The chancellor is set to increase the amount employers in the UK pay in National Insurance at the Budget.

Rachel Reeves is also expected to lower the threshold for when employers start paying the tax, but is not likely to introduce the levy to employer pensions contributions.

It is understood the changes could raise £20bn for public services, such as the NHS.

The move is thought to be the single largest revenue raiser of next week’s Budget, but other tax rises are also expected.

Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to clarify his government’s position on non-cash reparations for Britain’s historical role in the slave trade, as No 10 says the issue is off the table.

In the run-up to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm), the government said it would not be issuing an official state apology.

While travelling to the conference, which began in the Pacific island nation of Samoa on Friday, the prime minister told reporters he wanted to “look forward” rather than have “very long endless discussions about reparations on the past”.

King Charles acknowledged “painful aspects” of Britain’s past but sidestepped calls to directly address reparations for slavery, saying “none of us can change the past, but we can commit … to learning its lessons”.

But despite the insistence from Downing Street that the issue was not on the agenda for the summit of 56 Commonwealth countries, leaders were prepared to defy the UK. A draft version of the final communique that was leaked to the BBC this week said leaders had “agreed that the time has come for a meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation towards forging a common future based on equity”.

After mounting pressure for the UK to engage in a “meaningful, truthful and respectful” conversation about Britain’s past, a source in No 10 said the UK could support some forms of reparatory justice, such as restructuring financial institutions and providing debt relief.

This was initially welcomed by the Labour MP Diane Abbott, who sits on the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations (APPG-AR), who said she was “glad that Starmer seems to have backed off from his complete hostility to the concept of reparations. It remains to be seen what he means by ‘non-financial reparative justice’.”

Some campaigners were frustrated by what they felt to be either a game of semantics on the issue, or a deliberate misrepresentation of what the campaign for reparations is. Among the long-established 10-point plan for reparatory justice by the Caribbean community (Caricom) is debt cancellation, while others have long campaigned on the link between reparatory justice and climate resilience.

Michael McEachrane, the UN rapporteur of the permanent forum on people of African descent, said: “Keir Starmer misrepresents reparations … It is a matter of taking responsibility for and transforming legacies of the past in the present.”

Only then, McEachrane added, would the Commonwealth community see “greater equity within and among countries”.

When No 10 was pressed to explain what it meant by non-financial reparative justice in Friday’s press briefing, a spokesperson pushed back on the idea.

The prime minister’s deputy spokesperson said: “Our position on reparations is clear, and that goes for other forms of non-financial reparatory justice too. The prime minister’s focus is on addressing the challenges that we face.”

In response, Abbott said: “Incredible that Starmer wants to treat the leaders of fellow Commonwealth countries with such disrespect. And it is offensive that he seems to be saying that he knows what they want to discuss better than they themselves do.”

Fellow Labour MP Clive Lewis questioned how Starmer and his team could go to the summit and not expect reparations to come up: “Has he not been paying attention to the African Union, Caricom, [the Barbados PM] Mia Mottley, the Bridgetown Initiative? This is what has been happening whilst he has been in politics.

“It looks very much like they’ve said, in a very kind of colonial mindset, that this is not for discussion. It’s not on the agenda. Well, that’s not going to go down well in a Commonwealth of equals.”

Lewis, who called in parliament for the UK to enter negotiations with Caribbean leaders on paying reparations for Britain’s role in slavery, said: “You have to ask the question, given that David Lammy himself is a son of Guyana, who has been talking about this for years, the person who came after Bernie Grant: someone lost a memo somewhere.

“I can’t believe that David didn’t know that this was going to come up, and someone must have told No 10 this was coming up … it is quite revealing of something.”

Some Home Office staff are getting an inflation-busting 9% pay rise, the department has confirmed.

The union representing civil servants, PCS, welcomed the deal, which is nearly double the 5% agreed for most civil servants.

The pay boost is meant to improve staff retention and morale, which is the lowest in the civil service.

But Conservative MP Neil O’Brien said the pay hike would “stick in the craw” of people worried about immigration and crime.

The BBC understands the pay rises will be backdated to the start of July and will range from 6% to 9.1% for executive officers working outside of London.

Inflation is running at 2.2%, according to the latest figures.

But the PCS union said its members “deserve rises significantly above inflation to reclaim pay that we have lost through years of below-inflation rises”.

The Home Office’s most recent annual report showed the cost of hiring temporary agency staff had tripled on the last two years to more than half a billion pounds, most of which was spent on dealing with illegal immigration, as well as the now-cancelled Rwanda deal.

A Home Office spokesman said the pay rises were in line with the civil service pay remit guidance.

He said: “This year’s pay guidance recognises the hard work and vital importance of all our staff and is broadly in line with others in the public sector.

“One relatively junior grade in a particular region has received the higher amount to bring them into line with their peers.”

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said she would continue to push for a “fair and sustainable long-term pay settlement” to make up for “many years” of below-inflation pay.

She said: “We have made progress in negotiations with the Home Office and we welcome the fact that the final offer would deliver increases for the admin and executive grades that are above the 5% headline figure in the civil service remit.

“We believe this is the best award that can be delivered through departmental negotiations alone.”

However, critics have questioned whether the recent performance of the Home Office staff justified a bumper pay rise.

The move comes as the number of migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year topped 29,000, approached the total for the whole of last year.

O’Brien said: “I have no problem with people being rewarded for good performance.

“But with massive numbers crossing the channel, crime clear-up rates low and dangerous people getting let out of jail, this large pay rise will stick in the craw of a lot of people.”

A Scottish couple have been given permission to proceed with a legal bid to overturn the scrapping of the universal winter fuel benefit for all pensioners.

Peter and Florence Fanning, from Coatbridge in North Lanarkshire, have argued both the UK and Scottish governments failed to adequately consult with those of pension age and did not release an equality impact assessment on the changes.

The judicial review required a judge’s approval to move to a full hearing, which has been given.

A hearing at the Court of Session in Edinburgh is now scheduled for 15 January.

The case will ask the Court of Session to rule on whether the decision to scrap the universal benefit was unlawful.

This would allow the petitioners to ask the court to, in effect, set aside the policy and restore the winter fuel payment to all.

A spokesperson for Govan Law Centre, which has taken the case for the Fannings, said their clients were “delighted” that permission had been granted.

They added they were awaiting a decision next week on whether civil legal aid from the Scottish Legal Aid Board would be granted.

The controversial decision has been criticised by trade unions and groups representing older people.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves previously announced the benefit needed to be means- tested from this winter due to a £22m “black hole” in public finances that she said Labour had inherited from the previous Conservative government.

The benefit is devolved but the Scottish government said it had to follow suit as £160m had been taken out its budget.

Mr Fanning stated in September that the decision created “manifest injustice” for those affected.

The couple were being supported by former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond, who put them in touch with Govan Law Centre and called the payment being scrapped “unacceptable”.

The Alba party leader has since died after suffering a heart attack in North Macedonia.

First Minister John Swinney said last month that he understood public concerns about the payment but that the Scottish government was having to face “hard reality” regarding budgets.

Earlier this month the SNP tabled a Holyrood motion calling on Sir Keir Starmer to reverse the decision.

A spokesperson for the UK government previously said it was committed to supporting pensioners and that millions would see their state pension rise by £1,700 during this parliament.

The government should “unequivocally reject” calls for the UK to pay reparations for its role in the slave trade, Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick has said.

He said calls for the UK to pay reparations were “based on false and misleading narratives about our past”.

Britain “worked harder than nearly any other country to eradicate the practice” in the 19th century, adding that the campaign against slavery was “opposed by many African kings”.

There have been attempts to get reparations discussed at a meeting of the 56 Commonwealth countries in Samoa.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already ruled out making payments, telling the BBC: “That’s not something that this government is doing.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the slave trade was “abhorrent” but that it would be better to focus on “today’s challenges” such as climate change.

Caribbean countries have been particularly keen to press the issue. Earlier this week, Bahamas foreign minister Frederick Mitchell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that reparations were not just about money but a matter of “respect, acknowledging the past was wrong and needs to be corrected”.

Kemi Badenoch, Jenrick’s opponent in the Tory leadership race, said the government was facing reparation demands because Labour politicians had “spent their time in opposition supporting these sort of fringe, unnecessary causes under the guise of decolonisation”.

“Now the British public are waking up to the reality of a Labour government that is ashamed of its own country – giving away the Chagos Islands, watering down Britain’s influence at the UN, and reducing our support for Israel in their fight against terror.

“If I am leader of the opposition I will ensure Keir Starmer is held to account for his deplorable actions.”

Reparations are actions that can be taken to amend for past wrongs. For example, in 2013, the UK government paid £19.9m to 5,000 elderly Kenyans who had been tortured by British colonial forces in the 1950s.

From the 16th century, the British government, along with other European countries, participated in the transatlantic slave trade.

It is estimated that between 1500 and 1800 around 12 -15 million people were trafficked from African countries to be used as enslaved labour in the Caribbean, North, Central and South America. Around two million died on the journey to the Americas.

Having been one of the big beneficiaries of the trade, Britain had a key role in ending the practice and abolished slavery in 1833.

As part of the policy, British plantation owners were paid £20m for the loss of their slaves, creating a debt the UK only finished paying off in 2015.

Addressing the Henry Jackson Society think tank in London, Jenrick said: “It was Britain that spent 1.8% of GDP between 1808 and 1867 on eradicating slavery – the most expensive moral foreign policy on human history.”

“It was a campaign in fact opposed by many African Kings.

“The West African squadron sacrificed their lives for liberty and freedom and it is high time that we recognise their contribution with a national memorial to honour them and everything that they did.”

The Royal Navy squadron was tasked with stopping vessels transporting slaves and was involved in freeing around 150,000 slaves in the 19th century.

Just as European nations were enriched themselves through the slave trade, some African slave sellers also profited from the practice.

Jenrick said calls for the UK to pay reparations were “based on false and misleading narratives about our past”.

Last year, a UN judge co-authored a report which estimated that the UK should pay £18.8tn for its involvement in slavery.

The report said the harm caused by the slave trade was “vast” adding: “Its repercussions resonate in the lives of descendants of the enslaved to this day.”

It also argues that descendants “even to this day” have lower incomes and poor health outcomes.

Historian Professor Sir Hilary Beckles told the report that slavery had led to the black population in the Caribbean experiencing high levels of diabetes, with Barbados and Jamaica “competing for the title of ‘Amputation Capital of the World.’”.

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