The government’s outdoor smoking ban, as stated by education minister Jacqui Smith, aims to reduce the number of places where smoking is allowed. Smith emphasized the health risks associated with smoking, stating that 80,000 people die each year from smoking-related diseases. She highlighted the success of previous smoking bans in improving the environment in pubs and restaurants, and expressed the government’s commitment to reducing smoking rates through various measures, including raising the age to start smoking and limiting the places where smoking is permitted. Smith’s goal is to encourage active smokers to quit, thereby safeguarding their health and reducing the burden on the NHS caused by smoking-related illnesses.
Government seeking to make ‘fewer places where you can smoke’ – UK politics live | Politics
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.
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Badger culling to end in England by 2029, government says
Helena Horton
Badger culling will end in England by 2029, the government has said.
Some culls under existing licences will continue until 2026, according to sources at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), but it is highly unlikely any new ones will be granted.
The National Farmers’ Union has been lobbying government to keep the badger cull until there is definitive proof bovine tuberculosis (bTB) can be stopped without killing badgers.
However, Defra ministers have said not enough research has been done in recent years to find out whether badgers carry the disease.
It is thought more than 200,000 badgers have been culled in the past decade, and the government will commission a population survey to ascertain the damage the cull has done to wildlife populations. The last such survey was carried out in 2012. It will also create a badger vaccination taskforce and set up a scientific survey to find out whether wild badgers are carrying bTB.
Daniel Zeichner, the minister for food security and rural affairs, said:
Bovine tuberculosis has devastated British farmers and wildlife for far too long. It has placed dreadful hardship and stress on farmers who continue to suffer the loss of valued herds and has taken a terrible toll on our badger populations.
No more. Our comprehensive TB eradication package will allow us to end the badger cull by the end of this parliament and stop the spread of this horrific disease.”
You can read the full piece here:
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Ousted MP David Duguid has said he would have won the seat lost by party leader Douglas Ross, reports the PA news agency.
Duguid was barred by Scottish Conservative officials from running for the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat, citing health reasons. Earlier this year, he suffered a spinal stroke and subsequently contracted pneumonia, telling the BBC he “flatlined” on two occasions.
But the former MP – who represented the now defunct Banff and Buchan seat since 2017 – said he would have won the contest Ross lost to the SNP on 4 July.
Asked in an interview with the BBC if the party made the wrong decision in barring him from standing, Duguid said:
Evidently – we lost the seat. I think I would have won it.
The last official communication I had with the party when they came to visit me that last time, I didn’t know Douglas was going to be the candidate.”
He went on to say he “had the incumbency” and constituents “knew me, and I’m a half-decent MP or a fully decent MP”.
He added:
I thought any new candidate was not going to have that incumbency, which may not be worth that many votes, but it could have made a difference between winning or losing.”
The decision of Ross to step into the seat in the days before nominations closed, Duguid said, made the situation “even worse”.
Within days of the decision to stand again for Westminster, Ross announced he would step down as party leader after the election and would quit as an MSP if he won the contest. Ross lost the seat to the SNP’s Seamus Logan by less than 1,000 votes.
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Cleaners and caterers working at the Foreign Office have voted overwhelmingly for strike action in a dispute over pay, reports the PA news agency.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) employed by contractor OCS voted by 100% to reject a pay offer the union said would have given most of them no more than the voluntary living wage of £12 an hour.
PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said:
The results of a PCS cost-of-living survey were presented to OCS which demonstrate the financial pressures our members are under.
Over 50% reported having to skip a meal or not being able to afford to put the heating on in the colder months and 67% said they had come into work when unwell because they can’t afford to take time off to recuperate. This level of financial hardship in a civilised society is completely unacceptable.
Our members have sent a clear message to OCS that they must act now to make an improved offer or face disruptive strike action.
This strike action will be a powerful reminder of how fundamental our members are to keeping the Foreign Office running. The Foreign Office must now consider insourcing the contract in line with the policy of the new government.”
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The SNP needs to win back voters who defected to Labour rather than those who stayed at home, the party’s Westminster leader has said.
The party met for its first conference since the election loss last month which saw them drop dozens of MPs, an event starting with a behind-closed-doors postmortem led by first minister John Swinney.
Speaking to journalists after the session, Stephen Flynn said the party suffered from multiple “self-inflicted wounds” in the election campaign. But with the party having dropped 15% of its share of the vote, and Labour seeing an almost 17% increase, Flynn said the SNP would have to win back those who looked elsewhere.
“I actually think the bigger question there is those SNP voters who didn’t vote for the SNP, who voted for a different party, who voted for the Labour party,” he said. “It’s those people that we need to firstly acknowledge, and we need to win back their support and their trust, and the best way to do that is to get on with the business of delivery.”
The PA news agency reports that when asked about specific issues with the party’s delivery, Flynn referred to an earlier interview on Friday where he said:
While the Scottish people were in the midst of a cost of living crisis, we were having an argument with the UK government about a bottle bank. That breeds frustration within the populace and it’s something which I felt on the doorstep.”
Flynn is referring to the deposit return scheme (DRS), a recycling project which was effectively blocked by the previous UK government. But he added:
I don’t just blame the election result on delivery problems or priority problems.
I blamed it on many of the self inflicted wounds that we’ve had, I’ve acknowledged the fact that, ultimately, the Labour message of change was very crisp and clear and people understood it and believed in it, because they wanted rid of the Tories.”
The challenge for the party, he added, was “how we re-engage, re-imagine what the SNP stands for” that brings the Scottish electorate “back on side” with the party ahead of the 2026 election.
Members who were involved in the “open and frank discussion” on Friday morning, Flynn said, would be “pleased” the party had held the session.
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Updated at 14.21 BST
Prison population hits record high in England and Wales
Rajeev Syal
The prison population of England and Wales has hit a record high, with the number jumping by nearly a thousand in the past four weeks.
The sharp rise is believed to have been driven by the number of jail sentences handed to those found guilty of taking part in recent riots.
A total of 88,350 people were in prison as of 30 August, Ministry of Justice figures show.
This is up 116 from 88,234 a week ago and an increase of 988 from 87,362 four weeks ago on 2 August.
It is the highest end-of-week figure since weekly population data was first published in 2011, according to analysis by the PA news agency.
It also surpasses the highest total ever recorded, which was 88,336 at end the February 2024, based on separate figures for the end-of-month population size.
The riots, fuelled by the far right after the stabbing of three young girls in Southport, came after the Labour government announced emergency measures to ease overcrowding in its first week in power.
Shabana Mahmood, the lord chancellor, set out legislation last month to reduce the amount of time inmates must spend in jail before they are automatically released, lowering it from 50% of their sentence to 40%, in an attempt to manage overcrowding.
She warned that jails becoming too full could spark a breakdown in law and order on the streets within days. Police cells would be filled with arrested suspects and convicted prisoners, she claimed, a situation that could be exploited by looters and criminals.
You can read more on this story here:
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Updated at 13.52 BST
UK immigration strategy increases risk of exploitation, say charities
Diane Taylor
The government’s policy of ramping up immigration raids and detaining and deporting undocumented migrants is driving more people underground and increasing their risks of exploitation, dozens of charities have warned.
In a letter on Friday, coordinated by Migrant Voice, more than 80 organisations including Care4Calais, City of Sanctuary UK, Anti-Slavery International, Doctors of the World UK and Safe Passage International are calling on the home secretary to make it easier for undocumented migrants to regularise their immigration status so they can work with less risk of falling prey to exploitative employers and human trafficking gangs.
On 27 August, the Home Office announced it had conducted a week-long “intensive operation” into illegal working with 275 premises targeted, 135 of them receiving notices for employing illegal workers.
Although the government says it wants to protect vulnerable people exploited by unscrupulous employers, 85 “illegal workers” were detained in the operation.
“While this operation marks an important step forward, our commitment to tackling this issue is ongoing. We will ensure those who break the rules face the full force of the law,” the home secretary said.
The government deported more than 200 people to Brazil this month, the largest single deportation on record. Since Labour came to power there have been at least nine deportation charter flights.
Nazek Ramadan, the director of Migrant Voice, said:
Immigration raids and deportations do not address the fundamental issue that the majority of those who become undocumented in the UK do so through no fault of their own.
Issues such as errors on paperwork or a lack of communication from the Home Office can lead to people who have lived in the UK for decades losing status overnight.
Rather than penalising people for becoming undocumented, this government must take a new approach and create simpler routes for them to regain a documented status.”
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Business groups have reacted to reports that the government will give workers the right to request a “compressed” four-day working week.
Ben Willmott, head of public policy for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the professional body for human resources, said the government should “take stock” of recent rule changes around employment, which allow people to request flexible working when they start new jobs, before making more changes.
He said: “Flexible working arrangements such as compressed hours, job sharing and term-time working can help people balance their work and home life commitments, while also supporting employer efforts to recruit and retain staff.
“However, flexible working has to work for both the business and workers if it’s to be sustainable and this needs to be recognised in any changes to regulation.
“It would make sense for the government to take stock of the impact of recent changes introduced only in April to enable people to request flexible working from day one of employment, before seeking to make further changes.”
Matthew Percival, director of Future of Work at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said flexible working “depends on the job”, and some workforces might not all be able to have flexibility at the same time if it means they cannot meet customer demands.
He said: “Businesses supported making asking for flexible working a day one right because good conversations about what can be mutually beneficial shouldn’t be unduly delayed.
“When the government sets out how it wants to change this law, businesses will be looking to see that it doesn’t become prohibitively difficult or expensive to say ‘no’ to unreasonable requests.”
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Priti Patel hints she might add ‘phenomenal’ Boris Johnson to cabinet if she becomes Tory leader
Priti Patel has become the second Tory leadership candidate to hint they might include former prime minister Boris Johnson as member of a their cabinet should they win the contest.
Asked if she could see Johnson serving in her cabinet, Patel said: “Our party owes Boris Johnson a great deal. He’s a man that won us a 2019 general election and motivated the grassroots, and actually was a true leader. He really was.
“That’s a matter for him now, obviously, in terms of his choices, what he chooses to do going forward.”
She added: [Johnson] has just been phenomenal to our party and actually for our country, in my view, as well.”
Last Wednesday, Robert Jenrick told the Telegraph he would be “delighted” to include Johnson in his shadow cabinet if he won the Tory leadership contest.
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Updated at 15.27 BST
Tory leadership hopeful Priti Patel has declared herself the candidate who will make the Tories “compelling and attractive to young people”.
Just 8% of under-30s voted for the Conservatives at the last general election. In comparison, 9% of 18 to 24-year-olds and 10% of 25 to 29-year-olds voted for Reform UK, while 41% of the younger group and 45% of the slightly older group ticked their box for Labour.
Patel was questioned by a young party activist who said she found it a “hard sell” to convince her friends to vote Tory.
She said: “When I joined the Conservative party 30 years ago, we were the party for young people, and we had the energy, the enthusiasm, and that’s where we need to be all over again.”
She added: “The Conservative party used to be the party for young people because if you wanted to work hard, succeed, get on in life, this was the place to be – and I can tell you now, under my leadership, that’s exactly what I will do.
“I will make us compelling and attractive. Show that if you want to get on in life, this is the party that can absolutely represent you and others, a whole generation of young people, because that’s who we are, as Conservatives.”
On reports Keir Starmer had moved a portrait of Margaret Thatcher in No 10, she said: “I think it tells us everything really about his priorities.
“His priorities are not on serving the country, his priorities are literally just about tinkering at the margins, hiding behind great portraits of great Conservative female prime ministers. That’s why we need to get him out of office.”
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Updated at 15.29 BST
Environmental protesters – including John Swinney’s former teacher – have declared the Scottish first minister must “try harder to protect the climate”, reports the PA news agency.
Caro Wilkinson, who taught Swinney German when he was a pupil at Forrester High in Edinburgh, was among a group of campaigners from the Edinburgh Climate Coalition to stage a demonstration as the SNP conference got under way.
According to the PA news agency, she recalled her former student as being “intelligent and caring”, adding:
His kindness was clear when he organised a class whip-round when I was pregnant to buy me a teddy bear for my new baby.”
However, she also insisted the first minister was “clever enough to know how urgent the threat of climate change is”, adding that she hoped he “cares enough for the planet to take the action that’s needed”.
Wilkinson said:
If he does, he’ll speak out against the huge Rosebank oilfield, reject the proposed Peterhead gas-fired power station and do what he can to put the Scottish government back on course to fight climate change.”
The conference comes after the Scottish government ditched its target to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030 – although ministers insist they are still committed to the overall goal of reaching net zero by 2045.
‘No more climate betrayal’
Protesters from the Edinburgh Climate Coalition have gathered outside the Edinburgh International Conference Centre on the first day of the SNP’s conference pic.twitter.com/dd5yGu7pLe
— The National (@ScotNational) August 30, 2024
Commenting after the protest, Edinburgh Climate Coalition spokesperson Luke Henderson said:
People around the world are already suffering from the impacts of changed climate in fires, floods and landslides, but the Scottish government is going backwards and slowing down the action that will improve lives and cut climate pollution.
Renewable energy is already far cheaper than new fossil fuels whilst solutions like making public transport more affordable and accessible will help more people get to where they need to be.”
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Priti Patel denounced prime minister Keir Starmer’s No 10 speech earlier this week as “one of the most feeble, pitiful and dishonest speeches you will ever hear”.
Priti Patel speaking at a Conservative party leadership campaign event at the Lindley Hall in London on Friday. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Speaking at her leadership campaign event in London on Friday, Patel said:
Earlier this week, we had the spectacle of a Labour prime minister standing in the rose garden of Downing Street, delivering one of the most feeble, pitiful and dishonest speeches you will ever hear.
He was feeble in his claim to say that he was tough with the trade unions in pay negotiations. That was after he immediately rolled over to appease his paymasters at the expense of the British taxpayer.
He was pitiful to claim that he is locking up criminals after spending years in parliament voting against tougher prison sentences for violent criminals and sex offenders, and campaigning to block the deportation of dangerous foreign national offenders.
He was completely dishonest with his complaints and his claims about the British economy that he has inherited, which were clearly made to justify his nasty financial assault on the very people who deserve dignity in their retirement.”
She added:
All we have seen over the last 56 days is a Labour government of self-service, politics without principle.”
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Updated at 15.31 BST
Priti Patel has launched her Conservative leadership campaign in London promising to get the party “back to winning ways”, reports the PA news agency.
Patel said:
The Conservative and Unionist party is the greatest political party in the world, and I’m proud to stand here today for its leadership. Under my leadership, I will bring our party experience and strength, and I will get us back to winning ways.”
She added:
I have heard loud and clear what the British people have had to say, and while we will reflect and learn on the lessons, under my leadership our party will be firmly focused on the future.
So today, eight weeks on, our attitude will change, and we will draw a line in the sand because it’s time to move on and move forward.
I’m an optimist with clear goals, and I will revive our party so that we can provide the leadership that our great country needs, because conservativism has not failed.
Our values and our principles remain as true as ever, and they are still shared by the majority of the public.”
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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”.
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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.”
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Read the full story on www.theguardian.com
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/aug/30/government-outdoor-smoking-ban-keir-starmer-uk-politics-live