Latest news with #then-Labour
Otago Daily Times
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Abuse in care compensation scheme announcement believed imminent
By Tim Brown of RNZ An announcement on the government's long-awaited abuse in care compensation scheme is imminent, it is understood. The government has repeatedly promised to announce its plans for a new single redress system before this year's budget and, with less than a fortnight until Budget Day, time is running out. The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry found at least 200,000 people had been abused, and even more neglected, by the state and faith-based institutions since 1950. Its final report, released last July, outlined 138 recommendations to right the wrongs of the past and to ensure the safety of every child, young person and adult in care today. In 2021, the inquiry made 95 recommendations for establishing an independent, fair and effective redress scheme for all survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care with existing schemes to be phased out. The then-Labour government made little progress on the recommendations before losing the 2023 election. During November's apology to survivors, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced $32 million to support existing schemes while the coalition ironed out details of the new redress system. "I know that financial redress is important to many of you, and no amount of money will ever make up for what you have endured, but today I want to provide you with some details around the next steps," Luxon told survivors in parliament on November 12. "Many of you do not want to engage with it as it currently exists. Some parts of it are 20 years old and it can take up to five years for your claims to be addressed. But there are also over 3500 of you engaging with the current system. So today I am announcing the government will invest an additional $32 million to increase capacity in the current system while we work on the new redress system. "This funding will increase resources and help ensure the system is more responsive to your needs. But I want to assure you it is our intention to have a new single redress system operating next year." He also promised to pressure faith-based organisations to take part. "The government has written to church leaders to let them know our expectation is that they will do the right thing and contribute to the redress process," Luxon said. A mish-mash of compensation schemes had been run by the Ministries of Education, Health, Social Development and Oranga Tamariki, with survivors paid an average of about $18,000 for abuse inflicted while in care. In 2022, the Ministry for Social Development began offering payments of up to $30,000 under a Rapid Payment Framework to survivors who were seriously ill, aged 70 or older, and those with the oldest claims. Survivors of torture at Lake Alice Hospital's child and adolescent unit were an outlier to other claimants with an average payment of $68,000, then last December, the government announced a group of 77 survivors were eligible for a rapid payment of $150,000. Details surrounding faith-based institutions were murkier, however, the Catholic Church paid an average of $30,000 (with the highest $152,000), the Anglican Church also averaged $30,000 (with the highest $100,000) and the Salvation Army averaged $29,000 (with the highest $91,500). The Royal Commission said payments were "too low to provide meaningful puretumu torowhānui (holistic redress)". "Payments by state and faith-based institutions do not, in our view, amount to meaningful redress," the commissioners said. "We have already described the considerable range in payments by state agencies - anywhere from $1000 to $90,000 in the case of the Ministry of Social Development, although the average is a modest $20,000. The Ministry of Health average is $6000, and the Ministry of Education average is $15,300. These figures are very low compared with payments by overseas schemes." The figures fell well short of comparable schemes in Australia where survivors received an average of $84,000; Canada at $104,000; and Ireland at $98,000 (all in New Zealand dollars). Since 2017, Australian survivors who had sought justice through the courts had received hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars in compensation. Survivors were anticipating meaningful changes to redress in New Zealand with sufficient compensation to provide for their well-being, while also ensuring faith-based institutions were held to account for the abuse they failed to prevent and often covered up. However, the government had already promised a tight budget with new spending slashed from $2.4 billion to $1.3 billion. "We have debt at levels not seen since the mid-1990s. We're running one of the biggest deficits in the world," Finance Minister Nicola Willis said, last week. "That's the difference between what we're earning and what we're spending. That can't go on forever." Whatever shape redress took it was bound to come as a disappointment for some survivors.
The Independent
25-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Reeves reveals plan to rip up banking regulations brought in after financial crash
Rachel Reeves has told senior economists and business leaders that she wants to rip up regulations on the financial services sector brought in after the 2008 financial crash. The chancellor has been desperately looking for ways to kickstart economic growth in the UK, which has flatlined since Labour came to power last July with the country teetering on the edge of going into recession. Speaking on a panel during a debate on the global economy in Washington DC on Thursday, Ms Reeves revealed that she believes now is the time to at least partly go back to pre-banking crisis regulations, in the hope it will inject much-needed growth into the City of London and financial markets. She said: 'Excessive regulation makes it hard for new entrants to come into market, puts up prices for consumers. 'So I do think that we've gone too far in one direction. And of course, after the financial crisis, we had to put in place a good, greater set of regulations than we had before, sure, but we are now what you know, getting on for 20 years since the financial crisis. And I do think we've got to think about that balance.' When major banks and financial institutions collapsed around the world in 2008 because they were overleveraged on the property markets, the then-Labour government in the UK was forced to bail out Lloyds, Halifax Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Gordon Brown's government had to nationalise Northern Rock and the collapse saw new red tape and regulations brought in to prevent a similar crisis from happening again. Internationally, the crisis saw whole countries' economies, including Greece and Ireland, having to be bailed out. But Ms Reeves, who until the debate had not indicated any major policy change on her trip to the International Monetary Fund conference of finance ministers in Washington DC, was clear that she considered financial regulation to be similar to environmental. She repeated Labour's plans to strip away protection for nature to allow new infrastructure and housing to be built. Pouring contempt on HS2's bat tunnel again, she also turned her ire on interventions to protect spiders and sea bream. She said: 'Environmental regulations are now the biggest barrier to investing in renewable energy in the UK. That is not the purpose of environmental regulations, but they're the things that are holding up pylons being built. 'They're stopping wind farms from being built. And the number of submissions, and we all get this as ministers, that we get in our boxes every day, that you know, I'm afraid that the minister had to block this wind farm development because of sea bream swimming in that part of the North Sea. 'Or there are some spiders which are unique to this area, which means you can't build the 1000s and 1000s of homes that we need. Or we've spent 100 million pounds in the UK in building a bat tunnel to go alongside the high-speed rail link between London and the north of England, because otherwise the bats would not be able to cross the road. 'I mean, it is absolutely insane the costs that are added to essential infrastructure investments.'
BBC News
25-04-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Why the Post Office paid £600m to stay shackled to the faulty Horizon system
The Post Office has paid more than £600m of public money to continue using the faulty Horizon IT system despite deciding to ditch it more than a decade ago, the BBC can terms of the original 1999 deal with computer giant Fujitsu mean the Post Office has been stuck with the system and unable to build a replacement so far, even after it contributed to one of the UK's biggest miscarriages of Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair and other senior Labour government figures were warned about potential problems with the terms of the deal before it was signed, the BBC has Post Office said it "apologises unreservedly to victims of the Horizon IT scandal" and said it was committed to moving away from Fujitsu and the Horizon software. Under the terms of the original £548m deal, struck under pressure from the then-Labour government, the Post Office did not own the computer code for the core part of the Horizon the Post Office has wanted to switch suppliers since 2012, buying the rights to the code from Fujitsu or building a completely new system from scratch was considered too expensive - even as the amounts paid to Fujitsu to retain the Horizon system grew and it did not own the code, the Post Office was also unable to inspect the part of the software that processed transactions, and had to rely on assurances from Fujitsu that it was functioning Post Office, which is owned by the government, prosecuted about 700 sub-postmasters between 1999 and 2015 for theft, fraud and false accounting over supposed cash shortfalls in branches reported by the Horizon system, based on these assurances. The convictions were overturned by Parliament last this year, Business Minister Baroness Jones of Whitchurch told the House of Lords that the Post Office is "unfortunately, still dependent on the Horizon system", and the only way Fujitsu could be "out of the picture" immediately would mean shutting down all local post attempt to replace the system with one built by IBM failed in 2016, at a cost of £40m, and the Post Office extended its contract with Fujitsu for at least four more years at a cost of £ Post Office told the BBC that it finally obtained rights related to the Horizon software and code in 2023, although it is not known if this includes the core system that processes £10m price for the licence was "cheap - because who else would buy it?" according to IT expert Jason Coyne, one of the first people to identify flaws in the system. The BBC understands that the Post Office may try to use this licence for Horizon's replacement. But while this is being built, IT experts believe the Post Office's contract with Fujitsu will need to be extended beyond March 2026 - when it is currently due to over who would own the Horizon software began when the contract to computerise the network of Post Office branches - then numbering 18,000 - was negotiated between the Post Office, Fujitsu and its subsidiary ICL Pathway, and the May 1999, Sir Tony Blair received an update from the Treasury, in a document warning that discussions with ICL over the terms of a deal "have foundered".One of the sticking points was around intellectual property rights (IPR) - which included ownership of the code within the Horizon document says that ICL was "not prepared to... give perpetual licences for all the IPR".It goes on to say that if the Post Office ever wanted to change suppliers, the owner of the IPR "would be in a strong position to drive a costly settlement with the Post Office". The BBC has also obtained a document from 20 May the same year, which was sent to then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and other government officials, warning about the issue of who owned the it, a Treasury civil servant states that one of the "main problems" with the terms of a proposed deal with ICL for the Horizon software was the "issues surrounding ownership of assets and IPR of the kit acquired by" the Post Coyne, the IT expert, said it was "utter madness" that the deal went ahead in July 1999 because it meant that the Post Office became "operationally reliant on Horizon", even though it did not own the rights to use the system without Fujitsu.A spokesperson for Sir Tony Blair did not address the BBC's questions around his knowledge of the IPR issues but said he "took very seriously the issues raised about the Horizon contract" at the time."The final decision was taken after an investigation by an independent panel recommended it was viable."It is now clear that the Horizon product was seriously flawed, leading to tragic and completely unacceptable consequences, and Mr Blair has deep sympathy with all those affected."A spokesperson for Gordon Brown said he "would not have been shown the memo" from 20 May 1999 and he would have been copied in as a "formality"."He was not involved in any work related to the purchasing, award or management of the Horizon contract." The warnings about ownership of the IPR came true more than a decade later when Post Office decided to invite other companies to take over the Horizon executives told the Post Office Inquiry, which is examining decisions leading up to the wrongful convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters, how the company had found it difficult to replace Cameron, former chief financial officer at the Post Office, said that Fujitsu had been "difficult colleagues" and "it was accepted that Horizon, and the infrastructure on which it was built, was vulnerable".But Mike Young, chief operations officer at the Post Office between October 2010 and April 2012, told the inquiry that Fujitsu management said to him "the code is ours. You own the service because you pay for that but you don't pay [for] the code".Documents released by the Post Office Inquiry show the "IPR issue" was often discussed by top-level Post Office executives."There is a risk that we may be unable to agree an IP license with Fujitsu on reasonable terms", said an agenda for a Post Office board meeting in July 2013 - while other documents describe concerns over specialist Ian Makgill told us he believes not owning the IPR to the Horizon software would have been a factor in the collapse of the 2016 IBM deal to replace the said that if IBM had tried to build new software without any of the IPR from Horizon, it would have needed to "start from scratch, which would have cost the Post Office hundreds of millions of pounds"."IPR is the reason why the Post Office hasn't been able to move away from Fujitsu and the Horizon software," he 1999, the Post Office has spent £2.5bn on contracts with Fujitsu. This figure includes more than £600m spent on bridging or extension contracts to continue the Horizon contract since the Post Office started looking for new suppliers in 2012, according to analysis from data firm Tussell and the of the sub-postmasters wrongly accused by the Post Office maintained that there was no missing money and the shortfalls were down to errors in the Horizon with the Post Office unable to directly inspect the system which processed transactions, it accepted assurances from Fujitsu that the system was working correctly. "Fujitsu were fighting the whole time to protect their investment and their intellectual property, rather than looking after the interests of the sub-postmasters," said Mr did not respond to the BBC's specific questions but stated that it was "focused on supporting the Post Office in their plans for a new service delivery model" so branches can continue to Makgill said that the Post Office bears the "ultimate responsibility" over the fate of wrongly accused sub-postmasters."They didn't have to take those prosecutions, they didn't have to take people to court."Sub-postmasters currently using the Horizon IT software continue to report issues with it. Seven in 10 said they had experienced an "unexplained discrepancy" on the system since January 2020, according to a YouGov survey with 1,015 respondents commissioned by the Post Office Inquiry in Post Office has said that it has not undertaken any prosecutions related to Horizon since 2015 and "has no intention of doing so".It told the BBC that it is "implementing changes across the entire organisation" so that it is "fit for the future, fundamentally changed and with postmasters at its heart".It said this includes working with Fujitsu to correct discrepancies and reviewing the current version of Horizon - replacing it in stages, under a five-year plan named the "Future Technology Portfolio".Post Office chairman Nigel Railton has said a new IT system would not be introduced in one "big bang" but there would be gradual Post Office did not respond to the BBC's specific questions about IPR being the reason why the company was unable to ditch Fujitsu, and said it would not be appropriate to comment ahead of the Post Office Inquiry's final Department of Business and Trade told the BBC that it was providing £136m of funding over the next five years to the Future Technology Portfolio, and was "working at pace" to ensure the Post Office had the technology it needed, including replacing the Horizon system.
Dubai Eye
26-03-2025
- Business
- Dubai Eye
Britain gives go-ahead to new £10 billion Thames tunnel
Britain gave the green light on Tuesday to a new £10 billion (AED 47.5 billion) road tunnel for the River Thames in southeast England, in its latest backing for an infrastructure project to help revive a sluggish economy. The Labour government has put speeding up the planning process to deliver new energy and transport projects at the heart of its growth agenda since it was elected last year, backing expansion at London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports. "When I said I would back the builders, not the blockers, I meant it," Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on X. "Giving the Lower Thames Crossing the green light will drive growth and make journeys quicker, safer, and more reliable." The Lower Thames Crossing, consisting of a tunnel and roads 23 km (14.5 miles) in length, was granted development consent by Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, the Planning Inspectorate said. The tunnel will connect Kent, south of the river, to Essex, on the north side, improving connectivity and providing more road capacity for goods to travel between ports and central and northern England. The idea for an additional crossing in this part of the river east of London was first mooted as far back as 1989. Formally proposed by the then-Labour government in 2009, the crossing has been held up as an example of the difficulties faced in trying to get infrastructure projects off the ground in Britain. Planning can take years, involving multiple consultations with the need to satisfy what critics say can be overly stringent environmental concerns, and is often stalled by local community objections. Finance minister Rachel Reeves said in January that the government was committed to the Lower Thames Crossing, adding that it was exploring options to privately finance the project. Reeves is expected to announce a sharp downgrade to the UK's economic growth forecasts this year when she provides a fiscal update on Wednesday. That, along with higher borrowing costs, is likely to force her to cut plans for spending spikes in coming years, potentially endangering government-funded projects. The estimated cost of the Lower Thames Crossing, which is expected to take six years to build, has now risen to £10 billion from £5-7 billion in 2017. The planning document for the project runs to 359,070 pages, equivalent to nearly 300 times the complete works of William Shakespeare.
The Guardian
22-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
A new MP for Runcorn? Bring on Reform, say disillusioned voters
Spring has finally arrived, and as customers enjoy a drink or two in the sunshine outside Runcorn's branch of Wetherspoon's on a Thursday afternoon, some are sympathetic to the local man in the news who has so dramatically fallen from grace. 'If somebody was mouthing off to me so much, I would have knocked him out myself,' says Jason Baldwin. 'I don't believe he should have lost his job.' He is referring to Mike Amesbury, who won the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary seat for Labour with a thumping majority of almost 15,000 votes in July last year. That, however, seems an age ago and now the talk of the town is of Amesbury's decision last week to resign, having been handed a suspended prison sentence for punching a constituent. A byelection looms. 'Prescott didn't get sacked,' remarks another Amesbury-supporting drinker, referring to the 2001 incident when then-Labour deputy prime minister John Prescott punched an egg-throwing protester. 'Sometimes you're going to snap,' agreed a member of the group. 'He was somebody that you could trust and go to to get something sorted out,' adds Baldwin. But support for Amesbury does not translate into backing for the Labour party. Far from it. Ominously for Keir Starmer's party, polls show that Nigel Farage's Reform UK, which came a distant second in the general election here, could cause a sensation and win in this seat when the contest to find Amesbury's successor takes place. That would be a hammer blow to Labour so soon after it won a historic election landslide. Some of the reasons why opinion is shifting quickly become clear from the pub talk. Baldwin has three children who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. He fears that this government's planned cuts to benefits, and particularly the tightening of eligibility rules for personal independence payments, will affect his family severely. 'I'd love to have a one on one with each politician and say: 'Come and have a look how hard it is',' he says. 'Most people in Runcorn are thinking about benefit cuts and taxes … This country is going wrong, It needs somebody that can sort this out and look after the people who need looking after. It needs change.' As Rachel Reeves prepares to announce more cuts to spending for unprotected government departments in her spring statement on Wednesday, these are the kind of raw expressions of anger that Labour MPs are hearing from their constituents all too often. In their weekly surgeries they confront the human stories. As a result, disquiet is rising on the Labour backbenches, with more and more MPs dismayed that their government seems to be hitting the poorest and most vulnerable hardest in their desperate attempts to balance the books and keep within their self-imposed fiscal rules. For Labour, the signs are worrying, not only for this byelection but also for wider local elections in May. Nationally, the Tories are now favoured by more people than Labour to run the economy well and 'improve your financial situation', according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. That is a huge turnaround, given the damage Liz Truss inflicted on the Conservatives' reputation for economic management. Local government leaders are warning that, after 15 years of austerity cuts, Reeves may be about to add more misery with further reductions in council budgets, which will feed through to reduced funding for crucial areas, including social care services. Louise Gittins, chair of the Local Government Association, tells the Observer: 'Local government has made huge savings and efficiencies over the past decade and continues to innovate and transform services to get the best for residents and provide greater value for money. However, without adequate investment, now we risk not being able to deliver crucial services that so many depend on, and our desire to help government fulfil its ambitions for the future are severely hindered.' Runcorn and Helsby will soon be full of Labour and Reform people canvassing for votes. Amesbury had represented the marginal Weaver Vale seat since gaining it from the Tories in 2017, and won July's general election with 53% of the vote. Reform UK received 18% while the Conservatives came third on 16%. The Green party won 6% and the Liberal Democrats 5%. In Runcorn's library on Thursday, three friends are meeting for their weekly Scrabble club. They agree things are going wrong in Britain. The debate is already under way as to who would best put things right. Dave Colleavy, 73, believes that after years of Labour and Conservative control, Reform should be given an opportunity. 'We should give somebody else a chance,' he says. 'We had 14 years of Conservative rule, but nothing's any better, and it's not getting any better at this moment in time.' His fellow Scrabble player Marian Holt, 70, does not know 'what Reform stands for' but Colleavy insists that the party would be a 'better option than what we have'. 'Why are we just persevering with the same thing?' he asks. 'If it doesn't go well, it doesn't go well, but it's not going well anyway.' On the other side of the table Rich Bradshaw, 70, also wants change but backed the Green Party as his preferred alternative. 'I think Reform is a worse option,' he says, comparing Farage unfavourably with Donald Trump. 'But it's hard to argue when people say [Labour and the Conservatives] are all the same – it's all soundbites and budget cuts.' Research on voting intention carried out by Lord Ashcroft Polls last week put Reform ahead of Labour by 42 per cent to 33 per cent among people who said they were certain to vote, and turnout will be key. During the Observer's visit to Runcorn, all the over-50s spoken to were intending to vote, but younger people interviewed were either unaware of the byelection or said they would not take part. In Costa, two personal trainers meeting for a coffee are surprised to be told that the local MP has stood down after punching a man. 'It's a waste of time talking about politics, and I don't like politicians,' says one of the friends, who does not want to be named. 'Labour are supposed to be the ones who help us out, and we're worse off with Labour than we were with the Tories.' The pair want to see more support for young people in Runcorn and the surrounding area, where they say there is little opportunity and 'literally nothing to do'. 'The people who are already rich are all right, but the working man is still getting stung,' says the personal trainer. 'I'm from a Labour through-and-through family, but now Labour are in and there's no benefit.'
