Policy Announcements, Tuesday 27 February

Government

• Immigrants could be required to do community service before gaining UK citizenship, Gordon Brown has said.During a speech on Britishness the chancellor said adding the condition to language and culture tests for would-be citizens could foster "a stronger sense of national purpose".
• Education secretary Alan Johnson has warned that Labour should not penalise single parents. The Labour deputy leadership contender said in a speech that "family policy must be bias-free". The move comes after Conservative leader David Cameron said society must to do more to support marriage in the wake of the spate of shootings among teenagers in south London.
• Two leading former ministers have encouraged Labour MPs to engage in a "debate" about the party's future after Tony Blair. Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke have sent an email to all Labour MPs and peers inviting them to take part in an online discussion. The former health secretary and former home secretary have called a meeting in a Westminster hotel on Wednesday, sparking fresh speculation over a potential Blairite leadership challenge to Gordon Brown. The move is being seen as a suggestion that the chancellor has no automatic right to become the next prime minister.
• 328 Local authorities across England are to be awarded £316 million for encouraging business growth, Local Government Minister Phil Woolas and Treasury Minister John Healey have announced. The Local Authority Business Growth Incentive Scheme (LABGI) sees councils who have encouraged business growth in their area receiving an unringfenced reward from Government. This is the second year of a three year scheme which expects to see up to £1billion allocated to local authorities by 2007/08. Authorities have received more than two and a half times the £126m of grant paid last year, and 50 more authorities have received LABGI grant this year.
• A new UK strategy to improve the conditions in which ships are recycled is published. The aim is to ensure that Government-owned and commercial ships are recycled to acceptable health, safety and environmental standards, particularly in developing countries. The UK has taken the decision to develop its own strategy rather than wait for the outcome of international negotiations, which are likely to take several years to bring any agreement into force.

Conservatives

• The House of Commons is taking second place to broadcasters in the priorities of MPs, Conservative Party leader David Cameron has claimed. In an interview with the Parliamentary Monitor magazine Cameron agreed that the prime minister had a very poor record of attendance in the Commons. "But whether or not the prime minister appears is not as important as the role of Parliament itself. The House of Commons needs to be put back at the centre of national debate."

Liberal Democrats

• Sir Menzies Campbell has told his critics to "put up or shut up". In an interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper the Liberal Democrat leader dismissed attacks on his performance and suggestions that he is too old. Ahead of the party's spring conference this weekend, rumours of unhappiness in the party ranks persist.