Picking Losers

Government  

• "Talking" CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England. They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff. About £500,000 will be spent adding speaker facilities to existing cameras.  
• MPs should be able to take part in shorter, more topical debates to help make the Commons the "cockpit of the nation", according to Jack Straw. The leader of the Commons also raised the idea of allowing members to use equipment such as personal digital assistants in the chamber to let them keep up with their constituency correspondence.
  

Government  

• Gordon Brown was last night under renewed pressure from the Conservatives after Brussels revealed that the chancellor had been forced to back down in a row over Britain's highly politically-charged EU rebate. Brussels said the Treasury had yesterday finally abandoned a 15-month rearguard action against a new deal for financing an expanded EU as the price for securing a Europe-wide agreement to tackle VAT fraud. The new deal will see Britain's rebate - a totemic issue for the Conservatives since it was negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984 - reduced by around £1bn a year over the next six years. Tony Blair signed up to the budget in December 2005 but the Treasury has blocked the implementation of the agreement ever since, in an attempt to boost the size of Britain's rebate. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2049567,00.html  
• Fresh difficulties hit the government's gambling policy yesterday after a High Court judge allowed existing casinos to bring a legal challenge to the creation of Britain's first Las Vegas-style super-casino as well as 16 other new premises. Mr Justice Collins ordered that the judicial review challenge, spearheaded on behalf of existing casinos by the British Casino Association, should be heard as a matter of urgency. That hearing, to last three days, is expected to take place before May 25. The existing casinos claim they are being treated "significantly less favourably" than the 17 proposed new establishments that could be licensed as a result of the 2005 Gambling Act. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/47014a6e-e249-11db-af9e-000b5df10621.html  
• A £2.4 billion expansion of the railways over the next two years was announced yesterday by Network Rail. The programme will include lengthening hundreds of platforms, increasing speeds on some lines, and new tracks and resignalling schemes. John Armitt, chief executive of Network Rail, said that the programme was a response by the company to the rising demand for rail travel. The £2.44 billion "enhancements" will be carried out from this month to March 2009. Network Rail will fund £1.73 billion of the schemes, with the rest of the money coming from other stakeholders in the railways, including the Department for Transport and local authorities. At £1.2 billion a year, the total is more than double the average annual spending on enhancements. Schemes being worked on over the next two years include projects connected with the 2012 Olympics, on which £109 million will be spent by March 2009. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1610077.ece
• At least 120,000 bright children are effectively going backwards in secondary schools, prompting fresh fears over the way top pupils are taught. One child in five who was doing well in some core subjects at the end of primary school failed to make any further progress in the first three years of secondary education, according to figures obtained by the Conservatives. Many of the top performing pupils at 11 actually did worse by the age of 14. The findings come as the Government issued fresh threats to hundreds of "coasting" schools that they face closure unless standards improve. Local authorities are being told to issue notices to schools that fail to boost pupils' grades warning that they will be turned into privately-sponsored city academies if improvement is too slow. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/04/npupils04.xml
• Gordon Brown stood by his controversial move to scrap tax credits for pension funds yesterday, insisting it had been the best decision for the long-term health of the economy. Speaking for the first time since the row broke, the chancellor attempted to quash growing criticism of the 1997 measure by rejecting opposition claims that it had damaged the pensions of millions of Britons by reintroducing a £5bn tax bill to pensions funds. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2049538,00.html  
• Green-minded householders will be allowed to put up solar panels and wind turbines without applying for planning permission under plans to be announced today by Ruth Kelly. The communities secretary hopes the changes will encourage people to generate their own energy supplies and cut carbon emissions, as well as reducing the number of non-controversial applications that clog up the planning system. At present applications can take months to be processed and cost hundreds of pounds. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2049574,00.html  

Conservatives  

Government  

• All pregnant women in England will be given the option of a home birth under plans launched by health secretary Patricia Hewitt. Hewitt unveiled Labour's vision for the future of maternity services in England and said that expectant mothers will be guaranteed a "full range of birthing choices" by 2009. She acknowledged a current shortfall in midwives but said 1,000 were in training and would qualify in the next couple of years. And she insisted that the ambitious "gold standard" plans would not be financed by cuts elsewhere in the NHS. Women will also be able to choose how to access maternity care when they first discover they are pregnant, such as going directly to a midwife or a GP.  
• The FiReControl project has just taken a step forward with the signature of the contract to supply the technology infrastructure.
  

Government  

• Labour's campaign launch for May's crucial elections was in danger of being eclipsed last night by the growing controversy over Gordon Brown's pension taxation changes. The Treasury was forced into an embarrassing climbdown yesterday over claims that business leaders at the CBI had supported the 1997 reforms to impose a £5bn a year pensions tax. Ed Balls, one of the chancellor's closest allies, backtracked on his claim as the former head of the CBI said it was "completely untrue" to say the organisation had pushed for the change. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2048762,00.html  
• Hundreds of schools regarded as drifting towards failure or merely "coasting" face intervention from local authorities, which have been told by ministers to be tougher on standards. Earlier action to prevent schools needing special measures or risking closure was ordered by the government last night. Councils must use new powers to crack down on schools that are not getting the best out of all their pupils, failing certain groups such as ethnic minorities, or allowing a wide gender gap to develop in results, ministers said. Formal warning notices are to be issued to schools, which must draw up action plans within 15 days. Councils can also force a school to take an outside partner, be it a better school, local college, business or consultancy, to turn things around. Schools that do not improve may lose their delegated powers over their budgets. http://education.guardian.co.uk/ofsted/story/0,,2048754,00.html  
• More than half of all cancer patients needing lifesaving radiotherapy are waiting longer than the Government's "maximum acceptable delay" for treatment, according to a damning report. The Times has been told that the paper shows huge variations in the delivery of treatments around the country, with many "black holes" where services are extremely poor. The study, by the National Radiotherapy Advisory Group, has not been published and ministers have not indicated that it will be. But Professor Karol Sikora, a cancer specialist, said that it should provoke "an outcry for better provision". http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1605142.ece  

Conservatives  

Government  

• Tough new powers giving teachers' clear and unequivocal authority to discipline badly behaved pupils become law this week. Designed to combat disruptive, bullying or offensive behaviour, they give teachers a clear statutory right to restrain, detain and remove unruly pupils, confiscate mobile phones that are being used in a malicious or disruptive way and punish pupils for poor behaviour not just in school, but also on the way to and from school.  
•  Ken Livingstone has called for a 15 pence increase in the London "living wage". London's mayor said workers in the capital should be paid £7.20 an hour, rather than the current rate of £7.05. He noted that almost half of part-time and one in seven full-time workers failed to receive the current living wage, arguing this was "unacceptable". The London living wage is worked out by the Living Wage Unit and provides a weighting for people working in the capital because of expensive housing costs.  
• A network of experienced regional reps is to be set up to move forward Government plans for an inspiring Cultural Olympiad in the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, Culture Minister David Lammy announced today. Each of England's eight regions outside London is to have its own 'Creative Programmer' who will: encourage and enable arts and cultural bodies to get involved, and create opportunities for ordinary people to take part; become a dynamic link between the regions and London's 2012 organising committee (LOCOG); assess whether local projects meet the criteria to become part of the Cultural Olympiad; and ensure that each region's heritage is as well represented as its 21st century technology.  
• Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden today announced a new Impact Assessment (IA) process to ensure that all new regulation is necessary and carried out with minimum burdens. This improves on the previous Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) with a simpler, more transparent process that will be embedded in the earliest stage of policy making. The new arrangements will begin from mid-May and all IAs will be available from an online database making them easily available for public scrutiny.  
• Fifteen areas across Britain will be given £32 million in a scheme to give local areas more control over plans to tackle worklessness, Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton announced today. The 15 areas, which have been chosen as pathfinders in the Cities Strategy, will get direct control of £32 million from the Government's Deprived Areas Fund after devising their own plans and targets to help people get the support they need to find work. They will also have a key role in shaping the delivery of the Government's flagship Pathways to Work programme to help people off incapacity benefit, have access to improved data-sharing, and a greater ability to influence the provision of training opportunities and employment programmes at a local level.  

Conservatives  

While I was away, I received a copy of this letter from Bob Durward (chairman of the classical liberal New Party) to David Milliband. Bob has allowed me to reproduce it here. I hope it tickles you as much as it tickles me.

To: Rt Hon David Milliband MP
Secretary of State, DEFRA
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR

Dear Secretary of State,

My friend, who is in farming at the moment, received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I now want to join the "not rearing pigs" business.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agriculture Policy.

I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?

As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven't reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?

My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is - until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.

If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100?

I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. Then I can afford to buy an aeroplane.

Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I didn't rear?

I am also considering the "not milking cows" business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the Government information on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields?

In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will qualify for unemployment benefits.

I shall of course vote for you at the next general election.

Yours faithfully,

Back from a fantastic week's skiing, and I find that we are being bombarded with comment spam, mostly from domains in Russia and Turkey. Having only enabled it a couple of weeks ago, I'm going to have turn off anonymous commenting, to get rid of these bastards. It's a piece of cake to register anyway, which is all you have to do to leave a comment. We don't need to know anything about you, we just need to know that you exist, so we can filter out the spammers.

Government  

• The row over the government's pensions policy deepened yesterday as business leaders dismissed ministers' claims that they had lobbied for Gordon Brown's controversial tax changes in 1997. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act late on Friday showed that the chancellor was warned about his plans to remove a key tax benefit enjoyed by pension funds in his first budget. Civil servants warned that the cuts could lead to the closure of many occupational pension schemes. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2047974,00.html  
• Developers siting new buildings close to hazardous industrial installations could be forced to finance some of the extra costs involved in making the plants safer, under government proposals being unveiled today. If implemented, the ideas would for the first time establish the principle of spreading out the costs of reducing the dangers of such sites between their operators and nearby businesses. The proposals could leave developers of projects such as housing estates or warehouses facing bills of several million pounds. Up to now, all the costs of necessary plant improvements have fallen on the operators themselves. Developers could find themselves paying for extra safety measures, such as improved maintenance or more sophisticated instrumentation. About 60 large industrial sites in England, Wales and Scotland, mainly chemical plants and refineries, that are considered especially hazardous would be covered by the new rules. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/21886216-e0b6-11db-8b48-000b5df10621.html  
• A £16bn merger of two big-spending Ministry of Defence agencies will be finalised today under a plan to improve the UK's poor record in weapons buying. The MoD's procurement arm is being combined with its logistics division, creating a 29,000-strong Bristol-based department that controls 40 per cent of the defence budget. The merger is part of an overhaul of military buying policy as Britain looks to create long-term partnerships with industry to maintain and upgrade warships, helicopters, armoured vehicles and fighter jets - all of which often remain in service for decades. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/927fea8e-e0b6-11db-8b48-000b5df10621.html  
• The UK has spent £165m on hiring private security companies in Iraq in the past four years - the equivalent to around a quarter of the entire Iraq aid budget, it has emerged. A further £43m has been spent on private guards in Afghanistan since 2004. The security costs, mainly for guards for British staff and facilities, were revealed in a parliamentary answer from the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells. They reflect the huge quantities of money that Britain and the US have had to divert from humanitarian and reconstruction resources to deal with the deteriorating security environment in both countries. In Iraq, a total of £145m has been spent on security guards to protect British assets, with a further £20m going on police training and security advisers to the Iraqi government. Britain's Iraqi aid budget over the same period was £644m. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2048009,00.html  
• The industrialist responsible for the London 2012 Olympics construction project has rejected claims that the budget will continue to soar over the next five years, and predicted that the final cost will probably be less than the £9.3bn announced by the government. Sir Roy McNulty, acting chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), said the budget, which has trebled since London was awarded the games, was now "realistic". In an interview with the Guardian to mark the project's first year yesterday, he insisted it had been "fast out of the blocks" and hit all the main milestones. Sceptics have warned of possible £15bn costs but Sir Roy said there would be "pressure to deliver value for money throughout the whole exercise" and the Olympics were "in relatively good shape". http://www.guardian.co.uk/olympics2012/story/0,,2048050,00.html  
• Council tax inspectors have held high-level talks with their overseas counterparts who use an annual system for revaluing properties, according to documents published by the Conservatives yesterday. Annual revaluations would mean that any household would be taxed for any material improvement to their home, said Caroline Spelman, the Tory local government spokesman. The Government has already announced that a revaluation, which would likely result in large council tax rises for homes that have benefited from the boom in property prices, will be delayed until after the election. But detailed information obtained by the Tories indicates that the Valuation Office in England is preparing for a new system of regular revaluations, including using computer programmes and so-called "spy in the sky" technology to value homes, to boost local council revenues in England. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/02/nhomes102.xml  
• An outgoing chief constable launched an attack on the level of police bureaucracy yesterday, as a survey revealed that public confidence in the service is plummeting. Alastair McWhirter, on his last day as chief constable of Suffolk police, said officers were spending half their time in the station, sometimes filling in forms for Government statistics. Mr McWhirter said a "phenomenal" amount of paperwork was required to take someone into custody. Even the file for a simple assault case contained 128 bits of paper and had been handled by about 56 different people before it got to court. Mr McWhirter said bureaucracy in the force was a "necessary evil" but needed a root and branch overhaul. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/02/ntape02.xml  

Conservatives  

Government  

• The economy and employees needs to be "flexible", Tony Blair is to say in a speech about work. His ideas about "flexi-Britain" include urging employees to adapt quickly to the needs of their bosses to keep the "knowledge economy" moving. In return, employees should benefit from family-friendly hours and workplace rights. Mr Blair will say the government's role should be to encourage skills training while protecting workers' rights. In a speech in Manchester on Friday, he is to say: "The modern world of work is defined by flexibility.

Government  

• David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, has secured agreement from the Treasury to double the spending on green farming schemes to improve the landscape and increase the number of rare wild birds. English farmers will be able to apply for a share of £3.9 billion until 2013. The funding will help farmers to switch to organic production and will be used to conserve habitats such as hay meadows. The money has been raised in part by a clawback from farmers of handouts from the Common Agricultural Policy. This means that arable farmers in England will have to pay out 12 per cent of their CAP handouts this year to fund the green schemes, rising to 14 per cent from 2009 until 2013.

Government  

• The Home Office will be split into two separate departments for security and for justice in the next six weeks. The Department for Constitutional Affairs will take control of probation, prisons and prevention of re-offending and be renamed the Ministry of Justice. The slimmed-down Home Office will then be left to concentrate on dealing with terrorism, security and immigration.  
• The provisional figures published today for carbon dioxide emissions underline the need for swift and decisive action on climate change, Environment Secretary David Miliband said today. The figures do not include the effect of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (which covers nearly half of UK carbon dioxide emissions) but Mr Miliband said that should not disguise the need for action. Mr Miliband said that, while the 11/4% increase in 2006 was due mainly to unusually high international gas prices leading to a switch to coal in electricity generation, the statistics demonstrated the clear need for continued action by all levels of government, business, and individuals.
• Public buildings like museums, galleries, government buildings and town halls must get energy ratings - like consumer friendly fridge ratings - and display them to the public from April 2008, the Government said today. Visitors will be able to see the annual carbon emissions of each building. This measure is intended to encourage energy improvements to public buildings, help cut costs to the public purse and lead the way in cutting carbon emissions.
• New guidance on street design aims to breathe new life into communities by creating safe and sustainable environments for residents, Transport Minister Gillian Merron announced today. Manual for Streets, a joint publication between the Department for Transport and Communities and Local Government, emphasises the importance of residential streets in the creation of places in which people want to live. In particular it aims to reduce the impact of vehicles on residential streets by asking practitioners to plan street design intelligently and proactively, and gives a high priority to the needs of pedestrians, cyclists and users of public transport.
• The Government today launched a major modernisation of the Building Control system with the publication of a paper detailing its vision for how the system can be improved. 'The Future for Building Control' sets out a package of options that the Government is minded to develop further and invites interested parties to provide suggestions on how reform should proceed. The publication follows detailed discussions with key members of industry on the strengths and weaknesses of the current system, which have highlighted the strong case for reform. The paper recognises a number of important shortcomings with the current system including the lack of a clear future vision for the purpose of Building Control, the current piecemeal approach to regulatory change and the complexity of guidance. Problems with achieving compliance and with effective enforcement are also highlighted as key areas for action.
• A £3.9 billion budget for the new Rural Development Programme for England 2007 to 2013 has been agreed. This is more than double the budget available for the previous programme which ran from 2000-2006. This programme will implement the European Rural Development Regulation - also known as the Second Pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy. £3.3 billion of the total budget will be allocated to agri-environment and other land management schemes. This funding will help farmers manage the land more sustainably and deliver important environmental outcomes on biodiversity, landscape and access, water quality and climate change. Some £600 million will also be made available to make agriculture and forestry more competitive and sustainable and to enhance opportunity in rural areas.
• The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) will today announce four new government deals, worth over £1 billion. The deals will allow public sector organisations to make savings on the cost of buying goods and services. The deals include a £1 billion four-year electricity framework led by OGCbuying.solutions, which will provide a portion of electricity from renewable sources; a four-year print services framework led by the Department for Transport to be awarded next week, giving access to suppliers across the UK with the quality, capacity and technical capability to serve public sector customers; and two three-year framework agreements on the supply of tyres and vehicle glass worth £79 million. Led by the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (NHS PASA) and the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) respectively, these deals are set to save the public sector over £6 million.
• The government must put "extra effort" into increasing skills in the car industry if it is to avoid further job losses, MPs have warned. A review by the Commons trade and industry select committee, launched after the collapse of MG Rover in 2005, found "mixed prospects" for the future of the automotive industry.

Conservatives  

Government  

• Home secretary John Reid has finalised plans to break up the Home Office. It was confirmed last night that Mr Reid had passed his proposals to No 10 amid reports that Tony Blair will give the go ahead for the scheme in a statement today to parliament. Mr Reid has made clear he wants to turn the Home Office into a new ministry of security, while hiving off prisons and probation to a ministry of justice based on the Department for Constitutional Affairs. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045266,00.html  
• Gordon Brown has engineered the biggest cash squeeze on families for a quarter of a century, it has emerged. Soaring taxes have eaten dramatically into households' pockets, causing a deterioration in their disposable incomes. Government figures show that disposable incomes grew last year at the slowest rate since 1982, when unemployment hit three million. Experts said that when the ballooning cost of mortgage payments and utility bills were taken into account, households were likely to have suffered a painful fall in their wealth. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/29/nincome29.xml
• The House of Lords last night threw out controversial plans to site a supercasino in Manchester, despite Tessa Jowell's last-ditch attempt to win back support with a package of concessions. A fatal amendment - passed by three votes - forced the culture secretary's gambling reforms back to the drawing board, rejecting 16 smaller venues as well as the Las Vegas-style casino. The government needed majorities in both houses, rendering its 24-vote victory in a simultaneous Commons division worthless. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045198,00.html  
• The NHS is to get a minimum of 3 per cent real-terms growth a year between 2008 and 2011, Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary has said. Following last week's Budget, and the chancellor's settlement for education in the comprehensive spending review, Ms Hewitt told the Financial Times that the NHS "will continue to grow, and grow faster than the rate of economic growth -generally". Asked if that meant a minimum of 3 per cent, given Treasury forecasts that the economy will grow at 2.75 per, she said in an interview: "That is your deduction, but I am not dissenting from it." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/17353d88-dd92-11db-8d42-000b5df10621.html  
• NHS bosses charged with delivering the much-delayed £6.2bn IT upgrade to health trusts throughout England have launched a £100m-plus drive for "additional" IT suppliers to meet "immediate business needs". Separately, the Guardian has learned that the Australian group IBA Health is close to abandoning talks over a potential all-share takeover of cash-strapped software supplier iSoft, which is contracted to provide systems for 60% of the NHS's troubled National Programme for IT (NPfIT). http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2044984,00.html  
• Margaret Beckett should have been demoted from her job as environment secretary - not promoted to the Foreign Office - because of her role in the fiasco of reforming farming subsidies, an all-party committee of MPs says today. A damning report from the environment, food and rural affairs committee says the introduction of the single payments scheme was a catastrophe which wasted up to half a billion pounds and left many farmers struggling to cope. http://www.guardian.co.uk/country/article/0,,2045189,00.html

Conservatives

Government  

• The minimum age for a marriage visa is to be raised from 18 to 21, in a bid to combat forced marriages. Spouses or fiances who want to come to the UK from outside the EU may also have to pass an English test first. People who act as guarantors for people on family visit visas could also face fines of £1,000 if they overstay. The proposals are part of efforts to strengthen UK border controls, which will see more people being screened before they enter the UK.   
• Members of Parliament have voted to give themselves £10,000 each a year to spend on things like websites to boost "public understanding" of Parliament.
  

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  

Government  

• Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, today launched the Government's search for a partner to deliver a new £1.2m Innovation Exchange - a programme to support the third sector's capacity to innovate. The Innovation Exchange programme - being put out to tender today by the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) in the Cabinet Office - aims to provide third sector innovators with access to the people and potential capital they need to make their ideas a reality.  
• Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton today announced a comprehensive review of the health of the working age population, assessing current health levels and providing a benchmark against which to measure future workplace health improvements.  

Liberal Democrats  

Government  

• Tougher community sentences and more measures to rehabilitate criminals are among a raft of law and order ideas being unveiled by Tony Blair. The prime minister's policy review will also back units for mentally ill prisoners and a police reorganisation. The Lord Chancellor said the government had to constantly look to improve its approach to law and order. But the Tories accused Mr Blair, who is due to step down, of "grandstanding" in the "dying days of his premiership". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6498003.stm  
• Local authorities insisted they were "delivering" today as new figures showed council tax will go up over the coming year by an average of 4.2 per cent. The rise equates to around £53 on a Band D property, one occupied by two-adults, and means that the average council tax for such properties will be £1,258 in London, £1,284 in other metropolitan areas and £1,348 in shire areas. Although the increase is the second lowest annual rise since the 1994-95 period, it is still far higher than current consumer price inflation of 2.8 per cent. Councils are doing "everything in their power" to keep bills down, and many people can look forward to a real terms cut over the next financial year, according to the Local Government Association. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=1UCJRSI2ELMMHQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/03/27/ncouncil127.xml  
• The National Health Service is facing a much bigger cash crisis than thought, the Conservatives said yesterday as they unveiled figures showing an overspend of £2.7bn in 2005-06, which will have to be recouped this year and next. The NHS as a whole recorded a deficit of £536m last year, but the Tories claimed the true figure could be five times as high, with frontline services now facing severe cuts in order to make up the difference. The Department of Health spent £74.3bn in 2005-06, £2.7bn more than its original "near-cash resource limit" of £71.6bn. Ivan Lewis, the health minister, told parliament in December the NHS deficit was "the main reason" for the overspend. The Conservatives accused the government of concealing the true extent of the overspend by using "sleight of hand" in the government's accounts. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8cd7ca90-dbff-11db-9233-000b5df10621.html  
• A former senior civil servant has said the purchaser/provider split in the NHS is not working. Professor Chris Ham, formerly head of strategy at the Department of Health, said the shake-up was hampered by an "Achilles heel" of GPs and primary care trusts' inability to negotiate with big hospitals. http://www.epolitix.com/EN/Bulletins/PressReview/fullpressreview.htm?bulletindate=27-Mar-2007  
• A government programme to help council tenants and lower earners into property ownership has been criticised by MPs. The Commons public accounts committee said shared equity schemes, which cost about £500m a year, wasted money and did not help enough people. Under the schemes, tenants buy part of a property and a housing association, lender or the government owns the rest. The MPs said this did not necessarily serve as a route to full ownership and some "less deserving" people benefited. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6497701.stm  
• London is bidding to be at the forefront of the latest commercial space race by spending £12m to help launch a groundbreaking new satellite. The London Development Agency's backing could help telecommunications satellite company Inmarsat, which is based in the capital, win a £600m satellite development contract from the European Space Agency. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/bfc990c4-dbfe-11db-9233-000b5df10621.html  
• Pupils should be able to suggest suitable punishments for bullies in their school, according to an MPs' report into bullying. The Commons Education Select Committee also warned that children should not be excluded from school for retaliating against bullies. The report called for schools to record all bullying, including homophobic. But the government said this would be too bureaucratic for head teachers - and would shortly issue new guidance. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6496725.stm  

Conservatives  

Government  

Government  

• The Government is to dramatically overhaul its strategy on crime by ending its drive for ever-tougher sentences and instead putting more emphasis on rehabilitating offenders and sending fewer of them to prison. Cabinet papers leaked to The Independent show that ministers admit their current approach alone will not solve the complex problem of crime in Britain today. The significant change of emphasis will be welcomed by critics who claim Tony Blair has not lived up to his own rhetoric because he has been "tough on crime" without being "tough on the causes of crime". http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2393313.ece  
• A postcode lottery still exists in NHS dental care, according to the consumer organisation Which?, with huge variations in the availability of dentists around the country. Fieldworkers posing as patients newly moved into an area contacted 466 dental practices across England - and only about a third (36%) said they were taking on new NHS patients. This is no significant improvement, says Which?, from 2005 when the figure was 31%. The findings are published a year after the government brought in new contracts for dentists that were intended to make NHS dentistry more available. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2042648,00.html  
• Secondary students will be offered cheap school transport under plans to open up popular schools in wealthy areas to pupils from poorer neighbourhoods, as well as to promote eco-friendly travel. Pupils will be charged a maximum of 50p a journey for travelling on school buses or chartered coaches, or for passes for public buses or trains, the Department for Education will announce today. The subsidised travel will be available from September 2008 to all secondary school pupils in 20 pilot local authorities, regardless of ability to pay. Poor children will not have to pay at all. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article1567403.ece  
• Tony Blair and his work and pensions secretary, John Hutton, are to announce today that they want to push through big changes in the government's welfare programme by the summer, including a new role for the private sector. Mr Hutton will outline his timetable today at a conference that will also be addressed by the banker David Freud, who carried out a welfare review for the government. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2042642,00.html  
• The UK is set to fall far short of meeting the renewable energy demand of its biggest corporate customers in 2007, even as the government continues to set ambitious targets. About 3,500 of the country's biggest energy customers - from chemical producers to retail chains and banks - want to buy 34 terrawatt/hours (34bn kilowatt/hours) of electricity from renewable sources in 2007. That is three times the 12.2TWh of accredited renewable electricity produced in the UK in 2006 and far exceeds estimates for 2007, a Datamonitor study has found. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d7d33e20-db10-11db-ba4d-000b5df10621.html  
• Tens of thousands of second-home owners have won an unexpected reprieve, The Times has learnt. But rural campaigners who have been pressing for an extra levy on holiday properties to try to contain local house prices said that it was a "disgrace" that the Government had refused to go ahead with it. The reprieve comes as ministers prepare for more damaging headlines over council tax rises. Tomorrow ministers are expected to confirm rises of more than 4 per cent from next month, with average bills going up by more than £50 to £1,320 a year. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1567423.ece  
• Two of the Government's rising junior ministers urge Gordon Brown today to embark on a radical reform of schools as the Chancellor's leadership campaign gathers pace. Writing in The Times, James Purnell and Jim Murphy suggest that, in an effort to refresh Labour's appeal to aspirational families, able children could be given their own funds to develop their talents in secondary schools. Both ministers are Blairites who are expected to support the Chancellor as leader but their proposals are intended to ensure that his campaign has a broad appeal within the Labour Party and challenges David Cameron's appeal to the middle classes. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1567439.ece
• The government is way behind its target to halve child poverty by 2010, figures due to be published tomorrow will show. Official statistics will show that the government is still struggling to make progress on the issue having missed the first milestone, a reduction of ne-quarter by 2005, by some 300,000 children. In last week's Budget, Gordon Brown, the chancellor, said his planned increases in the child and working tax credits would lift another 200,000 above the poverty line. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that an additional £4bn a year will be needed on top of last week's measures if the target of reducing the numbers below the poverty line from more than 4m in 1998, shortly after Labour took office, to around 2m is to be achieved by 2010. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/567577ee-db2e-11db-ba4d-000b5df10621.html
• Ministers risk parliamentary defeat this week over the contentious decision to site Britain's first Las Vegas-style super-casino in Manchester, after a last-minute move by the Tories to oppose the plan. The Conservative U-turn means the government faces tight votes on Wednesday in the Commons and the Lords. Both houses will get a single vote on approving the sites for the super-casino and 16 other new casinos that were recommended by the government's advisory panel earlier this year. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e3f33346-db2d-11db-ba4d-000b5df10621.html

Conservatives  

I'm off skiing for a week, and JG has already headed off on holiday for a fortnight, so things may go a little quiet round here for a while. But LP should still be posting the summaries and maybe the odd additional posting if something catches her eye, so there should be something to keep things ticking over.

I had noticed that The Independent had ceased to be a newspaper and had become instead a soap-box from which Simon Kelner and his staff could bore on about Iraq and the environment. A sad decline from the refreshingly open-minded and wide-ranging paper of its launch. But I didn't know why.