Review of the Papers, Tuesday 31 July

Government  

• Unmarried couples who split up will be given the right to make divorce-style claims for financial support from their partners, under final recommendations unveiled today. The Law Commission has concluded that couples with children, or those who have been living together for a minimum period - they suggest between two and five years - should be able to seek most of the same financial remedies as people going through a divorce. Partners would be able to claim lump sums, the right to live in the family home and possibly a share of their partner's pension, under the new rights recommended by the independent body which advises the government on law reform. http://society.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2138257,00.html  
• In the pantheon of Britain's great engineering feats, it remains relatively modest; the widening of the M6 motorway along a 51-mile stretch between Birmingham and Manchester. But in terms of sheer cost, the UK may never have seen its like before. Every inch of the proposed new road is estimated to cost £897. And when construction inflation has been built in - currently 9% a year - the likely figure will top £1,000. Either will make it the most expensive piece of tarmac ever laid, with the entire project, according to the Highways Agency's own figures, expected to cost £2.9bn and take three years. Yesterday road builders tried to explain how widening a road by just one lane could cost twice as much money as Britain gives to Africa in a year. "It is a very difficult way to build a road," said Roger Bailey, of engineering consultancy Faber Maunsell. "In a greenfield site you are in control of your construction planning. But on a live road you have to work round more traffic." The M6 widening, he said, will involve fitting the work around traffic, night shifts and widening dozens of bridges and culverts. http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,,2138044,00.html  
• Private companies' hopes of getting huge new welfare-to-work contracts suffered a severe setback on Monday in what many will see as the first clear sign of the Brown government retreating from Tony Blair's commitment to a much bigger private role in public services. Peter Hain, the new work and pensions secretary, told the Financial Times in his first interview that approach was not his "preferred option" in the "crusade" to produce full employment. In a report commissioned by Mr Hain's predecessor, John Hutton, former City banker David Freud recommended in March that JobCentre Plus should continue to handle routine jobseekers. Support for the hardest to help should be handled by the private sector through primary contracts in which companies would organise return-to-work services and give secondary contracts to the voluntary and public sector, and smaller private and training providers. Mr Hutton had not formally responded to the Freud review but made clear he saw that as the way forward. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d01b0908-3edc-11dc-bfcf-0000779fd2ac.html  
• The government should consider introducing financial incentives for businesses to move freight by water rather than road or rail, a committee of MPs urges today. Just 1% of domestic freight is transported on canals and rivers, despite the fact that carbon dioxide emissions from coastal and inland shipping are 80% lower than those from road haulage, a report from the environment, food and rural affairs select committee says. It notes that in 2000 British Waterways promised to double the amount carried by water by 2010. But by 2005 the amount had actually fallen, from 4.3m tonnes to 3.4m tonnes. The agency argued it was uneconomic to transport goods by water and warned it would create extra costs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/story/0,,2138027,00.html  
• The case for a Severn barrage, first proposed 150 years ago and currently under review by the government, could receive a boost from the recent flooding, it emerged yesterday. Ministers want experts to analyse whether the £15bn proposal to create a 10-mile concrete boom across the Severn could help to reduce the risk of floods as well as generating power equivalent to the output of two nuclear power stations. The Sustainable Development Commission is due to report this autumn on the environmental implications of the project, following complaints from green campaigners that it would do irreversible damage to wildlife in the estuary. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/story/0,,2138107,00.html  
• Plans to force teenagers to stay in education or training until they are 18 could cause mass truancy and criminalise thousands of young people, a teachers' leader claimed yesterday. Raising the education leaving age from 16 to 18 would simply "prolong the agony" of school for many disaffected pupils, Geraldine Everett, chairman of the Professional Association of Teachers, said. Speaking at the PAT annual conference in Harrogate, Ms Everett said that the issue was a "potential minefield" if not handled sensitively and that teenagers should be given some choice over whether they worked, stayed on at school or in training. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article2169812.ece  
• A tranche of motions attacking Gordon Brown's "mistaken policies" have been tabled at the TUC conference in September. They include debates questioning the government's position on pay and privatisation, and demands for a referendum on new EU reforms. The prime minister, who is expected to attend the Brighton conference, is due to face a barrage of criticism from health workers, teachers, civil servants and local government staff demanding he drop his pay curbs and selling off of public services. Two big unions, the GMB and the RMT, are to challenge his decision not to hold a referendum on the new EU reforms, putting them on the same side as Tory leader David Cameron, though for different reasons. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2138030,00.html  
• The Labour Party and its members are set to make thousands of pounds from the introduction of the hugely controversial HIPs scheme, which comes into force tomorrow. The party has teamed up with a law firm and is offering discounted Hips for all its members, as part of its Labour Legal Services. The party's website, which offers members discounts on wills, accident compensation claims, as well as Hips, says: "We are always working to bring our members and supporters the best offers on deals we think will interest them. These deals can benefit you, and help raise money for us." Hips were originally designed to speed up the house buying process and - after being watered down and postponed - finally come into force tomorrow for houses with four bedrooms or more. However, the scheme remains hugely controversial. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/31/nhips131.xml  
• Prisons are being stretched to breaking point by the huge increase in "ferocious and unjust" indeterminate jail sentences, penal reformers have warned. A report by the Prison Reform Trust called on ministers to review the law, which allows prisoners to be held as long as they are deemed to represent a danger to the public. The sentences, which have no fixed release date, were introduced in 2004 to deal with some of Britain's most dangerous offenders. But the trust's report said more than 3,000 indeterminate sentences have been passed over the past two years. It said that figure was expected to increase to more than 12,000 by 2012. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2819594.ece