Peers working for City firms dominate Lords panel scrutinising financial sector

Peers working for big City firms including Santander, Secure Trust Bank and the London Stock Exchange are sitting on a new Lords committee scrutinising regulation of the financial services industry, the Guardian has found.The House of Lords financial services regulation committee was formed in January last year and 10 of its 13 members have declared current or recent interests in the sector.From the start, it has been highly critical of the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, despite a number of the committee members being paid by companies that are overseen by the watchdog.Established to consider the regulation of financial services in the post-Brexit era, in common with other Lords committees it has the power to investigate and ultimately influence laws and public policy by holding inquiries and summoning ministers and officials to give evidence.Its chair, Michael Forsyth, was until May last year paid a salary of £230,000 a year as chair of the UK retail bank Secure Trust Bank, which is regulated by the FCA and has 1 million customers

Nicola Sturgeon to stand down as MSP next year

Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced she is standing down as an MSP.Sturgeon, who led the Scottish National party from 2014 until her shock resignation in 2023, said she would not seek re-election in 2026, telling her Glasgow Southside constituency party members: “I have known in my heart for a while that the time is right for me to embrace different opportunities in a new chapter of my life.”In the letter, which she also posted on social media, Sturgeon – who has been a member of the Scottish parliament since its inception in 1999 and the first woman to lead her party and country – said she hoped the policies she had implemented as first minister – including the Scottish child payment, expanded early years education, investment in housing and new hospitals – had benefited people across Scotland.Sturgeon, who remains popular among many sections of the SNP, also addressed party members across the country in her social media post, telling them: “I may be leaving parliament, but I will be by your side every step of the way as we complete our journey to independence.”She added that “given the challenges facing the world today, it is more important than ever that progressive voices continue to speak up for fairness, equality and dignity for all”

As Starmer prepares to cut the number of quangos, what are they and what do they do?

Keir Starmer will this week set out plans to cut some quangos to reduce red tape and a bloated state, helping with economic growth. Politicians have embarked on similar programmes before. This is what quangos are and what they do:A quango is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation, although the government calls them “arm’s length bodies” or ALBs. They oversee regulations for the government and operate independently from politicians.Everything from the running of the NHS to issuing driving licences, maintaining railways and monitoring food standards is carried out by ALBs

Plan to cut thousands of civil service jobs in radical government shake-up

A radical blueprint for reforming the state is being drawn up by government officials, including a crackdown on quangos and thousands more civil service job cuts, the Guardian understands.Proposals to restructure NHS England, with entire teams axed to save money and avoid duplication, could be replicated across a range of arm’s length bodies that spend about £353bn of public money.Separately, No 10 and the Treasury are understood to be taking a close interest in proposals drawn up by Labour Together, a thinktank with close links to the government, to reshape the state under plans dubbed “project chainsaw”.The project’s nickname is a reference to Elon Musk’s stunt wielding a chainsaw to symbolise controversial government cuts for Donald Trump’s administration.Keir Starmer told his cabinet at their weekly meeting on Tuesday that they should stop “outsourcing” decisions to regulators and quangos and take more responsibility for their own departments

Labour used to give the needy the benefit of the doubt. Now they slash their benefits | John Crace

You can’t help feeling we are on an inexorably depressing race to the bottom. A highway to hell. Or possibly heaven for the more perverse. A mission to make people’s lives as miserable as possible. To believe the worst of everyone

Give back taxpayers’ cash for failed ‘fun factory’, Hastings MP tells Tory donor

The Conservative donor Lubov Chernukhin is facing calls to hand back £150,000 of taxpayer cash given to her company to help fund a “fun factory” and amusement arcade in Hastings that closed after less than a year.Helena Dollimore, the Labour MP for Hastings and Rye, said the town now “wants its money back” after the venture known as Owens failed, leaving a depressing boarded-up shopfront dominating the high street.She said Chernukhin, who recently donated £70,000 to the shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, should refund the money now that the project was in administration. Dollimore called on Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, not to accept any more donations from Chernukhin unless the grant were returned.Chernukhin, a businesswoman who has given more than £2m to the Conservatives since 2014 and is married to a former Russian finance minister, co-founded the Owens entertainment centre in the East Sussex seaside town in October 2022