Brexit

Express
BRITAIN has been ordered to adhere to the terms of its Brexit deal with the EU by a German industry leader who suggested Boris Johnson “cannot refuse” to act in accordance with the Northern Ireland Protocol.
And Joachim Lang, Managing Director of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) suggested if no resolution was found, both sides facing spiralling tariffs and other unspecified countermeasures. Mr Lang was speaking after European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic outlined several key compromises, including an 80 percent reduction of checks and regulations applying to goods entering Northern Ireland.
Significant hurdles remain, given Mr Sefcovic also brushed aside calls by Brexit Minister Lord David Frost for the EU to remove the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in adjudicating in disputes over the Protocol, the mechanism previously agreed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.
Mr Lang said: “Neither the British nor the EU are allowed to shake the treaty.
“Both sides must stand by their obligations without any ifs or buts.

See more in iNews

Fisheries

Express
THE HOUSE OF LORDS has been debating the UK’s post-Brexit trade deal with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, with one peer issuing a dire warning over salmon exports.
The UK’s post-Brexit trade deal with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein could reduce the cost of fish on the shelves, according to a report by the House of Lords European Affairs Committee. The deal, which the Government signed at the end of July, was estimated to be worth £21.6billion last year and would also reduce costs for the fishing processing industry. But the chair of the Lords Committee, The Earl of Kinnoull, has issued a warning over the Brexit deal with the EU and the implications it could have for importing salmon from Norway.
Addressing peers, he said: “At the moment, I am not sure if I was trying to import raw salmon into Northern Ireland what I would do.
“Because it would have the beneficiary of being tariff-free in the UK but not in the EU.
“So who knows what would happen to a piece of raw salmon when it arrived in Belfast.
“And I think that is something that needs very urgent attention.”

Northern Ireland Protocol

Telegraph
France and Germany fear the EU’s proposal to break the deadlock over the Northern Ireland Protocol could threaten the Single Market because of the dramatically reduced number of customs controls.
Their concerns mean the influential capitals could eventually tie the hands of Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s Brexit negotiator, and limit his ability to compromise in the negotiations, which begin on Friday in Brussels.
Paris and Berlin are spearheading a group calling for plans to prepare counter-measures in case talks fail and Britain triggers Article 16 to unilaterally suspend the protocol, which would leave another opening in the EU internal market. These are understood to include legal action and potentially trade tariffs.
Their fears emerged ahead of the opening round of talks over the implementation of the post-Brexit border fix between Mr Sefcovic and Lord Frost, which will take place over lunch at the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters.
The European Commission vice-president has unveiled plans to scrap the majority of checks on British goods crossing into the province under a revised Northern Ireland Protocol.

There are more details in the Express, Times, Mail, Express, Yahoo News, City AM

Lorry drivers

Telegraph
Union leaders have been accused of threatening to “hold Christmas hostage” after they raised the prospect of co-ordinated lorry strikes unless drivers are granted higher pay and better conditions.
Unite, the UK’s largest union, has threatened to launch the largest lorry drivers’ strike since the Winter of Discontent in 1979 by balloting thousands of supermarket and delivery drivers on a mass walkout.
Union bosses said the supply chain crisis had given lorry drivers the “power” to hold the country to ransom amid increasing fears that Christmas will be ruined by empty shelves and food shortages.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Department for Transport accused unions of threatening to “hold Christmas hostage”, adding that any mass walkout would “damage the work being done to restore supply chains at this vital time of year”.
Adrian Jones, the national officer for road transport at Unite, which represents around 50,000 HGV drivers including those for major supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s, said drivers were demanding a “firm commitment” from the Government to provide more truck stops with clean toilets and catering facilities.
Unite is also demanding that haulage firms offer fair and equal pay for long-serving drivers, with new starters now being offered salaries of up to £50,000 a year, as well as an end to temporary rules allowing drivers to work up to 10 hours a day.

Several other media cover the subject including the Mail, Express, Sun, BBC News, iNews, Telegraph, Mail, Huffington Post

COP26

Times
Boris Johnson has been told that President Xi of China will not attend next month’s critical climate change conference in Glasgow amid international pessimism that the event will be successful.
In a setback to the ambitions of the Cop26 summit, the prime minister has been advised by diplomats that Xi is not expected to join more than a hundred other world leaders, including President Biden.
British organisers fear that the decision to stay away could be a prelude to China refusing to set new climate change goals amid an energy crunch. All countries are expected to publish new climate change targets, known as nationally defined contributions (NDC), beforehand.

The Express, Sky News, Independent, Express and Telegraph have more.

PCR test

Telegraph
PCR tests for travel are set to be scrapped from Oct 22 in time for half-term holidays, saving a family of four up to £200.
Fully vaccinated holidaymakers will instead be allowed to book and use cheaper lateral flow tests when they return to Britain from half-term breaks.
This should reduce the costs from an average of around £60 to £70 for a PCR test to between £20 and £35 for a lateral flow test from an approved provider on the Government’s official website.
As previously with PCR tests, double-vaccinated travellers will be expected to book lateral flow tests in advance, register them on their passenger locator forms and then take them on or before day two of their return to the UK.
The Department of Health and Social Care has accepted that the test can be done by holidaymakers at home, but the result will have to be verified with the test firm by providing a photograph of the kit with its registration number.

This story is across several of the newspapers including the Mail, Sun, BBC News, ITV News, iNews, Evening Standard, Sky News, Independent.

NHS

Mail
The cost of clearing a backlog of maintenance work required on NHS buildings in England has reached £9.2billion, the health service has warned.
A report published by NHS Digital revealed the sum was needed to complete upgrades to buildings between April 2020 and March 2021 that ‘should already have taken place’.
The bill – which is 2.2 per cent higher than last year – includes maintaining 10,258 hospitals and other buildings, as well as ambulance services.
It comes amid fears that several NHS hospitals made out of a lightweight concrete could be on the brink of collapsing.
The report also set out that the NHS spent £10.2billion to run its facilities in in the year up to March 2021 – a 4.8 per cent increase on the previous year.
And its cleaning costs were £1.1billion – a five per cent year-one-year jump – while it cost £600million to provide hospital patients with food.
The document has been published ahead of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review, which is due to be released later this month and will detail how much cash the NHS will get over the next three years.
The NHS has already been promised a £30billion handout to clear the record-high waiting list for elective care that has amassed during the pandemic.

The Times and the Morning Star also run the story.

Education

Guardian
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
“As part of the comprehensive spending review negotiations, there’s a strand of opinion in my party, among Conservatives, that too many people go to university, so they will say these choices need to be constrained,” Willetts said, launching a new report on the impact of the baby boom.
“But the underlying demographics show there was a real surge in the birthrate. I’m not sure people are familiar with how sharp the rise was over 10 years, from under 700,000 to over 800,000 babies born a year.
“If you then look forward 15 to 20 years later, that’s a 15% increase in the people trying to get into universities and colleges.”
The demographic pressures mean that the government’s efforts to cut spending on higher education by limiting the number of young people attending will be doomed, according to Willetts.
“If you say, we want 50% of school leavers to go into higher education and we don’t want more than that, you’d still have to be planning for a significant increase in the absolute numbers, which in the peak years will be an increase in the annual intake of 50,000,” he said.

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