Farage meets councillors after big gains in Northamptonshire
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said taking control of a county's two local authorities was beyond his "wildest dreams".He has been visiting North Northamptonshire Council, where the party has 40 of the 68 councillors following victory in the May election.It also took control of West Northamptonshire Council, the county's other unitary authority.Farage said he would make sure councillors did not "spend too much time discussing climate change".
During a visit to the Corby Cube, where he met Reform UK's local leadership, he described the result in the area as "one of the stranger ones".He said he expected the party would win in Lancashire, Kent and Lincolnshire but admitted: "I didn't in my wildest dreams think we'd win in North and West Northamptonshire."I didn't even think it was possible."
The scale of the victory meant some candidates with little experience of local politics were voted in.Farage said: "We've got a group of people elected who, whilst maybe not deeply experienced politically, bring a lot of different life skills to the table, so I'm optimistic."He made a speech to the Reform UK group on the council and sat in on a cabinet meeting.Setting out his wish list for all councils controlled by Reform, he said: "We will deliver efficiency, we'll deliver value for money, we'll make sure these councils focus on the real priorities and not spend too much time taking about climate change."
North Northamptonshire Council's Conservative opposition group leader Helen Harrison said her party would be "a critical friend" to the Reform UK group.But she added: "We won't hesitate to speak out if we think they are going wrong."Speaking to the BBC, Farage also played down the suspension of one of his party's West Northamptonshire councillors 34 days after the election.He said: "Look the number of members of Parliament that get kicked out or suspended."If you get a large number of people elected, you will have difficulties."
Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
35 minutes ago
- Sky News
Bosses of Octopus Energy and SSE clash over 'postcode pricing' proposals
The head of Britain's biggest energy supplier has claimed his competitors oppose proposals for so-called postcode pricing because they financially benefit from the current system. Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson told Sky News his business's rivals were against customers being charged based on where they lived, rather than on a national basis, because they would lose out on profits. He said: "A very small number of companies that today get paid tens of millions, sometimes in a single day, to turn off wind farms and generate gas elsewhere, don't like it. "The reason you're seeing that kind of behaviour from the rivals is they are benefiting from the current system that's generating incredible profitability." The government is currently considering whether to introduce the policy, which is also known as zonal pricing. Energy secretary Ed Miliband is expected to make a decision on the proposals by this summer. Octopus has become Britain's biggest supplier with more than seven million customers. Mr Jackson has been a vocal proponent, as he said he wants to charge customers less and boost government electrification policies by having cheaper electricity costs. What is postcode pricing? Zonal pricing would mean electricity bills are based on what region you live in. Some parts of Britain, like northern Scotland, are home to huge energy producers in the form of offshore wind farms. But rather than feeding electricity to local homes and businesses, power goes into a nationwide auction and is bought to go across Britain. As the energy grid is still wired for the old coal-producing sites rather than the modern renewable generators, it's not straightforward to get electricity from where it's increasingly produced to the places people live and work. That leads to traffic jams on the grid, blocking paid-for electricity moving to where it's needed and a system where producers can be paid a second time, to power down, and other suppliers, often gas plants, are paid to meet the shortfall. Zonal pricing is designed to prevent paying the generators for power that can't be used. It would mean those in Scotland have lower wholesale energy costs while those in the south, where there is less renewable energy production, would have higher wholesale costs. Whether bills go up or down depends on implementation. Savings from one region could be spread across Britain, lowering bills across the board. Mr Miliband has said he's not going to decide to raise prices. However, SSE's chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies described the policy as a "distraction" and said it could affect already agreed-upon upgrades of the national grid that will lower costs. "I think you've got a very, very small number of people who are asking for this. It's just a distraction. We should remove it now," he said. While Octopus Energy estimates that said postcode pricing could be introduced in two to four years, Mr Phillips-Davies said it could take until 2032 before it was implemented, by which time Britain would have "built much of the networks that are required to get the energy from these places down into the homes and businesses that actually need it". "We just need to stay true to the course," he added. Unions, as well as industry and energy representatives, have also spoken out against the policy. Opponents include eco-tycoon Dale Vince and trade body UK Steel. A joint letter signed by SSE, UK Steel, Ceramics UK and British Glass, along with the unions GMB, Unite and Unison, said zonal pricing could lead to scaled-back investment due to uncertainty and higher bills. A separate letter signed by 55 investors, including Centrica and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, has also criticised the policy. 1:21 However, Mr Jackson said many investors had not voiced opposition, with thousands of small and medium businesses instead backing the policy in the hope of paying less on energy bills.
The Guardian
40 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Tighter immigration rules could hit UK net zero mission, report warns
Tough rules announced in the government's immigration white paper could jeopardise the UK's net zero mission by causing labour shortages, a report has warned. Labour's white paper released last month included plans to raise the minimum qualification for skilled worker visas from A-level equivalent to degree and to maintain the higher salary threshold of £38,700 introduced by the outgoing Conservative government last year. A report by the Centre for European Reform (CER), calculates that more than half of the foreign-born workers doing 'green jobs' in the UK – 260,000 out of 465,000 – would not have been allowed in under the new rules. Ministers are relying on employers to raise wages and provide more training in order to attract domestic workers into these roles, but John Springford, an associate fellow at the CER, said that could push up the costs to consumers of going green. 'If labour shortages raise the cost of decarbonising buildings, fewer people will insulate their homes or buy heat pumps,' he said. Using Office for National Statistics data, the CER defined a green job as one in which more than a third of the worker's time is spent on green tasks. Many of these are in the construction sector, given the need to retrofit homes with low-carbon technologies, for example. The report also suggests construction jobs more generally may be difficult to fill under the new visa regime, casting doubt on the government's target to build 1.5m homes by the end of the parliament. 'Construction is labour-intensive and has a lot of employee turnover, because the work is physical and seasonal. Given that the government's aim is to expand housebuilding and decarbonise buildings concurrently, the sector is most at risk of labour shortages as a result of the government's immigration proposals,' the report says. Labour has announced that the existing 'immigration salary list', which allows people doing specific types of job to be brought in on lower pay, will be replaced with a similar 'temporary shortage list'. To avoid this becoming a long-term measure, the relevant industry will be expected to set out plans to train and recruit more UK workers. The CER said that using a shortage list as a safety valve could be problematic because the higher salary threshold elsewhere means migrants in the sectors with shortages are unlikely to be able to shift into other jobs, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by the employer who sponsors their visa. This problem arose in social care where holders of health and care visas were subject to exploitation by bad employers, with little chance of moving to another post. 'The government should keep an eye on labour shortages in occupations that are crucial for its net zero and housebuilding missions, and relax visa rules if needed,' Springford said. 'But offering exemptions to the rules for specific occupations is risky.' Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Other options mooted in the report include offering 'green visas' for jobs that contribute to achieving the government's target of hitting net zero by 2050, or reducing salary and skills thresholds right across the economy. Keir Starmer announced the immigration crackdown last month, claiming it marked the end of 'a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy and our country' in which the post-Brexit Conservative government had overseen soaring migration. Net migration hit a record level above 900,000 in the year to June 2023 before dropping sharply after a series of changes made by Rishi Sunak's government, including tightening the rules for visa applicants to bring in dependents. In the 2024 calendar year net migration was 431,000. Starmer said net migration would fall 'significantly' as a result of the changes he has announced. As well as potentially causing labour shortages in key sectors, economists have said lower net migration could prompt the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to downgrade its growth forecasts. The government has been approached for comment.
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Plans to replace 2031 census in England and Wales set to be abandoned after backlash
Plans to scrap the 2031 census in England and Wales are expected to be overturned after a backlash from senior statisticians over proposals to replace it with a patchwork of alternative data sources. The UK government said in 2014 that its 'ambition' was to abolish the mandatory national survey after 2021 and instead rely on piecing together 'administrative data' collected by other bodies and surveys. Apart from a wartime gap in 1941, a census has been conducted every 10 years in Britain since 1801. Those in favour of scrapping the census argue that a once-a-decade snapshot is limited when so much real-time data is routinely collected by public sector bodies such as the NHS, HMRC or in school enrolment. 'Based on our work to date … we can move beyond the decade-long cycle of population statistics that has dominated for centuries,' the then national statistician, Prof Ian Diamond, said in 2023. However, the proposal concerned statistical bodies and senior statisticians, who queried the feasibility and cost of patching together datasets that may have been collected in widely different ways. The Royal Statistical Society, while broadly supportive of the principle, said it had concerns over how reliably other bodies would share information and how comprehensive a piecemeal approach would be. In addition, 60 academics and leading statisticians published an open letter warning that an 'untested patchwork' of other sources 'risks an increasingly fragmented and inaccurate data landscape', describing the government's plans 'wishful thinking'. The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), the government body that oversees official data collection, has now recommended that the England and Wales census goes ahead in 2031 as planned. While acknowledging that the final decision rests with ministers, acting national statistician, Emma Rourke, said on Tuesday: 'It has been clear from consultation and engagement that the decennial census, asked of the whole population, remains of enormous value for informing the most important decisions facing our country.' Alice Sullivan, professor of sociology at UCL's social research institute, said: 'I am absolutely delighted that the census have been saved. National census data is a foundational part of our data infrastructure, as it furnishes the benchmark against which we judge whether other data sources, such as surveys, are representative. 'Without a trusted picture of the population, we would have moved closer to a post-truth world of untestable 'alternative facts'.' Jane Frost, the CEO of the Market Research Society – the UK's regulator and trade body for the sector – said researchers would 'breathe a collective sigh of relief' at the UKSA's recommendations. 'Our £9bn market and social research sector in the UK has long relied on the survey's rich, consistent and reliable data to provide businesses and policymakers with all-important insight on the British people, informing critical decisions across public and private sectors,' she said. Statistics bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland conduct their own censuses. The UKSA said the ONS was working with National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 'who are also advising their relevant ministers'.
