Left Foot Forward's roundup of the progressive news you might have missed this week...

In no particular order… PS: Got a story tip? Email us: editor@leftfootforward.org

10. Lives have been transformed by the introduction of a soft opt-out system of consent for organ donation in Wales, the nation’s Health Minister Vaughan Gething has said on the fifth anniversary of the scheme’s introduction.

Five years ago on Monday, Wales introduced a ‘soft’ opt-out system of organ donation, where presumed consent was given for organ donation unless the person had opted out.

The system has been so successful that England have now introduced an opt-out system, Scotland will next year and Northern Ireland will be consulting on a similar change.

Since the scheme was introduced in Wales the number of people opting into the Organ Donor Register has risen 4% from 1,138,527 in 2016/17 to 1,300,494 in the first two quarters of 2020/21.

Consent rates for donation recently reached an all-time high in Wales of 77% in 2018/19, after they were as low as 58% in 2015/16. There were more than 200 organ transplants completed on Welsh patients in each of the last two years; an 11% rise from 180 in 2017/18.

Health Minister Vaughan Gething said: “Over the last five years we have seen people’s lives being transformed after receiving an organ. Not only this, but the families of donors have also taken solace in the fact their loved ones have given the gift of life to others.”

9. The campaigning legal group Good Law Project has been granted permission to challenge a ‘lucrative’ public affairs contract given to long-time associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings at consultants Public First.

The Government’s grounds of defence have been criticised for ‘not even bother[ing] to argue that their decision to award the contract without competition was lawful’.

A statement from the court said: “The Defendant [the Government] has provided no substantive response to the Claimant’s challenges, whether by way of pre-action correspondence or his Acknowledgement of Service, other than to state his intention to challenge the Claimant’s standing…The Defendant ought to have been able to indicate the general nature of his grounds of resistance in the Acknowledgment of Service.

“It is arguable that there was, at 3 March 2020, no extreme urgency within Regulation 32(2)(c) in respect of a contract for services of this nature.”

Good Law Project’s Jolyon Maugham QC said: “The Government’s arguments are wearing thin. Now it will have to come clean about what really happened.” The case will be heard next year.

8. The vast majority of Black Britons surveyed for a report by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights do not believe the police treat them fairly.

It follow’s Netpol’s recent Britain Is Not Innocent report, which focused specifically on the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. It found that the police disproportionately used excessive force in Black-led protests, against Black protesters, that the police routinely break their duty of care towards sick or injured protesters, and that social distancing and other COVID-19 regulations were enforced ‘selectively’.

The report also claimed that the police are largely ineffective in keeping members of the public safe from far-right and racist harassment and violence

7. Two journalists working for the Sunday World newspaper have been contacted by police and told of a series of “imminent threats” of attack by criminals and loyalist paramilitaries including the West Belfast Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

One National Union of Journalists (NUJ) member was contacted in the middle of the night by the police and alerted to a threat. Another member has been issued with a shoot to kill threat and is also at risk of entrapment and attack. Both individuals have been named in various threatening social media posts and both journalists have been threatened on previous occasions.

Those involved in issuing the threats against journalists have carried out recent acts of serious violence, the union says.

Seamus Dooley, NUJ assistant general secretary, said: “Once again NUJ members have received serious threats from loyalist paramilitaries and criminals intent on silencing journalism in Northern Ireland. These attempts to intimidate journalists must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. We welcome the fact that the journalists concerned have received the full support of their employer.

“The protection of journalists and the active pursuit of those who threaten the media is essential to a functioning democratic society. The PSNI is fully engaged with both journalists and we hope that every effort will be made to ensure the continued safety of our members, their families and their colleagues.”

6. Tory Cabinet minister George Eustice has admitted the coronavirus tier system may not be considered “consistent” or “fair” as he defended the measures coming into force this week.

Speaking with talkRADIO’s Julia Hartley-Brewer, the Environment Secretary said: “The measures we’re taking are all about trying to break the cycle of infection and that doesn’t mean that every rule that we introduce and every requirement we put on people is perfectly consistent or might even be considered perfectly fair – indeed, they won’t be.”

He was being challenged on the logic behind Tier 2 hospitality rules that say pubs can only open if they serve “substantial” meals.

 5. The Unite union has warned that if the Arcadia Group is forced into administration not only are up to 15,000 jobs at risk but current and former workers also face large reductions in future pension payments.

The union says that the failure of the government to beef up the role of the pensions regulator in the wake of the last great corporate crash, that of Carillion in 2017, means that blameless Arcadia workers could see their retirement savings `stolen’ from them as the group spirals into administration.

Arcadia’s pension funds are understood to have a deficit stretching into hundreds of millions of pounds with a decision taken in March this year to withhold a monthly £2 million payment to the scheme.

If the company is forced into administration this is likely to result in the pension schemes falling into the taxpayer-supported Pension Protection Fund. Retired workers will see future annual increases diminished, while existing workers at Arcadia and former employees yet to retire will only have 90 per cent of their pension protected.

Unite national officer Matt Draper said: “Thousands of Arcadia’s existing workforce and its previous employees face the prospect of the value of their pension being greatly diminished in yet another example of bandit capitalism on the UK’s High Street.”

4. The United Voices of the World union has vowed to ballot cleaners to strike at London’s famous Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

Cleaners at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH) are to be balloted for strike action by their union UVW in a bid to become NHS employees.

This will be the first strike of cleaners in the history of GOSH, and one of just a handful of strikes in the history of the NHS of cleaners demanding to become employees of the NHS rather than remain outsourced.

The mostly-BAME cleaners also plan to bring a group employment tribunal claim arguing they are suffering from institutionally race discriminated.

After outsourced cleaners at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH) joined UVW and submitted a formal claim to the GOSH Board demanding they were brought in-house, the CEO of GOSH, Dr Matthew Shaw, has issued a statement in response to the claim. On behalf of the Board, Mr Shaw said: “We will do absolutely the right thing in relation to terms and conditions….in order to achieve parity and fairness across all staff who are working in Great Ormond Street.”

This statement was delivered 15 days after submission of the cleaner’s claim and was made at a GOSH Board meeting on 26th November, which was open to the public and attended by cleaners and officials.  

3. During this week’s PMQs, Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts MP criticised the Prime Minister Boris Johnson for inflicting a “rail betrayal” on Wales.

Last week’s Statement of Funding revealed that funding Wales receives relative to transport spending in England will fall dramatically, plummeting from 80.9% in 2015 to 36.6% in 2020 through the Barnett comparability factor.

The Barnett formula is a mechanism used by the Treasury to automatically adjust the amounts of public expenditure allocated to Wales and the other devolved nations to reflect changes in spending on public services in England.

The HS2 project in England would ordinarily lead to a significant increase in the budget of the Welsh Government under this formula. However, the project has been classified as an ‘England and Wales’ project, meaning that Wales is not compensated for spending on the project. This is despite not a single piece of the railway being in Wales.

With the project expected to cost the UK taxpayer over £100bn, Wales would ordinarily receive around £5bn in Barnett consequentials. However, due to the decision confirmed in last week’s Spending Review, Wales will receive nothing, Plaid Cymru says.

2. New figures from the Trussell Trust have revealed that half of all households visiting foodbanks struggled to afford essential goods because they were repaying Universal Credit debt.

Jonathan Reynolds MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said: “It cannot be right that people are turning to foodbanks because the Government is taking money from those who can least afford it.

“The Universal Credit system is clearly failing these families when they cannot afford essentials. Labour called on the Government to end the five-week wait and pay advances as grants not loans to stop this spiral of debt and support Britain’s struggling families through this crisis.”

1. A new report from the Climate Action Tracker which shows that if current targets are met global temperature rise may be limited to 2.1C. 

Commenting, Dr Kat Kramer, climate change lead at Christian Aid, said: “While it’s obviously positive news that current climate pledges bring us closer to bridging the gap to the emissions reductions that are needed, they still do not come close enough to the Paris goal of trying to limit warming to 1.5ºC, the maximum warming acceptable to the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Recent studies have shown that positive feedbacks in the climate system may come into play below 2ºC, which could lead to runaway climate change.

“It’s important to note that there is little published information on how to achieve the net zero goals. What matters for the climate is total emissions over time – we need a serious frontloading of action in the next few years. The COVID economic recovery does provide an important opportunity to invest money wisely to achieve this.”
 
She added: “Long terms goals are good but it’s clear that Governments need to act more quickly in the short term and focus on a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, ending ecosystem destruction and building resilience of communities vulnerable to climate impacts.”

Josiah Mortimer is co-editor of Left Foot Forward.

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