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Telegraph
a day ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Badenoch could be ousted as Tory leader before next election
A senior Tory backbencher failed to guarantee that Kemi Badenoch will be party leader at the next election. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who sits on the influential 1922 committee, said whether or not Mrs Badenoch would be in charge would depend on 'how she performs over the next few months'. The MP added that she 'just isn't getting the coverage' she needs to resurrect the party after its historic defeat last year and needs 'a little bit more space' to perform over the coming months. Sir Geoffrey told the Camilla Tominey Show on GB News on Sunday: 'Inevitably, after the catastrophic defeat that we had in last July's general election, it was going to be a really tough job for the first year or two. 'So her job is to gradually not only come up with some policies, but actually start to get on the media. And she does that where she can. But of course, at the moment, other things are happening, and she just isn't getting the coverage.' Asked whether he thought Mrs Badenoch would be party leader going into the next election, he said: 'She's got a lot of what it takes. She's brave, she's bright, she's gutsy. 'She just needs to actually start to bang the drum a little bit more and actually show what the Conservative Party really stands for.' When prompted for an answer a second time, Sir Geoffrey said 'I've no idea', and added: 'I think it depends on how she performs over the next few months. Every month that goes on, she should be getting better. We'll see after the party conference.' The chairman of the 1922 committee, Bob Blackman, plays a central role in the removal and appointment of Conservative Party leaders. If a Tory MP wants a new leader of the party, they write to the head of the 1922 committee to say they have no confidence in the incumbent. Under current rules, 15 per cent of Conservative MPs have to write letters for a vote to be triggered. With the party currently standing at 120 members, this would need 18 to write in. There would then be a vote of all party MPs, and if a majority say they have no confidence in their leader, a leadership contest will be held. Sir Geoffrey told GB News: 'I didn't get the impression before the parliamentary break that there was a level of dissatisfaction that would warrant letters going in. 'I think we've really got to wait and see, give her a little bit more space, give her a little bit of air time over the party conference and see how that all shakes out.' The veteran MP said that Mrs Badenoch has 'got what it takes' to be the leader who takes the Tories into the next election. 'She's got some good people in her Shadow Cabinet. Get them out and about in the country a bit more, and really start banging that drum and start having some policies to oppose what this government is getting wrong in the economy, on immigration, on health. 'There's a lot of things going wrong in this country, sadly, at the moment,' he added. There have been some concerns in Tory circles about Mrs Badenoch's performance as leader. It emerged last month that party membership had fallen during her tenure, and the Conservatives are regularly polling beneath Labour and Reform UK. Nigel Farage's party continuing to surge in popularity has seen a haemorrhaging of support for the Tories. The latest YouGov poll last week put Reform on 28 per cent, Labour at 21 per cent and the Conservatives on 17 per cent. But Mrs Badenoch has in recent weeks made moves to reinvigorate her team. Last month, she appointed former leadership rival Sir James Cleverly to her front bench. The former home secretary, who has been appointed to the housing brief and will be taking on Angela Rayner, warned last month against ousting another party leader. He said that the Tories tried having a new leader 'a number of times in the last government – it did not end well'.
Times
17-07-2025
- Business
- Times
MPs condemn water regulators — as utility chief gets double pay boost
MPs have accused Ofwat and the Environment Agency of being 'missing in action' while water bills rise, as the boss of Southern Water saw his pay package almost double to £1.4 million. In a highly critical report on water regulation, the public accounts committee said the sector was 'failing', in a 'farcical state' and being 'left to flounder' by the government. At the same time, environmental campaigners representing millions of people called on ministers to 'end the sewage scandal' by systemically transforming the industry. The interventions come just three days before the recommendations of a government-ordered independent review of water regulation, billed as the biggest shake-up since privatisation in 1989. The committee said that with water bills rising at their fastest rate in real terms since 2005 and customer trust in water firms at its lowest since 2011, a 'complete overhaul' of the sector was needed. Water bills are expected to rise by an average of £31 per household each year until 2030, with the true figure even higher after inflation. 'The monumental scale of work required to reverse the fortunes of failing water companies is rivalled only in difficulty by the efforts needed to repair customers' faith in the sector,' said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the committee and Conservative MP for North Cotswolds. The environmental performance of water companies is 'woeful', the MPs said. They noted that the Environment Agency found breaches in more than a quarter of 4,600 inspections at sewage treatment works last year, including 92 serious ones. Sewage spills into rivers and seas last year rose to a record duration of 3.61 million hours — equivalent to more than 400 years. The committee said companies were not doing enough to explain to bill payers what £104 billion of investment over the next five years will achieve. It said Ofwat must issue guidance, before the end of the year, to make firms outline what improvements the price rises are paying for. • Wild swimmers' health should be 'legal objective' for water companies The MPs said Ofwat had also failed to ensure the financial resilience of water companies, allowing them to build up too much debt and pay out too much in dividends. Ten companies did not earn enough income in the 2023-24 financial year to cover their debt interest payments. Thames Water, which is struggling under £16.8 billion of debt, this week warned it would collapse into emergency nationalisation if the government did not waive billions of pounds of fines. Southern Water, which is also facing financial challenges, awarded its chief executive, Lawrence Gosden, £691,200 under a two-year incentive plan and £687,100 in fixed pay for the utility's last financial year. Gosden was among leaders at six water firms that recently had their bonuses banned by government for poor performance. His would have been worth £396,475, company filings this week revealed. Helena Dollimore, the Labour MP for Hastings and Rye, said: 'There is no justification for Southern Water hiking up their CEO's pay cheque after the Labour government banned his bonus.' However, Southern Water said that the award to Gosden was not a bonus but from a 'long-term incentive plan' set up in 2023. It was also for before the period covered by the government ban. The company was rescued from financial collapse and a potential temporary renationalisation during the pandemic. This month Macquarie, the Australian investor, and co-investors agreed to inject up to a further £1.2 billion to help Southern Water through its present five-year spending cycle. The public accounts committee found that the Environment Agency and Ofwat had made water firms pay out £430 million in penalties for wrongdoing over the last five years. However, the agency reported it was facing a 'justice gap' where some cases were not pursued because there were so many suspected violations and prosecution was too expensive. The MPs also found a water restoration fund created last year, designed to spend water company fines to pay for improvements of waterways, had still not distributed its £11 million pot. They said it should be disbursed by the end of the year. Separately, charities including Surfers Against Sewage, Greenpeace and River Action have written to Steve Reed, the environment secretary, asking him to put 'environmental good' before 'private profit'. 'Coastal economies and communities are being hammered. Rivers declared ecologically dead. Pollution poisoning our wildlife. Thousands of people are falling ill after swimming in raw sewage,' they said in an open letter. • The Times view: A new water regulator is needed 'Yet water bills will keep rising — to service debt, to fund dividends — and so it is the public who will continue to pay the price,' said the green groups, which also includes Wildlife and Countryside Link, an alliance including the National Trust and RSPB. The signatories said that together they represent 8.9 million British people. The Times's Clean it Up campaign has been calling for stronger regulation to help Britain's rivers and seas. An Ofwat spokesman said: 'We are clear that change is needed, and the independent water commission is a key opportunity to help rebuild public trust.' A Water UK spokesman said: 'We agree that fundamental change to regulation is needed.' The government and the Environment Agency were contacted for comment.
Telegraph
17-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Council failures blamed as watchdog refuses to sign off government accounts
Britain's spending watchdog has refused to sign off the Government's accounts for the second year in a row, blaming local councils for submitting poor-quality data on their finances. Late and inadequate filing by English councils has been blamed by the National Audit Office (NAO) for leaving it unable to vet government accounts for 2023 to 2024. Only 4pc of the 407 cash-strapped local councils submitted audited data to the watchdog. Meanwhile, 55pc shared figures based on unaudited accounts and 41pc sent no data at all. It marks an even worse track record than the previous year, when 10pc of English councils shared numbers that were up to the watchdog's standards. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the MP who chairs the public accounts committee, branded the situation 'wholly unsatisfactory' and said it posed a threat to the Government's finances. He warned: 'Yet again, failures in local authority audit have led to unacceptable levels of missing and unaudited data. This lack of transparency and ability to hold councils to account will only deepen the current precarious state of local government finances.'
The Sun
03-07-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Ministers have no idea how many migrants overstay their visas and work illegally, say worried MPs
MINISTERS have no idea how many migrants overstay their visas and work illegally, say worried MPs. Home Office staff fail to check exit data under the skilled worker visa scheme, they claim. A damning report by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee found ministers have not even checked exit data since the skilled worker visa scheme was launched in 2020. More than 1.18 million people have come to Britain on the visas, including thousands to fill care home jobs. But MPs claim officials do not know "what proportion of people return to their home country after their visa has expired, and how many may be working illegally in the United Kingdom.' The PAC also revealed 'widespread evidence of workers suffering debt bondage, working excessive hours and exploitative conditions', with little action taken to fix it. Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP blasted: 'There has long been mounting evidence of serious issues with the system, laid bare once again in our inquiry. 'And yet basic information, such as how many people on skilled worker visas have been modern slavery victims, and whether people leave the UK after their visas expire, seems to still not have been gathered by Government.' It comes an investigation by The Sun uncovered the shameless criminality of asylum seekers earning cash from takeaway drop-offs while living on taxpayer handouts. Secret Uber Eats kitchen cooking 'Big Boi Burgers' brazenly set up in tax-funded asylum hotel is SHUT DOWN 1
BBC News
04-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Sellafield could leak radioactive water until 2050s, MPs warn
The UK's largest nuclear site could continue leaking radioactive water until the 2050s, MPs have warned, while its clean-up operations struggle to progress quickly Public Accounts Committee (PAC) criticised the speed of decommissioning work at Sellafield in Cumbria, citing "cost overruns and continuing safety concerns" in a report published on Wednesday. Although the committee noted there were "signs of improvement", PAC chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said Sellafield continued to present "intolerable risks".The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) acknowledged the leak at its Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) was its "single biggest environmental issue". The MSSS, which the NDA described as "the most hazardous building in the UK", has been leaking radioactive water into the ground since 2018, releasing enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every three is likely to continue leaking until the oldest section of the building has been emptied in the 2050s, about a decade later than previously Geoffrey said: "As with the fight against climate change, the sheer scale of the hundred-year timeframe of the decommissioning project makes it hard to grasp the immediacy of safety hazards and cost overruns that delays can have."Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life. "Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing." Pointing to the fact that Sellafield Ltd had missed most of its annual targets for retrieving waste from buildings, including the MSSS, the committee warned: "The consequence of this underperformance is that the buildings are likely to remain extremely hazardous for longer."A spokeswoman for the NDA said the "leak in the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo is contained and does not pose a risk to the public". "Regulators accept that the current plan to tackle the leak is the most effective one." 'False dawn' Sir Geoffrey said it was of "vital importance that the government grasp the daily urgency of the work taking place at Sellafield and shed any sense of a far-off date of completion for which no-one currently living is responsible"."Sellafield's risks and challenges are those of the present day."There are some early indications of some improvement in Sellafield's delivery, which our report notes. "The government must do far more to hold all involved immediately accountable to ensure these do not represent a false dawn, and to better safeguard both the public purse and the public itself." Sellafield ceased generating electricity in 2003 and, in addition to work cleaning up the site, now processes and stores nuclear waste from power plants around the government plans to create an underground geological disposal facility (GDF) to store nuclear waste for the thousands of years it will take to become the committee said delays in creating the GDF, which is now not expected to be complete until the late 2050s, meant more costs for chief executive David Peattie said it welcomed the report, adding it took the "findings seriously and the safety of the site and the wellbeing of our people will always be our highest priorities"."We are pleased they recognise improvements in delivering major projects and that we are safely retrieving waste from all four highest hazard facilities." The PAC expressed concern there was a "sub-optimal culture" at Sellafield and called on the NDA to publish information about the prevalence and perception of bullying in its annual NDA spokeswoman said: "We're committed to an open and respectful culture and we've taken decisive action to enable this, including strengthening our whistleblowing policy."The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said it "expected the highest standards of safety and security as former nuclear sites are dismantled, and the regulator is clear that public safety is not compromised at Sellafield"."This is underpinned by monthly performance reviews and increased responsibility for overseeing major project performance, enabling more direct scrutiny and intervention," a spokeswoman for the department said. "We have zero tolerance of bullying, harassment and offensive behaviour in the workplace - we expect Sellafield and the NDA to operate on this basis, investigate allegations and take robust action when needed." Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
