Latest news with #MPs
Telegraph
an hour ago
- General
- Telegraph
Parents letting their children miss school instead of being late
Some parents are keeping their children at home because they are embarrassed about lateness, MPs have heard. Changes in how pupils are recorded as absent if they are more than 30 minutes late to school have been 'unhelpful' for relationships with families, education leaders have suggested. Britain is in the grip of a school attendance crisis, with a record number of pupils missing more than half of lessons. The impact of Covid Department for Education (DfE) data indicate that in 2023-24, 2.3 per cent of pupils were 'severely absent', which means they missed at least 50 per cent of possible school sessions, compared with 2 per cent in 2022-23. Overall, 171,269 pupils were classed as severely absent last academic year, up from 150,256 in 2022/23. In 2018-19, the last academic year before the Covid-19 pandemic, 60,247 were classed as severely absent.
Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Ailbhe Rea: Keir Starmer Implements a Quiet Government Reset
It's been two weeks since Keir Starmer's government faced its moment of crisis, forced to gut its flagship welfare reforms after coming dangerously close to a staggering, almost unprecedented, defeat by its own MPs. There has been no reshuffle, no blame game, no firing spree, no reset — so quiet, in fact, that some of my government contacts have asked me if the people at the top even realise how bad that was. My answer to them is that the man in charge does indeed seem to understand the depth of the problem. Because my sources tell me that the prime minister has, ever so quietly, made a major shift, with potentially huge implications for the direction of the government in the months ahead.
Telegraph
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Being an MP is a dog's life. We can't fix politics with the current system
Imagine that you are a high earning, public spirited business person who wants to do more for your community and country. You mull seeking to become an MP. Is it worth it? You ponder the prospect. You'd take a substantial pay cut: an MP's annual salary is £93,904. That's far above than the average – MPs are in the top five per cent of earners – but way below your own mid-six figure salary. That would matter less were you free to earn outside the Commons. But restrictions are increasingly tight and scrutiny increasingly exacting. And not just for you. Your spouse and children will become 'politically exposed persons' – unable perhaps to open a bank account, or at least face delays and difficulties when applying for a mortgage or insurance. Life will become more challenging for you and for them. Your children may have a hard time at school. Your spouse may be targeted on social media. You yourself may be trolled, stalked or even assaulted – and two MPs have been murdered in the last decade. And in age of electoral volatility, holding your seat is far from guaranteed It might all be worth it were the work rewarding. But much of what you will do as a constituency MP would have been done by a local councillor until fairly recently. And the whips will want you to be numbingly on message twenty four seven, negotiating gotcha interviews with bland lines to take. I'm not claiming that every talented person who wants to enter the Commons makes this calculation in detail. But he or she will undoubtedly sense the flavour and taste of all the above: the perception that serving as an MP is now low status – and that the odds against making an impact in Westminster are long. The consequences are systemic. It's commonplace to claim that politics is broken and the system has failed. But it seems to me that the source of the problem isn't a Blob made up of activist judges, an unreformed civil service, rampant quangocrats, and outdated international agreements - problematic though all these are. It's a failing Parliament: specifically, a failing Commons. This week, Policy Exchange published my paper on the future of the Right in Britain. In it, I argue that the Right should return to essentials: enterprise, ownership, defence. So far, so obvious. But I found myself haunted, as I wrote it, by the consequences of change. When the right was in opposition during the 1970s, the main question for it was what: what should be done about inflation, decline, and the power of the unions? In the mid-2000s, it was how: how should the right detoxify itself and gain a hearing from voters. Today, it's whether: that's to say, whether the right, and those who would once have served under its colours in Parliament, is giving up on the Commons altogether. And no wonder. MPs who replicate the work of local councillors are unlikely to have time and perhaps the inclination to scrutinise legislation properly. The slight decline in the number of Acts of Parliament over the past 25 years has been offset by a rise in total page count - and in the number of statutory instruments. Moreover, there has been a rise in skeleton or framework legislation. And this bigger legislative burden has been accompanied by reduced scrutiny time in the Commons – with more Bills programmed and fast-tracked, a growth in Henry VIII powers, and limited capacity to scrutinise secondary legislation. Furthermore, MPs who are energetic constituency functionaries – expert at responding to e-petitions, arranging local photo-ops, fixing their social media feeds or making brief speeches in Westminster Hall – won't necessarily provide enough competent ministers to go round. My paper argues that countries with ageing populations, low growth and high immigration tend to be low trust societies, and contends that trust in politicians tends to rise – as in 1997, 2010 and 2019 – when they are seen to stand for a clear change of direction: New Labour, the Coalition, getting Brexit done. I go on to make the case for boosting small business, increasing home ownership, cutting immigration and strengthening citizenship, stronger defence, helping families (the Conservatives were frightened off families' policy during the early 1990s – and have scarcely dared touch it since). Whether you agree with this programme or not, little or none of it will be delivered by a Parliament in its present condition. Talent on the right will either spurn politics altogether or, more likely, flourish outside the Commons in an entertainment complex of performative social media, substacks, subscription TV and YouTube channels. And why not – since it offers more money, less hassle and higher status? Dominic Cummings, Go for Growth, Fix Britain – there is a growing, critical mass of actors who recognise that the country isn't working. But too few have grasped that the problem of politics is at root a problem of Parliament – requiring radical reform of the Commons. The romantic in me yearns for a chamber with fewer restrictions on outside earnings, less onerous reporting requirements and, elsewhere, empowered local government – with MPs thus able to concentrate again on national issues. Such change might be enough to lure high earning business people back to the Commons. Though it could still be that the other disincentives to entry are still too daunting. And that voters have become accustomed to MPs as full-time constituency workers. The realist in me mulls a different solution. If voters want such MPs, they must have them. And take Ministers out of the Commons entirely. Would it be so different from what's already happening? Gordon Brown appointed outsiders to the Lords as Ministers – Digby Jones, Ara Darzi, Mervyn Davies. Rishi Sunak made David Cameron a peer and Foreign Secretary. As I look across the Lords chamber, the Labour front bench is packed with non-political expertise: Peter Henry, Patrick Vallance, James Timpson. Such appointments raise big questions about accountability. And taking the executive out of the legislature, whatever else it might be, would mean constitutional upheaval. But either way, we can't go on as we are.
Bloomberg
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
UK Parliament Is Falling Down. Doing Nothing Is Not an Option.
Amid all the pressures on Britain's public finances, fixing the crumbling, mouse-infested, fake-gothic palace that hosts the nation's politicians isn't high on the priority list. Yet as the Houses of Parliament literally fall down around them, MPs will soon be asked to approve a restoration package likely to run into tens of billions of pounds. Even as they wince at the prospect of looming tax rises and painful cuts to welfare and overseas aid, MPs must finally take a decision about shoring up their decrepit workplace. It almost doesn't matter how they decide to do it. After years of procrastination in which they've been bogged down in technicalities, more inaction is a bad choice. They must take the political hit and commit to starting this much-needed work as soon as possible.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Keir Starmer says he wants to cut child poverty before next election
The prime minister told MPs on the Commons liaison committee it was his aim to cut the number of children living in poverty by the end of the parliament, going further than the manifesto pledge his party made before last year's election. Starmer's target will renew focus on ending the two-child benefit cap, which poverty campaigners say is the most efficient way to take children out of poverty but would cost an estimated £3.6bn a year
