Tories challenge ID card costs
The Government faces defeat in the Lords today over identity cards as Conservative peers step up their challenge against parts of Labour’s law and order agenda (Philip Webster writes).
Peers of all parties are expected to back attempts to force the Government to set out the full cost of introducing compulsory cards before the legislation is allowed through. Ministers will resist and try to reverse the defeat in the the Commons.
Conservative peers will follow up with another amendment next week that would remove any compulsion to have a card. There were claims that the ultimate cost could be £28 billion, or £500 per card.
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Benefit to be harder to claim
Incapacity benefit claimants will have to show that they are trying to get back to work if they are to continue receiving payments, under planned reforms (Philip Webster writes). John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will tell the Work Foundation today that reforms will affect most of the 2.7 million people on the benefit, as well as new claimants.
The practice of benefits being paid before claimants have passed a medical, will end, as will “perverse incentives” for them to stay on benefit, such as higher rates the longer they claim.
Door open for Kennedy return
Sir Menzies Campbell would welcome Charles Kennedy back to the front bench, if he was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats.
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The deputy leader said that Mr Kennedy was right to resign, but should return to the front benches once he had dealt with his drink problem.
On Sunday AM on BBC One, Sir Menzies said that the former leader would make a “jolly good” foreign affairs spokesman. “Once he’s dealt with this problem then whoever’s leader would be very, very foolish not to have Charles Kennedy on the front bench,” he added.
Questions over Hercules crash
Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, will table questions to John Reid, the Defence Secretary, about whether more could have been done to prevent the deaths of ten servicemen in an RAF Hercules crash in Iraq. The transport aircraft, from RAF Lyneham, Wiltshire, crashed north of Baghdad last January after being shot at from the ground, causing the biggest loss of British service personnel in one incident in Iraq. An RAF board of inquiry report said that no additional or alternative safety equipment could have saved the lives of the troops.
Call for all to get bird flu jab
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Hugh Pennington, president of the Society of Microbiology, has said that the Government should vaccinate the whole country against bird flu. “The immediate threat is to poultry but we must be ready for it to spread by human-to-human contact,” the professor said. “We can develop a vaccine based on the current HN51 strain found in birds in three weeks. That will give better protection than Tamiflu.”
Police-car death
A motorbike pillion passenger has died after being struck by a police car, the Greater Manchester force said. The car was responding to an incident on Saturday night when it hit the off-road bike in Cadishead. The passenger, a local man in his early twenties, died at the scene; the 23-year-old driver suffered chest injuries.
River yields body
Police searching for a student who disappeared early on New Year’s Day found a body in the River Chelmer in Chelmsford, Essex. A post-mortem examination was under way. Police believe that the victim may be Nelson Nubila, 23, who vanished after leaving a nightclub near his home in Chelmsford.
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Doherty arrested
Pete Doherty, the frontman of the band Babyshambles, has been arrested on suspicion of possessing drugs and bailed to return to a North London police station on February 2, pending testing of substances taken from him. It is the third time that he has been held over drugs and he faces a possible term in prison.
Food for thought
An increase in mental health problems could be linked to changes in our diet over the past 50 years, according to a report by the Mental Health Foundation and Sustain, which campaigns for better food and farming. They urge the Government to ensure that people have access to nutrient-rich foods.
TV sends out SOS
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The RAF said a signal from a digital television box that sparked a rescue mission was a “complete freak”. Experts are baffled as to why the set-top Freeview box in Portsmouth sent out a signal identical to the one for distress beacons. The SOS was picked up by satellite and sent to RAF Kinloss.
Operation Nessie
Files just released under the Freedom of Information Act show that within weeks of the Conservative election victory in May 1979 Margaret Thatcher’s new Government was considering a proposal to import bottle-nosed dolphins from the United States to scour Loch Ness for its legendary monster.