Labour minister vows ‘every community' in England and Wales to have contactable police officer
Appearing on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday (13 August), the policing minister explained that 3,000 new police officers have been recruited to help in neighbourhoods 'up and down the country'.
She said that members of the public are now able to find their local officer by entering their postcode on their force's website or enquiring over the phone.
' We wanted to make sure this works for policing. We're not just telling them we want them to make it work for them,' she said, confirming that the government has given the police £200m to implement this scheme.
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South Wales Argus
10 minutes ago
- South Wales Argus
No-fault evictions by bailiffs up 8% in Labour's first year in Government
The party has pledged to end no-fault evictions under its Renters' Rights Bill, which is in the final stages of going through Parliament. Shelter branded it 'unconscionable' that renters 'continue to be marched out of their homes by bailiffs' a year after Labour came to power. There were 11,402 repossessions by county court bailiffs following a Section 21 notice – known as a no-fault eviction – between July last year and June, according to data published by the Ministry of Justice. This was up 8% from 10,576 for the previous 12-month period. There were 2,679 in the three months to June, which was down from 2,931 the previous quarter and down from 2,915 for the same April to June period last year. The latest Government data also showed 30,729 claims had been issued to households under the accelerated procedure in the year to June. Landlords can apply for an accelerated possession order if the tenants have not left by the date specified in a Section 21 notice. The current figure was down 4% from 32,103 for the previous 12-month period. Mairi MacRae, director of campaigns and policy at Shelter, said: 'It is unconscionable that more than a year after the Government came to power, thousands of renters continue to be marched out of their homes by bailiffs because of an unfair policy that the Government said would be scrapped immediately. 'For far too long, tenants' lives have been thrown into turmoil by the rank injustice of no-fault evictions. At the whim of private landlords, thousands of tenants are being left with just two months to find a new home, plunging them into a ruthless rental market and leaving many exposed to the riptide of homelessness. 'The Renters' Rights Bill will overhaul a broken system and usher in a long-overdue era of stability and security for tenants. To curb record homelessness and ensure renters can live free from the threat of no-fault eviction, the Government must deliver on this commitment, pass the Bill, and name an implementation date when Section 21 will finally be scrapped.' Shelter described no-fault evictions as one of the leading causes of homelessness, giving landlords the power to evict tenants without any reason given. Rushanara Ali resigned last week as homelessness minister (David Woolfall/UK Parliament/PA) The charity said its analysis of the latest figures suggested that for every month a ban on no-fault evictions is delayed, around 950 households could be removed from their homes by bailiffs. Echoing the call for an urgent ban, homelessness charity Crisis said many are at risk of homelessness if faced with eviction. The charity's chief executive, Matt Downie, said: 'Despite good intentions from the Westminster Government, thousands of people are still being unjustly evicted from their homes and threatened with – or even forced into – homelessness. 'We know the UK Government has had a packed agenda, but we now need ministers to rebuff efforts to weaken the Renters' Rights Bill and get this new legislation onto the statute book as soon as possible when Parliament returns. Unfreezing housing benefit in the autumn would also ensure that more people in England can afford a safe and stable home.' The Renters' Reform Coalition, said the year-on-year fall in accelerated procedure claims 'blows apart the myth of a 'landlord exodus' and eviction surge caused by the Renters' Rights Bill' and urged the Government to 'press on and abolish section 21 immediately once the Bill is passed'. The new data comes a week after Rushanara Ali resigned her role as homelessness minister following a report that she gave tenants at a property she owned in east London four months' notice to leave before relisting the property with a £700 rent increase within weeks. Ms Ali's house, rented on a fixed-term contract, was put up for sale while the tenants were living there, and it was only relisted as a rental because it had not sold, according to the i newspaper. Such a move would likely be prohibited under the Renters' Rights Bill, which is set to introduce new protections for tenants including banning landlords who evict tenants in order to sell their property from relisting it for rent for six months. In her resignation letter Ms Ali insisted she had 'at all times' followed 'all legal requirements' and taken her responsibilities 'seriously', but added that continuing in her role would be 'a distraction from the ambitious work of the Government' and therefore was stepping down. Responding to Thursday's figures, a Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: 'No one should live in fear of a Section 21 eviction and these new figures show exactly why we will abolish them through our Renters' Rights Bill, which is a manifesto commitment and legislative priority for this Government. 'We're determined to level the playing field by providing tenants with greater security, rights and protections in their homes and our landmark reforms will be implemented swiftly after the Bill becomes law.'
The Independent
10 minutes ago
- The Independent
Morecambe announce agreement in principle for sale of club to Panjab Warriors
An agreement in principle has been reached for the sale of Morecambe to new owners, the club have announced. The club are currently suspended by the National League over their financial issues and at risk of closure, but a statement was published on the club's website on Thursday afternoon announcing a deal was now in place for the transfer of majority shareholding to Panjab Warriors from the Bond Group. Bond Group said in a statement: "We would like to thank all of the staff at the club for their forbearance and can only apologise for the stress this has caused." The club said final legal documentation was now being prepared, and that "immediate steps" were being taken to inform key stakeholders, including the National League. The club said they hoped the agreement "paves the way for continued stability and a positive future both on and off the pitch". Panjab Warriors have been contacted for comment. There have been fears Morecambe could follow the same path as Bury, who were expelled from the EFL in 2019 over their financial issues. The club's plight has drawn political attention, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer expressing his concern last week and urging everyone involved to "do the right thing". That followed Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy writing to Morecambe owner Jason Whittingham calling on him to sell up.
The National
11 minutes ago
- The National
Nicola Sturgeon tells of fresh abuse after publishing memoir Frankly
While the former first minister said she does not 'spend a lot of time looking at the bowels of social media', she is aware some people online have 'laughed' about her miscarriage, and said they want her to be 'raped in a toilet'. Sturgeon spoke about the miscarriage she had in 2010 as part of events and interviews in recent days to publicise her memoir, Frankly. She says in the book that she 'should have hit the pause button' on controversial legislation to allow transgender people to self-identify and gain legal recognition in their preferred gender without a lengthy medical process. READ MORE: SNP demand UK Government act amid Israeli E1 plan in West Bank Despite fierce opposition from some campaigners who claimed this would give biological males access to female spaces, the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was passed by Holyrood – though it has never been enacted after being blocked by Westminster. Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Thursday, Sturgeon said the debate was 'toxic on both sides'. Highlighting comments made on social media this week, she said: 'There are people who call themselves feminists, standing up for women's rights, saying things about me such as when I described my miscarriage experience the other day 'I haven't laughed as much in years', accusing me of making it up, people saying they hope I am raped in a toilet.' She accepted that 'in all of the tone and tenor of this I am not saying I was blameless at all', saying she 'desperately' wished she had been able to 'find a more collegiate way forward' on the controversial issue. She described transphobia as 'the soft underbelly of other prejudice'. Sturgeon insisted not all opponents of gender reform are either transphobic or homophobic, but the issue of trans rights 'has been hijacked and weaponised by people that are transphobic and homophobic'. She said she was 'worried' that if she paused the gender reforms at Holyrood, this would have seen her 'give in to that'. (Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire) However, she added: 'I might have been wrong, and I probably was wrong about that.' Sturgeon also made clear her support for transgender rights, saying: 'To my dying day… I will just never accept that there is an irreconcilable tension between women's rights and trans rights. 'I don't believe you have to choose between being a feminist and standing up for one of the most stigmatised minorities in our society. 'Who has threatened women for all the years I have been alive – abusive men have threatened women. READ MORE: Leaked document 'leaves Government's Palestine Action case in tatters' 'You get bad people in every group in society but you don't tar the whole group with the bad people, and that, I really regret, appears to be what some are trying to do with trans people, to take some people and say that is representative of the whole trans community. 'My life might be easier if I just gave in on this issue and said 'yeah, I got it wrong' and we should never try to make life better for the trans community. 'But I will never, to make my own life easier, betray a stigmatized minority, because that is not why I came into politics and it is never what I will do in politics.' Sturgeon later told journalists she had not reported the abuse to police. It comes after Sturgeon told the launch event the monarchy should "end quite soon".
