Latest news with #Lee Anderson
BBC News
7 hours ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Teenage Warwickshire council leader George Finch 'wanted to teach'
George Finch had planned to be at university studying to become a history at the of 19, he has become the youngest council leader in the UK, running Warwickshire County Council with a budget of £ Reform UK councillor still lives at his family home and cannot yet drive. Facts which have led to jibes in public and private from some opposition became the largest party on the previously Conservative-led authority with 23 seats in May's local elections. Speaking exclusively to the BBC, he hit back at criticism about his lack of life and professional experience – labelling those turning their noses up at his appointment as "ageist" and "not relevant".Sitting down in the leader's office, shortly after scraping through a leadership vote at the council's Shire Hall headquarters, Finch called out his said: "All I see is age… I don't care about my age. Would people be questioning if there was a 70-year-old at the helm? Probably not."Joe Biden, Donald Trump, presidents that are older – no-one questions it. But they're questioning someone who is 19." But leading a £2bn organisation is not a typical job for a 19-year-old, and Finch admitted he had had other plans."I wanted to be a history teacher. I loved history and I loved teaching but the problem was the curriculum, especially history. Universities and colleges are a conveyor belt for socialist wokeism."Finch said he had been inspired by Reform and former Conservative MP Lee Anderson, who has previously criticised educational establishments for what he perceives as teachers pushing "dog whistle divisive politics" on April, National Education Union members called for funds to be used to help campaign against Reform UK candidates. The organisation, Britain's biggest teaching union, branded Reform UK "a racist and far right" party. In his time as interim leader, Finch said he had used his new "influence" over education by calling Anjit Samra, CEO of Stowe Valley Multi-Academy Trust, to his office after a row over a union jack dress at Bilton School, in Rugby."I don't have the power to tell him what to do as he's an academy, but I do have that influence. "I asked him simple, I said 'I would like to see, and I think it's in your best interests, if you have a school assembly on the importance of British culture'."Asked what his friends made of his new job, he said: "They love it, when I have to go to the pub I don't have to buy a pint." But why did Reform appeal to him and why is it gaining momentum with some young people?"People can't afford homes, they can't have a car, postgraduate jobs are decreasing. It's getting harder for us to see a good future, a better future. And with Reform UK, that's what gives people that hope."He said he thought his appointment would probably help attract people to the party."It shows that anyone can do anything in this party, if you're up to the task. If you've got that merit-based system - and that's where we've gone wrong for far too long in the private and public sector."He added: "It's 'oh, here's a job because of your skin colour or your creed or your religion'. No, you get the job because you're good at it." A keen rugby player, Finch is used to battling on the pitch. But it was in the corridors of power where he faced his first public fight, in a row with the council's chief executive Monica Fogarty, after he asked for a Progress Pride Flag to be removed from outside Shire Hall in UK leader Nigel Farage even waded into the row calling out what he perceived as "obstructionism" by council officials saying "Warwickshire is a very, very good example".Asked if he could work with the council chief executive and other officers, Finch said: "We have done. We have to have that professional working relationship."Pushed on whether it was professional to publicly call out the council's chief executive, he said: "We're working together, the council is running. I think you're looking too deep into this." Talking about his priorities for Warwickshire over the coming months and years, Finch said having a sister with special educational needs and disabilities meant he had a keen interest in the area which has been labelled a financial threat to the future of the has pledged to cut wasteful spending and improve the efficiency of the councils it runs. But some of its spending decisions have faced criticism, while opponents say there has been little concrete action to reduce Warwickshire, opposition parties have criticised Finch and his party for planning to hire political assistants at a cost of up to £190,000 a year, saying the money should be spent on front-line services contentious area is the potential scrapping of lower-level councils as part of the Labour government's devolution said he wanted to look at these ideas in his county and he would like to see areas such as Nuneaton and Bedworth given their own town councils.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Health tourists cost the NHS £200million in five years - despite Government pledges to crack down on those abusing the system
Health tourists have cost the NHS £200million during the past five years despite Government pledges to crack down on those abusing the system. Hospitals are being deprived of more than £110,000 on average every day by people who fail to pay when they are not entitled to free treatments. New figures obtained by the Sunday Express show the cost of providing care to these foreign citizens and former UK residents has continued to soar. Conservative MP Peter Bedford said: 'I suspect the true cost of this type of health tourism is far higher and call upon the Department of Health to recoup these colossal sums of money in the interests of each and every British taxpayer.' And Reform UK MP Lee Anderson said his party would 'shut down the 'health tourism' scam'. He said: 'Successive Conservative and Labour governments have sold out the British taxpayer. If you want to use our NHS then take out private healthcare insurance before you arrive. 'It is called the National Health Service and not the international health service for a reason.' It comes after a Mail on Sunday investigation, published in April, put the figure at £257million over the past five years. The latest data, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, show that last year the bad debt was £40.9million – up 12 per cent on the figure of £36.5million the year before. But this is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg as it only represents cases where invoices were generated and then not paid. In many cases officials would not have issued a bill because they realised there was no prospect of being paid. The Department of Health figures also exclude some of the major NHS trusts in urban areas that traditionally have the biggest issues with so-called health tourism. From 2017 NHS trusts were supposed to start charging patients upfront for the cost of their care, so administrators did not have to chase them for payment afterwards. However, there was an exception for patients needing emergency care, who could be billed afterwards. Foreign travellers to the UK and former UK residents who return home after having settled abroad do not routinely get free treatment on the NHS. The Government said its charging scheme should net an extra £500million for the NHS but a National Audit Office report said the money raised would fall far short of that target. Most of the NHS trusts with the biggest outstanding debts for treatments are in London. For the five year period, Barts Health Trust is owed £40.6million, King's College Hospital Trust £15.7million and Lewisham and Greenwich Trust £11million. One of the highest profile cases of a foreign patient being unable to pay for their care was that of a Nigerian woman who was treated as an emergency case at St Mary's A&E, in London, after her plane stopped at Heathrow. The woman, only identified at Priscilla, needed care for her unborn quadruplets and by the time she was discharged her bill had reached £330,000. The Conservative Party's 2019 election manifesto said: 'We will clamp down on health tourism, ensuring that those from overseas who use NHS services pay their fair share. 'And we will increase the NHS surcharge paid by those from overseas.' The issue was not mentioned in Labour's manifesto for the 2024 General Election, although it said it would create an extra 40,000 appointments every week paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes. Alp Mehmet, chair of Migration Watch UK, said: 'Health tourism has long been a costly problem that successive governments have shied away from. Most of the NHS trusts with the biggest outstanding debts for treatments are in London 'Ministers are fully aware of its draining effect on the NHS. Wes Streeting would do himself and the NHS a power of good by getting on top of it.' Mr Bedford, who was elected as the Tory MP for Mid Leicestershire last year, added: 'This is yet another example of 'soft touch Britain' costing the hard-pressed taxpayer millions of pounds each year. 'When British people find it hard to get a medical appointment, and we see tens of millions of pounds wasted on foreign health tourism, is it any wonder that the public have so little faith in public institutions like the NHS?' Former Conservative Brexit minister David Jones, who now supports Reform UK, said: 'These figures highlight a real and ongoing problem. 'The NHS is a cherished national institution, but it 's not a free-for-all. 'Most people would agree that those not entitled to free care should be required to pay their way. It's only fair to taxpayers. 'The Government needs to ensure that the systems in place to recover these costs are actually working - otherwise trust in the system is undermined and valuable resources are diverted from British patients who genuinely rely on them.'
