Farage’s plans to reform felony justice system criticised forward of speech
Good morning and welcome to our reside protection of UK politics.
Nigel Farage is to put out plans that he claims would finish all early launch schemes for intercourse offenders and critical violent offenders if he had been to turn into prime minister.
In a speech in London later as we speak, the Reform UK chief will even reportedly promise to construct 30,000 new jail locations to sort out the overcrowding disaster, appoint 30,000 extra law enforcement officials inside 5 years and deport 10,400 overseas offenders at the moment in British jails.
He has not mentioned how these insurance policies will likely be funded and can doubtless face questions on how he would negotiate return agreements for overseas offenders.
A few of his guarantees – like sending a few of the most critical criminals to abroad jails, together with in El Salvador – will even doubtless face critical authorized obstacles in the event that they had been ever realised.
Farage, whose Reform occasion is main many polls, was quoted by the Every day Telegraph as having mentioned:
Reform UK would be the hardest occasion on legislation and order this nation has ever seen. We’ll lower crime in half. We’ll take again management of our streets, we are going to take again management of our courts and prisons.
We predict extra particulars on Reform’s plans at round 11am. Reform’s try and woo voters with a troublesome on crime message stands in distinction to the proposals just lately prompt by Sir Brian Leveson, a former senior choose who was requested by the Lord Chancellor to provide you with methods to cut back the backlog of circumstances within the felony courts.
Suggestions within the report included elevated use of out-of-court resolutions, better use of rehabilitation programmes and well being intervention programmes and growing the utmost discount for coming into a responsible plea on the first alternative from 33% to 40%.
Diana Johnson, the policing minister, mentioned that Reform just isn’t critical about implementing actual modifications to the felony justice system because the occasion “voted to try to block measures to crack down on knife crime, antisocial behaviour, shop theft and child sexual abuse”.
“They should focus more on practical solutions to support our police, combat crime, deliver justice for victims of crime, rather than chasing headlines, spouting slogans and trying to divide communities,” she added.
Right here is the agenda for the day.
09.45am: Sir Jon Cunliffe, Unbiased Water Fee chair, to offer speech.
11am: Nigel Farage to make a speech in London on the felony justice system.
13:00pm: Orgreave Fact and Justice Marketing campaign press convention in Sheffield.
14.30pm: Keir Starmer to look on the Liaison Committee.
Key occasions
Ministers to revive Blair-era Pensions Fee to sort out financial savings disaster
Joanna Partridge
Joanna Partridge is a Guardian enterprise reporter
The federal government is resurrecting the Pensions Fee, amid fears {that a} retirement disaster may imply as we speak’s employees will likely be poorer in retirement than the present crop of pensioners.
The transfer by ministers to revive the landmark fee, established by Tony Blair’s authorities in 2002, comes as evaluation reveals that the revenue of pensioners is about to fall within the coming many years.
There are warnings that individuals who plan to retire in 2050 will obtain £800 a yr on common, or 8% much less non-public pension revenue than these retiring as we speak. In the meantime, 4 in 10, or practically 15 million folks, should not saving sufficient for his or her retirement, in accordance with evaluation by the Division for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The revived Pensions Fee will study the long-term way forward for the retirement system and make suggestions for change. Labour hopes its proposals, resulting from be reported in 2027, will achieve cross-party help and be enacted past the present parliament.
Liz Kendall, the secretary of state for work and pensions, mentioned she was relaunching the fee to “tackle the barriers that stop too many saving in the first place”.
You may learn the complete story right here:
We’ve got some extra response to Reform’s crime plans (see opening submit for particulars).
The shadow surroundings minister, Robbie Moore has criticised the proposals as “headline politics” missing intimately.
He advised GB Information this morning:
What we’re completely not seeing, dare I say, from Reform, is the extent of element that gives that reassurance past headline politics.
It’s all very properly popping out with headline politics and a story at a Westminster degree, however dare I say, with no lack of expertise, with no lack of element of how that will likely be carried out at a grassroots degree that’s going to be benefiting, all of these constituents which can be being negatively impacted from an enormous quantity of delinquent behaviour that we’re seeing, and legislation and order challenges that we’re seeing, not solely right here in London, however proper throughout the nation.
Shortly after turning into prime minister final July, Keir Starmer mentioned the state of the jail service in England and Wales his authorities had inherited from Rishi Sunak was “unforgiveable”, condeming earlier Conservative administrations for failing to construct sufficient new prisons because the jail inhabitants ballooned as a results of harder sentences and court docket backlogs.
Labour has promised to “take back our streets” by halving charges of great crime and has promised to cut back court docket backlogs, and rent extra law enforcement officials (which may truly worsen the backlogs by creating extra felony circumstances …). To ease the jail overcrowding disaster, prisoners in England and Wales, together with some critical offenders, will likely be eligible for launch after serving a 3rd of their sentence – in the event that they behave properly – below new reforms.
Authorities launches Orgreave inquiry, 40 years after clashes at miners’ strike
In different information, the federal government has introduced {that a} statutory inquiry into the violent confrontation at Orgreave throughout the 1984 miners’ strike will likely be established later this yr.
The inquiry, anticipated to launch within the autumn, will examine the occasions surrounding clashes on the Orgreave Coking Plant in South Yorkshire on 18 June 1984, which induced 120 accidents.
In whole, 95 picketers had been arrested and initially charged with riot and violent dysfunction, however all expenses had been later dropped after proof was discredited.
The inquiry will likely be statutory with powers to compel folks to supply info the place essential, the Residence Workplace mentioned.
Joe Rollin, from the Orgreave Fact and Justice Marketing campaign (OTJC), based by strike veterans and activists in 2012, who has been calling for an inquiry for over a decade, mentioned he was “cautiously elated” by the information.
Helena Horton
Helena Horton, an surroundings reporter for the Guardian, explains how the federal government has reacted to the much-anticipated remaining report from the Unbiased Water Fee. Here’s a snippet from her story:
The federal government is predicted to undertake the advice for England and Wales made within the overview it commissioned from Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Financial institution of England, which was launched on Monday.
Critics have mentioned Ofwat has presided over a tradition of underinvestment in infrastructure and monetary mismanagement by water firms since its creation in 1989, when the trade was privatised.
Thames Water, probably the most troubling case for the federal government and the UK’s largest water firm, is loaded with £20bn in debt and struggling to stave off monetary collapse right into a particular administration, a type of non permanent nationalisation.
Cunliffe’s overview prompt a brand new regulator, with powers to “direct”, or take management of, failing water companies.
Talking on BBC Radio 4’s As we speak Programme, Cunliffe mentioned Ofwat had “failed” as a result of “for many years it didn’t have the powers”. He added: “To be blunt about it, it was directed by government to take a light touch to regulation.”
Cunliffe mentioned the complexities of the water trade required “a broader, less monolithic and a less desk-based approach to economic regulation and to the oversight of companies’ performance against their licences”.
Emma Hardy, the minister for water and flooding, mentioned the federal government would spend the summer season inspecting how most of the report’s 88 suggestions to undertake.
A significant overview into the water sector in England and Wales says the regulator Ofwat ought to be scrapped.
Sir John Cunliffe, creator of the report, tells @JustinOnWeb Ofwat was ‘inspired by authorities to take a light-touch strategy to laws’.
#R4Today— BBC Radio 4 As we speak (@BBCr4today) July 21, 2025
Main overview into England and Wales’ water sector says regulator ought to be scrapped
Ofwat, the water regulator for England and Wales, ought to be overhauled and changed by an “integrated” watchdog for the trade, in accordance with an impartial overview of oversight of the sector led by former Financial institution of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe.
The report, commissioned amid mounting public anger about air pollution, rising payments and government pay, says Ofwat ought to be changed by a single physique in England and one other one in Wales.
The report additionally advises eradicating the regulatory roles of the Surroundings Company and Pure England, which monitor the sector’s impression on nature, resembling firms illegally dumping sewage into waterways.
As a substitute, a “joined-up” and “powerful” single built-in water regulator ought to be established, in accordance with the suggestions.
The report additionally proposes stronger regulation on abstraction, sludge, ingesting water requirements and water provide.
You may learn extra on what was contained inside the main overview in our enterprise reside weblog.
Farage’s plans to reform felony justice system criticised forward of speech
Good morning and welcome to our reside protection of UK politics.
Nigel Farage is to put out plans that he claims would finish all early launch schemes for intercourse offenders and critical violent offenders if he had been to turn into prime minister.
In a speech in London later as we speak, the Reform UK chief will even reportedly promise to construct 30,000 new jail locations to sort out the overcrowding disaster, appoint 30,000 extra law enforcement officials inside 5 years and deport 10,400 overseas offenders at the moment in British jails.
He has not mentioned how these insurance policies will likely be funded and can doubtless face questions on how he would negotiate return agreements for overseas offenders.
A few of his guarantees – like sending a few of the most critical criminals to abroad jails, together with in El Salvador – will even doubtless face critical authorized obstacles in the event that they had been ever realised.
Farage, whose Reform occasion is main many polls, was quoted by the Every day Telegraph as having mentioned:
Reform UK would be the hardest occasion on legislation and order this nation has ever seen. We’ll lower crime in half. We’ll take again management of our streets, we are going to take again management of our courts and prisons.
We predict extra particulars on Reform’s plans at round 11am. Reform’s try and woo voters with a troublesome on crime message stands in distinction to the proposals just lately prompt by Sir Brian Leveson, a former senior choose who was requested by the Lord Chancellor to provide you with methods to cut back the backlog of circumstances within the felony courts.
Suggestions within the report included elevated use of out-of-court resolutions, better use of rehabilitation programmes and well being intervention programmes and growing the utmost discount for coming into a responsible plea on the first alternative from 33% to 40%.
Diana Johnson, the policing minister, mentioned that Reform just isn’t critical about implementing actual modifications to the felony justice system because the occasion “voted to try to block measures to crack down on knife crime, antisocial behaviour, shop theft and child sexual abuse”.
“They should focus more on practical solutions to support our police, combat crime, deliver justice for victims of crime, rather than chasing headlines, spouting slogans and trying to divide communities,” she added.
Right here is the agenda for the day.
09.45am: Sir Jon Cunliffe, Unbiased Water Fee chair, to offer speech.
11am: Nigel Farage to make a speech in London on the felony justice system.
13:00pm: Orgreave Fact and Justice Marketing campaign press convention in Sheffield.
14.30pm: Keir Starmer to look on the Liaison Committee.
