Press Review
Darling tightens grip on financial services
Alistair Darling is to set out details of tough new regulations on the financial services industry, including strict capital and liquidity banking standards.
The rules will affect the banks which are considered to be riskiest in their lending and investment practices.
The chancellor is to maintain the existing tripartite regulatory system of the Treasury, Bank of England and Financial Services Authority.
But new moves to prevent financial meltdown would include banks maintaining detailed plans so they could be wound down over a weekend rather than having to be nationalised if they hit trouble.
The Guardian reports that the Treasury seems to have endorsed all 27 recommendations made by Lord Turner's review of financial regulations.
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Brown survives the 10p tax revolt
Labour avoided defeat last night over a proposal to end the income tax starting rate of 10p, with an amendment to the Finance Bill rejected by 311 votes to 268.
Treasury minister Stephen Timms said the amendment would have resulted in the government being unable to collect income tax this year, saying: "The chaos just doesn't bear thinking about."
The tax move was included in Gordon Brown's last Budget as chancellor in 2007.
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British agents 'colluded in torture'
David Davis said in the House of Commons yesterday that British officials had colluded in allowing torture.
The former shadow home secretary stated he had evidence that UK agents informed Pakistani officials that a suspect was returning to Pakistan, knowing that he may be captured and tortured upon arrival.
"A more obvious case of outsourcing of torture, of 'passive rendition', I cannot imagine," the Daily Mail reports Davis as saying.
"He should have been arrested by the UK in 2006. He was not. The authorities knew he intended to travel to Pakistan, so they should have prevented that. Instead, they suggested ISI arrest him. They knew he would be tortured."
Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis said Davis had been "repeating unsubstantiated accusations as fact".
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MPs to be investigated
Formal investigations into the tax affairs of MPs have begun, with letters sent to every MP asking for information, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Permanent secretary for tax at HM Revenue and Customs David Harnett said: "We have written to all MPs inviting them to talk to us if they want to talk to us. We have also picked up that there are a number that we will need to talk to as well. That will lead to a temporary increase in the number of investigations."
Defence spending review called
Defence secretary Bob Ainsworth has ordered a review of defence spending, with the Ministry of Defence to produce a green paper next year.
Both Labour and the Conservatives are committed to a review of defence and the issue is set to be a battleground in the general election.
The scope of the paper will be limited, however, with major spending projects already underway. The Times reports a defence source as saying: "Departmental business at the MoD has to continue, although as the work gets under way officials and ministers will be guided by what is being considered. What we can't see is inertia being built in to everything the MoD does."
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Lords reject assisted dying amendment
Peers have rejected by 194 peers to 141 a move to relax the laws on assisted suicide.
The relaxation, sought as a change to the Coroners and Justice Bill, would have allowed friends and relatives of the terminally ill to travel abroad to help them with an assisted suicide.
