tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/uk-government-10369/articlesUK government – The Conversation2024-03-22T11:54:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2262672024-03-22T11:54:36Z2024-03-22T11:54:36ZScotland apologised in 2023 for historic forced adoptions – but this happened throughout the UK<p>“For the decades of pain that you have suffered, I offer today a sincere and heartfelt and unreserved apology. We were wrong.” One year ago, on March 22 2023, the then first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, stood up at Holyrood and said sorry for the Scottish government’s role in historic <a href="https://www.gov.scot/publications/scoping-study-historic-forced-adoption-final-report/pages/4/">forced adoptions</a>. </p>
<p>From the 1950s to the 1970s, thousands of young, unmarried women – <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19892887.scotlands-forced-adoption-scandal-time-apology-says-kirsty-strickland/">as many as 60,000</a> – were coerced into giving up their babies. “It is a level of injustice,” Sturgeon <a href="https://www.gov.scot/publications/apology-historical-adoption-practices-first-ministers-speech-22-march-2023/">said</a>, “which is hard now for us to comprehend.” </p>
<p>Rooted in conservative attitudes towards sex outside marriage, forced adoptions saw pregnant single women sent, mostly by local health authorities, to mother and baby homes run by religious organisations. After birth, the babies were adopted and the mothers returned home, prevented from speaking of what had happened. </p>
<p>This scandal did not just affect Scotland. It was common practice across the UK. In 2021 I submitted <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/40260/pdf/">written</a> and <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/3219/pdf/">oral</a> evidence to an inquiry into historic forced adoption covering England and Wales. My <a href="https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/205511/3/Forced_adoption_-_briefing_-_ML_27.09.23.pdf">recent research</a> highlights that the UK government’s <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/34106/documents/187682/default/">stated position</a> denying state involvement is wholly untenable, when faced with the historical record, much of which comes from its very own archives.</p>
<h2>Reckoning with the past</h2>
<p>Scotland’s reckoning with the past came from over a decade of campaigning by birth mothers and adult adoptees. They wanted the government to follow the Australian example, where on March 21 2012 the then prime minister, Julia Gillard, <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-19165">issued a formal public apology</a>, following a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/senate/community_affairs/completed_inquiries/2010-13/commcontribformerforcedadoption/report/%7E/media/wopapub/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/2010-13/comm_contrib_former_forced_adoption/report/report.ashx">major inquiry</a>. Scotland has not held an inquiry. But the government has, to date, been receptive to the voices of campaigners.</p>
<p>This same <a href="https://theconversation.com/irelands-shame-reforming-an-adoption-system-marked-by-secrecy-and-trauma-160897">economy of adoption</a> underpinned the mother and baby homes and <a href="https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/mother-and-baby-homes-and-magdalene-laundries-research-report">Magdalene Laundries</a> system in Northern Ireland, albeit from a Catholic perspective. Until <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8638/">direct rule</a> by the UK government was implemented in 1972, Northern Ireland had its own national government with administration and legislative responsibilities.</p>
<p>In 2021, the UK parliamentary joint committee on human rights announced an inquiry into historic forced adoptions in England and Wales. This, too, followed pressure from campaigners and the media, as well as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/03/catholic-church-apologises-for-role-in-forced-adoptions-over-30-year-period">apology the Catholic Church issued</a> in 2016 for the role it played. </p>
<p>The subsequent report estimated that from 1949 to 1976, in England and Wales around 185,000 unmarried mothers – as many as <a href="https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/205511/3/Forced_adoption_-_briefing_-_ML_27.09.23.pdf">215,000</a> – and their babies were affected. </p>
<p>The inquiry found the UK government was ultimately responsible for what it termed “the actions and omissions” which inflicted harm on so many young, vulnerable women and children. Actions included judgemental and cruel practices from a range of state-employed health, welfare and social service professionals. Omissions regarding a failure to protect young, unmarried women and ensure their human rights were upheld.</p>
<h2>State actions and omissions</h2>
<p>My research into UK governmental archives shows that forced adoption could not have happened in scope or scale without the state. The UK government transformed adoption from a cottage industry to one of mass production.</p>
<p>Before the second world war, mother and baby homes kept families together. The mothers trained for domestic service, which, crucially, enabled them to obtain work and have somewhere to live. Adoptions were less common, with around <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230582842">50,000 faciliated in 13 years</a>, from 1926 to 1939. </p>
<p>This changed in 1943, when the UK government <a href="https://movementforanadoptionapology.org/letter-from-dr-michael-lambert/">introduced subsidies</a> for mother and baby homes and registered adoption societies. New homes were opened, old ones expanded and more workers were appointed to handle the growing numbers of adoptions.</p>
<p>It briefly considered nationalising these institutions when the foundations of the welfare state were being laid in the late 1940s. However, the existing system was seen to be working well. Fundamentally, the issue was deemed a moral and spiritual one, more suited to religious oversight. Ultimately no changes were made; money flowed in and babies flowed out.</p>
<p>New adoption legislation, in 1949 and 1958, made the legal process easier and quicker. Most babies were between ten days and six weeks old when they were given new identities with adoptive families. The annual figure grew year-on-year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/27/forced-adoption-mother-and-child-reunited">peaking in England at 16,164 in 1968</a>.</p>
<p>Secrecy – ensured by families – was integral to making adoption work. Adoptive families aimed to pass the child off biologically as their own and keep up appearances of respectability. This meant babies growing up in the stable, typically affluent family environment idealised by health, welfare and social professionals. For mothers, it meant they could return home and begin their lives again, untainted by the stigma of illegitimacy. </p>
<p>The UK government was well aware that mothers were being coerced – that their decision to give up their babies was not just a difficult moral dilemma. As early as 1951, the representative bodies for registered adoption societies highlighted that unmarried mothers had little agency to refuse.</p>
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<p>The nascent welfare state was designed around male financial responsibility for their families. Its failure to adequately provide financial support and housing to unmarried mothers was intentional. </p>
<p>Officials deemed unmarried mothers to be <a href="https://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3561/1/Rowe_gender_and_the_politics.pdf">undeserving</a> compared with married women in conventional families. Their entitlements to financial support were <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2004.tb00339.x">refused or diluted</a>. Those concerning housing were <a href="https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526156761/9781526156761.00007.xml">subject to the discretion</a> of judgemental local and central government officials.</p>
<p>This would only change in 1974 with British judge Morris Finer’s landmark report on one-parent families. Women would have to wait another four years for their legal right to housing to be guaranteed, in 1977.</p>
<p>Demonstrating that historic forced adoptions were the product of central government policy, the 2021 inquiry recommended that the UK government <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/23076/documents/169043/default/">apologise</a>. </p>
<p>The latter’s <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/34106/documents/187682/default/">written response</a> in Februrary 2023 said: “The government agrees that the treatment of women and their children in adoption practices during this period was wrong and should not have happened. Whilst we do not think it is appropriate for a formal government apology to be given, since the state did not actively support these practices, we do wish to say we are sorry of behalf of society to all those affected.”</p>
<p>This belies the fact that the state was far from powerless. It enabled, financed and sustained forced adoption as its preferred policy. </p>
<p>On April 25 2023, as part of an <a href="https://www.gov.wales/people-affected-historic-adoption-practices-welcomed-senedd-welsh-government-apology">official apology</a> from the Welsh government, deputy minister for social services Julie Morgan offered her “deepest sympathy and regret to all affected” for enduring “such appalling historical practices”.</p>
<p>Importantly, Morgan’s statement recognised that forced adoption predated devolution. England had legal, political and administrative responsibility at that time. In not apologising, the UK government is denying justice to thousands of birth mothers – whose numbers tragically dwindle daily – and adult adoptees who may never know the women who gave birth to them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Lambert has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, Wellcome Trust, and National Institute for Health Research.</span></em></p>In the 1940s, Britain’s nascent welfare state was designed around male financial responsibility for their families – unmarried mothers were intentionally disregarded.Michael Lambert, Research Fellow and Director of Widening Participation, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2242212024-02-26T17:19:24Z2024-02-26T17:19:24ZHow do opposition MPs prepare for government? The six key skills that should be on every Labour politician’s mind<p>Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet has now started <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/access-talks-civil-service">“access talks”</a> with the civil service as they prepare for the possibility of government. Being in government is different from being in opposition and Labour has been in opposition in Westminster for a very long time. </p>
<p>New ministers will have to perform their new role from the moment of their appointment, and few in Starmer’s team have any ministerial experience. There’s no manual for the job, though these days some training is available.</p>
<p>Since 2015, former ministers have been telling the Institute for Government (IfG) what makes for an effective minister. I’ve tried below, based on research for my new book, Ministerial Leadership, to distil some of that advice to highlight five skills Labour MPs hopeful of a role in a future government will need to hone. </p>
<h2>1. How to ask stupid questions</h2>
<p>First, ministers have to remember they are politicians and that their value lies in their political judgement. What seems obvious to a politician may be a revelation to a civil servant, who may not have direct experience of how policies play out on the ground.</p>
<p>But ministers aren’t the technical experts, so that also means new ministers mustn’t be afraid to ask the <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-11/david-laws-ministers-reflect.pdf">stupid questions</a>. Unless they understand something fully, they won’t be able to explain it to their colleagues, let alone the public. </p>
<h2>2. How to move from solo operator to team player</h2>
<p>Incoming government ministers must remember they’re part of a team, both of ministers in their department and a member of a governmental team overall. Everything they do in government depends on teamwork, Labour MP <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/comment/ministers-reflect-teamwork">Margaret Beckett</a> told the IfG. Cabinet structures – committees, the sign-off of policies, the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-manual">Cabinet Manual</a> – reinforce that, as does the doctrine of collective responsibility spelt out in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-code">ministerial code</a>. </p>
<p>This is about more than formalities. It’s also a question of how ministers project themselves as part of a governmental team, advancing the government’s overall narrative. </p>
<p>That means that MPs who become ministers need to ask themselves regularly how what they are doing in their department contributes to the government’s programme, performance and perception. Teamwork isn’t always the most obvious attribute in an ambitious political world, but it’s key in government.</p>
<h2>3. How to make use of (and respect) civil servants</h2>
<p>The civil service is not the enemy of government ministers. Most civil servants want to help ministers get things done in an appropriate way. They have skills, systems and networks. </p>
<p>These can be made to work for a minister’s benefit if the minister can be clear about what they want. Old hands still praise the quality of the civil service – some still call it a Rolls-Royce. But as Conservative peer Michael Heseltine <a href="https://www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/article/lord-hennessy-meets-lord-heseltine">says</a>, the minister needs to drive it.</p>
<p>The civil service isn’t perfect. There’s now a consensus on the challenges it faces, including the loss of institutional memory, accentuated by frequent churn as officials move jobs, and a failure to think deeply about future challenges.</p>
<h2>4. How to schedule thinking time</h2>
<p>Protecting space in your diary has been part of ministerial folklore since Gerald Kaufman wrote <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/How_to_be_a_Minister.html?id=pUZ_QgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">How to be a Minister</a> in 1980. Ministers have hectic schedules but everyone needs thinking time to focus on their priorities, sometimes away from the routine of briefings and meetings. </p>
<p>Former Labour minister <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-05/Hilary%20Benn.pdf">Hilary Benn</a> now says: “iIf I had my time again, setting aside time to think [is what I’d do]. Because if you’re in the moment, going from engagement to engagement, box to box, you don’t always get the time to think and you need to do that.”</p>
<p>So ministers need to know whether they are on track. What isn’t working out? What should they or the department stop doing to allow other things to flourish? These are the types of questions a minister must ask themselves to ensure their diary is packed in the right way.</p>
<h2>5. How to find the way back to parliament</h2>
<p>When they become ministers, politicians don’t stop being MPs. They have to continue representing their constituents. The department is not their only job.</p>
<p>In fact, the institutional embrace can be suffocating so, as former Labour minister Jack Straw puts it, time spent in the House of Commons is <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/ministers-reflect/jack-straw">never time wasted</a>. Parliament gives a minister intelligence on how policies are being received and potential problems that need tackling.</p>
<h2>6. How to deliver</h2>
<p>Having a policy isn’t enough for a minister. They need to know how it is going to be delivered and what the critical stages of that delivery are – as well as how to keep track of them. If legislation is needed, policies can take years to implement. </p>
<p>Ministers need to have a view of the critical path to delivering the policy: its legitimation through a bill in parliament, the drafting of administrative rules for implementation, the actual rollout of the policy in practice. There are many steps along the way which need to be tracked.</p>
<p>My research suggests that ministers have become a lot more conscious of the need to follow a policy through to its delivery and implementation on the ground on the last 25 years. They know that the practicalities of a failed policy on the ground can haunt them and the government for years after.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, successive prime ministers have become more obsessive about delivery since Tony Blair established his <a href="https://history.blog.gov.uk/2022/08/26/the-art-of-delivery-the-prime-ministers-delivery-unit-2001-2005/">prime minister’s delivery unit</a> in 2001, so ministers know that the centre is watching. They have developed their own practical steps to check policy implementation. Former Conservative cabinet minister <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-01/Eric%20Pickles.pdf">Eric Pickles</a>, for example, implemented a tracker system in his department to “ruthlessly” monitor progress on the 40 most important items on his to-do list.</p>
<h2>So you’re a government minister now?</h2>
<p>Being a minister demands performance every minute of the day in an environment that is more scrutinised – through social media – than ever. Many feel like an imposter on first arriving. Sometimes the pressures can overwhelm. But it’s all temporary. </p>
<p>The ministerial life is relatively short so it’s not unreasonable for a minister to think about what they will do after they’ve left government. They will be aware that political parties can be particularly brutal to those who no longer have the status they once did. </p>
<p>Those who survive best afterwards are often the ones who maintain external friendships. Knowing how to keep a hinterland is perhaps the most important skill of all. There is a life after politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224221/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leighton Andrews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is no manual for a job at the top of government but a few golden rules are largely agreed upon by those who have experienced ministerial life.Leighton Andrews, Professor of Public Service Leadership, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2221712024-02-05T14:19:56Z2024-02-05T14:19:56ZPesticides urgently need reform – the UK’s overdue action plan must make these drastic changes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572923/original/file-20240201-29-9wbv50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This oil seed rape field is just one of many sprayed with pesticide chemicals. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-tractor-spraying-oilseed-rape-crop-1586693839">Juice Flair/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nature is in crisis, with a human-caused global mass extinction event <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1704949114">well underway</a>. There is widespread recognition that the ongoing global increase in pesticide use is a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00712-5">significant contributor</a> to the biodiversity crisis. But we still haven’t heeded the warning that Rachel Carson’s book, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/57236/silent-spring-by-rachel-carson-introduction-by-lord-shackleton-preface-by-julian--huxley-afterword-by-linda-lear/9780141184944">Silent Spring</a>, gave us in 1962. </p>
<p>If we are to tackle the biodiversity crisis, then radical and specific action is needed by governments around the world to mitigate the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42452-019-1485-1">impact of pesticides</a>. But progress in the UK has not been picking up pace. It is deeply concerning that the UK national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides is six years late. </p>
<p>A plan is rumoured to finally be due for publication in February 2024, but based on a previous draft there are also concerns among scientists and environmentalists that it won’t be sufficient to address the problem. There are some specific steps that these experts agree the UK government should start taking to ensure pesticides don’t continue contributing to the collapse of our ecosystems. </p>
<p>Under an EU directive, the UK was supposed to produce a plan in 2018, but a first draft for consultation did not appear until <a href="https://consult.defra.gov.uk/pesticides-future-strategy/sustainable-use-of-pesticides-national-action-plan/">4 December 2020</a>. By the end of the 12-week consultation period, Defra had received a remarkable 1,568 responses, 68% of them from private individuals, plus <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/sustainable-use-of-pesticides-draft-national-action-plan/outcome/summary-of-responses">37,000 emails</a>. </p>
<p>It is fair to say that there was a lot of criticism of the draft, summarised in detailed documents released by charities including the <a href="https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/sites/default/files/2021-02/21JAN_NAP_PRELIM_FINAL.pdf">Wildlife Trusts</a> and <a href="https://www.pan-uk.org/site/wp-content/uploads/PANUK_NAP_response_FINAL_Feb2021.docx.pdf">Pesticide Action Network</a> among others, and also in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/sustainable-use-of-pesticides-draft-national-action-plan/outcome/summary-of-responses">Defra’s response</a>. The high-level aim of the plan was to reduce pesticide use and minimise impacts of pesticides on humans and the environment, while still effectively managing pests. Almost everybody agreed with that, but there was widespread dissatisfaction with the detail. </p>
<h2>On target?</h2>
<p>In particular, the plan completely lacked <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02120-x">targets</a>: there were no clear targets for reducing overall pesticide use, no ambition to phase out pesticides in urban green spaces or along pavements and around hospitals and schools, and no plan to ban the more harmful pesticides. But several <a href="https://food.ec.europa.eu/plants/pesticides/sustainable-use-pesticides/farm-fork-targets-progress_en">European countries</a> are making significant progress through the use of targets in these areas. </p>
<p>Many environmental organisations also called for more concrete plans to support farmers to properly implement <a href="https://www.pan-uk.org/integrated-pest-management/">integrated pest management</a>. This approach considers pesticide use a last resort. </p>
<p>Research has shown that integrated pest management is an effective way to <a href="https://pure.sruc.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/26612788/14799_300326IPMFinalreportpDF.pdf">reduce pesticide use</a>. It involves a combination of crop rotations, resistant varieties, encouraging natural predators, and other techniques to minimise pest problems, only applying pesticide if all else fails and pest numbers exceed economic thresholds. </p>
<p>The draft action plan offered no mechanism for meaningful progress here, which might have included providing farmers with independent agronomic advice, provision of demonstration farms, and funding for research.</p>
<p>More recently, the government has received considerable criticism over its decision to repeatedly grant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/22/ban-use-bee-killing-pesticide-uk-business-government">emergency derogations</a> (exemptions) allowing use of banned neonicotinoid insecticides on sugar beet. This decision went against the recommendations of both the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65a7e912ed27ca000d27b172/Cruiser_SB_HSE_emergency_registration_report_2024_-_redacted.pdf">Health and Safety Executive</a> and the government’s <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6570a03f809bc300133081c1/ECP-Full-Minutes-Sept2023.pdf">ExpertCommittee on Pesticides</a>, and so does not appear to be following the science. </p>
<p>These emergency derogations were declared illegal in the EU in 2023, so the UK has now departed from all EU member states in still allowing farmers to use neonicotinoids. </p>
<h2>Strengthening the strategy</h2>
<p>This has all fuelled existing concerns among environmental NGOs that the UK government may be using the freedoms of Brexit to weaken environmental protections and that the country is becoming the dirty man of Europe.</p>
<p>Defra has remained quiet for three years since the consultation on the national action plan ended in February 2020, perhaps trying to digest the 1,568 responses like a python having a nap after a large meal. </p>
<p>Now that a final plan is thought to be imminent, members of the <a href="https://pesticidecollaboration.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/NAP-red-lines-final.pdf">Pesticide Collaboration</a> is gearing up to prepare a response. This large consortium of environmental and human health-related charities including RSPB, Breast Cancer UK, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Cure Parkinson’s, WWF and The Wildlife Trusts, recently met to discuss what they are hoping for. </p>
<p>As outlined by <a href="https://pesticidecollaboration.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/NAP-red-lines-final.pdf">this coalition</a>, there was broad agreement that the national action plan’s new iteration should include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>a continued commitment to the precautionary principle and a hazards-based approach to pesticide regulation</p></li>
<li><p>ambitious and unambiguous targets to reduce impacts of pesticides on the environment via reducing usage and toxicity (and not simply a promise to introduce such targets at a future date)</p></li>
<li><p>a strategy to phase out pesticide use in urban areas</p></li>
<li><p>provision of support, advice and training for farmers to adopt integrated pest management, with a clear definition of what is meant by the term</p></li>
<li><p>a commitment to breaking the link between agronomic advice and profits from pesticide sales (at present most of the agronomists who advise farmers work for pesticide companies)</p></li>
<li><p>an end to emergency authorisations of banned chemicals.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Other issues that have been raised by environmental organisations include provision for better monitoring of pesticide use and environmental fate. For example, monitoring of rivers is patchy while soils are scarcely ever screened for pesticides. </p>
<p>It would also be in the public interest for all pesticide usage data collected by Defra to be made open access, enabling researchers to examine links between use and environmental harms or human health impacts.</p>
<p>Few people at the recent Pesticide Collaboration discussion were optimistic that many of these aspirations will be met by the new action plan, if it does arrive this month. There is a keen appetite for meaningful action, not more kicking the can down the road. </p>
<p>If actions are not delivered, this could become a highly politicised issue in this election year. With environmental issues becoming increasingly <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/the-most-important-issues-facing-the-country">important for voters</a>, it remains to be seen whether any of the main UK political parties will grasp the opportunity to win over the green vote.</p>
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dave Goulson is a member of the Green Party</span></em></p>The six-year-late UK national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides is finally due but experts doubt it will be radical enough.Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology (Evolution, Behaviour and Environment), University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215032024-01-23T15:13:06Z2024-01-23T15:13:06ZWhat does Wales’ future hold? New report maps options for more devolution, federal and independent futures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570678/original/file-20240122-25-8l3je8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C20%2C6968%2C2305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales was set up in 2021 and has been gathering evidence since then.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/united-kingdom-vs-wales-welsh-smoky-1354803587">vladm/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.gov.wales/independent-commission-constitutional-future-wales">commission</a> set up to consider the constitutional future of Wales has published its <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2024-01/independent-commission-on-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-final-report.pdf">final report</a>. The Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, co-chaired by former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and Cardiff University’s Professor Laura McAllister, maps three different “viable” options.</p>
<p>First, they suggest “enhancing” devolution. This would see Wales operating similarly to how it does now, only with more powers for justice and policing, financial management and rail services. This option also proposes greater cooperation between Cardiff and London on energy and broadcasting.</p>
<p>Second, it suggests Wales joins a federalised UK system. This <a href="https://www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/opinions/federal-future-uk">idea</a> often draws comparisons to the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/federalism">US model</a>. But the key feature here is granting Wales guaranteed legal rights and defined areas of responsibility, while the UK government handles broader matters like national security and international treaties.</p>
<p>Finally, it suggests a Wales which is fully independent from the UK.</p>
<p>While the commission finds all of the options to be possible, with advantages and disadvantages, it does not recommend one as the “correct” outcome. Instead it finds that there needs to be a constructive and evidence-based debate which engages Welsh citizens, so that an informed choice can be made. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Rowan Williams stands next to Laura McCallister in the middle of a shopping street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former Archbishop of Cantebury Dr Rowan Williams and Professor Laura McCallister co-chaired the commission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Independent Constitutional Commission for Wales</span></span>
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<p>The Welsh government <a href="https://www.gov.wales/node/42768/latest-external-org-content?page=4">established</a> the commission in 2021. It was set up to ensure Wales is ready for any radical changes in the union, such as Scottish independence, for example. The panel included people from the four main political parties, various organisations and also surveyed the Welsh public.</p>
<h2>Criticising the status quo</h2>
<p>The report maps the deficiencies in the current devolution settlement. It identifies how the fall-out from Brexit has exposed the fragility of devolution, through Westminster disregarding the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02084/">Sewel convention</a>. This states the UK parliament will “not normally” pass a law which is within the remit of the devolved legislature without the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/legislative-consent/">agreement</a> of the devolved institution. However, the convention is not legally enforceable. </p>
<p>Since the <a href="https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Gordon-Anthony-Devolution-Brexit-and-the-Sewel-Convention-1.pdf">2016 referendum</a>, the report points out that the Sewel convention has been overridden on 11 occasions with virtually no scrutiny in Westminster. It finds that devolution is at risk of gradual attrition if steps are not taken to add legal enforcement to the current convention system.</p>
<p>In their <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2022-12/independent-commission-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-interim-report-december-2022.pdf">interim report</a>, published in December 2022, the commission found that the status quo is neither viable for the stability nor prosperity of Wales. However, in the <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2024-01/independent-commission-on-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-final-report.pdf">final report</a> the language surrounding this was revised slightly to reflect citizens having a choice to choose “no change”. </p>
<p>The language used by Professor McAllister at the Senedd report launch, however, was more critical. She expressed disappointment with the quality of evidence from those who should have been in a position to defend the status quo. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Final report launch event at the Senedd.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Communication and engagement</h2>
<p>Part of the commission’s work included surveying Welsh citizens. The report finds people in Wales are often unsure about who makes the decisions on different issues. Some people mistakenly believe areas like policing and broadcasting are already devolved to the Welsh government, while others incorrectly identified the UK government as being responsible for health. </p>
<p>The report offered insights as to why this may be the case. This includes an absence of a Welsh perspective on UK affairs in the media. For example, 73% of people agreed they don’t see or hear enough about how Wales is run. </p>
<p>Public confusion is another concern. When the UK government steps in on matters already devolved to Wales, citizens struggle to understand which government is calling the shots and on which issues.</p>
<p>It finds that 81% are very or fairly concerned about how Wales is run. But Welsh citizens also lack confidence in their knowledge of the governance of Wales when discussing the constitution in abstract terms. Despite the maturity of Wales’ democratic institutions, the commission finds that devolution does not yet enjoy citizens’ full confidence, and that Welsh democracy therefore needs strengthening. The findings stress the need for more democratic innovation and community engagement that is appropriately resourced. </p>
<p>The commission acknowledges the wider challenges surrounding the current UK environment, particularly in terms of declining trust in political institutions, and the polarisation of debates surrounding Brexit and COVID-19. It acknowledges that many conflate questions about constitutional structure with assessments of the government of the day, and so greater civic engagement is needed. </p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2024-01/independent-commission-on-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-final-report.pdf">The commission</a> stresses that all options are theoretically viable. Which step is pursued is dependent upon the values and risks people are willing to accept. </p>
<p>The report details the harm independence would cause to the Welsh economy in the short to medium term, making it a particularly unattractive option in the current climate. It also states that support for an independent Wales, or indeed the abolition of the Senedd, are in the minority. </p>
<p>Regarding the federal model or Welsh independence, wider UK input would be needed. This is because some of the issues are outside the current <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8544/">competence of the Senedd</a>. </p>
<p>The option of an enhanced and protected devolution is more achievable, it says. But inter-governmental relations would need to be improved to achieve this. Some 92% of people surveyed believed it was important for governments to work together. The Welsh citizens who were questioned had little time for governments blaming each other, which ultimately feeds disaffection with politics entirely. </p>
<p>The next step must be about moving away from political point scoring and slogans, and widening the national conversation about what could be the best constitutional future for Wales. Politicians in the Senedd and Westminster will set the initial tone but that debate needs to be mature and evidence-based.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Clear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales acknowledges each option requires UK government involvement.Stephen Clear, Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Public Procurement, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207502024-01-16T17:48:06Z2024-01-16T17:48:06ZWhy inheritance tax should be reformed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568903/original/file-20240111-17-t7s1d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7360%2C4912&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/senior-indianasian-couple-accounting-doing-home-1346799704">StockImageFactory.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around 50 Conservative MPs called for <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/inheritance/pressure-rishi-sunak-commit-scrapping-inheritance-tax">inheritance tax to be abolished</a> after the Telegraph <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/30/tens-of-thousands-more-families-to-pay-inheritance-tax/">launched a campaign</a> urging the government to scrap the tax in summer 2023. The move has since been discussed as a potential <a href="https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/AN_1704620581660729600/uk-pm-sunak-hints-tax-cuts-to-be-paid-for-by-decisions-on-welfare.aspx">“pre-election giveaway”</a> in the government’s upcoming spring budget. </p>
<p>Beyond the coming election, another longer term reason for recent discussion of this tax is the <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/inheritances-and-inequality-within-generations">increase in the size of inheritances</a> in recent decades. Inheritances are growing in absolute terms as the amount of wealth held by older people increases over time. Inheritances are also <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/articles/inherited-wealth-course-be-much-more-important-determinant-lifetime-resources-todays-young">growing relative to lifetime employment income</a>, so they are set to be increasingly important determinants of people’s overall economic outcomes. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-youre-less-likely-to-get-rich-these-days-if-your-parents-arent-already-wealthy-194321">Why you're less likely to get rich these days if your parents aren't already wealthy</a>
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<p>This means how we choose to tax inheritances is becoming increasingly consequential.</p>
<p>Inheritance tax is applied at 40% to transfers of wealth on or close to death, above a minimum threshold – currently £325,000. Most people don’t pay it: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/inheritance-tax-statistics-commentary/inheritance-tax-statistics-commentary">less than 4% of deaths</a> resulted in inheritance tax in 2020–21. While this figure is set to rise over time – around 5% of deaths are <a href="https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-november-2023/">forecast</a> to result in inheritance tax this year, rising to <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/reforming-inheritance-tax">7% by 2032-33</a> – it’s still expected to remain low. </p>
<p>One factor holding this number down is that there is no inheritance tax payable on wealth left to a spouse or civil partner. But even if we count someone as an inheritance taxpayer if either they or their spouse or civil partner pay the tax at their death, the total number of taxpayers would still be <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/reforming-inheritance-tax">fewer than one in 10 </a>.</p>
<p>The main reason why few people pay inheritance tax is that the effective threshold at which they (or their spouse or civil partner) would begin paying the tax is typically much higher than £325,000. In addition to the £325,000 that can be given tax-free, there is a £175,000 allowance for residential property transferred to direct descendants. </p>
<p>For most people, this means the threshold rises to £500,000. Unused portions of tax-free thresholds can also be passed to a surviving spouse or civil partner, resulting in an effective threshold of £1 million before inheritance tax is payable for most married couples.</p>
<p>Since so few people actually pay inheritance tax, it brings in a relatively small amount in government revenues – around £7 billion in 2022–23, or 0.3% of GDP and less than 1% of government revenues. That said, the growing levels of wealth held by older generations mean that revenues are <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/reforming-inheritance-tax">forecast</a> to reach £15 billion or 0.5% of GDP by 2032–33.</p>
<h2>Potential effects</h2>
<p>Abolishing inheritance tax would currently cost the government £7 billion per year. As discussed, this figure is expected to grow over time. Abolition would mean that the government would have to either raise other taxes, cut spending elsewhere, or increase borrowing.</p>
<p>Around half of the gains from abolishing inheritance tax <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/reforming-inheritance-tax">would go to the wealthiest 1% at death</a>, whose estates would see an average tax cut of £1 million. Around half would also go to estates in London and the South East, where the wealthiest individuals are concentrated. More than 90% of people don’t have inheritance tax paid on their or their partner’s death and so wouldn’t benefit from abolition.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cup of coffee, glasses, pen and paper that says Last will and testament of." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568907/original/file-20240111-28-agd8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568907/original/file-20240111-28-agd8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568907/original/file-20240111-28-agd8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568907/original/file-20240111-28-agd8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568907/original/file-20240111-28-agd8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568907/original/file-20240111-28-agd8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568907/original/file-20240111-28-agd8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Writing a will.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/last-will-testament-510895957">Fabio Balbi/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>There are some reasons to think that cutting inheritance tax might be popular. Only around 20% of people <a href="https://benansell.substack.com/p/a-puzzling-inheritance">called inheritance tax “fair”</a> in a 2023 YouGov poll, compared to around 60% for National Insurance contributions. However, <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/Slides-from-Dan-Goss_0.pdf">research from Demos</a> shows most people wouldn’t prioritise inheritance tax for cuts, but would prefer to spend the money that abolishing inheritance tax would cost in other ways. Of course, interpreting public opinion is not straightforward.</p>
<h2>Reforming inheritance tax</h2>
<p>Inheritance tax in its current form involves various reliefs and exemptions. These are unfair, distort people’s choices about how to hold their wealth and reduce government revenues. Abolishing or curtailing these reliefs would improve the tax system.</p>
<p>Pension pots are totally exempt from inheritance tax, as they are not counted as part of a deceased person’s estate. This means people are <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/death-and-taxes-and-pensions">incentivised to fund retirement through non-pension assets</a> such as ISAs or savings accounts, while using pension pots for bequests. This avenue of tax avoidance will become open to more people over time, as these pots become an <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/how-important-are-defined-contribution-pensions-financing-retirement">increasingly important</a> part of households’ overall wealth.</p>
<p>Agricultural and business reliefs mean that interests in farms and businesses can be passed on untaxed, encouraging people to hold wealth in those forms too. It’s <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/reforming-inheritance-tax">hard to justify</a> this on economic grounds. A cap on such reliefs could allow those passing on small farms or businesses to be taken out of inheritance tax, if desired, while preventing agricultural and business investments from being used simply to avoid inheritance tax.</p>
<p>A reform capping business reliefs, including the value of pension pots in people’s estates, and treating residential property identically to other assets could raise up to £4.5 billion in tax revenues. This could fund a cut in the rate of inheritance tax <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/reforming-inheritance-tax">from 40% to 25%</a> or an increase in the threshold after which inheritance tax is charged to £525,000. Alternatively, it could be used fund public spending or tax cuts in other areas.</p>
<p>There are arguments for and against abolishing inheritance tax, but addressing problems in the current system is increasingly important and would raise revenues. Beyond the implications for the government’s finances, such a reform would make the UK tax system fairer and reduce some of its perverse effects on people’s economic choices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220750/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Sturrock receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bee Boileau receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust.</span></em></p>Removing certain reliefs would raise revenues that could be used to fund a cut in the headline rate or increased public spending.David Sturrock, Senior Research Economist, Institute for Fiscal StudiesBee Boileau, Research Economist, Institute for Fiscal StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2208812024-01-12T13:33:41Z2024-01-12T13:33:41ZPost Office scandal: why thousands of victims are yet to see justice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568686/original/file-20240110-24-1v7yda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/leigh-on-sea-uk-june-2021-2021139731lovemydesigns">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following the ITV drama <a href="https://theconversation.com/mr-bates-vs-the-post-office-depicts-one-of-the-uks-worst-miscarriages-of-justice-heres-why-so-many-victims-didnt-speak-out-220513">Mr Bates vs the Post Office</a>, which aired on January 1 2024, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak stated he intends to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/10/rishi-sunak-announces-plan-to-pass-law-quashing-horizon-post-office-scandal-convictions">introduce legislation</a> to ensure those convicted as a result of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-post-office-scandal-is-possibly-the-largest-miscarriage-of-justice-in-uk-history-and-its-not-over-yet-211217">Post Office scandal</a> are “swiftly exonerated and compensated”.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a petition calling for former Post Office boss Paula Vennells to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67925304">be stripped of the CBE</a> awarded in 2019 – for services to the Post Office – reached more than a million signatures in the days after the documentary aired. </p>
<p>Vennells has now <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67925304">handed back</a> her CBE, saying that she “listened” to calls for her to do so. Many have questioned the decision to award the CBE at all, considering that Vennells had long been confronted with complaints and evidenced challenges to the Horizon system.</p>
<p>In what has been classed as <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-post-office-scandal-is-possibly-the-largest-miscarriage-of-justice-in-uk-history-and-its-not-over-yet-211217">one of the worst miscarriages of justice</a> in UK history, the Post Office wrongly accused thousands of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/09/post-office-scandal-tv-drama-horizon">innocent people</a> of theft, fraud, and false accounting, based on data from the flawed Horizon IT system. Hundreds were convicted, many more lost their businesses, livelihoods, and homes. The harms caused to those victimised, their families and others impacted, are vast and still ongoing. </p>
<p>The big question is why no one yet has been held to account and why victims are yet to be both vindicated and compensated. </p>
<p>Along with Dr Rebecca Helm, we are conducting a three-year <a href="https://postofficeproject.net">research study</a>, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, to examine what role lawyers have played in the scandal and to explore the subpostmasters’ experience of legal processes and the criminal justice system. </p>
<h2>How has the scandal played out so far?</h2>
<p>Problems emerged soon after the Post Office introduced the Horizon IT system to modernise transactions across the business <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/11/i-am-not-a-mafia-gangster-post-office-investigator-tells-horizon-inquiry#:%7E:text=A%20total%20of%20900%20post,from%20post%20office%20branch%20accounts.">in 1999</a>. Horizon flagged accounting “shortfalls”, which the Post Office used to take criminal proceedings and civil action against hundreds of people and terminated the contracts of thousands, of others. The “shortfalls” were in fact caused by bugs and errors in the IT system, a position which the Post Office vehemently denied for many years. </p>
<p>In 2012, under pressure from the campaign group <a href="https://www.jfsa.org.uk/">Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance</a>, Conservative politician Lord Arbuthnot and others, the Post Office <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18535354">retained external investigators Second Sight</a> to explore complaints of Horizon deficiencies. But Second Sight was sacked in 2015, after it began to unearth problematic findings for the Post Office. </p>
<p>That same year, Vennells defended her company’s handling of the concerns raised by subpostmasters. She <a href="https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/d05cb9e7-04d0-4d05-8a43-ddd74b1eecc0">told</a> the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee, that the Post Office “was a business that genuinely cares about the people who work for us” and that there was no evidence of miscarriages of justice. </p>
<p>555 subpostmasters, led by Alan Bates, brought a civil case against the Post Office which exposed the failings in Horizon, and in 2019 the <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-post-office-judgment.pdf">High Court</a> ruled against the Post Office. This contributed to the Court of Appeal quashing the convictions of 39 former subpostmasters in April 2021. </p>
<p>In his judgement for the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Holroyde <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Hamilton-Others-v-Post-Office-judgment-230421.pdf">found</a> the Post Office’s behaviour in undertaking criminal prosecutions had been “an affront to the conscience of the court.” </p>
<p>More convictions have been overturned since 2021. The number now stands at 93. But many hundreds remain. Some victims have since passed away, several taking their own lives, without seeing their names cleared. And many subpostmasters are yet to come forward: around <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/09/more-than-100-people-contact-lawyers-after-broadcast-of-post-office-drama">100 more people</a> have reportedly contacted lawyers since the drama aired.</p>
<h2>What responsibility does Paula Vennells bear?</h2>
<p>Vennells has apologised but has not accepted responsibility. Indeed in 2020, she sought to shift <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/1621/documents/15462/default/">the blame to her lawyers</a>.</p>
<p>The ongoing public inquiry, which was established in September 2020 and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-strengthens-post-office-horizon-it-inquiry-with-statutory-powers">gained statutory powers</a> in June 2021, is likely to now ask what Vennells knew about the faults with the IT system and when. She might also be asked about <a href="https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/the-first-clarke-advice/">the advice</a> the Post Office received in 2013 from an external lawyer, Simon Clarke. This criticised the reliability of a key witness the Post Office used in its prosecutions, though it did not come to light publicly until the <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Hamilton-Others-v-Post-Office-judgment-230421.pdf">Court of Appeal case</a> in November 2020. </p>
<p>The evidence presented in court proceedings and to the inquiry suggests senior people in the Post Office knew of miscarriages of justice well before 2015. While the problems may have started with faulty IT, the failings in this scandal lie with the people who enabled it to happen and subsequently contained and covered it up.</p>
<h2>Why has it taken a TV drama for the official response to ramp up?</h2>
<p>For years, countless subpostmasters, journalists, MPs and academics have worked tirelessly to raise public awareness. The inquiry is now hearing evidence from Post Office investigators, auditors and lawyers. A further disclosure hearing is set for <a href="https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/news/inquiry-hear-burges-salmon-partner-post-office-disclosure">January 12 2024</a>. </p>
<p>News coverage has included the heroic efforts of journalists Karl Flinders and Rebecca Thompson from Computer Weekly, who first broke the story in 2009. Since 2010, <a href="https://www.postofficescandal.uk/about/">Nick Wallis</a> has been reporting on the Post Office. His book, The Great Post Office Scandal and the BBC Radio 4 series, The Great Post Office Trial, have been highly instrumental. </p>
<p>In a December 2023 letter to Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk, the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/horizon-compensation-advisory-board">Horizon Compensation Advisory Board</a> called for all convictions to be overturned. It further highlighted the <a href="https://postofficeproject.net/wp-content/uploads/PostOfficeHarms_BriefReport-1.pdf">trauma</a> this scandal continues to inflict. </p>
<p>The Post Office’s failures with prompt and proper evidence sharing have been <a href="https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/news/sir-wyn-gives-determination-post-office-disclosure-failings">an ongoing issue</a>. It has fought exposure of the truth with such approaches as non-disclosure agreements, threats of litigation against journalists, selective reporting of investigations and litigation methods that have elicited strong criticism from the judges involved. </p>
<p>In what is set to be a general election year, the impact of the ITV drama has now accelerated the government’s activity. To date, legal and political institutions have failed and been slow to act. But those weaknesses have also been exploited by the Post Office. </p>
<p>Whether this has been due to a state of denial or siege, an organisation plagued by hubris or a lack of integrity, or incompetence and impropriety by the Post Office and its legions of lawyers across 20-plus years, is an issue the inquiry will no doubt turn to.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Nokes rreceives funding from Economic and Social Research Council to conduct research into the Post Office scandal.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Moorhead receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. He is a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, an unremunerated position. There he advises the Government on Horizon Compensation Matters.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Day receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council to conduct research into the Post Office scandal.</span></em></p>The Post Office has exploited the slowness of legal and political institutions.Karen Nokes, Lecturer in Law, UCLRichard Moorhead, Professor of Law and Professional Ethics, University of ExeterSally Day, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Law, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2202522023-12-21T12:01:30Z2023-12-21T12:01:30ZWhat Ukraine needs from its European partners (and the US) in 2024<p>As 2024 approaches, the top priority of the Ukrainian government is best summed up as ending the war against Russia while regaining as much territory as possible.</p>
<p>President Volodymyr Zelensky <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-vows-end-russian-occupation-crimea-2023-08-23/">claims</a> that Ukraine will only stop fighting when it regains its pre-2014 borders, including Crimea.</p>
<p>This objective appears highly unlikely in 2024, but if it wants any hope of achieving it, Ukraine will need help from its European partners – the main ones being the EU, which has generally shown strong support to Kyiv (with some notable exceptions) and the UK. Ukraine’s objectives are largely overlapping with those of its allies, and help will likely need to come in three forms.</p>
<p>First, military support. Despite Russia having the bigger army, Ukraine has so far <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4351d5b0-0888-4b47-9368-6bc4dfbccbf5">been able to stop</a> the Russian army advancing further than the Dnipro river in the south and the Donbas region in the east. This is mainly because of sophisticated <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62002218">military equipment</a> sold or gifted by its partners, and because of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/us/politics/russia-generals-killed-ukraine.html">intelligence information</a> transferred by Nato and the US. </p>
<p>To avoid being outmatched, Ukraine will need continuous support by its allies in 2024 because, having nearly exhausted its own equipment, it is “almost totally reliant on western assistance for artillery and rocket artillery systems and ammunition”, as <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12150#:%7E:text=Since%20the%20beginning%20of%20the,on%20TDF%20and%20Reserve%20units.">reported</a> by a study from the US Congress.</p>
<p>The EU has already <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Russias-Against-Ukraine-Foreign-Reaction/dp/3031186931">distributed finance</a> to its member states to deliver military equipment to Kyiv, and now, for the first time in its history, the EU <a href="https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-industry/act-support-ammunition-production-asap_en">will finance</a> member states to assist with the production of military equipment. The EU finances member states both through a special common fund called the <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/05/05/eu-joint-procurement-of-ammunition-and-missiles-for-ukraine-council-agrees-1-billion-support-under-the-european-peace-facility/">European Peace Facility</a> (for the transfer of existing weapons), or through its <a href="https://csfederalismo.it/images/2023/Research-Paper/CSF-RP_EU-Defence-Union-ASAP_FFabbrini_Nov2023.pdf">budget</a> (for assisting with production costs).</p>
<p>Second, economic support. Because of the war, Ukraine is in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-approves-2024-wartime-budget-aims-strengthen-army-2023-11-09/">huge financial debt</a>. But unlike other countries in the same condition, its dire economic situation is much harder to manage due to the war efforts. The US Congress <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/us/politics/senate-ukraine-aid-bill.html">decided</a> to block financial aid to Kyiv, and now the EU has done the same.</p>
<p>However, the reason for the EU’s decision not to commit more money was not that the US had not done so. It was, instead, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán – sometimes <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/video/20231215-russian-s-trojan-horse-in-the-eu-orban-wants-a-european-union-that-would-please-putin">called</a> Russia’s “Trojan horse in the EU” – who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67724357">vetoed</a> the transfer of €50 billion (£43 billion) in EU aid to Ukraine.</p>
<p>Third, political support. This is the ideological underpinning of the other two forms of support. It is also necessary to influence public opinion. It is important for Kyiv that public opinion in Europe remains overwhelmingly in its favour, so that democratic leaders have another incentive to stand with Ukraine. Political support may come in the form of public statements (“<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pl/speech_22_7684">we stand with Ukraine</a>”), as well as by visiting or hosting Zelensky.</p>
<p>These are acts which show that, two years into the conflict, the commitment of European partners to the Ukrainian cause remains strong – despite the economic cost for their constituencies, shifting international attention towards the <a href="https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/1120/1417424-russia-israel-gaza-ukraine-politics/">war between Israel and Hamas</a>, and the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-gets-viktor-orban-out-the-room-to-approve-ukraine-accession-talks/">manifest disunity of European leaders</a>.</p>
<p>Another important symbolic decision was the EU’s choice to formally <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67722252">open membership talks</a> with Kyiv. But it is, at this stage, largely symbolic because the accession process typically takes nearly a decade.</p>
<h2>Will aid continue?</h2>
<p>In 2024, there will be three elections that have the potential to determine what might change: the presidential elections in Russia in March, the EU parliamentary elections in May, and the US presidential elections in November. The US and EU have been Ukraine’s most influential supporters so far, but electoral changes could mean a different policy. (The UK is also likely to have a general election, but both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/16/keir-starmer-visits-kyiv-labour-backing-ukraine">main parties</a> seem committed to continuing aid.)</p>
<p>Military aid looks likely to remain untouched at least until the European elections. It is in the European nations’ interest to stop Russia moving further into Ukraine. Advances could allow Vladimir Putin to cut off more access to the <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/08/14/the-ukraine-wars-black-sea-geopolitics/">Black Sea ports</a>, for instance, or even <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-latest-putin-sky-news-blog-12541713">target</a> Moldova.</p>
<p>So far, this has overridden political contentiousness, even though some opposition figures have suggested that providing weapons to Ukraine only prolongs the war and <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15439.doc.htm">exacerbates insecurity</a>. With the exception of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbhLupWtbik">previous Polish govervnment</a>, the new <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/slovakia-robert-fico-announce-halt-military-aid-ukraine/">Slovakian one</a> and Hungary, no other EU member government has announced that it would stop – or is considering stopping – the sale or gift of weapons to Ukraine. </p>
<p>This is likely to continue even if Donald Trump, who is essentially a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/16/trump-quotes-putin-in-bid-to-portray-biden-as-authoritarian-00132157">pro-Putin candidate</a>, were to be elected US president and were to announce an end to US military support to Ukraine, as has been hinted.</p>
<p>Ongoing financial aid from the EU is also looking possible. The situation in the US is more uncertain, where the bipartisan support of Ukraine that existed at the beginning of the war <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67637679">seems to have evaporated </a>. There is some likelihood that a Trump presidency would try to block both military and financial aid, according to some sources. This has been suggested in the policy agenda <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/project-2025-publishes-comprehensive-policy-guide-mandate-leadership-the-conservative-promise">drafted</a> by America First Policy Institute, which is staffed by former Trump officials.</p>
<p>The Ukrainian government hopes that its <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/enlargement/ukraine/">membership of the EU</a> will materialise soon. The commission <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_3790">has said</a> that it must fulfil the conditions for membership as any other candidate would. The next legislature (2024-2029) in the EU will likely decide at least the timeframe for membership, if not the specific conditions.</p>
<p>Ukraine faces a formidable challenge in reclaiming its pre-2014 borders. To achieve this, continued military support, economic aid and unwavering political backing from European partners, particularly the EU and the UK, are crucial. While a policy shift in the EU is unlikely, the concrete possibility of a Trump presidency in 2024 holds a lot of uncertainty for Ukraine – and that has got to be one Zelensky’s biggest worries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luigi Lonardo is the Principal Investigator of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence 'European Integration and Citizens' Rights', which receives funding from the European Commission. </span></em></p>With four elections among Ukraine’s key partners in 2024, commitment to aid for President Zelensky could be in doubt.Luigi Lonardo, Lecturer in EU law, University College CorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2196612023-12-20T16:05:46Z2023-12-20T16:05:46ZUK government facing legal action for failing to tackle climate change – but it could backfire<p>The parish of Whimpell once stood on the Norfolk coast between the village of Happisburgh and the sea. Whimpell <a href="https://www.bgs.ac.uk/case-studies/coastal-erosion-at-happisburgh-norfolk-landslide-case-study/">disappeared into the sea</a> centuries ago thanks to coastal erosion. And now Happisburgh is facing a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-63822899">similar threat</a>.</p>
<p>Some, however, do not intend to give up without a fight. On October 17 2023, <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/non-us-case-documents/2023/20231101_21608_complaint.pdf">a case was brought</a> against the UK government by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/01/claimants-take-uk-government-to-court-over-inadequate-climate-adaptation">two people</a> supported by Friends of the Earth, an environmental charity. </p>
<p>The first is Kevin Jordan, whose home is at risk due to coastal erosion in Hemsby, Norfolk. The second is Doug Paulley of Wetherby in west Yorkshire, who suffers from a number of medical issues that make him particularly vulnerable to the increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat.</p>
<p>Only a <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/rfriends-of-the-earth-ltd-mr-kevin-jordan-and-mr-doug-paulley-v-secretary-of-state-for-environment-rood-rural-affairs-challenge-to-the-third-national-adaptation-programme/">summary</a> of the claims has been made available publicly. But it is clear that the claimants are focusing on the UK’s most recent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/third-national-adaptation-programme-nap3">national adaptation programme</a> (NAP3). The NAP3 outlines the actions the government and others will take to adapt to the effects of climate change from 2023 to 2028. </p>
<p>The claimants argue that the NAP3 is not sufficiently ambitious and specific. It is also argued that there is no evidence that an appropriate assessment of the risks posed by climate change has been conducted, and that the unequal impact on protected groups has not been considered. </p>
<p>The claimants add that the government has failed to protect a number of <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents">human rights</a>, including the rights to property, life, respect to private and family life, and the prohibition of discrimination.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Crumbling cliffs at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566066/original/file-20231215-27-m57r9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566066/original/file-20231215-27-m57r9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566066/original/file-20231215-27-m57r9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566066/original/file-20231215-27-m57r9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566066/original/file-20231215-27-m57r9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566066/original/file-20231215-27-m57r9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566066/original/file-20231215-27-m57r9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Happisburgh in Norfolk has lost a lot of land to the sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crumbling-cliffs-sea-erosion-happisburgh-on-417847936">Helen Hotson/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legality of the claims</h2>
<p>The preparation of the national adaption programme is required by <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/section/58">section 58</a> of the UK <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/contents">Climate Change Act 2008</a>. This article demands that the NAP3 sets out the objectives of the UK in relation to adaptation, as well as proposals for meeting these objectives.</p>
<p>However, section 58 does not explicitly require the government to take specific, ambitious action on adaptation to the impacts of climate change. The only indication in this law concerning the level of ambition that national adaption programmes should achieve is that adaptation objectives, proposals and policies “must be such as to contribute to sustainable development”. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that a progressive interpretation of the Climate Change Act may set an important precedent in relation to government obligation to actively adopt adaptation measures. The court, for example, may accept that the instruction that the NAP3 will “contribute to sustainable development” means that the government is obliged to adopt ambitious and specific adaptation measures, such as those requested by the claimants. </p>
<p>At the same time, it is also possible the court will understand this instruction in a very limited manner. For example, the court may clarify that the obligation to adopt adaptation measures is entirely within the discretion of the government and therefore, to put it bluntly, the government can do as it pleases. This is not an unlikely prospect given the High Court’s <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/FoE-v-BEIS-judgment-180722.pdf">earlier narrow interpretation</a> of “sustainable development”.</p>
<p>The human rights arguments made by the claimants are clearer and simpler to understand. The fact that this case focuses on the government’s obligation to adapt to, rather than mitigate, climate change makes it easier to prove. The claimants don’t have to demonstrate that the UK government caused harm to their human rights, only that it has failed to protect them from the impacts of climate change.</p>
<h2>A growing trend</h2>
<p>This case is hardly a unique effort but rather part of a wider and growing trend of <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/">climate litigation</a> targeting both states and companies. Globally, hundreds of cases have been brought against states in the past two decades, with <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-jurisdiction/united-kingdom/">103</a> of them occurring in the UK.</p>
<p>A somewhat similar litigation – <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/union-of-swiss-senior-women-for-climate-protection-v-swiss-federal-council-and-others/">KlimaSeniorinnen v Switzerland</a> – is also currently before a different tribunal: the European Court of Human Rights. In this instance, a group of elderly citizens are claiming that the impacts of climate change are affecting certain human rights, including their right to life due to (among other things) climate change-related heatwaves. </p>
<p>The current UK case offers a glimpse into the potential benefits and risks that are involved in this strategy. The benefits are clear. The case has already been reported by leading media outlets and is being discussed by academics. </p>
<p>Winning the case and forcing the government to act on climate change could yet be another potential win, albeit an uncertain one given the record of climate litigation in the UK. While there have been a few celebrated cases, the vast majority of UK cases have been rejected.</p>
<p>The risks of climate litigation are equally clear. The court may clarify the meaning of the law – <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/r-finch-v-surrey-county-council/">as it has done before</a> – in a manner that those supportive of environmental action will not approve of. </p>
<p>This same risk exists in the current case. The court may limit the link between the impacts of climate change and human rights, or clarify that adaptation plan objectives could be as limited as the government wishes them to be.</p>
<p>To what extent this type of legal action will help tackle climate change in the UK remains to be seen. Given the risks discussed above, one may also question whether these cases bring more good than harm. But it’s a global phenomenon that shows no sign of stopping any time soon.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Can we avoid dangerous climate change by taking government to court?Avidan Kent, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of East AngliaIrene Lorenzoni, Professor of Society and Environmental Change, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2177182023-12-05T12:39:06Z2023-12-05T12:39:06ZCOVID inquiry: how it works, and when we will know if it is successful<p>The COVID inquiry has already made plenty of headlines, revealing the inner workings of the government and its many personalities during the pandemic. But other than gripping television, what can we ultimately expect from this exercise?</p>
<p>People who feel they have been negatively affected by the response to the pandemic may hope for the inquiry to lead to sanctions against officials or compensation. But this is not <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09649069.2023.2243137">the role</a> of a public inquiry.</p>
<p>Misplaced expectations can undermine public confidence in an inquiry. Understanding their role and what they can, and cannot, deliver is important.</p>
<h2>How does a public inquiry work?</h2>
<p>Public inquiries are a way to hold governments and others in authority to account for their actions and decisions. They are very different from other mechanisms such as courts, tribunals, and regulatory and disciplinary processes. </p>
<p>Put simply, an inquiry is an independent process convened by a government minister to establish facts, analyse those facts, and produce a report. The report typically sets out a number of recommendations to inform future policy decisions. It is published and laid before parliament. </p>
<p>The stated aims of the COVID inquiry are outlined in its <a href="https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/documents/terms-of-reference/">terms of reference</a>. They are to produce a factual narrative of the response to and impact of the pandemic, and to identify lessons to be learned for future pandemics.</p>
<p>While the inquiry may criticise the actions of government officials, and others, it has no power to determine civil or criminal liability. It cannot impose sanctions on any individual or organisation, or award compensation. </p>
<p>Equally, its role is not to achieve justice for certain participants or sections of society. It is entirely independent, not only from the government but from all participants and everyone else engaging with it. </p>
<p>While it will give a voice to bereaved families and others who have suffered, detailed answers about individual cases of harm or death fall outside its scope.</p>
<h2>Is it legally binding?</h2>
<p>In many ways, an inquiry resembles a courtroom. The COVID inquiry is chaired by a former court of appeal judge, Baroness Hallett, and involves many lawyers. But public inquiries are part of the political, not the legal, process. </p>
<p>Inquiry chairs and panels are unelected. Their findings and recommendations are not legally binding on the democratically-elected government. The decision about whether to implement the inquiry’s recommendations is a political decision for the government. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The UK's national covid memorial wall in London, a concrete wall covered in illustrated red hearts, with a few bouquets of flowers at the base." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561878/original/file-20231127-15-um1kqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561878/original/file-20231127-15-um1kqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561878/original/file-20231127-15-um1kqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561878/original/file-20231127-15-um1kqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561878/original/file-20231127-15-um1kqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561878/original/file-20231127-15-um1kqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561878/original/file-20231127-15-um1kqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An inquiry is not designed to grant compensation or determine criminality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/national-covid-memorial-wallwestministercovid19-londonuk-04122021-1954738738">DarekP/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, the UK government (and the governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) cannot simply ignore their findings and recommendations. They are accountable to parliament and the electorate, and are subject to scrutiny and pressure from the media and other groups.</p>
<p>Crucially, holding the COVID inquiry in public, televising its hearings and publishing its findings allows participants, the public and the media to draw their own conclusions based on the evidence presented. They may then hold the government to account by voting in elections, petitions, through media and social media scrutiny, and through peaceful protests.</p>
<p>Inferences may be drawn from the inquiry’s findings of facts in future legal, regulatory, and disciplinary action. Its report and recommendations will also inform the actions of future governments, health sectors, regional and local authorities, the voluntary sector, community groups and others.</p>
<h2>How do we know if an inquiry is successful?</h2>
<p>Past public inquiries have brought about <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/Public%20Inquiries%20%28final%29.pdf">significant legislative, institutional and behavioural change</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-of-the-mid-staffordshire-nhs-foundation-trust-public-inquiry">Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust public inquiry</a> examined failings in care in the trust. Its report led to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-screening-programmes-duty-of-candour/duty-of-candour">statutory duty of candour</a>, requiring healthcare providers to be transparent with patients and their families when things go wrong in their care. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/6394/1/report.pdf">Bichard inquiry</a> into the murders of two children by a school caretaker recommended the introduction of a national system for checking the criminal records of people working with children or vulnerable adults. This led to the introduction of CRB checks (later, DBS checks). </p>
<p>And the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf">Macpherson inquiry</a> into the death of Stephen Lawrence helped to establish the concept of institutional racism within the Metropolitan police and other institutions. It led to <a href="https://theconversation.com/stephen-lawrence-how-family-liaison-officers-became-an-integral-part-of-policing-in-the-wake-of-his-murder-200203">changes</a> in the law, and transformed the way that the police recognise and deal with racist crimes.</p>
<p>The full impact of the COVID inquiry therefore cannot be judged solely on its report. It must also be judged by the extent to which its recommendations are implemented. We might not know this fully until the next pandemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Ireton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It may be years before we know how successful the COVID inquiry was in its aims.Emma Ireton, Associate Professor, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2147562023-12-01T17:52:49Z2023-12-01T17:52:49ZElectric arc furnaces: the technology poised to make British steelmaking more sustainable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556676/original/file-20231030-19-zblfpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C0%2C5615%2C3741&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Steel production in an electric arc furnace.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/steel-production-electric-furnace-780620236">Norenko Andrey/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a move to embrace sustainable steelmaking, British Steel has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/06/british-steel-scunthorpe-furnaces-jobs">unveiled</a> a £1.25 billion plan to replace two blast furnaces at its Scunthorpe plant with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/electric-arc-furnace-process">electric arc furnaces</a>. This follows the UK government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/welsh-steels-future-secured-as-uk-government-and-tata-steel-announce-port-talbot-green-transition-proposal">commitment</a> in September to <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/live-updates-thousands-job-losses-27716778">invest</a> up to £500 million towards an electric arc furnace at Tata Steel’s Port Talbot plant in south Wales.</p>
<p>This method of steelmaking can use up to 100% scrap steel as its raw material, resulting in a significant reduction in carbon emissions. It is the future of steelmaking. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1721521512086196450"}"></div></p>
<p>Steel is an incredible material and for good reason. It’s the world’s most commonly used metal because it’s strong, durable and recyclable, making it the perfect material for everything from skyscrapers to electric vehicles and solar panels. More than <a href="https://worldsteel.org/steel-topics/statistics/annual-production-steel-data/?ind=P1_crude_steel_total_pub/WORLD_ALL/GBR">1.8 billion tonnes</a> of crude steel were produced globally last year. That number is only expected to grow as the world transitions to a more sustainable future.</p>
<p>The UK uses around 12 million tonnes of steel each year. And in 2022, it produced just under 6 million tonnes, contributing to around <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2023-0016/CDP-2023-0016.pdf">2.4%</a> of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<h2>Electric arc furnaces</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.eurofer.eu/about-steel/learn-about-steel/what-is-steel-and-how-is-steel-made">two main</a> steel production methods. Currently, Port Talbot and Scunthorpe use the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace method. The purpose of the blast furnace is to separate iron ore extracted from the ground into its component parts: iron and oxygen. </p>
<p>A form of carbon, normally coal, combines with the oxygen in the iron ore. The outputs of this process are iron and carbon dioxide. The basic oxygen furnace is then used to convert the iron into steel. </p>
<p>As a global average, this method of steelmaking emits around <a href="https://worldsteel.org/wp-content/uploads/Sustainability-Indicators-2022-report.pdf">2.32 tonnes</a> of CO₂ per tonne of steel produced. </p>
<p>An electric arc furnace works by generating a high-temperature arc between graphite electrodes, using electricity as the energy source. This arc is then used to melt metal inside a chamber. </p>
<p>Using this method, up to 100% scrap steel can be used as the raw material, while the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace method can only use a maximum of <a href="https://worldsteel.org/steel-topics/raw-materials/">30% scrap</a>. A switch to the electric arc furnace method could reduce emissions to 0.67 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of steel produced when using 100% scrap steel.</p>
<p>In the future, it is also possible the electricity needed for electric arc furnace processes could come from 100% renewable sources, whereas a form of carbon will always be needed to reduce iron ore when using the blast furnace method.</p>
<h2>Recycled steel</h2>
<p>Steel is the most recycled material in the <a href="https://worldsteel.org/about-steel/steel-industry-facts/steel-core-green-economy/">world</a>, and so scrap steel is quickly becoming a crucial raw material. In 2021, the global steel industry recycled around 680 million tonnes of scrap steel. This equates to <a href="https://worldsteel.org/about-steel/steel-facts?fact=53">savings</a> of almost 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions, compared to using virgin steel production. </p>
<p>In 2021, more than <a href="https://www.bir.org/images/BIR-pdf/Ferrous_report_2017-2021_lr.pdf">8.2 million tonnes</a> of steel scrap was exported from the UK. If collected and sorted more carefully, using this material domestically could provide both environmental and economic value, by helping to meet growing national demand for steel.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A large steelworks lit up at night." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556639/original/file-20231030-27-aeouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6015%2C3357&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556639/original/file-20231030-27-aeouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556639/original/file-20231030-27-aeouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556639/original/file-20231030-27-aeouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556639/original/file-20231030-27-aeouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556639/original/file-20231030-27-aeouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556639/original/file-20231030-27-aeouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot, south Wales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/port-talbot-wales-uk-industrial-landscape-1264187401">Christopher Willans/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We know that steel produced with an electric arc furnace can have different properties to blast furnace produced material. A large factor in this is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03019233.2020.1805276">quality of scrap steel</a> used in the electric arc furnace – if the scrap steel quality is low, then so will the quality of the output.</p>
<p>With that in mind, there is a need for research, innovation and skills development to ensure this transition to lower-carbon steelmaking methods is successful. </p>
<p>Finding and sorting the right types of scrap material, confirming material properties and increasing supply chain understanding of electric arc furnace steelmaking are all necessary for a wide range of steel products to continue to be made in the UK.</p>
<h2>Sustainable steelmaking</h2>
<p>There is a race across Europe to secure investment for sustainable steelmaking technologies. <a href="https://www.hybritdevelopment.se/en/">Hybrit</a> is a fossil-free steel project in Sweden between several major steel producers and is already underway. </p>
<p>This follows plans to invest almost <a href="https://energypost.eu/hybrit-project-sweden-goes-for-zero-carbon-steel/">€40 billion</a> (almost £35 billion) in low-emission steelmaking technologies over the next 20 years. Also in Sweden, the company H2 Green Steel has secured <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/swedens-h2-green-steel-gains-support-345-bln-debt-funding-fossil-fuel-free-plant-2022-10-24/">€3.5 billion</a> (£3 billion) to build a hydrogen-powered steel plant.</p>
<p>In July 2023, the German government announced €2 billion (£1.7 billion) of <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/eu-commission-oks-e2-billion-state-aid-for-ailing-german-steel-sector/">support</a> for Thyssenkrupp, the steel multinational. And that was on top of the €3 billion (£2.6 billion) it had previously announced to support the country’s industrial green transition. A</p>
<p>ArcelorMittal, the second largest steel producer in the world, has also announced green investment in their plants in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3404">Belgium</a> and <a href="https://corporate.arcelormittal.com/climate-action/decarbonisation-investment-plans/spain-a-1-billion-investment-to-halve-our-carbon-emissions-and-create-the-world-s-first-full-scale-zero-carbon-emissions-steel-plant">Spain</a>, totalling more than €1.2 billion (£1.5 billion).</p>
<p>While the UK government has <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-uk-should-lead-on-a-green-industrial-strategy-not-roll-back/">no published</a> industrial strategy, other organisations have produced roadmaps for decarbonised steelmaking in the UK. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.energy-transitions.org/new-report-breakthrough-steel-investment/">report</a> by the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of energy leaders committed to net-zero emissions, outlined plans for investing in low-emission steelmaking in early 2023. With the right level of government and private sector investment, the UK could become a world leader in green steelmaking – but only it acts now.</p>
<p>As global temperatures continue to rise and the climate emergency deepens, the need for a decarbonised steel industry is greater than ever. Lower carbon methods of steel production are the future of the industry both in the UK and around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Becky Waldram receives funding from EPSRC, as part of the SUSTAIN Hub (Strategic University Steel Technology and Innovation Network). She is member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining. </span></em></p>Electric arc furnaces can use up to 100% scrap steel as its raw material, resulting in a significant reduction in emissions.Becky Waldram, Materials Scientist and SUSTAIN Impact & Engagement Manager, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140452023-11-30T10:21:07Z2023-11-30T10:21:07ZKindertransport’s complex legacy: saving children from the Nazis while leaving their families behind<p>When 200 unaccompanied child refugees arrived in Harwich, Essex, in early December 1938, they did so through a new visa-waiver scheme. These children from Berlin were escaping Nazi persecution, and eventually more than 10,000 children – mostly from Jewish families – would arrive in Britain via the same process. </p>
<p>December 2 marks the 85th commemoration of the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kindertransport-1938-40">Kindertransport</a>. And compared to some of today’s anti-refugee rhetoric, the scheme looks like a successful official rescue mission. But is that true?</p>
<p>November 9 and 10 1938 saw state-sponsored <a href="https://www.pogromnovember1938.co.uk/viewer/">violence</a> perpetrated against Jewish citizens across the German Reich. The British government was subsequently put under <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/6-stories-of-the-kindertransport">pressure</a> from the public to help continental Jewish citizens.</p>
<p>But prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s government was <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/speccoll/collection_catalogues/tclists/tc62.html">reluctant</a> to offer refuge to Jews, fearing for the UK’s security, the cost and the anti-foreign and antisemitic sentiments of some of the electorate. So, it came up with the compromise of only admitting unaccompanied children rather than whole families. Chamberlain also <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/nov/21/refugees-government-proposals">refused</a> to commit governmental financial or organisational help, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The number of refugees which Great Britain can agree to admit … is limited by the capacity of the voluntary organisations dealing with the refugee problem to undertake the responsibility for selecting, receiving and maintaining a further number of refugees. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>To only admit the children but not their families, is clearly one of the most controversial aspects of the Kindertransport. Some experts have <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/42943756">suggested</a> that parting from your own children was seen as more normal in the 1930s. However, home secretary Samuel Hoare that year <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/nov/21/racial-religious-and-political-minorities">discussed</a> the pain that the parents were likely to experience when parting from their children: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I could not help thinking what a terrible dilemma it was to the Jewish parents in Germany to have to choose between sending their children to a foreign country, into the unknown, and continuing to live in the terrible conditions to which they are now reduced in Germany.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Without a doubt, it would have been better for all if the UK had admitted parents as well as children. My own <a href="https://issuu.com/acesupporthub/docs/aberystwyth_aces_and_child_refugees_report_eng__fi">research</a> has shown that child refugees were adversely affected by this separation. </p>
<p>Kindertransport refugee <a href="http://www.kindertransport.eu/">Eva Mosbacher</a> was a well-adjusted 12-year-old from Nuremberg who settled in successfully with her carers in Cambridge. Nevertheless, she continuously expressed her longing to be reunited with her birth parents in her letters. In 1942, her parents were deported with 1000 other Jews and murdered in the Belzyce ghetto in Poland. After the war, Eva stayed in the UK and worked as a nurse, but sadly took her own life in 1963. </p>
<p>The fact that the UK government did not financially and organisationally support the Kindertransport had undesirable consequences. Some MPs <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/nov/21/racial-religious-and-political-minorities">expressed</a> the view that only those children who would be of benefit to the UK should be admitted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A statue showing a group of children carrying suitcases." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bronze Kindertransport statue by sculptors Frank Meisler and Arie Oviada at Liverpool Street Railway Station in central London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-october-11-2014-bronze-263419583">Philip Willcocks/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was <a href="https://uclpress.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/111.444.jhs.2020v51.005">reflected</a> in the selection criteria of the refugee children’s committee, an interdenominational umbrella organisation based in the UK and tasked with overseeing the Kindertransport. Largely staffed by volunteers, it tried to only admit children who did not have any special needs or health issues. This seems especially cruel as by 1938, many of youngsters had lived under the stressful conditions of discrimination and persecution for years. </p>
<p>The refugee children’s committee also <a href="https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10100969/">rejected</a> applications if any illnesses or additional needs were mentioned. Even children whose parents had mental health problems were rejected. Born on April 26 1926, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9546261/">Herta Baumfeld</a> was not accepted for the Kindertransport because her mother was in a psychiatric institution. Herta was subsequently murdered at the Maly Trostinec concentration camp in Belarus on September 18 1942.</p>
<p>Financing the escape of the child refugees and their resettlement in the UK was especially difficult without the help of the UK government. In fact, the government <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Kindertransport/ztrfEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">demanded</a> that a “guarantee” of £50 per child was raised by volunteers to indemnify against any expense. This rule limited the number of children that could be given refuge.</p>
<h2>What made the Kindertransport possible?</h2>
<p>The Kindertransport happened because of the generosity and commitment of private citizens, charities and voluntary organisations in the UK. The majority of refugees were fostered by individual families who volunteered for the task. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the financial burden was shouldered by private sources. Former Prime minister Lord Baldwin had launched a <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1939/jul/05/refugee-problem">public appeal</a> raising more than £500,000 and the Anglo-Jewish community raised more than £5 million for refugees. </p>
<p>Some foster carers also managed to raise the £50 guarantee themselves. As my <a href="https://www.honno.co.uk/books/finding-refuge">research</a> shows, Lia Blum from Czechoslovakia was fostered by a teacher from Ynys Mȏn, north Wales, who put up the guarantee. </p>
<p>Others helped within their means. For example, the guarantee for <a href="https://www.nicholaswinton.com/the-list">Anneliese Adler</a> was raised by the Woodcraft Folk, a youth-led organisation for children and young people in Tooting, London. Anneliese was fostered by a woman near Bristol. However, the limited funds restricted the number of children that could be rescued.</p>
<h2>Reliance on volunteers</h2>
<p>In recent years, the UK government has once again relied on the support of volunteers to look after refugees. Following the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/stories/2015-year-europes-refugee-crisis">refugee crisis of 2015</a>, it launched the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/694051/Community_Sponsorship_LA_guidance.pdf">community sponsorship scheme</a>, which relied on volunteers to raise £4500 per adult they wished to sponsor. </p>
<p>And after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, the UK government once again looked for volunteer hosts via the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/register-interest-homes-ukraine">homes for Ukraine</a> scheme. </p>
<p>Given what happened 85 years ago, it’s time we learned the lessons of the past and created a stable government scheme to assist refugees of all ages.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Hammel received funding from the National Heritage Lottery Fund via the Second World War Partnership Programme led by the IWM. She has also received funding from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Support Hub and receives funding from the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR). She is affiliated with Aberaid, a charity that assists refugees in Ceredigion, and internationally.. </span></em></p>10,000 children, from mostly Jewish families, were saved from the Nazis by the Kindertransport visa-waiver scheme, which started in 1938.Andrea Hammel, Professor of German, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2174732023-11-23T17:24:27Z2023-11-23T17:24:27ZMatching state pension to the national living wage would help pensioners maintain their dignity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558813/original/file-20231110-27-e08yw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3461%2C2305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The UK is currently 16th out of 50 European countries in terms of the best pension offering.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hands-elderly-woman-british-money-palm-596706170">Linda Bestwick/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A question that is perennially <a href="https://www.if.org.uk/research-posts/can-the-uk-afford-to-pay-pensions/">asked</a> by financial experts is: “can the government (in other words, the taxpayer) afford to keep increasing pensions?” But in my view, the real question should be: “what is the purpose of the state pension?” </p>
<p>This isn’t an economics question, it’s a moral question. And, as a society, we are poor at discussing moral questions. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/#:%7E:text=Pensioner%20benefit%20spending%20in%202023,5.3%20per%20cent%20of%20GDP">report</a> from the Office for Budget Responsibility earlier this year stated that in the current financial year, the state pension will cost around £124 billion. This is more than the £105 billion education <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/298910/united-kingdom-uk-public-sector-expenditure-education/#:%7E:text=Government%20spending%20on%20education%20in%20the%20UK%202023%2C%20by%20function&text=The%20United%20Kingdom%20spent%20approximately,primary%20and%20pre%2Dprimary%20education">budget</a> and more than double the £52 billion <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8175">defence</a> budget.</p>
<p>The level of the UK pension is safeguarded by the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-triple-lock-how-will-state-pensions-be-uprated-in-future/">triple lock</a>, which was first introduced in the June 2010 budget. It means annual increases in payments are made in line with earnings growth, price inflation (currently 4.6%) or 2.5% – whichever is highest. </p>
<p>With another triple lock <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-triple-lock-how-will-state-pensions-be-uprated-in-future/">increase</a> of 8.5% in pensions due in April 2024, the state pension will rise to £221.75 per week (£11,531 per annum). This is only £20 per week less than the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-personal-allowance-and-basic-rate-limit-for-income-tax-and-certain-national-insurance-contributions-nics-thresholds-from-6-april-2026-to-5-apr/income-tax-personal-allowance-and-the-basic-rate-limit-and-certain-national-insurance-contributions-thresholds-from-6-april-2026-to-5-april-2028">personal allowance</a> everyone can earn before having to pay tax or national insurance. </p>
<p>Assuming wages exceed inflation and 2.5% in line with the last five year <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/october2023">averages</a>, then the pension up-ratings could be in the region of 5% in 2025 and 2026. This will see pensioners, who have no other income, having to pay tax – in some cases, a decade after they last paid income tax.</p>
<p>So, how do we ensure that retired people are able to have a comfortable standard of living once they stop working? As a starting point, we can consider <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1606&langId=en">principle 15</a> of the European pillar of social rights, which was set out in 2017 by the European Union and maintains: “The right of workers and the self-employed to a pension commensurate with contributions and ensuring an adequate income. The right to equal opportunities to acquire pension rights for both women and men. The right to resources that ensure living in dignity in old age.”</p>
<h2>Comparing incomes</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates">national living wage</a> is two thirds of UK average earnings and should be the minimum to cover “adequate income” and “dignity in old age”. The salary obtained by an adult working 37 hours per week at the national living wage is currently £10.42 per hour. This will <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67484102">increase</a> to £11.44 per hour from April 2024.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A table comparing incomes in 2023 from the state pension, national living wage and average earnings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560698/original/file-20231121-4461-ybavll.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560698/original/file-20231121-4461-ybavll.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560698/original/file-20231121-4461-ybavll.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560698/original/file-20231121-4461-ybavll.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560698/original/file-20231121-4461-ybavll.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560698/original/file-20231121-4461-ybavll.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560698/original/file-20231121-4461-ybavll.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A comparison of the state pension, national living wage and average earnings in the UK in 2023.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Were the UK pension matched with the national living wage, it would be set at a figure of £22,308 per year, and pensioners’ income would be vastly different as of April 6 2024. </p>
<p>Even after paying more than £1,900 in tax, the poorest pensioner would be still be £225.15 per week better off than they are today. And the extra disposable income could be recycled into the economy through increased expenditure, with knock-on impacts in indirect taxes such as VAT. </p>
<h2>A European comparison</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.almondfinancial.co.uk/pension-breakeven-index-how-does-the-uk-state-pension-compare-to-the-rest-of-europe/">recent survey</a> by pension advice firm Almond Finance UK shows the UK is currently 16th out of 50 countries in terms of the best pension offering across Europe. Spain tops the survey, with Belgium in second place and Luxembourg third. </p>
<p>Bringing the state pension in line with the national living wage would move the UK up to fourth position, ahead of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Lichenstein, France, Denmark and Switzerland.</p>
<p>Such an increase would raise the annual cost to the Treasury from the current <a href="https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/#:%7E:text=Pensioner%20benefit%20spending%20in%202023,5.3%20per%20cent%20of%20GDP">£124 billion</a> to £236 billion. And such a large increase in expenditure would require more taxes or more borrowing, which would accrue more debt interest in turn. But this sum could be reduced by £13 billion by charging pensioners national insurance. </p>
<p>In a response to an <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/money/calls-living-state-pension-payments-30501193">online petition</a> in August, which called for the state pension to be matched to the national living wage, the government <a href="https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/636088">said</a> it had “no plans to increase the state pension to equal 35 hours a week at the national living wage”. It went on to describe the state pension and national living wage as having “different purposes” and said that a direct comparison could not be drawn between the two. </p>
<p>With the <a href="https://theconversation.com/autumn-statement-live-experts-respond-to-chancellors-tax-and-benefit-cuts-218211">focus</a> on cutting both business rates and national insurance in the autumn statement, it’s worth considering how those measures will help to ensure that pensioners live in dignity in old age.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Parry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How does the UK ensure a decent standard of living for its elderly population?Chris Parry, Principal Lecturer in Finance, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2181522023-11-20T15:17:23Z2023-11-20T15:17:23ZAutumn statement: what to expect, what they’re not saying, and the traps for Labour<p>Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s budget on Wednesday, November 22 will put into place a major piece of the Conservative party’s strategy for the general election – the plan to turn the economy around and tackle the cost of living crisis. But with just over a year to go before an election must be called, will the measures be too little, too late?</p>
<p>The government certainly derived some satisfaction from last month’s fall in the UK rate of annual inflation <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices">to 4.6%</a>, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak quickly <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/boost-rishi-sunak-fall-uk-inflation-rate-meet-key-pledge/">taking credit</a> for meeting his target to halve the rate in 2023. Nonetheless, economic prospects look grim. </p>
<p>The Bank of England <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-report/2023/november-2023#:%7E:text=Inflation%20has%20fallen%2C%20and%20we,our%202%25%20target%20next%20year.">is predicting</a> growth of just 0.5% this year, zero next year and just 0.25% in 2025. To some extent, this is likely to be self-inflicted, with the bank saying it will keep interest rates high for at least another year to ensure inflation falls to its target of 2%. </p>
<p>Neither will people’s incomes make up the difference. Wage growth has just caught up with inflation, but this has <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/real-earnings-including-bonuses">far from compensated</a> for the fall in real incomes since the pandemic. And with taxes the <a href="https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-kingdom/tax-revenue--of-gdp#:%7E:text=UK%20Tax%20revenue%3A%20%25%20of%20GDP%20data%20is%20updated%20quarterly%2C,is%20reported%20by%20CEIC%20Data.">highest in decades</a> as a share of the economy, there is growing pressure within the Conservative party for a pre-election tax cut.</p>
<h2>Reviving the economy</h2>
<p>The UK economy has in fact been flatlining for a decade, with low growth and little increase in household incomes. <a href="https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Business-time.pdf">Relative to</a> competitor countries, there is less business investment, a <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/investment-training-and-skills">less well-trained workforce</a>, and failure to complete big infrastructure projects such as HS2 - all leading to lower productivity.</p>
<p><strong>GDP growth of G7 major economies</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560402/original/file-20231120-21-54bsxp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="GDP growth of G7 countries since 2000" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560402/original/file-20231120-21-54bsxp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560402/original/file-20231120-21-54bsxp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560402/original/file-20231120-21-54bsxp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560402/original/file-20231120-21-54bsxp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560402/original/file-20231120-21-54bsxp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560402/original/file-20231120-21-54bsxp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560402/original/file-20231120-21-54bsxp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1370599/g7-country-gdp-growth/">Statista</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-hunt-readies-growth-plan-after-fall-inflation-2023-11-15/">chancellor has said</a> he wants to make this a budget for growth, and plans to help business with much of his £13 billion “fiscal headroom” (the amount that can be spent without increasing government debt as a share of GDP). This will include extending the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/full-expensing/spring-budget-2023-full-expensing#:%7E:text=From%20April%202023%20until%20the,cut%20by%20up%20to%2025p.">temporary tax relief</a> on business investment, costing £10 billion a year. </p>
<p>Hunt has also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-hunt-commits-45-billion-pounds-manufacturing-investment-2023-11-17/">pledged £4.5 billion</a> over five years to support strategic manufacturing sectors including green energy. And <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-17/hunt-plans-to-extend-uk-tax-breaks-for-hospitality-small-firms">he may exempt</a> more small businesses from VAT.</p>
<p>The government’s problem is a lack of consistency. Businesses need long-term certainty to plan future investments. <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05945/">But since</a> the Conservatives came to power in 2010, <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-data-item/corporation-tax-rates-over-time">taxes on business</a> have been cut, then raised, then cut and then raised again, with several different exemptions for investment. There have also been seven different chancellors and nine different business secretaries.</p>
<h2>Cutting taxes and cutting benefits</h2>
<p>The chancellor and prime minister have given a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67472113">clear signal</a> that they are minded to cut taxes, but in a manner that doesn’t drive up inflation. </p>
<p>One idea widely floated in the media would be to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/17/jeremy-hunt-cutting-tax-stealth-raid-inheritance-tax-autumn-statement">cut inheritance tax</a>, which currently raises <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/reforming-inheritance-tax">£7 billion</a> a year. This would be less inflationary than cutting income tax, but would only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/19/jeremy-hunt-warns-against-fuelling-inflation-after-downplaying-income-tax-cuts">benefit around 27,000</a> wealthy taxpayers a year. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1726553298323624398"}"></div></p>
<p>Another possibility would be to <a href="https://www.propertyweek.com/news/hunt-plots-stamp-duty-and-tax-cuts-after-by-election-losses/5127307.article">cut stamp duty</a> to help revive the <a href="https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/whats-happening-to-house-prices-aVCwI8I22pBe">ailing housing market</a>. </p>
<p>Cutting income tax or national insurance would be more politically attractive than these options, of course. And this may well come, but perhaps not put in place until the spring budget, assuming inflation continues ticking down. </p>
<p>To fund his tax-cutting plans, Hunt is also weighing up ways of cutting the growing benefits bill. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/oct/01/time-to-withhold-benefits-from-those-who-wont-look-for-work-jeremy-hunt">Firmly in his sights</a> are those on sickness or disability benefit, whose numbers have <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/news/number-new-disability-benefit-claimants-has-doubled-year">increased sharply</a> in recent years. </p>
<p>He has already announced a new system of assessing people’s ability to work and a <a href="https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/chancellor-announces-back-work-plan-disabled-people-backed-tougher-sanctions">£500 million “back to work plan”</a> to provide more support to those with mental or physical health issues.</p>
<p>Despite the war on “scroungers” who supposedly don’t want to work, it is not clear how much, or how quickly, the Exchequer will benefit. Hunt might be tempted to try another approach with more immediate results. </p>
<p>Working-age benefits are currently planned to be increased in April by 6.7%, in line with the inflation rate in September. By cutting the increase to the current 4.6% inflation rate, the chancellor <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/articles/using-october-rather-september-inflation-uprate-working-age-benefits-represents-ps3#:%7E:text=Using%20the%20October%20rather%20than%20September%20inflation%20rate%20would%20cut,means%2Dtested%20or%20disability%20benefits.">could save £3 billion</a>. </p>
<p>Although less likely, there is also talk of Hunt trying to change the calculation for the state pension – which is linked to earnings – by <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/autumn-statement-choices-hunt-pensions-tax-cuts-benefits-2765148">excluding bonus payments</a>.</p>
<h2>Fiscal rules and the spending squeeze</h2>
<p>One thing the chancellor is unlikely to announce is an increase in spending on hard-pressed public services. He has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/08/government-refuses-nhs-plea-for-1bn-bailout-to-cover-cost-of-strikes">already rejected</a> a plea from the NHS for extra funding, saying it should meet the increased wage bill by another 0.5% of “efficiency savings”. </p>
<p>You might wonder how to reconcile this with the £13 billion “fiscal headroom” mentioned earlier. It’s because Hunt will only have that amount to play with if there’s an impossibly tight squeeze on public spending for the next five years. </p>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/collections/autumn-statement-2023">public spending</a> was slated to increase at 1% a year in real terms. But the subsequent effect of inflation now means the same plans amount to a <a href="https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/preparing-the-pitch/">significant cut</a> in today’s money. </p>
<p>The other reason the chancellor has headroom is that tax receipts have been growing more rapidly than expected, lowering the projected deficit. However, this is mainly due to higher inflation. </p>
<p>And assuming the government does adjust its public-spending plans to factor in inflation, it could cancel out most of the gains in tax revenues in years to come. Higher inflation, and the higher interest rates it has led to, has also sharply increased the amount the government must spend on debt repayments, which <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/outlook-public-finances-0">now cost more</a> than the education budget.</p>
<h2>Labour’s dilemma</h2>
<p>Labour’s desire to demonstrate that it’s fiscally responsible and on the side of working people has created the potential for Hunt to lay several traps for them. </p>
<p>Given the importance of the NHS as an issue for Labour, can they accept the impossibly tight spending plans if they form the next government? And <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/06/keir-starmer-labour-rules-out-supporting-national-insurance-rise">having opposed</a> the recent rise in <a href="https://www.bishopfleming.co.uk/insights/national-insurance-rates-and-thresholds-5-april-2023-and-beyond">national insurance contributions</a>, will they find it difficult to oppose any proposed cut?</p>
<p>Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has made it clear she will not support tax cuts for the rich, nor accept reductions in how benefits are calculated – but she has not said she would reverse such moves. Labour has made it clear that more money on public services will have to come from higher growth. </p>
<p>If Labour’s charm offensive can convince business they have a consistent, long-term growth strategy, they may reap the rewards. Turning around the British economy has never been either quick or easy for any government, however.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218152/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Schifferes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s budget time again, and maybe the Conservatives’ final major chance to influence the upcoming general election.Steve Schifferes, Honorary Research Fellow, City Political Economy Research Centre, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116862023-11-15T17:44:31Z2023-11-15T17:44:31ZHow the Welsh language is being promoted to help migrants feel at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550026/original/file-20230925-22-4zy1hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C4819%2C3174&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Welsh government has announced plans to make Wales a 'nation of sanctuary'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/second-severn-crossing-wales-november-2018-1229207257">Ceri Breeze/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>You can read this article in <a href="https://theconversation.com/maer-gymraeg-yn-cael-ei-defnyddio-i-annog-ymfudwyr-i-deimlon-gartrefol-217503">Welsh</a>.</em></p>
<p>The UK government alone decides who can enter the country and how migration and asylum policies are made. But devolved governments have scope to use <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8599/CBP-8599.pdf">their powers</a> in fields such as housing, education, health and social services to shape the nature of the support that is subsequently offered to new arrivals.</p>
<p>In recent years, the Welsh government has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2198809">looked for ways</a> to use its powers to help refugees and migrants integrate into Welsh society, taking into account the role of the Welsh language. </p>
<p>Overall, this is an approach that seeks to create a welcoming and supportive environment in Wales. It contrasts with the UK government’s commitment to <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/">reducing net migration</a> and to create a “<a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/what-is-hostile-environment-theresa-may-windrush-eu-citizens-legal-immigrants-145067">hostile environment</a>” for refugees and asylum seekers.</p>
<p>The most prominent step taken to date was the publication of the Welsh government’s <a href="https://www.gov.wales/refugee-and-asylum-seeker-plan-nation-sanctuary">plan in 2019</a>, which set out measures aimed at turning Wales into a “<a href="https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-wales-nation-sanctuary">nation of sanctuary</a>”.</p>
<p>However, another significant – but less obvious – aspect of the Welsh government’s work are the steps taken to ensure that the Welsh language plays a more prominent role in the process of welcoming migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>Reflecting on this work, <a href="https://www.gov.wales/jane-hutt-ms">Jane Hutt</a>, Wales’ social justice minister, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/64811421">has argued</a> that the Welsh language could become “an extremely powerful integration tool”.</p>
<h2>Hospitality and integration</h2>
<p>The shift to viewing the Welsh language as a resource that can facilitate integration is evident when tracing the evolution of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) provision in Wales.</p>
<p>In 2013, the formal link between ESOL provision and the process of gaining UK citizenship was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tougher-language-requirements-announced-for-british-citizenship">unpicked</a> by the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.</p>
<p>An unforeseen consequence of this reform was that it created an opportunity to initiate a distinct approach to language education for migrants in Wales. Hence, a year later, the Welsh government published its first <a href="https://www.gov.wales/english-speakers-other-languages-esol-policy-statement">ESOL policy for Wales</a>. It was the first of its kind to be developed by any of the UK’s four governments.</p>
<p>The original ESOL policy did not make a link between the Welsh language and linguistic integration. But a <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-11/english-for-speakers-of-other-languages-esol-policy-wales.pdf">later iteration</a>, published in 2019, called on ESOL providers in Wales “to integrate the Welsh language into their classes”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/esol-english-classes-are-crucial-for-migrant-integration-yet-challenges-remain-unaddressed-204415">Esol English classes are crucial for migrant integration, yet challenges remain unaddressed</a>
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<p>This was deemed necessary as the “the Welsh language can be a valuable skill in the workplace”. And also because learning Welsh can facilitate “social integration”, particularly in “predominantly Welsh speaking communities”.</p>
<p>Coinciding with this, the <a href="https://learnwelsh.cymru/learn-welsh-with-us-croeso-i-bawb/">National Centre for Learning Welsh</a> worked in partnership with <a href="https://www.adultlearning.wales/cym">Adult Learning Wales</a>, the umbrella organisation for adult education providers across Wales, to develop a novel Welsh for speakers of other languages (WSOL) provision. Introduced for the first time in 2019, <em><a href="https://learnwelsh.cymru/learn-welsh-with-us-croeso-i-bawb/">Croeso i Bawb</a></em> (“Welcome to Everyone”) is a bespoke course that aims to introduce the Welsh language to migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>A Welsh government-commissioned <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2023-07/review-english-speakers-other-languages-esol-policy-wales.pdf">review</a> of ESOL provision in Wales this year reiterated the value of introducing Welsh for promoting a sense of belonging. The review also called for the National Centre for Learning Welsh to be integrated fully into existing educational networks that work to support migrants in Wales. </p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>It is important not to overstate the scale of these changes. Overall, English remains the primary medium of integration for the majority of immigrants and refugees settling in Wales.</p>
<p>Yet the increasing emphasis on the Welsh language in integration efforts reinforces the sense of a distinctive Welsh approach to welcoming migrants and refugees. The new WSOL provision <a href="https://wales.britishcouncil.org/en/blog/migrants-multilingualism-and-welsh-language">challenges</a> the monolingual image of life in the UK and promotes multilingualism and multiculturalism. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Adult Learning Wales’ information on WSOL.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Other <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-019-09517-0">research</a> suggests that learning Welsh can enhance the employment opportunities of migrants and refugees. It can also facilitate their ability to access a variety of new social networks. </p>
<p>But if there is to be a serious effort to offer a route to integration, it will not be sufficient to merely focus on offering formal opportunities to learn the Welsh language, important as that may be.</p>
<p>Policymakers and activists should consider other ways to make Welsh language learning more accessible. Providing opportunities for learners to interact socially through the medium of Welsh is also vital.</p>
<p>While the UK government seems set to continue emphasising English as the only way to integrate successfully, the current evidence suggests that Wales wants a different, more multilingual vision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article has benefited from financial support offered by the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) as part of a project on the ethics of linguistic integration.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Chick is affiliated with the Welsh Refugee Council as a Trustee.</span></em></p>The Welsh government has taken steps to ensure that the Welsh language plays a more prominent role in welcoming refugees and migrants.Huw Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Aberystwyth UniversityGwennan Higham, Senior Lecturer in Welsh, Swansea UniversityMike Chick, Senior Lecturer in TESOL/English, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2167932023-11-01T14:03:32Z2023-11-01T14:03:32ZDominic Cummings has exposed a hole at the heart of the British government – and a glaring problem with the way we choose prime ministers<p>The COVID inquiry is possibly the most sophisticated and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pa/article/74/2/483/5861499">wide-ranging blame game</a> that has ever played out in British politics. That said, the great benefit of public inquiries, as opposed to parliamentary scrutiny, is that their breadth allows for an exploration of issues in a way that promotes <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/abs/living-accountability-hot-rhetoric-cool-theory-and-uneven-practice/88E892FFA45B7294897DA9250686ED03">“cool thinking”</a> (balanced, reflective, evidence-based) over “hot rhetoric” (aggressive, adversarial, emotive). </p>
<p>Although hotly awaited, Dominic Cummings’s appearance before the inquiry was a fairly cool affair. Gone was the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41293-020-00148-2">“mad man in the wings”</a> who had caused controversy and chaos in Whitehall as chief adviser to former prime minister Boris Johnson. The edgy and unrepentant dissident who sat in the garden of No.10 and sought to justify his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/26/dominic-cummings-says-he-did-not-tell-whole-truth-about-journeys-to-durham-barnard-castle">lockdown-breaking drive to Barnard Castle</a> replaced now by a far calmer character. </p>
<p>There were, of course, the juicy soundbites about poor planning (the Cabinet Office described as a “dumpster fire”) and even poorer leadership (Johnson apparently being “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life”). The scale of dysfunctionality was captured in the use of a new language of disarray and disorder. Johnson, for example, was known as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I39AZGzWjQs">“trolley”</a> due to his tendency to change direction. Shifts in policy were the result of “poppins” (moments when officials would “pop in” to see Boris Johnson to drip-feed thoughts of doubt into his mind).</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A bunch of trolleys and poppins.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Deep story</h2>
<p>None of this insight was new, of course. The fact that the pandemic became a “Kafkaesque nightmare”, as Cummings put it, was no revelation to those who had been following this sorry saga. But a deeper story did emerge in the course of Cummings’s evidence. </p>
<p>In sociological research the notion of a “deep story” – <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/01/24/510567860/strangers-in-their-own-land-the-deep-story-of-trump-supporters">as sociologist Arlie Hochschild has demonstrated</a> with such insight – focuses on how people make sense of the world. Deep stories don’t need to be completely accurate, but they have to feel true to those who tell them. They are the stories people tell themselves to capture and manage pressures and disappointments, fears and anxieties.</p>
<p>In the COVID context, what’s most significant is the way in which a trail of WhatsApps and other social media messages have laid bare the “deep story” of how officials and advisers felt about their political masters. Expletive-laden messages between senior officials, the government described as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/13/uks-top-civil-servant-said-government-looked-like-tragic-joke-during-pandemic">“terrible, tragic joke”</a> and even the admission by the country’s most senior civil servant that he was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/13/uks-top-civil-servant-said-government-looked-like-tragic-joke-during-pandemic">“not sure I can cope”</a>. </p>
<p>What these inquiry sessions with central political figures have really revealed was the frailty of human nature when expected to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pa/article/73/2/253/5262273">govern under pressure</a> – which in itself leads to a focus on expertise. </p>
<p>The deeper issue, if not the story, emerging out of Cummings’s evidence was the existence of a governing system that was almost completely devoid of expertise. Plans did not exist. Systems were not connected. Data was not collected. Admissions of <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/dominic-cummings-lee-cain-government-covid-inquiry-boris-johnson-cabinet-b1117209.html">“dysfunctionality”</a> little more than a veil for an incredibly amateurish system staffed by generalists who were committed to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Muddling_Through.html?id=07eGQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">“muddling through”</a> when systemic responses were needed.</p>
<p>Where expertise was available in the form of its Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, the government lacked the capacity to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.12885">understand or interrogate the advice it was given</a>.</p>
<p>The bigger picture is provided in former government minister <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/442034/politics-on-the-edge-by-stewart-rory/9781787332713">Rory Stewart’s book Politics on the Edge</a>, which charts in great detail how those with expertise and specialist knowledge within Whitehall are sidelined in terms of promotion and policy input. Journalist <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/author/ian-dunt/3424919">Ian Dunt makes a similar argument</a> in his critique of both ministers and the civil service – generalists jettisoned into a system based on non-stop churn.</p>
<h2>Shallow man</h2>
<p>And yet there is a dimension of this story that is not at all deep. Indeed, its shallowness is almost shocking. The core and undeniable concern that Cummings’s evidence reinforced relates to the issue of leadership. </p>
<p>The admission by Lee Cain, the former director of communications in No.10 under Johnson, that COVID <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/covid-inquiry-latest-laughable-to-say-i-was-pushing-herd-immunity-cummings-boris-johnson-was-obsessed-with-older-people-accepting-their-fate-12593360">“was the wrong crisis for this prime minister’s skillset”</a> demands deconstruction.</p>
<p>How did Johnson become prime minister, and what were the skills or attributes that he brought to the role? </p>
<p>This is not a partisan question. It is a proposal for sober reflection on how we give people power. </p>
<p>Arguably the most galling element of the evidence that the public inquiry is amassing about Johnson’s lack of leadership skills is that anyone who had done even the smallest amount of credible research on his personal and professional life up to July 2019 could only have concluded that he was totally unfit for office. </p>
<p>This is not a partisan point either. It is underscored by a vast seam of research and scholarship. Anyone who doubts this point might simply take a dip into Tom Bower’s biography which titles Johnson as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/13/boris-johnson-the-gambler-by-tom-bower-review-the-defining-secret">The Gambler</a>. Andrew Gimson’s account of his <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Boris-Johnson/Andrew-Gimson/9781398502819">“rise and fall”</a> provides another weighty account of chaos and disaster. Sonia Purnell’s <a href="https://www.soniapurnell.com/just-boris">Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition</a> outlines a life of entitlement and absurdity. </p>
<p>The deepest question unearthed by Cummings’s evidence is really one about how we select and support our political leaders. In Johnson’s case it’s worth remembering that he was elected and effectively anointed prime minister by Conservative party members, who constitute <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1454fe21-5b2e-459c-966c-65fd48d52f8f">less than 1% of the electorate</a> in the United Kingdom (and a skewed and unrepresentative slice of the public at that). </p>
<p>We know from <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0032321721995632">May’s law of curvilinearity</a> that party activists tend to be more extreme in their views than the general public, and are likely to prize certain “qualities” (such as celebrity status, charisma and charm) over “basic skills” (organisational expertise or project management experience).</p>
<p>Celebrity, charisma and charm might be appropriate qualities for tea parties and fundraising dinners but they’re not much good for leading integrated pandemic response strategies.</p>
<p>That’s the deep and simple story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Flinders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Giving evidence to the COVID inquiry, Boris Johnson’s former adviser exposed the dysfunction of an administration lacking in the expertise needed to manage a crisis.Matthew Flinders, Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139282023-09-28T19:53:34Z2023-09-28T19:53:34ZShutdowns are a uniquely American drama − in the UK, it’s just not Parliament’s cup of tea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550968/original/file-20230928-15-ii5oha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C134%2C5605%2C3596&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The obligatory showing of the red briefcase containing budget details is as exciting as it gets in the U.K.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rishi-sunak-british-politician-delivers-the-budget-march-news-photo/1371415688?adppopup=true">Rob Welham/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it comes to shutdowns, the U.S. is very much an exception rather than the rule.</p>
<p>Save for a last-minute spending deal in Congress on Oct. 1, 2023, hundreds of thousands of <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-shutdowns-hurt-federal-worker-morale-long-after-paychecks-resume-especially-for-those-considered-nonessential-214431">federal employees will be furloughed</a> and the business of government will grind to a halt. <a href="https://www.crfb.org/papers/government-shutdowns-qa-everything-you-should-know#whatisashutdown">By some accounts</a>, it would be the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/24/federal-government-shutdown-history-list">22nd time since 1976</a> that the U.S. has had to deal with this political paralysis. </p>
<p>But it doesn’t have to be like this – and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/22/why-other-countries-dont-have-government-shutdowns-2/">in most countries it isn’t</a>. Other Western democracies experience polarization and political turmoil, too, yet do not experience this problem. Take for example the U.K., traditionally one of Washington’s closest allies and home to the “<a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/big-ben/much-more-than-a-clock/a-beacon-of-democracy/">mother of parliaments</a>.”</p>
<p>In the British system, government shutdowns just don’t happen – in fact, there has never been one and likely never will be.</p>
<p>So why do they occur in Washington but not London? Essentially, it comes down to four factors: the relative power of the legislature; how easy it is to pass a budget; the political stakes at play; and distinctive appropriation rules.</p>
<h2>1. Legislative power</h2>
<p>There are significant differences in how the legislatures of the U.K. and U.S. shape the budgetary process. </p>
<p>In the U.K., only the executive branch – the party or coalition in power – has the <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/government-spending-how-does-parliament-approve-it">authority to propose spending plans</a>. Parliament, which consists of members from all political parties, maintains an oversight and approval role, but it has very limited power over the budgetary timeline or <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/government-spending-how-does-parliament-approve-it">to amend spending plans</a>. This is a stark contrast with the U.S., where Congress – which may be split or controlled by a party different to the executive – plays a far more consequential role. </p>
<p>The U.S. president starts the budget process by laying out the administration’s funding priorities. Yet, the Constitution grants Congress the <a href="https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Power-of-the-Purse/">power of the purse</a> – that is, the power to tax and spend. </p>
<p>Moreover, past legislation has bolstered congressional control. The 1974 Congressional Budget Act helped <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/reflections-congressional-budget-act/">curtail presidential involvement in the budgeting process</a>, giving Congress more authority over the timeline. That gave Congress more power but also offered it more opportunities to <a href="https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/10/richard-nixon-congressional-budget-control-act-history-000282/">bicker and derail the budgetary process</a>.</p>
<h2>2. Thresholds to pass a budget</h2>
<p>Congress and the U.K. Parliament also differ when it comes to their voting rules. Passing the U.S. budget is inherently more complicated, as it requires the support of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>In Parliament, however, the two houses – the elected House of Commons and unelected House of Lords – are not equally involved. The two Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/parliament-acts">limited the power of the House of Lords</a>, preventing it from amending or blocking laws relating to budgeting.</p>
<p>Additionally, approving the budget in Westminster requires only an absolute majority of votes in the House of Commons. That tends to be quite a straightforward hurdle to overcome in the U.K. The party in power will typically also command a majority of votes in the chamber or be able to muster one up with the support of smaller parties. It is not, however, so easy in Congress. While a simple majority suffices in the House of Representatives, the Senate still has a 60-vote requirement to close debates before proceeding with a majority vote to pass a bill. </p>
<h2>3. Political stakes</h2>
<p>U.S. and U.K. politicians do not face the same high stakes over budget approval. Members of Congress may eventually pay a political price for how they vote on the budget, but there is no immediate threat to their jobs. That is not so in the U.K. </p>
<p>Indeed, the party or coalition in power in the U.K. must <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/confidence-motions-and-parliament">maintain the “confidence” of the House of Commons</a> to stay in office. In other words, they need to command the support of the majority for key votes. U.K. governments can actually fall – be forced to resign or call for new elections – if they lose formal votes of confidence. Since confidence is also <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/confidence-motions-and-parliament">implied in other major votes</a>, such as over the annual budget proposals, this raises the stakes for members of Parliament. They have tended to think twice before voting against a budget, for fear of triggering a dissolution of Parliament and new elections.</p>
<h2>4. Distinctive appropriation rules</h2>
<p>Finally, rules about appropriation also set the U.S. apart. For many decades, federal agencies could still operate <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/09/us/politics/longest-government-shutdown.html">despite funding bills not being passed</a>. That, however, changed with a ruling by then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti in 1980. He determined that it would be illegal for governments to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/09/us/politics/longest-government-shutdown.html">spend money without congressional approval</a>. </p>
<p>That decision has had the effect of making shutdowns more severe. But it is not a problem that the U.K. experiences because of its distinct rules on appropriation. So-called “<a href="https://guidetoprocedure.parliament.uk/articles/Tnyf75h2/votes-on-account">votes on account</a>” allow the U.K. government “to obtain an advance on the money they need for the next financial year.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garret Martin receives funding from the European Union for the institute he co-directs, namely the Transatlantic Policy Center.</span></em></p>With the US government seemingly heading toward a potentially painful federal shutdown, a scholar explains why such events never occur in the UK.Garret Martin, Senior Professorial Lecturer, Co-Director Transatlantic Policy Center, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134752023-09-20T15:34:27Z2023-09-20T15:34:27ZThe UK re-joining the Horizon research funding scheme benefits Europe too – the data backs it up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549329/original/file-20230920-29-d80p8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C6934%2C4637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/male-scientist-analyzes-studies-research-organic-2237778033">Amorn Suriyan / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK has <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-rejoins-eus-horizon-science-scheme/">just rejoined</a> the EU’s flagship research funding programmes, Horizon Europe and Copernicus. This is great news for science, the EU and the UK. </p>
<p>The reasons are simple: science progresses through the individual efforts of scholars and through <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048733398000547">international cooperative research</a>. The latter process involves different scientific institutions and organisations working towards common goals on a variety of different projects. </p>
<p>Science has never really been confined to what we define today as national borders. The life path of the astronomer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolaus-Copernicus">Nicolaus Copernicus</a>, provides a good example of this.</p>
<p>Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland, in 1473. After studying in Krakow, in his home country, he moved south, studying in the Italian cities of Rome and Padua. He ended up with a doctorate in canon law <a href="https://www.unife.it/en/unife-world/history">from the University of Ferrara</a>, also in Italy. </p>
<p>Afterwards, Copernicus moved back to Poland to further his studies. Here, he developed a model of the universe with the Sun at the centre, replacing the traditional model where the Earth was central. His <a href="https://www.pas.rochester.edu/%7Eblackman/ast104/copernican9.html">“Copernican model”</a> helped kick off the scientific revolution.</p>
<p>When the ability of researchers to work across borders is limited, <a href="https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/frozen-out-of-horizon-europe-swiss-science-feels-the-pinch/4015987.article">science suffers</a>. For this reason, Brexit has damaged the UK in terms of retaining European scholars. Some of the evidence comes from research using data on citations – the number of times a given scientific work has been mentioned in the literature by other researchers. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2022-019.pdf">A study</a> led by Ebru Sanliturk at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany, which I participated in, showed that, in the three years following Brexit, scholars who originated in the EU almost doubled their likelihood of leaving the UK. On the other hand, researchers originally from the UK have become more likely to stay in their home country or move back from the EU to the UK.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="European Commission in Brussels." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Horizon Europe deal gives UK scientists access to the world’s largest research collaboration programme.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/eu-flags-front-european-commission-brussels-162128453">Symbiot / Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Why is this the case? One of the key EU funding agencies is the <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/homepage">European Research Council (ERC)</a>. It does something unusual: it funds research projects led by a scientist who is then free to change institution after the grant has been awarded. </p>
<p><a href="https://dashboard.tech.ec.europa.eu/qs_digit_dashboard_mt/public/sense/app/afe00964-3272-45c4-b60c-b64ed20d98d1/sheet/61a0bd1d-cd6d-4ac8-8b55-80d8661e44c0/state/analysis">ERC data shows that</a>, since 2007, 98 UK institutions have been awarded 2,397 projects and a total of more than four million euros. Put another way, the UK took 16% of all projects and total ERC funding. </p>
<p>The ERC has large individual grants: <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/starting-grant">between 1.5</a> and <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/advanced-grant">2.5 million euros</a> per project. It has contributed to raising the stakes in European science, and being awarded an ERC grant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/apr/25/brexit-row-threatens-250m-in-uk-research-funding-from-eu">has become a badge of honour</a> for principal investigators – the scientists who lead research projects. </p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/about-erc/erc-glance">12 ERC awardees</a> have received a Nobel Prize. The UK has benefited too, by attracting principal investigators from <a href="https://dashboard.tech.ec.europa.eu/qs_digit_dashboard_mt/public/sense/app/afe00964-3272-45c4-b60c-b64ed20d98d1/sheet/61a0bd1d-cd6d-4ac8-8b55-80d8661e44c0/state/analysis">59 different nationalities</a>.</p>
<h2>International networks</h2>
<p>In many scientific areas, Europe has a comparative advantage when it pools resources and minds. Networks of scholars and institutions make discoveries, push forward our knowledge and transform scientific findings into applications.</p>
<p>So EU institutions and scholars can significantly gain from interacting with UK-based scholars and institutions. The UK undoubtedly houses the top institutions in Europe in many fields. If we take the <a href="https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2024?&page=1">general top 20 ranking of universities</a> from the company QS (Quacquarelli Symonds), four UK institutions are included, one from Switzerland and none from the EU.</p>
<p>Research infrastructure – the facilities, equipment and tools used for science – are <a href="https://www.esfri.eu/esfri-events/esfri-20years-conference">fundamental to enabling discoveries</a>. Some of them are viable only by investing a large amount of money and resources. </p>
<p>In some cases, no single country in Europe can afford the infrastructure needed – one example is the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-a-higgs-boson/">Large Hadron Collider at Cern</a>. The more members there are, the easier it is to spread the costs of such projects.</p>
<p>Another example is Copernicus, an <a href="https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Europe_s_Copernicus_programme">EU-funded Earth observation programme</a> using satellites to monitor the health of our planet. It provides open data, with everybody able to access it in real time – which is particularly useful in cases of environmental emergencies. As part of its deal to join Horizon Europe as an associate member, the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_23_4373">UK will become part of Copernicus</a>.</p>
<p>However, the UK has not negotiated an <a href="https://www.esfri.eu/people/delegates">associate membership of ESFRI</a>, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures. ESFRI projects, such as the <a href="https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/">European Social Survey</a> and the <a href="https://share-eric.eu/">Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe</a>, provide important scientific insights. These translate into social and economic policy assessments by comparing results across countries – effectively using Europe as a natural laboratory. </p>
<p>So, there are potential wins and losses to everyone involved from the particular way the new deal has been negotiated between the EU and UK.</p>
<h2>Prospects for the future</h2>
<p>Some 17 countries are associate members of Horizon Europe, including science powerhouse Israel (which is a per capita <a href="https://dashboard.tech.ec.europa.eu/qs_digit_dashboard_mt/public/sense/app/afe00964-3272-45c4-b60c-b64ed20d98d1/sheet/61a0bd1d-cd6d-4ac8-8b55-80d8661e44c0/state/analysis">leader in receiving ERC research grants</a>), and major players such as Norway, as well as countries with large populations like Turkey and Ukraine. Switzerland, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.sbfi.admin.ch/sbfi/en/home/research-and-innovation/international-cooperation-r-and-i/eu-framework-programmes-for-research/horizon-europe.html">does not have associate member status</a> with Horizon Europe, but does collaborate with other research teams in Europe using other sources of funding.</p>
<p>Whether the UK’s relationship with the EU on science will evolve towards a strong and stable partnership model similar to the one of Israel or Norway, or towards a more ad hoc one like Switzerland’s, is hard to foresee. </p>
<p>If science and impact are key, a complementary, strong and stable partnership is in the interests of both the UK, the EU and other countries with associate membership of Horizon Europe. This can make us cautiously optimistic about the future for all parties.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francesco Billari received funding from the European Research Council, Horizon Europe, and the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). </span></em></p>Science works better when barriers to collaboration are removed, say experts.Francesco Billari, Professor of Demography, Bocconi UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130882023-09-08T18:14:18Z2023-09-08T18:14:18ZThe UK has joined the EU’s Horizon science funding scheme – but if we want the UK to lead, the hard work has just begun<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547173/original/file-20230908-23-a1h2m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C5058%2C2874&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/medical-research-laboratory-portrait-handsome-male-1924512566">Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government’s announcement that it had rejoined the European Union’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66737714">Horizon Europe science funding programme</a> was cause for celebration among researchers in Britain and across Europe. But what will the terms of the deal – and the long time the UK was out of the programme – mean for those researchers and the country more generally?</p>
<p>The UK had been a full member of the EU’s flagship research and innovation programme until the country formally left the bloc in 2020. Following lengthy negotiations, the UK has now <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-joins-horizon-europe-under-a-new-bespoke-deal">joined Horizon as an associate member</a> – an arrangement open to non-EU countries.</p>
<p>Horizon Europe is the <a href="https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe_en">world’s largest multilateral research funding pot</a>. It runs from 2020 to 2027 and has a budget of €95.5 billion (£82 billion). </p>
<p>Researchers based in EU member states and other “associated” countries can apply for funding on a competitive basis to support prestigious fellowships – monetary awards to support individual researchers’ careers – and research collaborations between a number of researchers across different universities and often different countries. </p>
<p>The EU Framework Programmes – the type of funding scheme that Horizon is the latest incarnation of – have historically been a significant source of funding for UK research. Under Horizon 2020, the funding programme which preceded Horizon Europe, the UK secured around 14% of funding, being awarded a total of nearly €7 billion (£6 billion). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="EU headquarters in Brussels." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547206/original/file-20230908-29236-9apygu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547206/original/file-20230908-29236-9apygu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547206/original/file-20230908-29236-9apygu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547206/original/file-20230908-29236-9apygu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547206/original/file-20230908-29236-9apygu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547206/original/file-20230908-29236-9apygu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547206/original/file-20230908-29236-9apygu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The deal is the outcome of long negotiations between the UK government and EU officials.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brussels-belgium-on-october-21-2011-1280131123">NelzTabcharani316 / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>It’s been a tortuous journey to associate membership. There was a collective sigh of relief in December 2020 when the <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/relations-non-eu-countries/relations-united-kingdom/eu-uk-trade-and-cooperation-agreement_en">EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA)</a>, which established arrangements for EU-UK cooperation post-Brexit, included a commitment on UK association. </p>
<p>However, its implementation was delayed because of tensions between the UK and EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol. With these largely resolved following the Windsor Framework agreement in February 2023, the path was <a href="https://sciencebusiness.net/news/Horizon-Europe/northern-ireland-deal-opens-door-immediate-talks-uk-horizon-europe-association-says-von-der">theoretically cleared for joining Horizon</a>. </p>
<p>However, a deal was delayed as the UK sought to negotiate terms which reflected the impact of our exclusion since 2020 on participation rates (the amount of grants received by the UK). This led to the UK government developing its “Plan B” Pioneer prospectus, a domestic alternative in the event that a deal could not be agreed with the EU over Horizon. In recent months, that had started to look like a very real prospect.</p>
<p>The new Horizon deal accommodated the UK’s concerns without having to re-negotiate the TCA. Subject to formal ratification by EU member states, the UK will participate in Horizon Europe as an associated country from January 1, 2024. </p>
<p>This means that UK researchers will have the option to participate in Horizon Europe on the same terms as academics in EU member states and will again have the opportunity to lead consortia on collaborative research projects.</p>
<p>Under the deal, the UK government will “pay to play”. This means that it will contribute an average of about €2.6 billion (£2.2 billion) a year to cover participation in both Horizon Europe and a space programme for observing changes on Earth called Copernicus. If the UK puts in 16% more (or above) than researchers win in grants it can claw back money – something that was a <a href="https://sciencebusiness.net/news/horizon-europe/how-uk-and-eu-did-deal-over-horizon-europe">point of contention during negotiations</a>. </p>
<p>One thing that’s absent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/sep/07/what-does-rejoining-eus-horizon-scheme-mean-for-uk-research-and-innovation">is participation in Euratom</a>, the EU’s €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion) nuclear research programme. The government has instead announced additional investment of up to £650 million to support UK nuclear fusion programmes.</p>
<h2>Impact and mitigation of delays</h2>
<p>The prolonged uncertainty has taken its toll, with <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/05/uk-scientists-blocked-from-horizon-funding-programme-amid-brexit-tensions/">frequent reports</a> of UK researchers no longer being included in multi-national proposals. Their participation in projects was considered by some collaborators outside the UK to be an active deterrent to funding. </p>
<p>The UK government’s welcome <a href="https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/apply-for-horizon-europe-guarantee-funding/#:%7E:text=The%20'Horizon%20Europe%20guarantee'%20scheme,in%20the%20process%20of%20associating.">Horizon Europe guarantee scheme</a> has provided some mitigation during the hiatus, awarding almost £1.3 billion of funding – as of July 2023 – to successful Horizon Europe applicants in the UK. This has created space for UK researchers to remain involved in EU research endeavours while negotiations were ongoing.</p>
<p>This deal is good news for UK research and offers the opportunity for the country to re-establish itself as a trusted partner and leader in EU-funded research and innovation. Researchers have consistently articulated the difficulties of replicating the benefits of Horizon Europe funding at a national level. </p>
<p>They have stressed the importance of access to international networks over cost-benefit analyses, and the global prestige of the <a href="https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/european-research-council_en">European Research Council</a> – which funds frontier research as part of Horizon Europe. For researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences, Horizon funding is particularly important to supplement the UK’s comparatively modest investment in those disciplines. </p>
<p>Under the new deal, the UK will once again be able to influence how Horizon Europe is governed and to influence its successor programme. The priority now must be for UK research institutions to maximise UK participation rates, which have been negatively impacted by the prolonged uncertainty. </p>
<p>This matters not only because of the downstream, societal benefits of EU-funded research, but also with an eye on maintaining a domestic political consensus in favour of association. This is important because the association deal is only until Horizon Europe’s end in 2027. Reviving relationships with European partners will also be vital as vocal advocates for UK association. </p>
<h2>Looking beyond the horizon</h2>
<p>The work to develop the government’s “Plan B” need not go to waste. Informed by an assessment of research collaborations called the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/844488/Changes_and_Choices.pdf">Smith-Reid review</a>, Plan B set out key measures to strengthen UK research, emphasising investment in talent, infrastructure, and international and business collaborations. A coherent approach to recruiting and retaining global talent and expanding international partnerships remains relevant regardless of Horizon funding.</p>
<p>However, association with Horizon does not address an outstanding question about the UK’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus">Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF)</a>. This was established post-Brexit to replace EU investment in deprived regions – an <a href="https://uk2070.org.uk">enduring challenge for the UK</a>. But shorter funding timeframes and minimal consideration of universities in the SPF, unlike its predecessor programme, will hamper efforts to tackle regional inequalities.</p>
<p>Horizon Europe is a crucial ingredient in the UK’s bid to become a science superpower. However, it cannot by itself confer superpower status. Our eyes should now turn to what lies beyond the horizon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213088/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The deal will bring relief to UK scientists after Brexit led to uncertainty over funding and collaborative projects.Sarah Chaytor, Director of Strategy and Policy, UCL Research, Innovation & Global Engagement, UCLLucy Shackleton, Head of Public Policy & Partnerships, UCL European Institute, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2111532023-08-11T14:14:53Z2023-08-11T14:14:53ZWhy imprisoning repeat shoplifters rarely breaks the cycle of offending – and what may work better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541706/original/file-20230808-25-1obzzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C5364%2C3910&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The possibility of introducing mandatory prison sentences for prolific shoplifters has been mooted by government ministers. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/londonenglandunited-kingdomjuly-21-2019-waterloo-rail-1676652064">Neil Bussey/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government is taking a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/action-plan-to-crack-down-on-anti-social-behaviour">harsher approach</a> to tackle criminal activity which is blighting local neighbourhoods. And recently, government ministers have been talking tough about repeat shoplifting, including <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shoplifters-face-prison-under-crime-crackdown-ggdbv3j99">the possibility</a> of introducing new laws which would see prolific shoplifters imprisoned. This has all been against a backdrop of concern about a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/01/one-guy-uses-us-like-a-larder-the-british-shoplifting-crisis-as-seen-from-the-tills">rise in shoplifting</a> across the UK.</p>
<p>But there are some serious practical problems with any such measures and questions remain over whether such a policy could break the cycle of offending. Meanwhile, there is an innovative approach to this issue which may be a better way of dealing with crimes such as shoplifting called “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/integrated-offender-management-iom">integrated offender management</a>” (IOM). </p>
<p>Rolled out over the past few years, IOM is a novel criminal justice approach that is designed to break the cycle of re-offending. It is operated by 39 out of 43 police forces in England and Wales. </p>
<p>IOM involves police officers working closely with prison and probation services and criminal justice intervention teams. These are support staff who provide both clinical and therapeutic interventions for drug users involved in the criminal justice system. It is all in an effort to change or control the criminal activities of prolific offenders. </p>
<p>IOM was designed to address the underlying causes of offending. By the end of 2020, it was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/integrated-offender-management-strategy">central</a> to the government’s neighbourhood crime strategy. In a report issued that year, former minister for crime and policing Kit Malthouse and former minister for prisons and probation, Luzy Frazer, said: </p>
<p>“We need a new approach – one with the tools to come down with full force on those responsible, but which also encourages rehabilitation and supports offenders to overcome the complex problems that we know can fuel this type of behaviour, such as substance misuse, poor mental health and issues with housing or employment.”</p>
<p>Any proposals which would see prison sentences for repeat shoplifters could risk undoing any positive progress made under IOM. </p>
<h2>The problem with prison</h2>
<p>The UK’s prison estate is running out of capacity for adult males. In November 2022, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/30/uk-government-requests-urgent-police-cells-male-prisoners">the Ministry of Justice announced</a> emergency measures that would see some offenders who would ordinarily be imprisoned (typically remand prisoners) housed in police cells. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prison-population-figures-2023">Figures</a> released in August 2023 show a total of just 980 available prison places.</p>
<p>The government has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/500-million-boost-to-create-thousands-of-new-prison-places">already stated</a> that more prisons need to be built. But any criminal justice initiative that requires new prisons will take a long time to deliver. This is because, on average, new prisons take <a href="https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/proposed-new-prison-in-chorley/supporting_documents/chorleynewprisonconsultation.pdf">two to three years to build</a> and open. </p>
<p>Also, <a href="https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CSJ-Desperate-for-a-fix-WEB-1.pdf">70% of shoplifting</a> is estimated to be carried out by people funding an addiction to class A drugs – typically heroin and crack cocaine. These people arrive in prison as addicts and likely leave as addicts and so will continue shoplifting. Custody is not a panacea for prolific shoplifting and is unlikely to break the cycle of offending. </p>
<h2>Integrated offender management</h2>
<p>IOM work is done through a mix of rehabilitative and restrictive or enforcement-orientated interventions. Here, the police take a “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2018.1547719">carrot and stick</a>” approach to the management of offenders. Plain-clothed officers, deployed as police offender managers, gather intelligence and monitor people for signs of re-offending. </p>
<p>Simultaneously, these officers attempt to draw offenders away from crime by working alongside the other agencies, facilitating access to drug services, education, employment and transitions into stable housing arrangements. This is the “carrot” approach. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A police officer wearing a yellow high visibility jacket" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Integrated offender management involves police officers working closely with other agencies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-19th-april-2019-police-1392717764">John Gomez/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Where there is evidence that a person is failing to comply with licence conditions, or engage with IOM positively, traditional catch-and-convict policing methods are used by uniformed patrol officers. This is the “stick” approach.</p>
<p>Prolific shoplifters are the type of offenders IOM schemes should be engaging with. </p>
<p>My own <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Integrated-Offender-Management-and-the-Policing-of-Prolific-Offenders/Cram/p/book/9780367254148">research</a> has focused on how police officers contribute to IOM schemes. </p>
<p>I have also spoken with offenders who were engaged with IOM in the community. A number said that, while it was initially challenging to do so, in time they were able to form working relationships with police officers. </p>
<p>And, significantly, because of this, IOM had had a positive impact on their lives. This was particularly the case when it came to IOM helping them enter employment and tackle any drug-related issues they were experiencing. </p>
<p>Broadly, IOM seemed to have a strong motivational influence and a positive impact on those who wanted to leave their criminal lifestyle behind. </p>
<p>But IOM can only fully operate when people are able to access the relevant support services in the community. People may be able to get very limited employment and substance misuse help when in prison, but IOM offers a much deeper and enduring level of support. </p>
<p>The prospect of removing sentencing discretion for prolific shoplifters from magistrates and judges and introducing mandatory jail sentences, would risk disrupting a significant criminal justice programme. IOM may be a better and more cost effective way to deal with the pressing issue of repeated shoplifting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>My original research, on Integrated Offender Management, was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. Grant number: EF/H011382/1.</span></em></p>Integrated offender management is a better way of dealing with shoplifters than prison.Frederick Cram, Lecturer in Law, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106632023-08-10T12:25:02Z2023-08-10T12:25:02ZAI threatens to add to the growing wave of fraud but is also helping tackle it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541723/original/file-20230808-19-q8t3ng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C24%2C5452%2C3812&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The government, banks and other financial organisations are now dealing with fraud by using increasingly sophisticated detection methods.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/internet-fraud-darknet-data-thiefs-cybercrime-1716862513">Maksim Shmeljov/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There were <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/natureoffraudandcomputermisuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2022">4.5 million</a> reported incidents of fraud in the UK in 2021/22, up 25% on the year before. It is a growing problem which costs billions of pounds every year. </p>
<p>The COVID pandemic and the cost of living crisis have created <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55769991">ideal conditions</a> for fraudsters to exploit the vulnerability and desperation of many households and businesses. And with the use of AI increasing in general, we will likely see a further increase in <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/blog/auditandassurance/2023/generative-ai-and-fraud-what-are-the-risks-that-firms-face.html">new types of fraud</a> and is probably contributing to the increased frequency of fraud we are seeing today. </p>
<p>Already, the ability of AI to absorb personal data, such as emails, photographs, videos and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scammers-ai-mimic-voices-loved-ones-in-distress/#:%7E:text=Artificial%20intelligence%20is%20making%20phone,mounting%20losses%20due%20to%20fraud.">voice recordings</a> to imitate people is proving to be a new and unprecedented challenge. </p>
<p>But there is also an upside. The government, banks and other financial organisations are now fighting back with increasingly sophisticated fraud-detection methods. AI and machine learning models could be a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/04/as-generative-ai-gains-pace-industry-leaders-explain-how-to-make-it-a-force-for-good/">part of the solution</a> to deal with the increasing complexity, sophistication and prevalence of such scams.</p>
<p>The rising gap between prices and people’s incomes appears to have made people more <a href="https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/about-us1/media/press-releases/over-40-million-targeted-by-scammers-as-the-cost-of-living-crisis-bites/">receptive</a> to scams which offer grants, rebates and support payments. </p>
<p>Fraudsters often target individuals by posing as genuine organisations. Examples include pretending to be your bank or posing as the government telling you that you are eligible for a lucrative scheme, in order to steal your identity details and then money. </p>
<p>This follows a dramatic rise in recent years of fraudulent applications to government and regional support packages, mainly implemented in response to the pandemic. Here fraudsters often pose as fake businesses to secure multiple loans or grants. </p>
<p>One of the <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/man-who-pretended-greggs-bakery-27251086">most outlandish examples</a> of this was a Luton man who posed as a Greggs bakery to swindle three local authorities in England out of almost £200,000 worth of COVID small business grants.</p>
<p>The hurried roll out of such schemes for faster economic impact made it difficult for officials to effectively review applications. The UK government’s Department for Business and Trade now <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59504943">estimates</a> that 11% of such loans, roughly £5 billion, were fraudulent. By March 2022 only £762 million <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-issue-briefing-tackling-error-and-fraud-in-the-covid-19-support-schemes/tackling-error-and-fraud-in-the-covid-19-support-schemes">had been recovered</a>.</p>
<h2>Fraud detection</h2>
<p>Over the past few years, complex mathematical models combining traditional statistical techniques and machine learning analysis have shown promise in the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acfi.12742">early detection</a> of financial statement fraud. This is when companies typically misrepresent or deceive investors into believing they are more profitable than they really are.</p>
<p>One of the breakthroughs has been the incorporation of both financial and non-financial information into data analysis systems. For example, the risk of fraud decreases if there is <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acfi.12742">better corporate governance</a> and a lower proportion of directors who are also executives. </p>
<p>In a small business context, we can think about this as promoting transparency and making sure that important positions do not have sole authority to make significant decisions. </p>
<p>Such data analytics models can be used to rank applications in terms of potential fraud risk, so that the riskiest applications get additional scrutiny by government officials. We are now starting to see implementations of such systems to tackle <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/11/use-of-artificial-intelligence-widened-to-assess-universal-credit-applications-and-tackle">universal credit</a> fraud, for example.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0dca8946-05c8-11e8-9e12-af73e8db3c71">Banks, financial services providers</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d3bd46cb-75d4-40ff-a0cd-6d7f33d58d7f">insurers</a> are developing machine-learning models to detect financial fraud too. A Bank of England survey published in October 2022 <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/report/2022/machine-learning-in-uk-financial-services">revealed</a> that 72% of financial services firms are already testing and implementing them. </p>
<p>We are also seeing new collaborations in the industry, with the likes of Deutsche Bank partnering with chip maker Nvidia to <a href="https://www.db.com/news/detail/20221207-deutsche-bank-partners-with-nvidia-to-embed-ai-into-financial-services">embed AI</a> into their fraud detection systems.</p>
<h2>Risks of AI systems</h2>
<p>However, the advent of new automated AI systems bring with it worries of potential unintended biases within them. In a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66133665">recent trial</a> of a new AI fraud detection system by the Department of Work and Pensions, campaign groups were worried about potential biases. </p>
<p>A common issue that needs to be overcome with such systems is that they work for the majority of people, but are often biased against minority groups. This means if left unadjusted they are disproportionately more likely to flag applications from ethnic minorities as risky.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scams-deepfake-porn-and-romance-bots-advanced-ai-is-exciting-but-incredibly-dangerous-in-criminals-hands-199004">Scams, deepfake porn and romance bots: advanced AI is exciting, but incredibly dangerous in criminals' hands</a>
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<p>But AI systems should not be used as a fully automated process to detect and accuse fraud but rather <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2df33fc5-981a-4952-8dc6-d4eee7343acc">as a tool</a> to assist assessors. They can help auditors and civil servants, for example, to identify cases where greater scrutiny is required and to reduce processing time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Gepp has received funding from the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. He is also affiliated with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurence Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fraud was up 25% in the UK in 2021/22.Laurence Jones, Lecturer in Finance, Bangor UniversityAdrian Gepp, Professor of Data Analytics, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2108512023-08-03T16:45:39Z2023-08-03T16:45:39ZNet zero: direct costs of climate policies aren’t a major barrier to public support, research reveals<p>Amid headlines of wildfires raging across Europe and Africa and flooding in China, the UK government took the bewildering choice to expand fossil fuel extraction.</p>
<p>Prime minister Rishi Sunak declared that more than 100 new oil and gas drilling licences would be granted for the North Sea in 2023, sparking <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/31/dismay-as-rishi-sunak-vows-to-max-out-uk-fossil-fuel-reserves">widespread criticism</a> and incredulity from climate experts, business leaders and some within his own party. The latest announcement follows other indications that the UK government is reviewing its <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1033990/net-zero-strategy-beis.pdf">climate commitments</a>, spurred by a byelection victory that was won in part by opposing London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez).</p>
<p>Much of this backsliding relies on dubious logic: that the economic costs of green policies, and how they affect people’s lives, make them damaging for the UK and will always lose votes. As researchers who study public attitudes towards such policies, we are quite sure these arguments from the government don’t hold water.</p>
<p>First, inaction on climate change costs more than action, as established nearly two decades ago in the landmark <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/the-economics-of-climate-change-the-stern-review/">Stern review</a>. The economic case has only strengthened since, with this year’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/net-zero-review-uk-could-do-more-to-reap-economic-benefits-of-green-growth">Skidmore review</a> making clear the considerable opportunities for the UK in a net zero transition, including the potential creation of almost half a million green jobs.</p>
<p>Second, the government’s reluctance to intervene in people’s lives with climate policies does not reflect <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/one-four-britons-think-climate-change-out-control">public opinion</a>. There is actually UK-wide support for net zero policies – including those that would involve lifestyle changes. Crucially, the public <a href="https://thinksinsight.com/the-net-zero-diaries-a-citizen-perspective-on-tackling-the-climate-emergency/">wants and needs</a> the government to show clear and consistent leadership on climate change.</p>
<h2>Behaviour changes are essential</h2>
<p>Scientific assessments, including the latest <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/">report</a> by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and analyses by the UK’s statutory advisers on climate policy, the <a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Sixth-Carbon-Budget-The-UKs-path-to-Net-Zero.pdf">Climate Change Committee</a>, show that new technologies alone will not be sufficient for the country to hit its carbon targets.</p>
<p>Most measures to reach net zero require people to make at least some changes to their daily routines, including limiting car use, eating less red meat and dairy, buying electric vehicles and heat pumps, and reducing waste. Likewise, businesses will need to change their behaviour too.</p>
<p>While the scale of the necessary lifestyle changes is <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/ipsos-perils-perception-climate-change">not well understood</a> by the public, people are willing to play their part in a net zero transition. Polling shows public concern about climate change has remained high throughout <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2018936118">the pandemic</a> and the <a href="https://cast.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/CAST-Briefing-17.pdf">cost of living crisis</a>. Most people worldwide <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en/earth-day-2023-concern-and-focus-slipping-climate-change">agree</a> that changes to our behaviour are necessary to tackle climate change.</p>
<p>Our research also shows that the UK public is broadly on board with net zero, including measures that would involve lifestyle changes. With the market research company Ipsos, we polled more than 5,000 people across the UK on their attitudes to a range of net zero policies. Our findings indicated high levels of public support (in both <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/publication/documents/2022-06/net-zero-living-ipsos-cast-2022.pdf">2021</a> and <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/uk-public-still-broadly-supports-most-net-zero-policies">2022</a>) for most of them, with support strongest for frequent flyer levies, changing product prices to reflect environmental impacts, phasing out gas boilers, and electric vehicle subsidies.</p>
<h2>How to maintain public support</h2>
<p>It’s true that support drops when people are asked to consider the costs of climate policies. For example, while 68% support the general idea of charging frequent flyers more for each additional flight they take in a year, when the financial costs to the individual are spelled out, support falls to 32% (and opposition rises from 16% to 33%).</p>
<p>This is perhaps no surprise. Previous research showed that even mentioning a very modest cost can make people less likely to support a policy, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0217-x">including climate measures</a>.</p>
<p>On the other hand, emphasising the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30312911/">effectiveness</a> or wider benefits of climate policies can increase support for them. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2814">One study</a> conducted across 24 countries showed that highlighting additional benefits, such as cleaner air or stronger social cohesion, increased a person’s motivation to take action on climate change.</p>
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<img alt="A parent with a child on their shoulders silhouetted against a wind farm at dusk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541006/original/file-20230803-25-e09g42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541006/original/file-20230803-25-e09g42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541006/original/file-20230803-25-e09g42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541006/original/file-20230803-25-e09g42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541006/original/file-20230803-25-e09g42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541006/original/file-20230803-25-e09g42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541006/original/file-20230803-25-e09g42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Money is only one factor in determining public attitudes to climate measures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/silhouette-father-son-clipping-path-hard-1965838294">Blue Titan/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Even more important for public acceptance is how fair a policy is seen to be, as revealed both by <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/publication/documents/2022-06/net-zero-living-ipsos-cast-2022.pdf">our research</a> and other <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01297-6">studies</a>. Indeed, fairness was a key topic in the Ulez debate during the Uxbridge byelection, where drivers of older vehicles were seen by some as being unfairly penalised and inadequately supported, for instance through scrappage schemes.</p>
<p>The fact that <a href="https://climateoutreach.org/reports/fairness-climate-advocacy/">fairness</a> can mean different things to different people highlights the need for the government to <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/969428/net-zero-public-engagement-participation-research-note.pdf">engage with the public</a> when designing climate policies. Deliberative processes such as <a href="https://www.climateassembly.uk/recommendations/www.climateassembly.uk/report/">climate assemblies</a> can help with this.</p>
<p>There are other important factors. <a href="https://cast.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/CM_UOB_49-CAST-Report_v5_FINAL_27.9.22.pdf">Workshops</a> we held across the UK showed that public support for net zero policies remains high as long as people feel they still have personal choice, their freedoms are protected, and they trust those who are implementing the policies. We found only very restrictive policies are opposed, such as mandating meat-free diets, no flying or a car-free lifestyle.</p>
<h2>Win-win policies</h2>
<p>The fluidity of public support for climate action highlights the importance of a clear vision and consistent leadership from the government. Instead of rolling over at the first hint of controversy, political leaders should present a vision of a sustainable future that everyone can work towards, involving a stable climate, cleaner air, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01219-y">healthier lifestyles</a>. Licensing new oil and gas drilling obviously runs counter to this.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-asked-the-british-public-what-they-really-think-about-net-zero-heres-what-we-found-210766">We asked the British public what they really think about net zero – here's what we found</a>
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<p>While the UK government may shy away from promoting climate-friendly behaviour changes because they equate them with sacrifice, in fact, people with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1462901122000776">low-carbon lifestyles tend to be happier</a> than those <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3673">who consume more</a>. And at a time of economic hardship, the UK government could focus efforts on measures that at once reduce energy bills and also cut emissions – for example, through support for home insulation.</p>
<p>Making behaviour change policies convenient and affordable <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/30146/documents/174873/default/">requires governments to intervene</a> with regulations and incentives. A clearly communicated vision to keep the public on board, and a <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/30146/documents/174873/default/">programme of public engagement</a> that creates an honest, society-wide dialogue on net zero and a sense of collective effort, is essential to their success.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 20,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorraine Whitmarsh receives funding from the Economic & Social Research Council (ERC) and the European Research Council (ERC). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Verfuerth receives funding from the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) and has previously received funding from the Welsh Government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Westlake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Reneging on climate commitments indicates the UK government’s misreading of public attitudes.Lorraine Whitmarsh, Professor of Environmental Psychology, University of BathCaroline Verfuerth, Research Associate, Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations, Cardiff UniversitySteve Westlake, Research Associate, Climate Leadership, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2087582023-07-28T15:38:08Z2023-07-28T15:38:08ZTerrorists are using fraud to fund their activities – the UK government needs to act urgently<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539487/original/file-20230726-17-fgwvcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5472%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The link between fraud and terrorism financing in the UK has been overlooked by successive governments.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/concept-credit-card-theft-hackers-cards-1107463670">JARIRIYAWAT/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fraud is one of the most popular methods now used to fund terrorist activities. But the connection between fraud and terrorism financing in the UK has been overlooked by successive governments, despite <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/publications/an-inspection-of-the-police-response-to-fraud/">an acknowledgement</a> of that link. </p>
<p>Worryingly, the UK government’s new <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1154660/Fraud_Strategy_2023.pdf">fraud</a> and <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1171084/CONTEST_2023.pdf">counter-terrorism</a> strategies offer no policies to tackle the problem.</p>
<p>Until the terrorist attacks in the US in September 2001, the international community had focused its financial crime efforts on tackling money laundering. As a result of 9/11, governments instigated a “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Financial-War-on-Terrorism-A-Review-of-Counter-Terrorist-Financing/Ryder/p/book/9781138708310">financial war</a>” on terrorism which has limited the sources available to terrorist groups. Now similar work is needed to tackle the acts of terror funded through fraud.</p>
<p><a href="https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/160123/">My research</a> focuses on the numerous terrorist attacks which have been financed by fraud. This work has identified a terrorism financing dossier, which includes passport fraud, immigration fraud, identify theft, financial fraud and tax fraud. </p>
<p>Benefit fraud is one of the most common methods used to fund terrorism in Europe, especially in Belgium, Scandinavia and the UK. Credit card, personal loan and bank fraud is prevalent in terrorism networks in the US and the UK. And not-for-profit organisation fraud and tax fraud are also prevalent in the US, UK and Spain.</p>
<p>The UK government has introduced a series of measures to try to tackle these issues. These include the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/10/contents/enacted">Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022</a> and the <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3339">economic crime and corporate transparency bill (2022)</a>, which is still going through parliament. Both are intended to extend the UK’s sanctions regime and improve the use of <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9098/#:%7E:text=Unexplained%20Wealth%20Orders%20allow%20for,reversing%20the%20burden%20of%20proof.">unexplained wealth orders</a> (which allow for the confiscation of property without proving criminality).</p>
<p>However, there are no specific measures to tackle the association between fraud and the financing of terrorism. This means there are still a number of loopholes that terrorists could exploit. And organisations are under no obligation to report fraud to the security services. But terrorists have used fraud to help finance attacks in the UK over the past two decades.</p>
<h2>UK terror attacks</h2>
<p>In July 2005, four suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured more than 770 others after detonating four improvised explosive devices in London. The financing of this terrorist attack and its association with fraud stretch back to 1995. </p>
<p>That is when HMRC connected several suspected frauds with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12621383">Shehzad Tanweer</a>, one of the terrorists. Yet this information <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/48886/documents/2575">was not disclosed</a> to either the UK’s Financial Intelligence Unit or the security and intelligence services by HMRC.</p>
<p>In May 2017, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/26/everything-know-manchester-suicide-bomber-salman-abedi/">Salman Abedi</a> detonated an improvised explosive device in the Manchester Arena, killing 22 people and injuring more than 800 others. Abedi had fraudulently used student loans and his maintenance grant to fund the attack. </p>
<p>He received £7,000 from the Student Loans Company after securing a place at university in October 2015. Higher education institutions are under <a href="https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/160289/3/Criminal%20Law%20Review%20%281%29.pdf">no legal obligation</a> to report any suspicions of fraud or terrorism financing to the National Crime Agency (NCA).</p>
<p>In June 2017, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48580750">Khuram Butt</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40173157#:%7E:text=Rachid%20Redouane%2C%2030%2C%20claimed%20to,by%20the%20name%20Rachid%20Elkhdar.">Rachid Redouane</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/06/london-bridge-attack-third-attacker-named-in-italy-as-youssef-zaghba">Youssef Zaghba</a> used a van to knock down several pedestrians on London Bridge before continuing their terrorist attack on foot. In total, eight people were killed and 48 others were injured.</p>
<p>Butt had been <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/london-bridge-attack-mi5-accused-of-damning-list-of-failures-11750204">investigated and arrested</a> by Scotland Yard on suspicion of falsely reporting fraudulent activity on three separate bank accounts in October 2016. After his arrest, Butt was granted bail and the fraud charges were eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence. But the banks had been under no legal obligation to submit a report to the NCA.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dubious-partnerships-new-plans-to-curb-wrongdoing-by-uk-registered-firms-are-riddled-with-loopholes-206010">Dubious partnerships: new plans to curb wrongdoing by UK-registered firms are riddled with loopholes</a>
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<p>What these examples demonstrate is that the current reporting obligations are unable to prevent such terrorism financing threats. In light of these cases, the reporting of fraud should become mandatory for organisations. It would place fraud on the same legislative footing as money laundering, for example, which is already recognised as an important source of terror finance. </p>
<p>The UK government also needs to reconsider its current fraud and counter terrorism strategies. They should include measures that focus on using fraud investigation as a disruptive mechanism to prevent future acts of terrorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Ryder receives funding from InnovateUK. </span></em></p>Numerous terrorist attacks in the UK and abroad have been financed by fraud and the government needs to close financial loopholes to prevent future tragedies.Nicholas Ryder, Professor of Law, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097542023-07-18T17:11:46Z2023-07-18T17:11:46ZHow English women’s football could become a billion pound industry – and where the money comes from to make it happen<p>A long-awaited official <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1169802/Raising_the_bar_-_reframing_the_opportunity_in_women_s_football.pdf">review of women’s football</a> in England sets out ten recommendations designed to transform and develop the sport at every level. The review, which was chaired by former international player Karen Carney, covers everything from playing standards to diversity goals and equal access to sports for girls.</p>
<p>As a whole, its aim is to create a better version of the sport that exists now, with more women and girls playing better football in a healthier environment, and more people watching and enjoying it. </p>
<p>These kind of changes will come at a price. But <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jul/13/review-women-football-overhaul-future">Carney predicts</a> it will be a price worth paying, and could turn women’s football in England into a “billion pound industry”. </p>
<p>Those costs though are considerable (and something I looked at as an adviser to the review on finances). Even at the grassroots level of women’s football, building and maintaining good quality pitches and changing rooms is an expensive undertaking. </p>
<p>Then at the top level of English football, the report lists some of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/raising-the-bar-reframing-the-opportunity-in-womens-football/annex-b-methodological-note">costs that will be required</a> in the Women’s Super League (WSL) (the equivalent to the men’s Premier League) and the Women’s Championship to raise standards and encourage more girls to get involved. These include a salary floor for players, mental and physical health provisions, and dedicated marketing resources.</p>
<p>For each WSL club, those costs are estimated at an extra annual spend of £441,000. Yet according to publicly available accounts, the average income for those clubs was £1.9m last year. For some it was as low as £101,000. So where will they find the money?</p>
<p>The good news is that there are plenty of signs of growing <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-womens-football-can-avoid-being-corrupted-when-more-money-comes-its-way-188185">income in the women’s game</a>. And the review’s recommendations around professionalism, broadcasting, and fan engagement will help to use that extra income effectively.</p>
<p>As with the men’s game, football income tends to come from three main sources: match-day (tickets and hospitality), commercial (sponsorship), and broadcasting. Match-day is already growing, and the 2022-23 season has seen record attendance for the <a href="https://www.skysports.com/football/news/36996/12702478/arsenal-women-4-0-tottenham-women-record-wsl-crowd-sees-vivianne-miedemas-double-help-gunners-to-victory">WSL</a>, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-women-champions-league-emirates-wolfsburg-b2328809.html">Women’s Champions League</a>, and the <a href="https://www.thefa.com/news/2023/may/14/vitality-womens-fa-cup-record-crowd-sue-campbell-20231405">Women’s FA Cup</a>. </p>
<p>But maintaining this level of interest itself costs money, because healthy match-day attendance comes from good fan engagement. Better stadiums, dedicated marketing teams, and “support liaison officers” to engage with fans are all recommended in the review.</p>
<p>It also encourages women’s teams affiliated with men’s Premier League sides to play in the club’s main stadium. Arsenal’s women’s team for example, currently play some of their matches at the Emirates, which seats 60,704 spectators, and some at Meadow Park, which holds 4,500. </p>
<p>Not all matches can be held in huge stadiums though, as running costs are high and a full stadium is widely considered to be more atmospheric. But the grander facilities tend to have better facilities for fans, are more accessible by public transport and encourage club supporters to watch the women’s teams.</p>
<p>This is where the recommended marketing teams come in, because big stadiums require large crowds to be effective, and people need to know about upcoming matches if they are going to consider buying tickets.</p>
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<p>Other fans who choose to watch at home are behind one of the other big sources of football income: broadcasting. The current deal for the WSL was a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56459754">groundbreaking</a> one in terms of coverage (up to 66 matches) and income (£8 million a year). But more will be required to cover the costs recommended in the review. </p>
<h2>Show me the money</h2>
<p>The issue here was highlighted in the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/womens-world-cup-fifas-threat-to-ban-european-broadcasters-is-not-a-skilful-move-205095">dispute between Fifa and broadcasters</a> over showing the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Even broadcasters in European countries with strong support for women’s football were offering less than 10% of what they were willing to pay to show the men’s World Cup.</p>
<p>This was despite encouraging signs for televising games. There was a <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1169802/Raising_the_bar_-_reframing_the_opportunity_in_women_s_football.pdf">9% increase in WSL viewership in 2022-23</a> compared to the previous season – a strong rise given that some of it is only available on subscription TV. And streaming service DAZN <a href="https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/uefa-womens-champions-league-2022-23-dazn-youtube-viewership-group-stages/#:%7E:text=2022%2F23%20group%20stages%20saw,through%20DAZN's%20main%20subscription%20platform">reported a 42% increase in viewership</a> for women’s Champion’s League matches. </p>
<p>Commercial income is the third area where the money can grow. Sponsorship income is up and there is <a href="https://www.womenssporttrust.com/womens-sport-trust-produces-comprehensive-industry-report-into-the-positive-impact-of-womens-sport-sponsorship-on-brands/">evidence of positive impact on brands</a>, such as Barclay’s title sponsorship of the WSL and the Women’s Championship and the online beauty brand Il Makiage’s association with Arsenal. This should encourage more brands to invest in women’s football.</p>
<p>The review also addresses the lack of diversity across the women’s game, where research shows that off-pitch roles (club directors for example) are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912432211046318">predominantly held by men</a>, and that a number of WSL and Women’s Championship club boards (the decision makers) <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6047aabc7130e94a70ed3515/t/6225fcd351786a64ba4421b0/1646656733257/The+Gender+Divide+That+Fails+Football%27s+Bottom+Line+-+Fair+Game+Report+March+2022.pdf">are male only</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/womens-football-review-proposes-hard-hitting-changes-to-address-ongoing-inequalities-209901">Women’s football review proposes hard-hitting changes to address ongoing inequalities</a>
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<p>This is especially important as <a href="https://theconversation.com/euro-2022-why-womens-football-remains-dominated-by-the-mens-game-183580">affiliated teams</a> now make up most of the top two tiers of English women’s football. Research shows that greater <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23750472.2022.2089204">diversity is linked to better finances</a>, so addressing this imbalance should also help with money.</p>
<p>Because ultimately money is what women’s football – not just in England – badly needs. The review has good ideas for raising standards, improving participation, and attracting more fans. But all of them depend on two urgent goals: investment and faith in the future of the sport.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Philippou contributed to the Review of the Future of Women's Football. She is also affiliated with the RAF FA.</span></em></p>Investment is needed at every level.Christina Philippou, Principal Lecturer, Accounting, Economics and Finance, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029972023-06-30T14:09:06Z2023-06-30T14:09:06Z‘Dehumanising policies’ leave autistic people struggling to access health, education and housing – new review<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534448/original/file-20230627-31322-i8q760.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4160%2C3120&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Autistic people often don't receive the correct healthcare to meet their needs.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-woman-many-people-waiting-medical-1033246597">toodtuphoto/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html">Around 3% of people</a> are estimated to be autistic and it is a lifelong disability. Most autistic people experience the sensory world differently, such as places being too loud or too bright. We also typically communicate in a more direct way than is usual.</p>
<p>In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 means that autistic people should receive reasonable adjustments – meaning organisations must make changes to how they provide their services to remove environmental and social barriers. Despite this, autistic people often experience society as highly disabling. We die between 16 and 30 years younger than non-autistic people, and have a suicide rate <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362361318764742">nine times higher</a>.</p>
<p>Autistic people are often misunderstood by non-autistic people who <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13623613221129123">fail to recognise</a> how autistic people show empathy. This misunderstanding is embedded in many government bodies, which can result in dehumanising policies and services that do not meet autistic people’s needs.</p>
<p><a href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/63401">We reviewed</a> the evidence from a range of government and non-government research and reviews to understand how well autistic people fair in relation to government services. We looked at the areas described by William Beveridge, founder of the UK welfare state, as <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/coll-9-health1/coll-9-health/#:%7E:text=By%20the%20outbreak%20of%20war,%2C%20disease%2C%20squalor%20and%20want.">“the five giants”</a>: health, education, employment, poverty and housing. Our findings, which focused on England and Wales due to differences relating to devolution, were bleak.</p>
<p><strong>1. Health</strong></p>
<p>Many government services designed to support autistic people are not available without diagnosis. However, in the UK, most autistic people <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13623613211059674">aren’t yet diagnosed</a>.</p>
<p>We found diagnosis waiting lists were long – for example, <a href="https://cavuhb.nhs.wales/our-services/integrated-autism-services/diagnostic-assessments-for-autism/">more then 20 months</a> for people served by the Cardiff & Vale health board in south Wales. Across England, between June 2021 and 2022, the waiting list for an autism assessment rose from <a href="https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/autism-statistics/july-2021-to-june-2022">88,000 people to more than 122,000</a>. </p>
<p>Even with a diagnosis, autistic people often don’t receive healthcare that meets their needs. Some people don’t even tell doctors they are autistic, because they expect to be treated badly. Of those who have told their GP, more than 75% said their GP didn’t make <a href="https://westminsterautismcommission.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/ar1011_ncg-autism-report-july-2016.pdf">any reasonable adjustments</a>, such as allowing extra processing time during appointments. </p>
<p>Being expected to phone to book appointments is also difficult for <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/2/e056904">nearly two-thirds of autistic people</a>, yet many GP surgeries insist on phone calls to book appointments. Autistic people also report that clinical spaces <a href="https://www.ndti.org.uk/resources/publication/its-not-rocket-science">are painfully bright, busy and loud</a>, which can make it harder for us to explain what is wrong to the doctor.</p>
<p><strong>2. Education</strong></p>
<p>Autistic people often struggle in educational institutions because they rarely meet our needs. This can mean, for example, that autistic children are labelled as “troublemakers” by teachers, rather than disabled.</p>
<p>Despite autistic people accounting for only 3% of the population, around <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/send-review-right-support-right-place-right-time">80% of those sent to pupil referral units</a> are autistic. This has lifelong effects, as <a href="https://lordchrisholmes.com/report-disabled-students-allowance-dsa/">only 8% </a> of students with a “statement of special educational needs” or an education, health & care plan progress to university, compared with 50% of non-disabled people. </p>
<p>For autistic people who do make it to university, the disabled students allowance (DSA) should pay for extra costs – but <a href="https://lordchrisholmes.com/report-disabled-students-allowance-dsa/">less than one-third </a>of eligible students get DSA. In addition, the support provided by universities is often <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14703297.2020.1850320?journalCode=riie20">poor quality or absent</a>, leaving autistic students disadvantaged.</p>
<p><strong>3. Employment</strong></p>
<p>The UK’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/15/contents">Autism Act 2009</a> says that autistic people should be supported to be able to work. However, autistic people are <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/disability/articles/outcomesfordisabledpeopleintheuk/2021">less likely to be in work</a> than non-autistic people. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/access-to-work">Access to work</a> is a UK government scheme to pay disabled people for the extra costs of working, but the application and claiming processes are complicated. Of the 42% of autistic adults who say they need help to access work, <a href="https://s4.chorus-mk.thirdlight.com/file/1573224908/61601577629/width=-1/height=-1/format=-1/fit=scale/t=443899/e=never/k=a402a7d4/nas_appga_report.pdf">only 12% are getting it</a>.</p>
<p><strong>4. Poverty</strong></p>
<p>Autistic people are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/AIA-01-2022-0004">more likely</a> to live in poverty than non-autistic people. <a href="https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/39649/dont-write-me-off-campaign">A 2009 report</a> found one-third of autistic people in the UK were not in paid work or getting benefits. One reason for this is that the benefits designed to stop disabled people living in poverty, such as the personal independence payment (PIP), can be hard to apply for, especially for autistic people. </p>
<p>And for people who manage to apply for PIP, autism falls within the “psychiatric disorders” category, which means they are <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-april-2022/personal-independence-payment-official-statistics-to-april-2022#pip-statistics-by-disabling-condition">least likely to receive the award</a> and most likely to lose their PIP upon renewal. </p>
<p><strong>5. Housing</strong></p>
<p>Around <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2021.2004881">12% of autistic people are homeless</a>. As rent typically costs far more than the amount of money awarded in housing benefit, and autistic people are less likely to be in work or have access to benefits, they are more likely to struggle to pay for housing. </p>
<p>This can be made worse by the “<a href="https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/resources/bedroom-tax">bedroom tax</a>”, which is when tenants in social housing have their benefit reduced if they have spare bedrooms. This affects <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19491247.2021.1964253">single people under 35</a> especially, as they are only eligible for the <a href="https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/benefits/benefits_for_under_35s_in_shared_housing">shared accommodation rate</a>. Autistic people can find it hard to live with other people due to their sensory needs, and there are <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616718.2014.992681">few one-bedroom properties</a>. </p>
<p>Autistic people who do not have somewhere to live are more likely to be <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201919/jtselect/jtrights/121/121.pdf.">placed in secure residential care</a>, where they are subjected to similar confines to people in prison, by staff who may have <a href="https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/stories/stories-from-the-spectrum-alexis-quinn">limited understanding of autism</a>. They can also be subjected to clinical “treatment” that has the same <a href="https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/29579/23427">questionable origin</a> as <a href="https://www.stonewall.org.uk/everything-you-need-know-about-conversion-therapy">gay conversion therapy</a>, and which guidance states <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/bild/ijpbs/2022/00000012/a00101s1/art00001?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf">should not be used</a>.</p>
<p>The research supporting this approach, known as applied behaviour analysis (ABA), is often riddled with <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.676303/full">undeclared conflicts of interest</a>. Those who experience ABA have been found to be <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/AIA-08-2017-0016/full/html">more likely to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder</a> (PTSD).</p>
<p>Worse, some autistic people in residential care have experienced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/28/parents-of-former-mendip-house-resident-claim-they-were-misled-over-scale-of-abuse">abuse by staff</a>. In the most severe cases, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/30/seven-years-winterbourne-view-learning-disabled-people-abuse">autistic people have died</a> due to abusive and/or negligent treatment while in residential care. </p>
<h2>A cumulative impact throughout life</h2>
<p>In every area of government services, we found policies that failed to account for known autistic needs. These failures have a cumulative impact throughout life. A lack of accommodations in education leads to less likelihood of securing accessible employment and greater reliance on benefits and social housing. </p>
<p>To improve this, the policy-making process needs to be made accessible to disabled people so that services meet our needs. This could include ensuring that consultation processes reach out to a broader range of autistic people, and then meet their needs to submit evidence.</p>
<p>It is also important that policy-makers put evidence from the autistic community ahead of evidence provided by non-autistic “experts” who fundamentally misunderstand autism, can have conflicts of interest, and thus can not speak on our behalf. </p>
<p>Autistic lives depend on it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aimee Grant receives funding from UKRI, the Wellcome Trust and the Research Wales Innovation Fund. We wish to thank Dr Gemma Williams and Richard Woods, co-authors of the chapter this article is based on.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Williams receives funding for her PhD studentship from the Economic and Social Research Council. She is affiliated with Autistic UK CIC, where she is a voluntary non-executive director. </span></em></p>A review of government services has found that autistic people are being failed in health, education, employment, poverty and housing.Aimee Grant, Senior Lecturer in Public Health and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow, Swansea UniversityKathryn Williams, PhD Candidate, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2080902023-06-27T14:52:52Z2023-06-27T14:52:52ZHow the NHS’s original vision to design healthier hospitals fell into disrepair<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534381/original/file-20230627-21-xd13tl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C2%2C1764%2C1114&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When St Helier Hospital in Carshalton opened, it was viewed as the last word in modernist design.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Student_Nurse-_Life_at_St_Helier_Hospital,_Carshalton,_Surrey,_1943_D13888.jpg">Imperial War Museum Archives via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Outpatients at St James’ Hospital feel better even before they see the doctor – thanks to a new note in hospital design. ‘Comfort while you wait’ is the new policy, and that means an informal atmosphere, extra comfy chairs, concealed lighting, heated cork floors, and an ultra-modern design throughout. No shades of depressing institutions here.</p>
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<p>You might think this description comes from the glossy marketing material for one of today’s cutting-edge private hospitals. In fact, it’s from a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qygR9TwXHbU">1954 Pathé News clip</a> celebrating one of the earliest buildings designed for Britain’s fledgling National Health Service (NHS) – launched six years earlier on July 5, 1948.</p>
<p>What St James’ Hospital in Balham, south London, lacked in size, it made up for in ambition. The new central complex embodied the stated ideals of the NHS, to provide an equitable service for all citizens, free of charge and of the highest standard. The new buildings contained consulting rooms, staff offices and waiting rooms, and a children’s room that was lauded by the Pathé commentator:</p>
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<p>In the children’s room, the longer the youngsters have to wait, the better they like it. They can play as loudly as they like, for in their own room their chatter and high spirits can’t worry other patients … It’s no wonder that in this hospital, some of the children and their parents come a little early for their appointments on purpose!</p>
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<p>As we take stock of the NHS on the occasion of its 75th anniversary, most attention is focused on staff pay demands, lengthy waiting lists for treatment, and the intolerable pressures on staff during and beyond the pandemic. But the design and upkeep of NHS hospital buildings, and the impact these can have on the patients and staff who inhabit them, is another <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2023-02-21/patient-safety-at-risk-from-crumbling-nhs-hospitals-in-urgent-need-of-repair">pressing</a>, if less widely publicised, issue.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533674/original/file-20230623-7118-vgag2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533674/original/file-20230623-7118-vgag2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533674/original/file-20230623-7118-vgag2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533674/original/file-20230623-7118-vgag2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533674/original/file-20230623-7118-vgag2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533674/original/file-20230623-7118-vgag2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533674/original/file-20230623-7118-vgag2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>To mark the 75th anniversary of the launch of the NHS, we’ve commissioned <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/how-to-fix-the-nhs-140880?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UKNHSseries">a series of articles</a> addressing the biggest challenges the service now faces. We want to understand not only what needs to change, but the knock-on effects on other parts of this extraordinarily complex health system.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>I believe we can find answers to at least some of today’s health service problems by looking at the history of these buildings, and the shifting design priorities they reflect.</p>
<p>The story of St James’ Hospital is a case in point. Less than 40 years on from the proud launch of its new central complex, the entire hospital stood empty and ruinous – a symbol, perhaps, of the failed ambitions of the early NHS. The buildings were demolished in 1992, and the site was redeveloped for housing.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532864/original/file-20230620-25-e74oss.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Overgrown and disused hospital building with graffiti" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532864/original/file-20230620-25-e74oss.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532864/original/file-20230620-25-e74oss.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532864/original/file-20230620-25-e74oss.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532864/original/file-20230620-25-e74oss.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532864/original/file-20230620-25-e74oss.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532864/original/file-20230620-25-e74oss.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532864/original/file-20230620-25-e74oss.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St James’ Hospital outpatients department in 1991, prior to its demolition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harriet Richardson Blakeman</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Parts of this hospital are sinking</h2>
<p>Another south London hospital was in the news recently. “Patient safety at risk in crumbling hospital Boris Johnson promised to replace,” read a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/13/patient-safety-at-risk-in-crumbling-hospital-boris-johnson-promised-to-replace">headline in the Observer</a>, describing conditions in St Helier Hospital, Carshalton.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532895/original/file-20230620-24-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crumbling hospital building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532895/original/file-20230620-24-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532895/original/file-20230620-24-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532895/original/file-20230620-24-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532895/original/file-20230620-24-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532895/original/file-20230620-24-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532895/original/file-20230620-24-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532895/original/file-20230620-24-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St Helier Hospital, Carshalton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harriet Richardson Blakeman</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Helier_Hospital">St Helier was built</a> just before the outbreak of the second world war, constructed on reinforced concrete foundations with a steel-frame and brick infill, faced in white-painted cement render. At the time, it was regarded as the last word in up-to-date modernist design, with “accommodation of the highest class in any part of the world”.</p>
<p>Now, parts of this hospital are sinking. The basement floods, wards are sometimes forced to close, and the hospital has become “dilapidated and unpleasant”, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/13/where-are-the-tories-promised-40-new-hospitals-we-cannot-afford-to-wait-any-more">according to Ruth Charlton</a>, chief medical officer of Epsom & St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. In a recent commentary, she wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our ageing estate looked awful even when I joined, and over the years it’s decayed further before my eyes. Healthcare standards are getting higher while our hospitals are sliding into even more disrepair … Only last week we had to close one of our wards because the lift wasn’t working.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nor is this an isolated case. In April, a <a href="https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1643894825182285827?s=20">tweet</a> by palliative care doctor and author Rachel Clarke showed “an actual interior corridor of a major NHS hospital”. The photograph looks like the bowels of a particularly unsavoury multi-storey carpark, yet the reflection in the mirror clearly shows it is an internal space. The paint is peeling, the damp so bad that a streak of green algae is running down the corner of the room.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1643894825182285827"}"></div></p>
<p>Along with such images of decay and dereliction, we have also seen images of egregious overcrowding over the past few years, as COVID-19 put extreme demands on NHS facilities that were already creaking badly. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/14/hospital-patients-being-treated-in-corridors-and-waiting-areas-says-rcn">Accounts</a> of patients being treated in corridors and even in <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/patients-treated-in-car-parks-as-a-e-crumbles-under-pressure-lnxqgd6nf">hospital car parks</a> continued last winter, even when the COVID threat had receded somewhat.</p>
<p>In January 2023, Alice Kenny, a junior sister at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, east London, who had been redesignated as a “corridor nurse”, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64226656">told the BBC</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We don’t train to give care in corridors. It is really not nice and if we were in [our patients’] shoes, we’d be really upset as well. We’re supposed to look after patients like we do our own family, and we’re not able to do that.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wyC-fU_c0G8?wmode=transparent&start=43" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Interviews with staff forced to look after patients in corridors at Queen’s Hospital, Romford.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ideas and ideals of early NHS designs</h2>
<p>As the architectural history of the NHS is such a huge subject, I have mainly focused on Scotland where I live and can access the official records – some of which have only become available to researchers in recent years. This has provided fresh insights into the ideas and ideals behind the design of the first purpose-built hospitals built by the NHS.</p>
<p>The problems back then were not dissimilar to those faced today: old worn-out buildings, staff shortages, rising costs and economic austerity. Take Old Monkland Home in Coatbridge, to the east of Glasgow – one of the 3,000-or-so hospitals that were transferred to state ownership when the NHS came into being in July 1948. A review of this <a href="https://www.workhouses.org.uk/OldMonkland/">former poorhouse</a>’s facilities, published in a <a href="https://archive.org/details/b32179121_0005">national hospital survey</a> before the end of the second world war, was damning:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Old Monkland Home occupies a depressing site in Coatbridge. The hospital part now contains 69 beds, and there is also an asylum for milder types of lunatic … The impression is one of general neglect. The dining-room is very gloomy, the hospital is very little better than the main house, and the asylum block is totally unsuitable for patients of any kind. We are of the opinion that this institution is quite unsuitable for the care of the sick, and should be abandoned.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The NHS had inherited a patchwork of hospitals, predominantly over half-a-century old, that had been built to meet the medical needs of the time: sanatoria for tuberculosis, isolation hospitals for once-common infectious diseases such as measles and diphtheria, and cottage hospitals run by country GPs who carried out routine surgery, delivered local babies, set bones and treated wounds from accidents.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>There were also large urban workhouse infirmaries full of chronically ill elderly patients, huge mental hospitals, teaching hospitals, and convalescent homes. Funding to build and run them came from a wide range of sources, including public donations, church collections, the rates, government loans, and work-placed insurance schemes.</p>
<p>These buildings had been “built to last” 100 years or more (brick or stone buildings that were expensive to construct were only economically viable if they had a long lifespan). But they suffered from a lack of structural maintenance and redecoration during the war, and afterwards from the severe shortages of labour and materials.</p>
<p>The UK-wide survey of hospitals had been intended to inform post-war reconstruction and the development of a “<a href="https://wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/health/id/208/">national hospital service</a>”, which aimed to “ensure that every patient requiring hospital treatment could obtain it without delay in the hospital most suited to their needs”. In reality, it painted a picture of uneven distribution and poor facilities, with the worst of the buildings being the old workhouses:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Wigtownshire Home, Stranraer, has not undergone any appreciable change since it was built about 1850. The building is worn out and dreary … This is a very poor place, and is quite unsuitable for housing the sick or aged, or indeed for any other purpose.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the immediate post-war years, new housing was the most urgent requirement throughout Britain, along with new schools after the <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/butler-act.htm#:%7E:text=The%20Education%20Act%20%2D%20or%20'Butler,into%20primary%20and%20secondary%20schools.">Butler Act of 1944</a> raised the school-leaving age to 15 (with a post-war baby boom to follow). Yet there was also a widespread consensus among the public that the current level of healthcare provision was no longer acceptable. A new type of hospital facility was needed to reflect the scientific advances of medicine and the aspirations of post-war Britain.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532893/original/file-20230620-29-veiebv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Aerial view of hospital complex on front of postcard with text" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532893/original/file-20230620-29-veiebv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532893/original/file-20230620-29-veiebv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532893/original/file-20230620-29-veiebv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532893/original/file-20230620-29-veiebv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532893/original/file-20230620-29-veiebv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532893/original/file-20230620-29-veiebv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532893/original/file-20230620-29-veiebv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A postcard extols the futuristic design of Vale of Leven, the NHS’s first new general hospital.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A five-star ‘hospital of the future’</h2>
<p>These aspirations found physical form in the <a href="https://historic-hospitals.com/2016/04/10/vale-of-leven-hospital-the-first-new-nhs-hospital-in-britain/">first new general hospital</a> built in Britain for the NHS, which <a href="https://www.facebook.com/savethevale/videos/aother-old-video-of-the-vale-hospital-thank-you-for-these/209682076082610/">opened</a> in Scotland in 1955 at Vale of Leven to the north-west of Glasgow. One of its most striking features were the wards, which were dramatically different from the traditional “Nightingale-style” open wards that offered no privacy to patients.</p>
<p>At Vale of Leven, the beds were grouped in bays separated by glazed screens. Ceiling heights were lower to create a more homely feel. The day room was furnished like a domestic sitting room, with comfortably upholstered armchairs. Windows were set low enough in the walls for patients to be able to see the grounds while lying in bed – and they also provided natural ventilation, allowing fresh air and the sound of birdsong to enter each ward.</p>
<p>Facilities for staff were an important consideration, as <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_architect-building-news_1955-09-29_208_13/page/n35/mode/2up?q=%22Vale+of+leven+Hospital%22">the Architect & Building News</a> explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A nurse’s station is an L-shaped counter containing knee space, drawers, filing cabinets etc, with a dwarf glass screen to cut off draughts, record board and shaded reading light, and small cupboards behind in the storage wall. The station is raised on a low step so that, when sitting, the nurse has a view of her 13 beds and, in fact, is only 25 feet away from her farthest patient and is quickly conscious of any movement or disturbance. Signal lights from beds are placed so that they can be seen from either of two nurse’s stations in case one is temporarily unoccupied.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The subject of hospital design was now a hot topic among architects, health professionals and administrators alike – with an emphasis on the collaborative planning processes and research-led design that had evolved in more progressive architecture schools before the war. Schools such as the Architectural Association in London and Liverpool had developed a belief in social theory and managerial efficiency. Architects sought specialist advice on every aspect of the hospital, from the wards to catering and even laundries. As the regional architect for the South Eastern Regional Hospital Board wrote in 1951 about his new building schemes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It would be futile for medical science to progress and leave in its wake a dull, unimaginative architecture.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another reason for the extra care being taken over these new buildings was that, in the period of full employment in the 1950s and ‘60s, it was often proving difficult to attract enough hospital staff. The shortage of nurses, traditionally a female role, was especially acute because the rate of pay was lower than for many office jobs in the private sector – jobs that also offered shorter hours and fewer pressures than nursing.</p>
<p>To entice new recruits and enhance retainment levels, local management boards pushed hard to get well-appointed nurses’ homes built and to provide generous staff social and recreational facilities – from tennis courts to swimming pools, coffee bars to halls for cinema shows and dances.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RMlFYzcJS78?wmode=transparent&start=2" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An introduction to High Wycombe General Hospital: ‘Medical science, 1967-style’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At this time, the opening of a new hospital was a newsworthy event, featured in the architectural and medical press, national and local newspapers, and in newsreels. The opening of the new High Wycombe General Hospital in the mid-1960s was met with another <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMlFYzcJS78">gushing tribute</a> from the Pathé News team:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The spaciousness of the entrance and reception hall will give patients confidence that here they are meeting medical science 1967-style, equipped as it should be. Gone is the old atmosphere of healing on the cheap, gone too is the belief that staff of the hospitals should put up with third-rate food and bad quarters. The menus in the nurses’ dining room are varied and make eating a pleasure deserved by women whose devoted service goes far beyond the minimum they could get away with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I remember this hospital (more commonly known as Wycombe General) from not long after the film was released. It was where I had a tonsillectomy – then a routine operation – at the age of seven. I recall the hospital being shiny and modern, with toilets that were spotlessly clean and, unlike our loo at home, heated!</p>
<p>I remember the children’s ward being a bright sunny room with about eight beds, and a small dayroom where we had breakfast that was made rather cramped by an enormous toy cupboard, where a kind nurse hid my bowl of porridge which I could not eat. I had no trouble with the ice cream we were allowed to have in bed after our operations, though.</p>
<p>Our parents only visited for a short time during the day, but we didn’t seem to mind or feel anxious about it – perhaps in part because of the atmosphere in the hospital, where modern architecture conveyed, even to a young child, confidence in medical science. As the Pathé commentator concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a good reason for High Wycombe General being called a five-star luxury hospital. It’s part of the new approach to the art and science of getting sick people well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fast-forward just over half a century, however, and Wycombe General is now <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-65913081">“approaching its end of life”</a> and in “dire need of replacement”, according to the NHS trust that runs it. While confirming to the BBC that the hospital is still “safe”, the hospital’s ongoing repairs and maintenance now cost the trust around £2 million a year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532896/original/file-20230620-28-46ld25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="External view of general hospital building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532896/original/file-20230620-28-46ld25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532896/original/file-20230620-28-46ld25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532896/original/file-20230620-28-46ld25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532896/original/file-20230620-28-46ld25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532896/original/file-20230620-28-46ld25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532896/original/file-20230620-28-46ld25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532896/original/file-20230620-28-46ld25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wycombe General in May 2020: the hospital is ‘in dire need of replacement’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/high-wycombe-buckinghamshire-uk-05-18-1737902921">Ben Molyneux/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ambitious plan quickly comes off the rails</h2>
<p>Wycombe General was built following a period when funding for hospital building had increased by over 50%. In 1962, the UK government had published its <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9515.1981.tb00662.x">Hospital Plan</a>, which promised that 90 new hospitals would be commenced in England and Wales by 1971. The plan was to provide a network of new district general hospitals evenly distributed around the country, so that everyone would be in easy reach of all the main hospital services, with just a few of the more unusual specialities based at a regional centre.</p>
<p>However, it did not take long for this ambitious plan to come off the rails. Not enough money had been pledged by the government to fund all the schemes that were proposed, the process of planning and design took a long time, costs escalated, and by 1964, comprehensive revisions had to be made. In successive years, the plans were scaled back.</p>
<p>By the mid-1960s, relatively little had been achieved and the policy of concentrating on district general hospitals was questioned. The <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1969-05-23/debates/bc336ab2-a648-4657-82eb-8790c4de9597/Scotland(HospitalBuildingProgramme)">1966 revision</a> of the Hospital Plan refocused the building programme towards creating units for the elderly and mentally ill. Start dates for new hospitals were postponed and, to try to combat rising costs, stricter financial controls were introduced.</p>
<p>Despite this, there was still a belief in producing good quality buildings designed to meet the needs of modern medicine in attractive surroundings. As the Architects’ Journal put it when discussing the new staff restaurant and stores building at Kingston Hospital in Surrey:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The matter of nurses’ meals is almost a household topic and, along with spectacles and false teeth, has been giving the health ministry a bad press.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At Falkirk Royal Infirmary in Scotland’s central belt, meanwhile, an experimental surgical ward unit was designed around new ways of organising nursing on the lines of progressive patient care, while also making the nurses’ routines easier and reducing the amount of walking they would have to do. Hospital infection and resistance to antibiotics were already a concern in the 1960s, and engineers designed more sophisticated heating and ventilation systems to control the movement of airborne infections and prevent cross infection.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, such considerations cost more than the government was willing to spend, and no health minister of either political persuasion was able to convince the cabinet or the Treasury to provide the amount of money that the rebuilding programme was going to cost.</p>
<p>The 1970s was a period of devaluation of sterling, strikes and war in the Middle East that caused an oil crisis. There was a three-day week, petrol rationing and power cuts. This led to public spending cuts that only worsened the position for the hospital building programme. At the same time, there was widespread criticism of the amount of time it was taking to build each hospital, and concern that a number of recently completed hospitals had been found to have structural defects.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532897/original/file-20230620-30-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="View of hospital building with hills in the distance" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532897/original/file-20230620-30-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532897/original/file-20230620-30-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532897/original/file-20230620-30-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532897/original/file-20230620-30-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532897/original/file-20230620-30-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532897/original/file-20230620-30-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532897/original/file-20230620-30-yaztzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inverclyde Royal Hospital: the brutalist building took 15 years to finish and ran way over budget.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/scottish-hospital-brutalist-architecture-greenock-inverclyde-2270853881">Richard Johnson/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A case in point is the saga of Inverclyde Royal Hospital in Greenock, west Scotland – one of the new district general hospitals promised in the original Hospital Plan. After a provisional cost limit of just over £4 million was approved in 1964, a design team was appointed the following year. However, the UK government halted the project for nearly two years due to a shortage of funds – a time when lots of large national projects were being halted. At the same time, the design brief had to be revised to keep up-to-date with technical guidance.</p>
<p>Amid new tenders, spiralling budgets and a further cost reduction exercise, work finally started on site in 1970, but the official contract completion date of March 1976 was missed, and the fabric of the building was eventually completed in November 1977 – only for the ventilation systems to be found to be defective.</p>
<p>It was not until the very end of 1979 that Inverclyde Royal Hospital was finally completed, at a cost of over £13m – more than three times the original cost limit. There was no single reason for the vastly increased cost, but the era’s high inflation rates were a significant factor. Each delay led to the cost going up, cancelling out the cost reduction exercise. Time and again on new hospital schemes, such exercise led to the use of poorer-quality materials and inferior heating and ventilation systems, which would cause problems with the building later on.</p>
<p>But more fundamentally, the new hospitals being built were now anticipated to last only between 40 and 50 years at the most. The reasons why this changed from the Victorian era when hospitals were built to last for a century or more, are many and complex. The main reason was the increasingly rapid advances being made in medical science, which led to a widespread view that the buildings would become obsolete as medical needs evolved.</p>
<p>But 40 is no age to be consigned to the scrap heap. We do not expect our homes to expire after such a short timespan – but equally, we understand that we need to invest in maintenance to keep them in good condition.</p>
<p>As the NHS celebrates its 75th anniversary, many of its hospitals built in the 1960s, ‘70s and early ‘80s have reached the end of their anticipated lifespan. As a result, the UK is now having to tackle the problem of large numbers of hospitals that have reached the end of their predicted lives.</p>
<p>Part of Johnson’s 2019 general election manifesto promised that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-confirms-37-billion-for-40-hospitals-in-biggest-hospital-building-programme-in-a-generation">40 new hospitals would be built by 2030</a>. There was talk of “levelling up our NHS” and a determination “to build back better”. However, this plan was later exposed as something of a numbers trick or “<a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1259#:%7E:text=In%202020%2C%20when%20he%20was,of%20his%202019%20election%20manifesto.">mirage</a>”, with many of the “new” hospitals turning out to be extensions or refurbishments. In February 2023, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/04/only-10-of-boris-johnson-promised-40-new-hospitals-have-full-planning-permission">the Observer reported</a> that only ten of the projects had secured full planning permission, with one NHS trust leader warning that: “Some hospitals are literally falling down.”</p>
<h2>Downgrading ambitions from ‘ideal’ to ‘adequate’</h2>
<p>Search for King’s Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital online, and you are likely to find multiple <a href="https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/health/20676118.behind-scenes-britains-dilapidated-hospital/">news</a> <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/first-phase-replacing-crumbling-queen-110000118.html">items</a> about its dilapidated condition, demands to hasten its replacement, and images of ceilings being <a href="https://twitter.com/RootlessCosmo/status/1643896998771269632?s=20">held up by acrow props</a>.</p>
<p>“Isn’t it lovely,” the Duchess of Kent had told the Lynn Advertiser when she first entered the new hospital in July 1980. According to the same newspaper, the public had been similarly impressed when given guided tours of the newly completed building:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Guides pointed out bright wards … most with outlooks over landscaped gardens. Mouths dropped as guides said patients would be able to choose the main course of their meals from a menu offering 17 options – and every three weeks, that menu would be changed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet, just 43 years later, the Queen Elizabeth has been described as “Britain’s most dilapidated hospital”. According to a report on the <a href="https://www.norfolklive.co.uk/news/norfolk-news/queen-elizabeth-hospital-kings-lynns-8062752">Norfolk Live website</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Patients lie in bed looking up at the [roof] supports … Regular checks take place every day to make sure the roof is not at more risk of collapse through holes in the concrete described as being ‘like an Aero chocolate bar’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Aero bar analogy refers to the <a href="https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2023/march/reinforced-autoclaved-aerated--concrete-raac/">reinforced, autoclaved aerated concrete</a> (RAAC) used in the hospital roof’s construction, and in many other public buildings. In 2018, the roof of a primary school in Kent collapsed only a day after “signs of structural stress” had appeared in the staffroom ceiling. It transpired that the roof had been constructed of RAAC, which has an estimated shelf-life of just 30 years.</p>
<p>An initial investigation into the use of RAAC in schools has recently been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/14/uk-public-buildings-feared-to-be-at-risk-of-collapse-as-concrete-crumbles">extended to look at public buildings more widely</a> – including hospitals. In May, a report on the Conservative government’s promise to build 40 new hospitals suggested that just five – <a href="https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/raac-crisis-prioritised-in-hospital-programme-reorganisation">those that had used RAAC in their construction</a> – were now being prioritised.</p>
<p>The Queen Elizabeth was one of the so-called “best buy” hospitals designed by the Department of Health & Social Security (DHSS) as a complete package. These were introduced in 1967 to remedy the problems of drawn-out design processes and escalating costs that had been derailing the NHS hospital building programme. It was a budget version of the district general hospital envisaged in the 1962 Hospital Plan, providing fewer beds per head of population in more confined spaces using simpler construction methods.</p>
<p>Standardisation and prefabrication were the principles of this design process, which was intended to provide an “adequate” rather than “ideal” hospital amid the country’s deep financial challenges of the 1970s. Hospital design was pared back to its essentials – a policy that has largely continued ever since.</p>
<p>The “nucleus” hospitals that followed from the mid-1970s were designed to limit new developments and major extensions to a nucleus of departments costing no more than £6 million (at 1975 prices). Every possible means of economising space and services was explored by the Hospital Building Division within the DHSS.</p>
<p>Crucially, a lower complement of beds per hospital was provided, based on the justification that earlier patient discharges would create a more intensive use of diagnostic and treatment facilities. In other words, Britain’s hospitals were now becoming high-turnover factory lines.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="External view of unusually designed visitor centre" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532900/original/file-20230620-29-in15vt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532900/original/file-20230620-29-in15vt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532900/original/file-20230620-29-in15vt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532900/original/file-20230620-29-in15vt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532900/original/file-20230620-29-in15vt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532900/original/file-20230620-29-in15vt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532900/original/file-20230620-29-in15vt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pushing architectural boundaries: the Frank Gehry-designed Maggie’s Centre in Dundee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maggies_centre_Dundee.jpg">Ydam via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Good design can be life-enhancing</h2>
<p>As hospitals at the end of their lifespan struggle to deal with patient overcrowding amid crumbling facilities, have decades of cost-cutting exercises when it comes to hospital design and construction turned out to be a false economy? Can a price be put on the damaging effects of poor hospital design on staff morale or patient health?</p>
<p>While we can put a figure on the cost of buying in agency staff to cover staff shortages or even major building repairs, less quantifiable is the impact on health and wellbeing of the buildings themselves.</p>
<p>But we know that good design <a href="https://www.maggies.org/media/filer_public/78/3e/783ef1ba-cd5b-471c-b04f-1fe25095406d/evidence-based_programme_web_spreads.pdf">can be life-enhancing</a>. Within the NHS, Maggie’s centres are a network of cancer drop-in centres unified by a groundbreaking commitment to <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/tag/maggies-centres/">pushing architectural boundaries</a>, with their multi-award-winning buildings having been designed by some of the world’s leading architects such as Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid.</p>
<p>These centres, located throughout the UK and also in Hong Kong, offer “unique physical environments” created on the basis of a wide body of evidence that shows how aspects of physical space affect us.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QtCTqRge5Bk?wmode=transparent&start=17" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Explaining the ethos of Maggie’s Centre in Manchester.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The impact of design on inpatient wellbeing has been a growing focus of research for many years, highlighting the importance of obvious elements such as access to nature, attractive surroundings, artworks on walls, single rooms for patients. There is, for example, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1618866716303089">evidence</a> for the therapeutic benefits of “healing gardens”, and gardening or outdoor exercise is sometimes prescribed by GPs.</p>
<p>More recently, consideration of therapeutic spaces has broadened to include hospital staff as well as patients, in order to tackle the high levels of sickness absence, <a href="https://bolt.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/media/summit-2023-solving-the-workforce-burnout-crisis">distress and burnout among healthcare professionals</a> – levels that are higher in this sector than any other. Yet most solutions so far offered have been <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29200422/">short-term interventions</a>, rather than a fundamental reassessment of <a href="https://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/CMS/Portals/0/IPPO%20NHS%20Staff%20Wellbeing%20report_LO160622-1849.pdf">how the workplace should be designed</a> with staff wellbeing placed on the same footing as patient wellbeing.</p>
<p>Designing a hospital in which it is a pleasure both to work and be a patient is surely a goal worth achieving, and one which it is possible to justify on economic grounds. Spending more now on hospital buildings can save having to rebuild, at higher costs, in 20 or 30 years’ time. If done in such a way as to attract new staff, it can reduce the amount spent on agency fees.</p>
<p>Good design does not have to mean a new hospital, even if that is what people believe they want. Promising to build new hospitals is good publicity for any government, but it can also lead to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/25/broken-pledge-over-40-new-hospitals-will-leave-nhs-crumbling-ministers-told">damning headlines</a> about wildly increased costs and failed promises further down the line.</p>
<p>Good design can also be achieved through <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/a-retrofitting-revolution">retrofitting</a>, by altering and adapting existing buildings. It is a more sustainable route and ideally would be the first option considered in the face of the present climate emergency. It is a complex issue, and retrofitting may be impossible in some cases – and very probably more expensive than a new-build in almost every other case. However, it addresses the issues of the embodied carbon in existing buildings.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W1oiC4PG4Zw?wmode=transparent&start=10" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Finalists discuss their approach to the big question: how would you design and plan new hospitals to radically improve patient experiences, clinical outcomes, staff wellbeing, and integration with wider health and social care?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Political pressures to win public votes favours the quick fix. We need a new way of thinking about building, adapting and retrofitting hospitals that can deliver comfortable environments in a sustainable way for the long term, and to understand that cost-cutting today often leads to greater expense in the future.</p>
<p>In 2021, the <a href="https://policyexchange.org.uk/wolfson-economics-prize-2021/">Wolfson Economics Prize</a> set as its challenge the planning and design of the hospital of the future, specifically with a view to “radically” improving patient experiences, clinical outcomes, staff wellbeing and integration with wider health and social care.</p>
<p>The designers of British hospitals in the 1950s and ‘60s – in the early years after the launch of the bold new NHS – might be surprised to find we are still asking the same questions they set out to solve all those years ago.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harriet Richardson Blakeman receives funding from AHRC for doctoral research. </span></em></p>Today’s reports of crumbling, dilapidated and dangerous hospital buildings are a far cry from the design ambitions extolled by early NHS architects and planners.Harriet Richardson Blakeman, PhD Candidate, Architectural History, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.