It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, March 14, 2025
Climate campaigners take fight against Rosebank oil field to Westminster Bridge
"Labour needs to get off the fence. This new oil field just makes no sense."
Climate campaigners from Fossil Free London this morning (12 March) staged a protest on Westminster Bridge, calling for proposals to approve extraction at the Rosebank oil field to be rejected.
Rosebank is the largest undeveloped oil field in the North Sea. If developed, estimates suggest it would release emissions equivalent to those produced by all 28 low-income countries in the world.
The Rosebank oil field was previously approved under the Tory government. However, this was ruled unlawful in Scotland’s Court of Session.
In the court’s ruling, it was determined that a more detailed assessment of the oil field’s environmental impact was needed before it could be opened. This assessment should take into account the impact of burning the fossil fuels extracted from the field on the environment.
The government will now need to make a decision on whether to grant approval to the oil field again. If it were to go ahead, it would be managed by Equinor – a firm majority owned by the Norwegian government.
As part of their protest, the Fossil Free London campaigners unfurled a large banner across Westminster Bridge. The 10 metre banner quoted Labour’s own 2024 manifesto claims that new oil licences for exploration won’t ‘take a penny off our bills’.
This follows hints the Labour leadership are seeking to re-approve the field, which some MPs say would mean ‘breaking point’ in party relations.
The Secretary of State for Energy Security, Ed Miliband, has previously criticised the proposed opening of Rosebank oil field, having said: “The evidence is clear: Rosebank will do nothing to cut bills, is no solution to our energy security, and would drive a coach and horses through our climate commitments.”
Speaking following the protest, Robin Wells, Director of Fossil Free London said: “Labour needs to get off the fence. This new oil field just makes no sense. Their manifesto points out, as the Conservatives did before them, that more North Sea oil and gas will be no good for people in this country, and turbocharge the overheating of our world.
“So why, after a court case ruled the field totally incompatible with climate action, would there even be a question of them reapproving it? Why are they paying for Equinor’s caviar while the British people struggle to buy food?
“This government needs to cut bills and fund climate solutions, instead it seems they’d rather pile more runways and oil rigs onto the fire.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Scientists warn a volcanic eruption very close to Anchorage this year is growing more likely
(Photo by Taryn Lopez/Alaska Volcano Observatory) Mount Spurr’s summit crater is seen from the air on March 7, 2023. Escaping gas from one of the volcano’s main fumarole and a dry crater floor can be seen.
A 2025 volcanic eruption at Mount Spurr near Anchorage is “likely” according to a new bulletin by the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
The timing of the eruption and its size remain uncertain, the observatory said in a notice published Tuesday, and it’s also possible that there may be no eruption at all.
Spurr, whose summit is 75 miles west of Anchorage, is the closest active volcano to Alaska’s largest city.
The new bulletin follows one published last month that indicated 50-50 odds of an eruption. Since then, said coordinating scientist David Fee, two flights above the volcano have found high levels of sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and other gases that indicate the presence of magma near the surface.
Sulfur dioxide levels during one flight last week were nine times higher than a similar flight in December, and data from the first March flight was preliminarily confirmed by another flight on Tuesday, prompting the new bulletin.
“There was basically nothing coming out before, and now there’s a lot of gas, particularly CO2 coming out, which usually, when we’ve seen this at volcanoes in Alaska and across the world, it means that eruption is getting more likely,” Fee said.
Since April 2024, observers have been tracking a growing number of earthquakes under and near the volcano. They’ve also watched the ground near the volcano bulge upward.
It’s similar to what the mountain did before its 1992 eruption, which closed area airports and caused Southcentral residents to stay inside to avoid ash.
If the mountain does erupt, the observatory advises that up to a quarter-inch of ash could fall on Southcentral Alaska. Under a microscope, volcanic ash often resembles small flakes of glass. Inhaling it can cause breathing problems. Air filters can become clogged, and flights may be postponed or canceled to avoid ash clouds.
An eruption will likely be preceded by weeks of escalating activity, including nonstop earthquakes and melted ice and snow atop the volcano. That’s kept scientists from raising their alert levels.
“If we were to see strong, sustained volcanic tremors, that would be kind of a telltale sign that we think an eruption is much closer. We have not seen that yet, and we’re looking very closely for any signs of it. There could be other signs as well,” Fee said.
Some observers have noted a steam plume from Spurr’s summit. That’s not a sign of imminent eruption, Fee said. Plumes can be created by atmospheric conditions just as much as volcanic ones.
In addition, an eruption is likely to come from Crater Peak, the source of Spurr’s 1954 and 1992 eruptions, rather than the summit of the volcano itself.
“The recent gas data suggest that a new pathway towards the Crater Peak vent has opened, and that fresh magma may rise and erupt there. Crater Peak is the site of all historical eruptions. The last known eruption from Spurr summit occurred several thousand years ago,” the new Alaska Volcano Obervatory bulletin states. As the AVO monitors Spurr, the organization itself is suffering budgetary tremors caused by the Trump administration’s erratic firings and budget freezes.
The AVO is a cooperative effort between the state and federal government. In February, federal staff had their payment cards frozen, interrupting the telecom links that transmit data from the volcano.
“Most of those (issues) have been worked around at this time,” said Fee, a state employee.
“We haven’t had layoffs. What we have had are kind of some of the other impacts,” he said. “There’s also some concerns with the lease of the (AVO) building in Anchorage, but hopefully that will be resolved as well.”
Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com.
UK
‘Money for war, but for not the poor’: ex-Labour candidate hits out against welfare cuts
Faiza Shaheen said she was "upset and shocked" by how a Labour government is treating people on benefits as if they're cheating
Faiza Shaheen, ex-Labour parliamentary candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green, has slammed the government’s planned disability benefit cuts, urging them to tax the ultra-rich instead.
During BBC Question Time last night, an audience member asked: “If the proposed benefit cuts are supposed to get people back to work, how do you genuinely ensure that genuinely unwell people are not going to be impoverished?”
Host Fiona Bruce then asked Shaheen whether she believed cuts to the government’s £65 billion incapacity benefit bill were necessary.
Shaheen said she opposes directly cutting people’s money, then added, to cheers from the audience: “It’s really striking isn’t it in the last few weeks, there’s always money for war, but not for the poor.”
The economist and activist said that her own mother had been on disability benefits, “She had heart failure, did she want heart failure? Absolutely not.”
Under Tory austerity, Shaheen said that the DWP “came, they harrassed her, it was absolutely heartbreaking to see”.
Shaheen, who ran as an independent candidate at the general election after being deselected by Labour, said she was “upset and shocked” that a Labour government is treating people on benefits as if they’re “all cheating”.
Emma Reynolds, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said: “We’re not saying that”. Shaheen said “That is the implication for always going for this group of people”.
She went on to say there are “much better ideas” for saving money, including taxing the ultra-rich and introducing a 2% tax on individuals with over £10 million, which she said would generate £24 billion per year.
Bruce pointed out that many countries have introduced wealth taxes and “either abandoned them because they haven’t worked or because they have brought in so little money”.
She said: “So I worked with governments around the world actually, that were looking at this.
“And one thing they did was that they were very clear about what the money was going to be used for. They spoke about it in terms of solidarity. And so the public was really behind it. And so the rich knew that there wasn’t really much they could do to and argue against it.”
TUC general secretary warns Starmer that cutting PIP is ‘not the solution’
Paul Nowak has said the government must not make the same mistakes as the Tories
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Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, has warned Keir Starmer that cutting Personal Independence Payment (PIP) “is not the solution” after 14 years of Tory austerity.
Furthermore, Nowak added that cutting disability will make current challenges worse and be unpopular with the public.
In a rare public criticism of the government, the TUC leader said: “A major lesson from the Tory years is that austerity damaged the nation’s health. We must not make the same mistake again.
“Pushing disabled people into hardship with cuts to support will only make the current challenges worse – and will not win public support.”
He added that “after 14 disastrous years of Tory rule”, a lot needs to be done to improve public services.
“But cutting PIP is not the solution – not least because it enables many disabled people to access work so that they do not have to rely on out of work benefits,” he said.
Nowak said that Labour should prioritise fixing problems with PIP, “with input from trade unions and organisations led by disabled people”.
Opposition to Labour’s plans for £5 billion in welfare spending cuts is growing. Over the weekend, Rachael Maskell MP expressed that Labour colleagues have voiced “deep, deep concern” about the proposed reforms.
On BBC Radio 4 this morning, Labour MP Nadia Whittome, said that the party is “getting it badly wrong” on welfare reform.
“It is not disabled people who crashed the economy or who were responsible for low wages or rising rents or falling living standards – we must not scapegoat them for the failures and political choices of Conservative governments,” she said.
Asked if she would rebel on this issue, Whittome, who was on disability benefits as a teenager, said: “I can’t look my constituents in the eye. I can’t look my mum in the eye and support this.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
The Hidden Face of Female Poverty in the UK
On International Women’s Day, Aisha Maniar looks at how poverty is holding back progress towards gender equality.
Poverty poses a major obstacle and block to progressing women’s rights and improving the lives of women and, subsequently, much of the rest of society all over the world. Women make up the majority of people living in poverty worldwide including the United Kingdom, the sixth largest economy in the world. International Women’s Day offers a timely opportunity to shed light on the often overlooked gendered nature of poverty in Britain today.
One in five, or 14.3 million people, in Britain currently live in poverty, defined by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as individuals whose “resources are well below what is enough to meet your minimum needs, including taking part in society” (2025 UK Poverty report). For women, the figure is higher; they are likely to have a persistently low income, acquire debt and be more entrenched in poverty than men. Women from ethnic minorities and with disabilities experience poverty at higher rates, and there is also a north/south divide in the level and impact of female poverty.
Higher female poverty in the UK can be broadly attributed to the same factors as in many other countries in the world: lower pay, the gender pay gap, and the far higher burden of unpaid care work placed on women. Women contribute billions of pounds in unpaid care work annually to the economy and absorb the burden of many of the cuts to public and support services for children, the elderly and disabled.
With women holding almost two-thirds of low-paid, part-time and insecure jobs, opportunities to save and work themselves out of poverty and debt diminish. It also means that many women continue to experience poverty into retirement. In the past decade, the “the proportion of female pensioners in the UK living in poverty has increased by six percentage points”, with over 1.25 million female pensioners “living below the breadline.”
The impact is not just on earnings and savings but on all aspects of life. The stigma and shame attached to poverty mean that women very often suffer invisibly. Food poverty means many mothers reduce their food intake to ensure their children are properly fed. A 2023 Action Aid report found that period poverty increased by almost 20% in the year before.
One of the more visible aspects of widespread poverty in the UK today is homelessness. Women, for their own safety, are once again largely invisible. Government statistics report that women make up around 15% of rough sleepers nationwide. The first national women’s rough sleeping census held by Solace Women’s Aid in 2023 found that “In the 41 local areas that took part in the Census, 815 women were identified compared to just 189 through the Government’s Rough Sleeping Census.”
Off the streets, women make up over 60% of homeless adults in temporary accommodation, with this number having doubled in the past decade. Poor, unsuitable and precarious housing options for women add to the silent suffering, and often prevent women, with or without children, leaving abusive relationships and domestic violence.
A further invisible impact is on women’s health. Austerity measures have seen life expectancy fall over the past decade. The disparity in the life expectancy of the average woman and women living in poverty is almost one decade. For women experiencing sleeping rough, a life expectancy of 43 is almost half that of the average woman.
These are not just statistics but the everyday precarious living conditions and inequality experienced by millions of women across the UK. Poverty is not the result of the poor lifestyle choices of individuals but of deliberate punitive choices made by politicians.
There is much to be done to reverse growing gender inequality and the regression of women’s rights due to poverty. The current Labour government has failed thus far to take positive action, such as scrapping the two-child limit for universal credit support and addressing the detriment to millions of women affected by the rise in pension age.
Just some of the many steps that need to be taken immediately to address poverty and its impact on women’s rights in the UK include rethinking cuts to council budgets that force the burden of social care onto women as unpaid care work, increasing funding for women’s organisations who understand the particular challenges all kinds of women face, and public investment in childcare, making it affordable to allow women to access their rights and participate more fully and equally in society.
End gender pension and pay gap so millions won’t retire as poor as their grandmothers
The National Pensioners Convention is calling for an end to the iniquitous gender pension gap which leaves many women pensioners in poverty.
Ahead of International Women’s Day, the NPC is also calling for a bridging of the gender pay gap to allow today’s female workers to earn enough to afford higher pension contributions and avoid falling into the poverty trap like their grandmothers.
More than one in five women pensioners in the UK are estimated to live in poverty compared to one in four men, and the figure is higher among single women. Those, particularly older women who live alone, make up the biggest proportion of the two million pensioners currently living in poverty in the UK.
Research by the Pension Policy Institute (PPI) for their 2024 Gender Pensions Gap Report found women on average retire with pension savings of £69,000, compared to £205,000 for men. The report concluded: “In order to close this gap, a girl would need to start pension saving at just three years old.”
Jan Shortt, NPC General Secretary, said: “The theme of International Women’s Day on 8th March is a call to ‘Accelerate Action’ on gender equality. That’s why the NPC will be writing to the Ministers for Women and Equalities and the Department for Work and Pensions – Bridget Phillipson MP and Liz Kendall MP – urging them to end the iniquitous pensions gap that means millions of particularly older and vulnerable women are living in poverty.
“Most people do not understand our two-tier state pension system which means more than two thirds of our 12.5 million pensioners – those who retired before 2016 – receive much lower pensions than the new state pension figures often quoted in the press.”
The gap is largely due to older women in their late 70s, 80s and 90s who retired before 2016 having much lower state pensions, and occupational pensions because they took time out of work for family responsibilities. And they might not have been able to pay enough National Insurance to ensure that they even receive the basic/old rate.
Jan Shortt added: “The NPC is campaigning for everyone who retires – no matter their age, gender or contributions – to receive the same basic state pension, set at 70% of the living wage and above the official poverty level.
“No one should be penalised because of their circumstances from having a decent quality of life in retirement – and this starts with a decent income. But striving to bridge the gender pay gap to allow more women to afford higher personal pension contributions is equally important, and something any decent society should be committee to.”
The “NPC is also advocating for the WASPI women to receive the compensation the Ombudsman recommended and not be ignored by the government. Rightly, successive governments wanted to equalise the retirement age for men and women – but the way it was done for those ‘50s born WASPI women is grossly unfair.”
Left Foot Forward They argue there is a ‘lack of transparency’ over ‘who and what is being investigated’
Nine organisations have pulled out of a Goldsmiths University inquiry into antisemitism citing a loss of confidence in the investigation’s fairness and objectivity.
Among them are Goldsmiths’ Students’ Union, the Goldsmiths UCU Executive, Forensic Architecture, the Muslim Association of Britain, and the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC).
They argue that the inquiry “marginalises” and “discriminates against” Palestinians and appears to target those who criticise Israeli policies and Zionism.”
In a public statement, they also accused Goldsmiths and the inquiry chair of issuing “contradictory statements” and failing to clarify “who and what is being investigated”.
The inquiry, led by Mohinderpal Sethi KC, was launched in May 2023 to assess whether Jewish students and staff have faced antisemitism at Goldsmiths since September 2018.
Freedom of Information requests made by Goldsmiths professor Michael Rosen revealed the inquiry had cost the university £128,872 by May 2024.
Recently, the London university apologised and paid damages to Ray Campbell, a lecturer they suspended after allegations of antisemitism relating to posts on social media.
Campbell was later cleared of the allegations.
A Goldsmiths University spokesperson said: “Our understanding is that the independent inquiry is concluding with a report of its findings to be published in due course.”
Ed Nedjari, chief executive of Goldsmiths Student Union said: “It is crucial to address the rise of antisemitism; however, these efforts must not violate the rights of other marginalised groups, such as Palestinians”.
“We cannot, in good faith, support this inquiry while it advances without proper regard for the fundamental principles of equality and justice,” he added.
Ben Jamal, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “It is deeply concerning to see universities attempting to intimidate students who are engaged in campaigning for Palestinian human rights, or who make legitimate criticisms of Israel’s apartheid system and genocidal attacks.”
He added that Universities should be divesting their money from “companies complicit in Israeli violations of international law”, rather than targeting those who speak out.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
UK governments are failing to curb corporate tax abuses and leaving people to pay the price
Yesterday Left Foot Forward Opinion Governments remain obsessed with austerity and choose not to inconvenience the rich or curb tax abuses by corporations
. The UK economy continues to flat line and governments remain obsessed with austerity and cuts in living standards for the masses and public services. They choose not to inconvenience the rich or curb tax abuses by corporations.
In a globalised economy, corporations have become adept at shifting profits to low/no tax jurisdictions, and dodging taxes to increase the wealth of their controllers. Successive UK governments have done little to check this abuse.
In recent years, the OECD’s Base Erosion Profit Shifting (BEPS) project has sought to develop international consensus on tackling profit shifting and related tax dodges. For example, over 135 countries agreed that transnational corporations with revenues above €750m will pay a minimum effective rate of tax of 15% on profits in all countries. This was estimated to generate $150bn in new tax revenues globally per year.
The OECD project is stuttering. The US President Donald Trump has unilaterally withdrawn from the treaty and promised retaliation against countries taxing profits of US corporations operating within their borders. What is the UK doing about profit shifting?
The UK collects little meaningful data about profit shifting and related tax losses. HMRC publishes an annual estimate of ‘tax gap’ i.e. the difference between taxes collected and what should have been collected. For the period 2010 to 2024, it failed to collect around £500bn of taxes. Others estimate it to be around £100bn a year, totalling £1,400bn for the period 2010 to 2024.
On profit shifting HMRC says:
“Some forms of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) are included in the tax gap where they represent tax loss that we can address under UK law.
In a nutshell, HMRC has little idea of the tax revenues lost due to profit shifting.
One estimate is that corporations are shifting annual profits of US$1.42 trillion into tax havens, causing governments around the world to lose US$348 billion a year in tax revenue.
Some US$329bn of profit is shifted into the UK’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories, depriving the world of over US$80bn of tax revenues. This robbery is facilitated by a rapacious tax abuse industry located in the UK and its dependencies.
The UK is likely to be a major loser from profit shifting, but governments are relaxed about corporate tax abuses. The Criminal Finances Act 2017 gave government powers to prosecute companies for tax evasion. A Minister informed parliament that “since its introduction, there have been no prosecutions or convictions of corporations”. Profit shifting in action
An army of accountants and lawyers have developed techniques for shifting profits and devouring the public purse. Consider the case of BHS, a major retailer that collapsed in 2016. A parliamentary report noted that BHS Group sold a number of its UK stores to Carmen Properties Limited, based in Jersey. The properties were immediately leased back. Wife of the BHS CEO was the major shareholder in BHS and the sole shareholder of Carmen. Over the lifetime of the sale-and-leaseback arrangement, rent of £153 million was paid by BHS to Carmen. The rent paid under the related-party transaction reduced BHS’s UK taxable profits and tax liabilities. The profits of Carmen were not taxable in Jersey as they were made abroad. All profits were eventually paid as dividends to the sole shareholder of Carmen who resided in Monaco. Monaco does not levy income tax.
The above is not unlawful, and is emulated by many corporations. The resulting tax losses are unknown and are not part of HMRC tax gap estimates. Governments can check leakage of tax revenues by deducting tax at source from dividends, interest, and other payments to entities in low and zero tax rate jurisdictions. If the recipient can show that s/he paid tax on the transactions elsewhere then the tax withheld can be returned, but governments chose not to curb the tax losses.
Transnational corporations use complex structures, affiliates and subsidiaries to shift profits to low/no tax jurisdictions. Companies like Starbucks, Google, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon and others use complex corporate structures to shift profits. Apple has parked billions of its global profits in Jersey even though it has no physical presence there. The UK government has not mounted any challenge.
Some 80% of global trade takes place in ‘value chains’ linked to transnational corporations and creates opportunities for profit shifting and tax abuse. For example, a microchip company has its product designed in country A, manufactured in B, tested in C, patented in D, and marketing rights assigned to country E. Companies can adjust import and export prices to shift profits. Determining the allocation of costs and profits to each country becomes problematic, and affects the ability of governments to tax profits made within their geographical jurisdiction.
This issue is tackled by the OECD’s transfer pricing rules which require the use of arm’s length prices for determining costs and profits made in each jurisdiction. However, in a world dominated by monopolies and oligopolies, arm’s length prices are difficult to ascertain. Some 80% of global sales of coffee are attributed to just three multinational corporations. Two firms control 40% of global commercial seed market. Around 12 dominate auto manufacturing. Tax authorities struggle to apportion and tax profits.
Here is a well-researched example of how banana trading companies use complex corporate structures to shift profits and avoid taxes. A large proportion of the UK’s bananas come from Jersey in the Channel Islands, which doesn’t grow any bananas, and no banana-laden ship ever docks in Jersey. Rather the paper trail enables companies to book profits in Jersey. Bananas selling for £1 in UK supermarkets begin their journey from West Africa and Latin America. The initial cost is 10.5p for production, 1.5p for labour and 1p profit for local producers. As the ship heads to the UK, the cost of 13p escalates through intragroup transactions. Around 8p is added for using of a purchasing network based in the Caymans Islands; 8p goes to a Luxembourg subsidiary for providing financial services; 4p to Ireland for use of the brand name; 4p to the Isle of Man for providing insurance; 6p to Jersey for management services and 17p to Bermuda for providing a distribution network. All of these places have low or no taxes on corporate profits. By the time the banana ship arrives in the UK, the 13p worth of bananas magically have a cost of 60p and are sold in the supermarket for £1.
Supermarkets selling bananas incur costs and are likely to declare about 2p in profit which will then be taxed in the UK at tax rate of 25% and generate about 0.5p for the public purse.
Some 47p is booked in offshore havens and profit element of that is not taxed in the UK even though profits are generated in the UK. Almost every transnational corporation uses similar tactics. The rules are that if a company is classed as UK resident for tax purposes then it must pay UK corporation tax on all its profits. This is normally adjusted for taxes already paid elsewhere. So, if profits of a UK resident company are not taxed anywhere the UK government can tax them but it rarely challenges corporations.
Transparency is a key requirement in challenging tax abuses facilitated by profit shifting. Annual audited accounts published by the companies are opaque and do not provide any information about intragroup transactions or profit shifting. Some visibility of profit shifting can be provided by Public Country-by-Country-Reporting which shows that profits are booked in places where companies lack employee and physical presence.
HMRC has made ‘sweetheart deals’ with large corporations, often appearing to accept less than what the liability ought to be. Despite the occasional report by the National Audit Office, insufficient details are known of the terms and extent of such deals. Parliamentary Committees are unable to scrutinise the deals because HMRC and companies hide behind claims of ‘confidentiality’ of tax affairs. The only way of empowering committees is to require public filing of corporate tax returns, just like their annual accounts. Such a proposal formed part of the Labour Party’s 2017 and 2019 manifestos, but was dropped from the 2024 manifesto.
The UK governments are too close to giant corporations and have failed to curb corporate tax abuses. Governments have instead forced people to pay more for crumbling social infrastructure, and eroded their purchasing power. This poses serious questions about the nature of governments and democracy and is not conducive to building a sustainable economy.
Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.
UK
Total new NHS negligence claims rise by 154 percent in 9 years
The NHS provides care and treatment to the public, and in doing so, it is open to claims from patients when this care or treatment falls below an acceptable standard of care. Unfortunately, these claims have consistently risen over the last 14 years.
Beecham Peacock, a medical negligence solicitors in the North East, have revealed the true extent of medical negligence claims against the NHS – including how likely you are to have a claim settled based on trends over the last decade. This information has been passed onto Digital Journal for review.
The information was gleaned by analysing NHS Resolution Centre data on negligence claims from 2006 to 2024, covering claims of differing specialities and varying amounts. NHS Resolution is an arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care.
The NHS is still a loved institution in the UK, with a 2023 poll finding that the NHS was the highest-ranking source of British pride, topping 54% of the public’s list, more so than British history (32%), culture (26%) and democracy (25%). However, reports show NHS payouts for medical negligence claims hit a new annual high of £2.8 billion last year.
Scottish folk band Lau in concert, supporting the NHS. Image by Tim Sandle
How have NHS medical negligence claims changed over time?
In the year 2006/07, there was a total of 5,426 new claims against the NHS for clinical negligence, relating to instances arising from a range of services, including paediatrics, neurosurgery, ambulance-related injury and more.
Moving on to the year 2023/24, there was a total of 13,784 claims, an overall change of 154.04% or 2.02% year-on-year. Regarding claims relating to individual services, the greatest overall increase in new claims comes from Radiology services, with a rise from 86 claims in 2006-2007 to 498 claims in 2023/24 – a rise of 479.07% in 14 years.
For year-on-year increases, the largest increase in new claims relates to ambulances. Rising from 68 claims per year in 2006/07 to 214 claims per year in 2023/24 – an increase of 12.04% every year.
“The rise in new medical negligence claims against the NHS can be seen and felt across the board. We see it first-hand with more clients walking through the door,” says Vicki Wanless, medical negligence solicitor at Beecham Peacock tells Digital Journal.
“In a way, it is natural to expect some rise over this gap, considering the UK’s population has also seen a considerable rise within this time frame – a rise of roughly seven million. However, this rise in overall new claims has risen significantly since the pandemic, a time many consider to be a breaking point in pressure on the NHS,” Wanless continues.
“Overall new claims rose by 44 between 2006/07 to 2007/08, rising again by 618 between 2007/08 to 2008/09, and another 601 the year after. Between 2019/20 and 2021/22 (the years dominated by COVID-19), there was an increase of 3,401.”
How many claims are being won?
As the number of claims increases, so does the number of claimant wins, with the data showing a surprisingly high success rate for medical negligence claims against the NHS.
Analysis of 2023/2024, the most recent NHS statistics, shows a total of 10,275 settled claims against the NHS – the eighth-highest number of wins in the last 14 years.
“Over the last five years, claim wins have remained very consistent, with marginal variance in terms of the number of claim winners,” explains Wanless. “The biggest year for claim settlements was 2016/17, with 12,293 settlements – 2,018 more claims than in 2023/24.
“The most interesting takeaway from this data is how much more consistent solicitors have become in winning claims. In the nine years between 2007/07 and 2014/15, total settlements rose from 5,610 a year to 10,204 a year – with settlements averaging out at 10,801.8 per year for the years 2015-2024. “In 2023/24 there were 13,784 claims and 10,275 settlements – that’s a success rate of 74.55% if you made a claim tomorrow.”
How much settlement money is being awarded?
Although individual case details are not disclosed in the full dataset, the data does include the range of settlement payouts. This includes the highest settlement amounts and the number of cases won each year within each payment range.
“A payment of £4,750,000+ in 2006/07 was rare, but it wasn’t unheard of,” says Wanless. “There were nine cases of £4,750,000+ settlements in both 2006/7 and 2007/08– a number that shot up to 30 in 2008/09. The most common settlement payout range in 2006/07 was £1,501 – £25,000, totalling 1,654 settlements.
“Compare this data to 2023/24, and you will notice a huge increase in payout costs across the board,” Wanless continues. “There were 139 payouts of £4,750,000+, an overall change of 1444.44%. The most common payout was in the range of £1,501-£25,000 (2,853 settlements), followed by £25,001-£50,000 (1,061 settlements) and £50,001-£100,000 (745 settlements).”
Union backlash as Starmer vows ‘flabby’ state reform and axes NHS England
Luke O'Reilly
13th March, 2025,
Photo: UK Government
Keir Starmer is facing a backlash from trade unions over his plans to reform the “flabby” state as he announced plans to abolish NHS England.
In a speech in Hull this morning, Starmer said he could not explain to the British people why their money was being spent “on two layers of bureaucracy”, with NHS England sitting alongside the Department for Health and Social Care.
He called government “overstretched, unfocused, trying to do too much, doing it badly”, outlining a series of reforms including more use of artificial intelligence and aims to slash regulation for business.
“So today, I can announce we’re going to cut bureaucracy across the state, focus government on the priorities of working people, shift money to the front line. So I’m bringing management of the NHS back into democratic control by abolishing the arms length body NHS England.
“That will put the NHS back at the heart of government where it belongs, free it to focus on patients – less bureaucracy with more money for nurses.”
The move will give the government greater direct control of health in England, but it is likely to incense unions amid job cuts, and could spark wider concern in the party about the NHS facing cuts.
‘The ways news of the axing has been handled is nothing short of shambolic’
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea criticised the plans, slamming the way they were communicated as “shambolic”.
Normally supportive of Starmer, and a major donor to the party, McAnea’s intervention will be particularly bruising for the Prime Minister.
She said the announcement will have left NHS England staff “reeling”.
“Just days ago they learned their numbers were to be slashed by half, now they discover their employer will cease to exist.
“The way the news of the axing has been handled is nothing short of shambolic. It could surely have been managed in a more sympathetic way.
“Thousands of expert staff will be left wondering what their future holds. Wherever possible, their valuable skills must be redeployed and used to the benefit of the reformed NHS and patients.
“Ministers have to reassure employees right across the NHS that there’s a robust plan to rejuvenate a flailing NHS and deliver for working people.”
‘Deeply concerned’
Earlier, ahead of the announcement, Labour affiliate union Unite said it was “deeply concerned” about plans to cut staff at the body, saying the decision was made without union consultation.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The NHS is one of the largest organisations in the world and hugely complex. It requires technical and clinical experts and a vast administrative staff for payroll, procurement, human resources and a multitude of other back office roles to make it work effectively.
“Taking an axe to these jobs is an ill-thought-out strategy that could end up meaning frontline healthcare staff struggle to do their jobs effectively if they aren’t paid on time, don’t have basic medical supplies or are forced to do additional administrative work rather than treat patients.”
Meanwhile Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “We agree technology has a part to play in improving public services and enhancing our members’ job satisfaction, but we are also clear that it cannot be used as a blunt instrument to cut jobs.
“Better public services and better front-line delivery will require human beings making empathetic decisions, not automatons incapable of understanding people’s needs.
“Any proposals for changing the way our members work must be done in full consultation with the unions.
“Labour says it is fixing the state so that it works for working people. Civil servants are working people, so this plan must also work for them.”
Reactions to Keir Starmer’s decision to scrap NHS England
Unions are unhappy about potential job losses while others are worried it could lead to further privatisation of the health service
Following Keir Starmer’s announcement yesterday that Labour will abolish NHS England, unions and health experts have raised concerns about the potential consequences.
While think tanks such as King’s Fund have pointed out there is “duplication and waste” as NHS England (NHSE) and the Department for Health and Social Care have a similar role, there is fear that removing it could lead to more political interference in the health service.
Some argue the move could have merit if it improves efficiency, but for it to succeed, it must result in tangible outcomes, particularly in reducing long waiting times for GP appointments and in A&E. The Prime Minister claims that the savings from scrapping NHSE will be reinvested into frontline services, but organisations are questioning how Labour will ensure this.
While Starmer emphasised that he is aiming to make the state “more agile” and less “flabby”, unions have criticised how the decision has been communicated as thousands face losing their jobs. “Nothing short of shambolic”
UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said that Starmer’s announcement will have left NHS England staff “reeling”.
She said: “just days ago they learned their numbers were to be slashed by half, now they discover their employer will cease to exist”.
McAnea added that “The way the news of the axing has been handled is nothing short of shambolic”, and said she felt it could have been managed in “a more sympathetic way”.
“Thousands of expert staff will be left wondering what their future holds. Wherever possible, their valuable skills must be redeployed and used to the benefit of the reformed NHS and patients.”
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said she was “deeply concerned” about Labour cutting NHSE staff without consultation with the unions.
She said that the NHS is “one of the largest organisations in the world and is hugely complex”, noting that as well as technical and clinical experts, it requires administrative staff for payroll, procurement, human resources and other back office roles to make it work effectively.
Graham added that “Taking an axe to these jobs is an ill-thought-out strategy” and if frontline healthcare staff “aren’t paid on time, don’t have basic medical supplies or are forced to do additional administrative work rather than treat patients”, it could mean they can’t do their jobs effectively. “Ministers will need to explain how the prize will be worth the price”
Sarah Woolnough, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund, a health policy think tank, said: “The most important question is how will the abolition of NHS England make it easier for people to get a GP appointment, shorten waits for planned care, and improve people’s health.”
“That hasn’t yet been set out – ministers will need to explain how the prize will be worth the price.”
Woolnough noted that the potential cost savings of scrapping NHS England “would be minimal” in context of the overall NHS budget, which will be £192bn in 2025/26. She also said that the government must be clear on why the restructuring needs to be done now.
She added: “As with previous NHS restructures, structural change comes with significant opportunity cost, with staff who would otherwise be spending their time trying to improve productivity, ensure safety, and get the best outcomes for patients, now worrying about whether they will have a job.” Concerns about ministers taking on more control of the NHS
Dr Julia Patterson, chief executive of campaign group, Every Doctor, said the news that NHS England will be abolished has come “as a shock to many”.
She added: “It’s currently unclear whether this move will reduce bureaucracy, or whether NHS England will be removed, only to be replaced with a new layer of bureaucracy created by Starmer and Streeting.
“We are also concerned about ministers taking on more control of the NHS. The NHS needs long-term, sustainable plans to rebuild the service, not plans driven by a political agenda to win votes at the next election for whichever minister is calling the shots.” “How can the answer be more cuts, delivered chaotically?”
Director of We Own It, Cat Hobbs, said that Lord Darzi’s independent review of the NHS noted that “austerity is responsible for the dire state of the NHS”, adding that staff are suffering and patients are dying due to government cuts over the past 14 years.
Hobbs questioned the cuts, stating: “How can the answer be more cuts, delivered chaotically? Where is the evidence base for this decision, where is the plan to shift money and jobs to the frontline?”
She said: “If you talk to NHS staff, they are actually desperate for more managers to free up their time to do the caring.”
She argued that if the decision is about improving patient care, Wes Streeting must demonstrate it by significantly increasing the number of GPs, hospital staff, community nurses, and frontline managers to support them in their roles.
She added: “If this decision is about democracy, Wes Streeting must prove it by listening to the 87% of the country who want to stop NHS privatisation. End the waste of outsourcing contracts, PFI deals and private consultants.
“The last thing patients need is massive cuts to an already stressed NHS and a power grab that doesn’t end wasteful privatisation.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
New poll reveals what NHS staff really think about the state of the health service
New polling has revealed what NHS staff think about the current state of the health service. It doesn’t make happy reading.
According to the poll, 86 per cent of NHS staff think the NHS is in a ‘very weak’ or ‘fairly weak’ state. By contrast, just 10 per cent of staff said it was in a ‘fairly strong’ state, and 2 per cent in a ‘very strong’ state.
In bad news for the current government, only 30 per cent of NHS staff think it is handling the NHS well, compared to 53 per cent who think it is handling it badly.
Despite this, the Labour government can at least take some solace in the fact that NHS staff have a much worse opinion of how the Tories handled the health service. 87 per cent of NHS staff think the Tories handled the NHS badly, compared to just 8 per cent who think they handled it well.
As part of the poll, NHS staff were asked to name what they deemed to be up to three of the biggest problems facing the health service.
Half (50 per cent) of all respondents said that lack of funding was one of the biggest issues. This was followed by increased demand (48 per cent), staff shortages (46 per cent), poor management (34 per cent), bad policy (22 per cent), Covid-19 (17 per cent), and privatisation and outsourcing (16 per cent).
The least common response given as to a problem in the health service was the actions of trade unions. Just 2 per cent of respondents listed this as one of the problems facing the NHS.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
The state of women’s health
Dr Rathi Guhadasanoffers some reflections for International Women’s Day.
Two years ago, former Socialist Health Association (SHA) Vice Chair Vivien Walsh wrote an article entitled “Women’s Lives Before the NHS”. Today, as we celebrate International Women’s Day, the article is a timely reminder of what our predecessors in the SHA (or Socialist Medical Association as it was then) and labour movement achieved and why it was so important.
One such predecessor was Dr Edith Summerskill, a founding member of the SMA and a minister in the Attlee government. In addition to fighting for universal healthcare provision through the NHS and passing legislation for pasteurised milk, she campaigned on issues such as equal pay for women, birth control, abortion rights and pain control during childbirth.
What would Dr Summerskill say to us today, on this International Women’s Day?
We’ve certainly come a long way from the pre-NHS circumstances described in Vivien’s article, when deaths in childbirth were four times higher than deaths from coal mining – the most dangerous job for men at that time. Today, however, UK maternal mortality rates are the highest for 20 years, with an over 50% increase in 2020-22 figures compared with 2017-19; and black and Asian women and those from the most socioeconomically deprived areas face the greatest mortality risks compared to their white and more affluent counterparts. Last year’s All Party Parliamentary Group Birth Trauma report was a devastating indictment of the state of maternity care in the UK and this has been reinforced by a succession of scandals from Shrewsbury to Nottingham.
The crisis in women’s healthcare is not limited to maternal health but extends across their lifespan. Unlike men, healthy life expectancy for women has fallen since 2014 and they spend a greater proportion of their lives in ill health and disability. According to Professor Dame Lesley Regan, women have been disproportionately impacted by the NHS funding cuts of the past 15 years:
“The net result is that we now have a 45% unplanned pregnancy rate, cervical screening is at an all-time low, while abortion rates are at an all-time high, mostly explained by the fact that women face numerous barriers when trying to access routine health maintenance services…. Women’s health services like cancer screening, contraception, abortion and maternity services have been in three silos of commissioning – Clinical Commissioning Groups, local authorities and NHS England… None of those three funding pots picks up the pieces when they don’t get it right; the people that don’t give you contraception aren’t the ones to pick up the maternity bills or the abortion bills.”
To make matters worse, women and children are often not represented in research. Many treatments for pregnant women, babies and children are used off-licence, having never been tested in clinical trials, so that any potential adverse effects will only become apparent through clinical experience. The COVID-19 vaccine is a notable example, where the conditions of pregnancy and breastfeeding were illogically conflated and both pregnant and lactating women were denied the vaccine when it was first licenced.
This ‘gender data gap’ is dangerous for women, who are continually compared to a male ‘default’ when they present to health services, not listened to or understood. For example, women presenting with heart attacks are routinely misdiagnosed when they don’t show the ‘classic’ symptoms which are taught in medical school, and which are only classic in men.
The last government’s Women’s Health Strategy call for evidence found that 84% of women surveyed reported feeling they were not listed to by health professionals. Within this shocking statistic, however, is a tangle of intersectional inequalities which need to be addressed, such as those relating to ethnicity, disability, sexuality and socioeconomic background. It should be remembered that women also disproportionately carry the burden of caring responsibilities in this country, in the face of a broken social care system, and bear the greatest impact on their employment and earning potential.
The NHS today remains largely an intervention service rather than a prevention service, missing opportunities to empower women and girls to take control of their health. SHA’s maternal health group last yearcalled for exactly this: “Services should be focused on preventative health, reducing inequalities, and meeting the needs of women across the lifespan.” We suggest to “staff the women and not the wards”, implementing midwifery continuity of care models, delivered via integrated community-based women’s health hubs; coupling this with programmes such as Sure Start to target inequalities, addressing pay and working conditions in order to retain trained staff, and redesigning training curriculums to meet the needs of all marginalised and vulnerable women.
The situation for women and girls globally also needs urgent attention. According to UNFPA, about one in three women worldwide experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. The indefensible cuts in aid spending will hit women and children the hardest. More than 60% of all maternal deaths occur in fragile contexts and humanitarian crises. When mothers die, their children are much more likely to die, and if they survive, their nutritional and educational outcomes are nevertheless impacted. Yet every $1 invested in maternal health and family planning yields $8.4 in economic benefit.
Women give us hope
I think Dr Summerskill would still see reasons for hope today. We still have inspirational women in the labour movement, from Diane Abbott to Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana, who tirelessly and fearlessly fight inequalities and stand up for the vulnerable. Within the SHA, we have great women leading on important policy work, from fighting NHS privatisation to women’s health, abortion rights and social care.
If you’d like to learn more about our work on these issues or get involved, please contact us at admin@sochealth.co.uk.
Dr Rathi Guhadasan is Chair of the Socialist Health Association.
