A round-up - curtesy of the Guardian.
Economy
One of Rachel Reeves’s first actions as chancellor was to stand in front of the Commons and accuse the previous government of leaving a £22bn hole in this year’s public accounts. Every year, government spending diverges slightly from what was budgeted, but this was an unusually large amount, driven both by the higher-than-expected costs of housing asylum seekers and public sector pay deals.
Reeves’s solution to this was to put an immediate halt to various projects, including the road tunnel under Stonehenge and the A27 Arundel bypass. Boris Johnson’s promise to build 40 new hospitals has also been placed under review, with the prime minister, Keir Starmer, accusing his predecessor of making the promise without allocating the money.
Energy
When Michael Gove was asked at Tory conference to name the most effective Labour cabinet ministers so far, one of those he listed was Ed Miliband. The energy secretary has returned to a post he last held 14 years ago with a flurry of activity.
On 8 July, the first Monday after winning the election, Miliband announced he was removing the previous government’s de facto ban on onshore wind power. A day later, Reeves, unveiled the national wealth fund, a £7.3bn scheme designed to invest in green infrastructure such as clean steel and carbon capture.
Later that month, Miliband brought forward a bill to set up Great British Energy, a nationally owned energy production company that the government has put at the heart of its net zero strategy. The bill gives the company power to produce and distribute clean energy and spend money on energy efficiency schemes.
Keir Starmer announced in his Labour conference speech that GBE would be based in Aberdeen.
Transport
The first bill to pass the Commons under the Labour government was the rail nationalisation bill. The bill automatically brings rail networks back under public control once their existing franchise contract is over, or earlier if they breach their contracts.
The transport secretary, Louise Haigh, has also passed a bill to set up a new company called Great British Railways to manage both the track and the trains service. Some have questioned, however, why the rolling stock is not also being brought under national control.
Last month, Haigh reversed another piece of privatisation in the transport sector, allowing local authorities across England to run their own bus services once more. The transport secretary has also said she wants to make it simpler and easier for local leaders to conduct the franchising process.
Education
Labour has promised that it will introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England, but it is starting slowly. Reeves announced at the Labour conference that 750 English schools would be invited to be part of a pilot programme.
Housing
Labour has promised to liberalise the planning regime and began soon after taking over government, not only overturning the restrictions on onshore wind power but also reimposing population-based housing targets on local authorities.
The Conservatives had given local planners a series of loopholes to avoid meeting those targets, in a move that housebuilders said had hampered new development, pushing housing approvals to a 10-year low.
Other reforms are planned, including making it easier for public bodies to issue compulsory purchasing orders and making it easier to build on green belt land.
Meanwhile, Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, has introduced a package of renters’ reforms, which passed their second reading in parliament this week, despite the objections of the Conservatives. That package picks up on some of the ambitions originally championed by Gove when he was housing secretary, including bringing an immediate end to no-fault evictions and forcing landlords to make timely repairs to properties.
Campaigners, however, are unhappy that the Labour government has so far not enacted another package of protections for leaseholders, whom they worry are slipping down the government’s agenda. The government has promised to bring in a bill to restrict leasehold and boost the rights of tenants, but has so far not even enacted the measures passed through parliament under the last government.
Employment
Starmer promised that his government would bring forward a package of workers’ rights in his first 100 days, a deadline which was just about met when Angela Rayner, his deputy, published the employment rights bill on Thursday.
Her reforms include giving workers protection from unfair dismissal and paternity leave rights from the first day of their employment, rather than having to wait two years. The bill also bans employers from forcing workers to sign zero-hours contracts and stops them firing staff only to hire them back on lower pay, unless the company is threatened with bankruptcy.
While the bill was published in the first 100 days it will take another two years for it to come into force. Officials and ministers will spend that time consulting businesses and trade unions about the exact measures involved and how to police them.
Some of the pre-election promises have not made it into the bill. There will be no statutory right for workers to switch off outside their working hours, and the government will now consult on having a single status of worker. Unions have long campaigned for a single worker status to replace the distinction between those who are employed and self-employed, in part to tackle exploitation in the gig economy.
Immigration
As promised, Labour has ended the previous government’s Rwanda scheme, which had not sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda but was already costing the government money. Scrapping it saved more than £2bn over two years.
In its place, Starmer and his home secretary, Yvette Cooper, have introduced a border security command to focus on people-smuggling gangs. However, the prime minister is still trying to sign returns agreements with European countries, agreements that might mean Britain having to accept migrants in return.
Since the election, nearly 12,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats, slightly fewer than in the same period last year.
Justice
A week after the election, the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced an early release scheme that would see some offenders who had committed less serious crimes leave prison after serving 40% of their sentence. Mahmood blamed the prisons crisis she inherited from the previous government, which had left jails in England and Wales almost entirely full.
The early release scheme was controversial, but its purpose was underlined later in the summer as riots engulfed parts of the country. Speaking to journalists from the Downing Street garden after the riots had subsided, the prime minister described the decisions he had had to make while they were unfolding.
“I shouldn’t be sitting in the Cobra room with a list of prison places across the country on a day-by-day basis, trying to work out how we deal with disorder,” he said. “But that’s the position I was put in.”
Health
If Starmer is to show progress in one public service by the time he goes into the next election, it will have to be the NHS. His health secretary, Wes Streeting, commissioned Ara Darzi, a former Labour minister, to outline the scale of the challenge. Lord Darzi’s report, which was published last month, found that long delays for hospital, GP and mental health services were leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Darzi suggested a range of changes, including focusing more on prevention and making companies pay “health levies” for things such as alcohol and tobacco.
Budget
Rachel Reeves is considering raising the tax on vaping products in her budget this month as figures show that a quarter of 11 to 15-year-olds in England have used e-cigarettes.
Budget
Rachel Reeves will not change the rate of capital gains tax on the sale of second homes in the budget amid concerns about the impact on the property market.
Ministers have decided to leave CGT levied on the sale of second homes and buy-to-let properties untouched because of concerns that increasing it would cost money, the Times reported.
Treasury
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is taking action to ensure her budget plan for a multibillion-pound increase in government borrowing to fund infrastructure projects avoids a Liz Truss-style meltdown in financial markets.
Ahead of her tax and spending event on 30 October, the chancellor is convening on Friday the first meeting of a taskforce of leading City figures to advise on infrastructure projects. The government will also launch a watchdog to oversee public works and ensure value for money for the taxpayer.
It is understood Reeves is preparing to announce changes in the budget to the Treasury’s self-imposed fiscal rules to pave the way for billions of pounds in additional borrowing to finance major public works including roads, railways, schools and hospitals.
The chancellor on Friday will convene the first meeting of the British Infrastructure Taskforce, a new group involving some of the UK’s biggest City institutions – including HSBC, Lloyd’s and M&G – to advise on its plans.
It follows an announcement last week on the creation of the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (Nista), a new arm’s-length body merging two existing organisations that will oversee strategy and delivery of major works.
Growstuff but the pro nursery lobby is also biased.
Do you mean this Jenet Erickson?
religion.byu.edu/directory/jenet-erickson
Looking at her CV, I suspect she might be more than a tad biased.
Growstuff mumsnet has covered this topic.
Objective research is probably hard to find. Glad your children thrived at nursery. My grandson didn’t so the solution was to go 2 days back to his trusted childminder and 3 days in the nursery. I remember being greeted by a very irritated nursery worker suggesting that he might not be kept on. I think his crime was to block the lavatories with toys! I think he led the other boys. Supervision seemed a bit lax to say the least. His new nursery is more caring.
This government report is also generally positive about what it calls early education use:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61964d19e90e0704478a9c75/SEED-Age_3_RESEARCH_REPORT.pdf
This article suggest that children in formal childcare settings from an early age have better outcomes:
www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/long-term-study-following-4500-children-links-childcare-better-outcomes
ronib
Growstuff Jenet Erickson in Canada has researched the effects of day nurseries and it’s not positive. Of course there’s research out there.
I'm sure there is. I read something a few months ago, which was positive, but I can't remember who wrote it.
You're so sure that nurseries have a negative effect that I just wondered if you actually had any concrete evidence.
I could search for myself if I were that bothered, but I'm not. I can't change the past (and don't regret it anyway). Both my children went to day nursery full-time from the age of six months and thrived, although I realise that's anecdotal.
Who's Jenet Erickson anyway?
I would never have sent my children to a day nursery when they were very young babies but the cost of buying a house and huge mortgages now doesn’t leave a lot of choice. I used to work very part time until they were well into primary age , a lot of juggling and rushing around. I also worked weekends when my husband could be with the children. That’s a good thing about a job like nursing, as my granddaughter does. Lots of different shifts that fit in with looking after young ones. Tiring though. Life is a lot harder now I think or at least expectations are a lot higher. Who had washing machines etc when they first married, back in the day ? Not many.
Growstuff Jenet Erickson in Canada has researched the effects of day nurseries and it’s not positive. Of course there’s research out there.
I would like to see some peer-reviewed research (ie not gossip) comparing the mental health of children who have been in nurseries from an early age and those who stayed with their parents. Do you have any ronib?
We hadn’t discussed suicide, which often takes place without somebody being known to any mental health services previously. I was trying to make a distinction between enduring mental illness and episodic mental health problems, not attempting to minimise the effect on the people who suffer from either. One very significant factor in increasing anxiety affecting the whole population was the Covid pandemic, and we will no doubt see the effects of that for years to come.
This has a tenuous link to ronib’s concerns about mothers staying at home to look after very young children though, I believe.
Thanks Casdon.
Galaxy, I don't think anyone is pretending things aren't happening, are they?
Suicide amongst children has increased. I dont like pretending things arent happening. It doesnt help. I have no idea of the reason for this.
This is an overview. It breaks down by category, and says that psychotic mental illness episodes, which are severe mental illness rose during the pandemic but have reverted to pre pandemic levels. Other mental health conditions reported have grown.
www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads/mental-health-360-prevalence
I think one of the reasons for the growth is probably increased recognition by parents and schools of conditions for which they now seek help but didn’t in times past. People being diagnosed with ADHD in their thirties and forties for example.
It really is, Iam. And the insulting language is depressing.
Has the incidence of 'very serious mental illnesses' risen in young people? I'd like to see figures to back that up.
I had one baby in 1984 and another in 1986. I took mat leave. I had a childminder for three years. She became a foster carer and I felt for various reasons it would be best to move my children. So aged two and four they moved to ‘auntie J’ where they stayed until high school.
It’s possible for both parents to work and for children to have secure attachments - it’s like going back in time on gransnet at times
Casdon anxiety and depression are part of mental ill health but I hope that a gp will treat. The very serious mental illnesses don’t have easy answers. Of course a hereditary component may be present too.
Do you mean anxiety and depresssion ronib?
Casdon mental illness is increasing amongst young people. I don’t know why. This isn’t about turning back the clock. It’s more about finding a better way forward.
I’m not trying to force my values on you ronib, just pointing out that the majority of young women of today don’t share yours.
The level of serious mental illness has not changed - but society has. Women are longer willing to stay in unhappy marriages, and I don’t blame them. We can’t turn the clock back.
Casdon no I don’t believe it’s possible to impose my values on others but likewise you can’t force your values on me.
My thinking is that we have a very high divorce rate plus increasing numbers of mental ill health in young people. Something isn’t working? Obviously there’s nothing I can do to influence this.
I’ve got more than one child ronib, but only one born in the eighties.
Retraining is not the same as returning to a professional role at the level you left it, is it? Anybody can choose to retrain at any point.
I think what you’re doing is trying to impose your values on others here, because you think women should stay home with their young children. I don’t know any young women of my daughter’s generation who would want to do that, because the reality is that they wouldn’t be able to return to their current roles, which they have fought hard for and enjoy in five+ years time - and they can combine motherhood very successfully with their careers. Of course it’s a struggle at times, I know, I did it myself - but my children are normal, caring people.
Casdon glad you had one daughter in the late 1980s. If you had say three children in the early 1980s, apart from the costs, you might not have had an easy return to work.
I have known mothers retrain after a few years of staying at home. It’s not that impossible for example, to retrain as an educational psychologist having taught. I think the salary is higher? It seems very closed down thinking on your part to write this doesn’t happen.
Registering is free, easy, and means you can join the discussion, watch threads and lots more.
Register now »Already registered? Log in with:
Gransnet »Get our top conversations, latest advice, fantastic competitions, and more, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
