Outdoor smoking ban would aim to make ‘fewer places where you can actually smoke’ says education minister
Good morning, and welcome to today’s blog, bringing you the latest news across the UK’s political scene.
The government’s outdoor smoking ban will aim to make “fewer places where you actually can smoke”, education minister Jacqui Smith has said.
Responding to calls from industry that an outdoor smoking ban would be another “nail in the coffin” for hospitality, Smith told Sky News:
The biggest nail in the coffin of most people in this country is smoking – 80,000 people die every year from smoking related diseases.”
She added:
We will think about all sorts of different ways, as the last time I was in government, we introduced the smoking ban, the first smoking ban, there was a lot of concern at that point about how it was actually going to work.
I think most people now, including in the hospitality industry, would say our pubs, our restaurants, are much better places because they’re no longer filled with smoke.”
Smith further stated:
What we’re trying to do is to make, both through lifting the age at which you can start smoking, by providing ways in which you can get out of smoking, and by making fewer places where you actually can smoke, we want to make it much more likely that people who are direct active smokers will actually want to give up smoking, and by doing that, safeguard their own health and safeguard the NHS and the pressures that smoking brings on to it.”
More on that in a moment. In other developments:
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James Cleverly has been accused of increasing the asylum backlog in the spring of this year by “dithering” over key decisions. Ministers under the then home secretary refused to give caseworkers permission to tackle outstanding cases covered by the Illegal Migration Act, departmental sources and the UK’s biggest civil service union have told the Guardian.
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The Conservative MP Esther McVey has been urged to “get a grip” after she posted a poem about the Holocaust to criticise government plans to introduce outdoor smoking bans. McVey, the MP for Tatton and a former cabinet minister, posted on X the words of Martin Niemöller’s 1946 poem First They Came, about inaction from within Germany against the Nazis.
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Keir Starmer has been warned against caving in to pressure to water down a ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts, after fresh evidence showing the financial hit for millions in insecure work. Bosses have told the prime minister he risks causing “real damage” for the economy if the government’s proposals for the biggest overhaul in workers’ rights for a generation are pushed through too quickly.
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Labour risks a serious rift in the UK’s special relationship with the US if it goes ahead with a ban on arms sales to Israel, Donald Trump’s last national security adviser has warned. Robert O’Brien, still one of the key security voices in the Trump circle, said the UK was endangering its future role in the F-35 project as well as facing the risk of US congressional counter-embargos.
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Keir Starmer has had a portrait of Margaret Thatcher removed from No 10 Downing Street, according to his biographer. The decision to take down the painting, first reported by the Herald, has been criticised by some in the Conservative party.
Key events
Helena Horton
An Olympic gold medal-winning canoeist will be among climate activists protesting in Windsor this weekend to demand the Labour government takes climate action seriously.
Extinction Rebellion, which is organising the three-day event, which began on Friday, said it had been disappointed by the new administration’s lack of action on reducing fossil fuel emissions.
The event includes a funfair, a large campsite, speakers, art and music. A few of the actions will be centred around Windsor Castle but, contrary to media reports, the activists say they have no plans to “storm the castle” and that all events will be non-disruptive.
Activists are calling on the government to set up a citizens’ assembly to tackle the climate crisis.
Etienne Stott, XR UK spokesperson and an Olympic gold medal-winning canoeist, said:
The first job of the state is to protect its citizens and keep them safe. Politicians are too close to and too compromised by the vested interests of the oil barons and media billionaires to carry out this primary duty of care. A citizens’ assembly is a proven mechanism that can be deployed to bypass these corrupting influences and get things done in a way that is fair for all and bridges political divides.”
Campaigners say they will keep protesting despite a more climate-friendly government having been elected. This is because, they say, Labour is maintaining the status quo on many issues, including “using the same outdated climate targets and [they] don’t have a plan that is consistent with the Paris agreement, the latest science and global equity”.
TUC warns Keir Starmer: do not water down ban on zero-hours contracts
Richard Partington
Keir Starmer has been warned against caving in to pressure to water down a ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts, after fresh evidence showing the financial hit for millions in insecure work.
Bosses have told the prime minister he risks causing “real damage” for the economy if the government’s proposals for the biggest overhaul in workers’ rights for a generation are pushed through too quickly.
Labour’s workers’ rights overhaul has become one of the biggest battlegrounds between the new government and businesses. In a meeting with business groups and trade unions earlier this month, it is understood that Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, reassured employers that they would take a staggered approach to introducing the reforms.
After meeting the bosses of Britain’s largest employers’ groups on Thursday, Rachel Reeves promised the government would “co-design” its policies with business on shared priorities to boost economic growth.
“Under this new government’s leadership, I will lead the most pro-growth, pro-business Treasury in our history – with a laser focus on making working people better off,” said the chancellor.
However, Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), warned banning zero-hours contracts should remain a top priority despite heavy lobbying from bosses.
“I would challenge any business leader or politician to try and survive on a zero-hours contract not knowing from week to week how much work they will have,” he said.
“It’s time to drive up employment standards in this country and to make work pay for everyone. The government’s forthcoming employment rights bill will help create a level playing field – and stop good employers from being undercut by the bad.”
You can read the full piece here:
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has said the UK is “deeply worried” by the “methods Israel has employed” in an IDF military operation in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement on Friday morning, an FCDO spokesperson said:
The UK is deeply concerned by the ongoing IDF military operation in the occupied West Bank.
We recognise Israel’s need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
The risk of instability is serious and the need for de-escalation urgent. We continue to call on Israeli authorities to exercise restraint, adhere to international law, and clamp down on the actions of those who seek to inflame tensions.
The UK strongly condemns settler violence and inciteful remarks such as those made by Israel’s national security minister Ben-Gvir, which threaten the status-quo of the holy sites in Jerusalem.
It is in no one’s interest for further conflict and instability to spread in the West Bank.”
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has called on landowners, local authorities and housebuilders to “unblock sites” and to “get shovels in the ground”.
In a post on X, Rayner wrote:
We inherited a Tory housing crisis.
Too few homes have been built.
Ordinary people can’t get on the housing ladder. There’s no time to waste. I’m calling on landowners, local authorities and housebuilders to help unblock sites and get shovels in the ground.”
We inherited a Tory housing crisis.
Too few homes have been built. Ordinary people can’t get on the housing ladder.
There’s no time to waste. I’m calling on landowners, local authorities & housebuilders to help unblock sites & get shovels in the ground.https://t.co/Tkjv6nvOPC
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) August 30, 2024
The housing secretary also linked to a piece in the Mirror, where she detailed plans for a New Homes Accelerator, described as “a crack team of experts from my department and Homes England”. Rayner wrote:
The Accelerator – a crack team of experts from my department and Homes England – will rapidly identify planning blockages, fix problems and support local authorities and developers to get shovels in the ground. It will help people make new lives and start families of their own.”
Rayner said “up to 200 large sites around the country where outline or detailed plans are ready to go but construction has yet to begin” have already been identified.
Cleverly accused of aggravating asylum backlog by ‘dithering’ on key decisions
James Cleverly has been accused of increasing the asylum backlog in the spring of this year by “dithering” over key decisions.
Ministers under the then home secretary refused to give caseworkers permission to tackle outstanding cases covered by the Illegal Migration Act, departmental sources and the UK’s biggest civil service union have told the Guardian.
A leaked email from May indicates that senior staff overseeing asylum caseworkers were waiting for “key decisions to be made in the coming weeks” and diverting staff to other tasks.
The number of asylum decisions fell dramatically in the weeks before the July general election, data released last week showed. Between March and June this year, the Home Office made decisions on 15,965 applications, down from 24,348 in the first three months. Only 1,150 asylum interviews took place in June, down from more than 8,000 last October, according to the data.
Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents asylum caseworkers, said:
We’re aware of the slowdown in asylum decisions between March and June but this in no way reflects a lack of effort or performance from our members.
Instead many of our members were diverted on to other workstreams whilst the Illegal Migration Act prevented decisions being made on asylum claims made since March 2023 and the previous government dithered on making the decisions required to unlock these.
Our members tell us that processing of claims has started to ramp up again since replacement arrangements were introduced in the king’s speech.”
You can read the full piece here:
Keir Starmer ‘gets rid of’ 10 Downing Street’s Thatcher portrait
Nadeem Badshah
Keir Starmer has had a portrait of Margaret Thatcher removed from No 10 Downing Street, according to his biographer.
Tom Baldwin said that after Starmer took office he had spoken with the prime minister in Thatcher’s former No 10 study, unofficially known as the Thatcher Room, where a portrait of her was on display.
Speaking at an event organised by Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival, Baldwin said: “We sat there, and I go: ‘It’s a bit unsettling with her staring down as you like that, isn’t it?’”
Starmer replied yes and, when asked whether he would “get rid of it”, the prime minister nodded, according to Baldwin.
Baldwin added: “And he has.”
The portrait of Thatcher, painted by Richard Stone, was commissioned by Gordon Brown and unveiled at a private reception in 2009.
Brown invited Thatcher to tea at Downing Street shortly after he succeeded Tony Blair in 2007 and told her he intended to commission the painting.
The artwork, which cost £100,000 and was paid for by an anonymous donor, was the first of a former prime minister to be commissioned by No 10.
Thatcher chose the jewellery and buttons she was shown wearing in the portrait.
The decision to take down the painting, first reported by the Herald, has been criticised by some in the Conservative party.
Greg Smith, the MP for Mid Buckinghamshire, told the Telegraph the decision was “utter pettiness from Starmer” and claimed that it showed he had “no respect for our history and previous prime ministers”.
You can read the full piece here:
Nurseries will have to provide options to parents rather than charge for additional provisions such as food or nappies during government-funded childcare hours, education minister Jacqui Smith has said.
She told Sky News:
What we’ve been very clear about in our guidance is where providers feel that they need to charge for food, for example, or for nappies within the government-funded childcare hours, that has to be something that is optional, so parents need to be able to provide their own nappies or provide the lunch themselves.
But I do take the point that there is a real challenge for early years providers in delivering this big ramping up of provision.
It is a very good thing, it’s a very good thing for children, and it’s a very good thing for parents in terms of their work choices, but it is something where we need to continue working very hard alongside the providers, and we will do over the next year to make sure that we’ve got those 85,000 extra places and the 40,000 extra staff that will be necessary in order to enable us to get at least close to that entitlement next year.”
Nicola Davis
The Labour minister Patrick Vallance, who helped spearhead the country’s response to the Covid pandemic, has said he would not have served as a minister in a Conservative government.
The former UK government chief scientific adviser was made a peer and appointed science minister this year after Keir Starmer’s party swept to victory in the general election. And he made clear on Thursday that, if he had been asked by Rishi Sunak to consider serving in a Tory government: “I wouldn’t have done, no”.
“As a civil servant, I’m very happy to serve under any government, and would do so because that’s the role of the civil service,” Lord Vallance added. “But as a minister, obviously, you then have [a] political angle to that as well, and that adds a layer of complexity. You can’t be a minister and not part of a political system, and that’s different.”
Last year, Vallance’s private diaries from the Covid pandemic made the headlines, revealing his frustration with the politicians at the heart of government at the time. But he said his main concern was about science not being integrated in the system.
“I am not sure I was individually critical of what ministers were doing,” he said. “What I said was I thought the government as a whole didn’t have a mechanism well enough developed to take science and technology into all the places it needs to be, because I can’t think of a single area of policy or operations where science technology or engineering wouldn’t make a difference,” he told the Guardian.
His comments came alongside the announcement that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has reopened recruitment for a new chief executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
You can read the full piece here:
Education minister Jacqui Smith has pledged that portraits of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher will remain in No 10, amid reports Keir Starmer had one moved after finding it “unsettling”.
Asked if she was ever unsettled by the portrait of the UK’s first female PM, Smith told LBC:
There were several times I was unsettled in No 10 but it wasn’t usually by the portraits, I have to say.
Keir Starmer, can’t win, can he? A few months ago, people were having a go at him because he said he thought he could learn from the leadership of Margaret Thatcher.
Pictures of Margaret Thatcher will remain in No 10. You can take that as a Jacqui pledge, but I think probably Keir Starmer is more concerned about actually sort of cracking on with the job of getting the country to work properly than where the pictures are.”
Education minister Jacqui Smith has dismissed reports of a businesses being forced to accept employees’ demands for a four-day week, saying the government’s plans for flexible working would enable fewer days to be worked through compressed hours.
She told LBC radio:
We think that flexible working is actually good for productivity. So the four-day week that I know is on the front of quite a lot of newspapers today, what we’re actually talking about there is the type of flexible working that enables you to use compressed hours.
So perhaps instead of working eight hours a day for five days, you work 10 hours a day for four days.
So you’re still doing the same amount of work, but perhaps you’re doing it in a way that enables you, for example, to need less childcare, to spend more time with your family, to do other things, that encourages more people into the workplace, which is an enormous part of that growth mission.”
Asked about jobs such as teachers who would not be able to do a four-day week using compressed hours, Smith said:
Well, no, and nor can lots of other people, but that doesn’t mean that those people that can do it shouldn’t have the ability to do it.”
Starmer faces pushback from pubs over ‘bonkers’ outdoor smoking curb plans
Peter Walker
Keir Starmer is on a collision course with the hospitality industry and political opponents after signalling plans for major curbs on outdoor smoking.
The proposals, not denied by the prime minister, would potentially prohibit tobacco use outside pubs and restaurants, including on pavements. The restrictions would come on top of existing plans to gradually outlaw smoking year by year.
While the latter proposal was devised under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives argued restrictions on outdoor smoking were about “social control”, with Priti Patel – among those standing to replace Sunak as Tory leader – calling them “beyond stupid”.
The plans were met with despair by the pub industry, which claimed restrictions on outdoor smoking could harm a fragile sector still recovering from Covid. However, health experts backed the idea, while polling showed it had majority support among every demographic and voting group apart from Reform UK supporters.
The plan, first revealed via documents leaked to the Sun, would restrict outdoor smoking outside pubs and restaurants, as well as clubs, and at universities, children’s play areas and small parks, and potentially shisha bars. It was unclear whether this could also cover vaping.
The measures would be included in an already-announced tobacco and vapes bill, which intends to gradually make all smoking illegal by prohibiting the sale of tobacco to people born on or after January 2009. When this was announced in July’s king’s speech, it did not mention changes to outdoor smoking.
As public health is devolved, the measures would apply to only England, with the other UK nations deciding if they wanted to follow suit.
You can read the full piece by Peter Walker, Sarah Butler and Caroline Davies here:
Outdoor smoking ban would aim to make ‘fewer places where you can actually smoke’ says education minister
Good morning, and welcome to today’s blog, bringing you the latest news across the UK’s political scene.
The government’s outdoor smoking ban will aim to make “fewer places where you actually can smoke”, education minister Jacqui Smith has said.
Responding to calls from industry that an outdoor smoking ban would be another “nail in the coffin” for hospitality, Smith told Sky News:
The biggest nail in the coffin of most people in this country is smoking – 80,000 people die every year from smoking related diseases.”
She added:
We will think about all sorts of different ways, as the last time I was in government, we introduced the smoking ban, the first smoking ban, there was a lot of concern at that point about how it was actually going to work.
I think most people now, including in the hospitality industry, would say our pubs, our restaurants, are much better places because they’re no longer filled with smoke.”
Smith further stated:
What we’re trying to do is to make, both through lifting the age at which you can start smoking, by providing ways in which you can get out of smoking, and by making fewer places where you actually can smoke, we want to make it much more likely that people who are direct active smokers will actually want to give up smoking, and by doing that, safeguard their own health and safeguard the NHS and the pressures that smoking brings on to it.”
More on that in a moment. In other developments:
-
James Cleverly has been accused of increasing the asylum backlog in the spring of this year by “dithering” over key decisions. Ministers under the then home secretary refused to give caseworkers permission to tackle outstanding cases covered by the Illegal Migration Act, departmental sources and the UK’s biggest civil service union have told the Guardian.
-
The Conservative MP Esther McVey has been urged to “get a grip” after she posted a poem about the Holocaust to criticise government plans to introduce outdoor smoking bans. McVey, the MP for Tatton and a former cabinet minister, posted on X the words of Martin Niemöller’s 1946 poem First They Came, about inaction from within Germany against the Nazis.
-
Keir Starmer has been warned against caving in to pressure to water down a ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts, after fresh evidence showing the financial hit for millions in insecure work. Bosses have told the prime minister he risks causing “real damage” for the economy if the government’s proposals for the biggest overhaul in workers’ rights for a generation are pushed through too quickly.
-
Labour risks a serious rift in the UK’s special relationship with the US if it goes ahead with a ban on arms sales to Israel, Donald Trump’s last national security adviser has warned. Robert O’Brien, still one of the key security voices in the Trump circle, said the UK was endangering its future role in the F-35 project as well as facing the risk of US congressional counter-embargos.
-
Keir Starmer has had a portrait of Margaret Thatcher removed from No 10 Downing Street, according to his biographer. The decision to take down the painting, first reported by the Herald, has been criticised by some in the Conservative party.
