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The government’s plans for unlimited surveillance on benefit claimants’ bank accounts should worry us all

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/the-governments-plans-for-unlimited-surveillance-on-benefit-claimants-bank-accounts-should-worry-us-all/

Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.

The UK government is taking statutory powers for unlimited snooping on bank and building society accounts connected with receipt of social security benefits and the state pension, even when there is no suspicion of fraud. This is the latest chapter in the right-wing coup that began in the 1980s.

Millions of individuals, landlords, charities, clubs, voluntary organisations and companies will become subject to 24/7 surveillance. No court order is needed and you won’t be told anything about the information extracted and how it is used or abused. There is no right of appeal.

The source of latest rush towards totalitarianism is the misleadingly titled Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. It has been passed by the House of Commons where the government used its big majority to stifle debate. It is now going through the House of Lords.

The attack on civil liberties is dressed up as a fraud prevention measure, but the government is unable to provide relevant data. The government claims that mass monitoring is needed to check benefit fraud, estimated to be around £6.4bn a year or 2.7% of the total benefit payments. Under the Social Security Fraud Act 2001, the government can request information from bank accounts on a case-by-case basis, if there are reasonable grounds to suspect fraud. This is being replaced by mass surveillance of bank accounts. A Minister told parliament that “proportionately fraud in the state pension is very low”, and was unable to provide any financial numbers but the government will place 12.7m retirees under surveillance.

The government claims that mass surveillance would reduce fraud by £600 million over the next five years though this somehow became  £500m during the debate in the Commons, i.e. £100m-£120m a year. To put this into context, during 2023-24, the government spent £1,189bn.

Financial institutions will be paid unspecified millions to conduct mass snooping and look for cash flow sources and patterns or the level of savings, and flag people exceeding thresholds for benefits. There is a danger that gifts to loved ones to buy clothes or a new bed could be counted as income, and result in loss of benefits. The inherent assumption in the Bill is that information generated by IT systems would be correct. The Post Office scandal shows that computer generated information isn’t necessarily correct, and can lead to injustices. Neither financial institutions nor the Department of Work and Pensions will owe a ‘duty of care’ to any injured party.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/the-governments-plans-for-unlimited-surveillance-on-benefit-claimants-bank-accounts-should-worry-us-all/

Continue ReadingThe government’s plans for unlimited surveillance on benefit claimants’ bank accounts should worry us all

Government transparency hits new low as granting FOI requests plunges

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/government-transparency-hits-new-low-as-granting-foi-requests-plunges/

One of the many occasions climate destroyer and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak uses a private jet.
One of the many occasions climate destroyer and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak uses a private jet.

Under Rishi Sunak, government transparency has reached an all time low with new government data revealing 2023 was the worst year for granting freedom of information (FOI) requests. 

The Prime Minister has been accused of presiding over the most secretive government ever, with only 34% of resolvable FOIs granted in full, down 5% from 2022. Investigative journalist Peter Geoghegan said this drop matched the previous largest ever drop in a single year, in 2014.

This is the lowest figure since monitoring began in 2005, the government’s own data analysis has said, and reflects a growing drop in the granting of FOIs under the Tory Party.

In comparison the figure was 41% under Boris Johnson, 46% under Theresa May, 56% under David Cameron and 60% when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/government-transparency-hits-new-low-as-granting-foi-requests-plunges/

Continue ReadingGovernment transparency hits new low as granting FOI requests plunges

Green Party reaction to Labour’s rail ‘nationalisation’ plans 

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Image of the Green Party's Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

In response to Labour’s announcement that it plans to renationalise most passenger rail services within five years co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer, said: 

“Greens give an amber light to these proposals. We have long called for full public ownership and significant investment in our railways. The passengers left stranded after cancelled or delayed services or sitting on floors next to closed train toilets are testimony to the failed privatisation experiment of our railways.  

“These proposals though are only for partial public ownership and make no mention of the significant investment that our railways need. They would leave rolling stock and freight in private hands. This should be the first step to completely integrate all our railways into public ownership followed by significant investment that both the rail industry and passengers are crying out for.  

“Too often Labour makes grand policy announcements that are followed by a screeching U-turn weeks or months later. This is why a Labour government will need Green MPs to help keep them on the right track and pushing them to be bolder and do better.”  

Continue ReadingGreen Party reaction to Labour’s rail ‘nationalisation’ plans 

Tory MP clashes with Just Stop Oil campaigners

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tory-mp-clashes-with-just-stop-oil-campaigners

Photo: Just Stop Oil

A TORY MP clashed with protesters after arriving at his office to find it plastered with posters and swathed in police “crime scene” tape over his support for a new coalmine in Cumbria.

Police were called as Workington MP Mark Jenkinson challenged Just Stop Oil campaigners outside his office this morning.

Plans for a coalmine in Cumbria have sparked repeated protests including by environment campaign Friends of the Earth and Mr Jenkinson’s own constituents.

Government approval for the mine was given in 2022.

Mr Jenkinson is an outspoken supporter of the project, arguing that it is needed to supply the steel industry.

Protester Alison Parker, 41, who is one of Mr Jenkinson’s constituents, said: “I am sick of Mark Jenkinson telling constituents like me that the coalmine is needed by the steel industry, and that it will be carbon-neutral.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tory-mp-clashes-with-just-stop-oil-campaigners

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Nixon Advisers’ Climate Research Plan: Another Lost Chance on the Road to Crisis

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A newly revealed research proposal from 1971 shows that Richard Nixon’s science advisors embarked on an extensive analysis of the potential risks of climate change. Credit: Oliver Atkins/National Archives

A 1971 plan for a global carbon dioxide monitoring network never came to fruition. The proposal is detailed in a document newly unearthed by the National Security Archive.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon’s science advisers proposed a multimillion dollar climate change research project with benefits they said were too “immense” to be quantified, since they involved “ensuring man’s survival,” according to a White House document newly obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive and shared exclusively with Inside Climate News.

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It has long been known that Nixon’s advisers warned him of the risks of global warming. A tranche of documents released by the Nixon Presidential Library in 2010 showed that his then-adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan urged his administration to engage with the issue as early as 1969. Moynihan, who later served 24 years as U.S. Senator from New York, noted that sea level rise of 10 feet was possible with a 7-degree Fahrenheit (3.9-degree Celsius) temperature increase. “Goodbye, New York,” he wrote. “Goodbye Washington, for that matter.”

But the newly revealed Dec. 20, 1971, research proposal by the White House Office of Science and Technology shows for the first time that Nixon’s science advisors embarked on an extensive analysis of the potential risks of climate change and an assessment of the data needs. 

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“No analysis is feasible. Benefits are immense, but not quantifiable, since this element contributes to ensuring man’s survival.”

Under a section marked “cost-benefit analysis,” the authors wrote, “No analysis is feasible. Benefits are immense, but not quantifiable, since this element contributes to ensuring man’s survival.”

Nixon’s aides proposed that the government embark on development of new instruments using lidar, or light-detecting and remote sensing—a technology then less than a decade old—to better measure carbon in the atmosphere. They were correct on the advantages of lidar, but it would be more than four decades until scientists at NASA and around the world began to implement its use to study not just the concentration of carbon dioxide, but its global distribution and daily variations.

“I felt like this document was really ahead of its time,” Santarsiero said.

Decades before a scientific consensus emerged on climate change, Nixon’s science advisers conveyed an understanding of the risks. Research, they wrote, would assist in “taking of protective measures against potential natural disasters such as large-scale inundation of low-lying coastal regions, broad extensions of ice sheets and severe health hazards.”

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Continue ReadingNixon Advisers’ Climate Research Plan: Another Lost Chance on the Road to Crisis