Viv is under the weather this morning so you’ve got me today.

Illegal migrants

Mail
Suella Braverman will announce a deal with France today to tackle the Channel crisis and is considering housing migrants in old campsites after the number to land on England’s beaches this year passed 40,000.
The Home Secretary’s plan, rumoured to cost at least £60million, will fund more officers guarding the beaches in Calais and Dunkirk.
A French government spokesman last night insisted that Britain and France work together in a ‘resolute, determined manner’ to stop migrants crossing the Channel after 972 made the perilous journey in 22 boats on Saturday.
The agreement will see British Border Force officials accompany French authorities on the beaches as part of a ‘joint control centre’.
It comes as Braverman examines a series of plans to find less expensive accommodation for Channel migrants which could see them housed in disused holiday parks.
Old student accommodation buildings and budget cruise ships were also named as possible alternatives by immigration minister Robert Jenrick.

Express
Britain and France are poised to sign a £62million deal to curb the surge in Channel migrants.
Negotiations have been going on for months and an agreement is due to be unveiled today. Details of the plan, first revealed by the Daily Express at the weekend, come as official figures show more than 40,000 people made the deadly crossing so far this year – up from 28,526 in 2021.
Many are Albanians, with others coming from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq.
The expanded agreement includes an increase in payments from London to Paris and a much closer relationship between border policing teams.

Independent
Suella Braverman has signed a new deal with France as part of an historic crackdown on migrant crossings which will see a boost to beach patrols and British staff based in French control rooms for the first time.
The 72m euro (£63m) deal, described by prime minister Rishi Sunak as “a foundation” for more co-operation in coming months, was finalised by the home secretary and her French counterpart Gerald Darmanin on Monday morning.
Under the new deal with Paris, France will commit to increase numbers of officers patrolling beaches on the Normandy coast by 40 per cent in the hope of detecting and disrupting embarkations.
And, for the first time, UK Border Force officials will be embedded in French control centres to observe operations and share intelligence.

Guardian
Rishi Sunak’s government has reached a deal with France to increase cooperation over asylum seekers and migrants using small boats to cross the Channel, with UK officers joining a beefed-up programme of French beach patrols.
The arrangement, signed on Monday morning, promises a 40% increase in the number of patrols to try to detect small boats about to make the voyage from France, with UK personnel taking part for the first time.
It also includes extra investment in port infrastructure in France, the use of technology to detect crossings, such as drones, and greater cross-Europe cooperation.

BBC News
The UK will pay France £8m more a year under a revised deal to try to stop people crossing the English Channel in small boats.
Under the updated agreement, UK police officers will be embedded with their French counterparts in control rooms and on beaches.
The number of officers patrolling the French coast to try to stop people setting off will rise from 200 to 300.
PM Rishi Sunak said he was “confident we can bring the numbers down”.
But, speaking to reporters whilst travelling to the G20 summit in Bali, he warned there was no “single thing” that could be done to “fix” the situation.

Evening Standard
The UK has negotiated a 40 per cent boost in the number of officers patrolling beaches in northern France in a historic deal to tackle the migrant crisis.
British staff will also be embedded in French control rooms for the first time under the landmark plans to clamp down on dangerous small boat crossings, as the number of people making the perilous journey to the UK so far this year topped 40,000.
Further measures signed off in Paris include an investment in CCTV and dog detection teams to keep tabs on ports and plans to better equip officers with drones and night vision capabilities.
Meanwhile, Britain and France have agreed to step up co-operation on the issue with European partners, with a meeting of the “Calais Group” of neighbouring countries to be scheduled as soon as possible.
A new taskforce will also be established to address the “recent rise in Albanians and organised crime groups exploiting illegal migration routes” into Western Europe, No 10 said.

Times
Britain and France will announce a multimillion-pound security pact today that aims to stem the record numbers of small boats crossing the Channel.
The Ministry of Defence said yesterday that more than 40,000 people had crossed so far this year, with 972 people detected on Saturday alone.
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, will travel to Paris to make the announcement. The new deal will for the first time entail British officers being stationed in French control rooms and sharing live intelligence.
The French government will also pledge to increase significantly the number of officers patrolling Channel beaches to detect and disrupt crossings.

Mirror
Britain has agreed to pay France tens of millions of pounds more to stop people making dangerous Channel crossings, but Rishi Sunak has admitted the problem may still persist.
A 72 million euro (£63 million) deal, signed on Monday morning, will see a 40% increase in the number of officers patrolling beaches along the French coastline in the coming months.
For the first time, British border staff will be stationed in control rooms on the other side of the Channel to observe operations.
The Prime Minister said he is “confident” he can curb the small boat crossings that are now at a record high, but he suggested it could take months.

ITV News
Rishi Sunak has said his absolute priority is to “grip illegal migration” as he sets out plans for a new 72 million Euro (£64 million) deal with France to try to prevent so many boats crossing the Channel.
The prime minister said he had spent more time thinking about this issue than anything else, apart from the Autumn statement since becoming prime minister.
The deal – which was finalised by the Home Secretary Suella Braverman, when she met Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin in Paris this morning – will see a 40% increase in the number of officers patrolling beaches in northern France.
British officers will also be embedded with their French counterparts for the first time.

Mail
A gang member allegedly behind the deadliest migrant drownings in the Channel is living in Britain and claiming asylum, a TV documentary will claim tonight.
The man, of Kurdish descent, is said to have helped migrants find a seat on an inflatable boat which capsized, killing 31 last November.
The documentary investigated those behind the disaster and spoke to survivor Issa Mohammed who told how he saw ‘bodies floating by’.
Presenter Handa Majed is seen speaking by phone to a source who said the smuggler has been seen in Birmingham.
‘He came across the Channel in an inflatable. He changed his name and is claiming asylum,’ the source says. The documentary claims the man was put in a hotel in the Midlands and wants to start a business but it was unable to find him.

Sun
SMALL-boat migrants will be housed in holiday camps next — as the Home Secretary travelling to Paris today to finalise an updated border security deal.
More than 40,000 have now crossed the English Channel to the UK so far this year according official Ministry of Defence stats.
Suella Braverman is eyeing struggling hols parks to ease pressure on the £6.8million-a-day hotel bill.
She will today meet her French counterpart Gerald Darmanin in Paris to shake on a £70million a year agreement to hike beach patrols, with British officials in French control rooms for the first time.
A taskforce specifically designed to talk about Albanian migrants is also to be launched.
One in four crossers have come from the Eastern European state.

Eco-protests

Mail
Supreme Court judges were last night blamed for giving the green light to eco-zealots to cause mayhem on Britain’s roads.
The Mail on Sunday understands that activists from Just Stop Oil are exploiting an extraordinary legal ruling made by the country’s most senior judges more than a year ago that protests can be a ‘lawful excuse’ to block roads.
The ruling followed the prosecution of four anti-arms trade protesters who blocked a road leading to the ExCel Centre while it hosted an arms fair in September 2017.
In June 2021 the Supreme Court, established by Tony Blair’s Labour government, reversed a High Court decision and overturned the protesters’ convictions.
It ruled that protesters can have a ‘lawful excuse’ defence under the European Convention of Human Rights against the offence of obstructing a highway, even where they have used ‘deliberately physically obstructive conduct.’
The so-called ‘Ziegler’ ruling, named after Nora Ziegler, one of the protesters, was hailed at the time by campaign group Extinction Rebellion.
It is understood that protesters are briefed about the ruling before they block motorways and trunk roads in a bid to cause traffic chaos.
But speaking to The Mail on Sunday, Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader said: ‘Clearly it’s an absurd judgment.

Tax

Mail
Millions of households face a financial double whammy consisting of a £900 average rise in their energy bills next year along with possible increases in council tax under plans to be unveiled in this week’s Budget.
Whitehall sources told the Daily Mail that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is poised to slash Government subsidies and allow average annual bills to reach £3,000 from April.
The new level is £500 above the current £2,500 energy price ‘guarantee’ set out by Liz Truss, which was originally supposed to last for two years, and almost treble the £1,042 average in April 2020. ~
Sources told the Mail that a £400 one-off payment reducing bills for all households this winter will not be repeated, leaving millions facing an average rise of £900 in total – an extra £75 per month.

Telegraph
Every taxpayer faces a raid from the Chancellor in this week’s Autumn Statement, as he warned that “we are going to see everyone paying more”.
Jeremy Hunt is set to freeze the personal tax threshold and the rates at which people start to pay the various rates of income tax and national insurance until 2028.
The stealth raid means millions will pay tax for the first time or will be dragged into higher rates.
On Sunday night, Rishi Sunak, on his way to the G20 summit in Bali, said the markets would punish Britain if there are no tax rises and spending cuts this week.
The Prime Minister said: “Financial conditions in the UK have stabilised, clearly, but they have stabilised because people expect the Government to take the decisions that will put our public finances on a stable trajectory and it’s the Government’s job to deliver on that.”

Times
Rishi Sunak warned last night that Britain would be punished by the financial markets if he did not raise taxes and cut spending, as ministers announced they were curtailing support for energy bills from April.
In a riposte to his critics on the Tory right, the prime minister said the government had to meet the “expectations of international markets” after the loss of confidence brought about by his predecessor Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
However, he pledged that Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, would also lay out longer-term proposals to “cut people’s taxes over time” when he delivers his autumn statement on Thursday.

Express
Rishi Sunak has said Britain should expect higher taxes and argued that financial markets were expecting cuts to public spending.
The Prime Minister’s comments come after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt did a series of televised interviews, in which he told Sky News that he hoped to make the upcoming recession “as short and shallow as possible” and said the Government would be “asking everyone for sacrifices”. Mr Hunt was asked by the BBC if taxes would go up, to which Mr Hunt replied: “We are going to see everybody paying more tax, we are going to see spending cuts, but I think it’s very important to say that we are a resilient country.”
On Sunday evening, Mr Sunak spoke to reporters while travelling to the G20 summit in Bali.
The Prime Minister warned the Government must follow through on its promise of tax rises and spending cuts or risk market backlash which could destabilise the economy.
He said the Government had to meet the “expectations of international markets” after a loss of confidence brought on by former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s mini-budget.

Council tax

Times
Proposals to allow local authorities to impose further rises in council tax next year are now “more likely than not”, as Jeremy Hunt looks for ways to ease inflationary pressures on social care.
The chancellor is understood to back increasing the amount that local authorities are able to increase bills each year to pay for care home places and home help.
Hunt, who has long argued for more money for social care, is understood to believe that an increase in funding should be a high priority for the government despite pressures on budgets across Whitehall. But the move — which would effectively amount to another tax rise above those already planned by the chancellor — would be highly controversial.

NHS

Express
A top doctor has warned that NHS hospitals are not at “full capacity” seven days a week and are like the “Marie Celeste” on Friday afternoons.
Dr Andrew Stein, a kidney consultant, runs a guide for patients on how the NHS works and worked on a 2013 NHS report which discovered that patient outcomes were affected by the day of the week. Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Dr Stein said the NHS “will not function” nor “hit any target” until it operates seven days a week.
He said: “People start heading to the car parks at 12 and by 2pm it’s all quiet and the hospital is not used to full capacity through the weekend.
“[CT scans] are not done, operations are not done. So just getting more staff in and using more money doesn’t necessarily solve that problem because that’s an efficiency problem.”
It comes at a time new figures showed the NHS is facing a backlog of 7.07 million patients, with performance against cancer at record lows.

Mail
Britain’s top A&E doctor says he is desperate to keep his elderly parents from going in to hospital this winter – because he fears they won’t come out again.
In a frank first interview, Dr Adrian Boyle, the new president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said hospital crowding and bed blocking were killing hundreds every week.
Comparing hospitals to ‘lobster traps’, Dr Boyle said the crisis in social care had left 13,000 patients stranded on wards, despite them being deemed medically fit to leave.
The log-jam was fuelling long waits for ambulances, rising 12-hour waits in A&E and other delays to emergency care, which are estimated to be causing more than 500 deaths a week.

Times
NHS hospitals are like the “Mary Celeste” on Friday afternoons, a leading doctor has said.
Dr Andrew Stein, a consultant kidney specialist who runs a guide for patients on how the NHS works, said underuse of facilities at weekends was hampering efforts to tackle the waiting list. His comments were opposed by the British Medical Association, and NHS leaders, who said there were not enough staff for current working patterns.
The comments came as the new head of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said hospitals were like “lobster traps” for the elderly because of chronic overcrowding and delayed discharges.
Dr Adrian Boyle, a senior A&E doctor, told the Daily Mail: “[Hospitals are] easy to get in to and hard to get out of.

Mirror
A top A&E doctor has warned British hospitals are “often a bad place” that can “harm” vulnerable patients as the NHS reaches crisis point.
UK hospitals are currently running at a record 94.3 per cent bed occupancy – some 9.3 per cent more than what is deemed the maximum safe limit – and that’s before winter and its associated challenges has even set in.
Earlier this month, the Mirror reported ambulances are queuing for hours outside a Manchester hospital where a pensioner died waiting to be admitted, with one paramedic comparing it to a “war zone”.
Dr Adrian Boyle, recently appointed president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, says hundreds of people are dying unnecessarily every week due to crowding and ‘bed blocking’ – where a patient remains in hospital despite being fit enough to be discharged.

Guardian
As many as one in three hospital beds in parts of England are occupied by patients who are well enough to be discharged, with a chronic lack of social care meaning many do not have suitable places to go.
Guardian analysis of official data shows that on average 13,600 beds across NHS England are occupied every day with patients who doctors say are medically fit to go home or to a care home, equivalent to one in seven beds in acute hospitals in October.
However, that rose to more than one in five at 35 of England’s 121 acute hospital trusts, and to almost one in three at two trusts – North Bristol and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS trust.
Previous work by the Nuffield Trust has revealed the majority of delayed discharges are down to a lack of social care, be that support in patients’ own homes or placements in a care home.

Alexa

Sun
AN urgent warning has been issued to smart speaker owners as MPs probe whether perverts and fraudsters can spy on you through Amazon Alexa.
Households in the UK are being told there are concerns criminals are using the talking device to tune into your activity.
A Westminster select committee previously held an inquiry into the possible abuse of the technology.
With tech experts warning the Amazon devices are “always listening”, they’re calling for better education on them and to treat them with caution.
Tory MP and Chairman of the committee Julian Knight said: “The innocent little box sitting inconspicuously in the corner of the room would seem to offer the ultimate in convenience.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email