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Government calls on union to accept deal and end Birmingham bin strike
The government has reiterated its call for the Unite union to accept a deal being offered by Birmingham city council to end the strike which has left the city with masses of uncollected refuse. The union has accused the council of repeatedly “shifting the goalposts”.
Business and trade minister Sarah Jones said “Fundamentally what needs to happen now is the strike needs to be called off. Unite need to accept the offer that’s on the table. It’s a good offer and that is what we are asking them to do.”
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, national lead officer at Unite Onay Kasab said “The fact is that the council have shifted the goalposts on several occasions. I think different political decisions need to be made. Why should working people be forced to pay the price for austerity? Why should our members pay the price for cuts to local authorities?”
He accused the council of attempting to harmonise pay downwards, and in an interview on Times Radio said “The offer from the council would still lead to a sharp, cliff edge drop in pay, up to £8,000 a year, for our members. They have told us in negotiations that they’re looking to cut the pay of drivers from around £40,000 to £32,000 a year.”
Speaking to the Birmingham Live website, one local resident who wished to remain anonymous said the union “keep rejecting stuff but nobody knows what they are rejecting”, adding “It’s not like they’re doing it on purpose, they probably live around here themselves. They can see it themselves. Their streets aren’t getting cleaned either.”
Another resident, Adam Yasin, said “It has been really bad, especially where I live, there are a lot of restaurants there. Today they collected the rubbish that was on the floor, so the bags that were on the floor, but the bins are still left. It’s more to do with hygiene on the streets. It’s annoying, and when the kids are there they like to touch things as well.”
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Business secretary says there may be a 'different employment footprint' at British Steel in future
The business secretary has said that he might accept offers of involvement with British Steel from Chinese companies, but would “look at a Chinese firm in a different way” from other bidders. He also said he would not rule out job losses, saying there might be a “different employment footprint” at Scunthorpe.
Speaking as raw materials were being delivered to the keep the blast furnaces running, Jonathan Reynolds said:
What we need for the long-term future of British Steel is that private sector partner to work with us as a government on a transformation programme.
That might be new technology, new facilities, that might have a different employment footprint. The staff here absolutely know that, they know they need a long-term future.
These blast furnaces have given this country nearly a century of service in one case, so they know they need the future and that might be a different model, different technology. What they didn’t want was the unplanned, uncontrolled shutdown of the blast furnaces with thousands of job losses and no plan in place for the future.
And by what we’ve been able to do, working with the brilliant team here at British Steel, is secure the possibility of that better future – and I for one am confident that we’ve made the right decision to support the people here.
Reynolds said he believed the government “can improve on the financial performance that we have seen” but that the support that has been put in place is “better value for the taxpayer” than if jobs had been lost.
On the issue of potential future partners, Reynolds told broadcasters “I think we’ve got to recognise that steel is a sensitive sector. It’s a sensitive sector around the world, and a lot of the issues in the global economy with steel come from over-production and dumping of steel products, and that does come from China.
“So I think you would look at a Chinese firm in a different way but I’m really keen to stress the action we’ve taken here was to step in, because it was one specific company that I thought wasn’t acting in the UK’s national interest, and we had to take the action we did.”
The Liberal Democrats have urged the government to rule out any involvement from Chinese firms in the future domestic production of steel. Foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller said that would put national security at risk and be “completely unacceptable.”
Earlier Reform UK leader Nigel Farage appeared to try to take credit for the rescue operation, claiming Labour had only moved the way it did because of the warm reception Farage and Richard Tice received when they visited the plant last week.
Some pictures have just dropped on the news wires of coking coal being unloaded at Immingham Port in Lincolnshire, destined for British Steel at Scunthorpe. Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds was expected to visit there today.
GMB national officer for steel Charlotte Brumpton has been speaking to the media. She told reporters that she felt Chinese owners Jingye had “deliberately frustrated the situation in the end.”
She said “They cancelled orders that they’d had and they also sold some of the raw materials that they had already procured. We cannot read that any other way than deliberately trying to run down the blast furnaces in the middle of a legal redundancy consultation which is, firstly, unprecedented and, also, hugely immoral to their workforce.”
She added that the Scunthorpe workforce is “breathing a huge sigh of relief” that the raw materials have been secured to continue operations.
Speaking outside the plant she said: “It’s a huge step. When we were stood here talking last week, there was real uncertainty about whether we would be able to maintain the blast furnaces beyond May.”
My colleague Peter Walker has just had a little to and fro with Nigel Farage at the end of this event.
In his intro, Lee Anderson specifically singled out Peter to the audience, saying: “I think the Guardian’s in here somewhere. They’re probably frightened to death of him [Farage] – the Guardian’s there, look – they’re frightened to death of him.”
Peter was then given the last question of Farage’s session, and joked “I thought you’d never, never get to me”.
Farage replied “You were on the list and we never, ever … well Lee, might have a go at you in public, but I don’t … not yet anyway.”
Peter’s question boiled down to saying that during the speech Farage had promised to rescind all the revenue-raising measures of the Labour administration and raise the income tax threshold to £20,000, but had only offered measures against DEI and councils buying expensive ergonomic chairs as cost-savings. Did he have a plan, or was he not, Peter asked, running the risk of conning the public?
Farage replied:
Well, I tell you what. I tell you who’s been conned … in 15 years, we’ve gone from an accumulated national debt of nearly £1tn to one of £2.8tn. So has anybody been frank with voters about how they’re going to pay for anything?
We have deep problems. The re-industrialization of Britain, beginning with energy, with oil and gas, will, within a couple of years, produce tens of thousands of well paid, in fact, in many cases, highly paid jobs. And it depends how much time we have, but if we can get our hands on the regulators, the quangos who do so much to stifle business. Every small trader I talk to, no matter what they’re doing, their business, is being impaired by unnecessary excessive regulation.
So I’m talking about a cultural change, a cultural change and a country in which hard work becomes something that we respect, where work from home in the public sector disappears, where productivity increases, there’s some of your answers.
The PA news agency has spoken to one of the workers on strike in Birmingham. The woman, who gave her name only as Wendy, said she feared losing her home as a result of the deal being proposed.
She said she is not asking for more money but wants to keep her wages at the current level rather than see them cut.
I’m a single parent and I bought up three children. I also rent my property from Birmingham city council, so if I lose £600 potentially I could lose my home.
So the impact on it, everything’s going up, but our wages are just stopped there. They are rising everything, especially the council rents, but they want to lower your wages.
When you’re on the back of that wagon, it doesn’t matter if it’s rain, sun, hail, snow, ice – it’s a job where you can have a laugh every day with the family you have created in that yard. This is what I like doing. It’s an amazing job.
Nigel Farage has finished his speech in Durham and is taking questions from journalists. He has answered the first by saying: “I’ll make one thing very, very clear, if we win the 2029 general election, we will go to war with the Education union and all the left wing teaching unions. People should be taught objectively, fairly, and should be taught critical thinking, where kids can make their own minds up what they believe and not be indoctrinated.”
He has called for a British equivalent of Doge – the “agency” run by Elon Musk in Donald Trump’s administration – in every county council. That was in response to a question about the Daily Express on what a Reform UK-led council would look like.
Before the Q&A began he finished his speech by taking aim at what he said was “DEI and that madness” and concluded by saying:
It’s not about left or right. It’s about values, and it’s about believing that our country is going down the tubes. It’s about understanding that Britain is broken, and that without the right leadership, without the right change of mentality, and I think most of us feel, within a decade, it frankly, won’t be a place worth living in.
And we are damn determined to turn this round. We fully intend to turn this round, and we’re actually the most optimistic political party out there, because we believe we can and we will turn this around, get that pendulum to come back in a different direction, get the attitudes of people towards work, towards success, towards life, towards their community. We believe all of that can be turned around. And that is our historic mission.
Liberal Democrat Wera Hobhouse has asked authorities in China and Hong Kong to release tapes of her interrogation prior to the MP being refused entry to Hong Kong. She said that the response of authorities had smeared her, by claiming she was uncopoerative.
This attempt by the authorities to smear me and cast doubt on my account is hugely upsetting but sadly not surprising. I was polite and cooperative throughout the interview, answering every question asked of me. I even volunteered personal information I wasn’t asked for, such as showing officials a picture of my baby grandson who was waiting for me on the other side.
If the Chinese or Hong Kong SAR authorities want to assert that I did not answer questions from immigration officials, they have to provide some evidence. Surely they have a tape, or a transcript of the interview. Release the tapes and let me know what I did not answer.
I just want answers. Following these damaging attempts to smear me, I hope the foreign secretary will now summon the Chinese ambassador in person to give a full and clear account of why I was refused entry to Hong Kong last week. Until that request is answered, it will have a chilling effect on all Parliamentarians who stand up for freedom and democracy.
Yesterday Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called on the foreign secretary to summon the Chinese ambassador for an explanation.
Nigel Farage has appeared to have claimed credit for the government moving to rescue British Steel. The Reform UK leader told supporters at a campaign event in Durham that “I don’t believe there would have been a Saturday sitting at parliament if Richard Tice and I had not been up to Scunthorpe and been greeted the way we were, by those workers, especially in the local [Wether]spoons afterwards. They actually felt there was someone speaking up for them. They actually felt there was somebody on their side. And that, I think, is why Labour did what they did.”
Farage claimed “we are witnessing an industrial massacre” in the UK. He said “It’s going on in chemicals, it’s going on in refining. We no longer produce aluminum in this country. We should be self sufficient in oil. We should be absolutely self sufficient in gas. We need to produce more energy and cheaper energy. 21st century living demands absolutely nothing less, and this is part of our strategy. Reform will re industrialize Britain.”
He said “We’re living through a period of net zero lunacy” and said that Ed Miliband’s ambition was to “despoil as much of our coastline as he possibly can.”
Nigel Farage had billed this Reform UK speech as a major announcement, and it appears that it is him saying “Reform are parking their tanks on the lawns of the “red wall”. Today is the first day I’ve said that. But I absolutely mean it, and we’re here, and we’re here to stay.”
Farage chooses the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster to pose with a giant print out of the Sun’s front page saying “Britain is broken”. He has also claimed you wouldn’t know it was Easter coming up, due to what he said was “social and cultural decline”.
His message appears to boil down to, at these council elections in May, a vote for the Conservatives in the so-called red wall areas is wasted, and that to vote against Labour people should back Reform UK candidates. He accused what he described as “the Labour lie machine” of being “in full groove”.
Nigel Farage has been introduced at a Reform UK event in Durham by Lee Anderson. In his introductory speech Anderson described Labour MPs as “a clueless bunch of people … [who’ve] never had a real job in their life”.
He claimed that in the north-east many Labour MPs could “could walk down the street and nobody would actually recognise them”.
Farage has begun his talk with a list of recent council byelection victories for Reform UK at the expense of the Labour party. I’ll bring you any key lines that emerge.
The largest education union in the country will launch a formal ballot on strike action if the government’s final pay offer for teachers “remains unacceptable”, PA Media reports.
Delegates at the annual conference of the Education Union (NEU) have voted for districts, branches and school groups to “immediately prepare” for a formal industrial action ballot over the pay and funding offer for 2025/26.
More details soon …
The Liberal Democrats have called on the government to rule out any future Chinese involvement with British Steel.
Foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller said:
Giving another Chinese firm ownership of British Steel would be like coming home to find your house ransacked and then leaving your doors unlocked.
Domestic steel production is absolutely vital to our national security and to put that at risk again would be completely unacceptable.
The government should rule out any Chinese firms’ future involvement in the ownership of British Steel – and certainly until it has completed and published its China audit. The stakes are simply too high.
Earlier today business and trade minister Sarah Jones said the government’s preference for the future of the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe was for “a private sector partner to come in”. Pressed on Sky News if that could be another Chinese firm, she said “At the moment, I’m not going to say yes or no to anything that isn’t at the moment on the table or being looked at.”
