LP's blog

Government

• An independent scientific audit of the UK's climate change policies predicts that the government will fall well below its target of a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 - which means that the country will not reach its 2020 milestone until 2050. The report condemns government forecasts on greenhouse gas emissions as "very optimistic" and projects that the true reduction will be between 12 and 17%, making little difference to current CO2 emission levels. The report is based on an analysis of the government's attempts to meet climate change targets. The authors argue that because much policy is based on voluntary measures, the predicted outcomes cannot be relied upon. It is released on the day the environment minister, David Miliband, delivers a speech on the UK's transition to a "post-oil economy". http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2026715,00.html
• A school in the government's city academy programme has given more than £300,000 to organisations linked to its multi-millionaire sponsor, with the approval of the Department for Education and Skills, which appeared to waive its normally strict rules on tendering out contracts. The Grace academy in Solihull is sponsored by Bob Edmiston, a car dealer and property developer who has donated more than £2m to the Tory party. The school awarded three contracts to the IM Group, a company owned by Mr Edmiston, without asking for bids from other organisations. It has also paid £53,000 in the past two years to Christian Vision, a charity founded by Mr Edmiston, an evangelical Christian, to promote the religion around the world. http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2026666,00.html  
• The NHS will start recruiting alternative software suppliers to its troubled £6.2bn IT upgrade project this month, in a move which could see the government's vision for a single IT system for the health service in England unravelling. The move is a tacit admission that a fully integrated IT system may never be completed. NHS bosses had until recently discouraged hospital trusts from deserting the scheme. But disaffection is now so widespread and delays so long that officials are working on a list of accredited alternative suppliers, which is widely seen as a move to appease hospital trusts. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2026498,00.html  
• Private sector contractors taking over a swath of the government's welfare-to-work programmes will be prevented from "creaming off" the easiest cases under proposals to be launched in Downing Street. Every new benefit claimant's ability to work will be assessed to ensure that first the hardest to help, then the long-term unemployed, are handed over to employment and retraining agenciesand not-for-profit groups. The vastly expanded role for the private and voluntary sector in getting 1.5m of the 3.5m long-term benefit claimants into sustainable jobs is the central recommendation of a review of welfare by David Freud, a former investment banker. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ec64b5e2-cabe-11db-820b-000b5df10621.html  
• Regional quangos cost an estimated £360m a year to run, double the level of five years ago, a think-tank with close links to the government will reveal. A report from the New Local Government Network think-tank, to be launched today by Ed Balls and John Healey, the Treasury ministers, will call for a radical simplification of the plethora of regional bodies. The report forms a potential blueprint for a Treasury review of regional structures that will feed into this summer's spending round. This is expected to trigger significant changes to the way regional development agencies operate. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/53193ba6-cabe-11db-820b-000b5df10621.html  
• Middle income families are being hit hardest by Gordon Brown's taxes which will rise to their highest level for 25 years in two years' time, an influential think tank claims today. The report from Reform, a centre-Right group, warns that the Chancellor must cut taxes and spending in this summer's Comprehensive Spending Review or "take the UK backwards in the next decade". Its report reveals how middle income earners are paying more tax as a proportion of their disposable income. advertisement. A household receiving £28,000 a year in disposable income pays 47.9 per cent of that in tax, while earners in the top income bracket pay 46.9 per cent. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/05/ntax05.xml  
• One homebuyer in five is now paying stamp duty of at least £7,500, representing nearly a fourfold increase in five years, latest figures show. Analysis by the Halifax bank found that nearly 300,000 purchases fell into the three per cent bracket last year as the number of properties sold above its £250,000 threshold soared. The survey of postcode districts also revealed a number of up-and-coming areas where the majority of purchases have been propelled into the higher rate, compared with only a minority that was subject to it five years ago. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/05/nduty05.xml  

Liberal Democrats  

Government

• OGCbuying.solutions has signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with SAP, a business software provider. This new agreement will offer all public sector organisations preferential pricing arrangements on SAP software and services. The agreement came into effect on 1st January 2007 and will deliver potential savings of £45 million over the three year duration of the agreement.
• The Chewing Gum Action Group, chaired by Defra, has invited local authorities to apply for paid-for advertising to support campaigns to tackle the issue of chewing gum litter, after the 2006 campaigns saw reductions in gum litter of up to 72%.

Conservatives  

Government

• Britain will be divided into a patchwork of road-pricing zones where drivers will be charged varying rates, under a government plan to make them pay by the mile without tracking them on every road. Ministers believe that a zonal system would protect drivers' privacy and deter them from rat-running in residential areas to avoid high charges on main roads. All roads in each zone would be charged at the same rate, regardless of how congested they were. A driver using empty side streets to visit a shop or take a child to school would pay the same price per mile as those queueing on the high street. Stephen Ladyman, the Roads Minister, gave details of how the system would work in an attempt to address concerns raised by the 1.8 million drivers who signed a petition against road pricing. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1459230.ece
• Gordon Brown yesterday risked a political backlash from Britain's nurses ahead of a possible Labour leadership battle later this year when he pegged pay increases for more than one million public sector workers to below 2% this year. Prompting threats of industrial action from health sector unions, the chancellor insisted that the state of the public finances and the need to keep inflation under control meant the government pay bill could increase by only 1.9% - well below any of the official measures used to calculate the cost of living. http://society.guardian.co.uk/publicfinances/story/0,,2024921,00.html
• Thousands of young doctors have been left without jobs because a new NHS training system has gone "disastrously wrong", it was disclosed yesterday. As much as £2 billion has been spent on the training of up to 8,000 doctors who find themselves without a new job under a Government initiative. Such is the fury at the scheme, called Modernising Medical Careers (MMC), that doctors have renamed it "Massive Medical Cull". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=A5INC4FPT0OLLQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/03/02/nhs02.xml
• Britain must not go ahead with a new generation of nuclear power stations until it has a "clear and robust" plan in place for dealing with the twin problems of decommissioning and waste treatment, the world's leading energy body warned yesterday. The International Energy Agency also said that any new nuclear programme must be funded entirely from the private sector, without any government subsidy or market intervention. In its latest review of UK energy policy, the agency said that it supported the building of new nuclear stations as an important part of the country's future energy mix. However, it added that the Government's current proposals for dealing with issues such as planning and construction, long-term waste management and guidance for potential financial backers were "too vague to provide the required certainty". http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2318799.ece
• Gordon Brown will next week give a clear signal that he would press ahead with controversial welfare reforms as prime minister, giving his full backing to a bigger role for the private sector in getting up to 3.5m benefit claimants back into work. In the first real indication of how he intends to overhaul the public sector if he takes over from Tony Blair later this year, the chancellor will join forces on Monday with John Hutton, work and pensions secretary, to unveil a far-reaching review of welfare-to-work policy by David Freud, a former investment banker. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2ac75c26-c863-11db-9a5e-000b5df10621.html
• Ground-breaking research into cloned embryos has been brought to a near standstill by government regulation, a leading fertility expert claimed yesterday. Excessive bureaucracy imposed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority was prohibiting development in stem cell research and threatening Britain's position as a world leader in the field, Alison Murdoch, director of the Newcastle Centre for Life fertility clinic, said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,,2024925,00.html
• Last year the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) awarded Glamorgan an Ashes Test match in 2009. Veteran Lancashire fans spluttered at the snub over their pints of mild in the pavilion at Old Trafford, which most people had expected to host the engagement. Cardiff swayed the ECB by bidding a rumoured £3.2m for the Ashes match, funds provided partly by the Welsh Assembly, and thus partly by the English taxpayers who subsidise public spending in Wales. The cricketing body was also impressed by plans for a redevelopment of Glamorgan's Sophia Gardens ground in Cardiff at an estimated cost of £9m. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2db90ebc-c862-11db-9a5e-000b5df10621.html
• Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money could be saved if more couples were encouraged to resolve arguments by mediation rather than in the courts, spending watchdogs have said. A survey for the National Audit Office (NAO) found that one person in three who had been through a family breakdown case was not offered mediation. Of those, 42 per cent said that they would have been interested in the schemes, which allow families to resolve disputes such as divorce and child custody with the help of a trained professional. The NAO calculated that use of mediation would have saved the taxpayer £10 million in these cases. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1459207.ece

Olympics

Government

• The government last night won a key vote over plans to privatise parts of the probation service. There had been speculation that ministers could be defeated on the Offender Management Bill by a combination of Labour rebels and Conservative opposition. But MPs voted 293 to 268 in favour of the Bill - although the government's majority was cut from 62 to 25. The government also won a vote on an amendment tabled by Labour rebel Neil Gerrard by 267 to 111, a majority of 156. The amendment would have excluded firms and voluntary groups from carrying out "core" probation tasks
• The Government is to accept all the recommendations of the independent Casino Advisory Panel on the location of 17 new casinos - including the one regional casino in Manchester - Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell confirmed. Ms Jowell will formally lay a single draft order today, as the first stage in the process to ask Parliament to approve the panel's recommendations. The order confirms the seventeen local authorities who would be permitted to issue premises licences for the three types of new casino (regional, large and small) permitted by the Gambling Act 2005.
• The Commons is set to vote on whether the Trident nuclear weapons system should be replaced. Leader of the House Jack Straw told the Commons that the Trident debate would take place on Wednesday, March 14. The prime minister said in December that Britain must keep an independent nuclear deterrent by building a new generation of nuclear submarines, costing up to £20bn over 30 years.
• A new UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) report highlighting the UK's competitive position in the critical areas of climate change and environmental solutions was launched today by Trade and Investment Minister Ian McCartney. The UK: a world leader in environmental solutions is a business led review by UKTI's Environmental Sector Advisory Group (ESAG). The report highlights ten main advantages that differentiates the UK from its competitors in the £400bn international environmental goods and services (EGS) sector and provides case studies in each area.
• Community groups tackling gun crime and gangs will be able to apply for a share of £500,000 of Home Office funding from today. Each group is able to apply for up to £5,000 from the sixth round of the Connected Fund, which is focused on tackling gangs through educational, sporting and cultural activities. The aim of the fund is to help young people break away from gangs, provide support for victims and contribute to mentoring projects to keep young people out of trouble.

Conservatives

Government 

• The full implementation timetable for the Companies Act 2006 was announced by Industry and Regions Minister Margaret Hodge. All of the Act will be in place by October 2008 with many elements implemented earlier. The Companies Act introduces sweeping changes to company law.

Conservatives

• The shadow chancellor has said the EU has failed to focus on economic development. In a speech on European reform George Osborne claimed the union had become distracted by political integration rather than concentrating on improving citizens' quality of life.

Government

• Airbus will today announce plans to build a composites manufacturing facility near Bristol to supply the new family of A350 jets planned by the European aircraft maker under its €10bn (£6.7bn) development programme. The move represents a partial victory for the UK, which had fought hard to win manufacturing work using the next generation of composite materials. Airbus will create the manufacturing facility in a joint venture with a supplier, probably GKN, the UK engineering group. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/bbc6bf3a-c6d0-11db-8f4f-000b5df10621.html
• Three-quarters of NHS hospitals in England cannot guarantee the safety of children in their care, the government's health watchdog warned today in a "wake-up call" to shock doctors and managers into improving services.
  

Government

• Immigrants could be required to do community service before gaining UK citizenship, Gordon Brown has said.During a speech on Britishness the chancellor said adding the condition to language and culture tests for would-be citizens could foster "a stronger sense of national purpose".
• Education secretary Alan Johnson has warned that Labour should not penalise single parents. The Labour deputy leadership contender said in a speech that "family policy must be bias-free". The move comes after Conservative leader David Cameron said society must to do more to support marriage in the wake of the spate of shootings among teenagers in south London.
• Two leading former ministers have encouraged Labour MPs to engage in a "debate" about the party's future after Tony Blair. Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke have sent an email to all Labour MPs and peers inviting them to take part in an online discussion. The former health secretary and former home secretary have called a meeting in a Westminster hotel on Wednesday, sparking fresh speculation over a potential Blairite leadership challenge to Gordon Brown. The move is being seen as a suggestion that the chancellor has no automatic right to become the next prime minister.
• 328 Local authorities across England are to be awarded £316 million for encouraging business growth, Local Government Minister Phil Woolas and Treasury Minister John Healey have announced. The Local Authority Business Growth Incentive Scheme (LABGI) sees councils who have encouraged business growth in their area receiving an unringfenced reward from Government. This is the second year of a three year scheme which expects to see up to £1billion allocated to local authorities by 2007/08. Authorities have received more than two and a half times the £126m of grant paid last year, and 50 more authorities have received LABGI grant this year.
• A new UK strategy to improve the conditions in which ships are recycled is published. The aim is to ensure that Government-owned and commercial ships are recycled to acceptable health, safety and environmental standards, particularly in developing countries. The UK has taken the decision to develop its own strategy rather than wait for the outcome of international negotiations, which are likely to take several years to bring any agreement into force.

Conservatives

Government

• Changes to the way the Government assesses the cost of regulations for business are being planned to counter claims that companies have been loaded with £55bn worth of red tape since Labour came to power. Ministers are irritated by the British Chambers of Commerce's annual stab at the cost of regulation and officials have been examining the basis for the figures. The BCC Business Barometer uses the assessments to produce the headline figures, verified by Manchester Business School. The assessment takes a stab at what Whitehall economists think new legislation and regulation will cost business or the public. Officials are privately scathing about the BCC figures and the way they are calculated, describing them as "not credible" and based on "second rate methodology" which ignores the benefits of regulation. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/27/cbbcc27.xml
• Small businesses are bullish about prospects this year and relaxed about red tape and regulation, according to survey results. Almost two out of three of the 500 covered by the survey are either slightly or a lot more optimistic about this year's business outlook compared with last year. Despite yesterday's Chamber of Commerce report showing the cost of regulation is now running at £55bn a year, the survey by Accelerator, a new magazine for entrepreneurs, and Cisco identifies just 16pc as expressing concern about the cost of bureaucracy and Government rules. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/27/cbredtape27.xml
• Plans to split the Home Office and make John Reid, the Home Secretary, head of terrorism and security are being "actively considered" by Tony Blair. He is expected to give the go-ahead early next month for the radical shake-up of Mr Reid's department which would see him given control over security, policing and counter terrorism. Responsibilities for prisons and probation would go to the Department for Constitutional Affairs headed by Lord Falconer in what would be a Continental-style ministry of justice as his department is already responsible for the courts. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/27/nreid27.xml
• A detailed plan to slash London's carbon emissions by 60% within 20 years and place the city at the forefront of the battle against climate change will be announced by Ken Livingstone. The mayor will appeal to Londoners to stop using energy wastefully and will urge businesses to embrace green technology to heat and light offices and workplaces. Mr Livingstone wants a quarter of London's electricity supply to be shifted from the national grid to local combined heat-and-power systems by 2025. The city will offer "green gurus" to help families make their lifestyles more environmentally friendly, and will subsidise supplies of cavity wall and loft insulation. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2022059,00.html
• Home Office ministers last night moved to stave off a humiliating defeat tomorrow over a key criminal justice bill. They tabled amendments to restore local accountability to the probation service and gave assurances that core tasks such as writing court reports will not be moved out of the public sector without further parliamentary approval. The government is in danger of defeat over the management of offenders bill because more than 40 Labour MPs have said they will vote to protect core probation tasks from takeover by voluntary organisations and the private sector. The Tories have said they will back the move. Defeat at the third reading tomorrow would be the government's first loss on an important bill since the row over incitement to religious hatred in January 2006, and would symbolise the limits of Tony Blair's drive to modernise the public services in his final days in Downing Street. http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2022102,00.html  
• Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, gave the green light yesterday to plans for seven new hospitals to be built under the private finance initiative at a cost of £1.5bn. Her decision to back the NHS's biggest ever tranche of investment will provide modern facilities for patients in Bristol, Peterborough, Middlesbrough, Wakefield, Tunbridge Wells, Chelmsford and Edmonton, north London. But it added to anxieties among health service managers and union leaders that the NHS is locking itself into repaying huge sums in 30-year deals with the private sector for buildings and equipment that may not meet changing medical needs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2022055,00.html    
• The Treasury is threatening to cut defence projects worth up to £35 billion in the Government's next spending round, The Times has learnt. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, were at the Treasury last week to discuss the decision to send 1,400 extra troops to Afghanistan but also to lobby against cuts to key procurement projects. These cuts could leave British defence companies without the billion-pound contracts that they are counting on in coming years. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1444192.ece
• Royal Mail is to call for a 6p rise in first and second class stamp prices under a radical relaxation of regulatory controls that the state-owned postal operator will argue is necessary to its survival. Businesses would also lose the legal right to have franked mail delivered to every address in the UK according to the proposals, which Royal Mail will this week put to Postcomm, its regulator. Royal Mail wants this "universal service obligation" (USO) to apply to stamped mail only. The operator is also calling for an end to all regulatory controls on bulk business mail, such as lucrative junk mailings. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3257c6cc-c608-11db-b460-000b5df10621.html
• Tour operators have laun-ched a High Court challenge to Gordon Brown's increase in air passenger duty, saying the whole basis of the levy is flawed and in breach ofhuman rights legislation. The increase came into effect on February 1 but cannot legally be passed on to passengers, leaving tour operators with a bill of £50m. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/715ab6ae-c608-11db-b460-000b5df10621.html  

Conservatives

Government  

• Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling, has today asked Ofcom to conduct an initial investigation into British Sky Broadcasting Group's acquisition of a 17.9% stake in ITV plc. This means Ofcom must provide advice to him by 27 April on whether the case raises public interest concerns about the number of different owners of media enterprises.  
• A fundamental overhaul of driver training and testing was confirmed by Road Safety Minister Dr Stephen Ladyman at the RoSPA Road Safety Congress this afternoon. For the first time, new parameters for educating young people about safe driving skills were set out, with a consultation expected later in the year.  
• The Liberal Democrats raised almost as much cash as Labour in the final three months of last year, according to the latest figures. As Labour struggles to bring its borrowing under control, the party received donations worth £2.6m in the fourth quarter of 2006. That was down on both the £3.2m raised in the previous quarter of 2006 and the £3m raised in the final quarter of 2005. The figures suggest the ongoing cash-for-honours investigation has hit Labour's fundraising efforts, particularly among private donors. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, raised £2.3m, while both parties lagged behind the Conservative Party, which raised almost £5.3m.  
• Supporters of a fully elected House of Lords have been stepping up their campaign ahead of next week's Commons vote on reform of the second chamber. Those championing the cause were holding a 'rally for a democratic House of Lords' in Parliament. The event was being chaired by Labour MP Chris Bryant with cross-party speakers including former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, Conservative MP John Bercow and Labour's Angela Eagle. MPs will vote next Wednesday on a series of options ranging from abolition of the Lords, retaining the status quo and a 100 per cent elected upper house. They will also get the chance to choose from a variety of hybrid options under which elected members mix with life peers.  

Liberal Democrats  

Government

• A leading architect of Tony Blair's health reforms warns in the Guardian today that the NHS will not survive as a universal tax-funded service without a change of policy. Chris Ham, professor of health policy at Birmingham University, said a "fundamental weakness in the design of the reforms" made it impossible for the NHS to deliver the improvements in efficiency that will be needed when growth in its budget slows next year. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2021407,00.html
• Hundreds of thousands of people working with children in schools are still not being put through criminal record checks promised by the government in the wake of the Soham murders, the Guardian has learned. Guidance sent to schools and colleges last month explains that existing teachers and other members of staff who work closely with children do not have to be fully vetted, despite claims by ministers that the procedures would be tightened. The government promised to close the loophole last year when Ruth Kelly, then education secretary, told parliament she was ordering schools carry out criminal record checks on all new appointments. http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2021400,00.html 
• The government was yesterday accused by its own advisers of putting the housing market at risk by"gold plating" regulations designed to cut carbon emissions associated with climate change. The Better Regulation Commission, which advises the government on action to reduce unnecessary regulation, called on Ruth Kelly, the community secretary, to postpone requirements that all houses sold after June 1 have an "energy performance certificate". http://www.ft.com/cms/s/75c3aec8-c53e-11db-b110-000b5df10621.html  
• Households are facing another inflation-busting rise in council tax this April for the tenth successive year since Labour took office. A Times survey of more than 200 authorities shows that the average bill is set to rise by at least 3.8 per cent to £1,315, up £47 from last year. The figures mean that council tax will have risen by more than 90 per cent since Tony Blair came to power in 1997, with annual bills jumping from £688 to £1,315. The lowest rises are in the 238 districts that face elections in May, weeks before Gordon Brown is expected to take over as Prime Minister. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1438213.ece  
• Plans to bring in road pricing have suffered a triple blow with only a tiny number of voters in favour, a growing Labour revolt against the idea and serious doubts about the technology to be used. Back-bench fears that road pricing could be Labour's poll tax were underlined in the YouGov survey, commissioned by The Daily Telegraph, which showed only nine per cent of voters backing the idea. At the same time it has emerged that the satellite technology needed to track motorists in a pay-as-you-drive scheme can "lose" cars in the middle of cities. The principle of road pricing was regarded as a bad idea by 48 per cent of voters in the poll. Another 40 per cent were undecided. The remainder expressed no view at all. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=QDBR4ZX4BAXMBQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/02/26/nroads26.xml  
• The number of miles driven by ministerial drivers has increased sharply, calling into question the government's commitment to reducing carbon emissions. Figures released to the Liberal Democrats also show the number of chauffeurs paid to ferry ministers around has risen sharply over the last five years. According to a Commons written reply the Government Car and Despatch Agency drove 2,394,200 miles in 2004-5 and 2,834,000 in 2005-6. Their wage bill has increased from £5.5 million to £7.3 million over the same period. The total cost of the agency which runs the services was £17.8 million. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/26/ncars26.xml
• England's road safety record is one of the best in Europe, but the 3,000 deaths every year cost the economy nearly £8bn, according to a report published today by the Audit Commission. Only the Netherlands and Sweden have a better safety record, with the worst being the Czech Republic, Greece and Poland. But the number of child pedestrian deaths shows England has a poor record. Ten countries have fewer child deaths, and among the worst are Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,,2021461,00.html  
• Arts Council England has drawn up secret plans for sharp cuts in funding to theatres, galleries and music venues. If, as expected, the Government this year cuts funding for the arts in real terms, senior Arts Council figures intend to avoid "equality of misery for all" by maintaining the existing level of support for those seen as the most deserving - a policy that can only be sustained through severe cuts elsewhere. National institutions are understood to be as much at risk as smaller bodies. English National Opera, which has announced that it is reducing its workforce by a tenth, is believed to be particularly vulnerable. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1437919.ece  

Conservatives

Government

• The UK and US have held high level talks on the possibility of putting a "Son of Star Wars" anti-ballistic missile defence system on British soil. An article in The Economist claims Prime Minister Tony Blair has lobbied President George Bush for the system. But government sources have told the BBC that talks are "to keep Britain's options open", not a lobbying effort. The US said it is still more likely to site a missile defence system in eastern Europe than in the UK.
• The Government announced £54.3m in capital funding to improve in-patient and residential drug and alcohol facilities and access to those services.
  

Government

• Standards are improving in Tony Blair's controversial city academies, but pupils are still not grasping the three Rs, Whitehall's spending watchdog warns. A National Audit Office report says the £5 billion programme is on track to deliver "good value for money" by transforming education in deprived inner-city areas. Results are improving at around four times the national average but remain persistently low in English and maths. In a blow to the Prime Minister, the report also criticises the programme for going millions of pounds over budget.

Government

• The Treasury has announced that the Budget will be delivered on Wednesday March 21.
• The Home Secretary announced a three-point plan following a gun crime summit at 10 Downing Street, chaired by the Prime Minister and attended by senior police officers, representatives from community groups and voluntary organisations.Tough punishments for those who use other people to look after weapons, improved technology for linking weapons to incidents and increased funding for community groups are key measures emerging from the three-point plan to tackle gun crime.
  

Government

• Britain's scientific research budget is to be cut by almost £100 million to pay for overspending by the Department of Trade and Industry. Despite repeated claims by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that science is the key to the country's economic future, ministers have diverted £98 million from planned spending to cover the collapse of Rover and other unexpected costs at the DTI. The cuts will affect medical research, which must find £10.7 million in savings, as well as the funding body that supports global warming research, which will be £9.7 million poorer.

• The Chief Pharmaceutical Officers from England, Scotland and Wales came together today to reveal plans for historic changes to the regulation of the pharmacy profession. The measures, which form part of the Government White Paper on professional regulation, will see the formation of two separate bodies to oversee pharmacy. One organisation would act as a regulator and a second would be responsible for leading the profession. It is envisaged that the two new bodies will take the form of a General Pharmaceutical Council (GPC) to regulate the profession and a Royal College to provide leadership.
• The Government today published landmark proposals on how to regulate health professionals and ensure patient safety in the UK. As part of this, all health professionals will be required to prove their fitness to practice every 5 years and there are plans for a radical overhaul of the processes for death certification.  
• Gordon Brown has been urged to put the voluntary sector "at the heart of his new agenda" if he becomes Labour leader. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations said the chancellor should make charities a top priority for his first 100 days in power. The organisation said that priorities should be securing sustainable funding and ensuring government accountability to the sector through parliament.

Conservatives

Government

• The government agency created to seize the assets of criminals is condemned today as a mess, having spent £65 million on collecting only £23 million. The Assets Recovery Agency has received 700 files linked to £274 million. But it has seized money from only 52 of these cases, according to a report by the spending watchdog. Millions of pounds paid in fees to receivers to manage criminal assets are expected in 12 cases to be more than the cash and assets being looked after. The National Audit Office report also found that the agency, which is to be merged with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, has no effective case-management system and had experienced high turnover of staff. A third of the financial investigators trained by the agency either retired or left soon after qualifying. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article1415210.ece
• All British troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of 2008, starting with the withdrawal of 1,000 in the early summer. Tony Blair is to announce the moves - the result of months of intense debate in Whitehall - within 24 hours, possibly later today, according to officials. The prime minister is expected to say that Britain intends to gradually reduce the number of troops in southern Iraq over the next 22 months as Iraqi forces take on more responsibility for the security of Basra and the surrounding areas. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2017824,00.html
• The Home Office has started to pay out compensation - some £55,000 in nine cases so far - to foreign national prisoners who have been held beyond the end of their sentence while deportation was considered, it was disclosed yesterday. The director-general of the immigration and nationality directorate, Lin Homer, told MPs that nine months after the foreign national prisoner crisis cost Charles Clarke his job only 163 of the 1,013 inmates freed without being considered for deportation had left the UK. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2017692,00.html
• Gordon Brown enjoyed a record cash surplus on the public finances last month as surging income tax receipts outweighed a fall in corporation tax revenues, official statistics show. The last public finance data before the budget next month show there was a net cash surplus of £21.4bn last month after a surge in income tax from record City bonuses. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2017635,00.html
• The future of Britain's biggest charities is being put at risk by their growing dependence on poorly-funded contracts to deliver public services, the chair of the Charity Commission will warn today. Dame Suzi Leather's stark assessment comes after a survey revealed that fewer than one in eight charities running services was confident it was being paid enough to cover its costs. An "all-party love-in" between the voluntary sector and politicians who see the sector as offering a more effective and user-friendly way of delivering public services is also threatening charities' independence, she will say. http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2017834,00.html
• A winter squeeze on NHS services across England will be enough to pull the health service out of financial deficit by the end of March, forecasts from the Department of Health indicated yesterday. They showed 132 NHS trusts are heading to overspend by £1,318m in 2006-07 - slightly more than the overspend that played havoc with NHS finances last year. But this time the deficits of the overspenders will be cancelled out by underspending in other parts of the NHS. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2017698,00.html
• Half-price bus and tram passes for Londoners on income support are to be financed by an oil deal with a Latin American socialist state. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, signed a deal with a Venezuelan oil company yesterday for cheap fuel for the capital’s 8,000 buses. In return, his officials will advise on street cleaning and other services. Mr Livingstone said that he would use the discount, worth £16 million a year, to give 250,000 people Oyster smart-cards allowing half-price journeys from July. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1415355.ece
• Higher earners should live alongside poorer households to achieve a better mix in housing, a Government-commissioned report said yesterday. Prof John Hills said housing policy should be changed to avoid having "rich people on one side and poorer people on the other side of the tracks". In a report to Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, he suggested that the complete redevelopment of estates might sometimes be "the only alternative".He also called for social landlords to buy housing in other areas and for vacant land on traditional council estates to be used to build private homes. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?l=/news/2007/02/21/nestates21.xml
• Rogue agencies that prey on would-be models are facing a crackdown under new rules to prevent them from making millions of pounds from empty promises of celebrity. Enticed by the Big Brother culture of instant fame, thousands of women every year are falling victim to a burgeoning industry in hotel-based casting sessions and websites offering photo shoots for aspiring models. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2290048.ece

Olympics

• The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Ed Balls MP, brought representatives from the European Commission together with leading representatives of London's financial sector, while also announcing the implementation of tax measures to boost the competitiveness of the City of London. The measures announced will modernise the tax system to remove obstacles to competition and expand choice in trading financial instruments in the UK. They will allow firms to benefit from the new opportunities offered by liberalisation of financial regulation in the European Union, and specifically from the introduction of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).