NEW: Robert Jenrick confirms that the government will be sending commissioners to run several parts of Liverpool City Council for at least three years.

Says inspectors' report paints a "deeply concerning picture" and a "dysfunctional culture" in the council.
Steve Reed (Labour Shadow Local Govt Sec) says that the Labour Party will be launching a review into the Liverpool Labour Party. Says the party will take action over any wrongdoing.
Jenrick says that commissioners will have power over regeneration, highways and property management in the city.
Commissioners to report to Jenrick on a six monthly basis
Jenrick says Liverpool to move to all out elections from 2023 (rather than thirds yearly)
This is very unusual. Only five occasions hitherto have commissioners been sent in to take over functions from local authorities.
Jenrick: "When selling land the report states that Liverpool city council's best interests were not on the agenda."
Liverpool Riverside MP @KimJohnsonMP: "I'm a very proud Scouser but listening to the SoS read the contents of the very damning report makes me angry, as will the whole city when the report is made public."

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More from @lewis_goodall

25 Mar
EXCL: I understand that the Variant and Mutant Taskforce (a joint body of PHE, JBC and Test&Trace) has written to Matt Hancock to inform him they've traced Covid variants being imported to the UK from countries not on the red list incl. France, Germany, USA and others in Europe.
The variant they're especially concerned about is the South African variant (B.1.351) and I'm told that PHE has instructed its regional teams to prioritise contact tracing of that variant over the others "until further notice".
This is of especial concern because internal estimates suggest that the SA variant might reduce vaccine efficacy to sub 50% (though data is shaky).

Officials are also worried because they calculate 24% of the SA cases they've traced don't have a foreign travel connection.
Read 13 tweets
25 Mar
NEW: big news in public transport/local govt. @AndyBurnhamGM announces that Greater Manchester will be taking the region’s bus network out of private operator control.Will be the first time it’s happened in England outside London since the bus networks were privatised in the 80s.
For those not familiar with this- most of England’s bus infrastructure (save London) is not intensively regulated. Routes, costs etc are set by the companies with limited control by public authorities. That’s been the case since privatisation in the 80s.
Read 5 tweets
24 Mar
NHS staff in Scotland (minus doctors) to be offered a 4% pay rise. Raises the issue again in London and pressure on Westminster ministers. Their equivalent proposal has been for 1%.
UK ministers say 1% is “what we can afford”. Obvious question flows- why does the Scottish government consider the matter differently?
Reminder too, this comes on top of the £500 bonus the Scottish and Welsh governments have offered NHS and social care staff in their countries. No such bonus has been offered in England.
Read 6 tweets
24 Mar
Latest ONS House price figures out. House prices up by 7.5% on the year to January 2021. Average UK house price is £249,000, up £17,000 on the year before.
North West the highest annual % increase- house prices there up 12% on the year, the highest growth since 2005 (!)

Average London house price now over half a million pounds.

North East continues to have the lowest house prices (£138k)- only surpassing 2007 peak in December.
And though house prices are climbing across the UK, it is in England where they are by far the most inflated- take a look at the graph below.
Read 7 tweets
23 Mar
First question echoes some of peculiar tone we've seen over last few days about the "3rd wave" in Europe spreading here. One of the big drivers of the wave in at least parts of Europe is the "UK variant". Ie they seem to be having some of the problems we had at the start of 2021.
Take a look at the latest data. Most countries in Europe still far below UK type peak that we saw in December/January. Case growth in most countries climbing relatively modestly or showing some signs of levelling, France being the most worrying exception.
Added even more countries here for extra context. Hungary another outlier but elsewhere rises going up far less sharply in the main.
Read 4 tweets
23 Mar
Yet more evidence from ONS of the profound generational imbalance of the economic effects of the pandemic.

Of the Feb 2020-Feb 2021 annual decrease in employee jobs (down 693,000 overall)

63.1% (437k) were under 25
25.2% (174k) were 25-34

50-64s? Net increase of 32,000 jobs.
So a staggering 88.3% of the employee job losses from February 2020-February 2021 were among 18-35 year olds.
Better (qualified) news. The quarterly rise in unemployment has slowed to 5%. Is 1.1% up on the year. A year ago that would have looked wildly optimistic (though of course furlough is still in operation so should be treated with a bit of caution). Employment continues to decline.
Read 10 tweets

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