Hunt ‘not even trying’ to settle NHS pay dispute, says Unison Jeremy Hunt has been criticised by the public sector union Unison for “not even trying” to unlock the health pay stalemate after his speech this morning failed to address the ongoing dispute that risks dragging on for months. The chancellor’s “grand vision for the future completely ignores vital public services”, Unison’s general secretary, Christina McAnea, said in a statement. She added: The chancellor holds the key to unlock the damaging health pay dispute and rebuild the NHS, but he’s not even trying. No plan for the economy can succeed unless the government also focuses on essential services. Paying proper wages will halt the staff exodus and mean there’s more money to spend in the local high street. Closing summary Jeremy Hunt has signalled tax cuts will only come “when the time is right” and be matched by “spending restraint”. In a speech at Bloomberg designed to set out ambitions for achieving Rishi Sunak’s pledge to grow the economy, Hunt sought to temper restive Conservative backbenchers’ expectations ahead of the budget in March. The chancellor said he hoped to inject what he described as much-needed optimism about the country’s future, saying he wanted Britain to “have nothing less than the most competitive tax regime of any major country”. He also targeted economic inactivity and urged those who retired early after the Covid pandemic, or struggled to find a new job after the furlough scheme ended, to rejoin the workforce. Hunt was criticised by the public sector union Unison for “not even trying” to unlock the health pay stalemate after his speech this morning failed to address the ongoing dispute that risks dragging on for months. The chancellor’s “grand vision for the future completely ignores vital public services”, Unison’s general secretary, Christina McAnea, said in a statement. Business groups also criticised Hunt’s speech for being “empty” and having “little meat on the bones of his vision”. Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the Conservatives “have no plan for now, and no plan for the future”. Rishi Sunak has said his government is “committed to delivering all the plans that it’s announced with rail” following reports that it was considering scaling the HS2 high-speed rail project back because of rising costs. His chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, also said he did not see “any conceivable circumstances” in which the planned Euston terminus would not go ahead. Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has urged teachers and school leaders in England to keep schools open for the sake of children during the strikes that start next week. The National Education Union’s members will kick off planned industrial action with a national strike on 1 February that is expected to affect many schools in England and Wales. The former Conservative party chairman, Jake Berry, has said Rishi Sunak should have held an “endorsement vote” to show he had the support of the party’s membership. A faction of Conservative members feel they were “denied a vote”, while there is a “perception” that Tory MPs are “disconnected from our membership”, Berry told GB News. Carol Vorderman has demanded Rishi Sunak be investigated for insider trading and called for more “accountability and transparency” within the government. Vorderman referred to a November 2020 from the Guardian on Sunak refusing to disclose whether he would profit from a surge in the share price of Moderna, one of the biggest investments held by the hedge fund he co-founded before entering parliament. Matt Hancock has so far donated just 3% of the fee he was paid for appearing on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! to charity, it has been revealed. Earlier this month Hancock declared he had earned £45,000 from appearing on another reality TV show – Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins. Boris Johnson picked up an advance of more than £500,000 for his forthcoming memoir, according to the register of MPs’ financial interests. It comes after MPs were told on Thursday that taxpayers may face a bill of more than £222,000 to cover Johnson’s legal fees to defend himself in the Partygate inquiry. Rishi Sunak has said his government is “committed to delivering all the plans that it’s announced with rail” following reports that it was considering scaling the HS2 high-speed rail project back because of rising costs. Speaking to broadcasters this afternoon, Sunak said: The government is committed to delivering all the plans that it’s announced with rail, but as well as these very large rail schemes, which are of course important, what I’m also keen to do is make sure that the government invests in local transportation around the areas where people live, whether that’s better local roads, or we’re filling in potholes, putting in more bus lanes, road junctions, bypasses. All the day-to-day bits of transport infrastructure that people also care about. We’re getting on and delivering those too. Why Jeremy Hunt"s economic plan is a letdown Brexit will shake Britons out of their comfortable torpor, turn them into risk-takers and put the UK at the forefront of the digital revolution – that was Jeremy Hunt’s message in his much-trailed speech on growing the UK economy. The chancellor came to Bloomberg’s HQ in the City of London on Friday seeking to raise the country’s spirits, hail the split with Brussels and dispel the “declinism” he says saps Britain’s energy. He came armed with the prime minister’s five pledges and some of his own – “the four Es” – to show he has a plan to make Britain’s post-Brexit economy boom. But those four steps – enterprise, education, employment and everywhere – are broad and frustratingly lack any real substance. The former Conservative party chair, Jake Berry, has said Rishi Sunak should have held an “endorsement vote” to show he had the support of the party’s membership. A faction of Conservative members feel they were “denied a vote”, while there is a “perception” that Tory MPs are “disconnected from our membership”, Berry told GB News. He said: I actually think it’s a great pity for Rishi Sunak that we didn’t have a vote of members. Because in the summer, fine Conservative that he is, he struggled actually to get the support of Conservative party members – as, funnily enough, did Jeremy Hunt in the previous leadership election. I think even though he absolutely got the majority of the Conservative members of parliament – and I support him as prime minister in everything he does – the challenge he has is, even if it’s not true, there’s a perception of the Conservative parliamentary party now being disconnected from our membership. He added that he thought Sunak “would have won it well” if he had asked the membership to vote to endorse him but, instead, a narrative has been allowed to develop about members being “denied that vote”. Carol Vorderman has demanded Rishi Sunak be investigated for insider trading following reports that the prime minister had shares in the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna. Vorderman called for more “accountability and transparency” within the government as she discussed the headlines on This Morning today. Referring to the Guardian’s story from November 2020 on Sunak refusing to disclose whether he would profit from a surge in the share price of Moderna, one of the biggest investments held by the hedge fund he co-founded before entering parliament, she said: Rishi Sunak, our prime minister, co-founded a hedge fund. It invested in the last few years £1bn in Moderna shares. Rishi Sunak said he has put all his assets into a blind trust. He has refused to say whether he holds assets in the hedge fund and therefore in Moderna. That man came out in front of 10 Downing Street and said accountability and transparency and all of this. If you are true to your word Rishi Sunak, do you own shares in Moderna? Because if you do, are we now talking about insider trading? Here’s more reaction to the chancellor’s speech this morning. The environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth said Jeremy Hunt “talked about the importance of education, but there is no coherent green jobs and skills plan”. The group’s head of policy, Mike Childs, said: The only economy of the future is the green economy and right now, except for offshore wind, the UK is losing the race for investment. Instead, the government is sending completely wrong signals by giving the go-ahead to a coal mine in Cumbria and new oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. He called on the government to do more “to seize the huge opportunities a sustainable future will bring”. Here’s a clip of the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, speaking this morning to an audience of City executives and journalists in London, where he said the government’s focus was on cutting inflation. Hunt emphasised his optimistic outlook about the UK’s future in a speech designed to set out ambitions for achieving Rishi Sunak’s pledge of economic growth. Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has urged teachers and school leaders in England to keep schools open for the sake of children during the strikes that start next week. Keegan told the Church of England’s national education conference in London on Friday morning: For our teachers to have an impact they need to be in school. I understand the pressures that most people, all of us, are facing, including our teachers, as we struggle with some of the economic challenges during the war in Ukraine and the pandemic. Inflation is eating away at all of our pay cheques. Keegan told the conference she had delivered a £2bn boost for school spending in last year’s autumn statement, adding that “it may not have been smart for me to have used my political capital in the first few weeks” as education secretary. Keegan ended by urging teachers to “work with me to keep as many schools open and as many children in school as possible during the disruptive strike action”. The National Education Union’s members will kick off planned industrial action with a national strike on 1 February that is expected to affect many schools in England and Wales. The education secretary confirmed that she supported Rishi Sunak’s aim to extend compulsory maths lessons beyond the age of 16 in England’s schools and colleges, saying: It may not be very welcome to everyone but I do agree with the prime minister on some kind of maths to [the age of] 18. We use maths every day in our lives, from grocery shopping, to buying financial products or mortgages, to understanding good debt from bad debt. And we must equip children to deal with life’s complexities. Hunt ‘not even trying’ to settle NHS pay dispute, says Unison Jeremy Hunt has been criticised by the public sector union Unison for “not even trying” to unlock the health pay stalemate after his speech this morning failed to address the ongoing dispute that risks dragging on for months. The chancellor’s “grand vision for the future completely ignores vital public services”, Unison’s general secretary, Christina McAnea, said in a statement. She added: The chancellor holds the key to unlock the damaging health pay dispute and rebuild the NHS, but he’s not even trying. No plan for the economy can succeed unless the government also focuses on essential services. Paying proper wages will halt the staff exodus and mean there’s more money to spend in the local high street. British taxpayers have become shareholders in a further 53 companies backed by a government rescue funding scheme, including a company that makes carbon-negative period products, a firm producing meat cultivated directly from cells without the use of animals, and a “holistic” whisky distiller. The British Business Bank’s Future Fund was set up by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor. It was established during the height of the Covid pandemic to support startups and innovative firms through the crisis, and has given 1,190 companies funding worth £1.14bn in total. About half of those firms have now had those loans converted to equity after they raised third-party funding that at least matched that from the government. This means taxpayers now have equity stakes in 515 companies, an increase of 53 companies in the fourth quarter. The latest data reveals stakes in companies including Sanitary Owl Ltd, a certified B Corp that makes toxin-free carbon negative period products under the brand Dame, and Roslin Technologies, an Edinburgh-based firm that produces meat produced directly from cells without the use of animals. Also on the list is the Lakes Distillery, which practises holistic whisky making, and Cred Investments, which helps professional footballers accelerate their savings and investments. Taxpayers also have a share in Sheep Included, a London-based clothing brand that makes carbon-negative knitwear, and Beckley Psytech, which develops psychedelic medicines for patients with psychiatric disorders. Other companies that taxpayers now have a slice of include Edgify, which has developed AI technology for self-checkouts, Methera Global, which provides super-fast broadband using satellites, and Solar Options for Schools, which helps make schools more sustainable by installing solar panels. Previous data releases have revealed taxpayers have stakes in companies ranging from the sex-party planning firm Killing Kittens, and a medical cannabis farm, to a yoghurt-bar business. Business groups call Jeremy Hunt"s speech "empty" and with "little meat on the bones" Business groups have criticised chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s speech this morning for being “empty” and having “little meat on the bones of his vision”. The chief economist of the Institute of Directors, Kitty Ussher, said it was good to see Hunt “championing Britain’s strengths to potential investors”, in particular its hi-tech industries, universities and financial markets. She added: But while he referenced the current prime minister’s Mais lecture of a year ago that opened the door to using the tax system to encourage investment in people, capital and ideas, we heard nothing about how it would be done. The chancellor himself said today’s speech was “not a series of measures or announcements”. We would therefore add a fifth E for ‘empty’ to his 4 Es economic framework. The British Chambers of Commerce’s director general, Shevaun Haviland, said Hunt was “right to be optimistic for the future of British businesses, which are desperate to grow and prosper”. She said: But beyond pledges to introduce investment zones and to use reform of solvency II to unlock capital, there was very little meat on the bones of his vision. Crucially, he missed out two Es when he detailed his focus on ‘enterprise, education, employment and everywhere’. Without addressing the issues of energy and exports, our economic growth will continue to be stunted. Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, and his deputy, Angela Rayner, have been photographed in Harlow, Essex, today meeting frontline health workers. Jeremy Hunt has been accused by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) of ignoring the “crisis” in public services during his speech this morning. The chancellor ignored the “fundamental issue of public sector pay” and “massive staffing crisis” hitting the country’s schools, hospitals, care homes and other key services, the TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, said. He added: Public servants will be deeply worried about the chancellor’s warnings of further restraint. We know that is usually code for cuts. Hunt and Rishi Sunak “are key to unlocking the current industrial disputes” and “giving public services the funding they desperately need”, he said. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the 2010s when years of under-investment gutted frontline services and ultimately led to the staffing exodus we are seeing today. Controversial proposed powers for police to pre-emptively ban protests they believe are likely to cause “serious disruption” could be killed in the House of Lords if Labour whips its benches to vote against them, the Green peer Jenny Jones has said. The powers, described as “a blank cheque to shut down dissent”, were introduced by the government this month in late amendments to a public order bill that already includes a series of anti-protest measures. According to the civil rights group Liberty, the proposals give police expansive powers to restrict protests they believe will cause “more than minor” impacts on everyday activities. They also give senior officers the power to treat several protests as one demonstration, allowing them to impose conditions on all of them collectively. No 10 has said the changes would make clear that police did not need “to wait for disruption to take place” before shutting down protests. The amendments emerged amid politicians’ frustration at seeing police protecting Just Stop Oil protesters on slow marches along London’s busiest roads. On Monday, the bill reaches report stage in the Lords. If peers vote the amendments down, they cannot be revived in the Commons. Lady Jones said: The Lords have a rare opportunity to stop the draconian shift towards pre-crime. Under these proposals, the police will be able to ban protests that they think might cause more than minor disruption. A government that bans strikes, introduces voter suppression and stops effective protest is destroying democracy from within. Our big hope is that the Labour peers will pull out all the stops and join with the rest of us who aim to stop pre-crime and these other draconian proposals from becoming law. Boris Johnson picked up an advance of more than £500,000 for his forthcoming memoir, according to the register of MPs’ financial interests. Johnson’s latest entry in the register says he “received £510,000 as an advance on an upcoming book yet to be published” – even though he has so far done just 10 hours of work on it. It comes after MPs were told on Thursday that taxpayers may face a bill of more than £222,000 to cover Johnson’s legal fees to defend himself in the Partygate inquiry.