Key events
Teachers vote for strikes this summer
Richard Adams
More school strikes are likely in England this summer and autumn, after delegates at the National Education Union’s annual conference in Harrogate voted for three days of strikes to take place in late June or early July and a reballot of members next month to authorise further industrial action from September.
The new strikes are timed to come after the end of A-level and GCSE exams, to avoid disruption for students.
The NEU is already committed to holding two days of teacher strikes, on Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 2 May, after its members decisively rejected the government’s pay offer.
The Association of School and College Leaders, which represents many secondary school head teachers in England, has also rejected the government’s offer. Its ballot of members found that 87% voted against the offer. The ASCL executive is expected to ballot its members on strike action after Easter.
An interesting post-Brexit development this morning, as science secretary Michelle Donelan heads to Brussels to meet with the EU about potential associate membership of science funding and research program, Horizon.
Politics Home reports that the meeting is introductory, and that officials are drawing up plans for science and technology if the talks fail.
European Commission vice-president Ursula von der Leyen said that the Windsor agreement had paved the way for potential associate membership “immediately”, after the long-running dispute over arrangements for Northern Ireland.
There have been concerns that Britain being left out in the cold when it comes to Horizon could lead to an “exodus of scientists”. Funding from the EU programme had dramatically fallen in the two years since Brexit, with a number of scientists welcoming Von der Leyen’s comments in Belfast in February.
Two former prime ministers have been heavily criticised for causing delays to the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori.
A new report by the foreign affairs select committee said Liz Truss and Boris Johnson “let down” families by making inaccurate or counterproductive statements to the Commons during their periods as foreign secretary.
Johnson had wrongly said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “training journalists” in a parliamentary committee in November 2017. Last year, after her release, Zaghari-Ratcliffe challenged Johnson over the comments, saying she had lived in the “shadow” of them for four years.
Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that he had given Zaghari-Ratcliffe diplomatic protection in March 2019 was criticised as he did not follow through with the substance. Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori, two British-Iranian dual nationals, were released in March last year.
Good morning from London.
In just under an hour, the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, will launch the government’s snappily titled “plan for cleaner and more plentiful water”, which is ministers’ latest attempt to clean up rivers and seas across England.
In an op-ed for the Telegraph overnight she said that there is a “massive amount still to do – and sewage is a terrible symptom of the strain on our water system”.
It includes a £1.6bn fund to reduce the usage of storm overflows, which sends sewage into rivers and seas during large surges of water.
She adds: “I want to level with you, we cannot stop pollution overnight. Much of this will take longer than any of us would, but that is the reality of replumbing a Victorian sewage system.”
My colleague Helena Horton revealed last night that a study showed some of Britain’s best beaches had 8,500 hours of sewage dumping last year.
Coffey will give a speech at 10.20am and then record a pool clip afterwards as well as taking questions, which I’ll bring you when we have it.
Meanwhile, it’s three years of Keir Starmer today, as it marks the third anniversary of him becoming Labour leader.
He and his party are still leading in the polls, despite a minor recovery in some polls for the Conservative party and Rishi Sunak, the third prime minister Starmer has faced since 2020.
He is in east Lancashire today to see how sports projects can help keep youngsters from falling into crime. It’s as part of an ongoing policy push on crime, mimicking Tony Blair’s “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” rhetoric from the 1990s.
Polling by YouGov for the Times suggests that the public thinks Starmer is turning around Labour, after its worst defeat since the 1930s. However there is concern that he still has some way to go before winning power.
And finally, the former chancellor Nigel Lawson’s death, aged 91, was announced last night.
One of the biggest proponents of free-market capitalism in Margaret Thatcher’s government alongside the then-prime minister, his reforms were key to the “big bang” in the financial markets that gave the sector the power it has in Britain today.
The Telegraph has an op-ed (paywall) which claims that Lawson made the British economy “the envy of the world”.
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