Lord Rothschild obituary

Stephen Bates
Mon, 4 March 2024

  THE GUARDIAN

Jacob Rothschild in the Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor, his family’s ancestral home in Buckinghamshire, 2019.Photograph: Country Life/Future Publishing/Getty Images

Jacob Rothschild, Lord Rothschild, who has died aged 87, combined a ruthlessly successful business career, following in the family tradition as a financier in the City of London, with philanthropic projects. These mainly centred on the arts and heritage, including the restoration of the dynasty’s enormous 19th-century replica of a French chateau Waddesdon, in the middle of the Buckinghamshire countryside.

Although he claimed that for a lot of his life he had lived without luxury – true up to a point following the acrimonious breakup of his parents’ marriage when he was nine – he had a gilded entrance into the family bank, and by last year his wealth, built on shrewd investments and an inheritance, was estimated to be worth at least £825m. He protested to an interviewer that he certainly knew how to open a tin of baked beans, but his portfolio also included the Eythrope estate next to Waddesdon, a share of a vineyard in France, a villa and 30-acre estate on Corfu and a house in Knightsbridge, London.

He told the Sunday Times in 2012: “Look, we are not as wealthy as families who live abroad and pay no tax and we are believers in the Great Society. I have spent a large part of my life keeping things going.” He even expressed sympathy for the Occupy movement in the same interview: “You can’t tolerate a society where youth unemployment goes into the high 20%.”


The family’s wealth was built up over two centuries, from when Nathan Rothschild was sent from Frankfurt in 1798 to buy Manchester cotton textiles and stayed to set up a counting house in the City of London. It was so successful that it would underwrite the cost of the British army’s campaign at Waterloo and later the purchase of the Suez canal, resulting in a peerage for Jacob’s great-grandfather, another Nathan.

Born in Cambridge, Jacob was the son of the zoologist, wartime counter-espionage officer and later Downing Street thinktank head Victor Rothschild and his first wife, the artist Barbara Hutchinson, who was involved with the Bloomsbury set. After the marriage broke down, Victor took out his annoyance on Jacob and his sisters Sarah and Miranda. Jacob suffered a bout of polio and emerged as a diffident, quietly spoken but strong-willed adult. He was educated at Eton and studied history at Christ Church, Oxford, emerging with a first-class degree before undertaking national service in the Life Guards.

Instead of the academic career that he might have had, he joined the family firm, the merchant bank NM Rothschild, in 1963, after basic training with other City firms to learn the ropes. In coming years he pressed for the bank to become more adventurous and competitive: “a bank of brains” in seeking and making deals, such as he masterminded in gaining the contract to finance the Trans-Alpine pipeline in the mid-1960s and arranging Grand Metropolitan’s takeover of the brewers Watney Mann (1972).

But when the chairmanship of the bank became vacant in 1976 his father championed his staid older cousin, Evelyn, and Jacob took over the running of the bank’s small investment trust instead. He built it up from a capitalisation of £5m to one with assets of more than £3bn, the largest such trust in Britain by the time he retired in 2019. Not all his deals came off: the attempted Guinness bid for Distillers in 1986 failed spectacularly – though he personally was exonerated of boosting Guinness’s value to assure the takeover. A £13bn attempt to win control of British American Tobacco in partnership with Sir James Goldsmith and the Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer in 1989 also failed.

By the late 70s he had bitterly fallen out with Evelyn, sold up his shares in the bank and took the investment trust independent with a new name, J Rothschild Holdings, and a new headquarters in St James’s, where it continued to make deals, eclipsing the bank and benefiting eventually from the privatisation programme of Margaret Thatcher’s government.

Among the companies and acquisitions he bought into were plantations in Asia, property in Paris, the Paypoint electronic system, the Economist magazine and Coats Viyella textiles. In 1988 the company split into St James’s Place Capital and RIT Capital Partners. RIT took a lease on Spencer House, the ancestral London home of Princess Diana’s family, overlooking Green Park, and renovated the property.

In 1990 Jacob succeeded to the peerage on the death of his father (who left him only an ink stand in his will). The previous year his cousin, Dollie de Rothschild, had left him her £90m fortune and by then he had also assumed control of the Rothschild Foundation, which runs Waddesdon Manor, the house having been bequeathed to the National Trust in 1957.

Rothschild’s cultural philanthropy had been evident for years: Goldsmith said: “It depends which day it is: on one Jacob is an excellent banker, the next he is absorbed by art and heritage.” He himself said he read art catalogues like others read comics, and he was an enthusiastic collector, starting with a Giacometti artwork at the age of 22. He chaired the National Gallery trustees for six years from 1985, commissioning new architects to build the gallery’s extension after Prince Charles criticised the original design as being a monstrous carbuncle. Later he would chair the National Heritage Memorial Fund (1992-98) and the Heritage Lottery Fund (1995-98), enabling the renovation and opening up of Somerset House in central London.

A member of the Reform Jewish synagogue and president of the Institute of Jewish Affairs, Rothschild also inherited the family’s Israel charity, Yad Hanadiv, which has funded the building of the Knesset, the Israeli supreme court and national library as well as educational projects for Jewish and Arab children. He was knighted in 1998 and four years later appointed to the Order of Merit.

In 1969 he married Serena Dunn. She died in 2019, and he is survived by their four children, Nathaniel, Hannah, Beth and Emily.

• Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, Lord Rothschild, born 29 April 1936; died 26 February 2024

‘It’s all fallen flat’: UK households earning more than £60,000 (CDN$103,350.25 ) 

on how they are struggling financially


Jedidajah Otte
Mon, 4 March 2024 


Despite incomes higher than the national average, some well-paid people say they are unable to fund a reasonable lifestyle.

Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

An annual gross income of £74,000 puts Scott, 28, a software engineer from Leicestershire, in the top 10% of earners nationally. But, he says, it doesn’t feel that way for him and his family.

“Ten years ago we’d have been laughing with my salary. Now, it feels like our heads are barely above water. There’s an attitude that at this level of income you’ve plenty of money, but it’s not true at all,” he says.

The couple’s mortgage uses up more than a third of Scott’s take-home pay, the family’s monthly grocery shop costs more than £500, his student loan repayments are £300 – “money I now desperately need,” he says.

Related: UK middle classes ‘struggling despite incomes of up to £60,000 a year’

“We lease a car, the cost of which has risen greatly too because of higher interest rates. After all the things I have to pay for, we’re lucky to have £300 left over for the month, which is quickly depleted by day-to-day expenses. It feels like we’ve done everything we were told to do and yet we’re still struggling,” Scott says.

“I worked hard at university to gain a valuable degree, I job-hopped to drastically increase my salary – but it’s not enough. I’ve considered reducing my pension contribution just so we can have more money.

“My wife, who had stopped working to care for our two children, both under five, has been looking for work for a few months, but the kind of work she needs just doesn’t exist – remote flexitime. We’ve actually considered moving to a different country because this one feels set up against families and young people.”

He believes taxation has become punitively high: “I pay almost £2,000 a month in taxes, which I can’t actually afford.” The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is under pressure from voters such as Scott and many in his own party to use Wednesday’s budget to announce personal tax cuts, most likely to either national insurance contributions or the basic rate of income tax. But the chancellor’s scope for such a move has been restricted in recent days by tighter than expected forecasts, as well as warnings that public services cannot survive further austerity to pay for pre-election giveaways.

Scott has been left feeling pessimistic about the future: “I don’t see an end to any of this: life isn’t going to get cheaper and I’ve pretty much maxed out my earning potential. It’s ridiculous and I’m so sick of it.

“We can’t afford holidays. We can’t afford to put money away for the kids. We can’t afford new things, gadgets, hobbies. What’s it all for?”

Scott was just one of scores of middle-class earners who shared with the Guardian how they are struggling to cope financially and can no longer afford comfortable living standards despite having household incomes of between £60,000 and £120,000.

A report last month from the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust highlighted how Britain’s insecure jobs market and high housing costs are leading to the growth of a precarious middle class. These households are struggling to maintain a decent living standard on joint incomes as high as £60,000 a year. That compares with the median gross annual earnings for full-time employees of £34,963 last April.

Many readers who got in touch earn significantly more than this, but say they are still struggling to afford their bills and decent living standards due to rocketing mortgage, rental and childcare costs, higher household bills and the highest tax burden in 70 years.

Parents and single people in particular argue their relatively high incomes are not sufficient to fund a reasonable lifestyle while taxes are so high. Among them is Chloe, 38, who owns her own home with an £180,000 mortgage outstanding and earns £57,500 a year in a senior role a charity in Sheffield.

“Over the past six to eight months I’ve really found myself struggling to make ends meet while also not living a life completely devoid of any pleasure,” she says.

To save money, Chloe says, she has stopped drinking, eating takeaways and buying new clothes, as well as downgrading both her and her dog’s food. “I’ve also borrowed money from my parents, who were concerned by how little I was putting the heating on in my property and were worried it would cause damp.”

Chloe, who is single, says she worries about not being able to afford having children, and a social life. Her current contract comes to an end in six months. “I’m very limited in what I can do socially and couldn’t afford to go even one month without working. It’s so frustrating when you hear the government say: ‘You can work your way out of poverty.’

“Work is not an answer when you’re taxing people at such a high level. I definitely think that the tax brackets should be reconsidered.”

Matt, 32, who works in housing policy, says his and his partner’s combined household income is about £80,000 a year. “We live just outside Newcastle upon Tyne and aren’t struggling, but I know that’s because we are – and I hate the term – Dinks: double income, no kids, and living in a part of the country where costs are relatively lower.

“It does seem that the only way to be on a middle income and doing OK at the moment is to be a Dink and living in the north.”

Rose, 35, a thinktank project manager from south London and mother-of-one, strongly agrees. She earns £34,000 a year, her partner, who works in IT, makes £57,000.

“The cost of living crisis is forcing us to move outside London,” Rose says. “After our son was born we moved to a two-bedroom flat in June 2022, paying £1,500. Our landlord increased the rent to £1,700 last May. We have not been going out since 2022. No dinners, Sunday roasts, or cinema.”

Going on maternity leave, Rose says, pushed her into debt she is now repaying. Her son’s nursery bill, £1,200 a month for four days, became unaffordable when the rent went up. “He’s now in nursery only two days a week at £750 a month, and stays with me the rest of the time while I work compressed hours. Although my partner and I both work full-time, we basically earn to pay rent, utility bills, debt and childcare.”

Although respondents with children reported more precarious finances than those without, millennial childless couples say they barely have any disposable income either.

Lillian, 36, from County Durham, an environmental consultant in the corporate sector says that despite her and her partner’s combined income of £70,000, they are experiencing substantial difficulties, as their doer-upper property has required repairs costing £25,000 so far.

“We just feel caught in the middle,” she says. “We find ourselves surviving from paycheck to paycheck, have no savings except pensions. We’ve worked hard, done everything we can to build ourselves up financially, have professional careers, but it’s all fallen flat.”

While the couple was fortunate to get a five-year fixed-rate mortgage in the pandemic at only 2%, they are dreading the cost increase when they will have to renew it next year now that the Bank of England base rate has soared to 5.25%.

Lillian fears having to work into her 80s. “The Tories have done a lot to erode the benefits of working, from Brexit to interest rates, but I don’t know that I trust any party to improve that. We definitely need a lot more public spending, but it cannot come from my income bracket; we’re completely squeezed.”

Lillian believes it should be people such as Lee, 47, a father of four from Surrey who works in tech, who should pay more taxes. Earning about £110,000, he is in the top 2% of earners. “I earn more than I ever did before now and feel very privileged,” he says. “And yet, I feel much poorer now than I did six or seven years ago, when I was only on £50,000, which is crazy.”

His wife works part-time as a childminder earning about £700 a month as they cannot afford childcare, Lee says. Like many other respondents, Lee believes in paying taxes, but feels resentful given the state of public services.

“Nothing works. You think – where is all this money going? Nothing is getting better. Something’s gotta change.

“It’s weird when papers describe the rich and I think – ‘is it people like me?’ I feel jealous of other people when they go on holiday, we can’t afford that. I shop at Aldi, we budget £1,000 a month for food and petrol for our 10-year-old car. We occasionally go to Wetherspoon’s for breakfast. I often think: ‘Is this it?’”

GREEN CAPITALI$M

Jamie Dimon takes a stand by signing JPMorgan up as the first big bank to reveal a key clean energy metric to investors

Amanda Gerut
Mon, March 4, 2024 a

Cyril Marcilhacy/Bloomberg-Getty Images

The dean of Wall Street CEOs is green. JPMorgan Chase today struck an agreement with three New York City pension funds with investments in the bank valued at $478 million to disclose the ratio of its clean energy to fossil fuel financing. According to the NYC funds, the metric will give investors a more comprehensive view as to how the bank is progressing on its net-zero emissions goals and whether it is ratcheting up its clean-energy financing activities over time.

JPMorgan’s settlement with the three NYC funds, which manage a combined $193 billion in assets, will result in the withdrawal of their shareholder proposal, which they have levied against six major banks. It makes JPMorgan the first of these banks to strike a deal with investors. The others—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Royal Bank of Canada—still have proposals pending and the NYC Comptroller’s office has been engaging with them. The pension funds in January announced that they were launching the drive to prod the banks to offer up more data on their climate transition commitments.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance research found that in order for average global temperature increases to remain below 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is optimum, the ratio of investments in low-carbon energy to fossil fuels needs to reach a minimum of 4 to 1 by 2030. From there, the ratio needs to increase to 6 to 10 in the subsequent decade, and 10 to 1 afterward. In 2021, Bloomberg research found that for every dollar spent supporting fossil fuels, 0.8 supported low-carbon energy. JPMorgan’s estimated ratio was 0.7.

A JPMorgan spokesperson said it would take time to figure out how best to disclose the metric investors are asking for.

“We found common ground with the NYC Comptroller on disclosing a clean energy financing ratio with an understanding that it is going to take us some time and resources to develop a decision useful approach,” said a spokesperson in a statement to Fortune. “We will engage with NYC and our shareholders to provide the market more clarity and transparency about our activities and what financing the transition truly looks like.”

The bank in 2021 announced a $1 trillion target to finance initiatives to help foster the transition to a low-carbon economy. However, the funds pointed out in their proposal that JPMorgan offers more financing to fossil fuels than other banks, ponying up $434 billion since 2016, despite a commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, said the NYC funds.

The move comes just weeks after J.P. Morgan Asset Management and State Street were roundly criticized for leaving the Climate Action 100+, a coalition of investors focused on working collaboratively to target the companies that are also the heaviest emitters of greenhouse gasses. Since then, Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco) announced that it would also depart the group, bringing the total assets under management that have departed to $19 trillion. (BlackRock shifted its participation in C100+ to BlackRock International.)

The asset management firms pointed to their independence in withdrawing from C100+, noting that the group was previously focused on agitating for clearer disclosure and not seeking specific action from. That strategy is set to change with the second phase strategy this year. It also coincides with a movement toward anti-ESG proposals and rhetoric that have led conservative groups and politicians to criticize financial services firms for catering to “wokeness” to the detriment of financial returns.

A Climate Action spokesperson told Fortune that antitrust laws aren’t meant to stop investors or companies from working together on goals found not to be anti-competitive “that they have each independently decided is in their interest.”

The group cited an analysis from the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment that found that antitrust law was having a chilling effect on “necessary private-sector action to address climate and other sustainability-related challenges.”

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that BlackRock has abandoned the term “ESG” from its public statements and that CEO Larry Fink isn’t using it in his annual letters anymore. Instead, “transition investing” is the new work-around for talking about ESG, the Journal reported.

Still, regardless of the words companies use to discuss it, investors—particularly pension funds—remain focused on climate-change risk and engaging with companies on their net-zero commitments. In 2023, there were a record 643 environmental or social related shareholder proposals filed at public companies, a high-water mark that is expected to persist in 2024, according to a report from investor advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services.

Climate change-related issues are expected to generate the most proposals from shareholders to companies, the ISS report found, and some investors are asking financial services firms to report any misalignment between client greenhouse gas emissions and 2030 net-zero targets.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Aviva returns to Lloyd’s of London as climate change boosts insurance demand


Michael Bow
Mon, 4 March 2024 


Since taking the helm in July 2020, Dame Amanda Blanc has streamlined Aviva by selling eight non-core businesses and recouping around £8bn - Anna Gordon/EyeVine

Aviva is returning to Lloyd’s of London for the first time in more than two decades as threats such as climate change and cybercrime boost demand for speciality insurance.

The insurance giant has agreed to buy Lloyd’s insurance platform Probitas for £242m, giving it a lucrative foothold in the booming commercial insurance sector.

Founded in 1688, Lloyd’s is the world’s largest and oldest insurance hub – boasting a network of more than 380 brokers and 77 underwriting syndicates.


Probitas is a speciality property and casualty insurer and also offers insurance in emerging sectors such as renewables.

Though small, the takeover will allow Aviva to diversify away from home and motor insurance products, and gain exposure to higher margins and faster growth.

“This acquisition is another step in our strategy to invest in Aviva’s future profitable growth,” said Aviva chief executive Dame Amanda Blanc.

“Aviva’s presence in the Lloyd’s market opens up new opportunities to accelerate growth in our capital-light General Insurance business.”

The takeover marks Aviva’s return to the London market for the first time since the turn of the millennium.

Lloyd's boasts a network of more than 380 brokers and 77 underwriting syndicates - Eddie Mulholland

Aviva, then known as Norwich Union, quit Lloyd’s in 2000 after selling Marlborough Underwriting Agency to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

The 2000 exit coincided with a merger between Norwich Union and CGU, which created Aviva.

Aviva is planning to retain the Probitas branding and management team once the deal is completed later this year.

Probitas, which is 49.9pc owned by Saudi Arabian insurer Saudi RE, has been in sale talks with the FTSE 100 group for more than a year.

Aviva had reportedly been considering creating a Lloyd’s start-up but it has now decided to acquire a business off the shelf.

Probitas chief executive Ash Bathia said linking up with Aviva would help build “one of the most successful and profitable franchises in the Lloyd’s market”.

The Probitas acquisition also marks part of a broader shift by Dame Amanda to diversify Aviva away from traditional consumer products like car insurance.

Since taking the helm in July 2020, she has streamlined Aviva by selling eight non-core businesses and recouping around £8bn – £5bn of which has been returned to shareholders.

Probitas joins a number of other bolt-on acquisitions for Aviva, including Succession Wealth and AIG’s UK protection business.

The strategy has pleased long-suffering shareholders, who suffered years of dismal performance under former chief executives Andrew Moss, Mark Wilson and Maurice Tulloch.

Shares have risen 60pc since Dame Amanda took over.

Her decision to trim Aviva’s sprawling empire also saw off activist shareholder Cevian Capital, which exited its stake last year.

Probitas is set to join Aviva’s global corporate and speciality division, which already provides commercial insurance.

The Lloyd’s deal will add an extra distribution channel, and other opportunities to grow the division.

The latest acquisition won the support of City analysts, who said Aviva had struck the £242m deal at the right time.

“Lloyd’s is a good market to be in,” said Abid Hussain, an insurance analyst from Panmure Gordon. “We are going to see pricing power coming through to prime insurers and it diversifies Aviva away from their other lines of business. It ticks all the boxes.”

Analysts at Bank of America also hailed the deal, saying Probitas’ business “aligned with Aviva’s existing operations” stretching across the UK, Ireland and Canada.

The fresh foray into the Lloyd’s market will help Aviva tap into a recent boom in Leadenhall Street.

Rising risks like climate change and cyber threats have triggered a surge in large global companies buying ever more complex insurance products, driving up premiums and margins.

Lloyd’s chief executive John Neal has predicted Lloyd’s current underwriting figures of £47bn could double over the next decade due to demand wrought by climate change and cyber attacks.

“The Lloyd’s market is quite different now than it was 20 years ago,” said Mr Hussain from Panmure Gordon. “It runs in cycles and has entered a favourable underwriting cycle so from a timing perspective it’s a good entry point.”

Around 60pc of Probitas’s book is property and casualty insurance, with finance, construction and cyber also key to its offering, meaning it is exposed to the rising tide of specialist demand at Lloyd’s.

Lloyd’s observers say the underwriter is a relatively small player in the market, meaning Aviva is dipping its toe in the water rather than wading in.

“This isn’t like the Man City takeover, and materially changing the Premier League,” said one industry observer. “What they are not intending is for it to be a game changer.”

What’s behind the UK’s increase in autism diagnoses?

Amelia Hill
Mon, 4 March 2024 

Research suggests the total autistic population in England and Wales exceeds 1.2 million.
Photograph: Jessie Casson/Getty Images

Autism is a condition in a state of slow flux. In 2021, a study found a 787% rise in the number of diagnoses between 1998 and 2018 in the UK.

Increases in diagnoses have been a feature of autism for almost as long as it has been a recognised condition: 80 years ago, autism was thought to affect one in 2,500 children. That has gradually increased and now one in 36 children are believed to have autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

This exponential rise is partly due to greater awareness and deeper understanding of the condition, as well as more clinicians who can make the diagnosis. That has led to what one expert has called autism’s “ever-wider assessment boundaries – boundaries that are still moving outwards”.

Those boundaries encompass a wide range of people for whom autism would never have been considered as a possible diagnosis, especially women and girls. The consequent awareness has led to large numbers of adults seeking medical referrals to explain differences they may have been aware of since childhood.

But other factors behind the increase remain controversial, with those in the neurodiversity movement and experts undecided as to whether the increase is also due to overdiagnosis or whether more children have the condition.

The author of the 2021 study says the boundaries of diagnoses may expand further. Prof Ginny Russell, at the University of Exeter, said: “I do think it’s going to continue until maybe everyone is categorised as neurodiverse.”

Russell said while there could be an argument for there being a marginally higher proportion than previously of children with autistic traits who have low support needs, there was “no plausible reason” to support an argument that autism cases had increased substantially.

“What’s happened is that diagnoses have increased because of ever-wider assessment boundaries – boundaries that are still moving outwards,” she said. “Some go as far as to suggest that people diagnosed with autism today are united merely by not fitting their social environment.

“It may soon encompass people like me, for example. I have not changed but having some borderline autistic traits, I may soon be absorbed by autism – because it is itself changing.”

Russell is not alone in noting the huge rise in diagnoses. “When I started in this field in the 1980s, autism was considered quite rare,” said Prof Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of the Autism Research Centre. “But there’s been a massive shift in the last couple of decades, during which the increase in diagnoses has been exponential.”

Autism is a set of conditions which contains a wide-ranging spectrum of disabilities. And there has been a 50% increase in the number of patients with an open referral for suspected autism in England in the past 12 months.

But there are those who say that even this increase is not accurate: other research suggests the total autistic population in England and Wales exceeds 1.2 million – almost double the figure of 700,000 cited by the government for the entirety of the UK. This would be the case if the rate of diagnosis matched those for under-19s across all ages, the study says.

Elizabeth O’Nions, the lead researcher of the study, said autism was still under-recognised in adults, with more than 90% of all autistic people aged over 50 in England possibly undiagnosed.

But Dr Peter Carpenter, the chair of the Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry Special Interest Group, questioned this and pointed out that adult diagnostic services did not necessarily have the expertise necessary to review the adult population against modern criteria. “We probably do not have a realistic idea of what a ‘typical autistic 50-year-old’ looks like,” he said.

There have also been changes when it comes to understanding autism among those with learning disabilities: in the 1980s, it was thought that only a quarter of those with learning disabilities had autism. Now the NHS acknowledges that it could be as high as three-quarters. “That’s an incredibly steep rise,” said Baron-Cohen.

Another increase in autism numbers is due to the removal of Asperger syndrome as a diagnosis. Created in 1994, the label was officially “retired” in 2013, with the condition subsumed under the umbrella term of autism.

A further important moment of change was the neurodiversity movement of the late 1990s, which drove through huge changes in identification, fighting stigma and redefining autism as an identity rather than a disease. All this has led to what Russell calls the “loop”.

“A rise in diagnoses loops backs to increased awareness, which impacts on how people identify themselves, which leads to a call for more assessment centres, which has led to a greater rise in diagnoses,” she said.

“As awareness and diagnoses increase, those with less severe symptoms come forward with their own stories of how autism affects them. The diagnostic criteria is widened to take these accounts onboard, which loops back again to another increase in diagnoses.”

In short, there is no clear answer as to what autism is – or is not. Some say there never will be.

William Mandy, a professor of neurodevelopmental conditions at University College London, believes the nebulous nature of autism is a defining feature of the condition.

He said: “What are the traits that we need to have before we are going to label someone as autistic?. That’s such an impossible question to answer that I think we should have a numerical cut-off point – maybe we should just say 2% of the population is autistic.”

The one thing that matters even more than the profound questions around autism diagnoses is the sad truth that autistic people too often do not lead happy lives. Compared with non-autistic people, they are about 70-80% more likely to have poor mental and physical health, experience educational under-attainment, unemployment and underemployment, victimisation, social isolation and premature mortality.

The NHS is doing its best but there has been a 350% rise in children waiting for an autism assessment since the height of the Covid pandemic, with waiting times exceeding two years.

Child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) are at breaking point: 80% of child mental health referrals are autism-related in some areas of the UK. Some NHS commissioners have introduced new referral criteria to try cut lists in a move that parents say puts children at risk of harm, including suicide.

This has led to some asking whether the main objective of autism research should be refocused to understand how to help autistic people lead happier lives.

Mandy said: “We are currently very focused on making a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ distinction in terms of diagnoses. But why not say, ‘Somebody has these traits. How might that be affecting their life and what we can do to help?’”

Some NHS centres twice as likely to diagnose adults as autistic, study finds


Amelia Hill
Mon, 4 March 2024 

A professor who led the research said it raised fears that lives could be badly affected by inaccurate diagnoses.

Photograph: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images

Adults awaiting an autism diagnosis face a postcode lottery in England, with some NHS centres more than twice as likely as others to give a positive assessment of the condition.

Landmark research from University College London (UCL) suggests people have an 85% chance of being diagnosed as autistic in some centres compared with a 35% chance in others.

The findings, from the Improving Adult Autism Assessment study, have not yet been peer-reviewed but have already been picked up by NHS England for further investigation.


William Mandy, a professor of neurodevelopmental conditions at UCL, who led the research across several NHS foundations in southern England, said the wide variation suggested a lack of consistency between centres. He said it raised fears that lives could be badly affected by inaccurate diagnoses and called for “radical changes” to the system.

“Our results worryingly suggest that people are being overdiagnosed in some areas and underdiagnosed in others,” said Mandy.

The study considered a range of possible reasons behind the variation. But, he said, his conclusion was that “someone could go to one well-established clinic and get one answer as to whether they’re autistic, then go to another well-established clinic and get a completely different answer despite displaying exactly the same behavioural traits”.

“The fact is that the diagnostic manuals are open to a lot of interpretation and so there is fundamentally a lack of consensus as to where the right boundaries of autism are,” he added.

Dr James Cusack, the chief executive of Autistica, the UK’s leading autism research charity, said Mandy’s results did not surprise him. “Autism diagnosis can be a wild west in terms of inconsistencies in approach,” he said. “We know of many good quality assessment centres where people aren’t getting access to proper autism diagnoses because that centre follows untested diagnostic practices, sometimes even ones they’ve developed themselves.”

Cusack suggested the research indicated people were being overdiagnosed and said that “unless something is done to regulate this, it will affect public trust in diagnoses per se”.

He also said there were large regional variations in diagnoses. He pointed to research that found up to 4% of children aged 10 to 14 years old are being diagnosed in some areas, compared with 1.5% in others.

“That’s really dangerous because it means there’s no clarity in what a diagnosis is for, who it is for and how systems support the wide range of people being given a positive diagnosis,” he said.

Unlike Cusack, Mandy guesses that there is more underdiagnosis of adults than overdiagnosis. “But the key question is, ‘What level of diagnosis is correct?’ and the honest answer is nobody knows,” he said. “But the fact that there isn’t a consistent conversion rate between referrals and diagnoses is very troubling.”

Mandy said his results “show we need radical change in the way autism diagnoses are given”. He said: “Our findings worry me because this is a high-stakes assessment that is really important in affecting somebody’s identity, their access to services and funds, and their life decisions.”

The government’s 2010 autism strategy recommended the establishment of specialist, community-based, multidisciplinary teams to provide, coordinate and oversee services. However, there is no guidance around the staffing of these teams or how they should operate. As a result, a number of different models have emerged.

Bryony Beresford, a professor at the University of York, conducted the first national evaluation of specialist autism team service models in 2020. She also found a wide variation in reported rates of diagnosis, ranging from less than 50% to more than 80%.

“Each team differed in their diagnostic assessment protocols and each was unique,” she said. “In addition, unlike some diagnoses, clinical judgment is central to the autism diagnostic process and this will contribute to variation. Does this mean we can’t trust diagnoses? We just don’t yet have the evidence to say yes or no to that question.”

Dr Peter Carpenter, the chair of the Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry Special Interest Group, agreed that it was “very much in the eye of the clinician-beholder as to whether someone is diagnosed as autistic or not”.

He said there needed to be a national agreement of common practice and thresholds but that a level of variation was inevitable. “How do you get a definition of autism that experts can work to precisely and consistently which covers everybody at all ages and includes both members of Mensa and the most profoundly intellectually disabled?” he asked. “All our criteria involve a large amount of room for interpretation by individual clinicians.”

Many are now turning to independent diagnostic assessments but the National Autistic Society (NAS) said their decisions could not necessarily be relied on either. “There are many providers out there now, some for profit and others not for profit,” said Dr Sarah Lister Brook, NAS’s clinical director. “Some are regulated – many are commissioned by the NHS to deal with NHS waiting lists – but some operate with minimal regulation or oversight so the quality is variable.”

An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS is fully committed to supporting and improving the lives of autistic people, and published new national guidance for autism assessment services to ensure local areas can manage the 50% increase in referrals they have seen over last year while ensuring people have the support they need as they wait to be assessed.”

 Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)

workers and supporters celebrate charity’s 200th anniversary


Ella Nunn, PA
Mon, 4 March 2024 

The Archbishop of Canterbury has praised Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) staff as “models for everyone” who “risk their lives for those who are not known to them” as the charity celebrated its 200th anniversary at a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey.

Crews, lifeguards and representatives from RNLI teams across the country gathered on Monday to mark the occasion, at the same time the organisation’s founding papers were signed in 1824.

The ceremony was attended by the Duke of Kent, president of the RNLI, who signed the charity’s 200th pledge scroll, which was also signed by Justin Welby and the Dean of Westminster.


RNLI chief executive Mark Dowie told the PA news agency: “The service was an incredibly special way to mark 200 years of selfless commitment and to remember all that’s gone before, including the hundreds of RNLI lives lost over the years.”

The archbishop said in his address that “a common purpose for 200 years is almost unknown” and thanked the 1,800-strong congregation for tackling “demands that could never have been imagined”.

The charity’s lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved more than 144,000 lives since its formation in 1824.

Mr Dowie gave a vote of thanks during the service and said the organisation had “survived the test of time, including tragic losses, funding challenges, two World Wars and, more recently, a global pandemic”.

William Dougan, a helmsman from the Stranraer lifeboat station in Scotland, told the PA news agency: “Days like these make you very proud – I’ve served with the RNLI for 22 years and it’s been great to come together and see other crews today.

“The service was very humble, there were some comical aspects which was nice, and it was also very traditional with the reading of the pledge and the prayers.”

The Duke of Kent (second from right) arrives to attend the service of thanksgiving

Three RNLI lifeboats were brought to the abbey and put on display – the historic William Riley, an oar-powered boat built in 1909; a modern Shannon class boat; and a D class lifeboat first introduced into the fleet in 1963.

A hymn was sung during the service which included a new verse, written by an RNLI crew member from Anstruther in Fife.

Richard MacDonald wrote the verse for the hymn Eternal Father Strong to Save after three members of the French lifeboat service were lost at sea in storm force conditions.

It was aired for the first time on television on Sunday during a Songs of Praise special episode and was sung by the congregation at Westminster Abbey during the ceremony, after it was approved by the archbishop.

Mr Dowie said while the service was held to reflect and celebrate the past 200 years, he also hoped it would inspire the next generation: “We are really keen to inspire the next generation – although today was about looking back and celebrating the past 200 years, we want to make sure we keep going for another 200.”

Irish premier welcomes Kamala Harris’s call for an immediate Gaza ceasefire



Cate McCurry, PA
Mon, 4 March 2024 

The Irish premier said he welcomes US Vice President Kamala Harris’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Leo Varadkar said that her comments on wanting to see a pause in the fighting represents a “slight change” in the US position.

Ms Harris said that, given the “immense scale of suffering” in Gaza, there must be “an immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks”.


She called for Israel to do more to significantly increase the flow of aid into the territory.

Mr Varadkar will travel to Washington next week as part of the annual visit to meet the US president at the White House for St Patrick’s Day.

The Fine Gael leader said he will use the opportunity to put across the Irish public’s feeling about Gaza to US President Joe Biden.

“I think the remarks of Vice President Kamala Harris are very welcome,” Mr Varadkar said.

“She’s calling for a humanitarian ceasefire to be observed by both Israel and Hamas and I think that those represent a slight change in the US position.

“I hope it happens.

“Of course, I’m going to raise the issue of Gaza and Palestine with President Biden and Vice President Harris when we meet next week.

US President Joe Biden and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (Niall Carson/PA)

“I think the Irish people would expect me to put across their feelings and views I am going to do that.

“I really hope though, that I’m going to meet them at the end of next week in the context of there being a ceasefire, because of course that will change the nature of what I need to say.

“But we’re all hoping and praying that between now and then there will be a ceasefire so that the hostages can be released, so that desperately needed food and medicine can get into Gaza, and so that we could try and work on making any temporary ceasefire a permanent one because that’s what is needed.”

Some opposition politicians have called for the high-profile White House visit to be used to push for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

The SDLP has said that it would boycott the White House events over US military support for Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, but would send a delegation to Washington to “make the case for an end to violence”.

SAY WHAT?!

UK ‘aligned’ with US on Gaza after Harris calls for immediate ceasefire – No 10


Nina Lloyd and Christopher McKeon, PA Political Staff
Mon, 4 March 2024 

Downing Street has said there is no difference between the UK and US positions on the Gaza war following American Vice President Kamala Harris’s call for an immediate ceasefire.

Britain is “entirely aligned” with Washington in wishing to see a pause in the fighting as soon as possible, Number 10 said on Monday.

In some of the strongest words yet from a senior member of US government on the crisis, Ms Harris said that, given the “immense scale of suffering” in Gaza, there must be “an immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks”.

She called for Israel to do more to significantly increase the flow of aid into the territory.

US Vice President Kamala Harris has called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war (Leon Neal/PA)

Asked about the comments, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said: “We agree that we want to see a sustained humanitarian pause agreed as quickly as possible to allow the safe release of hostages and a significant increase in aid to Gaza.”

He added: “Our position is entirely aligned with the US who, like us, are calling for a pause in the fighting. We have been clear, as has the US, that the right conditions, however, must be in place for a permanent lasting ceasefire, and that includes the release of all hostages, Hamas no longer in charge in Gaza, and a bolstered Palestinian Authority.”

In response to suggestions the US position has changed, he said: “A temporary ceasefire and a humanitarian pause are the same thing, we’re talking about the same position. The US and the UK have been entirely aligned on this.”

He added that the UK would “certainly support” a six-week pause in the fighting “if that is what parties can agree on”.

The UK Government has resisted calls to back an immediate ceasefire and previously abstained on UN resolutions demanding one.

After Parliament descended into chaos earlier this month over the Commons Speaker’s handling of an opposition day motion on the conflict, the SNP has urged the Prime Minister to change Britain’s stance in any forthcoming votes.

Mr Sunak told MPs last week: “We support the United States’ draft resolution that was discussed with colleagues at the United Nations last week, but just calling for an immediate full ceasefire now which collapses back into fighting within days or weeks, and indeed does not release hostages including British hostages, is not in anyone’s interest.

“We must work towards a permanent ceasefire and that starts with an immediate humanitarian pause to get aid in and hostages out.”

KPMG fined almost £1.5m over M&C Saatchi audit failures

Henry Saker-Clark, 

PA Deputy Business Editor
Mon, 4 March 2024 



KPMG has been fined almost £1.5 million by the UK accounting watchdog over its audit of advertising firm M&C Saatchi.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) announced the sanctions against the big-four financial firm and auditor Adrian Wilcox on Monday, almost three years after a probe was first launched into the firm.

It came after M&C Saatchi found accounting errors which led to the restatement of its company accounts for 2018.

The FRC found breaches including a failure to “audit with professional scepticism”.

It said revenues were inflated by around £1.2 million as a result of the failures linked to client credit payments.

These were ultimately revised in M&C Saatchi’s annual accounts for 2019.

The investigation also found “failures to properly audit journal entries across a number of subsidiary companies”, including failures in identifying potentially high-risk journals.

In addition, there was a failure to “document the auditors’ reasoning, or complete their inquiries with management” in relation to rebates related to one contract.

The regulator said the breaches “undermine confidence in statutory audit and the truth and fairness of financial statements”.

KPMG was set to receive a £2.25 million fine but this was reduced to £1.46 million after work to improve its audit processes since the failings.

The accounting giant also paid the costs of the investigation.

Mr Wilcox, the audit engagement partner at the firm, was set to be fined £75,000 but this was reduced to £48,750.

Claudia Mortimore, deputy executive counsel at the FRC, said: “KPMG’s audit did not meet the required quality standards in a number of respects, amounting to serious audit failings and breaches of audit standards.

“This included a lack of professional scepticism in certain high-risk areas of the audit and basic failings in journal testing.”

Cath Burnet, head of audit at KPMG UK, said: “We are committed to dealing with, and learning from, our past cases and regret that aspects of our 2018 audit of M&C Saatchi plc fell short of required standards.

“We continue to invest significantly in audit quality, in our training, controls and technology, to drive further improvements and resilience in our audit practice.”

It comes five months after KPMG was handed a record £21 million fine by the FRC over its “very bad” work for collapsed outsourcing firm Carillion.

EDF wind farm to pay £5.5m for overcharging grid

August Graham, 

PA Business Reporter
Mon, 4 March 2024



A wind farm majority owned by energy company EDF will pay £5.5 million into a fund designed to help vulnerable customers after regulator Ofgem found that it had overcharged the grid.

Ofgem said that EDF’s Dorenell Windfarm Limited (DWL) charged “excessive prices” when it was asked to reduce its output.

Wind farms are normally paid for the electricity that they produce and send into the grid. But sometimes, when the grid is too full to take on more electricity, the wind farms are paid to turn off their turbines.


“Ofgem considers that DWL charged excessive prices to reduce output where this was required to keep the system balanced, and the breach pushed up costs for consumers,” Ofgem said in a statement on Monday.

The regulator said that some of the assumptions used by the company were higher than necessary to recover its costs. Meanwhile its prices “did not properly reflect the financial benefits of reducing its output”.

The business told Ofgem that it thought it had complied with the rules, but accepted the regulators’ findings and will pay £5.5 million towards its voluntary redress fund – a scheme set up to help struggling households.

Ofgem director of enforcement Cathryn Scott said: “Another win for customers through Ofgem’s robust enforcement work has been secured.

“This company has accepted its error and has agreed to make a significant payment to put it right.

“Customers – particularly those in vulnerable situations – will rightly benefit from over £5 million as a direct result.

“We hope this sends a clear message that licence breaches will simply not be tolerated.”

The Dorenell wind farm has 59 wind turbines and is just off the A941, south of Dufftown, Moray, in the north-east of Scotland.

A spokesperson for the wind farm said: “Dorenell Windfarm Limited takes compliance seriously and aims to comply with regulations at all times.

“DWL reviews its practices regularly and adapts as necessary. At all times throughout this review, DWL has engaged actively with Ofgem and cooperated fully to resolve the issue.

“DWL accepts it made an unintentional breach of the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition (TCLC). As a result, DWL has changed its bid pricing policy to avoid any future breaches.”

Welsh medical chief described UK’s Covid information sharing as ‘omnishambles’

WORD OF THE DAY

Jordan Reynolds, PA
Mon, 4 March 2024 


The chief medical officer for Wales wrote the word “omnishambles” in his notebook to express his frustration over information coming from UK level “very late”, leaving Welsh officials “on the back foot” during the pandemic, an inquiry has heard.

Sir Frank Atherton wrote the word in the middle of a spider diagram, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry was told on Monday.

He said: “This represents a degree of frustration I think I had which is that sometimes information came from UK level into Wales very late and left us on the back foot on some issues.”

Looking at his notebook entry, he said: “So if I read down that list, it seemed odd to me that at some point, the virus was relatively contained at this point, but we were lifting restrictions, but other restrictions were being put in place including face coverings, for example.

“Why were we doing that? Why was Scotland moving more on face coverings at a time when we were relaxing other things?

“So it was a sense of frustration, I think, that there were things happening, that information was not being properly shared between policy leads in the different countries.”

Sir Frank was asked by Tom Poole KC, lead counsel for the inquiry, if giving different advice on face masks to the other three nations in June 2020 weakened public messaging, and he replied “it probably did”.

He added: “And when I look back at all the time and energy that was spent in Wales thinking about face coverings, I do wonder whether it would have been a better decision just to simply align.”

Asked if he had his time again, would he have mandated wearing face masks at the same time as the UK Government did in England, Sir Frank said: “I think I probably would, with the caveat that I suspect it would have been subject to legal challenge because there wasn’t very good evidence to support it.”

Another note from Sir Frank’s notebook, from December 21 2021, was shown to the inquiry which said: “PROBLEM. I’ve given clear advice that L4 restrictions are needed. Ministers stuck on financial implications, can afford L2 and not L4.”

It was put to him that this entry was his view that level four restrictions were needed, but the financial implications meant a political decision was made that the country could not afford to move to level four. He said he could not remember but “that’s what it reads like to me”.

Covid was managed for too long as a health issue “rather than a cross-government issue”, and should have been treated as such “once we started to see pictures in Italy of hospitals really running into stress”, he told the inquiry.

Sir Frank agreed that the Scottish Government’s decision on March 12 2020 to ban mass gatherings so emergency services were not displaced would have been a pragmatic approach, but officials were following the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).

He also said “most Governments should have been consulted” before the UK national lockdown on March 23, but they agreed with the advice.

He added that he did not believe a national lockdown could have been avoided had different actions been taken in the months beforehand.

The hearing in Cardiff was told that Sir Frank wrote in his statement to the inquiry that the pandemic put “an unprecedented level of pressure on the chief medical officer private office, and the wider health protection team”.

He told the inquiry there was a lack of administrative support in the first months of the pandemic, and he “lost control of emails towards the end of January”, but there was a “gradual evolution of support during the pandemic”.

More support was provided in May 2020, the inquiry heard, but Sir Frank agreed that it would have been helpful to have it earlier.

A lack of minutes or formal notes from meetings attended by Sir Frank during this early period was a result of a lack of administrative support, the inquiry heard.

Meanwhile, Dr Rob Orford, chief scientific adviser for health, in his evidence to the inquiry, said scientific papers suggest it would have been better to go into lockdown a week earlier than the UK did.

REPATRIATIONS

‘C of E work on slavery should inspire others to do the right thing

Aine Fox, 

PA Social Affairs Correspondent
Mon, 4 March 2024 

The Church of England’s work to address historic links to slavery must be the start of a wider conversation for British society, a campaigner has said, as a new report set a £1 billion target for an investment fund for “healing, repair and justice”.

The initial £100 million investment fund set up to address the wrongs of the past has been deemed too small and slow by an independent oversight group.

The funding programme was announced in January last year for investment, research and engagement to “address past wrongs”.

But its original nine-year timeframe has been judged too long by an independent oversight group which also stated that £100 million is “insufficient” to counter the “historic and enduring greed, cynicism and hate with penitence, hope and love”.

It said: “The sum of £100 million is very small compared to the scale of racial disadvantage originating in African chattel enslavement.”

The group said the Church Commissioners had “embraced a target of £1 billion for a broader healing, repair and justice initiative with the fund at its centre”.

Patrick Vernon, a member of the oversight group and a well-known Windrush campaigner, welcomed the church’s response to the report, and said it must be “the start of a journey for the country, to talk about this” issue.

He told reporters on Monday: “We have to recognise this is quite an historic occasion for one of the major institutions in British society, to put its hand up and say ‘we benefited from the African Chattel enslavement, we recognise injustice’ and in terms of the theology of the church, recognising that it had to do the right thing.”

Campaigner Patrick Vernon called for a wider and mature conversation on what organisations can do to address the wrongs of the past (Victoria Jones/PA)

Calling for a “mature conversation”, he said he hopes the report can spark other major organisations into action.

“I hope that this will inspire other institutions and other organisations who have been involved in a similar history, like the Church of England, to recognise they have to look at righting the wrongs,” he said.

Rosemarie Mallett, Bishop of Croydon and chairwoman of the oversight group, said the church was “stepping forth quite boldly, quite audaciously, and saying: ‘We can do this, others should join in.'”

The fund – which they said should be known as the Fund For Healing, Repair And Justice – will invest in members of disadvantaged black communities, aiming to “back their most brilliant social entrepreneurs, educators, healthcare givers, asset managers and historians”.

While there will be grants for non-profit investments “to promote and enhance healthy lives, thriving minds and cultural impact”, there will not be cash compensation for individuals or grants to government bodies, the group added.

The Church Commissioners will disburse the £100 million over five years, rather than nine as originally planned, the report said.

Both the commissioners and the oversight group stressed that they did not want to rush into action, but rather to focus on “doing it well”.

Gareth Mostyn, chief executive of the Church Commissioners for England, said: “I hope that we will be able to start deploying funds by the end of this year, but we’ll make sure that we work through all of the practical, financial, legal issues to make sure that we’re ready to do that before we do.”

The £1 billion target can be met through a larger allocation from the Church Commissioners as well as through third-party funds, the group said.

Mr Mostyn said the establishment of the fund will hopefully encourage others to “co-invest and join us on this journey”, and emphasised that as it is an investment fund it is hoped it will “grow and create a lasting legacy”.

The announcement of the fund last year was a specific response to what the group described as a “historic pool of capital tainted by its involvement in African chattel enslavement”.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby described transatlantic slavery as an ‘appalling evil’ (Gareth Fuller/PA)

Known as Queen Anne’s Bounty – a fund used to supplement the income of poor clergy, it invested significantly in the South Sea Company, which traded in slaves in the 18th century.

The fund also received numerous donations, many of which the church has said were likely to have come from people linked to, or who profited from, slavery and plantations.

Among a series of recommendations, the oversight group called on the Church Commissioners to separately fund research to uncover “the full picture” of the church’s involvement in slavery and wealth generated from it, beyond Queen Anne’s Bounty.

It also urged the church to “apologise publicly for denying that black Africans are made in the image of God and for seeking to destroy diverse African traditional religious belief systems”.

Rosemarie Mallett, Bishop of Croydon and chairwoman of the oversight group, said she hopes the investment fund can be “a catalyst to encourage other institutions to investigate their past and make a better future for impacted communities”.

She said no amount of money can “fully atone for or fully redress the centuries-long impact of African chattel enslavement, the effects of which are still felt around the world today”.

She said the legacy of slavery “continues to have a significant impact on communities today and inequalities persist till this day” in the form of pregnancy and childbirth outcomes, life chances at birth, physical and mental health, education, employment, income, property and the criminal justice system”.

The bishop told reporters: “We hope that by doing what we can do, others will look at us and see that as an example.”

She said people “like to berate the Church of England quite often”, but that on this occasion the church is “stepping forth quite boldly, quite audaciously and saying ‘we can do this, others should join in’.”

In a statement, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said: “In seeking justice for all, we must continue to work together remembering that all are created in the image of God.

“The oversight group’s independent work with the Church Commissioners is the beginning of a multi-generational response to the appalling evil of transatlantic chattel enslavement.

“My prayer is that this work will stimulate further visionary and practical co-created action.”

Academia.edu

https://www.academia.edu/53037646/Capitalism_and_Slavery_by_Eric_Williams

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