Review of the Papers, Monday 04 June

Government  

• The government has failed to provide Britain with a coherent energy strategy, putting future supplies and climate change goals at risk and falling short of what is needed to help the world's poorest countries adapt to rising temperatures, a top-level panel of experts says today. Lord Patten of Barnes, chair of the Oxford University task force, said: "Britain's energy policy just doesn't stack up. It won't deliver security. It won't deliver on our commitments on climate change. It falls short of what the world's poorest countries need." He was also critical of the recent white paper on energy policy. "The government's latest energy review underlines that the UK has a set of energy policies that don't stack up. We need energy policies which step up to our commitments to address climate change and global poverty." The report, to be released today, says UK policy is a hotchpotch of measures that is unlikely to deliver the government's vision. It found the government's strategy was inadequate in all three of the priority areas set by ministers: ensuring guaranteed future supplies of fuel, reducing carbon emissions and cutting global poverty. It also criticises the lack of decision-making over nuclear power and warns that getting energy policy wrong risks creating new enemies in Europe. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2094616,00.html
• Rail passengers face years of overcrowding, disruption and delays as long-promised improvements to trains and stations are finally brought into place. Many of the biggest stations are scheduled for multi-million pound facelifts while dozens of commuter stations need longer platforms to cope with the 1,000 extra carriages pledged by the Government. With some of the projects not even predicted to start in the next five years, travellers will have to endure the endemic problems on the network for some time yet. And, once the improvements do begin, the lengthy engineering works involved will mean longer journeys and replacement buses for many passengers. The Government has promised that the first of the 1,000 extra carriages will be available from 2009, but doubts remain over where they will be delivered and the ability of the industry to cope with them. Network Rail will hear within the next few months which of its proposed improvements will be backed by the Government. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/04/nrail04.xml
• The government is failing to act on a plan to tackle tuberculosis amid evidence that cases of the disease are rising, according to medical experts. They claim that officials are failing to give priority to controlling the potentially fatal disease in spite of a promise in October 2004 from the chief medical officer that he would aim to cut the number of cases within three years. In 2005, there was an 11% rise in TB in the UK compared with 2004. In 2006 there was a further increase of 2%, with a total of 8,500 cases. In London, which has the highest number of infections each year, TB cases increased by 11.2% last year. Britain is the only country in western Europe experiencing a sustained rise in TB cases. The British Thoracic Society says nine out of 10 TB specialists believe the number of cases is likely to rise over the next five years. It is demanding that the Department of Health "takes more leadership on this issue". http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,2094702,00.html
• Nicholas Ferguson, one of the top figures in the UK private equity industry, has broken the sector's taboo on talking about tax by criticising rates that leave buy-out executives "paying less tax than a cleaning lady". Rules on capital gains in Britain allow executives at private equity firms and some hedge funds to enjoy lower tax rates than most other people, often of only 10 per cent. This anomaly has been attacked by a recent trades union campaign against buy-out firms. "I have not heard anyone give a clear explanation of why it is justified," said Mr Ferguson, the chairman of SVG Capital who built Schroder Ventures Europe almost from scratch before it became Permira, now Europe's biggest private equity fund. His comments, made during an interview with the Financial Times, come just weeks before five of Europe's top buy-out executives will face a grilling in front of the influential Commons Treasury select committee inquiry into private equity. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4894a74e-1238-11dc-b963-000b5df10621.html
• The first carbon emissions map of Britain is released today to show which parts of the country are responsible for pumping out the most pollution. The map and a table listing the emissions of more than 30 towns and cities were put together by the Carbon Trust to encourage homes and businesses to cut their carbon consumption. Emissions from businesses were singled out by the trust, which believes that the sector could do more to reduce the carbon dioxide it puts into the atmosphere. Across the country businesses are responsible for 40 per cent of carbon-dioxide emissions, but the data shows considerable variations between towns and cities. In Brighton and Southend, Essex, the business sector is responsible for 33 per cent of emissions, whereas in Leicester, Norwich and Sheffield that figure is 55 per cent. In terms of simple quantity the highest emitter was - to no one's surprise - London, which produces 50,754,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, compared with the 696,000 tonnes from Aberystwyth, the smallest producer out of the 33 towns and cities listed. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1878659.ece
• New rules designed to simplify and speed up planning issues in the home could actually prolong the building process, critics have claimed. Builders say loft extensions could be the biggest casualty of the new planning White Paper with homeowners facing bills of up to £1,000 and delays of 16 weeks as plans go before council committees. The new demands have been described by the building industry as a "tax" on people who cannot afford to move house because of the high stamp duty. Two weeks ago Ruth Kelly, the Communities Minister, announced the biggest shake-up in planning policy for 20 years and suggested that it would make it easier for people to improve their homes. However the small print now suggests that homeowners face more complex and costly processes, particularly for new lofts. http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life-and-style/property/article1878605.ece
• More than seven new laws have come into force every day since Tony Blair came to power a decade ago, new research has shown. The legislatively hyperactive Blair premiership has seen an average of 2,685 new laws introduced each year - a 22 per cent increase on the previous decade under the Tories. A new law has come into being every three-and-a-quarter hours, and that's without adding on the new laws from Brussels, which had reached 2,100 by 2006. Last night the Tories seized on the figures, produced by legal information providers Sweet & Maxwell, claiming they were proof of Labour's tendency to interfere rather than devolve and deregulate. A massive 98 per cent of the new laws were pushed through by statutory instrument, which allows less time for debate in Parliament than the tabling of a Bill. The increase has been marked in areas such as employment law and criminal law, with 40 criminal justice Acts introduced since 1997. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/04/nlaws04.xml
• Water companies are expected to come under fire this week when they report annual profits of nearly £2 billion after imposing above-inflation rises in water bills. Figures to be published this week by the leading water and sewerage companies will show that all achieved healthy increases in profits. It will renew accusations that Ofwat has allowed firms to put shareholders' interests ahead of the needs of customers. The water industry regulator announced in 2005 that the companies could increase prices by more than the rate of inflation on condition that they undertook large-scale investment, such as mending leaking pipes. However, customer complaints are running at all-time highs, while leakage rates are not improving substantially. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=U4KSV10RBOQS1QFIQMFCFF4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/06/04/nprofit04.xml

Conservatives

• David Cameron's authority as leader of the Conservative Party faces a fresh challenge by Tory right wingers after the row over grammar schools - with some MPs now calling for the NHS to be abolished as a tax-funded system. Mr Cameron flew back from his holiday in Crete with a defiant message to his party that he will not be forced to drop his opposition to a new generation of grammar schools, except in areas that already have selection. However, his leadership is facing a new test by the 40-strong Cornerstone group of right wing Tory MPs with a radical plan for all patients to be required to take out compulsory private health insurance. The group, which is led by senior Tory backbencher Edward Leigh and has the support of a number of front bench spokesmen, said in a report that scrapping the NHS as a tax-based system could enable the Tories to offer "massive" tax cuts at the next election. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2611759.ece