New Attorney General named to cover Suella Baverman’s maternity leave March 2, 2021 Conservative MP Michael Ellis QC has been temporarily made Attorney General while Suella Braverman is on maternity leave. Braverman is due to be on maternity leave for six months, during which Ellis will take up the reins in her absence. Ellis, who was elected Conservative MP for Northampton North in May 2010, was officially made [...]
Millions of people in England have almost no Covid cases in their area March 2, 2021 Millions of people in England are living in regions where coronavirus cases have plummeted close to zero, according to the latest official data. Public Health England (PHE) said 971 out of 6,791 “Middle-Layer Super Output Areas” (MSOAs) in England have too few Covid cases to be published on the national database. PHE does not publish [...]
Budget 2021: Kwasi Kwarteng all but confirms furlough extension March 2, 2021 Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has appeared to confirm that Rishi Sunak will extend the furlough scheme in tomorrow’s Budget. Kwarteng said today that it was a “fairly good assumption” that the scheme will be extended beyond next month by the chancellor. The scheme – which sees the government part-subsidise people’s wages – is due to [...]
UK rolls out ‘vaccination status’ requirement for some international arrivals as ministers mull vaccine passports March 2, 2021 The government has updated its requirements for all international arrivals to England participating in the Test and Release scheme to provide their vaccination status, as ministers edge closer to introducing vaccine passports for foreign travel. The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) introduced the Test to Release scheme in December as a way of [...]
Beirut explosion linked to London address used by shell company March 2, 2021 Ownership of the deadly stockpile of ammonium nitrate that exploded last August in Beirut, killing over 200 people, has been traced back to a London address commonly used by shell companies, an investigation by Globe and Mail has found. The London address, minutes away from Oxford Circus, belongs to a London-listed company called Savaro Ltd. [...]
Khan accused of cutting affordable housing by two thirds despite £4bn grant March 2, 2021 Sadiq Khan has been accused of not delivering on his affordable housing promise today by proposing to cut City Hall housebuilding by nearly two-thirds, despite receiving a third of the UK’s affordable housing budget. The latest figures reveal the mayor’s 2021-26 housebuilding programme will only build 35,000 new affordable homes using the government’s £4.82bn grant. [...]
Budget 2021: Sunak to outline post-Brexit regulatory shakeup for the City of London March 2, 2021 Rishi Sunak will outline plans to improve the City of London’s post-Brexit competitiveness in tomorrow’s Budget as he releases a highly anticipated report from the UK’s former EU commissioner for financial services. Sunak is planning to create a new stock listings regime in London to compete with other global financial centres that have benefited from [...]
May the forest be with you! Putting a price on nature March 2, 2021 | City Talk Natural resources are often seen as free inputs that any company may use to produce an output. The exploitation cost alone is how firms assess a natural asset’s monetary value. In this way, natural resources tend to be seen as infinite: there is no clear sense of how overexploitation can destroy surrounding ecosystems. Today, many [...]
Budget 2021: Sunak to announce £520m scheme to provide training for SMEs March 2, 2021 Rishi Sunak will announce a £520m scheme in Wednesday’s Budget to help provide MBA-style management training to up to 130,0000 British small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The new Help to Grow scheme will see the government pay UK business schools to provide 50 hours of free tuition to SMEs over twelve weeks, with with [...]
Chancellor urged to keep London economy competitive through tax measures in Budget March 1, 2021 Chancellor urged to keep London economy competitive through tax measures in budget