Review of the Papers, Friday 01 June

Government

• The PFI hospital building programme has been cut by about £4bn, or a third, in the past 16 months, figures released by the Department of Health show, and further reductions are possible. The private finance initiative has been under review since early last year and the original £12bn of buildings in the pipeline cut back. Pressure to reduce its scale has come from changing medical technology and plans to shift care out of hospitals. Hospitals also face greater financial uncertainty now that they are paid for each patient treated rather than by block grant. Since the review was launched, the department has given the go-ahead to the £1bn Barts and Royal London project, to a £600m development in Birmingham and to seven smaller PFI hospitals that have a combined capital value ofalmost £1.5bn. But the pipeline of projects, which stood at £12bn at the end of December 2005, has been reduced by about £4bn. Further reductions are possible as the remaining schemes that have not yet been examined in detail are appraised. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/69ee02f4-0fdc-11dc-a66f-000b5df10621.html
• The National Health Service should be given greater independence from day-to-day political control, the Nuffield Trust health think-tank said yesterday, in proposals that it said it would discuss with Treasury officials before Gordon Brown becomes prime minister. The current arrangements were "unsustainable", said Brian Edwards, professor of healthcare development at Sheffield University, a former member of the now defunct NHS executive and a former regional general manager. After nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales campaigned in last month's regional elections against any hospital closures, elements of the NHS were "in danger of being encased in political ice", he argued. Parts of the service were already becoming increasingly independent, he said, with ministers having no right to direct the growing number of NHS foundation trusts. A wide range of degrees of independence could be considered, he said - from an executive within the department to a free-standing public corporation whose job was purely to commission care on behalf of NHS patients. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e0ac31ee-0fdd-11dc-a66f-000b5df10621.html
• The number of schools judged to be failing increased by 5 per cent during the first three months of the year, figures from the education watchdog showed yesterday. The rise in the number of schools in "special measures", Ofsted's lowest category, comes on top of a dramatic increase last autumn and means that since the end of last August the number of failing schools has risen by 23 per cent to 256. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e6e0573e-0fdd-11dc-a66f-000b5df10621.html
• Smokers will be liable for an £80 on-the-spot fine for stubbing out cigarettes in the street when the smoking ban comes into force across England on July 1. This is one of a series of measures being introduced by the Government that will stigmatise what is normal practice for 10 million smokers, and - it is hoped - slash the NHS's £1.7 billion bill to treat smoking-related diseases. Supporters of smoking said it was "unfair" that they should be singled out for punishment and vowed to resist heavy-handed use of fines. But anti-litter campaigners welcomed the move, saying it would help end the blight of cigarette-strewn streets. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=2NTTKAY4L2VBLQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/06/01/nsmoke01.xml
• Former pupils of some of the country's most expensive private schools will be eligible for £1,500 handouts to offset the costs of university - from tuition fees to student union bar tabs. A new charity, to be launched today, will be open to up to 40,000 young people who attended schools such as Harrow, Radley and Cheltenham Ladies' College that were caught up in the 2004 Office of Fair Trading investigation into alleged fee-fixing. But their parents, who paid fees set after school bursars met in secret to discuss future price rises, will not be entitled to payments. The initiative has been widely condemned both inside and outside the independent sector. One private school head described the new charity - the Schools Competition Act Settlement Trust - as a "Kafkaesque financial gesture" designed to allow the OFT to save face after its much-criticised three-year investigation into 50 of Britain's elite schools. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/58438cf8-0fdd-11dc-a66f-000b5df10621.html
• Tony Blair yesterday delivered an impassioned defence of his "thoroughly interventionist" foreign policy, arguing that global progress did not come from being cautious or standing back. The prime minister's defiant remarks on the last leg of his farewell international tour referred to events in Africa, not least his role in ending the civil war in Sierra Leone with the deployment of British troops. But his speech to an audience of business, political and community leaders at a business school outside Johannesburg also contained an implicit justification of the war in Iraq and its bloody aftermath. "Progress does not come from the cautious. It isn't born of the status quo. It tends to challenge conventional wisdom," Mr Blair said. "It rarely is the product of refraining; nearly always a consequence of sustained action against the odds. It accepts the pain of transition. It never yields to the notion of the way things are." Mr Blair set out on his three-nation tour of Africa this week with the aim of renewing interest in the continent's problems and in the challenge of global warming ahead of next week's G8 summit in Germany. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/77ed6fd4-0fdc-11dc-a66f-000b5df10621.html
• Firemen are facing disciplinary action after they were accused of sleeping on the floor of their station instead of on new reclining chairs. Three men are being investigated for "involvement in the use of unauthorised rest facilities". A colleague called it "bureaucracy gone barmy". Fire chiefs are looking into claims that they defied orders to rest on the £400 reclining chairs, which were installed as a replacements for beds in Greater Manchester's 41 fire stations last year. It is claimed that they broke regulations by deciding it was more comfortable to use sleeping bags and bed down on the floor. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/01/nfiremen01.xml

Conservatives

• David Cameron will give his backing to the creation of new grammar schools in areas that already have selection at 11 years old, after a revolt by senior Tory MPs worsened yesterday. The Conservative leader's aides furiously denied Labour claims of a "humiliating U-turn" but Mr Cameron's policy to oppose new grammar schools appeared to be in disarray. The mishandling of the grammar schools policy by David Willetts, the shadow Education Secretary, will be seen as the first setback for Mr Cameron's previously assured handling of the modernisation of his party. The row started when a Tory frontbencher, Graham Brady, was severely reprimanded after challenging Mr Cameron's authority by putting out data suggesting that standards in state schools were raised by grammar schools. Mr Cameron went on holiday this week claiming he had drawn a line under the row but Mr Brady resigned from the front bench as a spokesman on Europe. His friends said he did so before he was sacked in the next reshuffle. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2600485.ece
• Andy Coulson, who resigned as editor of the News of the World over the royal phone-tapping scandal, is to spearhead David Cameron's press operation. His appointment as the Conservative leader's director of communications and planning came as a surprise as he has demonstrated little previous interest in party politics. Tory sources explained that he would bring "extra horsepower" to their press team and play a key role in preparing the party's strategy in the run-up to the next election. One said: "This is a very, very senior role. It is top table stuff." Mr Coulson will go head to head with Michael Ellam, a senior Treasury official, who will move to Downing Street to handle daily lobby briefings after the Chancellor succeeds Tony Blair on 27 June. He will replace Tom Kelly, who has been Tony Blair's official spokesman for six years. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2600500.ece

EU

• Tests to allow the remains of animals to be reintroduced into farm feed for the first time since the BSE crisis are being carried out by European scientists. The EU is spending €1.7 million (£1.15 million) on research which would allow the remains of pigs and chickens to be used as fodder. The practice was banned by the EU in 2000 after the spread of BSE, commonly known as "mad cow" disease. BSE was blamed for infecting hundreds of people with the incurable brain disease vCJD. The move will shock consumers and scientists, many of whom were angered by the use of animal remains in feed. The Government told The Times last night that it was aware of the proposals to "relax" the ban. The proposal comes from the European Economic and Social Committee, a statutory advisory committee to the EU. It follows pressure from farmers and food manufacturers concerned at the high cost of disposing of carcasses. A minute from the committee says that pig meal should be allowed for chickens and that chicken remains should be fed to pigs. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life-and-style/health/article1867990.ece