Government
- An accounting rule that has plunged more than two dozen hospital trusts into an irrecoverable financial position is to be ditched, Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, is to announce today. Now "absolutely confident" that the National Health Service would record a small surplus at the end of this financial year, Ms Hewitt said it could now use part of the £450m contingency reserve that strategic health authorities had built up to find the £179m needed to end a rule that the health department had long ac-cepted was "unsustainable". http://www.ft.com/cms/s/26d60290-dcca-11db-a21d-000b5df10621.html
- Plans for a new generation of casinos, including the first "supercasino" in Manchester, will be thrown into confusion tonight with knife-edge votes in the Commons and Lords. Defeat in either House will ensure that the order implementing the supercasino and 16 smaller casino locations proposed by an independent panel cannot go ahead and Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, will have to return to the drawing board. But the Tories decided last night against killing Manchester's hopes in the Lords by backing an amended version of Ms Jowell's legislation which will still allow the 17 casinos to open. The vote is hanging in the balance in the Commons however, where Tory MPs have been given a three line whip requiring them to vote against the proposals, backed by the Liberal Democrats and a hard core of Labour rebels. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1577416.ece
- The total bill for the Government's failure to pay English farmers their subsidies on time over the past two years could reach £500 million, a committee of MPs is expected to say today. The cost includes up to £305 million in fines from Europe, £156 million on "fixing" the failures at the Rural Payments Agency and £21 million in interest payments to farmers last year. In a long-awaited report which is expected to be critical of the Government, MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee are expected to determine whether responsibility should rest with a wider range of ministers and officials than who have lost their jobs so far. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/28/nfarm28.xml
- The Tories' lead over Labour has fallen sharply in the wake of the Budget, according to the latest monthly opinion poll for The Independent. The survey by CommunicateResearch puts David Cameron's Conservatives on 35 per cent (down five points on last month), Labour on 31 per cent (+2), the Liberal Democrats on 20 per cent (+3) and other parties on 14 per cent (unchanged). The Tory lead has dropped from 11 points to just four. Labour's recovery is mainly due to a swing back to the party among middle-income groups - a key target of Gordon Brown's final Budget last week. Labour's support among the C2 social group, credited with keeping Margaret Thatcher in power, has risen from 23 per cent to 32 per cent in the past month. Among the next highest group on the scale, the C1s, Labour is up from 27 per cent to 32 per cent. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2398889.ece
- The SNP is heading for victory in the Scottish parliamentary elections on May 3, in what would be a severe blow to Gordon Brown shortly before he becomes Prime Minister, an opinion poll for The Times suggests today. Mr Brown could go into the next general election with the Nationalists the largest single party in his own backyard, and facing the prospect of an SNP-led minority executive in Edinburgh seeking to challenge him at every turn. The Populus poll puts the Nationalists ahead of Labour in both the first-past-the-post and proportional-representation sections. They are on track to win 50 seats in the 129-seat Scottish Parliament, seven more than Labour. The Liberal Democrats would have 18 MSPs, the Conservatives 17 and the Greens one. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1577453.ece
EU
- The EU's new climate change goals will cost up to €1.1 trillion (£747bn) to implement over the next 14 years, according to a new study. The most comprehensive investigation on managing the economics of climate change paints a daunting picture of the EU's plan to decrease greenhouse gases by at least 20% by 2020. But the study by the consulting firm McKinsey published in a German newspaper yesterday, argues it is both economically and technically possible to reduce emissions on schedule, but that the political effort necessary will be immense. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2044192,00.html
- European consumers and businesses could save more than €28bn a year from the cost of cross-border transactions after European Union finance ministers on Tuesday backed a law to streamline and unify the bloc's national payment regimes. The payment services directive is a vital plank in the European Union's decade-long campaign to create a single market for financial services, and inject competition into a sector that operates largely along national lines. The legislation, which covers all EU nations and currencies, would make it easier for consumers to use credit and debit cards abroad and to make transfers from one EU country to another. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/14bc38ce-dc5a-11db-a21d-000b5df10621.html