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New details published of expenses charges faced by Labour MPs and Tory peer
Mar 11th
David Chaytor, Jim Devine, Elliot Morley and Lord Haningfield to face court today
New details of the charges faced by three Labour MPs and a Tory peer were revealed in documents published ahead of their court appearance today.
David Chaytor, the MP for Bury North, is accused of providing false information on an allowances form under the Theft Act 1968.
The charge states he falsely claimed rents between September 2005 and August 2006 for 152 Hide Tower, Regency Street, London, from Sarah Elizabeth.
It added that he claimed £12,925 by lodging a claim for £1,175 a month in rent when he was in fact the owner of the premises.
A second charge stated that on or about 19 May 2006, he dishonestly filed two invoices for computer IT services worth £975.
The court document added that they purported to show the services had been provided in February and March 2006 by Paul France.
A third charge stated that between November 2005 and September 2006 he dishonestly made use of a short-hold tenancy agreement in a claim form.
This showed that between August 2007 and January 2008 he rented Delph Cottage, Castle Street, Summerseat, Bury, from Olive Trickett for £775 a month plus a month deposit.
The charge added that Trickett was his mother and it was not permissible to lease accommodation from a family member. The total sum claimed was £5,425.
Jim Devine, the MP for Livingston, is accused of falsely claiming costs for parliamentary duties in March 2009.
The charge sheet alleged he submitted two misleading invoices worth a total of £5,505 for services provided by Armstrong Printing Ltd.
A second charge alleged that between July 2008 and May 2009 he dishonestly claimed allowances for repair, insurance or security.
The document alleges he intended to gain by submitting false invoices for services, cleaning and maintenance worth £3,240.
The services were allegedly provided between April 2009 and March 2010 by Tom O’Donnell Hygiene and Cleaning Services.
Elliot Morley, the MP for Scunthorpe, is accused of falsely claiming a furnishing allowance between March 2006 and November 2007.
The charge sheet alleged he submitted a deceptive mortgage application.
This showed £800 mortgage monthly interest was charged by the Cheltenham and Gloucester when in fact the mortgage was paid off. A total overpayment of £16,000 was made.
A second charge alleged that between April 2004 and February 2006 Morley made a further false mortgage interest claim.
Again he is accused of claiming £800 a month, a total overpayment of £14,428.67.
Lord Hanningfield, also known as Paul White, faced six charges.
The offences are alleged to have taken place in March 2006, May 2007, April 2008, July 2008, May 2009 and April 2009.
One charge stated that on or about 1 April 2009, at Westminster, he made a dishonest claim for travelling allowances.
It stated that Hanningfield “purported to show that you were entitled to be paid expenses when the conditions entitled you to payment of such expenses had not been fulfilled”.
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Pink Floyd win high court battle to stop EMI selling singles
Mar 11th
Band objected to label providing downloads of individual songs from concept albums that were created as a single work
Pink Floyd have today won a high court battle to stop record company EMI selling single downloads from their concept albums.
The judge has yet to rule on how much EMI now owes the band but the label was ordered to pay Pink Floyd’s costs, which are estimated at £60,000.
Chancellor Sir Andrew Morritt accepted arguments by the group that EMI was bound by a contract forbidding it to sell its records other than as complete albums without written consent.
Pink Floyd alleged – and EMI agreed – that it had allowed online downloads from the albums and had allowed parts of tracks to be used as ringtones.
Pink Floyd are known for their conceptual albums in which individual songs often merge with others to form larger “song suites”. The band argued that their music should only ever be heard as part of the full-length albums in which they originally appeared. They pointed to a contract signed in 1999 that stated their music could not be “unbundled” from its original context.
EMI’s lawyers argued that this contract, which was signed before the emergence of digital music stores such as iTunes, referred to “records” and did not apply to online sales.
But the judge sided with the band, noting that the contract was designed to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums”.
Lawyers said it was the first time such a dispute between artists and their record companies had been heard in private.
Pink Floyd were pioneers of the long player format, with their 1973 prog-rock classic The Dark Side of the Moon notching up 35m worldwide sales.
The ban signed with EMI in 1967 and became one of its most lucrative signings, their back catalogue being outsold only by that of The Beatles.
Roger Waters, who co-founded the band with Syd Barrett, Richard Wright and Nick Mason, has a fortune estimated at £85m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. The band last played together at London’s Live 8 concert in 2005.
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Adonis unveils £30bn high-speed rail plans
Mar 11th
Minister says building work on 250mph route cutting journey times between London and Birmingham could begin in 2017
The government today unveiled plans for a £30bn high-speed rail network, with the first phase between London and Birmingham opening in 2026.
Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said building work on the 250mph route could begin in 2017 once a formal public consultation has been completed.
The route linking the capital and England’s second city, which will cut journey times from 84 minutes to 49 minutes, will originate at London Euston and pass through Old Oak Common, in west London, where a Crossrail interchange will transport passengers to Heathrow airport.
Controversially, the line will then run through the Chiltern hills in Buckinghamshire, past picturesque villages such as Wendover, before arriving at an intermediate stop near Birmingham airport. There will be a new terminal in Birmingham city centre, and the main body of the line will sweep through the Trent valley to join existing tracks north of Lichfield, where journeys will continue to Manchester and Scotland at conventional speeds.
“The time has come for Britain to plan seriously for high-speed rail between our major cities,” said Adonis. “The high-speed line from London to the Channel Tunnel has been a clear success, and many European and Asian countries now have extensive and successful high-speed networks. I believe high-speed rail has a big part to play in Britain’s future.”
In a nod to Tory objections over the Heathrow proposal, Adonis said the case for a station would be examined by the former Tory transport secretary Lord Mawhinney. “A complex decision of this nature should not be taken in a knee-jerk fashion but after a full analysis of the facts and opinions,” Adonis said.
The first phase will cost up to £17.4bn for 128 miles of track from London to the west Midlands, with the full 330-mile network costing £30bn.
The transport secretary also unveiled the blueprint for a wider network, with a Y-shaped route splitting off from Birmingham to go eastwards to Manchester and westwards to Sheffield and Leeds. Journey times between London and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would come down from about two hours 10 minutes to 75 minutes when the new network is in place.
Formal planning for the route from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds will be completed next summer, with a consultation to follow in 2012. The route to Scotland would be completed on existing lines under the current proposal, even when the Manchester and Leeds sections are completed.
Despite the Mawhinney gesure, the Conservatives attacked the detailed proposal. The Tories have pledged to build a high-speed network instead of a third runway at Heathrow, and to start construction in 2015.
Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, said: “Labour have betrayed the vision we set out three years ago for [high-speed rail]. In leaving out Heathrow and setting out plans that give no firm guarantees north of the Midlands, Labour’s plans are flawed both by lack of ambition and undermined by their inability to grasp the basic truth that high-speed rail should be an alternative to a third runway, not an addition to it.”
The government-backed company that drew up the plans, HS2, believes there is no business case for a direct link to Heathrow airport and some industry experts argue that the Old Oak Common interchange provides an equally good link.
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Army chief sees ministerial ambitions snuffed out by wily Liam Fox | Nicholas Watt
Mar 11th
Quietly, and with little fanfare, the shadow defence secretary has killed off ministerial ambitions of retired army chief
When you achieve victory – of the complete, earth-scorching variety – it is always best to avoid crowing. “In war: resolution; in defeat: defiance; in victory: magnanimity,” is a handy bit of advice from Winston Churchill.
Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, has clearly been thinking of Churchill after achieving a complete victory over the Tory leadership.
David Cameron had planned to appoint General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff, as a minister in a Tory government. That is now toast after Lord Guthrie, the former chief of the defence staff, told the Today programme this morning that it was a “great mistake” for Dannatt to have accepted a post as adviser to the Tories.
Gurthrie’s remarks are significant because he has been highly critical of Gordon Brown over defence spending and was withering about Labour MPs who condemned retired defence chiefs in the Commons yesterday as Tories.
Guthrie showed why it is unwise to cross this former SAS commander. This is what he had to say about the attacks from the Labour MPs:
I thought it was rather a desperate act and actually rather cheap. I don’t think everybody is a Tory. I certainly am a crossbencher and am quite prepared to criticise anybody.
And this is what he said about the planned Dannatt appointment:
I think personally it was a great mistake. I really do. I do not think serving officers should criticise publicly.
Guthrie’s remarks will be welcomed by Fox, who has fought a clever under-the-radar campaign to sideline Dannatt after Cameron went over the heads of his shadow defence team to line up the former army chief for a ministerial post.
This is what Cameron told the Tory conference in October:
When the country is at war, when Whitehall is at war, we need people who understand war in Whitehall. That’s why I’m proud to announce today that someone who has fought for our country and served for 40 years in our armed forces will not only advise our defence team but will join our benches in the House of Lords and if we win the election could serve in a future Conservative government: General Sir Richard Dannatt. As we welcome him to serve with us, let us all salute those who serve our country.
Fox signalled to the world the end of Dannatt’s ministerial ambitions in a little-noticed interview at the end of January. In remarks that were helpfully buried towards the end of an interview with the Sunday Times on 31 January, Fox made clear that defence chiefs had vetoed Dannatt’s appointment as a minister:
They think there would be a problem in the constitutional relationships if he were to hold a ministerial role.
Fox’s victory means that he will be a formidable force in a Cameron cabinet. That is quite an achievement for someone who had been subject to a whispering campaign last summer that he may not be appointed defence secretary.
And the future? Fox is still only 48. He would be one of the few cabinet ministers to have served in the last Tory government. If the Tories follow Labour’s example, Cameron’s successor will probably emerge from the heart of the party. Step up Liam Fox, your time may arrive, though you might have to wait a decade.
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Video: Greece hit by wave of nationwide strikes
Mar 11th
Thousands gather in Athens to protest against the government’s planned cuts imposed to alleviate the country’s debt crisis
Conservative technology manifesto
Mar 11th
The Tory document in full
Manifesto in full
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Tories vow to put details of public spending over £25,000 online
Mar 11th
Conservatives publish document based on technology manifesto Barack Obama used in his presidential campaign, which paved the way for a ‘right to data policy’ in the US
The Conservatives today promised to publish online every item of central government and quango spending worth over £25,000 – including the detail of contracts.
The plans are part of a “right to data” policy that the Tories believe will promote public accountability on issues such as “fat cat salaries” .
The UK government has already set up an online data store, which includes information on big spending by policy area, including some information on contracts.
However, it has so far resisted calls to put online the Combined Online Information System (Coins), which contains the Treasury’s detailed analysis of departmental spending under thousands of category headings.
The Conservative document is based on the technology manifesto Barack Obama used in his presidential campaign, which paved the way for a “right to data policy” in the US.
It claims that access to government data would unleash innovative new applications and services that could lead to an estimated £6bn in additional value for the UK.
The “radical transparency agenda” would result in every item of central government and quango spending over £25,000 being published. From next year, if the Tories won the election, government contracts for goods and services worth over £25,000 would also be published in full, including details such as break clauses and penalty measures.
Details of UK projects that receive over £25,000 of funds from Europe will also be displayed. It is not the first time that the Tories have announced the £25,000 figure. However, it has been suggested that the policy will cost more to introduce than it would save.
All procurement tender documents for contracts worth over £10,000 will also be put online to allow small and medium businesses to bid for contracts.
The Conservatives also promise to publish detailed information on the salaries of the country’s 35,000 most senior civil servants, alongside the names and salaries of all central government and quango managers earning £150,000 a year or more.
The remuneration packages of local council officials earning more than £60,000 will also be available in full, as well as councillors’ expenses.
The party, which has publicly committed itself to giving local councils more say over their own affairs, intends to make town halls up and down the country publish every item of spending over £500, including contracts.
Many councils already publish spending online though this is down to local discretion.
The wide-ranging document also includes plans to create the fastest high speed broadband network in Europe, which would generate 600,000 additional jobs and help set Britain up as a “European hub” for the digital and creative industries.
In a foreword to the document, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said the manifesto proposals presented “the most ambitious technology agenda ever proposed by a British political party”, which would provide a boost to British business and help create “highly paid new jobs across the country”.
He added: “We will make the British government the most technology friendly in the world, and meet our ambition that the next general of Googles, Microsofts and Facebooks are British companies.”
Other proposals include creating a level playing field for small and medium businesses seeking lucrative IT contracts by breaking up larger projects into smaller components.
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Lift-off for air industry as loss forecasts halved
Mar 11th
• Airline representative IATA revises loss forecasts for 2010 from $5.6bn to $2.8bn
• Growth in passenger demands and air freight expected to continue
Airlines are bouncing back more strongly and swiftly than expected from the global downturn, prompting the airline industry association IATA to halve its forecast for a 2010 loss.
IATA now expects airlines to lose $2.8bn (£1.87bn) this year, half the $5.6bn loss it forecast in December.
IATA, which represents 230 airlines, also cut its estimate of last year’s loss from $11bn to $9.4bn.
With capacity for both passengers and cargo hitting record levels at the end of last year, the recovery is much better than expected, said IATA director-general Giovanni Bisignani.
This spells good news for both the industry and the global economy as a whole, indicating that exports are reviving. IATA estimates that 30% of world trade by value is moved by air freight.
“We are moving in the right direction. The recovery is strong. But we are still at pre-crisis levels,” said Bisignani.
Passenger demand is expected to grow by 5.6% in 2010 after falling 2.9% last year, while cargo demand is estimated to jump 12% following an 11.1% fall.
Capacity usage recovered strongly at the end of last year, and airlines passenger load factor – a key industry measure of capacity – hit 75.9% in January while cargo utilisation was at 49.6%.
However, premium travel remains sluggish, with first and business class recovering at a slower rate than economy travel.
Performance varies strongly across regions, with Asia and Latin America driving the recovery, while North Atlantic and European markets are still weak.
IATA said airlines are now halfway to recovery, with revenues forecast at $522bn this year – $42bn below their 2008 peak and $43bn above the 2009 trough. But it will take two to three years to make up the losses from the crisis, he said.
Carriers have suffered losses of $50bn over the past 10 years, and still face a series of risks, ranging from economic developments to environmental pressures and the price of fuel.
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Scottish Power trumps EDF with gas prices cut
Mar 11th
Scottish Power has said it will reduce its gas prices by 8%, double the cut announced hours earlier by EDF
Scottish Power has become the latest company to reduce the price of its gas, doubling the cut made by rival EDF Energy just hours earlier.
The company’s 1.6 million gas customers will see the size of their gas bills fall by 8% – a typical £66 a year – from 31 March. EDF Energy also announced it would cut its prices, but the 4% reduction has been described as a “token gesture” by one expert.
EDF’s cut, which amounts to about £30 a year off a typical gas bill, will take effect from 26 March. It follows recent cuts from British Gas, E.ON, Scottish & Southern and npower of between 6% and 7%.
Mark Todd, director of price comparison website energyhelpline.com, said: “Although any cut is welcome, this is a token gesture by EDF and hardly worth the wait.”
Gareth Kloet, head of utilities at Confused.com, branded all the recent energy cuts a “disappointment” and “too little too late.”
“Energy suppliers are acting like a pack by all cutting by around the same amount, despite the fact that energy regulator Ofgem recently concluded they are making profits amounting to around £105 a year per energy customer,” he said.
“The fact that most of these companies, with the exception of British Gas, are delaying the reductions until the end of March is also poor. When they put prices up they do it with immediate effect.”
He added that some customers could now save up to £400 a year by switching to an online tariff and paying by direct debit, rather than paying by cash and cheque and staying on a company’s standard tariff. This is because the gap between the cheapest online tariff and the cheapest standard tariff has widened significantly over the past few months.
Scottish Power said today that customers could make further savings of up to £382 by paying by direct debit and managing their account online.
Estimation warning
Meanwhile, two out of five householders are overpaying for their gas and electricity and failing to ask for a refund, according to latest research by Gocompare.com.
Those that are overpaying are owed, on average, £124.34 by their energy supplier, while one in 10 is due as much as £500, it said.
Mark Greening, head of utilities at Gocompare.com, said: “You should never let your utility company estimate your energy usage – it is a sure-fire way to end up shelling out more than you really need to.
“It is not unusual to build up a credit during the summer, and following the bitterly cold winter we have experienced, any overpayments made could have helped soften the blow of the big bills that most of us have recently received.”
He continued: “However, if you find yourself in credit after your winter bills have been paid then make sure you ask for your money back – it is better to have the extra cash in your bank account than in your energy provider’s.”
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Rail maintenance workers vote to strike
Mar 11th
• RMT union refuses to rule out Easter national walkout
• Talks continuing over BA cabin crew strike threat
The prospect of a national rail strike over Easter loomed larger this morning after maintenance workers voted in favour of a walkout.
The RMT union refused to rule out a bank holiday strike by thousands of Network Rail staff, and they could be joined by 5,500 signal workers whose ballot result is announced next week.
Meanwhile, a source close to the fraught peace talks between British Airways and the Unite union said informal discussions over averting a cabin crew walkout were continuing, with the possibility that strike dates would not be announced today. A source close to Bassa, Unite’s cabin crew branch, said it had no wish to disrupt BA passengers.
Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, left open the option of an Easter national rail walkout this morning and called on Network Rail to hold further talks over changes to working practices. “It could well be that both the signal workers and maintenance workers take action together,” he told Sky News.
Network Rail believes it can withstand a maintenance strike for at least a week, with some branch line closures, before services are disrupted by safety measures such as speed restrictions. However, the company admitted this week that a signallers’ strike could bring the busiest sections of the network to a halt because the main signalling centres, which employ around 3,000 people, would be unstaffed.
Crow said the vote, with 77% in favour on a turnout of 65%, reflected concerns over rail safety after Network Rail’s decision to restructure its maintenance division. The Network Rail proposals include 1,500 redundancies, the majority voluntary.
“RMT members were faced with a stark choice in this ballot. They could either sit back and wait for these cash-led maintenance cuts to lead to another major disaster on Britain’s railways or they could vote to take action to stop the attack on rail safety. They have overwhelmingly voted to take action,” said Crow.
Network Rail, which has overseen a significant increase in rail passenger safety since taking over from Railtrack in 2002, has denied vehemently that the new regime could see a return to the dark days of the Hatfield crash in 2000, in which four people died, and the Potters Bar accident in 2002, which claimed the lives of seven people.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “The way the railway is maintained and operated needs to change. Work practices that date back to the steam age should no longer have a place on a modern railway.
“We cannot allow the unions to hold this country to ransom. Negotiation is the only way this dispute will be settled, and the sooner we get around the table the better for everyone.”
Unite and Bassa officials met to discuss the next steps in the industrial dispute with BA that is close to escalating into a walkout, after a deadline to secure a deal was missed yesterday evening. The general secretary of the TUC, Brendan Barber, is acting as an intermediary in the talks with BA.
The Bassa source said it had “absolutely no wish” to trigger a strike and claimed that the two sides were £10m apart in agreeing on cost-saving proposals. Unite and Bassa have offered a one-off 2.6% pay cut in talks, but BA says the proposals are still “significantly short” of its £60m cost-saving target.
In a direct appeal to Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, the source said: “We are taking this opportunity to ask him to reconsider the formal offer of cuts we have made and to accept the sacrifices that we and our members are willing to make in order to help British Airways to protect on board service levels for its customers, and so prevent industrial action.
“What company in their right mind would refuse the offer of a pay cut from its own staff to protect the health, safety and service offered to its customers? Before ordinary peoples travel plans are unnecessarily inconvenienced we hope that common sense will prevail and that our offer is reconsidered. The deadline for calling industrial action is very close. Mr Walsh should not squander that time.”
A BA spokeswoman said the airline remained available for talks. One scenario emerging today could see BA lodge a formal offer to Unite that would allow the union to extend its strike mandate while members consider the proposal. Unite must announce strike dates by Monday under rules set down by the 1992 Trade Union Act.
One key sticking point in the BA proposals is that the airline appears to have accepted the partial repeal of staffing cuts but has not gone far enough to satisfy Unite and Bassa. BA is understood to have offered the return of about 184 cabin crew positions, while Unite is seeking around 700. BA unilaterally cut staffing levels on flights by at least one flight attendant last November, after a voluntary redundancy programme.
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