Review of the Papers, Tuesday 27 February

Government

• Changes to the way the Government assesses the cost of regulations for business are being planned to counter claims that companies have been loaded with £55bn worth of red tape since Labour came to power. Ministers are irritated by the British Chambers of Commerce's annual stab at the cost of regulation and officials have been examining the basis for the figures. The BCC Business Barometer uses the assessments to produce the headline figures, verified by Manchester Business School. The assessment takes a stab at what Whitehall economists think new legislation and regulation will cost business or the public. Officials are privately scathing about the BCC figures and the way they are calculated, describing them as "not credible" and based on "second rate methodology" which ignores the benefits of regulation. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/27/cbbcc27.xml
• Small businesses are bullish about prospects this year and relaxed about red tape and regulation, according to survey results. Almost two out of three of the 500 covered by the survey are either slightly or a lot more optimistic about this year's business outlook compared with last year. Despite yesterday's Chamber of Commerce report showing the cost of regulation is now running at £55bn a year, the survey by Accelerator, a new magazine for entrepreneurs, and Cisco identifies just 16pc as expressing concern about the cost of bureaucracy and Government rules. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/27/cbredtape27.xml
• Plans to split the Home Office and make John Reid, the Home Secretary, head of terrorism and security are being "actively considered" by Tony Blair. He is expected to give the go-ahead early next month for the radical shake-up of Mr Reid's department which would see him given control over security, policing and counter terrorism. Responsibilities for prisons and probation would go to the Department for Constitutional Affairs headed by Lord Falconer in what would be a Continental-style ministry of justice as his department is already responsible for the courts. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/27/nreid27.xml
• A detailed plan to slash London's carbon emissions by 60% within 20 years and place the city at the forefront of the battle against climate change will be announced by Ken Livingstone. The mayor will appeal to Londoners to stop using energy wastefully and will urge businesses to embrace green technology to heat and light offices and workplaces. Mr Livingstone wants a quarter of London's electricity supply to be shifted from the national grid to local combined heat-and-power systems by 2025. The city will offer "green gurus" to help families make their lifestyles more environmentally friendly, and will subsidise supplies of cavity wall and loft insulation. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2022059,00.html
• Home Office ministers last night moved to stave off a humiliating defeat tomorrow over a key criminal justice bill. They tabled amendments to restore local accountability to the probation service and gave assurances that core tasks such as writing court reports will not be moved out of the public sector without further parliamentary approval. The government is in danger of defeat over the management of offenders bill because more than 40 Labour MPs have said they will vote to protect core probation tasks from takeover by voluntary organisations and the private sector. The Tories have said they will back the move. Defeat at the third reading tomorrow would be the government's first loss on an important bill since the row over incitement to religious hatred in January 2006, and would symbolise the limits of Tony Blair's drive to modernise the public services in his final days in Downing Street. http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2022102,00.html  
• Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, gave the green light yesterday to plans for seven new hospitals to be built under the private finance initiative at a cost of £1.5bn. Her decision to back the NHS's biggest ever tranche of investment will provide modern facilities for patients in Bristol, Peterborough, Middlesbrough, Wakefield, Tunbridge Wells, Chelmsford and Edmonton, north London. But it added to anxieties among health service managers and union leaders that the NHS is locking itself into repaying huge sums in 30-year deals with the private sector for buildings and equipment that may not meet changing medical needs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2022055,00.html    
• The Treasury is threatening to cut defence projects worth up to £35 billion in the Government's next spending round, -The Times- has learnt. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, were at the Treasury last week to discuss the decision to send 1,400 extra troops to Afghanistan but also to lobby against cuts to key procurement projects. These cuts could leave British defence companies without the billion-pound contracts that they are counting on in coming years. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1444192.ece
• Royal Mail is to call for a 6p rise in first and second class stamp prices under a radical relaxation of regulatory controls that the state-owned postal operator will argue is necessary to its survival. Businesses would also lose the legal right to have franked mail delivered to every address in the UK according to the proposals, which Royal Mail will this week put to Postcomm, its regulator. Royal Mail wants this "universal service obligation" (USO) to apply to stamped mail only. The operator is also calling for an end to all regulatory controls on bulk business mail, such as lucrative junk mailings. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3257c6cc-c608-11db-b460-000b5df10621.html
• Tour operators have laun-ched a High Court challenge to Gordon Brown's increase in air passenger duty, saying the whole basis of the levy is flawed and in breach ofhuman rights legislation. The increase came into effect on February 1 but cannot legally be passed on to passengers, leaving tour operators with a bill of £50m. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/715ab6ae-c608-11db-b460-000b5df10621.html  

Conservatives

• The Conservatives have opened an 11-point lead over Labour, enough to give David Cameron an overall Commons majority of 100, according to the latest monthly opinion poll for The Independent. The survey by CommunicateResearch suggests Mr Cameron's drive to rebrand his party is attracting floating voters and firming up the support of natural Tories. It is the Tories' highest rating from CommunicateResearch since the company began political polling in August 2004. According to the poll, the Tories have hit the electorally crucial 40 per cent mark, gaining 6 percentage points since last month and increasing their lead over Labour from five to 11 points. Labour is unchanged on 29 per cent, while the Liberal Democrats are down four points to 17 per cent and other parties are on 14 per cent (down two points). http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2308396.ece

Olympics

• The official budget for the London 2012 Olympics will be nearly £6bn, double the original figure, the government will announce in the next three weeks. The long-awaited announcement by Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, is expected to fall considerably short of predictions that the budget could reach £9bn, but will show hefty increases for regeneration work and include around £1bn of contingency funding to cope with possible cost over-runs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2022017,00.html