Single mothers on benefits are to be made to actively seek a job as soon as their youngest child reaches 11, in a government clampdown on unemployment in lone parent households. Ministers are pushing for a Europe-wide ban on the trade in wild birds after a parrot died of bird flu in quarantine on Friday night. Senior Whitehall sources said yesterday that Debby Reynolds, the Government's chief vet, yesterday wrote to the European Commission urging a halt on the import of birds - from anywhere in the world - to stop the virus entering Britain and the Continent through the back door.. Tony Blair is to reward a clutch of millionaire Labour Party donors - including the head of the Priory celebrity rehabilitation clinic - with peerages, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.
In a move that will trigger a fresh row over "cash for honours", Mr Blair is to elevate to the Lords four businessmen who between them have given almost half a million pounds to the party.. We have opened up the issue of domestic violence, but the services to support women who have suffered from domestic violence are still thin and patchy."The initiative is backed by a coalition across Labour's political spectrum, including Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, Diane Abbott, left-wing MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, and Barbara Follett MP, chairwoman of the women's Parliamentary Labour Party.Ms Jowell is to launch a series of "listening to women" seminars around Britain.Education and healthcare are at the centre of Labour reforms, but women MPs fear not enough progress will be made on childcare, maternity leave and women's rights at work in preparing for a fourth term in office.A series of seminars on women's policies, held in conjunction with the Fawcett Society, which promotes women in public life, is to be held in the House of Commons.WHAT BLAIR'S WOMEN WANT...Making childcare more widely availableGreater support, including refuge places, for victims of domestic violenceAction on sex discrimination at work, including male domination of boardroomsProgramme to end trafficking of women in the sex industryWork on tackling the rise in teenage pregnanciesInvestment in public health, with better cancer care and efforts to reduce STDsFamily-friendly policiesSupport for the hospice movementHelp for women and Aids orphans in developing countriesAction against child povertyExtra funding for special schools and support for the disabled. "We have made huge progress on childcare but we are still very far from quality and available childcare for all. A powerful coalition of female Labour ministers is to warn Tony Blair and Gordon Brown against pushing the party towards a "macho" policy agenda. Senior figures in the Labour Party, including Harriet Harman, the Constitutional Affairs minister, Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, and Margaret Hodge, Work and Pensions minister, are insisting Labour's "renewal" programme will fail unless it includes more female-friendly policies. A "women's manifesto" drawn up by female members of the Parliamentary Labour Party is to ensure that issues such as childcare are central to the Government's agenda.The move follows concern that Labour could lose women voters to a reinvigorated Tory party led by David Cameron.Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have stressed the need for Labour to renew itself in office with forward-looking policies to help secure a fourth term.Ms Harman, who is leading the initiative, warned that efforts to attract voters could fail unless women-friendly policies were central to the process."The renewal of the party and the Government will fail unless it has gender issues at its heart, and it's Labour women who must lead and shape that agenda," Ms Harman said. There will be a feeding frenzy at the wilder fringes of the property market," said Lord Oakeshott, a Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman "It will cost billions in tax relief we can't afford.".
Vintage wine retailers have reported a huge surge in demand ahead of new rules permitting pensions to be invested in wine, property and classic cars. The rule change, set to come into effect in April, will allow £215,000 to be put into Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs), which can include fine art or wine."Unless this nonsense is stopped Gordon Brown will be the best salesmen the fine wine merchants and estate agents have ever had. Setting off from Notting Hill, the Prime Minister arrived in Stratford a little over an hour later in the company of thousands of pedalling East End schoolchildren. In a media briefing later, the No 10 press secretary said this was another example of "one-nation Toryism in a modern setting", proving "it is morning in Britain again".. MPs and peers will this week call for an urgent inquiry into a tax break that will allow a 40 per cent discount on fine wines and second homes. Not only did it show off the 45-year-old's sporty physique, it won lots of coverage for the network of cycle lanes he had built, linking east and west London. Of the 54 local associations surveyed, 38 said they favoured Mr Cameron Only seven preferred Mr Davis.
