Displaying items by tag: Government

The amount suppliers charge for energy was cut by Ofgem to £3,280 as wholesale prices fell. But bills will still rise in April as government help eases. Ofgem's announcement does not affect each household’s payment for energy units but it reduces costs that the government faces. Average household bills will rise from £2,100 to £3,000 annually in April because government help (Energy Price Guarantee) becomes less generous and a £400 winter discount on bills ends. The TUC’s general secretary said, ‘Energy bills are out of control. The government must cancel April's hike. As costs of wholesale gas plummet, ministers have no excuse for not stepping in.’ Under the government guarantee, a household using a typical amount of gas and electricity in England, Wales and Scotland is paying £2,500 a year. Without state support, that annual bill would have been £4,279 since January.

Half of schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities are oversubscribed. Since 2019 children needing specialist education have increased by 1/3rd. Schools have converted portable cabins and even cupboards into teaching spaces due to lack of room, putting pressure on staff and making pupils anxious. Maltby Hilltop School is a specialist school for pupils aged two to 19 with severe learning difficulties and complex needs. Lack of space and overcrowding in the main building meant Cohen's classroom was a portable cabin, with loud floors and thin walls. The 14-year-old is autistic and has PDA, a condition which leads to a rigid need for control when he's anxious. Cohen struggles to manage his condition if he's not in a calm environment and the school simply did not have enough physical space to provide it. He started having panic attacks and hyperventilating, so he had to leave school and miss out on life-learning skills.

Rishi Sunak has reshaped the government. Grant Shapps is secretary of state for energy, security and net zero - a new department. The government wants us to be a science superpower, but science has regularly moved departments, with many different ministers. Creating a new department enables it to be represented in cabinet. Kemi Badenoch becomes the new business secretary. Rachel Maclean is the new housing minister, the sixth person to hold the post in 12 months. She is tasked with solving the UK's housing crisis. Other government departments have also seen high turnovers since 2010, with twelve prisons ministers and ten immigration ministers. There have been five schools ministers, but Nick Gibb occupied the role on three separate occasions. Appointing Lee Anderson as vice-chairman sparked worries: he vigorously backs the death penalty and a Channel naval standoff, and believes food bank clients do not budget properly. See

There have been Ukrainian anti-corruption reforms before, but stakes are higher now that Kyiv is receiving billions of dollars of financial aid from Western allies. Officials are warned through official and unofficial channels: focus on the war, help victims, reduce bureaucracy and stop doing dubious business. Some have not listened. Several senior officials have resigned as Zelensky begins a shake-up of government personnel. A top adviser, four deputy ministers and five regional governors left their posts on 24th January in the broad anti-corruption drive. There are bribery claims worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and officials living lavishly. Zelensky is responding to ‘key public demands’ that justice must apply to everyone and state officials cannot leave Ukraine unless on authorised business. Ukraine is historically corrupt. In 2021 Ukraine ranked 122 out of 180 corrupt countries.

One patient’s time in A & E: ‘I witnessed the devastation of thirteen years of government underfunding of emergency care. After I phoned 111 they told me to travel immediately to my local hospital’s emergency department. They booked me in for a 9pm arrival time. I imagined I would be seen then but there were sixteen ambulances waiting to offload their patients. The waiting room was a vision of hell. Every chair was occupied. Sick people looking dangerously unwell leaned against walls; the wait went on and on for all of us. I was seen by a doctor at 3am. During those six hours, I witnessed a man with what appeared to be cardiac symptoms collapsed onto the floor, possibly from a heart attack. A toddler was screaming “It hurts, it hurts!” for almost three hours without a break. It was devastating to hear. When I asked a nurse if this was an especially busy night, she said, “This is a quiet one”.’

Amid chronic staff shortages and rising unmet care needs nationwide, a homecare worker commissioned by Warrington borough council sometimes stayed for just three minutes, despite the family paying for the full visit. The council was found to have allocated 15-minute care calls to over 300 people in the region, despite national guidance stressing these were ‘not usually appropriate’ resulting in inadequate care and placing workers under ‘stressful unfair pressure’. The case that triggered the investigation involved a woman with dementia paying the full costs of her care. In 15 minutes two agency carers were expected to wake her, prepare her meal and drink, ensure she ate and drank, administer her medication, change her incontinence pad, administer personal care and tidy the kitchen. Electronic monitoring showed they regularly stayed less than 15 minutes and her care needs were not met or dignified. Meanwhile Rishi Sunak postponed social care funding reforms.

Pressure on GPs is ‘dangerously close to a death spiral’ as doctors leave, says Dr Paul Evans. BMA's safe working guidance states GPs should have up to 25 patient encounters a day. But on Mondays a doctor could have 40, 50, sometimes even 60 direct patient contacts. The problem worsens as the pressure leads to more GPs leaving the profession. The NHS has recruited 4,000+ trainee GPs in 2022, hitting government targets. However, while training places have increased, quite a significant number who finish training leave the system because it is so hard to work in. Rishi Sunak said the NHS was a priority and ‘billions of pounds extra’ would be invested, adding, ‘I'm confident, because we are putting in the extra resources, we will be able to find a way to improve the services’.

Birmingham City Council issued a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) to deter people from gathering outside an abortion clinic with placards and pictures to protect patients from being harassed and intimidated when entering. 40 Days for Life Birmingham are concerned as the order makes it illegal to pray outside the clinic. They are taking the council to court, saying, ‘Through this action, we are not asking anyone to agree with what we believe; others have the right to disagree. We ask for justice, despite our different beliefs. It is disproportionate and unnecessary to ban prayer connected to abortion in an area near a Catholic church and to ban the words “baby” or “mum” in text or imagery.’ The PSPO comes after the Government voted for nationwide ‘buffer zones’ outside abortion clinics. Anyone breaching them faces up to six months in jail for a first offence and up to two years for several offences.

India’s religious diversity is under threat from the spread of religious intolerance as well as government policies and laws. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh arm of the BJP promotes a Hindu nationalist agenda and is dividing communities on religious grounds, leaving the nation’s religious minorities unsettled about their future. Pray for India’s government today: transform their hearts to treat every individual and community with respect and to protect their right to freedom of religion or belief. Pray also that the appointment of India’s first president from an indigenous community, President Draupadi Murmu, will bring positive changes for all India’s indigenous communities. Heavenly Father, we pray for Your protection over all the nation’s religious minorities. We pray that those in power will respect and acknowledge the right of everyone to freedom of religion or belief. Where there is unrest, bring peace, and where there is persecution, we ask for impartiality.

Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, once called ‘Jerusalem of the East,’ can no longer claim that title as the Juche doctrine is now its religion, with the Kims as its deities. Christian church information is limited. It survives as an underground church where meetings are held in secret. If members are caught, they will go to prison or a labour camp. Intense media control means that few North Koreans have heard the name of Jesus. The government dictates people’s lifestyle through generic provisions and limiting personal differences. Much of North Korea is underdeveloped., and natural disasters and military spending have strapped the economy. In the past fifteen years, two million people have died due to food shortages. The country relies on foreign aid to feed its people. North Korea is accused of torture, slavery, public executions, forced abortions, infanticides, as well as detaining possibly as many as 200,000 political prisoners.