Cost and timing of London's Crossrail unknown after delay - NAO

Special report(wp/reuters):::
London’s new flagship railway Crossrail cannot say when the much-delayed line will open, or what the final cost will be, Britain’s spending watchdog said on Friday after Europe’s most ambitious infrastructure programme hit the buffers.

Due to open in December 2018, the rail line running between Heathrow Airport to the Canary Wharf financial district via central London, is now unlikely to open before 2021 after it was hit by testing and signalling problems.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said on Friday the mismanagement of Britain’s most important infrastructure project in decades had resulted in unnecessary spending and delivered poor value for taxpayers.

“Throughout delivery, and even as pressures mounted, Crossrail Ltd clung to the unrealistic view that it could complete the programme to the original timetable, which has had damaging consequences,” Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said in a statement.

“While we cannot make an overall assessment of value for money until Crossrail is complete, there have been a number of choices made in the course of this project that have clearly damaged public value.”

The NAO said Crossrail has not yet completed its assessment of the impact of the opening schedule on costs, and it remains unclear when the service will start.

When open, the Elizabeth line, as the link has been named, will connect destinations such as Heathrow west of the city with the rail hub of Paddington, shopping districts such as Bond Street, Canary Wharf in the east, and beyond.

It is expected to carry about 500,000 passengers a day and alleviate pressure on the Victorian-era metro (subway) network, the Underground or Tube. An initial budget of around 15 billion pounds ($19 billion) has risen to 17.6 billion pounds.

The NAO said that despite the unexpected costs of the project, the amount of money already spent on the project meant it was “past the point of no return” and that the new bosses of the project should be allowed to get it built “without unrealistic cost or time expectations.”

A spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said the government was “deeply disappointed” by the delay and cost overruns.

“The focus must now be on ensuring the Elizabeth line opens as soon as is safely possible,” she said in a statement.

The opposition Labour party said it was the “the latest withering assessment of the Department for Transport’s management of a major infrastructure project.”

Part of Manchester cordoned off after reports of suspicious package - British police

Crime reporter(wp/reuters):::

Police have cordoned off an area of Manchester city centre in northern England after reports of a suspicious package, a spokeswoman for Greater Manchester Police said.

She said a 26-year old man had been detained and enquiries into the incident were ongoing.

Barnier says now for UK to make choice on Brexit

Special report(wp/reuters):::

The European Union’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Friday that it was up to Britain now to choose its course on its planned withdrawal from the bloc and that the EU was united and ready for an orderly departure.

“EU-27 stand united and ready for orderly Brexit,” Barnier tweeted during a visit to Malta. “For the UK now to make its choices.”

Britain’s ruling Conservatives and the main opposition party Labour both lost support in local elections on Thursday in what politicians on both sides said was a reflection of voters’ anger at a stalemate over how and even whether Brexit will happen.

U.N. rights experts cite concern at 'disproportionate' Assange detention

Media News(wp/reuters):::

United Nations human rights experts voiced concern on Friday at what they called the “disproportionate sentence” of 50 weeks in prison imposed on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for skipping bail in Britain.

Assange is being held in the high-security Belmarsh prison “as if he were convicted for a serious criminal offence”, the U.N. working group on arbitrary detention said in a statement, adding that this “appears to contravene principles of necessity and proportionality”. It described the skipping bail charge as a relatively “minor violation”.

The group, composed of five independent experts, issued an opinion in 2015 that Assange - holed up at the time at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden to face an allegation of rape - was being arbitrarily detained. Assange has denied the rape allegations.

HMRC forced to delete five million voice files

Business correspondent(wp/bbc):::

The voice records of five million taxpayers are being deleted by the UK's tax authority, as the way they were collected broke privacy rules.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) failed to gain explicit consent from individuals before signing them up to the voice ID system for telephone enquiries.

It had been criticised by campaigners who accused HMRC of creating "biometric ID cards by the back door".

Now the BBC has learned that the system will continue despite the deletions.

Sir Jon Thompson, HMRC chief executive, said: "I am satisfied that HMRC should continue to use voice ID."

"It is popular with our customers, is a more secure way of protecting customer data, and enables us to get callers through to an adviser faster," he said in a letter to HMRC's data protection officer.

How does the system work?

In a bid to speed up the much-criticised HMRC helpline, people were invited to use the voice recognition system, rather than the normal security checks.

The scheme, launched in 2017, asks callers to repeat the phrase "my voice is my password" to register.

Once this task is complete, they can use the phrase to confirm their identity when managing their taxes. HMRC passes the voice through an algorithm to instantly confirm their ID.

Similar projects have been launched by banks and other providers, although they have not always been entirely successful, as this BBC investigation found.

What went wrong?

Privacy campaigner Big Brother Watch complained about the audio signatures system, claiming users were "railroaded" into using it as they were not given the choice to opt out.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force across the European Union in May last year, requires organisations to obtain explicit consent before they use biometric data to identify someone, including voice recordings.

HMRC sought advice from the UK's Information Commissioner and was told it had not been adhering to the data protection rules. In effect, it had automatically pushed people into the system without explicit consent.

What happens now?

The tax authority changed the way it sought permission for voice ID in October. Some 1.5 million people have called HMRC since then, and said they wanted to continue using the service. Their records have been retained.

But HMRC has started to delete the voice records of the remaining five million who enrolled into the system before October and who have not called or used the service since.

It said the records would be deleted "well before" the Information Commissioner's deadline of 5 June.

Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said: "This is a massive success for Big Brother Watch, restoring data rights for millions of ordinary people around the country.

"To our knowledge, this is the biggest ever deletion of biometric IDs from a state-held database. This sets a vital precedent for biometrics collection and the database state, showing that campaigners and the ICO have real teeth and no government department is above the law."

Britain's two main parties get Brexit bashing in local election

Political reporter(wp/reuters):::
English voters frustrated with the deadlock over Brexit have punished Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party in local elections, early results showed on Friday.

The results of Thursday’s elections are another display of how Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union has split voters beyond traditional party lines and are a first indication of the damage Brexit has done to the two big parties.

The frustration sometimes boiled over. One audience member shouted “Why don’t you resign?” before May addressed Conservatives in Wales and some ballot papers were spoiled, with voters refusing to vote for any of the parties.

With just over half of English local council vote results declared, the Conservative Party had lost 551 councillors and Labour had lost 73 councillors, according to a BBC tally.

The main beneficiary of the swing against the two main parties - which are in talks to try to break the impasse in the British parliament over Brexit - was the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, who had won 354 councillors so far, and said they hoped to make further gains in European Parliament elections on May 23.

Activists said the Liberal Democrats’ clear message that Britain needed a second referendum to break the parliamentary deadlock over the country’s future relationship with the EU had helped turn the tide.

“It just seems voters, period, saying: ‘A plague on both your houses’,” said John Curtice, Britain’s leading polling expert.

Smaller parties also gained in the local elections, which are often used as a protest vote against the incumbent party. The Greens, who also back a second Brexit referendum, gained 68 council seats, the partial results showed, and independent candidates won 251 seats.

Labour sources said their party had little to fear from the results so far, saying it was always going to be a “tough” battle in councils that traditionally favour the Conservatives.

Tough was also the word the Conservatives used to describe the local elections, with some pinning the blame for the party’s bad showing on the deadlock in parliament, which has rejected May’s Brexit deal three times.

May told her party in Wales: “There was a simple message from yesterday’s elections, to both us and the Labour Party: just get on and deliver Brexit.”

“MESSAGE RECEIVED”

While offering only a partial and imperfect picture of Britain’s voting intentions, the elections for more than 8,000 seats on councils - administrative bodies responsible for day-to-day decisions - also showed a frustration with local issues.

But for May and many in Labour, the message was clear.

“So far (the) message from local elections - ‘Brexit - sort it’,” said John McDonnell, Labour’s finance policy chief. “Message received.”

Nearly three years since the United Kingdom voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the EU, there is still no agreement among British politicians about when, how or even if the divorce should take place.

Britain was due to have left the EU on March 29, but May has been unable to get her deal approved by parliament and is now seeking the support of Labour, led by socialist Jeremy Corbyn. Talks next week are not expected to reach a breakthrough.

It is still unclear how the deadlock might be broken, though some say May might call a general election, a prospect Curtice said could end in another parliament where no party has an overall majority.

The Conservatives had been bracing for big losses in Thursday’s elections - something that could revive calls for May to step down and for a change in Brexit policy.

“People have very categorically said that she is part of the problem,” former Conservative minister and Brexit supporter Priti Patel told BBC TV. “I think we need change, I don’t think we can continue like this.”

Many Conservative euroskeptics fear the newly launched Brexit Party of veteran anti-EU campaigner Nigel Farage, which did not contest the local polls but is expected to do well in the European elections later this month.

That has encouraged some to call for the government to take a tougher stance on Brexit and demand a clean split with the EU. For Labour, others suggested the party should move to supporting a second referendum after saying the Liberal Democrats had benefited from their clear-cut stance on Brexit.

“We’ve seen gains in both Remain and Leave areas, with huge swings to us in both former Conservative and Labour seats,” Luisa Porritt, a LibDem councillor, told Reuters.

“Given our unapologetically anti-Brexit stance, this bodes very well for the upcoming European elections.”

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, was also pleased with the LibDems “excellent results”, saying it offered “real momentum for pro-Europeans in the UK now ahead of #EUelections2019.”

The Countess of Wessex gives a speech at the Catalyst Fund Reception in New Dehli

High Commissioner, Honoured Guests; 

This is the third time I have seen this film Life with Sight and each time I see it it makes me cry. My daughter, Louise, was born prematurely and so every time I see anything to do with premature babies it takes me back to those early days, the shock of her early arrival, and then the realisation that she had a sight issue, which we would have to manage.

The other reason I become emotional when I watch this film is because of the way Dr Jalali gives of herself so incredibly selflessly day in day out, week in week out in order that those tiny infants may have the chance to see. She is the most extraordinary person, so humble in the way she approaches her work, so determined to help the helpless and always with such a beautiful smile on her face.

There are people on this planet who have been sent by God and I truly believe she is one of them and countless families owe so much to her, but as she says her reward is seeing them grow into amazing human beings.

I have the honour of being Vice-Patron of The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and this week I have been able to see the impact of the Trust's initiative to prevent premature babies from going blind.

To witness myself the work of Dr Jalali and her colleagues in screening and treating babies and to meet the parents of children whose sight has been saved.

None of this would have been possible without the generosity of the Trust's donors and partners. Therefore I would like to take this opportunity to thank Standard Chartered for their incredible support.  

Standard Chartered's dedication to the cause of vision, and their programme Seeing is Believing, is well documented and long-standing.

I have had the pleasure of visiting many of their programmes around the world, I have travelled with them on a number of occasions and attended a variety of fundraising events with them and have celebrated key milestones with them over many years. They should be so proud of what they have done and are continuing to do.

This particular initiative here in India has been incredibly successful not just because of the dedication and expertise of specialists like Dr Jalali. It is down to the partnership between the Trust and government, whose leadership has enabled the collaboration between all partners involved to allow this incredible transformation to flourish.

The legacy of the initiative in the care premature babies are given across India is permanent.

It is incontrovertible proof that government leadership can change the face of an issue by engaging everyone involved to provide tangible, effective and achievable solutions.  

I feel hopeful that a world free of ALL forms of avoidable blindness is not just a pipe dream, but is within our grasp if we can garner governments, specialists, and the private sector, because we already have the technology, the treatments and the know how to make it happen.

This is why I am so excited by the effort which has begun by a group of private sector organisations, including Standard Chartered, by philanthropists and the eye health sector, to develop a Vision Catalyst Fund.

Inspired by other global funds including the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, our ambition is to mobilise significant funding to support governments to scale up eye health programmes and make them a part of strengthened health systems, bringing vision to entire populations. The plan is for the Fund to begin pilot programmes in 2020, and to operate at full scale by 2022.

The mission of The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust is to leave a lasting legacy, owned by the whole Commonwealth in honour of Her Majesty The Queen.

It is doing so by working with governments to curb blindness from avoidable causes. It is giving new hope to people across the world, releasing their potential to learn, to work and to lead fulfilled and productive lives. The Trust's work is almost at an end. But a Vision Catalyst Fund can build upon and amplify what has been achieved in the name of one of the world's most respected Monarchs.

I am so proud to be involved in the work of the Trust and I pledge to continue my involvement as we move forward. Today I ask you to support us in our efforts to help bring vision to everyone, everywhere.

I have seen many people both young and old have sight restored to their unseeing eyes. It is when their sight is restored that they start to smile, for smiling is a reflex we only use in response to something or someone, but it is a thing of real beauty.

As Mother Teresa said "Let us always meet each other with the smile, for the smile is the beginning of love."  

I therefore ask you to help us create as many smiles as we can in order that we can spread the love.

ROYAL PRESS-ENGLAND