Andrea Egan addressing an anti-racism rally in March 2023. Then president of Unison, she has since become general secretary (Mark Kerrison/Alamy Live News)

3 min read20 min

In a forthcoming interview with The House magazine, the head of Labour-affiliated Unison – the biggest trade union in Britain – also said Mahmood being “left in position” as Home Secretary was a “disappointment”.

Mahmood remained as Home Secretary when Andy Burnham succeeded Keir Starmer in No 10, disappointing some on the left of the Labour Party and trade unions which represent migrant workers affected by the proposed changes.

Egan said: “That was one of my disappointments – that Shabana Mahmood was left in position, simply because of her position on the migrant workers.

“As yet, there’s just a wall of silence at the moment. I think that’s absolutely unacceptable because they make these big announcements, and what they’ve got is these hundreds of thousands of workers who are just being left on a thread at the minute, wondering where their futures lie and what’s going to happen to them and their families.”

Asked whether there had been any engagement with Mahmood, the Unison general secretary replied: “Nothing. She’s not even answered requests for a meeting. I think that’s really disappointing.”

At the TUC Congress gathering of unions this week, the government was urged to rethink proposals critics say would drive away overseas workers needed in critical public service roles in the UK.

Under the changes, the standard wait to qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) would increase from five to 10 years, while those on health and social care visas would face a 15-year wait before receiving settled status.

They would impact people already living in the UK but not those who have been granted settlement.

Only with ILR do those who have come to the UK gain the right to live, work and study indefinitely in the country.

Speaking as a backbencher earlier this year, Angela Rayner – who is now back in Cabinet – called the changes “un-British”. Burnham at the time said the party “would do well to listen to what Angela has to say”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Last November, we set out reforms to double the standard qualifying period for settlement to 10 years for most migrants, with shorter routes for those who contribute the most to the UK. 

“Under the proposals, key public service workers, including doctors and nurses, may settle after five years.

“A consultation on elements of those reforms has now closed, and we will set out our response in due course.”

Mahmood declined to comment.

Speaking to MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee about the reforms on Tuesday, the Home Secretary said: “We’re trying to strike the right balance between our responsibilities to people who have come here to work, our recognition of the failures we inherited as a government, and also our need to do right by the people who are already here, who pay for the systems that we all rely on.”

(Credit: Yau Ming Low / Alamy)

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But amidst Strait of Hormuz closures and instability in the region due to the US’s ill-advised war on Iran, international oil and gas prices, to which Britain’s energy prices are mostly pegged, have risen, and so will energy bills.  

In the coming months, as colder temperatures return and households use more energy, further immediate action is needed to cut the cost of energy.  

Moving social and environmental levies, or what some call ‘policy costs’, off electricity bills and into general taxation could reduce energy bills quickly and in a way that benefits lower-income households. 

The funds these levies generate are vital, financing the building of future energy infrastructure and support programmes like the Warm Homes Discount. But the way they are currently distributed, charged at a flat rate per unit of electricity, was described by experts to the Environmental Audit Committee as regressive. This means that they disproportionately add costs to lower-income households with limited ability to invest in alternatives that could lower their bills or change how and when they use energy. It is absurd that households claiming the Warm Homes Discount are actually part funding their own subsidy through paying the levies. 

More progressive funding of policy costs by moving them to general taxation was one of the key recommendations from the Environmental Audit Committee to the UK government in our final report on the Seventh Carbon Budget. This measure would reduce electricity bills for all households and also better align affordability with decarbonisation objectives. 

A first step to reduce the policy costs on electricity bills was taken by Rachel Reeves at last year’s Budget, but this intervention is temporary, with Treasury support due to end in Spring 2029. Yet even after that, levies make up nine per cent of an electricity bill (in contrast to three per cent of a gas bill). Some low-income households continue to spend more than three times the proportion of their net income on levies than wealthier households.  

Not only does the current levy structure penalise low-income households, it also penalises those seeking to switch away from fossil fuels and install cleaner heating such as heat pumps. It is illogical that the UK still taxes homegrown renewable electricity more than imported fossil fuel gas.  

Research by The MCS Foundation has shown that levy reform could save households on average £120 every year, with low-income households using direct electric heating benefiting the most. This move would represent a significant strike on the cost of living, bringing more than 800,000 households across the country out of fuel poverty.  

It would also further incentivise the transition to clean heat, giving households confidence that switching to heat pumps and other renewable heating systems will reduce their running costs. High electricity prices in the UK act as a disincentive for households to switch to heat pumps. Analysis across European countries has shown there is a strong correlation between the spark gap – the ratio between electricity and gas prices – and heat pump deployment rates of a country. 

In the long run, transitioning to homegrown renewable electricity will protect British households from international gas price spikes, ensuring affordability in the long-term. The increasing amount of renewable energy in the UK has helped limit electricity bill rises, as compared to gas, and reduce the amount of time that gas sets the overall energy price. However, building more renewable energy, and expanding and upgrading the grid to connect this clean energy, will take time to take effect to reduce energy bills.  

In the short-term, moving policy costs off electricity is a decision that Andy Burnham could take immediately to significantly reduce household energy bills. I urge him to do so. 

Toby Perkins is the Labour MP for Chesterfield, and chair of the Environmental Audit Committee

Britain’s land-based betting and gaming venues are already facing rising employment costs, higher business rates, soaring energy bills and the impact of successive regulatory changes. Against that backdrop, the SMF are now urging ministers to pile on another tax increase.

The question ministers should be asking is not simply how much extra tax would or wouldn’t be raised, but what damage it would do to the businesses, jobs and communities expected to pay it.

It is easy for a think tank to recommend higher taxes from behind a desk. It is much harder to explain the boarded-up bingo clubs, shut betting shops, closed casinos and lost jobs that would follow.

On the surface, the SMF recommends increasing Machine Games Duty. In reality, it is asking ministers to make a much bigger choice: are they prepared to accept the closure of valued leisure venues across Britain in pursuit of a policy that is unlikely to deliver what it promises?

The report fails to answer that question.

Businesses cannot simply absorb a tax increase of this scale. The inevitable consequence is fewer venues, fewer jobs and less investment in communities that can least afford to lose them. Since 2019, more than 3,000 betting shops have closed, costing over 16,000 jobs. 22 casinos have shut their doors with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs, while 108 bingo clubs have closed, resulting in the loss of more than 2,000 jobs. How many more betting shops would close? How many bingo clubs? How many casinos? How many livelihoods would disappear? And what would be the impact on working men’s clubs, miners’ welfare institutes and other community associations that rely on regulated gaming machines to help fund the services they provide?

Those are not side issues. They are the central questions.

Indeed, towards the end of the report is an explicit acknowledgement that reducing the supply of gambling is part of its intended effect. That completely undermines its economic argument. You cannot claim a tax rise will generate more revenue while advocating policies that would close the very businesses expected to pay it.

These are not anonymous businesses on a Treasury spreadsheet.

Many of these businesses have been part of their communities for decades. They are run by local managers, employ local people and provide steady jobs in towns where good employers are becoming harder to find. Their customers also support neighbouring cafés, pubs and shops, helping to keep Britain’s struggling high streets alive.

Nor are their customers an afterthought. Betting shops, bingo clubs and casinos are social hubs where adults choose to meet friends, watch sport, enjoy bingo or place a bet responsibly. The suggestion that customers are simply being lured in to lose money is patronising and wrong. The report dismisses those customers entirely, assuming it knows better than the adults who use these venues responsibly every day.

The same applies to working men’s clubs and miners’ welfare clubs, many of which rely on regulated gaming machines to help keep their doors open as employment costs, business rates and energy bills continue to rise. These are exactly the kinds of community institutions politicians say they want to protect.

Those consequences may not be felt in the Westminster bubble, but they will be felt in the North of England, in seaside towns, former mining communities, market towns and city centres where another boarded-up premises would replace another long-established local business.

There is also a snobbery running through this debate that deserves to be challenged. Too often, metropolitan commentators appear comfortable telling working people how they should spend their money while showing little regard for the venues people value, the jobs they support or the communities they serve.

The consequences extend far beyond the high street.

Every betting shop that closes also weakens one of Britain’s most cherished sports. Licensed betting operators contribute hundreds of millions of pounds every year through the Horserace Betting Levy and media rights payments, supporting racecourses and the wider racing industry. Land-based betting shops are a vital part of that funding. Racing is already under financial pressure and cannot afford to lose it. The impact would be felt far beyond the racecourse, affecting stable staff, trainers, breeders, farriers, vets and thousands of small businesses that depend on a thriving racing industry. Decisions taken on betting shop taxation are not confined to one sector; they ripple through communities and rural economies across Britain.

The report also assumes spending will simply move elsewhere and jobs will be replaced. That is an assertion, not evidence. There is no compelling case that communities become more prosperous when regulated venues disappear.

Its economic case is equally weak. The SMF assumes increasing Machine Games Duty will boost Treasury revenues. History suggests otherwise. Following the reduction in machine stakes in 2018 (effect 1^st April 2019), over 2,000 betting shops closed and gambling duty receipts fell and have never recovered to previous levels. Shrinking the regulated market does not maximise tax receipts; it reduces the number of businesses paying tax.

Then there is the illegal gambling market.

Every time the regulated sector is made less competitive, criminal operators stand to benefit. They pay no UK tax, create no British jobs and offer none of the age verification, safer gambling tools or consumer protections required of licensed operators. Weakening legitimate businesses while strengthening the black market is not sound public policy.

Perhaps the most revealing finding in the report is one its authors may not have intended. Their own polling shows most people do not support increasing taxes on gaming machines.

Public policy should not be driven by assumptions or ideology. It should be driven by evidence and an honest assessment of consequences.

Of course gambling harm must be addressed. Our members continue to invest heavily in safer gambling tools, technology and interventions because protecting customers is fundamental to a sustainable regulated industry. But good intentions do not automatically make good policy.

If ministers follow the SMF’s advice, they will not simply increase Machine Games Duty. They will make a conscious decision to place legitimate businesses under even greater pressure, jeopardise thousands of jobs, weaken horseracing and accelerate the decline of community venues that have served Britain for generations.

That is not evidence-led policymaking.

It is a price Britain’s high streets and leisure venues simply cannot afford.

References

• Economic modelling of potential MGD increases (September 2026), EY Report for the Betting and Gaming Council

4 min read34 min

The Met Office says it was provisionally the hottest the country has recorded in a series going back to 1884, beating the previous record – set only last year – by a margin its scientists describe as significant. The summer of 1976, the one my generation grew up hearing about, now ranks seventh. It is high time, then, for a lido renaissance.

From Cornwall to Hackney, outdoor pools reported exceptional demand, with some setting records. Tinside on Plymouth Hoe had welcomed more visitors by the end of July than in any season this century. Bude Sea Pool reached capacity on more days than ever before, while London Fields Lido in Hackney had passed its total for the whole of 2025 before August was out. Last summer, itself a record, the country’s biggest lido operator recorded 30 per cent more swims at its lidos and outdoor swimming sites than the year before. This one was hotter.

In Peterborough, our own lido turned 90 this year, with more than 82,000 swims so far. Some of those visits were by me during the parliamentary recess, when I joined the Lido Belles and early-morning swimmers in perfect conditions. When the government talks about Pride in Place, I can think of no better example than our lidos.

Lidos are not simply leisure amenities that happen to be old. They were a public health programme, and the people who built them knew exactly what they were doing. Peterborough’s opened in 1936, in a decade of recession, dole queues and the rise of angry politics, with a loan from the Ministry of Health. The people who ran the city believed that the man from the brickworks, the railway clerk, the shop girl and their children had as much right to an afternoon in clean water and sunshine as anyone with a villa on the Riviera. Britain had more than 300 lidos by the end of the 1930s.

Then we let them go. The rise of indoor pools, package holidays in the sun and a long squeeze on council budgets took their toll, and by 1990 only roughly a third were still open. The challenges lidos face have not gone away, but there will be more summers like this one to come. Heatwaves are arriving earlier and more often, and every council with an outdoor pool should be asking when it will open. That is why a group of MPs have formed Labour Friends of Lidos and Public Baths to raise the profile of these community assets.

This is about breathing new life into our pools or, as in the case of Bournemouth, Ipswich and Worthing, restoring them. Worthing has plans to transform its former lido into a community space, with a new tidal pool next to it.

In some places, the loss is symbolic. What was once the majestic St Leonards open-air bathing pool in Hastings is now an underground maze of pipes for sewage dumping Southern Water.

That is why we are arguing that the government should back our lidos for leisure, health and climate purposes. The forthcoming Water Bill should include provision for water companies to support these pools. The government should also look at creating a Lido Regeneration Fund to back these joyous expressions of pride and place.

The people who built our lidos planned for the weather they had, and we know the weather that is coming. If you have a lido, use it while the sun lasts. If your town lost one, ask for it back. And if you are ever in Peterborough on a hot day, come and join us. Bring a towel.

Andrew Pakes is the Labour and Co-operative MP for Peterborough and co-convenor of Labour Friends of Lidos and Public Baths

Credit: Adobe

Unless stated otherwise, the figures below are drawn from How Payments Can Power UK Growth, a 2026 Public First report commissioned by Visa, based on surveys of 2,000 consumers and 500 businesses, two focus groups, and interviews with consumer groups, payments providers, fintechs, building societies, and major retailers.

Trust and confidence are the fuel on which our payments system runs, and the foundation for future innovation.

Digital payments are now essential economic infrastructure, and when that infrastructure works, it goes largely unnoticed. You tap your card, click a button or unlock your phone, and the transaction is complete. Yet this apparent simplicity relies on a vast system of invisible elements working together simultaneously and is contingent on sustained investment to keep that infrastructure secure.

The UK has one of the most advanced and trusted digital payments sectors in the world. The benefits of tap-to-pay are already visible in everyday life. Contactless payments have become embedded in Britain’s transport network, making journeys simpler for millions of passengers and demonstrating how payments technology can help enable more seamless, integrated services.

Tap-to-pay has made accepting payments simpler for businesses of every size, reducing the time and cost for SMEs to get set up and start trading. At Visa, this is the work we invest in every day, putting the same processing, dispute and fraud-fighting capabilities used by the world’s largest retailers into the hands of Britain’s small businesses.

That success did not happen by chance, but through concerted efforts to innovate while prioritising trust, security and resilience.

Through research we commissioned from Public First, we know the digital payments sector alone has helped generate an estimated £88 billion in additional sales for British businesses since 2019, with £32 billion of that specifically for small and medium-sized companies. On a macro level, it added approximately £7.5 billion to UK GDP in 2024 alone. 

Looking ahead, a new wave of innovation is set to reshape the industry. AI agents that can shop and pay on our behalf, AI-driven fraud checks and stablecoins (which with proper regulation can operate as settlement tools to speed up transfers and reduce settlement risk).

Between them, these could further empower consumers, and to shift shopping and paying from manual checkout towards invisible, trusted experiences that reduce fraud and friction. But every one of these technologies will only be adopted at a meaningful scale if trust in the payments system holds. Innovation and security are the same argument, not competing ones.

Trust in digital payments is what makes people willing to tap a card, or click pay. 90% of UK consumers and 91% of businesses currently say they have strong levels of confidence in card payments. But this trust depends on security.

Consumers’ tolerance for risk is close to zero: around two-thirds say they wouldn’t complete a purchase over £5 if there’s more than a 5% chance of losing their money. Apply that across an economy where UK-issued cards were used for transactions worth more than £1 trillion in 2024, and it adds up fast.

The threat is only growing. Fraud is now the most common crime experienced in the UK: according to UK Finance’s 2025 Annual Fraud Report, £1.17 billion was stolen through payment fraud alone in 2024. Without sustained investment in prevention and resilience, it is ultimately the public who will pay twice: first in the money lost to fraud, and then in the more cautious, slower economy that follows as confidence drains away. People who have been victims of fraud cut their spending by over a third in the following months.

Across the economy, Public First estimates that this chilling effect costs £16 billion in consumer spending every year. Businesses experience this too – almost a quarter of those hit by fraud in the last year paused a planned investment into digital infrastructure.

The UK was where much of the last fintech revolution was built. Global networks like ours are part of how that happens, giving UK fintechs, merchants and small businesses the cross-border resilience and trusted security they need to grow. But trust is hard-won and easy to lose, and this is a highly mobile industry.

The Government’s plan to give the Bank of England a new secondary objective on innovation in payment systems and digital money, while maintaining financial stability remaining its primary duty, reflects the growing importance of these issues. Over time, the UK’s ability to attract investment and support innovation will depend on providing businesses with confidence and clarity as new technologies emerge.

Sustaining investment in security and resilience will be critical to maintaining trust in the UK’s payments ecosystem. Public First’s research suggests that, with the right conditions for investment and innovation, the digital payments sector could contribute an estimated £3.8 billion in additional growth by 2030. Without continued focus on security, consumer confidence could be undermined, the adoption of new technologies could slow, and the UK could miss out on significant economic opportunities.