Prove how many potholes you’ve fixed or lose cash, councils told
The government is telling local councils they must publish data on how many potholes they have fixed or risk losing their share of an extra £500m set aside for fixing roads.
From the middle of next month, local authorities across England will start to receive their allocation of the £1.6bn for fixing roads across the country.
But in order to get the full amount, all councils must publish annual reports on how many potholes they’ve filled – or see a quarter of the additional £500m in funding the government has allocated this year withheld.
By 30 June, all councils must publish reports detailing how much they are spending, how many potholes they have filled, what percentage of their roads are in what condition, and how they are minimising disruption.
Meanwhile, the transport secretary is unveiling a funding package of £4.8bn for 2025-6 for National Highways to deliver critical road schemes and maintain motorways and major A-roads.
This new money will mean “pivotal” road construction schemes can be pushed forward, the government said.
This is a key part of Downing Street’s drive to ensure the voting public sees and feels the difference the government is making in their local communities as they fight off a challenge from Reform UK.
The transport secretary has promised £4.8bn for National Highways to deliver improvements and maintenance. Pic: PA
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “The broken roads we inherited are not only risking lives but also cost working families, drivers and businesses hundreds – if not thousands of pounds – in avoidable vehicle repairs.
“British people are bored of seeing their politicians aimlessly pointing at potholes with no real plan to fix them. That ends with us.
“We’ve done our part by handing councils the cash and certainty they need – now it’s up to them to get on with the job, put that money to use and prove they’re delivering for their communities.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: “After years of neglect we’re tackling the pothole plague, building vital roads and ensuring every penny is delivering results for the taxpayer.”
Responding to the announcement, the transport spokesperson for the Local Government Association said the cash will “help start to address the previously ever-growing backlog of local road repairs” which, he added, “could take more than a decade to fix”.
Councillor Adam Hug also called for the government to “play its full part” by using its Spending Review “to ensure that councils receive sufficient, long-term funding certainty, so they can focus their efforts on much more cost-effective, preventative measures”.
The Conservatives have responded by claiming Labour “want credit for handing councils a pothole sticking plaster”.
Gareth Bacon, shadow transport secretary, continued: “Labour are running on empty. They’ve got no plan for motorists, no grip on the problem, and no credibility.
“Voters shouldn’t be fooled – Labour aren’t fixing the roads, they’re steering Britain into a ditch.”
Spending on roads and cuts in Whitehall
The spending on roads across England comes as the chancellor is preparing to make billions of pounds of spending cuts at the spring statement on Wednesday.
A turbulent economic climate since October means the £9.9bn gap in her fiscal headroom (the amount she could increase spending or cut taxes without breaking her fiscal rules) has been wiped out.
The government has confirmed it will force the civil service to slash £2bn a year from its budget by cutting administration costs by the end of the decade.
Rachel Reeves told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips she is “confident” they can cut 10,000 jobs from “back office” roles to ensure resources can be spent on front-line services.
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Chancellor says 10,000 civil service roles could be axed
A total of £5bn is expected to be saved by making it more difficult to qualify for Pip, and also abolishing the work capability assessment in 2028, which determines whether someone on universal credit is fit to work.
Quangos are also on the chopping block, with the prime minister having already announced NHS England is being abolished to both bring the health service back under more direct ministerial control, and also save money.
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Money is being redirected towards defence, with the chancellor expected to announce £400m in spending on the government’s new UK Defence Investment body to “harness UK ingenuity and boost military technology”, The Mirror reports.
And the full details of how international aid funding will be reallocated to defence are expected, after the prime minister said UK defence spending will rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.
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How will the UK scale up defence?
Speaking to Trevor Phillips, the chancellor said “the world has changed” as she laid the groundwork for the spring statement.
“We’ll respond to the change and continue to meet our fiscal rule,” she said. “But we’re also shaping the new world, whether that’s in the defence and security realm, or indeed on the economy.
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Reeves ‘rejects’ analysis on living standards
What could be in the spring statement?
The chancellor highlighted that “interest rates have been cut three times since the general election”, adding: “That’s a far cry from the 11% inflation and the interest rate hikes that we saw under the previous government.”
But shadow chancellor Mel Stride said the government has not “gripped the economy”, accusing ministers of having talked it down and having a negative impact on growth.
Binance has discontinued spot trading pairs with Tether’s USDt in the European Economic Area (EEA) to comply with the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has delisted spot trading pairs with several non-MiCA-compliant tokens in the EEA in line with a plan disclosed in early March, Cointelegraph has learned.
While spot trading pairs in tokens such as USDt (USDT) are now delisted on Binance, users in the EEA can still custody the affected tokens and trade them in perpetual contracts.
USDT is available for perpetual trading on Binance. Source: Binance
According to a previous announcement by Binance, the spot trading pairs for non-MiCA-compliant tokens were to be delisted by March 31, which is in line with a local requirement to delist such tokens by the end of the first quarter of 2025.
Delistings on other exchanges in EEA
Binance is not the only crypto exchange delisting non-MiCA-compliant tokens for spot trading in the EEA.
Other exchanges, such as Kraken, have delisted spot trading pairs in tokens such as USDT in the EEA after announcing plans in February.
According to a notice on the Kraken website, the exchange restricted USDT for sell-only mode in the EEA on March 24. At the time of writing, the platform doesn’t allow its EEA users to buy the affected tokens.
Kraken restricted USDT to sell-only mode in the EEA on March 24. Source: Kraken
Among other non-MiCA-compliant tokens, Binance has also delisted spot trading pairs for Dai (DAI), First Digital USD (FDUSD), TrueUSD (TUSD), Pax Dollar (USDP), Anchored Euro (AEUR), TerraUSD (UST), TerraClassicUSD (USTC) and PAX Gold (PAXG).
Related: Tether acquires 30% stake in Italian media company Be Water
Kraken’s delisting roadmap in the EEA only included five tokens: USDT, PayPal USD (PYUSD), Tether EURt (EURT), TrueUSD and TerraClassicUSD.
ESMA doesn’t prohibit custody of non-MiCA-compliant tokens
Binance and Kraken’s move to maintain custody services for non-MiCA-compliant tokens aligns with a previous communication from MiCA compliance supervisors.
On March 5, a spokesperson for the ESMA told Cointelegraph that custody and transfer services for non-MiCA-compliant stablecoins do not violate the new European cryptocurrency laws.
On the other hand, the same regulator previously advised European crypto asset service providers to halt all transactions involving the affected tokens after March 31, adding a certain extent of confusion over MiCA requirements.
Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025
Vanuatu has passed laws to regulate digital assets and provide a licensing regime for crypto companies wanting to operate in the Pacific island nation, which a government regulatory consultant has called “very stringent.”
The local parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act on March 26, giving crypto licensing authority to the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC) along with powers to enforce the Financial Action Task Force’s Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Financing and Travel Rule standards with crypto firms.
The VFSC has sweeping investigation and enforcement powers under the laws, with penalties stipulating fines of up to 250 million vatu ($2 million) and up to 30 years in prison.
“God help any scammer that goes into Vanuatu because you’ll go to jail,” Loretta Joseph, who consulted with the regulator on the laws, told Cointelegraph. “The laws are very stringent.”
“The thing is, we don’t want another FTX debacle,” she added, referring to the once Bahamas-based crypto exchange that collapsed in 2022 due to massive fraud committed by its co-founders, Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, along with other executives.
“Vanuatu is a small jurisdiction. Small jurisdictions are preyed on by the players that are looking for no regulation or light touch regulation,” Joseph said. “This is certainly not that.”
“I’m so proud of them to be the first country in the Pacific to actually take a position and do this,” she added.
New Vanuatu law regulates slate of crypto companies
The law establishes a licensing and reporting framework for exchanges, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces, crypto custody providers and initial coin offerings.
The law notably allows for banks to be licensed to provide crypto exchange and custody services. Source: Parliament of the Republic of Vanuatu
The VFSC said that the legislation doesn’t affect stablecoins, tokenized securities, and central bank digital currencies even though they “may in practice share some similarities with virtual assets.”
The legislation also allows for the VFSC’s commissioner to create a sandbox to allow approved companies to offer a variety of crypto services for a year, which can be renewed.
Related: Australia outlines crypto regulation plan, promises action on debanking
Joseph said Vanuatu “needed a standalone piece of legislation” that covered Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terror Financing requirements, as the country didn’t have existing laws suited to virtual assets.
The regulator said in a March 29 statement that it had developed the legislative framework after years of “assessing the risks associated with virtual assets,” and the laws would open “numerous opportunities for Vanuatu” and improve financial inclusion by allowing regulated services for crypto cross-border payments.
VFSC Commissioner Branan Karae had said in June that the bill was expected to pass that September, but Joseph said the legislation was “not something that was done lightly.” It had been in development since 2020 and was delayed due to changes in government, natural disasters and COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions.
Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is calling for legislative changes in the US to allow stablecoin holders to earn “onchain interest” on their holdings.
In a March 31 post on X, Armstrong argued that crypto companies should be treated similarly to banks and be “allowed to, and incentivized to, share interest with consumers.” He added that allowing onchain interest would be “consistent with a free market approach.”
Source: Brian Armstrong
There are currently two competing pieces of federal stablecoin legislation working their way through the legislative process in the US: the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy (STABLE) Act, and the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.
In reference to the stablecoin legislation, Armstrong said the US had an opportunity to “level the playing field and ensure these laws pave a way for all regulated stablecoins to deliver interest directly to consumers, the same way a savings or checking account can.”
Armstrong: Onchain interest a boon for US economy
Armstrong argued that while stablecoins have already found product-market fit by “digitizing the dollar and other fiat currencies,” the addition of onchain interest would allow “the average person, and the US economy, to reap the full benefits.”
He said that if legislative changes allowed stablecoin issuers to pay interest to holders, US consumers could earn a yield of around 4% on their holdings, far outstripping the 2024 average interest yield on a consumer savings account, which Armstrong cited as 0.41%.
Armstrong also said onchain interest could benefit the broader US economy — by incentivizing the global use of US dollar stablecoins. This could see their use grow, “pulling dollars back to U.S. treasuries and extending dollar dominance in an increasingly digital global economy,” according to the Coinbase CEO.
He also argued that the potential for a higher yield than traditional savings accounts would result in “more yield in consumers’ hands means more spending, saving, investing — fueling economic growth in all local economies where stablecoins are held.”
“If we don’t unlock onchain interest, the U.S. misses out on billions more USD users and trillions in potential cash flows,” Armstrong added.
Currently, neither the STABLE Act nor the GENIUS Act gives the legal go-ahead for onchain interest-generating stablecoins. In fact, in its current form, the STABLE Act includes a short passage prohibiting “payment stablecoin” issuers from paying yield to holders:
Source: STABLE Act
Related: Stablecoins, tokenized assets gain as Trump tariffs loom
Similarly, the GENIUS Act, which recently passed the Senate Banking Committee by a vote of 18-6, has been amended to exclude interest-bearing instruments from its definition of a “payment stablecoin.”
Commenting on the current state of the STABLE Act, Representative Bryan Steil told Eleanor Terrett, host of the Crypto in America podcast, that two pieces of legislation are positioned to “mirror up” following a few more draft rounds in the House and Senate — due to the differences between them being textual rather than substantive.
“At the end of the day, I think there’s recognition that we want to work with our Senate colleagues to get this across the line,” Steil said.
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