Labour’s Shadow
Secretary of State for Housing John Healey MP, responding to the government’s
announcement on renting, said:

“These disappointing proposals fall far short of what is
needed.

"Government figures show that affordable housebuilding has
fallen to the lowest level in 24 years, with the number of homes being built
for social rent now at the lowest level since records began.

"Ministers continue to do next to nothing to help people who
rent from a private landlord and have consistently blocked Labour’s attempts to
change the law to control costs and give renters security.

"Ministers even voted down Labour’s efforts to ensure
that private rented homes were simply fit for human habitation.

"After seven years of
failure on housing, renters deserve better than this.”

Andy McDonald MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary
of State for Transport, commenting on a report
by the Commons Transport Select Committee, said:

“Privatised rail has left us with a fragmented and
inefficient network that drives up costs and under delivers.

“A railway works best as an integrated network but
privatisation and franchising have meant breaking it up to create opportunities
for companies to extract a profit, resulting in costly inefficiencies. For
example, hundreds of people are employed full time on the railway to argue
about which company is responsible for delays.

“It’s not just that money which should be used to
improve services or keep fares down is syphoned off or wasted, we have a
confusing fare structure and services are disjointed and difficult to use for
passengers.

“The current system is broken. It is time for
our railways to be run under public ownership, in the public interest as an
integrated national asset with affordable fares for all and long-term
investment in the railway network.”

China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) has promised severe punishments for economic crimes that affect interests of lots of people, including illegally absorbing public deposits and fundraising fraud.

It also urged procuratorates to give more priority to the prevention of financial risks, cracking down on crimes such as money laundering and underground banking, and take an active part in Internet financial risk management, according to an SPP statement.

The SPP also pledged to strengthen work against manipulation and insider trading in securities and futures markets, and in supervision of property markets.

High-profile cases of financial crimes have been reported in China in the past years, including the illegal fund-raising activity of Ezubao and the case of Xu Xiang, general manager of a Shanghai-based investment company indicted for allegedly manipulating the securities market.

In 2016, 304 department-level officials from central government bodies received disciplinary punishment, according to disciplinary authorities.

Among the 304 officials, 126 were punished for violating the “eight-point” guidelines against bureaucracy and extravagance, according to a work conference on disciplinary work of central government bodies.

In 2016, discipline inspection authorities dealt with over 22,500 tip-offs concerning disciplinary violations of central state agencies’ officials, four times that of the previous year.