Labour MP Tony Vaughan has been ordered by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) to make an unreserved apology on the floor of the Commons after breaching Parliament’s bullying and harassment policy. Vaughan’s appeals failed…
The Standards Commissioner found he hugged a member of his constituency staff without consent at an office event, took her personal mobile phone from her hand to join an online meeting without asking, and failed to explain why calls between them had ended abruptly. The Independent Expert Panel upheld most of the findings, describing his conduct as an “abuse of his power” and a breach of “basic boundaries and courtesy”…
Read the IEP’s report here…
HMRC sent 2,200 people aged over 90 their first ever self assessment tax return in the 2024-25 year, up from 1,000 in 2022-23. Can’t it at least wait for the card from the King?
The figures, dug out in Parliament by Shadow Paymaster General Harriett Baldwin, also show 1,500 people over 100 were sent a return to fill in. The tax taken from over-90s through self assessment jumped from £286 million to £461 million in two years. 6,100 pensioners filing for the first time were hit with £100 late filing fines…
Treasury minister Torsten Bell blamed the Tory threshold freeze – skipping over the fact that Rachel Reeves extended it by three years to 2030-31 at last year’s Budget. And Healey won’t lift it in today’s Budget either…
The OBR expects that between 2022-23 and 2030-31 the freeze will have brought 5.2 million more people into paying income tax, pushed 4.8 million more into the higher rate and 600,000 more into the additional rate. Pensioners aren’t spared: first-time returns sent to pensioners nearly doubled, from 17,600 to 33,600. If the trend holds, the Guido Fawkes Fiscal Resolution Foundation estimates that roughly 300,000 more pensioners will get their first tax return by 2030-31, about 25,000 of them over 90. Pop your dentures out and log into Making Tax Digital!
The government has admitted that its online age checks apply to blunt butter knives. Farcical…
Home Office minister Sarah Jones told LibDem MP Charlie Maynard in a parliamentary answer:
“The Government is committed to legislation around knife sales which helps ensure that knives do not fall into the hands of those aged under 18. The measures in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 in respect of the reporting of online bulk sales of knives and the strengthening of age verification requirements for online sales of knives will ensure we have robust controls on knives. The measures in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 are likely to be commenced next Spring.
Non-pointed cutlery knives have been specifically excluded from the new reporting requirements for online bulk sales of knives in section 42 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026. No similar provision was made in section 32 of the 2026 Act for the new age verification checks for online sale and delivery of knives.
However, we are aware of the argument that non-pointed cutlery knives, designed for eating food, present a lower risk to the public and the law should be amended. Such a change could be made via secondary legislation, and we are carefully considering representations made by retailers about whether there could be changes to legislation.”
U-turn…
Healey has claimed to have found £800 million of savings for business today. His own party’s Employment Rights Act costs more than that every year…
The Chancellor boasted this morning in a first Budget announcement about “slashing” red tape to save firms “almost £800 million” a year with reductions to paperwork filing requirements and some other measures. Rayner’s Red Tape Act looms just behind him, though…
The government has pushed its estimated cost of the act down from £5 billion to £1 billion a year after concessions. Independent and upper-end estimates put the bill at £4 billion a year – five times what Healey claims to have saved. Healey said this morning:
“British firms are fed up with form-filling and pointless paperwork that eats into valuable time and money when they simply want to get on with running their businesses.”
The £800 million is partly fake anyway. £155 million of it comes from extending tariff suspensions on 250 goods for which they already exist, so firms would pay no less than they do today. The headline small business win, “pausing” the Companies House profit and loss filing requirement, scraps a burden the government had planned to impose. So…
Meanwhile DBT’s timeline for the ERA, updated yesterday, lists what is still on the way:
That is on top of what already applies: day one sick pay with no earnings floor came in April, and new Statutory Sick Pay rules will cost employers about £1.05 billion a year – up £425 million on the old system. The time limit for tribunal claims has doubled to six months. Good news for employment lawyers…
If Healey actually cared about cutting costs for business he would scrap the Employment Rights Act. Might be a long wait…
The Labour official who sent out the notorious ‘Cash for Croissants’ invites is now running a lobbying shop round the corner from No10 North. Lobbying firm Lowick Hedry announced yesterday that Liam Didsbury, Labour’s North West Regional Director from 2021 to 2024, has joined as Partner to head up its new Manchester office. Who better to get access…
Back in October 2024, Didsbury emailed businesses offering breakfast with Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds at The Ivy in Manchester for £30,000 – or a photo with the minister for a £15,000. Reynolds pulled out and Labour claimed he was “completely unaware”. Naturally…
Didsbury had quit the regional director job only a fortnight after the 2024 election, with Labour insisting he left “to spend more time with his young family”. At the time The Post in Liverpool alleged he had “unprecedented control” over the regional party, from MP shortlists to council leadership. Labour responded by threatening the paper with legal action for writing about his sudden departure from the powerful position…
In a promotional video for the firm, Didsbury said:
“I know how decisions get made here and who makes them… we make sure our clients are heard right across the North West”
The firm’s launch post boasts the Manchester office will cover Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region, “as well as engagement with Number 10 North”. Handy…
Lowick Hedry’s co-founder Kevin McKeever ran Andy Burnham’s 2015 leadership campaign. He told the FT last month the firm picked Manchester over Leeds for its northern base because of Burnham’s new outpost:
“You’ve got to be in the local ecosystem, you can’t do [public affairs] from a train and a Marriott… We decided on Manchester after the Number 10 North stuff. That tipped the balance.”
The wheels on the Manchester Bee go round and round…
At PMQs Burnham assured leaseholders they would have to “wait no further” before admitting the Leasehold Reform Bill may not even be laid this year. Starmer already kicked the draft Bill from last year into January…
Burnham told Labour conference that “the days of you being squeezed for every penny are coming to an end,” yet a little-noticed government consultation closing tonight threatens to gut key parts of the Tories’ Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. Which Labour backed…
The consultation sets the rates used to work out what leaseholders pay to extend their leases or buy their freeholds. Whatever ministers pick is set in stone for ten years…
In opposition, Matthew Pennycook, now housing minister, argued the Tory act did not go far enough and insisted ministers stick to the principle of “reducing premiums for leaseholders to their lowest possible level”. Now, buried in one paragraph of its consultation document, Labour says:
“… it is not intended to use prescribed rates in and of themselves, as a means of further reducing premiums for leaseholders.”
The row is over what are called capitalisation and deferment rates, which set prices. Leaseholder campaigners want both at 9% while freeholders are lobbying for lower rates, which The Times reports would leave leaseholders paying more. Pennycook has cited “technical flaws” as his reason to amend the Act’s enfranchisement rules, but stays silent on whether he will revive his own opposition amendments to make premiums “as cheap as possible for leaseholders.”
Pressed by Nick Ferrari on Labour watering down its manifesto pledge to “act where the Conservatives have failed and finally bring the feudal leasehold system to an end”, Rayner insisted yesterday it was still happening. She warned of a “highly litigious” process. Rayner, of course, bought a share of freehold on her Brighton flat. Hardly a vote of confidence in her own reforms…
Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked John Healey: “Just finally, I mean Andy Burnham has been very clear he wants Britain back in the European Union in his lifetime. Do you?”
The Chancellor replied: “I’m older than Andy Burnham. I don’t expect to see that.”