Residents who live near newly installed pylons will be compensated with £250-a-year off their energy bills, a minister has said.
Housing and planning minister Alex Norris told Sky’s Wilfred Frost on Breakfast that communities “need to share the benefits” of the government’s tilt towards clean energy.
“If you’re making that sacrifice of having some of the infrastructure in your community, you should get some of the money back,” he said.
“So we’re making that commitment – £250-a-year if you are near those pylons.
“We think that’s a fair balance between people who are making that commitment to the country… they should be rewarded for that.”
Image: People living near power infrastructure could get hundreds of pounds off their bills a year as part of an overhaul of planning rules. File pic: PA
Ministers are currently pushing through an overhaul of the planning system – long seen as a brake on housebuilding and vital infrastructure projects – to stimulate growth in the economy.
Overnight it was announced parts of the planning system could be stripped away as part of the government’s attempts to speed up house building.
In its election-winning manifesto, Labour promised to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years to tackle the lack of affordable housing, with recent statistics showing that there are 123,000 households in temporary accommodation – including nearly 160,000 children.
Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly vowed to put “builders not blockers first”, announcing at the beginning of the year “unarguable cases” that are legally challenged will only be able to be brought back to the courts once – rather than the current three times.
Under the reforms announced last night, consulting bodies such as Sport England, the Theatres Trust and the Garden History Society will no longer be required for those looking to build under the new plans being considered by ministers.
While consultees will not be completely removed from the process, it will no longer be mandatory for builders to receive the opinion of such bodies and their scope will be “narrowed to focus on heritage, safety and environmental protection”, according to the government.
It is hoped the slimming down of the process will reduce waiting times for projects.
Mr Norris said the interjections of official bodies in planning decisions was causing a “bottleneck” in granting applications.
“I think viewers might be surprised to hear that there are two dozen-plus organisations that have to be consulted on planning applications – that’s providing a bit of a bottleneck, often not getting back in time,” he said.
He said that while members of Sport England were “fine people”, there was a case where the body held up the development in Bradford next to a cricket pitch.
“The hold up is around a disagreement on the speed at which cricket balls are hit,” he explained.
“So Sport England are querying the modelling of the speed at which the balls will be hit, and that, as a result, has meant that the whole process is now multiple years down the line, and there’s no build out.”
It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.
Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.
“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”
He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.
However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”
Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said it is “not right” that black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.
“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.
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Police chase suspected phone thief
Baroness Casey was commissioned in 2021 to look into the Met Police after serving police officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.
She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found that stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.
At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Casey insisted the Met deserved.
However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.
After the report was released, Sir Mark said “institutional” was political language so he was not going to use it, but he accepted “we have racists, misogynists…systematic failings, management failings, cultural failings”.
A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips from 8.30am on Sunday.
Labour’s largest union donor, Unite, has voted to suspend Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner over her role in the Birmingham bin strike row.
Members of the trade union, one of the UK’s largest, also “overwhelmingly” voted to “re-examine its relationship” with Labour over the issue.
They said Ms Rayner, who is also housing, communities and local government secretary, Birmingham Council’s leader, John Cotton, and other Labour councillors had been suspended for “bringing the union into disrepute”.
There was confusion over Ms Rayner’s membership of Unite, with her office having said she was no longer a member and resigned months ago and therefore could not be suspended.
But Unite said she was registered as a member. Parliament’s latest register of interests had her down as a member in May.
The union said an emergency motion was put to members at its policy conference in Brighton on Friday.
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Unite is one of the Labour Party’s largest union donors, donating £414,610 in the first quarter of 2025 – the highest amount in that period by a union, company or individual.
The union condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the government for “attacking the bin workers”.
Mountains of rubbish have been piling up in the city since January after workers first went on strike over changes to their pay, with all-out strike action starting in March. An agreement has still not been made.
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Rat catcher tackling Birmingham’s bins problem
Ms Rayner and the councillors had their membership suspended for “effectively firing and rehiring the workers, who are striking over pay cuts of up to £8,000”, the union added.
‘Missing in action’
General secretary Sharon Graham told Sky News on Saturday morning: “Angela Rayner, who has the power to solve this dispute, has been missing in action, has not been involved, is refusing to come to the table.”
She had earlier said: “Unite is crystal clear, it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette.
“Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”
Image: Piles of rubbish built up around Birmingham because of the strike over pay
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said the government’s “priority is and always has been the residents of Birmingham”.
He said the decision by Unite workers to go on strike had “caused disruption” to the city.
“We’ve worked to clean up streets and remain in close contact with the council […] as we support its recovery,” he added.
A total of 800 Unite delegates voted on the motion.
Binance co-founder CZ has dismissed a Bloomberg report linking him to the Trump-backed USD1 stablecoin, threatening legal action over alleged defamation.