Review of the Papers, Tuesday 10 July

**Government  **

• A dramatic grassroots fightback is under way against the massive expansion plans of Britain's airports which, despite grave concerns about effects on the environment, are aiming to treble flights and vastly increase passenger numbers within 20 years. In an unexpected triumph for campaigners yesterday, Manchester airport's plans to expand on to green belt land which it owns in Cheshire were rejected by a government planning inspector, who supported the objections of Macclesfield Borough Council. The decision follows a similar triumph for Warwick District Council, whose opposition to ambitious development plans at Coventry airport have halted plans to double passenger numbers. Britain's largest protest against the vast airport expansion plans, which seem to be out of kilter with the Government's pledges on carbon emissions, will take place at Heathrow next month when Camp for Climate Action, an annual gathering of hundreds of environmental campaigners, will spend eight days camped there. The airport's operator is preparing to submit planning proposals for a third runway. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article2750502.ece  
• Local government could be given greater control of the National Health Service, despite pledges from Alan Johnson, the new health secretary, that the NHS would face no further structural upheavals "for the foreseeable future". The suggestion of a bigger role for councils, or for local democracy, in the health service has now come from three senior ministers within a week. Jack Straw, the justice minister, who is in charge of constitutional reform, declared at the weekend: "Too much power has been handed over to unelected health service quangos and many others." Late last week Hazel Blears, the new communities secretary, in her first official speech, said: "In the longer term it is clear to me that we need to be thinking about giving local people more control over their NHS and their police force. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/07fd15e2-2e7e-11dc-821c-0000779fd2ac.html
• Town halls are to be given more clout in determining whether new business-sponsored city academies should be given the go-ahead under government proposals to restore power to localeducation authorities. Ed Balls, the new secretary for children, schools and families, is expected to tell the Commons today that local authorities - sidelined by Tony Blair - will enjoy greater control over the planning of academies and semi-independent trust schools. In a clear change of rhetoric, Mr Balls will also say that bringing in new providers to run state schools must be tied to raising standards or serving the needs of the local community, rather than introduced as reform for its own sake. Mr Balls' statement will represent a "huge shift in tone", according to a senior Whitehall source. To the fury of many Labour MPs and councillors, the Blair government tried in some instances to thrust academies on reluctant authoritiesin the belief that diversity and competition would improve quality. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/230d2688-2e7e-11dc-821c-0000779fd2ac.html
• Kitty Ussher, the new minister for the City, has promised that the government will make no decisions affecting the financial services sector without full consultation and debate. In her first speech in the Square Mile since being appointed 10 days ago, Ms Ussher said her top priority was to ensure the views, analysis and concerns of the industry were fed into the heart of government. "As minister for the City, I give you this guarantee: I will be your ambassador to government and your representative in Europe. Government, business and the City need to work side by side." Ms Ussher told a lunchtime seminar organised by London First, which represents large businesses in the capital, that she planned to be a regular visitor to the City to ensure its voice was heard in Whitehall. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/796c383a-2e7d-11dc-821c-0000779fd2ac.html
• Ministers plan to shake-up Britain's mortgage market as part of a three-pronged approach to tackle the crisis in affordable housing that is posing a threat to the economy and triggering a political backlash, the chancellor, Alistair Darling, said last night. Mr Darling said Labour would issue proposals shortly to boost the supply of long-term fixed-rate home loans for periods of up to 25 years, amid concern that lenders are only offering shorter-term mortgages so they can repeatedly charge high arrangement fees. http://business.guardian.co.uk/economy/story/0,,2122758,00.html
• The government is today criticised by a Commons financial watchdog for seriously underestimating the cost of the London 2012 Olympics - and warned of the danger of further budget increases. The public accounts committee says that better management of the construction project is required if the cost is not to spiral higher than £9.3bn. It also expresses concern about the legacy use of the Olympic Park venues in Stratford, east London, and the drain of National Lottery cash from other good causes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/olympics2012/story/0,,2122696,00.html

Conservatives

• Regional development agencies must "justify their existence" to escape being axed by a Conservative government, the shadow business secretary has told the Financial Times, adding to the political pressure on the £2.2bn a year quangos. In an interview designed to hit back at Gordon Brown's drive to brand Labour as the natural party of business, Alan Duncan suggested the billions of pounds poured into the nine regional bodies might more usefully be used to help business directly. RDAs already face two government reviews that could hit their budgets. The Treasury is due to publish shortly a "zero based assessment" of the value for money offered by the agencies, paving the way for potential cuts in this autumn's spending round. The RDAs' overseas efforts to attract inward investment, criticised as "wasteful and confusing" last month by a select committee, are the subject of a separate UK Trade & Investment-led review. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e2853376-2e7d-11dc-821c-0000779fd2ac.html
• Single parents will be required to work at least part-time as soon as their youngest child reaches the age of five under radical proposals for reforming the welfare system to be unveiled today. The report, from a social justice commission headed by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, will recommend that "living on benefit should not be a way of life". At present, lone parents receiving benefit are not expected to take any active steps to return to work until their youngest child is 16. Single parents on income support of £59.15 a week also qualify for a range of other benefits, including council tax and housing benefit. They are five times more likely to get state benefits than two-parent households. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/10/ntory110.xml

Other

• They have become the fashionable target for environmentalists, but four-wheel-drive vehicles may be less damaging to the environment than the cows and sheep essential to the rural economy. The methane emissions from both ends of cattle and sheep are causing so much concern in government that it has ordered researchers to find ways to cut down on the emissions from livestock, which account for about a quarter of the methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful at driving global warming than carbon dioxide - pumped into the atmosphere in Britain. Each day every one of Britain's 10 million cows pumps out an estimated 100-200 litres of methane. This is the equivalent of up to 4,000 grams of carbon dioxide and compares with the 3,419g of carbon dioxide pumped out by a Land Rover Freelander on an average day's drive of 33 miles. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2051364.ece