The Authors Guild launches partnership to ensure authors in ‘driver’s seat’ in AI licensing


October, 10 2024


Collaboration with online platform Created by Humans aims to protect and monetise authors’ work in age of AI

Platform aims to provide authors a clear path to control, manage and monetise their content in the age of AIJakub Jirsak


By  Maura O’Malley

The Global Legal Post


The Authors Guild and online platform Created by Humans have launched a partnership enabling authors to license their works to AI developers.

The guild, which is the largest professional organisation for writers in the US, said that the partnership aims to help protect and promote authors’ rights in the age of AI, ensuring that authors who retain their copyrights are “in the driver’s seat when it comes to AI licensing” – so that authors can decide if, when and how AI companies use their works.

AI companies like ChatGPT creator OpenAI have faced a slew of lawsuits from novelists and performers like Sarah Silverman and US media organisation The New York Times who have accused them of using their copyrightable material without their permission to train their large language models (LLMs).

The aims of the platform, the guild says, is to offer authors a clear path to control, manage and monetise their content while giving AI developers access to high-quality, curated written works with the full consent of rightsholders.

Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, said that the platform provides authors who are interested in engaging with AI platforms “a way to do so on their own terms, ensuring they have a say in how their work is used and are fairly compensated for it”.

She noted that generative AI is “here to stay and it does not appear that all the books LLMs have been trained on can be effectively purged”.

“We urgently need to give control back to authors and their publishers, and licensing is the means to accomplish that going forward,” she added.

The Authors Guild notes that licensing is already happening, with publishers and publications striking deals with AI companies in most cases without consultation with the authors.

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In the UK in April, the Financial Times struck a “strategic partnership” and licensing agreement with OpenAI. OpenAI has also signed a deal to bring news content from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Times and the Sunday Times to the AI platform.

The platform will open for authors and publishers to register their choices later this year and should be ready to offer licences to AI companies in early 2025.

Trip Adleris, co-founder and CEO of Created by Humans, said: “This collaboration shows that it is possible to build ethical AI systems that respect creators’ rights while advancing technology. Authors maintain control of their work and gain a new revenue stream, while AI developers get access to authorised, accurate, high-quality content.”

As part of the partnership, Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger will serve on the Created by Humans advisory board.

The platform can be found here.

UK government unveils long-awaited Employment Rights Bill – what next?


October, 16 2024

The Bill will ring in seismic shifts that substantially raise the bar for employers, write Ashurst’s Crowley Woodford and Ruth Buchanan

Credit: Shutterstock


By


Crowley Woodford
Ashurst

Ruth Buchanan
Ashurst



The long-awaited Employment Rights Bill is finally here. In what is the biggest boost for employment rights in decades, these extensive proposals mean employers will have plenty to grapple with moving forward. The provisions in the new Bill include day one rights on unfair dismissal, flexible working and more.

Day one rights on unfair dismissal – a historic move

This is one of the most significant changes, marking an important departure from the current legal position, whereby two years of service are required for employees to qualify for protection against unfair dismissal. Additional day one rights include the right to paternity leave, unpaid parental leave and bereavement leave. Making unfair dismissal a day one right is a historic move never before seen in the UK workplace.

However, it could open a can of worms with more claims reaching the Employment Tribunal system, which is already over-stretched and under-resourced. Employers will need to make sure that they follow a full and fair process each time they are faced with a potential dismissal situation following completion of the new (currently undefined) statutory probation period, while also considering the potential cost implications of statutory sick pay and paternity leave being more readily available to employees.

Flexible working – a further layer of complexity


It will now be more difficult for employers to refuse flexible working requests. This comes at a time where employers are already challenged with balancing modern day flexible working with their business and client needs. The Bill now adds a further layer of complexity for employers who may only refuse a flexible working request on a specified ground (the same as those which already exist) and if it is reasonable to refuse the request on that ground. This sets a high threshold for employers to meet.

Employers should prepare for these changes by reviewing their current flexible working policies and procedures.

Fire and rehire – solely where there is genuinely no alternative option

Changes mean that where an employee is dismissed as a result of not agreeing to proposed changes in their contract of employment, the dismissal will be automatically unfair unless the employer can demonstrate: (a) evidence of financial difficulties; and (b) that the need to make the change in contractual terms was unavoidable.

Fire and re-hire was always used as very much a last resort by employers, given that any dismissal through this route already gave rise to a potential unfair dismissal claim. However, it’s now clear that this route should only be considered by employers in circumstances where the business is facing financial distress.

Dismissal on return from parental leave – strengthening protections for pregnant women

The Bill introduces the ability for the Secretary of State to enact regulations that prohibit the dismissal of women who are pregnant, on maternity leave, and during a period of six months following their return to work. The Bill guidance notes clarify that there will be exceptions to this prohibition on dismissal in “specific circumstances”, although no further details are provided about what these circumstances might be.

This will give new mothers certainty that the law is on their side, but we await details about how such restrictions on dismissals would work in practice, and particularly what the exceptional “specific circumstances” might be. Employers will need to be aware of the potential costs of needing to keep certain employees employed throughout the specific period of protection from dismissal once they return from applicable family leave, and otherwise think carefully about how they plan and structure any dismissals.

Trade union provisions – a seismic shift in favour of unions and workers

There is now a duty on employers to inform all new employees of their right to join a union. This information must be included in the written statement of particulars that employers are required to provide to their new hires. In relation to statutory recognition, the Bill lowers the level of support unions need to show from workers to gain statutory recognition. The Bill also creates a right for trade unions to access workplaces to meet, represent, recruit or organise workers or to facilitate collective bargaining.

Employers will need to be prepared for increasing trade union membership, more extensive calls for recognition and the strengthening of unions.

Statutory sick pay – shifting the dial

Statutory sick pay (SSP) will be payable from day one of sickness. Additionally individuals earning below the Lower Earnings Limit (currently £123 per week) will also be entitled to SSP. This will be welcomed by workers but jars with fixing the perceived wider UK “sick-note culture”.

Those earning below the Lower Earnings Limit will be entitled to a lower level of SSP meaning that employers will have to operate a two tier SSP system which may cause unwelcome payroll headaches and system changes. Additionally, the related calculations and data will need to be tested and monitored for ongoing compliance.

Conclusion – a waiting game

As ever, the devil will be in the detail over the coming months with consultation documents to follow, but one thing is clear: the bar for employers will be substantially raised.

Crowley Woodford and Ruth Buchanan are London-based employment partners at Ashurst

news@globallegalpost.com

Why Labour’s Employment Rights Bill is the biggest upgrade in workers’ and trade union rights in a generation

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‘Modern-day Moses’ behind massive church scam accused of rebranding as a ‘life coach’ to run Ponzi scheme

Exclusive: Convicted con artist Lindani “Daniel” Mangena was previously sentenced to seven years behind bars for bilking at least 1,000 parishioners

Justin Rohrlich
THE INDEPENDENT

Now out of prison, Daniel Mangena is being sued by angry investors (WTMJ-TV)

A “modern-day Moses” who spent seven years in a UK prison after scamming churchgoers out of more than $4 million has quietly re-emerged under a new name as a “life coach,” allegedly pushing a bogus get-rich-quick scam in the United States.

Lindani Mangena was convicted in a London court in 2008 following a years-long swindle that conned at least 1,000 parishioners from Seventh Day Adventist congregations in London. Promising returns of up to 3,000 percent, Mangena’s victims lost it all while he spent big on luxury cars, pricey real estate, and jaunts to Dubai’s seven-star Burj Al Arab hotel. Mangena, who was then 24, showed no detectable remorse, a judge in his case wrote in denying his appeal.

Today, Mangena is allegedly back in business — as “Daniel” Mangena — and running a Ponzi scheme that has duped a fresh set of unwitting victims, according to a lawsuit obtained by The Independent.

In the suit, which was filed October 10 in New York State Supreme Court, New York City real estate brokers Paul Gavriani and Vince Falcone claim Mangena not only stole close to $1 million from them, but has also fleeced an “untold” number of others who were unaware of his crooked past.

A review of New York court filings turns up a half-dozen claims of non-payment by various entities; in August, a federal judge in Manhattan found Mangena in default after failing to respond to claims by a New Jersey woman who accused Mangena of bilking her out of a six-figure sum “based on false promises,” after which he “gaslit” her into believing the losses were her own fault.

“I don’t recall it being a crime to have money problems,” Mangena, now 40, told The Independent in an email on Tuesday, noting that he has not yet been formally served with a copy of the lawsuit.

Mangena was previously found guilty of living large in destinations such as Dubai while his victims lost it all (Getty Images)

Mangena, who reportedly now lives either in the United Arab Emirates or Los Cabos, Mexico but would only cop to residing abroad, took exception to the notion he is running a Ponzi scheme. He claimed he planned on paying back the funds, which he described as a loan, “when I am financially able to do so,” and blamed Gavriani, Falcone, and others as being the “root cause of my current financial troubles.”


“I could easily have filed for bankruptcy given my current state but elected to ignore the attacks and stick to my financial commitments,” Mangena said.

He further accused Gavriani of being “one of a group of people who obsessively call me Lindani Mangena despite my name being Daniel.” However, Mangena is also listed in at least one other New York court case as Daniel Mangena, aka Lindani Mangena.


Gavriani, 54, first linked up with Mangena in October 2020, after he chanced upon him being interviewed on a podcast, according to the lawsuit. Mangena, who is interviewed regularly on finance webcasts, claims to have helped “hundreds of people [generate] passive income — earning money from investments with minimal effort — by helping them invest in unsexy businesses,” the lawsuit goes on, with Mangena himself claiming the technique earned him between $30,000 and $50,000 monthly.

Mangena is an appealing personality, and has been successful at getting himself airtime

His boasts intrigued Gavriani, who was approaching retirement and “looking to diversify his business interests into areas that aligned with his creative endeavors,” the lawsuit says.

Gavriani excitedly signed up for Mangena’s program, paying a $4,000 initiation fee, then $1,000 a month for weekly one-on-one coaching sessions with Mangena as well as “lifetime access” to his online offerings, according to the suit.

A little less than two months in, Mangena started to formulate a “vision” for Gavriani — who was unaware of his mentor’s criminal past — to earn enough passive income to quit his job and be the “artist” he always dreamed of being, according to the lawsuit. The big idea, or, the “Ideal Life Blueprint,” as Mangena called it, involved Gavriani bankrolling an ecommerce store on Facebook, which would sell bass fishing lures and non-prescription inhalers.

But after Gavriani, as directed, spent $30,000 to set up a slew of LLCs, and paid a $40,000 setup and management fee to the day-to-day operations team, the store opened in July 2021 — four months behind schedule — to a resounding flop. The operations people said the decision to offer the lures and inhalers had been “research-based,” and claimed to have no idea why the venture was failing, the lawsuit alleges. Gavriani demanded his money back, but never saw a dime, according to the suit.

With Gavriani’s finances in disarray, Mangena had a new plan to put money in his pocket: arbitraging textbooks by buying cheap and selling them for more on Amazon, the documents state. Mangena allegedly assured him that he personally would be running this store, so there was no chance of him getting ripped off.

So, Gavriani paid a $15,000 setup fee, and a month later, Mangena began sending weekly checks ranging from $600 to $750, the suit says.

Mangena’s “Ideal Life Blueprint” for setting Paul Gavriani and Vince Falcone on a path to financial freedom was to buy cheap books and sell them for a profit on Amazon (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Yet, Mangena never actually set up any store, and the so-called profits were either “his own funds or with the funds of others that Defendant Mangena had connived into ‘investing’ with him,” according to the lawsuit.

“In other words,” it says, “Mangena was operating a Ponzi scheme, in which he had entangled Mr. Gavriani.”

From there, Mangena convinced Gavriani to underwrite “bridge loans” for others in his group coaching class, doling out some $400,000 in return for $18,000 a month in interest payments, which came in as promised, the lawsuit states. In October 2022, Falcone inquired about possibly investing some of his own money with Mangena, and put up an initial payment of $100,000 to launch his own Amazon store.

Everything was smooth sailing, until January 2023, when Gavriani suddenly received half his usual monthly payment. Mangena blamed it on “some kind of issue with the bank.” But their supposedly guaranteed payments continued to dwindle, if they came in at all, the suit contends.

The underpayments continued into March, and when Gavriani questioned Mangena about it, he became upset, according to the lawsuit.

“Mangena berated Mr. Gavriani for having repeatedly contacted him about missing payments and because the call was supposedly dragging him away from hanging out with billionaire Richard Branson on Branson’s private island, a trip on which Defendant Mangena had spent ‘seven figures,’” the suit states.

Mangena denies saying he had paid seven-figures to pal around with Richard Branson (PA Wire)

A week later, Mangena sent Gavriani the other half of his money, and continued to provide the full amount each month, the lawsuit goes on. But by late spring 2023, the payments stopped altogether, the lawsuit says, adding that Gavriani and Falcone subsequently learned of Mangena’s UK fraud conviction.

When Gavriani tried to dissolve their co-ventures and cash out his funds, his lawsuit claims Mangena accused him of having “paranoid delusions,” threatened to sue, then disappeared.

“Lies and more lies,” Mangena told The Independent, insisting he never claimed to have paid to pal around with Richard Branson.

“Any ‘berating’ would be my chastisement for harassing my ex-wife and mother of my child on Facebook with this same grade of bogus claim to the point of her having to block him,” Mangena said. “The bottom line here is we had a loan agreement which includes terms for late payment, a loan which was paid for a significant period of time until which point I did indeed fall behind and asked for time to sort that.”

Mangena conceded that he did cut communication with Gavriani, but vowed that he “remain[s] committed to meeting the terms of loan repayment as per contract.”

For their part, Gavriani and Falcone’s lawsuit says they “have lost nearly $1,000,000 from both the money that Defendant Mangena stole from them,” and are asking for compensatory and punitive damages, plus legal fees.

“I have not been on US soil since September 2019,” Mangena said on Tuesday before ceasing contact, noting that he presently lacks a visa to enter the country. “... So, [I] cannot even be served, nor attend any court appearances, which Mr. Gavriani is aware of... That is all from me and thank you for the opportunity to respond.”

Starmer to right of Italian far right on Israel as Meloni blocks all arms

BySKWAWKBOX (SW)

16/10/2024

Italy’s total block on arms exports to Israel shames ‘Labour’ government

Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the Starmer front bench are now to the right of Italian PM Giorgia Meloni and the fascist-adjacent Brothers of Italy party that she leads on Israel and it’s genocide in Gaza.

Meloni, who has spoken out before against Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians, has announced her decision to ban all arms shipments to Israel.

Meanwhile, Labour made a token ban on a fraction of arms components that is designed to be bypassed because it still allows parts to be sent via other countries – and when challenged yesterday to say what action it will take to stop Israel bombing and burning innocent’s, a government minister Anneliese Dodds would only answer that the UK will keep monitoring the situation and Israel’s attacks.

Brothers of Italy is considered a descendant of Mussolini’s Italian fascists, but it is more interested in stopping mass murder than Starmer and his acolytes.

AMERIKAN RIGHT WING VIEW

Zelenskyy’s long-promised blueprint to end Russia war draws mixed reviews

'Victory plan' vows to reclaim land, join NATO, but some decry unrealistic 'wish list'

In this photo provided by the Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine on Oct. 16, 2024, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to parliamentarians at Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine via AP) 

By Ben Wolfgang - The Washington Times - Wednesday, October 16, 2024

The Russia-Ukraine war could end next year on terms favorable to Kyiv if the U.S. and NATO back an ambitious — and, by most accounts, unrealistic — five-point victory plan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday as he outlined a proposal that seemed to fall flat across much of the West.

Mr. Zelenskyy told the Ukrainian parliament that his plan would end the war and guarantee his country’s security for decades.

It was the long-awaited public announcement of a plan the Ukrainian president has been discussing privately on trips to Washington, the United Nations and a string of European capitals in recent weeks. The plan aims to stem mounting public war fatigue in Ukraine and among its leading Western supporters.

Much of the plan reads like a Kyiv wish list while its troops battle to hold back advancing Russian forces that occupy nearly one-fifth of Ukraine in the south and east.

The plan calls for NATO to immediately extend a formal “unconditional invitation” to Kyiv, provide additional arms and satellite data, and help Ukraine “deploy a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” that would force Russia into “an honest diplomatic process” to end the fighting or face the destruction of its army.


Most of the key points mirror wish list items that Mr. Zelenskyy has publicly outlined several other times. Washington and other major alliance powers have long resisted some headline-worthy points, such as the call for Ukraine to immediately be invited into NATO. Part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for invading in February 2022 was to keep Ukraine out of NATO.

A NATO invitation seems wildly optimistic and centers on theoretical U.S. policy moves to allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with American weapons.

Still, it is noteworthy that Mr. Zelenskyy attached such a clear, definitive time frame to the proposal. He insisted the war could end next year if his plan is adopted.

The Ukrainian leader said a clear signal of NATO membership would show Moscow that its war plans are “headed for defeat.”

Fatigue

Mr. Zelenskyy’s relatively specific end date seems to be a subtle acknowledgment of the fatigue setting in across the West, especially in the U.S., and that a victory by Republican Donald Trump in next month’s presidential election could put significantly more pressure on Kyiv to begin cease-fire talks with Moscow.


Amid the strong support for Ukraine in the U.S. and across Europe is a growing sense that the focus must turn to some kind of peace settlement short of total victory for either side. Mr. Zelenskyy’s comments appear designed, at least in part, to motivate war-weary allies to redouble their support for Ukraine with the understanding that peace is on the horizon.

“The urgency of the victory plan is now. These are points, most of which are thoroughly time-based,” Mr. Zelenskyy told Ukrainian lawmakers. “If we begin following this idea, this concrete victory plan right now, it may be possible to end the war no later than next year.”

The Ukrainian president also framed the conflict in global terms. “The fate of the coming decades is being decided by the actions of our global coalition in defense of Ukraine and international law,” he said.

“For us, it is entirely legitimate to turn to our partners for support in this battle. For our partners, it is completely practical to help us not only endure but also prevail in war for our lives. In doing so, they will help themselves just as much,” he said.

He suggested commercial profit for those who stood by his government. Ukraine has significant deposits of critical minerals such as uranium, titanium and lithium, and its farmlands are among the most extensive grain-producing fields in the world. A Putin victory, he said, would put those resources in the wrong hands.


Ukraine’s raw materials and physical assets are “strategically valuable resources, and they will strengthen either Russia and its allies or Ukraine and the democratic world.”

Mr. Zelenskyy’s victory plan will likely disappoint observers expecting a clear push toward ending the war that perhaps lays out broad terms for peace talks with the Kremlin.

President Biden spoke with the Ukrainian leader on Wednesday, but a White House readout of the call said little about the administration’s position on the proposal.

“President Zelenskyy updated President Biden on his plan to achieve victory over Russia, and the two leaders tasked their teams to engage in further consultations on next steps,” the White House statement said.

At the State Department, spokesperson Matthew Miller also said little.


“We continue to engage with the government of Ukraine about that plan,” he said.

Some key political figures inside Ukraine said the proposal failed to offer anything that would dramatically change dynamics.

“First of all, it’s not a plan. Plan means something with concrete steps,” said opposition lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko. “It’s kind of a wish list from Ukraine for our partners, how they can and should support us. And it doesn’t look realistic. We were waiting for some real serious conversation about the situation and the strategy, and this is not that.”

Even NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte sounded skeptical.

“We are working with the Ukrainians to understand better … how this would help in ending the war,” he said.

NATO has given vague promises of a road map to eventual Ukraine membership, but the alliance has been reluctant to take concrete steps to bring Kyiv into the fold while it remains at war with Russia. Such a move could draw the entire bloc into the conflict. At the very least, the Kremlin would see it as a highly provocative act that may necessitate further Russian military aggression in Europe.

America’s role


It’s almost surely no coincidence that the Biden administration announced another $425 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine just hours after Mr. Zelenskyy’s speech. The assets include surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft missiles.

Since the February 2022 invasion, the U.S. has given Ukraine more than $61 billion in direct military aid and other financial and economic assistance. The administration pledged more aid in the next several months.

Western weapons have helped Ukraine capture and hold a significant swath of Russian territory in the Kursk region. The Kursk operation has given Ukraine new momentum in the war, though analysts warn that Russian forces are making gains in other areas and that Ukraine’s long-term trajectory in the conflict is still an uphill battle at best.

Indeed, Mr. Zelenskyy’s victory plan hinges on major influxes of additional military aid from the U.S. and other NATO nations. The proposal even calls for “assistance from our partners in manning our reserve brigades for the armed forces of Ukraine,” a step that seemingly would deepen the direct involvement of other Western powers in Ukraine’s future security.

The plan also calls for Western financial investment in Ukraine in the immediate postwar period that Mr. Zelenskyy said would pay off.


“This is an opportunity for the United States and our partners in the [Group of Seven] to work with Ukraine — the ally that can provide a return on investment,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mocked the plan as “ephemeral,” and Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it “a set of incoherent slogans.”

Elsewhere in Europe, key leaders reiterated that they are prepared to directly engage with the Kremlin and with Mr. Putin personally to help end the war.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told his country’s parliament that a peace conference must include Mr. Putin.

“If we are asked, we will also speak with the Russian president,” he said, though he insisted no decisions would be made with the full participation of Ukraine in any peace talks.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.


• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.

 

Amazon joins Google, Microsoft in going nuclear • FRANCE 24 English

 

Wartime aircraft engine brought to life for first time at museum since 1945

Harry Booth
Tue 15 October 2024

The Hercules engine in action (Image: Kieran Wilkinson)

A wartime aircraft engine has been brought to life at RAF Elvington for the first time since 1945.

A Hercules engine, used in Halifax bombers in the Second World War, was started at the Yorkshire Air Museum on October 12 - the first time the airfield has seen it roar since the war.

Part of the museum's 'Thunder Day' celebrations, the engine was fired up for the public at the site formerly known as RAF Elvington.

Halifax bombers flew from Elvington from 1943 to 1945 and while the museum has a reconstructed Halifax in its collection, its engines do not run.

Museum spokesman, Jerry Ibbotson, said: "For Thunder Day this Autumn we wanted to do something special, so we spoke to Patric Smart from Thirsk who has a rebuilt Hercules engine in a rig that he demonstrates at events and displays.

"This was the type that carried Halifaxes into action night after night from bases such as Elvington.

"It makes an incredible sound and one that has not been heard here at Elvington since the last Halifax left at the end of the war. To hear it booming around the site gave us goosebumps."

Patric Smart’s father flew the famous Halifax – "Friday the 13th" – which completed 128 missions in the war.

 UK

Battersea Power Station's Turbine Theatre to close as union raises 'serious' concerns

Josh Salisbury
Wed 16 October 2024

Artistic director Paul Taylor-Mills (Matt Writtle)

An off-West End venue has announced it will close its doors as a union said it was probing “serious concerns” about workers’ rights.

The Turbine Theatre, a 92-seater venue in a railway arch at Battersea Power Station, said it would shut after its final production at Christmas, citing the challenge of making a small theatre economically viable.

The announcement came after actors’ union Equity told members in an email last week it was probing “serious concerns” that performers and stage management at The Turbine may have been “denied important rights” of “significant monetary value.”

In a statement announcing the closure, artistic director Paul Taylor-Mills said: “As the landscape of making theatre shifts, without serious investment and philanthropy, a 92 seat space just can't work and it's time for me to focus my efforts elsewhere.”

Mr Taylor-Mills, who is also artistic director of 312-seater The Other Palace theatre in Victoria, said he was “proud” of the theatre’s work, which hosted shows such as My Son’s A Queer and I Wish You Well which have since gone on to have major runs.

“The Turbine Theatre has been an absolute labour of love,” he said, adding that his focus would now turn to The Other Palace, which is set to host the UK musical adaptation of the popular Percy Jackson series.

“It shouldn't have worked. But it did and I'm so incredibly proud of the lives it's changed and the dreams it's made come true.

“Creating this incredible venue, with the people that believed in what it could be has been a career highlight and I'm so thankful for the memories.”

The news came after the union Equity appealed for its members in an email last week to make contact if they needed support, saying it was concerned that some staff may potentially have “been denied important rights that could be of significant monetary value”.

An Equity spokesperson said: “A number of Equity members have come forward with concerns which the union is providing support on.

“We hope we can resolve the issues of concern constructively with the Turbine Theatre and Paul Taylor-Mills, and we are in contact with them to that end.”

A union spokesperson declined to give more details on what those concerns were.

The Turbine Theatre did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

UK

Super sewer: Thames Water customers will pay £25 annual levy for another two decades to fund £4.5bn project

Ross Lydall
Tue 15 October 2024 


Thames Water customers will pay a £25 levy on their bills for about another two decades to repay the cost of the £4.5bn “super sewer”.

The 15-mile pipeline, which was officially declared in use on Monday, more than eight years after construction began, is being funded through a surcharge, currently three per cent, on domestic water bills.

A decade ago, when the project was first envisaged, Tideway, the firm that has built the super sewer, and Thames Water committed to charging “no more than £25 a year” at 2014/15 prices.

Andy Mitchell, chief executive of Tideway, said the project – which will drastically reduce the amount of raw sewage that ends up in the Thames - was “like a mortgage arrangement that quietly will be paid off over decades”.

How the super sewer works (Tideway)

Speaking to The Standard on Monday, Mr Mitchell said: “We believe this year that it will be at its peak. It will fall away thereafter.

“Quite at what pace it falls away really will be a matter between Tideway and Thames Water and the regulator every five years, to decide what should happen over the coming five years.

“It’s variable and decisions will be made in future decades as to how long that carries on.”

Thames Water has been approached for comment.

The project has created seven new public “piazzas” along the riverbank, including at Putney, Chelsea, Vauxhall, on the Victoria Embankment and beside Blackfriars bridge.

The space at Blackfriars – the largest of the seven - will be named Bazalgette Embankment, in honour of Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer who created the capital’s first sewage system.

“We don’t think he got enough credit for what he did, so we have been able to get that named after him,” Mr Mitchell said.

“This will be a continuation of what Bazalgette did. We hope it’s a place that people will enjoy for many, many decades to come.

“We have the Victoria site opposite site opposite the London Eye, which is going to be a fantastic site in future years to see the fireworks on New Year’s Eve.”

The original layout for Cycle Superhighway 3 will be reinstated next summer (TfL)

The capital’s flagship cycle route, the CS3 cycle superhighway, now known as cycleway 3, along the Victoria Embankment, is expected to be fully reinstated next summer, when Tideway vacate its riverside work site between Embankment Tube station and Blackfriars bridge.

Construction works have required the narrowing of the cycleway near the Tube station and the re-routing of the westbound and eastbound ramps that allow cyclists and vehicles to move between Blackfriars bridge and the Embankment.

Mr Mitchell said: “We are talking to TfL and have agreed that they will do that reinstatement. We are paying for it, but they will do it. Because we are demobilising it makes more sense for them to do it.

“As we finish that site next summer, we will vacate the space. That will allow TfL to put the superhighway back where it was before we started.”

The new piazzas that have been created on the Albert Embankment (Tideway)

The super sewer’s flood defences are operating in four out of 21 sites, all in west London – Acton, Barn Elms and two portals at King George’s Park.

Next week the central London portals at Victoria Embankment, Blackfriars Bridge and Albert Embankment are expected to come on stream.

All 21 sites should be in use by the end of the year. “We are hoping another six to eight weeks and we will be there,” Mr Mitchell said.

During heavy rainfall, they will direct overflows into the super sewer, which has been dug under the river between Hammersmith bridge and Limehouse, and takes the discharges direct to Beckton sewage treatment works in east London.

Prior to the super sewer opening, untreated sewage was discharged into the Thames about 60 days a year.

Mr Mitchell said: “This is going to make a fundamental difference into the health of the river.”

Asked about London mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to make the Thames swimmable within a decade, Mr Mitchell said the super sewer would make it much cleaner – but he wouldn’t personally want to swim in the river.

He said: “If you are out there swimming in the tidal Thames, with all the traffic and a 7m tide range and the fast currents, arguably the quality of the water is the least of your problems. It’s not an advisable place to swim.

“But on the point of: ‘Will the water be an awful lot cleaner?’ Yes, it will.

“Technically, this water would be of a condition that – if that was the only consideration – you could [go swimming]. I wouldn’t.

‘A triumph’: London’s £19bn Elizabeth line is named best new architecture in Britain

Oliver Wainwright

THE GUARDIAN
Wed 16 October 2024 

‘As if the entire line has been moulded from a single substance’ … the Elizabeth line.Photograph: Hufton + Crow


With the longest platforms, the biggest tunnels and the fastest trains on the entire London underground, the Elizabeth line boasts a dizzying list of superlatives, carrying more people a day than any other train line in the country. It is now deemed to have the best design, too – being named as the winner of the 2024 RIBA Stirling prize for the finest architecture in the UK. The competition was stiff: from the National Portrait Gallery in London to the renovation of the Park Hill estate in Sheffield, from a Dorset dairy farm conversion to a street of social housing in Hackney and the 67-acre regeneration of King’s Cross.

The Lizzie line is a worthy winner, providing a dazzling demonstration that, for all chaos surrounding HS2, Britain is still capable of pulling off gargantuan transport infrastructure projects with style and panache. Stepping off the escalators and entering its streamlined white tunnels is like being teleported to a parallel universe, worlds away from the rest of the creaking, sooty tube network.

From the airy, clutter-free concourses to the soft acoustic, calm lighting and clear signage, every detail has been honed to make the passenger experience as simple and stress-free as possible. It is a model of standardisation and prefabrication, built with rare precision, its effortless elegance belying the fiendish complexity of coordinating the 73-mile-long endeavour, and the transformative effect it has had on the lives of millions.


“The Elizabeth line is a triumph in architect-led collaboration, offering a flawless, efficient, beautifully choreographed solution to inner-city transport,” said RIBA president Muyiwa Oki, chair of the Stirling prize jury. “It rewrites the rules of accessible public transport and sets a bold new standard for civic infrastructure, opening up the network, and by extension London, to everyone.”

The prize has been awarded to the “line-wide” design of the stations below ground level, led by Grimshaw Architects, with engineering by AtkinsRéalis, way-finding by Maynard and lighting by Equation. Different architects were responsible for each station above ground, with more mixed results. Unusually for the architecture-centric award, the other consultants have been named as equal co-designers, reflecting the collaborative nature of the £18.6bn endeavour, which led to a truly integrated result.

While other tube stations are cluttered with signs and light fittings added haphazardly over the years, the Elizabeth line has condensed and rationalised everything into a unified whole. Service “totems” on the concourses – inspired by the uplighter columns of Charles Holden’s 1930s tube stations – integrate everything from lighting and cameras to signage and speakers, as do seamless panels above the platform edge screens, all easily accessible for maintenance.

Corralling together all the gubbins means that the full volume of the tunnels can be expressed, with no need for suspended ceilings and walls to hide the services. The result feels extraordinarily spacious, with broad concourses that melt into wide cross-passages, all clad with sinuous white panels, as if the entire line has been moulded from a single substance.

The fluid geometry helps to minimise blind spots and improve people flow, and it also reflects how the tunnels were made. Rather than using iron or concrete retaining rings, which form right-angled corners as seen elsewhere on the underground, concrete was sprayed directly on to the exposed earth after excavation, creating softer tunnel intersections. This smooth, tubular world is lined with a continuous skin of white glass fibre-reinforced concrete panels, whose design was honed to reduce the number of panel types from 80 to just nine, saving costs and material – the carbon payback time should be about 10 years.

Full-size concourse mock-ups, built in a warehouse in Leighton Buzzard, allowed the design team to perfect every detail, and enabled the contractors to see what they were expected to do, and refine their own prototypes. It paid off: the result has the precise quality of a factory-made product more than a building.

There are clever details throughout, which few will notice on their commute. The lighting temperature shifts subtly, from warmer diffused light on the platforms and concourses, to a cooler tone in the “faster” cross-passages, to encourage people to keep moving. Above head height, the concrete panels are perforated, with acoustic matting hidden behind to absorb noise. This adds to the sense of calm, and helps make the line accessible to those who find tube travel stressful or intimidating, along with step-free access throughout.

For all the ingenuity on show, it’s not perfect. The focus on line-wide consistency underground, and diverse “contextual” design at street level, seems back to front. It would make more sense for the stations to be consistent and easily recognisable on the street – like the gleaming oxblood red tiles and arched windows of Leslie Green’s iconic Edwardian tube stations – and then different at platform level, so you can easily spot where you are from a crowded carriage. The Lizzie line’s efficient blur of beige could do with a few more splashes of character, like Eduardo Paolozzi’s mosaics at Tottenham Court Road, or Annabel Grey’s enamel panels at Marble Arch, or the slanting indigo tiled columns of Will Alsop’s North Greenwich. Instead, public art is confined to a few bolt-on baubles above ground.

Similarly, the marvel of these cavernous underground cathedrals soon fades away when you leave central London, as the line makes its way to the outer reaches of the capital above ground. An immense amount of design intelligence was lavished on the central stations, but the peripheral stops feel distinctly second class. They may sport the same regal purple roundels, but the banal boxes of Ilford and Ealing Broadway have little in the way of award-winning architecture. Was it too much to hope that the line’s Stirling prize quality could extend beyond Zone 2?


Elizabeth Line wins prestigious RIBA Stirling Award for architecture

Robert Dex and Arts Correspondent

EVENING STANDARD
Wed 16 October 2024 


Elizabeth Line wins prestigious RIBA Stirling Award for architecture


The Elizabeth Line has won the prestigious Stirling Prize for Architecture.

The transport system was hailed as “a flawless, efficient, beautifully choreographed solution to inner-city transport” by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) judges.

It saw off competition from projects including the multi-million pound renovation of the National Portrait Gallery and the masterplan transforming the area around King’s Cross Station.

The rail line, which crosses central London connecting Reading and Heathrow to Essex, was designed by Grimshaw, Maynard, Equation and AtkinsRéalis and fetaures wide open platforms and steep escalators to carry its commuters.

The Elizabeth Line has been praised for its style (Hufton + Crow)

It is used by around 700,000 passengers every weekday who travel across 62 miles of track and through 26 miles of tunnels.

The excavation project which ensured it avoided already existing sewage systems and tube lines uncovered archealogical treasures including the remains of a 55-milllion-year-old wooly mammoth as well as seeing six million tonnes of earth removed to make room for the network which was then used tobuild a new nature reserve in Essex.

It was officially opened by the Queen in May 2022 but this is the first year it has been eligible to be considered for the prize.

Queen Elizabeth at the opening of the Elizabeth Line (AFP)

RIBA President Muyiwa Oki, who chaired the jury, said: “The Elizabeth Line is a triumph in architect-led collaboration, offering a flawless, efficient, beautifully choreographed solution to inner-city transport.

“It’s an uncluttered canvas that incorporates a slick suite of architectural components to create a consistent, line-wide identity – through which thousands of daily passengers navigate with ease.

“Descending into the colossal network of tunnels feels like entering a portal to the future, where the typical commuter chaos is transformed into an effortless experience.

“This is architecture of the digital age – a vast scheme that utilises cutting-edge technology to create distinctive spatial characteristics and experiences .

“It rewrites the rules of accessible public transport, and sets a bold new standard for civic infrastructure, opening up the network and by extension, London, to everyone.”

UK

Office worker wins compensations after boss refused to say hello to her three times

Brooke Davies

Published Oct 16, 2024,

METRO UK

Andrew Gilchrist deliberately ignored one of his employees

 (Picture: LinkedIn/Google)

An office worker is set to receive compensation after her boss refused to say hello to her.

Nadine Hanson, a recruitment manager, greeted her new boss Andrew Gilchrist three times when she arrived for work but he deliberately ignored her every time, an employment tribunal heard.

Mr Gilchrist, 62, was angry at Ms Hanson because he thought she was late but he had no idea she had been at a medical appointment.

He then gave two colleagues a pay rise without telling her within just an hour of confronting her at their office in Scunthorpe.


His behaviour led to Ms Hanson winning her claim, with Employment Judge Sarah Davies concluding his behaviour was ‘unreasonable’.

She said: ‘That is conduct, from the owner and Director of the new employer, that is calculated or likely to undermine trust and confidence.

‘While it might not, by itself, be a fundamental breach of contract, it was capable of contributing to such a breach.’

Mr Gilchrist, who had just taken over the business, was ‘deliberately undermining’ regional operations manager Ms Hanson to try to force her to leave, it was heard.

Mr Gilchrist claimed at the tribunal that he ‘could not remember’ whether he said hello because it was so busy (Picture: LinkedIn)

He pushed her phone out of the way when she tried to explain she had an appointment, suggested that she ‘leave’, and went behind her back by giving two staff members pay rises without informing her.

Ms Hanson, who eventually quit and suffered from anxiety due to how she was treated by Mr Gilchrist, has now successfully sued his company for unfair dismissal.

She also won a claim of unauthorised deduction from wages after Mr Gilchrist withheld her sick pay because he thought she was faking being unwell.

Ms Hanson is now in line to receive compensation from Interaction Recruitment Ltd, which has 30 offices across the UK.

The tribunal heard Ms Hanson was Northern Regional Operations Manager in Scunthorpe, Lincs, working for another recruitment company.

In September 2023 Interaction Recruitment acquired the company and managing director Mr Gilchrist travelled to the Scunthorpe office to meet Ms Hanson and two other staff members that worked under her.

The tribunal, in Leeds, found that after a ‘get to know you’ meeting of less than an hour, Mr Gilchrist formed a ‘snap judgement’ of Ms Hanson that she was not pulling her weight, despite it being unwarranted.

A tribunal report said: ‘It is equally clear that Mr Gilchrist quickly formed the impression that [Ms Hanson] “did very little work and left her two colleagues to do the work” and that he was “not happy”.

‘This was apparently on the basis of a “get to know you” team meeting lasting less than an hour with everyone present, and without any proper information about what [she]did or proper discussion with her about that.’

Days later, he made an unannounced visit to the Scunthorpe office.

‘[Ms Hanson] arrived late that day, because she had a medical appointment. It was a busy day because they had arranged for a number of candidates to come in and be interviewed. There were about eight candidates filling in forms when she arrived.

‘Ms Hanson’s evidence is that she said good morning to Mr Gilchrist three times, but he ignored her.

‘They went into the meeting room. She attempted to show him her phone with evidence of her medical appointment, but he pushed it to one side.

‘He said, “I suggest if you don’t want to be here that you leave”. She replied, “After 20 years of working for the company, the only way I will be leaving is if you make me redundant”.

‘The meeting became quite heated. She tried to tell Mr Gilchrist about how she performed her role.’

Mr Gilchrist claimed at the tribunal that he ‘could not remember’ whether he said hello because it was so busy, but said he thinks he said ‘hello to everyone’.


The tribunal found his evidence to be ‘wholly unconvincing’.

The tribunal heard within an hour of the incident with Ms Hanson, he sent an email to her two direct reports, giving them a pay rise.

Ms Hanson was ‘humiliated’ because she was not informed.

In October 2023, Ms Hanson handed in her eight-week notice, saying she had been ‘made to feel undervalued’ and that it left her ‘feeling undermined and causing her sleepless nights, upset and anxiety’.

She was signed off with anxiety during her notice period – but the tribunal heard Mr Gilchrist refused to pay her sick pay because he didn’t believe her.

Ms Hanson won claims of unfair dismissal and unauthorised deduction from wages.

Concluding, Employment Judge Sarah Davies said it was ‘implausible’ that Mr Gilchrist didn’t hear Ms Hanson’s greeting and that he ‘deliberately’ ignored her.

Judge Davies said: ‘I find that there was no reasonable or proper cause for deliberately ignoring [her] when she arrived at work, despite her greeting him three times.

‘That is conduct, from the owner and Director of the new employer, that is calculated or likely to undermine trust and confidence. While it might not, by itself, be a fundamental breach of contract, it was capable of contributing to such a breach.
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‘When she told him that the only way she was going was if she was made redundant, he determined that she had no future with the business.

‘That is why he offered pay rises to her staff members within an hour and without discussing it with her.

‘The situation was not that urgent… He simply did not want [Ms Hanson] there anymore.’

Compensation will be determined at a later date.

Charles III will be the first King of Australia to visit its shores. He could also be the last

By Jess Carniel - The Conversation
16 Oct, 2024 

Then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana stand in front of Uluru during their 1983 tour of Australia. Photo / Getty Images

The King and Queen are set to tour Australia and Samoa later this month in Charles’ first visit to both countries since his coronation.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s upcoming visit to Australia is significant for several reasons. It is Charles’ first visit since ascending to the throne – as well as the first time a British male head of state has visited Australia.

Some observers are also wondering whether it might be one of the last royal tours, as debates about Australia potentially becoming a republic are reignited.

As the monarchy tries to “modernise” alongside growing support for republicanism, this visit will be one to watch.

As Prince of Wales, Charles had a long and successful track record of royal tours to Australia, having visited 16 times. The visits included a term attending Geelong Grammar School in 1966, as well as the 1983 tour with Princess Diana that saw Australians caught up in Di-mania – and Charles reportedly gripped by jealousy.

But Charles’ royal predecessors weren’t as lucky in their trips down under. His own grandfather, King George VI, planned to visit Australia in the late 1940s with Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, but the tour was postponed due to his poor health. While he had previously visited as the Duke of York, George VI never made it here as King.
King George VI was born in 1895 and reigned from 1936 until his death in 1952. Photo / Getty Images

The very first royal visit to Australia – Prince Alfred’s 1867 tour – had all appearance of being cursed. One of his crew members drowned during the first stop in South Australia. Several more people died in a major fire accident and a Catholic-Protestant skirmish in Melbourne.

Most memorably – certainly for Alfred – was an assassination attempt on the prince in Sydney. This, interestingly, is an experience King Charles has also had.

During Charles’ 1994 visit, student protester David Kang fired blanks from a starter pistol in protest of Australia’s treatment of Cambodian refugees. The then Prince of Wales wasn’t harmed and Kang went on to become a barrister.

For non-British royals, however, Sydney has been a lucky location. Danish King Frederick X’s decidedly modern romance with Tasmania-born Queen Mary famously began when they met at a bar during the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Prince or King – does it matter?

This will be Charles’ 17th visit to Australia, but his first as reigning monarch. This means he is visiting not on behalf of the Head of State, but as the Head of State.

The royal couple’s planned Australian engagements are as strategic as they are symbolic. They reflect carefully curated and ostensibly “non-political” issues such as environmental sustainability, cancer research and family violence.

The visit also includes a meeting with Indigenous representatives. Notably, it is the first royal tour to not use the term “walkabout” to describe public meet-and-greets, as this term had been criticised as cultural appropriation.

It seems Charles’ modernised monarchy is seeking to distance itself from overtly colonial language – as much as a foreign monarchy can, anyway. The King has yet to respond to Indigenous leaders calling for an apology for British colonisers’ genocides of First Nations peoples.
The main purpose of the visit is for King Charles to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa. Photo / Getty Images

Although the Australian media has focused on the stops in Canberra and Sydney, the main purpose of the tour is for the King to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa between October 21 and 26.

It is the first time the meeting will be hosted by a Pacific Island state. The talks are an important opportunity for the King to highlight issues such as climate change, to which small island states in the Pacific are particularly vulnerable.
Are people happy about the visit?

All six state premiers have declined their invitations to meet the King at his welcome reception in Canberra, citing other commitments. Their excuses might be genuine in some cases. For example, Queensland Premier Steven Miles is in the last few weeks of an election campaign.

However, critics from the monarchist camp have viewed the move as a political response to debates over whether Australia should remain a constitutional monarchy with the King as its head of state.


A YouGov Australia poll published on the first anniversary of Charles’ ascension showed Australians are divided on republicanism. While 32% want to become a republic “as soon as possible”, 35% preferred to remain a constitutional monarchy and 12% wanted to become a republic after the King’s death. The remaining respondents didn’t know.

Notably, the poll found republican sentiment had increased since Queen Elizabeth II’s death in September 2022.

The Albanese government established an assistant minister for the republic upon entering office in 2022 (although the portfolio was abolished with this year’s reshuffle). Upon taking the role, assistant minister Matt Thistlethwaite suggested the “twilight of [Queen Elizabeth’s] reign” presented “a good opportunity for a serious discussion about what comes next for Australia”.

Republican sentiment in Australia has increased since Queen Elizabeth II’s death. Photo / Getty Images

Charles doesn’t seem to be taking all this too personally. In a letter responding to the Australian Republican Movement in March this year, his private secretary said the King viewed this as “a matter for the Australian public to decide”.

The royal tour and the meeting in Samoa will be important opportunities for the monarchy to connect with Australia and other Commonwealth nations.

By presenting itself as a modern institution engaged with contemporary issues such as climate change, the monarchy will also have to engage with the possibility of new political identities for its former colonies.


Jess Carniel is an Associate Professor in Humanities at University of Southern Queensland.

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

UK considering sanctions on Israeli ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir

The sanctions are in response to Smotrich’s comments that starving civilians in Gaza might be justified and Ben-Gvir’s remarks that violent settlers are heroes.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the UK is weighing sanctions on Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir [Jaimi Joy/Reuters]

Published On 16 Oct 2024

The United Kingdom is considering sanctioning Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over incendiary comments made about Palestinians.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that he was mulling the sanctions in response to Smotrich‘s comments that starving civilians in Gaza might be justified and Ben-Gvir’s remarks that perpetrators of settler violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were heroes.

The UK’s previous foreign secretary, David Cameron, had planned to sanction the Israeli officials before his then-governing Conservative Party lost an election in July, he revealed earlier this week.

“We are looking at that because they’re obviously abhorrent comments,” the prime minister said.

Both Smotrich and Ben-Gvir said the threat of sanctions would not deter them from changing their positions.

“They don’t scare me and I will continue to act only according to Israel’s highest national interests,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement, while Smotrich said, “No threat will prevent me from doing the right and moral thing for the citizens of Israel.”

Starmer was speaking ahead of a meeting at the United Nations Security Council to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza called by the UK, France and Algeria.

Starmer’s government has been slighter tougher on the country than the previous Conservative administration, limiting some arms exports and sanctioning some Israeli settler organisations.

Both Ben Gvir and Smotrich are vocal supporters of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, which is considered illegal under international law.

Starmer told lawmakers on Wednesday that “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire”.

“Israel must take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes and provide the UN humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively,” Starmer said.

Earlier, the United States said the humanitarian situation must improve or Israel could face potential restrictions on US military aid.

Israel’s envoy to the UN said they will ensure aid reaches those who need it.

UK
Assisted dying bill enters parliament – how likely is it to become law?

Daniel Gover, Senior Lecturer in British Politics, Queen Mary University of London
Wed 16 October 2024

Labour backbench MP Kim Leadbeater has introduced a bill in the House of Commons that aims to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.

Leadbeater is not a member of the government, but has been able to introduce the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill after topping this session’s private members’ bill ballot in September.

It’s almost a decade since MPs last voted on assisted dying. Back then, the Conservatives had a majority. Now, the tables have turned and Labour has a large majority. However, it’s not yet clear whether the current cohort of MPs would back this momentous change.

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Leadbeater’s bill faces additional procedural challenges. Private members’ bills – legislation sponsored by individual MPs rather than the government – face a precarious route onto the statute book. They are highly vulnerable to objections, even if only from a small number of MPs.

While private members’ bills go through the same basic process to become law as government-sponsored legislation, they are awarded only limited parliamentary time. There are only 13 Fridays per session (typically a year) when these bills are discussed in the House of Commons.

A House of Commons staffer draws lots in the private members’ bill ballot in September. UK Parliament/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Challenge 1: second reading

The first major test for this bill will be its second reading stage, due on November 29. For backbench bills, and especially those that are contentious, this stage can be tricky.

Private members’ bills aren’t “programmed” like government bills, which means there is no mechanism for allocating more time to their discussion if needed. So, it only takes a small numbers of MPs to frustrate a bill’s progress by talking at length to run down the clock.

To prevent this, supporters can attempt to move the “closure” – a motion to end the debate and make a decision. This, however, requires at least 100 MPs to vote in support – a difficult feat on Fridays, when most MPs are in their constituencies. This problem was illustrated earlier this year on a bill to outlaw conversion therapy. However, on a bill of this profile, there is a good chance of passing the closure.

For Leadbeater’s bill, simply getting a vote at this stage would be an important accomplishment. It would mean that for the first time since 2015 – also on a backbench bill – the opinion of the Commons could be tested on assisted dying.

Challenge 2: public evidence?

Assuming the assisted dying bill passes the second reading stage, it would then be sent to a public bill committee for detailed consideration.

Some major social changes have come about over the years because of backbench bills. Flickr/UK Parliament, CC BY-NC-ND

Unlike for government bills, this committee cannot, by default, hold public evidence sessions on backbench bills. For a reform of this significance, though, we should expect pressure from some MPs for an exception to be made to allow outside bodies – such as campaign groups, religious organisations and medical professionals – to submit evidence. This would delay the bill’s passage a little, though this need not be lengthy.

Challenge 3: report stage

The bill’s biggest test is likely to be at report stage – most likely on April 25 next year. This is when the bill returns to the House of Commons chamber.

Conventional wisdom is that this stage is often fatal for contentious backbench bills, since opponents can propose large numbers of amendments to the legislation, requiring many separate decisions to be made and time to be drained. Even if supporters attempt to move the closure, with enough amendments they may still run out of time. Something like this nearly happened on an EU referendum bill in 2013.

Yet, this conventional wisdom may be outdated. The speaker of the house routinely groups report-stage amendments together, reducing the number of separate decisions – and in recent years the norm has been a single group. Since 2019, there has never been more than one group of amendments up for consideration on any private member’s bill. If the speaker follows this recent practice, it may be easier to get the bill through report stage.

Challenge 4: out of time?

It is quite possible the assisted dying bill could overcome all these procedural hurdles. But if not, ministers may need to step in to set aside some of the government’s own parliamentary time to discuss the bill further.

Government time for backbench bills has been rare in recent years, although it did occur in 2019 during the passage of a bill to strengthen the laws around female genital mutilation. But there are some striking historical precedents.

In the 1960s, private members’ bills were used to pass major social reforms on the laws around homosexuality and abortion, and to abolish the death penalty. In all three cases, the government stepped in to dedicate extra time in the face of attempts to slow these bills’ progress.

Challenge 5: up to the Lords

If the bill makes it past these stages, then it also has a good chance of completing its final House of Commons (third reading) stage. But it would then need to complete a similar process in the House of Lords. While there are not quite the same time pressures in this chamber – notably, it does not have the same system of 13 Fridays – there is also no programming for any bills.

It is hard to predict exactly how the Lords would respond to an assisted dying bill. There have been multiple previous attempts to legislate on this matter over the years. The last time one reached committee stage, in 2015, it got bogged down with amendments and made it no further.

Leadbeater’s bill will be helped by another bill on assisted dying, started in the House of Lords by Labour peer Charlie Falconer. This is scheduled for debate in the coming months and may help identify and resolve some of the detailed points of contention – though this is not guaranteed.

It would be unusual, though not impossible, for the Lords to fail to pass a private member’s bill agreed by the House of Commons. Since 2010, there appear to have been only two that were actively held up in the Lords – as opposed to just running out of time. Even so, a small number of determined opponents to assisted dying could make life difficult.

Were this to happen – at this point an extreme hypothetical – one option available to MPs would be to re-introduce the bill in the subsequent session, perhaps from the new crop of ballot bills. Under the provisions of the Parliament Act(s), this bill might then be eligible to become law without the assent of the Lords. Such a situation very nearly occurred this year on another backbench bill, on hunting trophies, though the timing of the general election intervened.

Despite these procedural hurdles, the assisted dying bill has a reasonably good chance of passing into law. In the end, much will depend on whether MPs are willing to back this change, and how determined they are to do so.

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

Vulnerable people not at risk from proposed assisted dying law, says MP

Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent
Wed 16 October 2024 

Kim Leadbeater said the law would only apply to ‘people who are already dying’.

Photograph: Parliament TV


The lives of disabled and vulnerable people will not be at risk from a proposed assisted dying law because it will only apply to terminally ill adults, and each case is likely to be ruled on by two doctors and a judge, the MP sponsoring it has said.

Kim Leadbeater said her historic “choice at the end of life” bill will include “stringent” criteria and a cooling-off period in what is likely to be one of the most controversial pieces of legislation to go before parliament in years.

But people who are facing intolerable suffering but are not dying will still be denied medical assistance to end their lives, under the likely terms of the bill to be introduced on Wednesday.

That decision will prompt debate over whether the threshold for medical assistance to die should relate to suffering rather than time left to live.

Some campaigners argue people whose conditions mean they can be trapped and suffering in their bodies long before they meet a narrow definition of terminal illness will be left out.

A major poll has suggested most of the public support an assisted dying law in every constituency of Great Britain apart from Bradford West.

It found 74% agreed that adults “who are intolerably suffering from an incurable condition and who wish to end their lives” should be allowed medical help to do so. More than 7,000 adults were canvassed this month in an MRP poll by Electoral Calculus for Humanists UK, a campaign group that supports assisted dying.

A separate poll for King’s College London last week found 66% support for a bill becoming law restricted to people with six months or less to live, but about half of respondents said they would probably change their mind if it turned out someone had been put under pressure (55%) or ended their life because they were denied the care they needed (48%).

Opponents of the bill, which would become law in England and Wales only, are planning to protest outside parliament on Wednesday, where supporters will also rally. Gordon MacDonald, the chief executive of Care Not Killing, claimed the bill amounted to “state-sanctioned killing”.

“This bill sends a dog-whistle message to the terminally ill, vulnerable, elderly and disabled people, especially those on low or fixed incomes, that their lives are worth less than others,” he said on Tuesday.

But campaigners in favour of an assisted dying law welcomed the first reading of the bill as a “historic day”.

“This bill gives dying people hope that they will live the rest of their lives with the comfort of knowing they will have a say in how they die,” said Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying.

The broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, who alongside Esther Rantzen is one of several high-profile backers of a law change, said: “My brother Nicholas was required to die from motor neurone disease and he wanted that right [to choose assisted dying] … he fervently wanted the choice … he would have welcomed the fact that this bill is going before the Commons.”

Dimbleby also accused “the leadership of some parts of the church” of “scaremongering” by warning of a “slippery slope” towards assisted dying for people who are not terminally ill. He called for the debate to be “measured and balanced and not overwhelmed by emotive assertions”.

Speaking to the Guardian, Leadbeater confirmed the bill will require adults to have a prognosis of being no more than a fixed number of months from death, with options including six, nine and 12 months all still under consideration.

“My concern about the conversation around people with disabilities is that issue … has been conflated with this piece of legislation, which is actually about people who are already dying – shortening their deaths because of terminal illness,” she said. “So I will be the loudest voice in the room shouting for the rights of people with disabilities.”

Concerns were expressed to a recent parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying that people living with a disability, and elderly people, may worry about being a burden on their family and may pursue assisted dying for that reason.

“I get a bit worried there’s a panic and potentially some scaremongering about people having to do this,” Leadbeater said.

“No one has to do anything. This is about finding a choice for people. The two other really important words that will be on the face of the bill tomorrow are ‘safeguards’ and ‘protections’.”

She insisted there would be “no slippery” slope towards wider interpretation of the bill. The Catholic church this week launched a letter-writing campaign targeting MPs and encouraging the faithful to oppose the bill, warning “a right to die can become a duty to die”.

Leadbeater added: “[The bill] will send a very clear message to people that this is not about disabled people. It’s not about people with mental health conditions. It is about terminally ill adults.”

The proposed law will be closer to those already in use in Oregon in the US, Australia and New Zealand than more widely drawn laws in Canada and the Netherlands where illness need not be terminal. In the Netherlands some children are included in a law that allows assisted dying where a doctor agrees suffering is “lasting and unbearable”.

Leadbeater will publish the detail of the bill in the coming weeks before a first Commons debate in late November.

“We need law that is robust and clear and by having really strict, stringent criteria, [we] will create a much better situation than we have currently got,” she said.

However, Dr Graham Winyard, a former medical director of NHS England, warned that the proposal would not end “death tourism” to Switzerland.

About 40 people travelled from the UK to Dignitas last year to end their lives and Winyard’s research found that less than half of UK residents who have obtained an assisted death in Switzerland in recent years would have been spared the journey by a law limited to terminal illness with a six-month prognosis.

Writing to the Guardian, he urged Leadbeater to “ensure that those who are incurably suffering – as well as the terminally ill – are provided with the comfort of choice. It is our strong belief that a bill which encompasses both the terminally ill and the incurably suffering would best reflect the values of compassion and dignity that we all strive for in end-of-life care.”

Assisted dying bill would have ‘clear criteria’, says MP in response to concerns

Aine Fox and Caitlin Doherty, PA
Wed 16 October 2024 

A potential assisted dying law for England and Wales would have “clear criteria, safeguards and protections”, the MP behind a new Bill has insisted in the face of concerns about a so-called “slippery slope” to take in people who are at risk of feeling pressured to end their lives.

Only those who are terminally ill would be eligible under the Bill, it has been confirmed, amid calls from some campaigners for those enduring unbearable suffering to come within the scope of a new law.

The formal short title of Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s legislation for choice at the end of life is the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

Dignity in Dying campaigners gathered in Parliament Square in support of the new Bill (Lucy North/PA)

She will formally introduce her Bill in the House of Commons on Wednesday, and it is expected to be debated and face a first vote on November 29.

The detail of the proposed legislation is unlikely to be set out until closer to that debate, with Ms Leadbeater saying she is speaking to doctors and lawyers as well as campaigners on all sides to “make sure we get this right”.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has warned of his concerns around introducing any form of legislation for assisted dying.

He told the BBC: “I think this approach is both dangerous and sets us in a direction which is even more dangerous, and in every other place where it’s been done, has led to a slippery slope.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has warned of his concerns around legislation for assisted dying (Doug Peters/PA)

But Ms Leadbeater has rejected this argument.

She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain she would not have such concerns so long as “we get this legislation right”, adding: “That’s why the next six weeks and the debates that will come in the following months are really important.

“We’ve got the benefit in this country of looking at what other countries have done. And I’m very clear, based on what I’ve seen so far and the research that I’ve done is, if we get this right from the start, which some places have done, places like Oregon and certain states in Australia, we have very strict criteria, then those jurisdictions do not broaden out the criteria.

“So we have to get it right from the start with very clear criteria, safeguards and protections.

“And I’m not looking at the model that is going on in Canada. I’m looking at those other jurisdictions where this is done well and in some cases it’s been done for a long time, very well, and the criteria have never been extended.”

The Canadian model is open to people experiencing intolerable suffering caused by their medical condition, whereas in Oregon it is limited to those who are terminally ill.

The long title of the proposed legislation, which would apply to England and Wales, is a “Bill to allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life”.

If the Bill clears its first hurdle at the end of November, it will face line-by-line examination in committee and further Commons votes before being sent to the Lords where the process begins again, meaning any change in the law would not be agreed until next year at the earliest.

Thanks to @kimleadbeater for joining us outside Parliament this morning.

Today Westminster takes a historic first step towards a more compassionate law.#AssistedDying #YesToDignity pic.twitter.com/qLMBJySV0D

— Dignity in Dying (@dignityindying) October 16, 2024

It is possible that MPs could vote against it on November 29, as they did last time changes to the law were considered in 2015, preventing it going any further.

Ms Leadbeater has indicated she would like to see a “time frame” on the diagnosis of patients, and she told BBC’s Newsnight there must be both medical and judicial safeguarding when it was put to her that the Bill could require two medical professionals and a judge to agree.

High-profile supporters of legalising assisted dying include Dame Esther Rantzen who is terminally ill and has pleaded with the public to write to their MPs to ask for “the right to choose, not to shorten our lives, but to shorten our deaths”.

MPs will have a free vote in Parliament, deciding according to their conscience rather than along party lines.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously supported assisted dying and made a personal promise to Dame Esther to make time for a debate and vote on the issue.

Members of Distant Voices, Christian Concern, the Christian Medical Fellowship and SPUC gathered in Westminster to protest against the proposed legislation (Lucy North/PA)

Trevor Moore, chairman of campaign group My Death, My Decision, said he had hoped the new Bill would “represent the first step in a profound and compassionate shift in how we provide the dignity of choice for people who are intolerably suffering”.

Actor and disability campaigner Liz Carr, speaking before the Bill’s formal title was announced, said limiting the legislation to the terminally ill would not lessen her fears about its potential consequences for vulnerable people.

She told the PA news agency: “Neither (the Bill being limited to terminally ill or being wider) allay my fears, neither make me feel less worried.

“Because I know this is such a concerted campaign and such a push, and there are huge lobbyists nationally, internationally to change these laws that I just don’t feel reassured because they want what they want, and what they want is to legalise assisted suicide.”

Campaigners both for and against the proposed new law gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday.

Terminally ill people in England and Wales could soon have the right to choose to end their lives

Paul McNamaraSenior Political Correspondent 16 Oct 2024

The bill is being introduced by Labour MP Kim Ledbeater and she says there will be really strict limits on who would be eligible.

A judge and two doctors would have to agree that terminally ill patients can be helped to end their lives under a proposed new law that’s just been introduced in Parliament.

A separate bill is already under discussion in Scotland, and politicians in both Jersey and the Isle of Man have voted to approve plans that could allow assisted dying in future.

Jenny Carruthers was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 2020. She wants the right to die, and believes terminally ill people deserve a voice. Her partner died of liver cancer in 2013 and she saw firsthand what it’s like to die a painful death.

“Our law as it stands is unsafe; it doesn’t allow any choice.”

“The law as it stands means that either I’ve got to suffer that or I’ve got to break the law, wave goodbye to my children on the airport steps if I’ve got enough money to go to Switzerland… if they come with me they’d be open to prosecution.”

The bill is being introduced by Labour MP Kim Ledbeater and she says there will be really strict limits on who would be eligible.

She says only terminally ill people who have 6 to 12 months left to live, and are able to decide for themselves, will be eligible, which is similar to laws in 11 states of America.

This is different to assisted suicide which can involve people who are not terminally ill – assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland.

But there is fierce opposition to this bill from religious groups who believe in the sanctity of life, to disability campaigners who say it’s a slippery slope.

Miro Griffiths is an academic and disability rights activist who fears this bill will devalue lives like his.

“The communities that will be most affected by the bill are facing systemic injustices, they’re facing discrimination in terms of the places where they live, the resources and services they’re trying to access and the quality of life that they have currently. Those things will play into the choices people make about the value of their life.”

The law may start with assisted dying, they argue, but over time laws can change, and a few years from now this could evolve to assisted suicide.

The academic told Channel 4 News “there are many voices who want assisted dying who wouldn’t be eligible for the criteria that’s being proposed so what you’ll have is a continuation of campaigning and as we’ve seen in other countries the criteria then expands.”

The last time this came up in Parliament was in 2015, and MPs voted against, but the mood has moved on since then.

Opinion polls over recent years have regularly shown support in the UK for assisted dying, with as much as 60-75% in favour.

Crucially though the Prime Minister is making this a free vote so Labour MPs can vote with their conscience, not with their party.

For 6 weeks now MPs will fiercely debate this issue but it is one that all main parties are likely to be split on.