Brexit

Yahoo News
Ireland expects that Britain’s approach to Brexit talks with the European Union are likely to change and improve following pressure exerted by international partners at the Group of Seven summit at the weekend, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said.
Ever since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the two sides have been trying to work out how to deal with post-Brexit trade and the British province, which has a land border with EU member Ireland.
Tensions between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Union leaders on the issue, which some worry has the potential to escalate into a full-scale trade war, overshadowed the G7 summit at the weekend.
Ahead of the summit, U.S. President Joe Biden warned Johnson against imperiling the delicate peace in Northern Ireland through his approach to the talks, which centre on trade frictions between the British region of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
“We hope and expect that, particularly given the pressure that we’ve seen over the few days at the G7, that the British government’s approach will now change and improve in the days and weeks ahead,” Coveney said.
Coveney at the weekend called on Britain and the EU to find a “middle ground” in talks on aligning food standards to unlock the talks.

Post-Brexit

Telegraph
Post-Brexit Britain should abandon the EU’s “excessively cautious” approach to regulation and  light a bonfire of red tape to fuel economic growth, a task force commissioned by Boris Johnson has said.
In the first major blueprint for regulatory reform since leaving the bloc, a group of senior Tory MPs have urged the Prime Minister to junk the “precautionary principle”, which they warn is stifling British businesses.
Written into EU law, the principle is a wide-ranging approach to regulating innovation which could pose a risk in public health, food safety and the environment.
Branded unscientific and reactionary by critics, it impacts an array of sectors such as science and agriculture, and is the primary reason why Brussels refuses to embrace new technologies such as genetically-edited crops.
It was also seen as a factor in why a number of EU member states jumped to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine earlier this year, due to the link to very rare blood clots.

Fisheries

Express
EMMANUEL MACRON has been urged to step up and do more to help French fishermen affected by Brexit changes.
The UK has wrestled control from Brussels and EU vessels now have to apply for licences for access to British waters. Having left the bloc’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) when the Brexit transition expired, the UK is now an independent coastal state and responsible for the management of its own territorial waters. The area comprises up to 12 nautical miles from the shores of Britain and the Exclusive Economic Zone, which stretches 200 nautical miles.
French politician Xavier Bertrand, who represents fishing communities in the Hauts-de-France region, has claimed hundreds of fishermen in France have been waiting since January 1 for licences.
The serving president of the regional council of Hauts-de-France, said: “I say one thing to the government, to the ministers. One more effort.
“Do you know what should be done?
“Grant licences to our fishermen who are waiting to be able to fish in the 6-12 mile area of English waters.”
As part of the post-Brexit trade deal negotiated by the Prime Minister, EU fishing quotas will be reduced by 25 percent over the next five years.
Last week, the first annual quotas for 70 fishing stocks were negotiated with the EU.
The new deal is estimated to be worth £27million more to the UK economy, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Covid

Mail
Coronavirus will never be eradicated and Britons will need to learn to live with the virus even if it causes hundreds of deaths a day when lockdown finally ends next month, top scientists and senior ministers have warned.
Independent experts seeking to manage expectations before restrictions are lifted told MailOnline that achieving zero Covid deaths was ‘impossible’ and that the focus should be to bring them down to levels comparable with flu — which kills roughly 17,000 people in England annually and up to 50,000 in a bad year.
The comments were echoed by Michael Gove, who said that while ministers need to do ‘everything we can to protect people’, it was important for the public to ‘accept’ that there would continue to be Covid deaths when the country unlocks on July 19
Boris Johnson and England’s chief expert advisers Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance have all repeated the line that we will ‘have to learn to live with Covid’ in the past 24 hours, in what seems to be a concerted effort to take emphasis away from the daily death numbers.
There has been fierce debate about what level of Covid deaths would be ‘tolerable’ when Britain emerges from the shutdown — but one of the Government’s top scientists, Professor Graham Medley, said it was ‘quite possible’ there could be hundreds each day post lockdown.

Freedom Day

Mail
A shortage of vaccines could threaten a further Freedom Day delay as supplies of Pfizer and Moderna jabs are ‘tight’ amid an increased demand – as young people are taking alternatives to AstraZeneca.
The Covid vaccine rollout has now slowed to under half its peak speed despite Boris Johnson  stressing the urgent need to jab as many people as possible to free Britain from lockdown.
In light of the rapidly spreading Indian variant, the Government has brought forward its target for vaccinating all adults until July 19 — the same day the final unlocking has been pushed back until. Ministers had previously pledged to offer jabs to all over-18s by July 31.
And the Prime Minister this week delayed Freedom Day from June 21 to July 19 to give the NHS a ‘few more crucial weeks’ to protect Britons from the Indian, or Delta, variant.
But Britain administered just 368,555 vaccine doses on Monday – well under half the 844,285 it managed on a single day in March. The pace has slowed because of the decision by Government advisers to recommend alternatives to the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab for the under-40s and limited supply of the two alternatives – Pfizer and Moderna.
Ministers have conceded that the supply of the Pfizer jab is particularly ‘tight’ while the Moderna vaccine – which has only just become available – is thought to be similarly limited.

Scotland

Times
Scottish MPs will be given the right to vote down English legislation in a major constitutional reform being considered by the government to rejuvenate the Union.
The Times has learnt that Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has brought forward proposals to abolish English Votes for English Laws (Evel), the Commons procedure introduced after the Scottish independence referendum.
Under the plans, which were put to cabinet ministers last week, the requirement that bills, amendments and clauses of legislation affecting England alone be approved by a majority of English MPs would be abolished to make parliament work “for every part of the UK and every party in the UK”.

Care home staff

Mail
Care home staff will be forced to have Covid vaccinations, ministers will announce this week.
The controversial measure means 1.5million people working in social care will be told to have the jab within 16 weeks – or face losing their jobs.
It has been introduced following a consultation which concluded it would help protect the most vulnerable in society.
No decision has yet been made on whether vaccination should be made mandatory for the 1.4million who work for the NHS. A separate consultation on that is to be launched.
Ministers are concerned about low take-up of the coronavirus vaccine among care workers, who include care home staff plus home helps.
Despite care workers being among one of the top priority groups for Covid jabs, latest figures show that just two thirds of them have had both doses of the vaccine.
Tens of thousands of care home residents died in the pandemic, largely as a result of infections being brought in by staff during the first wave.
The Daily Mail first revealed in March that the Government was considering making it a legal requirement for NHS and care home staff to have the jab.
Organisations representing care firms and their staff have warned that the move could backfire and see workers quit rather than agree to have the jab.

Similar stories appear in the Guardian, Times, BBC News, Evening Standard,

Guardian
Adult social care services are facing a “deluge” of requests for support from vulnerable and older people as society starts to open up after the pandemic, according to council care chiefs in England.
There has been a big increase in people needing help after their condition deteriorated while waiting to be admitted to hospital for treatment, as well as a surge in those needing support after being discharged from hospital.
An ongoing lack of resources – English councils have lost £7.7bn from adult social care budgets between 2010 and 2020 – means people needing support face longer waits for less care, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass) warned.
Local authorities were also facing a spike in demand for social care support for people with mental illness, victims of domestic violence and abuse, and rough sleepers, a survey of Adass members found.

Vaccine passports

Telegraph
Vaccine passports on the NHS app will automatically include a user’s “natural immunity” to Covid for six months after contracting the virus without the need for an antibody test under a new trial.
The scheme will see 180-day natural immunity certificates issued to people taking part in the Government’s latest large event trials who have tested positive for Covid this year, even if they have not had an antibody test.
Officials hope the scheme could eventually expand the number of people who could use vaccine passports to prove their immunity if they are approved for domestic use in the UK.
From June 21, fans attending one of the Government’s approved large event trials – such as  Wimbledon or Euro 2020 matches – who have tested positive since the start of this year will have a green badge on the app.
Evidence suggests natural resistance to Covid after an infection could last years, but most scientists agree patients will have at least six months of immunity.

A similar story appears in the Mail.

Trade

Telegraph
The UK is preparing to accept huge quantities of lower-cost Australian beef in a landmark trade deal hailed by Boris Johnson as a “new dawn” for relations between the two countries.
Britain will immediately accept up to 35,000 tonnes of tariff-free beef from the Commonwealth nation over the next year as part of the agreement – equal to 13pc of all the country’s current total beef imports. This figure will then rise steadily over the next decade and a half.
The agreement also opens the door for Britons under the age of 35s to work and live more freely in Australia as part of a liberalisation of the working holiday visa scheme.
The Prime Minister said: “Today marks a new dawn in the UK’s relationship with Australia, underpinned by our shared history and common values.
“Our new free trade agreement opens fantastic opportunities for British businesses and consumers, as well as young people wanting the chance to work and live on the other side of the world.

Similar stories appear in the Mail, Sky News, Independent.

Telegraph
Britain is edging closer to a tariff truce with the US after the White House agreed a ceasefire with Brussels in a long-running row over aircraft subsidies.
Under the agreement reached between the EU and US, tariffs on $11.5bn (£8.2bn) of goods including wine, tractors and cheese, will be removed for five years.
The dispute over state subsidies provided to European giant Airbus and US rival Boeing dates back to 2004 and ignited transatlantic trade tensions during the Trump presidency.
Sources said UK officials were now hopeful of agreeing a similar deal within days after striking a four-month ceasefire in March on tariffs affecting £550m of UK exports, including Scotch whisky and Stilton cheese.

Pensions

Express
BORIS JOHNSON has been urged to “seriously” look into the law on annuities and strategies to protect pensions as MPs are set to assess the impact on savers in a major review.
In 2015, many people aged 55 and over were given more choices about how they access their pensions, which led to wholesale changes in the industry and the way people plan to use their pensions. But MPs are set to assess the impact on savers as UK pensions face a major review.
According to Parliament.uk, the Government has “started a major piece of work looking at how pension savers are protected”.
They said: “This is the first of three planned reports and focuses on protecting pension savers from pension scams.
“Our future reports will look at how savers access their pensions and saving for later life.”
However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been warned about the impact of pension freedoms.
Jan Shortt, of the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), welcomed the review into pension freedoms but called for the Government to “seriously review” the law on annuities.
She told Express.co.uk: “At the time this was first announced, the NPC said that it was an ill-conceived idea with no protection from scams and those fly-by-night individuals who always jump on the bandwagon when they see easy money.

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