What is a windfall tax? BP profits more than double to £23 billion

Seren Morris,Lowenna Waters,Nuray Bulbul and William Mata
Tue, 7 February 2023 


BP has announced that its annual profits more than doubled to £23 billion in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It follows Shell last week reporting a £32.2 billion profit, the largest in its 115-year history — also attributed to a rise in gas prices following Russia’s invasion.

In announcing its profit on Tuesday, BP said that it had cut its pledge to lower emissions and is now expected to double down on the production of gas and oil.

The announcement triggered new calls for a windfall tax to be placed on energy giants to fund support for households struggling during the cost of living crisis.

But what is a windfall tax? Here’s everything you need to know.

What is a windfall tax?

A windfall tax is a one-off tax that the Government imposes on a company or a group of companies when they benefit from something that happened outside their control.

Energy companies are benefiting from the increased demand for energy following the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Who is calling for a windfall tax on oil and gas companies?

Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, said: “As the British people face an energy price hike of 40 per cent in April, Rishi Sunak is letting the fossil-fuel companies making bumper profits off the hook with his refusal to do a proper windfall tax. Labour would stop the energy price cap going up in April.”

Last year, he said: “Another day, another oil and gas company making billions in profits, and yet another day when the Government shamefully refuses to act with a windfall tax to bring down bills.”

Richard Burgon, Labour MP for Leeds East, posted on Twitter: “Shell just reported record profits of £32,000,000,000. Such outrageous profits are why your bills are so high.

“We need to hike the Windfall Tax so North Sea oil and gas giants don’t make a single penny in excess profits off the back of higher energy bills for ordinary people.”

Another Labour MP, Nadia Whittome, who represents Nottingham East, said: “Not everyone is suffering from a cost-of-living crisis. In 2022, Shell made £32,200,000,000 in profit — by far the most in its entire history. Time to end this profiteering from misery. Instead of another bill hike, we need a proper windfall tax.”

Philip Evans, Greenpeace UK’s oil and gas campaigner, last year called for a windfall tax. “By using a big chunk of the bloated profits that Shell, BP, and others are raking in, to make homes warmer, more energy efficient, and kitted out with heat pumps, the Government could start to really tackle the climate and cost of living crises simultaneously,” he said.

Protesters shut 40 of Shell’s London garages

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What has the Government said about a windfall tax?

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt revealed in the Autumn Budget that he would be increasing the windfall tax paid by energy companies.

“I have no objection to windfall taxes if they are genuinely about windfall profits caused by unexpected increases in energy prices,” he said.

“But any such tax should be temporary, not deter investment, and recognise the cyclical nature of energy businesses.”

Mr Hunt said that from January 1 until March 2028, the Government would increase the Energy Profits Levy from 25 per cent to 35 per cent.

Furthermore, the Government will introduce a temporary 45 per cent levy on electricity generators. Mr Hunt said that increasing these taxes would raise £14 billion next year.

How one African country is putting a multi-million dollar price on its nature


Tue, 7 February 2023 

A view of forest by the water’s edge in Gabon (Emily Beament/PA)

Health is an unorthodox economic commodity. Its value, barely acknowledged when we have it, becomes priceless when we don’t. The instant a person falls seriously ill, finding a cure is immediately more important than the price paid for it. The same asymmetry in valuation applies to the health of our planet.

For centuries, the value humankind placed on the environment was nothing compared to the valuation given to economic development. European colonialists arriving in 19th-century New Zealand received compensation to cut and burn down its vast temperate rainforests. The market of the day valued sheep pasture over biodiversity. Those rules are changing – thanks to the mounting evidence that the climate and biodiversity crises are fundamentally interlinked, for better or worse. Putting a price on nature and creating a market that can finance efforts to protect and restore is, therefore, mission-critical if we’re serious about saving our planet and securing our shared prosperity.

That is the context in which my country, Gabon, can now offer a new financial instrument, the issuance of 90 million tons of sovereign carbon credits – the world’s largest – to transform global carbon markets with the speed and scale needed to make an impact. The voluntary carbon market is growing exponentially - up 60 per cent in 2021 to a total traded value of just under $2 billion – and they have a crucial role in scaling up nature-based solutions.


But given the current size of the market – only 344 million tonnes traded last year – sovereign carbon credits need to be part of the solution. Today, a market that has up-to-date traded on carbon credits from piecemeal projects focused in particular areas is being presented with a different model – a whole nation committed to green growth that delivers for people, nature and the planet. Gabon has laid out its entire environmental policy portfolio and territorial estate, from sea to shining rainforest. It is precisely the kind of transformative moment needed by the voluntary carbon market - still new, somewhat fragmented – towards its journey to maturity.

The compliance market, worth a multibillion-dollar annual turnover, shows the scale of the environmental financing available.

Now, Gabon can shift the dial in the voluntary market by offering a tranche of what might be regarded as” gilt-edged” carbon credits. I do not believe applying “gilt-edged”, a term usually reserved for high-grade bonds issued by national governments and private organizations, to Gabon’s carbon credits is an exaggeration. The scrutiny applied by experts from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was extraordinary in judging the impact of Gabon’s policy interventions from 2010-2018.

It was an exhaustive and, at times, exhausting experience that took us more than four years and several rounds of review. But from our point of view, this investment of time and comprehensive effort was made well worth it just ahead of COP27 with the UNFCCC’s final assessment. With our rich forests, which cover 88 per cent of our land mass, we had long known we were better than net-zero for carbon emissions as our forests take in much more carbon than our 2.3 million-strong population produce.

UNFCCC confirmed a baseline between 2000 and 2009 of 107,186,873 tonnes of CO2 taken out annually from the world’s atmosphere. Against this stringent baseline, Gabon was then evaluated to the extent to which its implemented policy portfolio (effectively its `good behaviors’) had taken yet more CO2 from the atmosphere. The answer was clear: From 2010-2018, an additional 90,636,103 tonnes had been removed from the atmosphere nationwide. It is based upon this assessment that we are today able to bring to market a tranche of 90,636,103 sovereign carbon credits. It is not just the UNFCCC retrospective research that makes our credits a class above. Gabon’s use of the proceeds from the sale of these credits makes them even more valuable. We are keen to show the multiplier effect of how those earnings will cascade down through our economy.

The plan is clear, a four-way split. A quarter of earnings from the sale of Gabon’s carbon credits will be reinvested directly into the forest through initiatives that will split the funding between rural development, i.e., the forest, its conservation and communities. Health, education and national infrastructure will take up 25% of the proceeds and the remaining 50% will be equally divided between sovereign fund investments to benefit future generations and debt relief. Each stage will be subject to public scrutiny and transparent accounting, a commitment that, once again, marks out sovereign carbon credits as a strong new player in the global carbon market.

In Gabon, we are proud to be first and are fully aware others will follow when we succeed.

Honduras has strongly indicated it will be the second nation to go down this route. It will not be the last. The crux of the matter, if we are to keep our planet healthy, is that we must tackle both climate and nature crises at the same time, with equal force and focus. It is why Gabon is betting on monetizing its efforts to safeguard the Congo Basin, the world’s largest carbon sink and our last line of defence in the fight against climate change. This region constitutes one of the most important wilderness areas left on Earth, covering five other countries with a 1.2 million square mile area.

What was once the “lungs” of Africa now services the world, as the Amazon has become a net emitter. If we lose our forests, every other measure becomes as pointless as putting a band-aid on a broken leg. The world has come to a defining moment – a challenge to wealthier nations and Global Business to test the veracity of their climate commitments to tackle environmental change and protect nature.

Gabon’s sovereign carbon credits present a tangible and ready tool to mobilize capital at scale towards mitigating climate change and improving the lives and livelihoods of billions across the continent and the globe. They also present a vital opportunity to shape a stronger global carbon market towards impact at scale. Gabon is happy to go “all in” but we can’t continue to go it alone.

Akim Mohamed Daouda is the Chief Executive Officer of Gabon’s Sovereign Wealth Fund

Further food price rises could cause up to 1 million additional deaths in 2023


Peter Alexander, 

Senior lecturer in Global Food Security,

 The University of Edinburgh

The Conversation
Mon, 6 February 2023 

Wheat prices are up 34% in two years. 

LALS STOCK / shutterstock

Food prices in the UK are at their highest for 15 years and something similar is happening in almost every country around the world.

The situation is set to get worse as high fertiliser prices, and resulting lower yields from reduced use, may cause further food inflation in 2023. My co-authors and I recently published research in Nature Food which suggests these price rises will lead to many people’s diets becoming poorer, with up to 1 million additional deaths and 100 million more people undernourished.

This isn’t just happening because of reductions in food exports from Ukraine and Russia, which are less of a driver of food price rises than feared. And unlike previous food price spikes higher food prices may be set to last. This could be the end of an era of cheap food.

Disruption to food and fertiliser markets

While commodity prices have come down from the peaks of mid-2022, they remain high. At the end of 2022, the global price of maize was up 29% and wheat up 34% since January 2021. This has fed food price inflation, for example in the UK 16.8% inflation in the year to December 2022. Two of the main drivers for these increases are higher energy prices and disruptions to international trade, both with strong links to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Line graph

Sanctions and other war-related trade disruptions were high profile, yet appear to have diverted attention away from the more important issue. Energy prices affect food prices directly by increasing the costs of agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, since natural gas is used to make nitrogen fertiliser and accounts for 70%-80% of the total cost of fertiliser production. Additionally, farmers may respond by using less, which leads to lower crop yields, pushing up food prices further.

From 2021 to 2022, urea (a common nitrogen fertiliser) almost doubled in price and natural gas more than doubled, although both are below their mid-2022 peaks. These changes led to cuts in nitrogen fertiliser production as plants became uneconomic, particularly in Europe where 70% of production capacity has been curtailed.
Impacts in 2023 and beyond

In our study, we attempted to better understand how energy and fertiliser price rises and export restrictions affect future global food prices. And we wanted to quantify the scale of harm that hikes in the price of food could have on human nutritional health and the environment. We did this using a global land-use computer model (LandSyMM) which simulates the effects of export restrictions and spikes in production costs on food prices, health and land use.

Two men behind large cheeses

We found that surging energy and fertiliser prices have by far the greatest impact on food security, with reduced food exports from Ukraine and Russia having less impact on prices. The combined effect of export restrictions, increased energy and fertiliser prices could cause food commodity prices to rise by 81% from 2021 levels.

Such a rise would imply wheat prices increasing in 2023 by the same percentage again as they did in 2022. While the cost of wheat is only a part of the cost of bread, in the UK the average price of a large wholemeal loaf of bread rose from £1.09 at the start of the year to £1.31 at the end. If the inflation rate continues through 2023, that loaf would cost £1.57.

Chart showing average price of bread over the years

Export restrictions account for only a small fraction of the simulated price rises. Halting exports from Russia and Ukraine would increase food costs in 2023 by 2.6%, while spikes in energy and fertiliser prices would cause a 74% rise.
Too expensive to eat well

Food price rises will lead to many people’s diets becoming poorer, especially those with the lowest incomes. Our findings suggest there could be up to 1 million additional deaths and more than 100 million people undernourished if high fertiliser prices continue. The greatest increases in deaths would be in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, as people become unable to afford sufficient food for a healthy diet.

Our modelling estimates that sharp increases in the cost of fertilisers – which are key to producing high yields – would greatly reduce their use by farmers. Without fertilisers more agricultural land is needed to produce the world’s food. By 2030 this could increase agricultural land by 200 million hectares, an area the size of much of Western Europe – Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain plus the UK combined. This would mean lots more deforestation and carbon emissions, and a huge loss of biodiversity.

While almost everyone will feel the effects of higher food costs, it’s the poorest people in society, who already struggle to afford enough healthy food, who will be hit hardest.

Subsidising fertilisers may seem an obvious solution to a problem created in large part by the high cost of fertiliser. However, this just maintains a food system which has given us an obesity epidemic, left millions malnourished, contributes to climate change and is the main factor in the loss of biodiversity.

Targeted actions to ensure healthy and nutritious food is affordable for everyone may be more cost effective in reducing negative consequences from higher food prices and help to transform the food system to a healthier and more sustainable future.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Peter Alexander receives funding from UKRI.

Loopholes wide enough to 'drive a diesel truck through' -- how to tell if a business is really net zero


Ian Thomson, 

Director of the Centre for Responsible Business, 

University of Birmingham
The Conversation

Tue, 7 February 2023 

The science is clear: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must peak before 2025 to prevent planetary warming exceeding 1.5℃. The solution is simple: stop doing and investing in things that emit GHGs and instead protect the natural systems that remove them from the atmosphere.

Disclosure of a company’s emissions should then let consumers and investors make informed decisions. But businesses are rarely required to disclose all of the emissions generated in their full “lifecycle”.

For example, the UK’s Cumbria coal mine, which was approved in December, will produce 2.8 million tonnes of coking coal each year for the steelmaking industry without accounting for the emissions produced when this coal is burned. These emissions instead represent the responsibility of the steel industry.

The Cumbria coal mine has made no claims regarding net zero. But other fossil fuel companies have used this reporting ambiguity to claim they are on target to becoming net zero despite the use of their products being responsible for almost three-quarters of global GHG emissions. Consumers or investors will then probably make decisions that result in emissions being generated at unsustainable levels. Since joining the United Nations (UN) Net Zero Banking Alliance, 56 banks have provided US$270 billion (£221 billion) worth of finance to fossil fuel companies.

But the actions of the UK government and several large businesses offer promise. The government now requires firms competing for major government contracts to report their full lifecycle emissions.

Read more: Exxon scientists accurately forecast climate change back in the 1970s – what if we had listened to them and acted then?
Understanding this absurdity

An organisation’s climate impact can be made immediately clear by separating their GHG emissions into four groups or scopes.

Scope 1 refers to GHG emissions generated directly by business activities up to point of sale. Scope 2 refers to the emissions related to the generation of the energy purchased by a business. The emissions generated in the production and delivery of a business’s resources are called scope 3 upstream, and scope 3 downstream accounts for all emissions after a product or service has been sold.

Current guidance only requires a business, like the operator of the Cumbrian coke mine, to report their scope 1 and 2 emissions. Yet a report conducted in 2020 by global management consultant McKinsey found that these emissions only account for between 14% and 25% of the coal sector’s total emissions. The majority of the GHG emissions associated with coal mining are therefore not disclosed.

The majority of the emissions associated with a coal mine are not disclosed. 

Sergey Borisov_88/Shutterstock

Calculating scope 3 emissions

But these emissions are essential for determining the carbon footprint of an organisation and are relatively straight forward to calculate.

The UN has published a standard called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol that details how to calculate scope 3 emissions. And most of the goods, services, materials and equipment used by businesses have readily available GHG conversion factors.

These factors allow us to convert activities like driving into their associated GHG emissions. The GHG conversion factor for driving the average car for a kilometre is 0.171 kg of CO₂e. By driving a car 100 km, we would emit 171 kg of CO₂e.

In the case of burning coking coal, we can rely on the laws of physics and chemistry. Burning coal involves a combustion process where the carbon in the coal reacts with oxygen to produce CO₂. Using the government’s GHG conversion factors, we know that burning a tonne of coking coal produces 3.14 tonnes of CO₂, regardless of what you use it for or where it is used.

By multiplying this conversion factor by the total amount of coking coal extracted from the Cumbria plant (2.8 million tonnes), we obtain a reliable measure of the emissions generated by burning the plant’s coal – 8.8 million tonnes of CO₂. Roughly the same amount of emissions would be produced by driving a car 1.3 million times around the Earth. These are scope 3 emissions that are largely ignored when determining whether a coal mine is net zero.

Applying this in practise

Companies are best placed to estimate the future GHG emissions that arise from the use of their products. Car manufacturers, for example, have the data necessary to predict the future emissions generated by their vehicles. They know the expected lifetime mileage of their models sold and the fuel type that their vehicles use.

Some organisations already calculate their scope 3 emissions and provide this information willingly. Microsoft have a tool that measures the GHG emissions of your cloud software that runs off the internet usage and estimates the emissions avoided by using the cloud. And global chemical producer BASF publish publicly available information on the GHG emissions associated with their products along their full lifecycle.

This should allow consumers and investors to make more informed decisions.

The future emissions of other activities, such as land use change, are more difficult to measure. Yet from 2010 to 2019, deforestation is estimated to have caused between 5.9 and 9.5% of total GHG emissions. Initiatives like the UN Land Sector and Removals Guidance, which is set for publication in 2023, will produce GHG conversion factors for land use change and will enable a more accurate evaluation of the climate impact of these activities.

At the latest UN climate change summit (COP27), Secretary-General António Guterres criticised the current criteria for net zero commitments for having loopholes wide enough to “drive a diesel truck through”. Measuring scope 3 emissions is crucial to accurately assess how far an organisation is progressing towards net zero. To prevent climate breakdown, more businesses must be required to disclose what many of them already know.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ian Thomson receives funding from Research England and G17Eco for projects related to climate accounting and finance as part of University of Birmingham's Centre for Responsible Business. He is affiliated with the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research, an academic network focussing on sustainability related accountability and a member of the West Midlands Leadership Board of Business in the Community.

UK

As the detective who inspired TV’s Prime Suspect, I know this: the misogyny of David Carrick lives on

Jackie Malton
Tue, 7 February 2023 

Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

We have now heard for the first time from David Carrick’s victims – the women a serving Met police officer raped, controlled, threatened and abused. Their victim statements, read out by prosecutor Tom Little during Carrick’s sentencing hearing on Monday, painted a picture of terror, violence and control; of being made to feel “worthless”, “degraded”, “ashamed”, “like a piece of dirt on his shoe”.

I hope that Carrick’s sentencing for his 49 offences will bring some sense of closure to his victims. But it should offer no sense of an ending to the Metropolitan police. Because a running thread in the victims’ statements was Carrick’s job. He was not just a police officer who happened to be a rapist – he used his badge, his status, and even his police firearm to threaten and coerce women. “Every time I see a police car,” one victim said, “I freeze and hold my breath.” The Met failed to properly vet Carrick, and failed to take action following eight complaints about his conduct with women.

More than 30 years ago, I voiced my own experiences as a female detective chief inspector (DCI) to the writer Lynda La Plante, to inform her groundbreaking TV drama, Prime Suspect, and its lead character, DCI Jane Tennison (played by Helen Mirren). I recounted the bigotry of an institution dominated by white men, and the impact it had on the way police forces investigated crimes, based on lazy assumptions about victims of sexual assaults and domestic violence. The show’s transmission led to a flurry of debate about the cult of masculinity within policing.

Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect. Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock


On some fronts, huge progress has been made since that time: I was one of only three female DCIs in the Met when I first began working as a consultant on Prime Suspect, and all chief constables in the country were male. Now, many of them are women. Yet despite the changed leadership profile and greater societal repudiation of discrimination, it appears that a toxic culture of misogyny and racism still pervades in some parts of the organisation. Collective jaws dropped to the floor in 2021 when the then serving officer Wayne Couzens was found to be the man responsible for the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard. Then there was evidence of deeply disturbing misogynist and racist views in some pockets of the Met.

And there is clearly more bad news to come. The Met is in the process of reviewing 1,633 cases of domestic violence or sexual abuse, relating to accusations levelled against 1,071 officers and police staff over the last decade, to check the appropriate decisions were made. A new hotline for the public, set up by the Met, is generating new cases – some relating to police officers in other forces. Met commissioner Mark Rowley has already warned of “more painful stories” ahead.

When it comes to turning the culture around, it is vital that officers are able to speak up about concerns they may have about colleagues – yet this is difficult in a job where a strong team spirit is integral, and where any raising of issues risks being seen as “letting the side down”. I speak from experience. In the mid-1980s, I endured a harrowing year after reporting the concerns of “Stella”, a colleague who suspected someone higher up the ranks of wrongdoing. The officer in charge of our station was furious that I had reported it through the appropriate channels, rather than keeping it in-house. It wasn’t only his wrath that I had to contend with, but also that of colleagues.

Word soon got around that “Stella” and I had reported one of “our own”. A group of officers manifested their disgust by standing up and walking out when I went to get a cup of tea in the canteen. I was told of graffiti in the men’s toilets about my sexuality, and – in what seemed unlikely to be a coincidence – appalling porn was pushed through my letter box at home at midnight. “Stella” had it no easier, with excrement smeared on her car handle and her tyres deflated. When she moved on to a new station, she was told there was a “trust” issue as a result of her reporting on a senior colleague – even though she had been proved to be right. Should she ever need “urgent assistance” on the streets, she was told, none would be forthcoming.

Related: David Carrick sent victim photo of gun and told her: ‘I am the boss,’ court told

This occurred almost 40 years ago but it seems that on this front, not enough has changed, as an October 2022 interim report into the culture and standards at the Met by Louise Casey recently laid bare. “Too often”, said the report, people who had reported wrongdoing said that they found the system “stacked against them”. Many officers and staff said that they were made to feel as if they were the problem for speaking up. “We heard that supervisors and managers are actively dissuading their staff from reporting misconduct,” the report continued. A police officer has told Sky News that she, too, was raped by Carrick, but didn’t report it because it would have been “the end of my career”; that colleagues would have “laughed” in response.

After Casey’s report came out, Rowley vowed to root out racist and misogynist behaviour in the Met; leaders who turn a blind eye, he said, are “as guilty as the offender”. He is right. Ultimately, nothing will change until leaders right across the organisation make raising concern about colleagues a less punitive and lonely experience. Elsewhere, reviews triggered by ministers are under way around vetting, disciplinaries and dismissals.

All eyes are now on Rowley, with much at stake: without the public’s engagement, police officers will struggle to do their job, and our streets will be less safe. Added to that, we risk losing talented police officers who are fed up with being tarred with the same brush.

There’s no way round the fact that meaningful change in an organisation as vast as the Met will take time. Rowley has already warned that kicking out those not fit to wear the uniform won’t be a speedy affair, and it is likely to be a painful one too. To get on with the job, he needs to be free of the usual kneejerk expectation from politicians in search of quick results. Patience is the order of the day.

As told to Hélène Mulholland. Jackie Malton is a former senior police officer who inspired the character of DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect. She is the author, with Hélène Mulholland, of The Real Prime Suspect: from the beat to the screen

Insulate Britain protester faces prison over contempt of court conviction

Damien Gayle

The Guardian
Mon, 6 February 2023

Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

A supporter of the Insulate Britain climate protest campaign faces a prison sentence after he was convicted for contempt of court for telling a jury his actions were motivated by the climate crisis.

David Nixon was one of four defendants found guilty at Inner London crown court on Monday for causing a public nuisance by blocking the junction of Bishopsgate and Wormwood St in the City of London on 25 October 2021.

The four were among a group of protesters who walked out into the busy junction during morning rush hour. Some used superglue to stick their hands to the asphalt to make it more difficult for police to clear the area.

The action was part of an extended campaign of disruptive protest by Insulate Britain, calling for the government to begin a programme to retrofit every single home in the country with insulation.

The judge, Silas Reid, told the defendants at the beginning of the trial last week not to cite climate change as one of their motivations for taking part in the protest.

But as closing speeches were made in court on Monday, Nixon turned to the jury and, in reference to evidence that an estimated 8,500 bus passengers’ journeys were affected by their protest, said: “Coincidentally, 8,500 people is the amount of people estimated to have died in cold homes. This is significant and substantial.”

As Reid directed the jury to leave the court, Nixon continued: “That’s before moving on to climate change. Posters around the court building are saying that we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.

“You’ve not been able to hear these truths because this court has not allowed me to say them. Our safety is at risk, our society is at risk.

“I have only one apology: that Insulate Britain did not get our demand met.”

After the jury of seven women and six men jury returned, Reid told them to disregard Nixon’s statements. No application was made for them to be discharged, and he ruled the trial could continue.

He told jurors: “This is not a trial about climate change, fuel poverty, etc. Matters relating to that are not relevant to your deliberations, no matter how much Mr Nixon wants them to be.”

In a short subsequent hearing while the jury went out to consider their verdict, Nixon admitted contempt and declined two offers from Reid to apologise to the court, telling the judge: “I wish I could but I don’t think it would be genuine.”

Reid adjourned contempt proceedings until Tuesday, when he said he would pass a sentence on Nixon. “It seems to me inevitable that there will be a custodial sentence for this because of the nature of the contempt,” he said.

The jury returned to court and found the four protesters guilty.

Nixon was standing trial alongside Kai Bartlett, Alyson Lee and Christian Murray-Leslie. Reid said he would sentence them at a later hearing.

SIR KEIR'S NICER TORY PARTY

Don’t cut the army, says Labour as it positions itself as the party of security

Kim Sengupta

Mon, 6 February 2023 

The government needs to rearm the British military to keep Ukraine supplied and to ensure the country is the lead European state in Nato, Labour’s defence spokesman will say in a keynote speech.

Positioning Labour as the party of security for Britain, John Healey will call for a halt to cuts in the Army and a strategic pact with European partners to face challenges in an increasingly dangerous world.

Speaking at RUSI (Royal United Service Institute) in London ahead of next month’s publication of the Integrated Review, Mr Healey will call for urgent action to repair a military that defence secretary Ben Wallace acknowledges is “hollowed out and underfunded”.

A Labour government, he will pledge, would conduct a Strategic Defence and Security Review within its first year in government, and carry out a “Nato test” on major projects during its first 100 days to ensure Britain is on track to meet its Alliance commitment.

Mr Healey holds that the Ukraine war may continue until next year. He will say “the next government will inherit the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s wider aggression. With a general election, there may be a change to Labour but there will be no change to Britain’s resolve in confronting Russia’s threats, pursuing Putin’s crimes and standing with Ukraine”.

In the meantime, the shadow defence secretary will call on Rishi Sunak’s government to “set out a stockpiles strategy to maintain military help to Ukraine and replenish our armed forces, reform defence procurement, and publish a 2023 Action Plan for Ukraine”.

John Healey, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence speaks to delegates during the Labour Party conference on September 27, 2022 in Liverpool, England (Getty Images)

The government needs, he will say, to “give the highest priority to security in Europe, the Atlantic and the Arctic – our Nato area, ensure our UK commitments to the alliance are fulfilled in full and halt further cuts to the British Army”.

The Tories also must “fix their post-Brexit blind spot over Europe to seek a security pact with the EU and new defence agreements with leading European allies like Germany to make Brexit work and keep Europe safe”, he will say.

Amid warnings from current and former senior commanders that the UK’s munitions arsenal is dwindling with munitions being sent to Ukraine, Mr Healey will call for an overhaul of a “wasteful peacetime procurement system”.

Domestic manufacturing needs to be urgently geared up to “maintain UK military help to Ukraine and restock weapons and ammunition for our own armed forces ... We need to shift parts of our defence industry and MoD procurement onto an urgent operational footing ... to replenish UK stocks for any future conflict”.

https://www.trilateral.org/people/sir-keir-starmer

Sir Keir Starmer - The Trilateral Commission 

Sir Keir Starmer is Member of the British Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition in the British Parliament in London.

Too many LGBT people have heard ‘the words of rejection’ from Church of England

Gwyn Wright, PA
Mon, 6 February 2023 

Too many LGBT people have heard “the words of rejection” from the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Justin Welby made the remarks in his opening address to the General Synod 2023, the national assembly of the Church of England, which will debate its policy on blessings for same-sex couples.

The church’s recently announced policy of allowing blessing for same-sex couples but not their marriage in church buildings has caused controversy.


Mr Welby said: “Where people find it difficult to believe what Christians say about God’s great love for them because they have been excluded, or made to conceal their identity, or made to feel in some way less, they have not been spoken to in Christian.

“Along the way, too many people, especially around sexuality, have heard the words of rejection that human tongues create.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby speaks during a Church of England press conference in January (PA)

He described the church as having a history of antisemitism, racism, slavery and “collusion with the evil structures of power – look at how we have and do treat those with different sexualities”.

The church’s desire for unity has often made casualties of “those who are different”, he said.

He added: “We have deep and passionately held differences but let us not fall into caricaturing those among us who don’t agree with us as those who are trying to construct their lives away from God. The evidence is far from that.”

The church does not exist to “avoid or endorse wokery” and should reject being dragged into culture wars, the Archbishop said.

Instead he urged Anglicans to unite and accept “the unity we desire is not one based around agreeing in everything”.

During his 15-minute address, he also said the NHS is “in crisis”, the education system “misses out on aspiration for the poorest” and “care systems and housing … do not reach those most desperately in need”.

Mr Welby also said the absence of ‘strong family life’ causes more children to suffer from mental health conditions and leads to ’emotional trauma’ in adults (PA)

His comments could be interpreted as thinly veiled criticisms of government policy.

Mr Welby also lamented the absence of “strong family life”, which he claims causes more children to suffer from mental health conditions and leads to “emotional trauma” in adults.

He added: “We live in a time of danger and crisis, the greatest since the terrors of World War Two, terrors worse now because of advanced technology.”

The Synod, at Church House in Westminster, London, will sit until Thursday.

Same-sex blessings will be debated on Wednesday afternoon. The issue is also expected to be raised in question-and-answer sessions on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

The Synod will also debate safeguarding and the cost of living. Earlier on Monday, attendees were reminded the gathering is not a single-issue Synod.

Muslim leaders warn Archbishop over impact of same-sex blessings on schoolchildren

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/uk-muslim-leaders-warn-archbishop-over.html

Same-sex marriage row looms over Church of England synod

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/same-sex-marriage-row-looms-over-church.html

UK

Officials warned they did not have enough time to assess energy support plans

August Graham, PA Business Reporter
Mon, 6 February 2023 


Civil servants warned ministers that they did not have enough time to properly assess some of the energy support packages that will together cost the taxpayer about £69 billion, an official report has found.

The programmes were rushed through after ministers had held off announcing extra support because they were waiting for the Conservative leadership election to play out.

It meant that civil servants only had three weeks to put a full plan in place after Liz Truss in September announced the Energy Price Guarantee. The scheme capped bills for households at 34p per unit of electricity and 10.3p for gas.

They also only had a short time to assess an equivalent scheme for businesses.

A report from the National Audit Office (NAO) reveals that the accounting officer for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) had raised objections to both schemes.

The accountant was given so-called “ministerial direction” – where politicians push ahead with a scheme despite the concerns of officials.

The accounting officer said that the pace at which the business support had been developed brought “inevitable risks”. They also said that small rates of fraud in the household scheme would have “significant financial impacts”, the NAO said.

In May last year, then chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £400 payment to each household in the country.

However, as the months dragged on, it became clear that this would not be enough to protect thousands of vulnerable families.

Boris Johnson, who said in early July that he would resign, refused to announce extra support. It was an issue for his successor, he said.

But that successor – Liz Truss – did not get into office until early September.

With bills expected to spike at £3,549 for the average household from October, she needed to get something in place quickly.

This left civil servants with just weeks to put her ideas into practice.

The National Audit Office said that the Government had to “make compromises” to ensure that support reached the places it was needed on time.

As a result, the taxpayer ended up supporting households that could have managed fine on their own, the NAO said.

So far, £16.3 billion has been paid out as part of the three biggest schemes.

The Energy Bill Support Scheme (EBSS) – the plan to give every household £400 which Rishi Sunak announced in May while still Chancellor – had cost £7.7 billion by the end of December.

The Energy Price Guarantee – Liz Truss’s household support – had cost £7 billion.

Meanwhile, the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which helps businesses, had cost £1.6 billion.

BEIS acknowledged to the auditors that it had created “value for money risks”, in a bid to roll out the support as rapidly as possible.

The report also showed that the fraud and risk assessment on Mr Sunak’s Energy Bill Support Scheme was not ready until weeks after the scheme had gone live.

This is despite officials having almost five months to prepare for the launch.

The same assessment of the Energy Price Guarantee again only finalised after the scheme was launched.

However, in this case, officials only knew about the policy three weeks before it was set to launch.

NAO boss Gareth Davies said: “Similar to the Government’s assistance during Covid, the energy bills support schemes were introduced universally, and at speed, to reduce the impact of soaring energy costs for people and businesses.

“This approach led to compromises – introducing these interventions at speed meant that BEIS has less time to consider fraud and error risks; and their universal nature meant that a significant number of households received financial support they did not need’.

“As the Government seeks to target future assistance, it must be mindful of the risk of introducing complexity which could aid fraudsters. The National Audit Office will continue to monitor these schemes to understand their impact, particularly the costs and benefits of universal versus targeted support.”

Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “Today’s NAO report shows that BEIS moved quickly to shield most people and business from soaring energy prices, by introducing universal support schemes.

“However, it must take steps to better protect taxpayers, now and in the future.

“To introduce support, at pace, it accepted a greater risk of error and giving to those who do not need it.

“As it refines its offer, BEIS will need to juggle protecting citizens and businesses from unacceptable hardship, while managing the risk of fraud and error.

“It must grasp the chance to learn lessons by planning for the long term and developing options for the next crisis.”

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

UK

Apprenticeships to be showcased alongside degrees on Ucas website

Eleanor Busby, PA Education Correspondent
Mon, 6 February 2023 


Young people will be able to apply for apprenticeships alongside degrees through the university admissions service.

From this autumn, school and college leavers will be able to explore apprenticeship opportunities alongside undergraduate courses via the Ucas website so they can decide between their options in the same place.

Prospective students will then be able to apply for apprenticeships through Ucas, and employers will be able to manage applications for their apprenticeship vacancies through the service, from autumn 2024.


Under the plans, the Education Secretary hopes to develop a “one-stop shop” where young people can compare a range of occupations, training and education opportunities available to them.

The Government will collaborate with Ucas to share vacancy information collated through its Find an Apprenticeship Service to ensure as many apprenticeship vacancies are advertised through the Ucas hub as possible.

It comes after a previous Ucas survey suggested that half of students looking to apply to higher education are interested in apprenticeships, but many struggle to access the relevant information they need.

The Ucas hub will display the different routes – both undergraduate courses and apprenticeships – into a single career destination side-by-side.

It is hoped that thousands more young people will benefit from a wider choice of options by opening up the service to apprenticeship opportunities.

Clare Marchant, chief executive of Ucas, said: “Presenting students with all their choices in one place will not only transform the apprenticeship offering but create real parity by putting these options side-by-side with undergraduate courses.”

She added: “Today’s announcement by the Department for Education shows the commitment to deliver a clear, accessible and joined-up service that will help students discover, decide and apply in one place, enabling them to achieve their future careers aspirations.”

Announcing the plans, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “My apprenticeship was my golden ticket. It gave me a unique insight into how a business operated, from the shop floor to the boardroom. I learnt the skills that businesses truly value and it launched my career in international business.

“This National Apprenticeship Week I hope more people learn about the incredible opportunities available in everything from engineering to accountancy, healthcare to gaming software development.

“Whatever career goals you aspire to, they can be achieved through an apprenticeship which go up to masters degree level.”

Kevin Gilmartin, post-16 specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “We welcome the steps being taken to allow young people to search and apply for apprenticeships through Ucas.

“It’s crucial that school and college leavers are well informed about the full range of options available to them and showcasing apprenticeships alongside degrees seems a sensible approach.

“In order to make this work, there needs to be more resources and support for schools and colleges to be able to deliver guidance from expert careers advisers who are familiar with the complex apprenticeships landscape.”

Mr Gilmartin added: “If schools and colleges are not better supported to deliver this, then the worthy ambition of fully informing all students of the entire range of occupations, training and education opportunities available to them is dead in the water.”

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said: “Accessing information about apprenticeships can be confusing and complicated at times.

“That’s why we’re delighted to see that Ucas will expand their apprenticeship service to match potential apprentices with vacancies.

“This could be a gamechanger, and alongside an enhanced talent finder function for employers, is much needed.”