Threats to nature in Labour’s planning bill | Letter

Re your article (Planning bill ‘throws environmental protection to the wind’, say UK nature chiefs, 9 April), while Labour’s planning and infrastructure bill aims for 1.5m homes to spur economic growth, part 3 of the bill threatens both nature and delivery.The UK’s wildlife has declined 19% since 1970, with 16% of species at risk. Yet part 3’s environmental delivery plans allow developers to pay an unquantified levy for vague restoration, sidestepping the Environment Act’s principles of prevention and precaution, and risking irreversible harm to our iconic ecosystems such as chalk streams and woodlands.The bill’s “overall improvement test” rests on weak “likely” benefits outweighing harm, ignoring scientific evidence, bypassing existing safeguards and failing to guarantee delivery of biodiversity gains

Nigel Farage says Reform UK is ‘parking its tanks’ on Labour’s lawn

Nigel Farage has promised that Reform UK’s tanks are “on the lawns of the red wall” as he openly targeted Labour in a local elections speech heavy on Trump-like rhetoric but light on policy detail.For his biggest set-piece event yet in a campaign in which his party hopes to win a slew of councillors in northern England and Midlands, Farage spoke at a working men’s club in County Durham – very deliberate symbolism in what was the Sedgefield constituency of Tony Blair.“Reform are parking their tanks on the lawns of the red wall,” Farage told Reform activists and candidates in Newton Aycliffe. “Today is the first day I’ve said that, but I absolutely mean it, and we’re here, and we’re here to stay.“If you are considering voting Conservative in these areas, you are wasting your vote, because if you want a party that can beat Labour, it is now very clearly Reform

Birmingham bin strikes could spread, union leader warns

Bin strikes could spread to other council areas across the country as cash-strapped local authorities make further cuts, a union leader has warned as the dispute between refuse workers and the city council in Birmingham continues.There have been warnings of a public health emergency in Birmingham as bin bags have piled up in the streets and there has been an influx of rats, more than a month after refuse collectors launched an all-out indefinite strike.The general secretary of Unite, which is representing the striking bin workers, said there could be more strikes in other parts of the country as workers pushed back against pay cuts and job losses.“If other councils decide to make low-paid workers pay for bad decisions that they did not make, workers paying the price yet again, then absolutely, of course, we all have to take action in those other areas,” Sharon Graham told LBC.Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Onay Kasab, the union’s national lead officer, added: “If other local authorities look to cut the pay of essential public service workers, then there is the potential for strike action spreading

Another UK government is doing contradictory things when it comes to China

As even Donald Trump was forced to accept in scaling back his latest tariffs, China is just too big to ignore. And so it is, on a much smaller scale, that yet another UK government is doing several contradictory things at once when it comes to Beijing.This weekend brought a particularly resonant example. On the one hand, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, was hinting that British Steel’s Chinese owner, Jingye, was to blame for neglect – if not worse – over the fate of the threatened blast furnaces at Scunthorpe.Yet at the same time one of Reynolds’s own ministers, Douglas Alexander, was attending a major consumer goods fair in Hainan, the tropical island on China’s southern tip, before holding trade-linked talks in Hong Kong, a visit that was not promoted in advance

Tulip Siddiq decries Bangladesh arrest warrant as ‘politically motivated smear’

The former City minister Tulip Siddiq has said an arrest warrant issued against her in Bangladesh over allegations she illegally received a plot of land from her aunt, the country’s ousted former prime minister, is a “politically motivated smear campaign”.Speaking to reporters on Monday, the Hampstead and Highgate MP said: “No one from the Bangladeshi authorities has contacted me. The entire time they’ve done trial by media. My lawyers proactively wrote to the Bangladeshi authorities, they never responded.“I’m sure you’ll understand I can’t dignify this politically motivated smear campaign with any … comments

UK politics: No 10 ‘confident’ on securing supplies to keep Scunthorpe furnaces burning – as it happened

The government remains “confident” it will secure the supply of materials needed to keep blast furnaces burning at the Scunthorpe steel plant, Downing Street has said.The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “We are now confident in securing the supply of materials needed. Obviously we will be working with the management to identify further raw materials needed to keep a steady pipeline, and to keep the furnaces burning.“I’m not going to get ahead of what comes next, but we’ll obviously now work on the issues of ownership.”The spokesperson added there are two ships carrying materials docked at Immingham port in North Lincolnshire, with “a third ship which is currently en route off the coast of Africa, which will be making its way to the UK”