Policy Announcements, Monday 02 April

Government  

• Tough new powers giving teachers' clear and unequivocal authority to discipline badly behaved pupils become law this week. Designed to combat disruptive, bullying or offensive behaviour, they give teachers a clear statutory right to restrain, detain and remove unruly pupils, confiscate mobile phones that are being used in a malicious or disruptive way and punish pupils for poor behaviour not just in school, but also on the way to and from school.  
•  Ken Livingstone has called for a 15 pence increase in the London "living wage". London's mayor said workers in the capital should be paid £7.20 an hour, rather than the current rate of £7.05. He noted that almost half of part-time and one in seven full-time workers failed to receive the current living wage, arguing this was "unacceptable". The London living wage is worked out by the Living Wage Unit and provides a weighting for people working in the capital because of expensive housing costs.  
• A network of experienced regional reps is to be set up to move forward Government plans for an inspiring Cultural Olympiad in the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, Culture Minister David Lammy announced today. Each of England's eight regions outside London is to have its own 'Creative Programmer' who will: encourage and enable arts and cultural bodies to get involved, and create opportunities for ordinary people to take part; become a dynamic link between the regions and London's 2012 organising committee (LOCOG); assess whether local projects meet the criteria to become part of the Cultural Olympiad; and ensure that each region's heritage is as well represented as its 21st century technology.  
• Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden today announced a new Impact Assessment (IA) process to ensure that all new regulation is necessary and carried out with minimum burdens. This improves on the previous Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) with a simpler, more transparent process that will be embedded in the earliest stage of policy making. The new arrangements will begin from mid-May and all IAs will be available from an online database making them easily available for public scrutiny.  
• Fifteen areas across Britain will be given £32 million in a scheme to give local areas more control over plans to tackle worklessness, Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton announced today. The 15 areas, which have been chosen as pathfinders in the Cities Strategy, will get direct control of £32 million from the Government's Deprived Areas Fund after devising their own plans and targets to help people get the support they need to find work. They will also have a key role in shaping the delivery of the Government's flagship Pathways to Work programme to help people off incapacity benefit, have access to improved data-sharing, and a greater ability to influence the provision of training opportunities and employment programmes at a local level.  

Conservatives  

• Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie has ruled out entering into any coalition with rival parties after the Holyrood election in May. She made the announcement as the Tories launched their manifesto which included a £1bn, four-year drive to cut drugs and crime. She said a coalition government had failed in Scotland and that people wanted to know what parties stood for. The party pledged to deliver on issues which "mattered to voters". Plans include sweeping changes to education and moves to improve transport and the economy.