Politics

The Government’s botched business rate revaluation has created a huge and destabilising burden for many businesses – Long-Bailey

“Today many businesses across the country will see their business rates increase substantially. For some firms, it will seriously threaten their viability and continued existence. However, today it also transpires that the Government’s inadequate measures to mitigate these effects are not even in place to help businesses. The support fund the Government promised is reportedly not even up and running and nor is the Government clear on how it will work.

“The Government’s botched business rate revaluation has created a huge and destabilising burden for many businesses. Prior to the budget Labour announced its Five Point Plan for business rates, which promised to set up an Emergency Relief Fund, undo Tory restrictions on the appeals process, bring forward the shift from RPI to CPI indexation, and remove most categories of new plant and machinery from valuations, as well as a fundamental rethink of business rates in the longer term. Today the Government must rise to Labour’s challenge by taking action to defuse the ticking time bomb of business rates and bringing forward additional transitional relief for small and medium sized firms.”

Free prescriptions are a long term investment in people’s health – Vaughan Gething

Since 1 April 2007 prescription medicine has been provided free in Wales. All patients registered with a Welsh GP who get their prescriptions from a pharmacist in Wales are eligible.

The GP is one of a number of frontline clinical experts able to prescribe medication. Others include pharmacists and nurses: prescriptions issued by these are also free of charge.

The decision to abolish prescription charges was taken in light of evidence that some people with serious chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure or heart disease, could not afford their prescriptions and chose to have only part of the prescription dispensed to reduce the cost.

Health Secretary Vaughan Gething said:

“Free prescriptions were introduced in Wales in 2007 as a long-term investment to improve people’s health.

“We were the first of the home nations to take the step to introduce free prescriptions and I’m delighted that both Scotland and Northern Ireland followed our lead.

“We firmly believe by providing people with the medication they need helps to keep them well and out of hospital, thereby reducing the overall cost to the NHS. It should never be the case that people with serious chronic conditions can not afford to collect their prescription.

“Ensuring patients have the medication they need not only improves their own health and wellbeing, it also benefits the health service as a whole by reducing hospital attendance and placing fewer demands on general practitioners.”

“It is socially irresponsible to charge people with serious chronic conditions for the medication they need. Free prescriptions are progressive and an integral part of our health services in Wales.”

April 1, 2017 NewsWelsh Governmentpolitics • Welsh Government

It appears the Justice Secretary is more concerned with grabbing headlines than sorting out the crisis in prisons her government created – Burgon

“It appears the Justice Secretary is more concerned with grabbing headlines than sorting out the crisis in prisons her government created.

“It’s no wonder ministers refused to answer questions from Labour about exactly how many officers at each prison would benefit and by how much. They should do so now.

“The Conservatives are playing politics with prison officers’ livelihoods. They deserve a decent wage and a fair deal. The Justice Secretary must apologise immediately.”

April 1, 2017 GovWorldMagLabourLabour • Labour Party

Press release: Flood-hit farm groups given £800,000

The focus of this round of the Facilitation Fund is on developing a new approach to natural flood management, to help communities hit by the winter storms of 2015 and early 2016.

Organisations such as the National Trust, Yorkshire Dales National Park and the Rivers Trust are joining forces with farmers. They will plant trees, create water meadows and restore rivers to their natural meanders within river catchments in Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Northumberland, County Durham and Yorkshire.

In the 2 years since the scheme began 61 groups with 1218 land managers have been supported, covering more than 273,000 hectares of land.

Farming Minister George Eustice said:

We are committed to helping farmers better protect their land, and surrounding communities, from flooding.

We’re already investing £15 million in natural flood management schemes across the country, making sure we protect homes and businesses as well as protecting our precious wildlife.

This exciting scheme is a win-win and will see us build-up flood resilience while at the same time achieving some real benefits for our rich natural habitats including our ancient woodlands, grasslands and moorlands.

This is the latest in a series of natural flood management projects which demonstrate the government’s commitment to using the best available mix of flood protection measures. It builds on £15m already committed to similar schemes across the country.

Chief Executive of Natural England James Cross said:

The Facilitation Fund is enabling farmers to use natural flood management techniques, such as slowing the flow through river restoration and tree planting, which not only help to cope with the extreme climatic events that the environment is throwing at us but also benefit nature.

We’ve relied heavily on local knowledge from our area advisers and the expertise of our partners to help groups put forward plans that will benefit nature at the same time as reducing the risk of flooding.

The scheme is designed to work with nature in flood-hit communities, in response to priority actions identified in Flood Action Plans.

The projects funded this year add to our learning around managing extreme climate events through natural flood management. This technique uses nature-based solutions to address flood management through activities such as:

restoring ancient and native woodland
creating more wet woodland
management of grasslands, including traditional hay meadow
management of moorlands to restore blanket bog and wet heathland
restoration of river habitat
improved soil management

Across England a total of £5.4 million has been committed through the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund for groups of land managers to improve their local environment at a landscape-scale. This builds on the principles of partnership working to deliver ambitious, evidence-based actions that will deliver for the environment, business and local communities.

April 1, 2017 HM GovernmentHM GovernmentGB • HM Government

News story: Pre-payment meter price cap comes into effect to protect millions of consumers

Today the CMA’s price cap on pre-payment meters has come into force to the benefit of around 4 million households.

Last June, following a two-year investigation into the energy market, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided to put in place a temporary price cap to protect some of the most vulnerable households in Britain.

The temporary cap is expected to reduce bills across Britain and will save the average household £80 a year. The CMA found that people using pre-payment meters had less choice and were paying disproportionately higher bills than customers paying by other means – including direct debit.

The price cap will remain in place until the end of 2020 when the smart meter roll-out – combined with other changes imposed on the industry by the CMA – is expected to tackle issues that prevent such customers accessing the better deals available to others.

Andrea Coscelli, Acting Chief Executive of the CMA, said:

Households across the UK deserve to get a fair deal on their energy bills.

On top of a number of measures to get competition working better, the CMA’s pre-payment meter price cap means that more than 4 million consumers, many of whom are vulnerable, and who can’t easily shop around for a better deal, will see their bills cut by around £80 a year each, saving British customers a total of £320 million per year.