Latest news with #livingstandards
BBC News
2 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
West Midlands Growth Plan aims to create 100,000 more jobs
Plans to create 100,000 new jobs and "put an extra £8,600 back in the pockets of working people" have been announced by mayor of the West Midlands. Richard Parker set out his proposals to boost the region's economy and raise living standards when he unveiled the West Midlands Growth Plan in Wolverhampton on Monday. He claimed the plan, which included "a series of major investments" for towns, cities and high streets, would lead to employment for tens of thousands of residents, improvements to public transport and 120,000 new homes. They are about "unlocking opportunity for everyone" and will "improve the lives of everyone", Parker added. They also include measures to grow the region's economy by more than £17bn as well as action to reduce poverty and deprivation, as well as make further progress towards net said the region had been "going backwards for the last 10 years", but "strategic interventions" would help it to move forward. Potential for growth He outlined five key industries where the region displayed "significant potential" for growth and the creation of job opportunities:Advanced engineering, including electric vehicles and battery technologyClean technology and energyHealth and medical technology Digital and the creative industriesProfessional and financial services The plan also pledged to invest £2.4bn to improve the region's transport network, as well as more support for business leaders, entrepreneurs and workers who contribute to the "everyday economy", such as teachers, bus drivers, shop workers and said the region was "full of untapped talent and potential", and the plan set out how to "deliver growth and prosperity" in the region. "I want to ensure we don't just create better jobs and better-paid jobs, but those jobs are embedded in and benefit all of our communities. "For too long in this region some of our most disadvantaged communities have been left behind," he mayor added that as the biggest region outside of London, when the Midlands succeeded, the whole country benefitted. The plan was unveiled as the region prepared to host a global investment summit in partnership with the government later this year. The summit will set out investment opportunities across the West Midlands and the UK to international business leaders and investors. Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Starmer says boosting living standards is central focus of his Government
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted people to feel better-off and more secure by the time of the next election as he set out his priorities in government. Sir Keir said he also wanted people to feel that the National Health Service (NHS) is working better than it was when Labour came into office last year. He also highlighted the need for border security – at a time when small boat crossings of the English Channel are running at record levels – and improvements in defence. After a year in office, Sir Keir was asked what he wanted the UK to look like at the end of his first term in No 10. He told MPs on the Liaison Committee: 'I want people to feel better off and there has to be a central focus on living standards. 'I want them to feel – as they will – that the health service is working much better, is there for them and their families in a way that it hasn't been for many years. 'And I want them to feel safe and secure, both in their immediate neighbourhood and as a country, both our borders and national security and defence. 'So, they're the three things that I'm focused on more than anything else.' Sir Keir's drive to improve the NHS could be derailed if resident doctors in England go ahead with strike action which is due to begin on Friday. The Tory government faced waves of strike action in the NHS which contributed to care backlogs. The Prime Minister has put international co-operation, including a promised one in, one out deal to return small boat migrants to France, at the heart of measures to control the borders. But arrivals are running at record levels for this point in a year, with Home Office figures up to July 19 showed 23,474 people had crossed in small boats. The Liaison Committee, a panel made up of senior MPs who chair the various Commons select committees, was focusing on measures to tackle poverty. The Prime Minister, who is under pressure from within his own party to scrap the two-child benefits cap, said: 'People will not feel better-off or safe and secure if we haven't tackled poverty.' He said there were four 'limbs' to the Government's strategy: increasing incomes, decreasing costs, strengthening local support including measures to get people into work and boosting financial resilience. 'I'm very proud of the fact that the last Labour government drove down poverty and I'm determined this Government is going to as well,' Sir Keir said.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Starmer says boosting living standards is central focus of his Government
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted people to feel better-off and more secure by the time of the next election as he set out his priorities in government. Sir Keir said he also wanted people to feel that the National Health Service (NHS) is working better than it was when Labour came into office last year. He also highlighted the need for border security – at a time when small boat crossings of the English Channel are running at record levels – and improvements in defence. After a year in office, Sir Keir was asked what he wanted the UK to look like at the end of his first term in No 10. He told MPs on the Liaison Committee: 'I want people to feel better off and there has to be a central focus on living standards. 'I want them to feel – as they will – that the health service is working much better, is there for them and their families in a way that it hasn't been for many years. 'And I want them to feel safe and secure, both in their immediate neighbourhood and as a country, both our borders and national security and defence. 'So, they're the three things that I'm focused on more than anything else.' Sir Keir's drive to improve the NHS could be derailed if resident doctors in England go ahead with strike action which is due to begin on Friday. The Tory government faced waves of strike action in the NHS which contributed to care backlogs. The Prime Minister has put international co-operation, including a promised one in, one out deal to return small boat migrants to France, at the heart of measures to control the borders. But arrivals are running at record levels for this point in a year, with Home Office figures up to July 19 showed 23,474 people had crossed in small boats. The Liaison Committee, a panel made up of senior MPs who chair the various Commons select committees, was focusing on measures to tackle poverty. The Prime Minister, who is under pressure from within his own party to scrap the two-child benefits cap, said: 'People will not feel better-off or safe and secure if we haven't tackled poverty.' He said there were four 'limbs' to the Government's strategy: increasing incomes, decreasing costs, strengthening local support including measures to get people into work and boosting financial resilience. 'I'm very proud of the fact that the last Labour government drove down poverty and I'm determined this Government is going to as well,' Sir Keir said.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Green groups fear business sector will dominate debate at Chalmers' roundtable at environment's expense
Environmentalists fear they are being shut out of the economic debate after peak nature groups were overlooked for invites to Jim Chalmers' reform roundtable. The current list of 24 invitees to next month's summit features only one representative from the environment movement: former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, in his capacity as chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation. In contrast, Australia's four peak business groups – the Business Council of Australia, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Australian Industry Group and Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia – will each be represented as Chalmers attempts to build a broad consensus on economic reforms to lift living standards. An invite has also been extended to Ben Wyatt, the former Western Australian treasurer who now sits on the boards of gas giant Woodside and miner Rio Tinto. Basha Stasak, a nature program manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), said the views of green groups were critical to the debate given the link between environmental protection and economic prosperity. 'Over quite a long time now, we've seen nature as something that we can exploit and extract from, and [have] not considered the cumulative impacts of that, and not considered the importance of protecting nature to maintain a prosperous economy,' Stasak said. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'We will not have that perspective in this [roundtable] debate. We will not have a strong perspective about why protecting nature is so essential for our economic prosperity.' Henry this week drew a direct link between nature and the economy, casting a long-awaited fix to federal environment protection laws as the 'most important' reform the Albanese government could pursue to lift stagnant productivity growth. Stasak said there would be a 'lot of pressure' on Henry and independent MP Allegra Spender, another nature advocate invited, to use their presence at the forum to speak up for environmentalists. Guardian Australia understands Henry secured an invitation to the summit because of his expertise in tax reform, as well as his environmental advocacy. On Friday, Chalmers announced another 13 invitees to the three-day event in Canberra, including Henry, Spender and Wyatt. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief executive, Matt Comyn, the NSW treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, the Tech Council of Australia boss, Scott Farquhar, the ACCC chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, and the respective heads of the departments of prime minister and cabinet and Treasury, Steven Kennedy and Jenny Wilkinson, were also among the latest batch of invitees. More invitations will be issued as the summit's agenda is finalised, Chalmers said, while noting that 'we can't invite representatives from every industry or organisation'. In a statement to Guardian Australia, Watt did not directly address the green groups' omission from the roundtable but said the forum was a 'fantastic chance to achieve important reform' – including to the environmental approvals process. Watt said he spoke with the ACF, WWF-Australia and Greenpeace as recently as Friday afternoon as part of his planned rewrite of federal nature laws. 'I look forward to more productive discussions in the future as we prepare to pass this important legislation,' he said. The Greens assistant climate and energy spokesperson, Steph Hodgins-May, said the decision to invite a Woodside board member – Wyatt – showed the depths of 'Labor's toxic ties to the gas industry'. Wyatt was appointed to the Woodside board less than six months after quitting WA parliament in March 2021. In May, the gas giant was granted provisional approval to operate its North West shelf gas processing plant until 2070, subject to strict conditions. The federal government is still awaiting Woodside's response to the draft decision, which was originally due 10 days after the 28 May ruling. Guardian Australia sought an explanation from the offices of Chalmers and Watt for Wyatt's invitation but did not receive a response. The roundtable will be held on 19-21 August.
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Ministers urged to overhaul and raise carer's allowance
The carer's allowance benefit should be overhauled and the basic rate of payment increased to lift more unpaid carers and disabled people out of financial hardship, according to a living standards thinktank. The Resolution Foundation said unpaid carers on low incomes were paying a 'very heavy price' – a typical penalty of 10% or as much as £7,000 a year compared with non-carers – for looking after loved ones full-time. It called for the basic rate of carer's allowance – currently the lowest-value benefit at £83.30 a week – to be raised to at least the £92.05-a-week rate of jobseeker's allowance to help improve miserable living standards for the poorest carers. It also called for the removal of the notorious 'cliff-edge' penalty on carer's allowance claimants' earnings, currently capped at £196 a week, to enable more unpaid carers to supplement incomes with part-time work. The harshness of the cliff-edge earnings penalty, coupled with failures in the handling of carer benefits by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), caused hundreds of thousands of carers to unwittingly run up huge overpayment debts in recent years. Resolution's report comes as the disability policy expert Liz Sayce prepares to hand ministers her independent review of the carer's allowance – commissioned in response to an award-winning Guardian investigation into the treatment of vulnerable unpaid carers by the DWP. Hannah Slaughter, the Resolution Foundation's senior economist, said ministers need to review support across the board for unpaid carers: 'The trend of rising levels of disability across Britain, and the need for unpaid care, isn't going to end. It's time policy caught up with this reality,' she said. About two-thirds of unpaid carers experienced material deprivation – defined as the inability to afford essential items such as food and energy – while carer social security benefits were often inadequate to protect family incomes, Resolution said. Despite UK family members effectively providing £184bn a year of unpaid care to loved ones, the value of carer's allowance has fallen in the last two decades from 32% of full-time earnings at the minimum wage to just 19%, it found. Bringing the relative value of carer's allowance back up to 1999 levels of 32% would boost the benefit by £53.45 a week to £136.75, at a cost of £2.9bn a year, the Resolution report said. An alternative would be to raise carer's allowance rates in England and Wales to £94.60 a week, in line with the enhanced rates in place in Scotland. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Slaughter said: 'There are now over a million working-age families in Britain that include both a disabled person and an unpaid carer – and they are paying a heavy financial price for these circumstances. 'More must be done to boost the living standards of disabled people and their carers. Employers should improve their retention of disabled staff and carers, and the government should raise the value of unpaid care in the benefits system and extend carers' leave.' Emily Holzhausen, the director of policy and public affairs at Carers UK, said: 'The evidence from the Resolution Foundation's report adds even more impetus for change to improve carers' benefits, especially after the scandal of overpayments of carer's allowance and potential cuts to welfare benefits.' A government spokesperson said: 'We understand the huge difference carers make, as well as the struggles so many face. 'That's why we have raised the carer's allowance earnings threshold by £45 a week to £196, benefiting more than 60,000 carers by 2029-30. This is the biggest ever cash increase in the earnings threshold for carer's allowance. 'We have also launched an independent review into social care, part of which will explore the needs of unpaid carers who provide vital care and support.'
