Month: October 2023

It comes amid speculation that the prime minister is about to announce the axing of the high speed rail line.

Downing Street has insisted “no final decisions have been taken”.

But Mr Street made an impassioned plea to the PM to “stay the course” or risk damaging the UK’s international reputation “as a place to invest”.

Reports a decision had been taken have been circulating at the Conservative party conference in Manchester.

At an impromptu press conference, Mr Street warned the PM: “You will be turning your back on an opportunity to level up – a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

He said he had been working on a new funding model for the project with more private sector involvement.

“We all know the costs are escalating well beyond the budget and indeed he is right to try to get a grip of this situation – I fully accept that.

“But gripping this situation means re-examining it, it does not mean giving up, admitting defeat you could say, or even, you could say, cancelling the future.”

Asked about Mr Street’s intervention, Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands told the BBC ministers were still looking at the evidence.

“We’re looking at the value for money cases,” he added.

The prime minster and his chancellor Jeremy Hunt have spent the past few days declining to answer questions about the future of HS2.

Mr Hunt did not mention the project in his keynote speech to conference earlier, focusing instead on announcing a freeze in civil service expansion, a rise in the living wage and tougher sanctions for benefits claimants.

Labour’s shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said: “This fiasco shows the Conservatives are too divided and too distracted to take this country forward.

“After weeks of chaos and indecision on the biggest infrastructure project in the country, Rishi Sunak’s relaunch is now coming off the rails.”

The Labour mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham, who was speaking at a fringe meeting at the Tory conference, described reports of the project being axed as “profoundly depressing”.

“This will be remembered as the conference when they pulled the plug on us.

“What gives them the right to treat people here in Greater Manchester and the north of England as second-class citizens?”

Former prime ministers Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron have all issued warnings against scaling the high-speed line back.

The line aims to cut journey times, creating more space on the rail network and more jobs outside London. But HS2 has faced delays, spiralling costs and cuts.

The first estimate in 2010 was for about £33bn; and the government’s most recent official estimate about £71bn.

A long-time critic of HS2, Buckingham MP Greg Smith, said it had caused “abject human misery” in his constituency, and that a remaining line that went from not quite central London to not quite central Birmingham would be an “offense”.

Another Tory MP, Chris Loder, a former supporter of HS2, said the case for the line had not been made to the rest of the country, and something had gone “very wrong”.

Conservative Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen told a conference fringe event that the “indecision” on HS2 was causing a “distraction” as he urged ministers to commit to Northern Powerhouse Rail.

The BBC’s chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman points out that if the HS2 leg from Birmingham to Manchester was going ahead as planned, ministers would have said so by now.

Speculation about the future of HS2 started a few weeks ago, with a long-lens photo of a briefing document being carried into Downing Street.

While HS2 is clearly set for big changes, the internal government process for rubber-stamping those changes is messy and is beginning to spill out into the public view, dominating the Tories’ annual party conference.

The government said 20 targets were destroyed and many militants from the banned PKK rebel group “neutralised”.

The PKK said Sunday morning’s bombing in the capital, Ankara, was carried out by a group linked to them, a member of which blew himself up.

A second attacker was killed by police and two police officers were injured.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is considered a terror group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US.

Sunday’s air strikes targeted caves, depots and bunkers used by the PKK, Turkey’s defence ministry said.

AFP quoted it as saying the operation was “to neutralise the PKK and other terrorist elements, prevent terrorist attacks from northern Iraq against our population and our law enforcement agencies, and ensure the security of our borders”.

The Kurdish news agency Rudaw said the strikes targeted Mount Qandil near the Iranian border, believed to be a PKK stronghold.

They were carried out following an explosion on Ankara’s Ataturk Boulevard that happened hours before parliament was due to reconvene after a summer break.

Immortals Battalion – the group that claimed responsibility – said this is why they targeted the ministry, which is close to parliament.

The incident began at around 09:30 (06:30 GMT) when one of the attackers exited their car and threw a small explosive at the ministry building to distract security.

After this, the second attacker opened fire at guards by the ministry gate, before detonating a suicide bomb.

The first person, meanwhile, ran into the compound and was immediately shot dead by police.

Two officers were injured. One was shot in the chest and another suffered injuries in both legs and an eye.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters that none of the injuries were life-threatening.

A senior Turkish security official told the BBC the attackers had hijacked their vehicle on Saturday in Kayseri, a city some 260 km (161 miles) south-east of Ankara.

They reportedly shot dead the car’s driver, a 24-year-old veterinarian who was driving in the countryside.

The official said footage from security cameras from Kayseri to the Syrian border were being reviewed to determine where the suspects came from.

In his speech opening parliament, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the attack as “the final flutters of terrorism”.

“The vile people who took aim at the peace and security of our citizens did not reach their goal and they never will,” he said.

Kurdish militants have come under intense pressure by the authorities, who have jailed their leaders and conducted military operations against Kurdish bases inside Turkey and across the border in Syria and Iraq.

The PKK, which has Marxist-Leninist roots, was formed in the late 1970s and launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984, calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.

In the 1990s, the PKK rolled back on its demands for an independent state, calling instead for more autonomy for the Kurds. More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict.

Fighting flared up again after a two-year-old ceasefire ended in July 2015.

Local media said 49 people were taken to hospital, after the roof of Ciudad Madero’s Santa Cruz church fell in.

Police in the coastal state of Tamaulipas said around 100 people were at a mass at the time of the collapse. Local media reported it was a baptism.

A number of children are believed to be amongst those trapped and rescue efforts are ongoing.

Images on social media showed the church building in ruins as people crowded around the rubble, desperately searching for those who were trapped inside.

Local journalist Franc Contreras told the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme that the collapse happened at a key moment in the church service.

“The church was packed with about a hundred people, and people were lined up to take the communion – of course that’s sort of the climax of the Catholic mass – and that’s when the roof came down on top of them; bricks, concrete, and of course steel support structures coming down on top of the people,” he said.

He added that according to Red Cross officials the roof came down on pews in the church, allowing the possibility that anyone trapped there could survive in air pockets.

People were said to be arriving with shovels and pickaxes to try to move the debris.

Later posts showed the emergency services were at the scene, following the collapse on Sunday afternoon.

Calls were made on social media for medical and rescue materials to help those searching for survivors.

The bishop of the diocese of Tampico, José Armando Álvarez Cano, sent a message to the community on social media saying that work was under way “to find those under the rubble”.

He said it was a “difficult time” and ended his video address by saying: “May the Lord help you.”

In a speech to the Conservative Party conference Jeremy Hunt is expected to say the move will benefit two million of the lowest-paid workers.

He will also say he intends to toughen sanctions for people on benefits who do not take steps to find work.

It comes as the government is under pressure from some Tories to cut taxes.

The national living wage – currently £10.42 an hour – sets out the lowest amount workers aged 23 and over can be paid per hour by law.

Younger workers are paid at a lower rate.

The rates are decided each year by the government, based on the advice of an independent advisory group, the Low Pay Commission.

Ministers generally accept the commission’s recommendations.

The government had already set a target for the national living wage to reach two-thirds of median hourly pay by October next year.

The Low Pay Commission has not yet confirmed its recommendations for next year but it estimates the rate needed to meet the government’s target should be between £10.90 and £11.43.

In his speech on Monday Mr Hunt is expected to say that whatever the recommendation, the rate will increase to at least £11 an hour.

The Conservatives said this meant the annual earnings of a full-time worker on the national living wage would increase by £1,000 next year.

“Since we introduced [the national living wage], nearly two million people have been lifted from absolute poverty,” Mr Hunt is expected to say.

“That’s the Conservative way of improving the lives of working people. Boosting pay, cutting tax.”

The chancellor is also set to announce that ministers will look again at the benefits sanctions regime to help get people back to work.

“Since the pandemic, things have being going in the wrong direction,” he is due to say.

“Whilst companies struggle to find workers, around 100,000 people are leaving the labour force every year for a life on benefits.”

Calling the issue a “fundamental matter of fairness”, he will add: “Those who won’t even look for work do not deserve the same benefits as people trying hard to do the right thing.”

However, further details on the plans for benefits are unlikely to come until the Autumn Statement in November – when the chancellor sets out his economic plans.

At a fringe event on Sunday, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said the government was already looking at the Work Capability Assessment “so it reflects the way the modern world works”, including increased opportunities for home-working.

The assessment decides how much an individual’s illness or disability limits their ability to work. If someone is deemed fit for work their benefits may be withdrawn.

Getting people back into employment is a key part of the government’s plan to grow the economy and was a focus of the chancellor’s Budget in March.

The number of people who cannot work because of long-term sickness has been rising, with recent figures showing 2.5 million were missing from the labour market because of medical conditions.

Meanwhile, the government is continuing to face calls from some Conservative MPs to reduce taxes.

On Monday, former Prime Minister Liz Truss will use a speech to urge the government to cut corporation tax for businesses to help grow the economy.

She will also call for measures to encourage housebuilding, as well as to bring back fracking for shale gas to help cut energy bills.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the BBC he wanted to cut taxes but gave no detail on when he would do so.

He said tackling rising prices and curbing inflation was his biggest priority and “the best tax cut” he could deliver.

The chancellor has said tax cuts are “virtually impossible” at the moment, until the economic backdrop improves.