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A long-awaited levelling up white paper to be published today (2 February 2022) will enshrine targets to reduce inequalities across society by 2030 in law. Communities Secretary Michael Gove will promise to “call time on the postcode lottery” of inequalities across Britain with 12 legally binding “missions” to improve health, living standards, transport, crime, and wellbeing by 2030.
New levelling up targets include reducing the gap in healthy life expectancy and increasing healthy life expectancy for the whole population by 5 years by 2035, boosting “perceived wellbeing” in every part of the country, improving “pride in place”, and bringing local transport connectivity across the UK “significantly closer to the standards of London”. Ministers will give government departments a legal duty to report on their progress against the missions. Gove also said that every area of England would get ‘London style’ powers and a mayor if they wish, in what he described as the biggest shift of power from Whitehall to local areas in modern times.
Critics responded that the government is unclear about how it will achieve its “missions”, with insufficient funding for the plans. Labour denounced the plans as a series of slogans and called for better jobs, wages, affordable housing, and action on the cost of living crisis. One source told The Guardian that chancellor Rishi Sunak had vetoed many of the big ideas in the white paper. Sunak has already announced a total of £11bn for a series of levelling up funds, some of which will be allocated by Gove’s Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).
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New Guardian analysis has found that some of the wealthiest parts of England, including areas represented by Government ministers, have so far been allocated 10 times more money per capita than the poorest under Boris Johnson’s levelling-up agenda. The analysis found that eight councils from among the poorest fifth in England are set to receive less than £10 per head in funding, whilst areas such as Sajid Javid’s constituency in Worcestershire will receive £148 a head.
The analysis considers the four main levelling up funds alongside each other for the first time. The Future High Streets Fund, the Community Renewal Fund, and the Towns Fund have been fully allocated, while the levelling up fund has allocated £1.4bn with a further £1.8bn still to be announced. A total of £4.7bn has been allocated in England across the four schemes so far.
Meanwhile, the Commons public accounts committee, which scrutinises government spending, has ordered Gove’s department to provide more information about how its funding decisions were taken amid concerns about a lack of clarity and transparency from ministers and officials. Leaders from councils such as Knowsley in Merseyside which are set to receive less said that their areas were being punished for being Labour strongholds. Directors from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and IPPR North thinktanks also questioned the rationale for the funding distribution.
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A new study has revealed that cigarette-style health warnings could reduce the number of sugary drinks being bought for children. Published in the journal PLOS Medicine, the report, a trial of how pictorial health warnings on sugary drinks influenced parents’ purchasing decisions, found that parents who saw sugary drinks with health warnings were less likely to buy them for their child.
The trial saw 325 parents of children aged between two and 12 split into two groups. The report found that 28% of parents in a group which saw products with health warnings bought the drinks for their children compared to 45% of parents in a group without. Parents with the warnings also chose sugary drinks with less calories, an average of 52 kcal versus 82 kcal. Parents also reported thinking more about their choice and the impact of sugary drinks after seeing the warnings.
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New Jersey senator Joe Vitale has said he plans to move a bill expanding a ban on smoking in casinos in the state, including at Atlantic City, in early spring. Vitale says the bill will be moved after lawmakers finish working on bills advanced in the previous legislative session that did not make it to Governor Phil Murphy's desk. Murphy has said that he would sign the bill if it reaches his desk.
Vitale responded to opposition to the bill by casino operators who fear it will affect business, saying: “They like to scare employees — ‘you’ll lose your job if we stop smoking in the casino,’ notwithstanding the fact that the croupiers are getting lung cancer and emphysema because people constantly blow smoke in their face.” Activists have pointed to soaring gaming profits during a temporary indoor smoking ban enacted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 as evidence that the bill will not have a detrimental impact on business.
Whilst Senator Vince Polistina, who represents Atlantic City in the Legislature, has signed onto Vitale’s bill as a co-sponsor, legislative leadership has yet to take a hard stance on the issue. Polistina said that casinos are seeking to keep some smoking areas in their facilities, albeit more limited ones than exist currently. Whilst it is possible that lawmakers may move to amend the bill to make those accommodations, Vitale said that the final bill would probably not include them.
Source: New Jersey Monitor, 1 February 2022
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A Swedish city is training crows to pick up discarded cigarette butts from streets and squares as part of a cost-cutting drive. The birds carry out the task as they receive a little food for every butt that they deposit in a bespoke machine designed by a startup in Södertälje, near Stockholm. Christian Günther-Hanssen, founder of the company behind the initiative, estimates that the crows could save at least 75% of the costs of picking up cigarette butt litter in the city.
The Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation says that more than 1bn cigarette butts are left on Sweden’s streets each year, 62% of all litter, with Södertälje spending 20m Swedish kronor (£1.6m) on street cleaning. Södertälje is carrying out a pilot project before possibly rolling out the operation across the city. Ensuring the health of the crows is a key consideration. The project uses New Caledonian crows, which research suggests are as good at reasoning as a human seven-year-old.
Tomas Thernström, a waste strategist at Södertälje municipality, noted: “We can teach crows to pick up cigarette butts, but we can’t teach people not to throw them on the ground.”
Source: The Guardian, 1 February 2022
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