Unions urge Reeves to prioritise living standards as CBI presses for shift on employment rights
Unions have urged the chancellor to keep focused on raising living standards, targeting child poverty and upping the national minimum wage, in the face of renewed calls from business to change course on employment rights.The TUC said that Rachel Reeves must deliver “a living standards budget” on Wednesday to ease the pressure on working households whose incomes have remained stagnant in more than a decade.Analysis by the unions showed working people were just £12 a week better off compared with 2008 after a “painful Tory pay hangover”.Real wages grew at an average of just 0.04% each year under the Conservative government between May 2010 and April 2024, it found, while public service workers saw no increase at all.
It said that had real wages continued to grow as they did from 2000-2008, workers would now be paid £317 a week more.Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, said: “This budget must be a living standards budget.“Households up and down the country [are] still suffering a painful Tory pay hangover – leaving this Labour government with lots of ground to make up.”He urged Reeves to “show ambition on the minimum wage”.He also called for action to bring down energy bills, and for scrapping the two-child benefit cap in full.
The TUC said Reeves should tackle the “child poverty emergency”, announcing new polling by Survation showing 83% of the public agreed that no child should be living in poverty in the UK,Reeves has signalled she is preparing to lift the two-child benefit cap, according to pre-budget reports,Novak said the budget would be “a crucial moment to show ministers are on the side of working people”,Meanwhile, business groups have renewed calls for the chancellor to “make hard choices for growth” by bringing down the cost of welfare and state pensions, and rethinking the employment rights bill,Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief executive, said: “If growth is your priority, prove it – make hard choices for it.
Against opposition, against short-term politics.Be it welfare, be it pensions increases – show the markets you mean business.”She said that Reeves’ 2024 budget had “turned to business to plug a hole” and created £24bn in extra costs for businesses a year, including additional national insurance contributions (NICs) from employers.She added: “How can business hire for growth […] when key government choices pull the other way? When NICs rise and likely changes to salary sacrifice make it more costly to take a chance on people.”Speaking to the CBI conference in London on Monday, Newton-Smith will urge the government to “change course on the employment rights bill” which “eight in 10 firms say, in its current form, will make it harder to hire”.
Lobbying against the bill, which was a major Labour manifesto pledge and extends workers rights on issues such as sick leave and unfair dismissal, has intensified with the Lords unpicking clauses as legislation goes through parliament,Some consensus between unions and business has emerged over high energy costs, which the CBI also identified as a big problem, deterring companies from investment when “straining under some of the highest electricity costs in the world”,The government is expected to announce some kind of support package on energy bills, along with this weekend’s announcement of a freeze on rail fares, to blunt the impact of wider expected tax rises in the budget,The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, told the BBC on Sunday that the highly anticipated budget – and apparent U-turns on some measures – was coming on the “shifting sands” of changing economic forecasts and that it remained “a very challenging global economic environment”,In one concrete measure to tackle the cost of living confirmed in the budget, the Treasury said rail fares would not increase next year – the first absolute freeze in 30 years, after fares had gone up more than 60% in the past 14 years.
Politicians urge Labour to restore Electoral Commission independence
Keir Starmer is being urged to restore independence to the Electoral Commission, with MPs and peers likely to launch a battle to amend the elections bill in the new year.In a letter to the prime minister, MPs and peers will warn the elections watchdog should not be overseen by the political parties in charge of holding to account.The government is to publish an elections bill early next year, bringing in votes for 16-year-olds and cracking down on loopholes in how political donations are made.However, it is resisting returning independence to the Electoral Commission after Boris Johnson put it under the control of ministers, who can now annually set its priorities and direction.When the Conservatives introduced the new power, the House of Lords passed a cross-party amendment led by the cross-bench peer Lord Judge and co-sponsored by the former Labour home secretary David Blunkett to overturn the change – only for it to be changed back by the Commons
Farage urged to explain conspiracy theories linked to antisemitism he voiced in US media
Nigel Farage is facing calls to explain why he repeatedly aired tropes and conspiracy theories associated with antisemitism during interviews, after claims the Reform UK leader used racist language in his teens.In appearances on US TV shows and podcasts earlier in his political career, Farage discussed supposed plots by bankers to create a global government, citing Goldman Sachs, the Bilderberg group and the financier George Soros as threats to democracy.These included six guest slots on the web TV show of the disgraced far-right US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones was successfully sued by bereaved parents after claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was faked.During one interview with Jones in 2018, Farage argued that “globalists” were trying to engineer a war with Russia “as an argument for us all to surrender our national sovereignty and give it up to a higher global level”
David Cameron reveals prostate cancer diagnosis and calls for targeted screening
David Cameron has disclosed he was treated for prostate cancer and has called for a targeted screening programme.The former prime minister said he had a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, which looks for proteins associated with the form of the disease. The result was high and he subsequently had a biopsy that revealed the cancer.Lord Cameron, 59, told the Times: “You always hope for the best. You have a high PSA score – that’s probably nothing
Unions urge Reeves to prioritise living standards as CBI presses for shift on employment rights
Unions have urged the chancellor to keep focused on raising living standards, targeting child poverty and upping the national minimum wage, in the face of renewed calls from business to change course on employment rights.The TUC said that Rachel Reeves must deliver “a living standards budget” on Wednesday to ease the pressure on working households whose incomes have remained stagnant in more than a decade.Analysis by the unions showed working people were just £12 a week better off compared with 2008 after a “painful Tory pay hangover”. Real wages grew at an average of just 0.04% each year under the Conservative government between May 2010 and April 2024, it found, while public service workers saw no increase at all
Boris Johnson took four days off as NHS warned Covid could ‘overwhelm’ system
Boris Johnson took four days off from official government business during a key period in the UK’s Covid preparation when the NHS was bracing to be “overwhelmed” by the virus.Official disclosure for the period in February 2020 – described by the Covid inquiry as a “lost month” in the country’s crisis response – reveal Johnson enjoyed an extended break during the half-term holidays at Chevening, a governmental estate in Kent, where he spent time walking his dog and taking motorcycle rides.The former prime minister was questioned on his activities between 14 and 24 February 2020 when he appeared at the inquiry in December 2023. He said: “There wasn’t a long holiday that I took. I was working throughout the period and the tempo did increase
Twenty people allege he has a racist past. He denies it. Who’s telling the truth about Farage’s schooldays?
Nigel Farage has denied – albeit through a spokesperson – that he ever said anything racist or antisemitic when he was a teenager.The Guardian has spoken to 20 of his contemporaries while at Dulwich College in south London who say otherwise – more than half of them on the record.So, who is telling the truth? That has become the crux of the row that has engulfed the leader of Reform UK.His spokesperson insists “there is no primary evidence. It’s one person’s word against another” and he has accused the Guardian of seeking to smear Farage
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