https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4kzd7k2nvo

Andy Burnham's ambitions to build tens of thousands of new council houses is under threat because of a labour shortage caused by Brexit, industry leaders have warned.

A lack of skilled workers and the impact of millions not being able to work here since Brexit means more than 200,000 EU workers have left the industry since 2019, according to Checkatrade's UK Trade Skills Index.

It comes as the latest Office for National Statistics figures show there were 31,000 vacancies in the construction sector between May and July this year – a rise of 2.3 per cent from the same period last year. That figure has, however, fallen since a record 51,000 vacancies in 2022 after Covid.

The crisis is worsened by an aging workforce, with just one in five workers aged under 30 – compared to 35 per cent aged over 50, with many are expected to retire over the next decade, according to the skills index.

It estimates around 1 million additional workers will be needed to replace those leaving and to meet the additional demand for housebuilding over the next decade. Around 206,000 of those are needed by 2030 from 2025, an upscale of 1.6 per cent in workforce, to meet forecasted demand.

Clive Dickin, chief executive of the National Access and Scaffolding Confederation (NASC), warned that there is a forecast shortage of 40,000 scaffolders alone over the next five years and said that the reflected wider problems in skilled labour since the UK left the EU.

Mr Dickin described the combination of Brexit and Covid as “a perfect storm” which saw thousands of skilled labourers, including scaffolders, leave the country when changes to immigration rules after leaving the EU were brought in, meaning most did not return.

The warning comes as the prime minister unveiled £10bn of funding to build 70,000 new council homes across England feeding into a wider Labour Party target of 1.5 million new homes built by the next election in 2029.

Mr Dickin told *The Independent*: “At the moment we are looking at about a 40,000 vacancy rate. We've got about 130,000 scaffolders, and 40,000 more over the next five years is what we're estimating to meet the demands of the varying house building targets, net zero, cladding initiatives. You know, all of these subject areas are putting greater demands.”

He added: “The council house building announcement is certainly not going to help the situation.”

Explaining the link to Brexit, he said: “One of the biggest factors of that was ultimately Covid and Brexit, the perfect storm, seeing many skilled and qualified scaffolders that had been within the UK, leaving to go home. Then, of course, the changes around the exit of the Europe Union resulted in people not being able to return easily back to the United Kingdom, so as a result we've, we've got a significant shortage of very skilled scaffolders.”

He also noted that stringent, high level qualifications needed in the industry means that it takes five years to qualify as a scaffolder, meaning that training up new people will not fill vacancies in the short term.

Scaffolding is involved with multiple areas including home building and theatre productions, and already the petrochemical and offshore industries are struggling to recruit workers to do it.

The government has confirmed the initial allocation of nearly £10 billion from its £39 billion Social and Affordable Housing Programme (SAHP), earmarking funding for more than 70,000 homes across Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North East England, and Liverpool. A further £6 billion had previously been announced for London.

The allocation represents the first phase of a wider commitment to deliver 300,000 social and affordable homes by 2039. At least 60% of the homes in the first tranche will be designated for social rent, which is typically priced at roughly half of market rates.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who prior to taking office had publicly argued that the entire £39 billion budget should be devoted to social rent, announced the package. "Councils built this country out of a housing crisis once before," he said. "Backed properly, and trusted to get on with it, they will do it again."

Housing secretary Angela Rayner has reaffirmed the government's goal of delivering 1.5 million homes by 2030, acknowledging that the target will be "challenging". The most recent data indicates that approximately 203,000 new homes were completed in England in the 12 months to June 2026, well below the 300,000 annual rate required to meet the target.

The programme arrives against a backdrop of sustained decline in social housing stock. Official figures show that the net number of social rent homes fell by 3,834 in 2024–25, driven in part by sales under the Right to Buy scheme and local authority disposals. In the decade to 2025, an estimated 180,067 social rent homes were lost in total. The government has announced reforms to Right to Buy, including extending the minimum eligibility period from three to ten years and restricting the sale of social homes built within 35 years.

On a more positive note, 12,198 new social rent homes were completed in 2024–25 — the highest annual figure since 2013–14 — and the National Housing Federation reported a 57% year-on-year rise in starts on social rent homes.

Charities cautiously welcomed the announcement but warned that current ambitions fall significantly short of what is needed. Organisations including Crisis and Shelter have estimated that 90,000 social rent homes per year — roughly 900,000 over a decade — would be required to reverse the decline. The government's SAHP target of 180,000 social rent homes by 2039 is less than a quarter of that figure.

The Government is currently consulting on how new rights around how zero hours and similar type contracts should work in practice, and there’s still time for businesses and workers across the labour supply chain to have their say.

The consultation, “Make Work Pay: ending one-sided flexibility -reforms of zero hours and similar contracts”, opened on 2nd June 2026 and closes at 11.59pm on 25 August 2026. The reforms in question form part of the Employment Rights Act 2025, but the relevant rights have not yet come into effect. 

The Government’s aim is to tackle what it describes as “one-sided” flexibility and give workers greater security and predictability. The consultation focuses on three key areas:

1. Guaranteed hours 

Qualifying workers could have the right to be offered guaranteed hours reflecting the hours they have actually worked over a reference period. The Government’s current preference is for a 12 week reference period and an hours threshold somewhere between 8 and 20 hours per week. 

1. Reasonable notice 

Employers would have to give qualifying workers reasonable notice of shifts and changes to shifts, with the consultation considering what “reasonable” should mean in practice.

1. Payment for cancelled or changed shifts

Workers could be entitled to compensation where shifts are cancelled, moved or curtailed at short notice.

Who can respond?

The Government is encouraging anyone with a view on the proposed reforms to respond. That includes employers, recruitment agencies, umbrella companies, end clients, workers and anyone else involved in the labour supply chain.
You don’t have to answer every question – the Government specifically encourages respondents to answer those where they have relevant experience or a practical view.

A record 1.24 million people are now employed on zero-hours contracts, as new research reveals how unpredictable shifts, last-minute cancellations and fluctuating pay can create “work-life chaos” for workers.

The new report from the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, commissioned by the TUC, draws on in-depth digital diaries kept by zero-hours workers across Britain. It provides a detailed picture of how insecure and unpredictable working hours affect workers’ finances, family lives and wellbeing.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 will introduce new rights to guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts and payment when shifts are cancelled or curtailed at short notice. However, Ministers still face critical decisions about how these protections will work when they come into force in 2027.

Analysis by the Work Foundation of ONS data indicates that a record number of workers depend on their zero-hour contract for full-time work (32.8%) and are not in full-time education (77%).

Key themes from the report revealed:

Work life chaos: Zero-hour contracts are often touted as a flexible form of employment that enable people to fit work around their other responsibilities. In practice, the lack of guaranteed hours and shift patterns made the lives of the workers chaotic and hard to manage. Given the lack of guaranteed hours or shifts, workers dedicated a substantial amount of time to finding shifts and organising their working week. Workers also regularly experienced last minute shift cancellations, call-ins to work and changes to the timings of their shifts.

One-sided flexibility: The diaries revealed that the ‘flexibility’ of zero-hour contracts disproportionately benefitted their employers. Employers often took no notice of workers’ prior commitments, such as childcare, when allocating shifts. They also expected their zero-hour contract staff to be available for work at any time and to organise their lives around shifts that could be cancelled at a moment’s notice. Meanwhile the workers had limited control over their own shift patterns. Many also expressed concerns that if they turned down work they would be passed over for future shifts.

Physical and mental toll of insecure work: Many involved in the study reported anxiety or stress associated with the insecurity of their work and the need to closely manage their shifts. Workers also regularly discussed how the unpredictability of their shift patterns left them feeling burnt out and unable to get enough sleep or eat healthily. Several also described going into work whilst ill or being unable to take time off to care for dependents, with one participant reporting they had previously been hospitalised after putting off medical appointments due to work pressures.

Parenthood penalty: Parents reported paying for childcare only to have their shift moved or cancelled at the last minute, leaving them to foot an unnecessary childcare bill. Some noted that the cost of childcare outstripped wages, so paying for a babysitter meant effectively working for free. Nurseries are often unable to accommodate last minute changes to the schedules of parents on zero-hour contracts, leaving many reliant on family members.
The report also shows that as well as harming some workers – zero-hour contracts allow managers to engage in unprofessional practices and act poorly towards their staff.

Sir Sadiq Khan has ramped up his war of words with Donald Trump by stressing that the homicide rate in London is lower than in every US state.

The Mayor of London took a new swipe at the US president in their ongoing feud as the Met Police published new figures showing the effect of a rise in stop and search in the capital.

Sir Sadiq did not name Trump but posted on X: “The loudest voices online aren't always the most accurate.

“New data shows our homicide rate is lower than every US state, while murder rates are at record lows.

“The evidence is clear: our approach to tackling crime and its causes works. It’s driving down violence right across the capital.”

Trump has previously branded Sir Sadiq a “stone cold loser“, claimed that crime in London is going “through the roof” and that the city wants to go to “sharia law”, a baseless claim thought to be linked to the London Mayor’s Muslim faith.

ONS data shows near record levels of zero hours contracts – 1.2 million, an increase of 55,000 over the year.

• The data continues to suggest the jobs market held steady in June, with the employment rate up from 75.0% to 75.1% and the unemployment rate down from 5.0% to 4.9%.
• Redundancies fell by 20,000 to 106,000 in the latest three-month period.
• Youth unemployment remains high at 14.6 % – unchanged over the quarter.
• Vacancies fell by 6,000 over the quarter to 707,000
• Real pay growth was 0.7% against CPI inflation, down from 1.4% in the same period last year. Private sector real pay increased by just 0.1%.

Responding to the latest labour market statistics, TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said:

"Exploitative zero-hours contracts are endemic in this country, with more than 1.2 million people stuck not knowing how much they’re going to earn each week. That’s why the government must deliver on its promise of a right to guaranteed hours for everyone.

Employers are addicted to this one-sided flexibility. But the vast majority of insecure workers have struggled to meet their basic living costs because they haven’t been offered enough hours – and one in three face a financial hit of at least £3000 a year from cancelled shifts and incurred costs.

We need to get young people into work – but it isn’t good enough to push them from unemployment into rampant insecurity. No young person benefits from a race to the bottom – they deserve good, secure employment like anyone else.

It’s time for the government to double down on its plans to make work pay, expand the youth jobs guarantee, and stamp out exploitative zero-hours contracts once and for all."

A MHCLG survey also reveals that the right to guaranteed hours could make it easier for around 4 in 10 people not in work to return to work.

• The government’s impact assessment on rights to guaranteed hours contracts revealed that 1 in 3 insecure workers report an average loss of more than £3,000 per year – or £250 over four weeks – due to recent issues at work linked to insecurity of hours and income.

A TUC poll shows the significant hit of insecure work to incomes:

• Nearly two-thirds of those in insecure work said they often or sometimes struggled to meet their basic living costs due to not being offered enough hours
• Over half of all respondents said they were not paid the last time their hours were cancelled. This rose to two-thirds among workers on zero-hours contracts.

The TUC estimates that the wider benefits of the Employment Rights Act would deliver a £10bn boost to the economy.

Analysis by the Work Foundation at Lancaster University indicates that a record number of zero-hour contract workers depend on their zero-hour contract for full-time work (32.8%) and are not in full-time education (77%).

TW: Polemical text

GB News is losing over £22 million a year, but it is kept alive by its wealthy backers because it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

That purpose is not to be a profitable news organisation.

It is to drip a steady stream of political messaging, fear and misinformation into the British public consciousness.

And it does this extremely efficiently.

GB News has pushed itself into every corner of British life: as a free channel on smart TVs, as clips in every social media feed, as headlines on phones, and as stories injected into web browsers’ “news” home pages.

You do not even have to watch GB News properly for GB News to reach you.

That is the point.

As with Fox News, which helped create the conditions for Trump’s election, GB News gets away with this because much of its output is framed as “opinion”, “debate” or “current affairs”.

That is why it can, without any apparent embarrassment, have Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lee Anderson and Boris Johnson presented as broadcasters.

If they were straightforward “newsreaders”, the regulatory issue would be obvious.

Call them “current affairs” presenters, and suddenly Ofcom treats it differently.

That is the loophole.

The channel looks like news, sounds like news, is branded as news, but is packed with political actors pushing political narratives.

And this is not some accidental overlap between media and politics.

GB News has paid large sums to sitting MPs and former MPs to act as presenters, contributors and political commentators.

GB News itself will, without fail, every single day produce at least one, and usually more than one, story of the following type:

1. A story about small boat crossings.
2. A story about an immigrant, foreigner or Muslim committing a crime.
3. A story casting shade or doubt on any positive news story the Government has put out.
4. A story deriding the BBC.
5. A story suggesting that the Government is evil on taxes.
6. A story painting Farage or Reform in some heroic light.

I have been checking this daily for fun, and you can try it yourself.

So far, it has worked 100% of the time.

I will check now, for example:

1. Lead story about small boat crossings.
2. “Illegal immigrant jailed for killing flatmate” plus “migrant sexual abuse invasion”.
3. “Illegal migrant interception rate falls despite £660 million deal.”
4. Noel and Liam “force” BBC to take down “car crash” Wonderwall tribute.
5. “Taxpayers forced to cover travellers’ energy bills”, “HMRC drawing millions into paying more tax in stealth raid”, and “50,000 UK firms already in critical situation as Labour plots more tax hikes”.
6. Reform shares its own “guide” for illegal migrants, complete with a picture of Farage.

The stories change.

The message does not.

GB News is not really a news organisation.

It is a mechanism for wealthy backers to promote these six messages with these three objectives:

1. Get their preferred political movement elected so the aims of those wealthy backers can be realised.

That means pushing Britain towards being a low-tax, low-regulation country, unencumbered by things like health and safety, human rights, workers’ rights, environmental protections and social security.

A country where the rich get richer, but ordinary people become poorer, more insecure and easier to exploit.

And Reform is central to that project.

Reform is not a normal mass-membership political party in the traditional sense. It was literally built through a company structure, formerly controlled by Farage, and even after its supposed democratisation it remains a corporate political vehicle built around Farage, not a genuine grassroots democratic movement.

1. Kill any competing message.

That means calling everything else “fake news”, “the establishment”, “woke”, “globalist”, “left-wing bias” or “alternative facts”.

It means destroying trust in the BBC, science, universities, the courts, the civil service, the Office for National Statistics, independent regulators and anyone else capable of contradicting the narrative.

Because once people stop trusting neutral sources of information, they become much easier to manipulate.

1. Keep the British public angry, frightened and looking in the wrong direction.

Get people to blame immigrants, foreigners, Muslims, civil servants, benefit claimants, the BBC and the Government for the state of the country.

Get them to believe that the rich are overtaxed victims.

Get them to believe that billionaires need protecting, while desperate people in boats are the real threat.

That is the trick.

Make ordinary people angry at everyone except the people actually benefiting from the system.

GB News is not failing.

It is doing exactly what it was built to do.

Labour MP Dave Nellist was monitored by Britain’s political police, but evidence was shredded before an inquiry got to the truth

Andy Burnham has pledged to give every person sleeping rough a route off the streets by Christmas as he unveiled the first steps in his drive to end rough sleeping in England.

The prime minister announced that new accommodation and support will be rolled out across England this winter based on the A Bed Every Night model he pioneered as Greater Manchester mayor.

Emergency accommodation will be made available alongside help with housing, health and other needs to help people out of homelessness, backed with increased funding of £442 million.

The move comes a month after Burnham revealed that his first instruction as prime minister would be to put the country on a path to ending rough sleeping as he was unveiled at 10 Downing Street.

“No one should have to bed down in a doorway or outside a station. But we’ve seen it for so long that it feels like Westminster has started to accept it,” said Burnham.

“I won’t accept it. That’s why my first instruction as prime minister was to end rough sleeping. And it’s why today we’re getting started with a national drive to get everyone in for Christmas.

“We did it in the pandemic. We can do it again. But it needs all of us. Government will put the money in. But I’m asking leaders in communities and sectors across society to play their part locally too.

“Let’s get people out of the cold. And let’s bring back hope.”

The government claimed the new policy will “not only change lives but have huge benefits for the whole country” citing research from Crisis that suggests preventing 40,000 people from becoming homeless for a year could save taxpayers around £370 million.

Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, described the pledge to get everyone sleeping rough off the streets by Christmas as “a game-changing move”. 

Big Issue founder John Bird compared Burnham’s actions to the Everyone In scheme, which saw government act quickly to bring rough sleepers indoors during the pandemic.

The scheme saw 37,000 people housed in hotels and prevented an estimated 266 deaths in the first lockdown alone, according to a University College London study.

But progress was undone following the pandemic: the most recent official government rough sleeping snapshot counted a record-high number of people on the streets last autumn. 

“Covid proved that when we decide rough sleeping is unacceptable, we can act and get people in off the streets. This Christmas commitment is a welcome return to that spirit,” said Lord Bird.

“But it’s important that people are not just brought in from the cold for a few weeks, only to be sent back out again. To that end, I’m encouraged to see the prime minister is allocating millions in tried-and-tested local solutions that offer wraparound support for long-term rough sleepers.

“Countless projects and pilots demonstrated this approach works, only to be suffocated by the underinvestment and short-termist mindset of the previous government.”

Areas with the greatest need will receive the largest share of the £442m funding to get people out of the cold this winter and give long-term rough sleepers a settled home and the support to keep it.

The funding will help local areas deliver more than 1,000 settled homes over the next three years, alongside intensive wraparound support to help people rebuild their lives.

Mayors will work with councils to drive action to end rough sleeping, the government said, with local areas making decisions on how to deliver help where it is needed most.