities and industry set to reap the benefits. The scheme will fund 4,700 new places, equating to around £106,000 [...]
Ex-Bank top economist Haldane says UK can strike Trump trade deal and boost EU ties November 12, 2024 The Bank of England’s ex-chief economist has said Keir Starmer can simultaneously strike a trade deal with Donald Trump and rebuild relations with the EU to show the UK is "open for business".
Motorola in last chance saloon to overturn competition regulator’s charge control November 11, 2024 Telecoms giant Motorola is at court today as it seeks to overturn a decision by the competition regulator to impose a charge control on its subsidiary
NHS must be weaned off ‘more, more, more’ culture, warns Alan Milburn November 9, 2024 Alan Milburn, who ran the department under Tony Blair, warned that the NHS was “drinking in the last-chance saloon” .