Key events
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Summary
Here is a summary of the day’s headlines:
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Liz Truss’s camp has said the Conservative leadership leader is leaning towards specific support for Help for All to ease the cost of living crisis, but said she is not “ruling anything out”. Several possibilities have been floated in the media, with Rishi Sunak’s team warning that cutting VAT by 5% would be “regressive” amid reports over the weekend that his rival was considering the move as an option “nuclear,” the Press Association reported. . The Sunday Telegraph said it was one of a number of possible tension-relieving strategies being drawn up by the Treasury for the new prime minister to consider when he takes office.
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Ministers must act immediately on rising energy prices to prevent people being hit with a “lethal cocktail” of high inflation and recession, said Alistair Darling, the Labor chancellor during the collapse banking crisis of 2008. With Liz Truss, Boris Johnson’s expected successor, still refusing to set out what extra help she might give families to pay the bills, Darling said a key lesson from the 2008 crash was that the action had to be quick and radical. “You need something big and substantial and you need it now, because people’s bills will start coming in in a few weeks,” Darling, who served as chancellor under Gordon Brown, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program .
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The government is working on plans to help people with their energy bills this winter, a Tory minister has said. Victoria Prentis, minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told Times Radio on Monday: “It’s right that people need help and I’m really here to try to reassure them that the government is making plans to help people like they do. will need it with the energy bills this winter.”
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According to the Daily Telegraph, outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to ask his successor not to forego investment in green energy in favor of quick fixes to the spiraling cost of living crisis. Johnson is understood to argue in a farewell message that Britain can deal with future energy crises as it pursues its net zero targets while supporting those struggling to pay for their heating.
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Boris Johnson is “hoping to do a Berlusconi” and make a “populist comeback” in Downing Street after being ousted by his own MPs, according to a former Tory cabinet minister. In an interview with The Guardian, Rory Stewart said people needed to be reminded that Johnson was forced to step down, over a series of scandals, because some supporters wanted Johnson to “come back”. Several of Johnson’s allies believe his detractors will regret ousting him from office when his successor takes over, and will write off the poor polls as midterm blues.
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A union boss has defended Keir Starmer’s support for working people and criticized the general secretary of Unite for saying labor needs to “get a backbone”, the Press Association has reported. Paddy Lillis, the leader of Usdaw, the shop workers’ union, said Sharon Graham’s criticism of the Labor leader was “unfair” and should be addressed to the government.
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The Home Office is paying companies £2.5m to pick up people trying to cross the Channel, amid tension with the Royal Navy over its role in Priti Patel’s plans to deter applicants from asylum Contract disclosures published on a government portal show Aeolian Offshore, which is based on the Isle of Wight and normally serves the offshore wind industry, is the biggest beneficiary. He provided three boats for six months, earning just under £2m. The Home Office spent a further £564,000 over five months chartering boats from another company, CWind, which also regularly works for wind energy companies.
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The Home Office is accused of deliberately failing to appoint a new anti-slavery commissioner to avoid scrutiny as it tried to push through legislation on the issue. It has been a legal requirement to have an independent commissioner since the position was created as part of the Modern Slavery Act in 2015. However, this week will mark four months without anyone in the role, although sources say that the interview process concluded two weeks earlier. the previous incumbent, Sara Thornton, left.
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Workers in Scotland have received a new offer to try to end the ongoing strike. Scottish council cleaning staff across much of the country are on strike over pay disputes with local authorities. A strike in Edinburgh has left litter, including food waste, piling up on the streets during the Edinburgh Festival Strip, the city’s busiest time of year, and is due to end on Wednesday while staff from the Scottish authorities took action over the weekend with a further stretch planned for next week.
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Ministers have been told to get “the wheels of justice turning” again by allowing more legal specialists to act as crown prosecutors to help clear the court backlog. With a record number of cases pending at magistrates and crown courts in England and Wales, shadow attorney-general Emily Thornberry said younger associate prosecutors were “not being used to their full potential possible” in the crown courts because of an “unnecessary and unnecessary” outdated statutory restriction”.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose and the UK politics blog for today. I’ll be back tomorrow morning but for now good night.
Updated at 17.06 BST
Union boss defends Starmer’s support for workers
A union boss has defended Keir Starmer’s support for working people and criticized the general secretary of Unite for saying labor needs to “get a backbone”, the Press Association has reported.
The leader of trade union Usdaw, Paddy Lillis, said Sharon Graham’s criticism of the Labor leader was “unfair” and should be addressed to the government.
“I think it’s really unfair. I think Keir Starmer has shown time and time again that he’s on the side of workers. He understands the industrial action that’s going on at the moment,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.
“We must be, as a trade union movement and as a labor movement, place the blame directly where it belongs. And that’s with this Conservative government, which has been missing in action.”
Graham told the BBC on Sunday: “From my point of view, I think we’re doing Labor a favor by saying, ‘Look, get a backbone, stand up for workers.’
He said the party needed to provide “a strong message” and do more to support workers seeking pay rises as employers reap big profits. But Lillis called for a “degree of silence” from his fellow union boss. He said:
I think sometimes there needs to be some silence and let the Labor leadership get on with the fight against the Tories and hold them to account for what is wrong with this country at the moment.
Updated at 4.17pm BST
The Ministry of the Interior accused of deliberately leaving the anti-slavery post unfilled
Emily Dugan
The Home Office is accused of deliberately failing to appoint a new anti-slavery commissioner to avoid scrutiny as it tried to push through legislation on the issue.
It has been a legal requirement to have an independent commissioner since the post was created as part of the Modern Slavery Act in 2015.
However, this week will mark four months without anyone in the role, despite sources saying the interview process concluded two weeks before the previous incumbent, Sara Thornton, left.
Thornton, along with other experts, is calling for a replacement as soon as possible. It argues that the risks of exploitation have increased and that planned legislation on modern slavery needs scrutiny.
The number of potential victims of trafficking identified has reached record levels this year, with 4,171 referrals registered between April and June.
Updated at 3.47pm BST
Aubrey Allegretti
In case you missed it last night, ministers were told to get “the wheels of justice turning” again by allowing more legal specialists to act as crown prosecutors to help clear the backlog of courts
With a record number of cases pending at magistrates and crown courts in England and Wales, shadow attorney-general Emily Thornberry said younger associate prosecutors were “not being used to their full potential possible” in the crown courts because of an “unnecessary and unnecessary” outdated statutory restriction”.
There are 127 criminal law specialists employed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as associate prosecutors. They deal with less contentious matters at the magistrates’ court level, such as defendants’ bail applications, uncontested applications for civil restraining orders and criminal proceedings involving less serious, non-imprisonable offences.
But Labor said they were prevented from taking on the more serious work dealt with by crown prosecutors in magistrates’ courts, such as initial hearings for offenses that must be sent to trial at crown court.
The party has called for that law to be changed, saying associate prosecutors had years of experience and were already at an advanced stage in their careers, but were forced to undergo expensive and lengthy training to become general lawyers become crown prosecutors.
Lifting the restrictions on the 127 associate prosecutors employed by the CPS would represent an increase of up to two-thirds of those able to handle the workload currently reserved for crown prosecutors, Labor said.
Gemma McSherry
Workers in Scotland have received a new offer to try to end the ongoing strike.
Scottish council cleaning staff across much of the country are on strike over pay disputes with local authorities.
A strike in Edinburgh led to rubbish piling up on the streets, including food waste…