Talks on resolving the EU-UK stand-off over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland resume in London on Tuesday, with the focus shifting to a row over the role of the European Court of Justice.
Language used by allies of UK Brexit minister Lord David Frost suggested there could be room for a compromise on the issue, although British officials said he stuck by his position of seeking the removal of the ECJ’s oversight role in the trade rules.
There has been media speculation that Frost could support a “Swiss-style” governance arrangement for the Northern Ireland protocol, the part of the UK’s withdrawal agreement that sets out the region’s trade rules and aims to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
Under such an arrangement, an arbitration panel would be set up to deal with disagreements about the protocol, with the ECJ retaining a role to interpret questions of EU law.
UK officials said Frost’s formal position had not changed. “The role of the European Court of Justice in resolving disputes between the UK and EU must end,” added one.
But that language left open the possibility of disputes being settled in the first instance by an arbitration panel.
British officials noted it would still put the ECJ at the apex of the system, giving it a key role in ruling on disputes.
The European Commission argues the ECJ must continue to play its role as the ultimate court for the EU single market. Under the Northern Ireland protocol, the region remains part of the single market for goods.
The question is whether an arbitration system can be devised that leaves the ECJ’s role sufficiently arm’s length to allow Frost to claim victory, but satisfies Brussels that its fundamental legal order has not been breached.
Without a compromise, Frost has threatened to activate Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol, which allows either side to suspend part of the trade rules in the event of severe disruption.
He insists he does not want to do this, although EU capitals are urging the European Commission to prepare a range of retaliatory measures if Johnson acts unilaterally to suspend the protocol.
The protocol mandates customs and regulatory checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and business has complained of overly bureaucratic arrangements that have resulted in gaps on supermarket shelves.
The creation of a trade border in the Irish Sea is also one of the factors that was blamed for violence in Belfast in April.
British officials said the first round of technical discussions between the two sides last week on a possible compromise about the protocol were “constructive”, but the exact role of the ECJ remains the biggest obstacle.
A negotiating team from the European Commission will travel to London on Tuesday for several days of talks on issues including customs checks and border rules for animal and plant products.
“The talks this week were constructive and we’ve heard some things from the EU that we can work with, but the reality is that we are still far apart on the big issues, especially governance,” said a British official.
Frost and European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic are due to meet in person at Westminster at the end of the week to take stock of progress in the talks so far.
The talks are expected to run into November, although Frost’s team has warned that “solutions must be found rapidly” because trade disruption in Northern Ireland remains and “cannot be endured for much longer”.
Frost’s team claimed the Northern Ireland protocol was now stopping Christmas crackers from reaching the region from Great Britain.
A "record number" of coronavirus booster jabs were administered on Saturday, with more than 800,000 inoculations given in the past 72 hours, the NHS has said.
A total of 5.1 million third jabs have been given, with around half of people aged 50 and over - and those who are currently eligible - being given a dose.
Saturday was the biggest booster day on record, with 325,140 vaccines given.
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Dr Nikki Kanani, GP and deputy lead for the NHS COVID-19 Vaccination Programme, said: "It's fantastic to see so many coming forward to book in their vital vaccination.
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"Getting your booster jab is essential and is the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones this winter - the vaccine is safe and effective so please do go online if you're eligible or call 119 to book in for your lifesaving booster today."
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Earlier this week, people eligible for a booster were advised they could go online and book through the National Booking Service, even if they had not received an invitation by letter or test.
In the 24 hours following this announcement, more than 230,000 people booked their jab.
The rollout began on 16 September - two days after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended a third vaccine six months after people had received their second dose.
Overall, nearly 85 million vaccines have been administered in England.
Currently, around 10 million people in England are eligible for the booster jab, including health and care workers, those with underlying health conditions, and people aged 50 and over.
Those eligible can book a booster at least six months and one week on from their second dose, in line with independent expert advice.
The NHS continues to vaccinate people aged 12 to 15 at schools and mass vaccination sites after the government accepted medical advice that the jab could be extended to people in this age group.
Eight men have been arrested on suspicion of murder after two teenage boys died.
Essex Police said officers found three people injured after receiving a number of calls to Regency Court, Brentwood, at about 01:30 BST.
Two of those have since died, the force said, while the third was treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Brentwood and Ongar's Conservative MP, Alex Burghart, called it a "very dark day for our town".
Police said they were "working to establish how the boys died" and post-mortem examinations would take place.
The BBC understands the boys are suspected to have suffered stab wounds.
Thomas Magill/BBC
Det Ch Insp Andy Clarkson, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: "We understand there will naturally be shock and concern within the community after such a tragic loss of life.
"But, at this stage, we do not believe there is any wider threat to the public."
Essex Police
The detective said the incident "required an immediate and a large-scale response" and that investigations would continue throughout Sunday.
Police would like to speak to anyone who witnessed suspicious behaviour in the Crown Street area of Brentwood, between 22:00 and 05:00.
Essex Police
Mr Burghart said: "This a very dark day for our town. My deepest condolences to the families of the boys who have so dreadfully lost their lives.
"I must urge anyone with any information to immediately share it with the police so that justice can be done as swiftly as possible."
'Yelling in pain'
Mark MacIntosh told the PA news agency he had only just arrived home before he heard shouting and screaming coming from a nearby residence.
"I realise that what I heard was somebody yelling out in pain who may have lost his life shortly thereafter," he said.
Ch Insp Mark Barber added there would be a "highly-visible police presence" in Brentwood on Sunday.
"I am acutely aware that this incident will shock many within the community," he said. "My officers will be there throughout the day - they will be there to reassure you and keep you safe.
"If you have any concerns or information on the incident then, please, do not hesitate to come forward and speak to them."
Rishi Sunak has refused to be drawn on the future of the eastern leg of HS2 just three days before announcing his spending plans in the autumn Budget later this week.
Deflecting a question on the matter on Sky's Trevor Phillips on Sunday, the chancellor also failed to confirm whether a new Northern Powerhouse Rail link from Leeds to Manchester via Bradford would be built.
An announcement on the matter will be made "shortly", Mr Sunak said.
Image:Rishi Sunak will deliver his Budget in the Commons on Wednesday following PMQs
It came as the chancellor also admitted that £4.2bn of the £7bn worth of announcements in the Budget related to transport for the next five years had already been allocated - with the government adding a further £1.5bn as a "top up".
"It's a great example of levelling up in practice, and it's ultimately just going to create growth in all of those places," Mr Sunak said of the government's plans.
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Over the weekend, the chancellor announced a series of spending pledges ahead of the autumn Budget on Wednesday, which include £5bn for health research and innovation and £3bn for education.
The Treasury is promising the cash for transport will boost productivity through train and station upgrades and the expansion of tram networks in cities outside of London.
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But Mr Sunak has been accused of putting "the good news before the bad news" following predictions the chancellor will announce the scrapping of the eastern leg of HS2 in his Budget.
HS2 is a planned high-speed rail network between London, the West Midlands, Manchester and Leeds. The project has been beset by delays and rising costs since its announcement.
Image:The original HS2 plans said the route would run from London to the West Midlands and then on towards Leeds and Manchester
Speaking to Sky News earlier this week, former Labour transport secretary Lord Adonis - who went on to lead the UK National Infrastructure Commission under David Cameron and Theresa May - forecast that Mr Sunak's announcement of local transport funding would come before the scrapping of the eastern leg of HS2 between Birmingham and Leeds.
Meanwhile Labour's shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon told Sky News: "If ministers were serious about ensuring towns and cities of the North are better connected, they'd be delivering to HS2 to Leeds and Northern Powerhouse Rail."
Speaking to Sky's Trevor Phillips on Sunday, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: "What we see from this government is lots of announcements and much less delivery.
Image:More money has been needed for the project than was originally thought
"Northern Powerhouse Rail that would benefit Leeds and Bradford and Manchester and other towns and cities across Yorkshire was first announced seven years ago, it has been announced 60 times since then and there is still not a single spade in the ground or train on the rails.
"It is not good enough. And the government are going to make more announcements this week, but we are sick of - in the north - having announcements without the delivery on the ground.
"And we want to see concrete action to match the rhetoric of this government. That is really important for all of us in the north of England."
She added: "Northern Powerhouse Rail, the eastern leg of HS2, the dismal state that many of our bus services are in with cuts over the last few years and higher fares - all of those things need addressing."
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Asked about £7 billion of investment in transport, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the same announcements have been made '60 times' without 'a single spade in the ground on the rails'
Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Mr Sunak reiterated that he will do "whatever it takes" to support families with the cost of living.
Among the promises he has already revealed are:
• £1.4bn to encourage foreign investment into UK businesses and attract overseas talent
• £700m to be spent mainly on the new post-Brexit borders and immigration system, as well as a new maritime patrol fleet
• £435m for victims services, crime prevention and the Crown Prosecution Service
• £560m for adult maths coaching to help increase numeracy
• a six-month extension to the COVID recovery loan scheme to June 2022
• £500m support for young families
"I wish I hadn't had to deal with coronavirus and a once-in-300-year economic shock and all the damage that has done to our economy and an NHS backlog that was stretching into the millions that we thought it was really important rightly to get some funding in to address," the chancellor told Sky News.
"But those are the challenges that I'm grappling with and I have to take those challenges and figure out what's the right way to do that and we've made some decisions which I believe, although they are difficult, are the right decisions.
"They are the responsible decisions and ultimately we'll deliver on the things that people want to see us deliver on and indeed build that strong economy for the future which is going to drive growth and raise our living standards."
Image:Rishi Sunak said the government has had to make 'difficult' decisions on taxation
Mr Sunak was also pressed on other key areas ahead of the Budget on Wednesday including business rates, taxes and early years funding.
Business Rates
• Mr Sunak confirmed a review into business rates has concluded
• "I will talk on Wednesday about the conclusion of that fundamental review," the chancellor added
• Mr Sunak reiterated that the government has delivered "about £16bn worth of tax cuts on business rates" to help hospitality and retail businesses get through the pandemic
• the chancellor said he will be "talking a little bit more about the future and some things that we can do on business rates" next week
Taxes
• Mr Sunak said the government has made "difficult" but "right" decisions on taxation
• the chancellor said he is "confident" that we will see the UK's "growth rise" with continued investment
Early years
• Mr Sunak dismissed the suggestion that new network family hubs are the same as the former Sure Start centres
• the chancellor said new network family hubs are "addressing probably something slightly different" than Sure Start centres and that they are "broader"
• he said the new hubs "bring together lots of different services for new parents"
• Mr Sunak refused to be drawn on whether former chancellor George Osborne was right or wrong to cut Sure Start provision
Image:The government has pledged £500m in support for young families
Labour's Ms Reeves said her party would abolish business rates which it is estimated would cost £25bn.
She told Sky's Trevor Phillips on Sunday: "On business rates, what we've said is that next year instead of increasing business rates like this government plan to do, we would freeze business rates for all and we would extend the small business rates relief, and we would pay for that by increasing the digital services tax on firms who have done well this last 18 months as people's spending patterns have changed.
"That would bring in just over £2 billion and that would enable us to freeze rates and extend small business rates relief.
"But we know these problems run deeper than just some tinkering around the edges in one year only and that's why Labour have committed to abolish business rates and replace it with a fairer form of business property taxation."
The chancellor has announced a series of spending pledges ahead of the autumn budget this week, which include £5bn for health research and innovation and £3bn for education.
Rishi Sunakhas promised to do "whatever it takes" to support families with the cost of living, as he pre-empts Wednesday's address in the House of Commons.
Among his promises are:
• £1.4bn to encourage foreign investment into UK businesses and attract overseas talent
• £700m to be spent mainly on the new post-Brexit borders and immigration system, as well as a new maritime patrol fleet
• £435m for victims services, crime prevention and the Crown Prosecution Service
• £560m for adult maths coaching to help increase numeracy
• a six-month extension to the COVID recovery loan scheme to June 2022
Writing in the Sun on Sunday ahead of an appearance on Sky's Trevor Phillips on Sunday, Mr Sunak said: "I know that families here at home are feeling the pinch of higher prices… we will continue to do whatever it takes, we will continue to have your backs - just like we did during the pandemic."
However, he warned of potential pain, saying there would be "challenges" ahead to get public finances "back onto a strong footing".
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Billions for transport schemes
Luke Sibieta, a research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that much of the funding would only reverse cuts by previous Conservative-led governments.
"We've seen the government announce extra funding for adults to get A-level equivalent qualifications, which is funding that was already available up until about 10 years ago," he said.
"So it's just bringing back what was there already to some extent."
There are also calls from Labour for the chancellor to remove VAT from domestic energy bills from 5% to zero for six months in order to help families this winter.
The party said the cut could be funded by higher than expected VAT receipts this year.
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Chancellor: UK recovery 'comes with a cost'
The Treasury said the £5bn for health-related research and development will be provided over the next three years, with investment rising to £2bn per year by 2024 - a 57% cash increase since before the pandemic.
A total of £95m of the funding will be aimed at increasing uptake of cutting-edge innovations in the NHS and addressing cancer, obesity and mental health.
A UK-wide trial of COVID-19 antiviral treatments will receive £33m, while £40m will be spent on research in social care reform, £30m on investing in research skills and training, and £20m on research in climate change and health.
Financial support will be given for genome sequencing technology that can detect over 200 conditions in newborns, compared with existing tests that can just identify nine - potentially saving 3,000 babies per year, according to the Treasury.
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Rishi Sunak: 'Not possible' to save every job
The £3bn "skills revolution" funding will be used for post-16 education and to help adults looking to upskill and retrain.
Some £1.6bn of the skills education funding will be used to provide extra classroom hours for up to 100,000 16 to 19-year-olds studying for T-levels - technical-based qualifications.
The Treasury will also create 24,000 traineeships and use £550m to quadruple the number of places on skills boot camps in areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and nuclear.
Existing colleges in England will receive £830m with extra funding for new equipment and facilities.
Apprenticeship funding will rise by £170m to £2.7bn in 2024-25, while free Level 3 courses - equivalent to A-levels - will be expanded in subjects like maths, chemistry, and biology.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed the investment, but said the pledge is "sketchy" and "appears to be limited in scope".
He said funding is also needed in schools, early years and for young people who do A-levels, BTECs and qualifications other than T-levels.
The £1.4bn business investment funding will hand out grants to encourage international companies to invest in the UK's critical industries, including life sciences and automotive.
This includes £354m to support investment in life sciences manufacturing, increasing resilience for future pandemics, and more than £800m for the production and supply chain of electric vehicles - including in the North East and Midlands.
To help overseas recruitment in the UK's science and tech sectors, a "talent network" will be set up in the Bay Area of San Francisco and Boston in the US in 2022, and also Bengaluru in India - places the Treasury described as "innovation hotspots".
By 2023, the programme will be expanded to six countries, targeting universities, research institutions and innovation hubs.
Ministers are planning to enact laws to make Covid vaccines mandatory for all NHS workers as the government battles to contain a fresh wave of infections.
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, wants to introduce legislation that would make jabs a condition of employment in the health service “as soon as possible”.
He believes the move would protect vulnerable patients from catching the virus in hospital, but health groups have warned that it could force trusts to fire staff or remove them from frontline duties. In England, 106,351 NHS staff have still not been vaccinated, about 7 per cent of the total.
Javid is also preparing to roll out booster jabs to the under-50s after Christmas, although they have yet to be approved by experts on
The government will reconfirm its commitment to a "skills revolution" with a spending package to be unveiled by the chancellor on Wednesday.
Rishi Sunak will announce £1.6bn to roll out new T-levels for 16 to 19-year-olds, and £550m for adult skills in his autumn statement.
And there will be £830m confirmed to continue a five-year-scheme to revamp and modernise colleges.
College principals said the funding was welcome but would not go far enough.
Sixth form colleges and 16-19 education finances have been struggling for many years.
A report by the IPPR think-tank last year suggested colleges in England would have needed an extra £2.7bn a year since 2010 just to catch up with investment levels then.
T-levels rollout
The £1.6bn cash investment for colleges over three years to 2024-25 will be used, in the main, to provide additional classroom hours for up to 100,000 young people taking T-levels. Presently there are about 2,000 students on T-level courses.
These are the government's new vocational qualifications, equivalent to three A-levels, that have been developed with businesses to meet the needs of industry.
Currently, there are three T-levels available: Design, surveying and planning for construction; digital production, design and development; education and childcare. However, in time the government wants the list to be expanded to include training for many more professions.
The funding will also cover inflationary pressures and accommodate the higher number of teenagers in the population.
An extra £550m is being invested in adult skills through the Skills Fund by 2024-25. This fund offers short courses and so-called "skills boot camps" for adults who have no qualifications beyond GCSE level.
And there is a further £170m for apprenticeships and training.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: "Our future economic success depends not just on the education we give to our children but the lifelong learning we offer to adults."
He said his £3bn investment would create a "skills revolution", which would build on the government's job creation plans and spread opportunity across the UK by transforming post-16 education.
At the heart of the government's plan for 16 to 19-year-olds in England is a qualification that few have yet heard of, the Technical or T-Level.
One T-level is designed to be equivalent to three A-levels, or up to 3 BTecs.
T-Levels are meant to be substantial and quite demanding courses, which include at least 45 days of work placement.
At the moment, only around 2,000 students across England are enrolled to study the first T-levels, which they will complete next summer.
The government hopes to scale up the numbers rapidly as more T-levels are introduced, partly through a controversial decision to remove funding from popular BTecs in similar subjects.
'A good start'
Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said it was good to see the prime minister's rhetoric around "levelling up" backed up with money.
"We always expected the increased funding wouldn't go far enough, but in the circumstances we view this as a good start in a tough spending round.
"That the chancellor is leading with this announcement in advance of the Comprehensive Spending Review shows just how far we've come in making the government recognise the importance of investing in people to close the skills gap."
He added: "I am hopeful that the lack of mention of education recovery is because of a significant announcement on Wednesday at the dispatch box."
He said his organisation had calculated that it was going to take at least £300m per year to support education recovery for 16 to 19-year-olds.
"They have had the biggest disruption at a critical time in their lives and studies, but now have the least amount of time left in education and training to catch up," Mr Hughes said.
Bill Watkins, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said: "Today's announcement focuses on the small minority of 16 to 18-year-olds that pursue a technical course.
"That's welcome, but all students deserve to have their education properly funded and we hope that Wednesday's spending review will also focus on the vast majority of young people that study A-level or BTec qualifications."
