Summary of the day …
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has defended the government’s record on prisons and sentencing in England and Wales after criticism from senior security officials, but said “we can’t build our way out of” prison capacity pressures in the short term. The Times newspaper reported that the heads of the Metropolitan police, MI5 and the National Crime Agency have told the government that plans to release prisoners early could be of “net detriment to public safety.”
Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Josh Babarinde said Labour had “failed to step up and tackle the scale of the problem”, while shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately accused the government of doing “a terrible job on keeping the country safe”
Angela Rayner has said Labour are not “bulldozing over the greenbelt” and that the government “won’t be compromising on nature” with changes to planning on small and medium housing developments, after criticism of the policy. She said “this is pragmatism, but we’ll be able to protect nature at the same time”
Co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, Adrian Ramsay, said that Labour’s plans to relax some environmental planning regulations are “outrageous”. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook had earlier claimed during his media round that the plans to relax environmental regulations on building projects offered a “win-win for both nature and the economy”
Thames Water has been hit with a record £104m fine over environmental breaches involving sewage spills, after failing to operate and manage its treatment works and wastewater networks effectively. Green party of England and Wales MP for North Herefordshire Ellie Chowns said Ofwat’s fine was “long overdue”
The nature-friendly farming budget is set to be slashed in the UK spending review, with only small farms allowed to apply. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson on the enivronment, Tim Farron, said “the Government is treating rural communities with gobsmacking contempt” and that it would be “yet another nail in the coffin of farming in this country”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has challenged Nigel Farage to debate him face to face as the row between the two men over Reform UK’s racist byelection advert grew more ferocious
Deputy first minister Kate Forbes has demanded “decisive action” from the UK government, saying Labour ministers need to “counter the damaging economic impacts of Brexit”, after data showed a slight downturn in Scotland’s GDP
Northern Ireland’s health service is expected to face a £600m budget shortfall
The head of the London’s police has opposed a call by mayor Sadiq Khan to decriminalise some cannabis possession
Grocery price inflation in the UK jumped to 4.1% in the past month
Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, Wera Hobhouse, said Conservatives should be ‘ashamed of their failures’ over prepayment energy meters (PPMs) after Ofgem announced eight companies will hand out compensation and support after a review into consumers struggling with energy bills who were forced to have pay-as-you-go meters installed
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for today. Thank you for reading and all your comments. I will see you again on the website soon.
PA Media reports that Northern Ireland’s health service is expected to face a £600m budget shortfall.
Stormont’s health minister Mike Nesbitt (UUP) described financial plans being finalised which will be “unprecedented in their scale and ambition” and involve “extremely difficult and painful savings measures”.
In a written statement to the Assembly on Wednesday afternoon, Nesbitt said the projected £600m is the “scale of the gap between existing funding and what’s needed to maintain services”.
