First train from the UK to China completes its 7,500-mile journey

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The first rail freight service from the UK to China has completed its 7,500-mile journey.

The train carrying 30 containers filled with British produced goods arrived in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu on Saturday.

It was greeted by traders and shipping company officials when it arrived at Yiwu West station after departing London on April 10 carrying items such as vitamins, baby products and pharmaceuticals.

The first freight service from China to the UK arrived in London in January.

The service, which is cheaper than air freight and faster than sea freight, is part of China’s One Belt, One Road programme of reviving the ancient Silk Road trading routes with the West, initially created more than 2,000 years ago.

Yiwu Timex Chairman Timmy Feng told Reuters TV channel: "This freight train is a reflection of the achievements of trade."

After leaving London the bright red train passed through seven countries -- France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan -- before arriving in Yiwu at about 9.30am local time on Saturday.

For Britain, the train is part of an effort to strengthen trade links with the rest of the world as it prepares to leave the European Union in two years' time.

May Day report by MPs damns growing UK gig economy

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Companies in Britain’s growing gig economy are forcing workers into bogus self-employment and free-riding on the welfare state, an influential committee of MPs has said.

In a damning assessment of modern employment practices, the parliamentary work and pensions committee calls on the next government to bring laws up to date so that workers are better protected from exploitation. Given concerns about the rising number of workers classed as self-employed contractors with no access to sick benefit or holiday pay, it wants the default status for people in the gig economy to be “worker” rather than “self-employed”.

In an inquiry now curtailed by Theresa May calling a snap election, the committee questioned companies including Uber, Amazon, Hermes and Deliveroo that use self-employed workers widely. It also heard from their drivers.

An abridged report into the committee’s findings on Monday accuses companies of propagating a myth about self-employment and rebuffs their claims to be providing flexibility for workers. 

The committee, led by the Labour MP Frank Field, criticised such arguments as fiction. It also highlighted that forcing people into self-employment as couriers, taxi drivers and other roles, rather than taking them on as employees, was depriving the state of badly needed tax revenues and creating an extra burden on the welfare system.

“Companies in the gig economy are free-riding on the welfare state, avoiding all their responsibilities to profit from this bogus ‘self-employed’ designation while ordinary taxpayers pick up the tab,” said Field.

“This inquiry has convinced me of the need to offer ‘worker’ status to the drivers who work with those companies as the default option. This status would be a much fairer reflection of the work they undertake which seems to fall between what most of us would think of as ‘self-employed’ or ‘employed’. It would also protect them from some of the appalling practices that have been reported to the committee in this inquiry.”

The committee’s report found self-employment could indeed be “genuinely flexible and rewarding for many”, but that people on employment contracts were also able to work flexibly. “Flexibility is not the preserve of poorly paid, unstable contractors,” said the report, published ahead of Wednesday’s dissolution of parliament.

Field said: “It is clearly profit and profit only that is the motive for designating workers as self-employed.”

The report comes ahead of the government’s Taylor review of modern working practices, which is likely to recommend that self-employed gig economy workers should be granted greater protections and benefits.

The MPs’ report will pressure companies further to change staffing practices. It follows an employment tribunal ruling last year that found Uber drivers were wrongly classified as self-employed and should be classed as workers.

Uber plans to challenge the ruling in the courts later this year, and in the meantime has sought to quell criticism of its practices. The San Francisco-based ride-hailing firm said last week that it would start to offer its drivers in the UK sickness cover in exchange for a £2 per week fee.

Field dismissed Uber’s move, saying the plan was “just another way of pushing costs onto the workforce”.

Uber said: “The vast majority of drivers who use Uber tell us they want to remain their own boss as that’s the main reason why they signed up to us in the first place. But we know drivers want more security too, which is why we are investing in a heavily discounted illness and injury cover offer for drivers.”

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, announced plans to increase those contributions in his maiden budget in March, but was quickly forced into an embarrassing U-turn following a backbench revolt.

Monday’s report also notes that self-employed people and employees receive almost equal access to the services funded by national insurance contributions “yet the self-employed contribute far less”. “The incoming government should set out a roadmap for equalising employee and self-employed national insurance contributions,” it said.

Juncker tells May he is '10 times more sceptical than before' on Brexit

Pic:Theresa May greets Jean-Claude Juncker ahead of a ‘very constructive’ meeting at Downing Street
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A devastating account of a dinner in Downing Street between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker has emerged, claiming the European commission president ended discussions about a potential Brexit deal by telling the British prime minister: “I’m leaving Downing Street 10 times more sceptical than I was before.”

Those close to Juncker are said to have subsequently concluded that the chances of Brexit talks failing were now “over 50%”. An EU spokesman declined to comment, except to point out that Juncker had told reporters at a summit on Saturday that the dinner was a “very constructive meeting, a friendly atmosphere”.

The detailed account of the meeting on Wednesday between May and Juncker, who was accompanied by the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, and key staff, suggests the two sides are dangerously divided on key issues such as Britain’s divorce bill and the future rights of EU citizens.

According to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, May is said to have told Juncker the UK did not legally owe a penny to the EU under existing treaties.

She is also said to have told him the issue of citizens’ rights could be settled in the opening few weeks of formal negotiations, which are due to start in June after the UK general election.

It was reported that May suggested EU citizens would in future receive only the same rights in relation to living and working in the UK as anyone else who was not a British citizen.

Juncker responded that such a scenario would be problematic, because EU citizens currently enjoy additional rights. “I think you are underestimating this, Theresa,” he was quoted as saying.

Juncker reportedly called the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, after the dinner, claiming May was “on a different galaxy”.

The commission has compiled a dossier on the rights it expects EU nationals living in the UK to keep and those it expects EU citizens to be able to acquire should they move to Britain.

On Saturday, at a summit where the remaining 27 EU member states adopted their negotiating guidelines, Juncker told reporters he was doubtful the UK would sign up swiftly to their dossier and suggested London had a simplistic take on the issue.

“I have the impression sometimes that our British friends, not all of them, do underestimate the technical difficulties we have to face,” he said, adding that May had told him in response to each of his questions about the future: “Be patient and ambitious.”

On Britain’s divorce bill, the EU delegation, which estimates Britain’s liabilities to be about €60bn (£51bn), are said to have told May over dinner that the UK had entered commitments with every passed budget and the bloc was not a golf club that could be easily joined or left. The EU, they said, was like a family, and Brexit should be treated as a divorce.

David Davis, the secretary of state for exiting the EU, is said to have retorted that the rest of the EU could not do anything about the financial demands once the UK had left because it would no longer answer to the rulings of the European court of justice (ECJ).

Juncker pointed out that the UK wanted a trade deal, but without agreement on money there would be no desire among the 27 member states to make that happen. The whole exit process would change, the commission president is said to have responded.

“Let us make Brexit a success,” May is said to have beseeched the commission president. According to the German newspaper, Juncker said while he wanted an orderly exit, not chaos, after Britain withdraws from the EU in 2019, it would be a third country state for the EU, adding: “Brexit cannot be a success.”

It is also claimed that Juncker pulled out copies of Croatia’s accession treaty and the recently agreed Canadian free trade deal, which is more than 2,000 pages long, weighing 6kg (13lbs) in total, to point out the complexity of what is to come.

May is said to have been surprised by his response and defended her optimism with reference to her negotiations over Britain’s opt-outs from the justice and home affairs chapter in the Lisbon treaty, which was a symbolic hard break but kept all Britain’s old ties intact.

The article in the German newspaper also suggested that the EU delegation picked up on some irritation on the side of the prime minister at interventions from the Brexit secretary.

Davis is said to have made three separate references during the dinner to having successfully blocked May’s one-time plans for extra powers of surveillance for Britain’s security services via the ECJ. The newspaper claimed that May appeared unamused, leaving Juncker’s circle to discuss among themselves whether Davis would still be in charge of negotiations after the UK election.

As to the coming shape of the negotiations, May is said to have proposed that the two sides meet once a month for four days in Brussels, with positioning papers published beforehand. But she said the talks should take place in private.

“Everything should remain secret,” she is said to have demanded, to consternation from the EU side, which pointed out that the commission needed to keep the European parliament informed throughout the process.

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, said on Monday: “Theresa May talks about strengthening her hand, but in reality she has misjudged her hand at every turn, weakening Britain’s position.

“By refusing to acknowledge the complexity and magnitude of the task ahead, the prime minister increases the risk that there will be no deal, which is the worst of all possible outcomes.”

The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, said the account demonstrated the chaos at the heart of the government’s Brexit strategy.

“These reports have blown a massive hole in the Conservative party’s arguments. It’s clear this government has no clue and is taking the country towards a disastrous hard Brexit,” he said.

“Theresa May chose a divisive hard Brexit, with Labour’s help, and now has no idea what to do next. This election offers us a chance to change the direction of our country, keep Britain in the single market and give the people the final say over what happens next.”

A government spokesman said: “We do not recognise this account. As the PM and Jean-Claude Juncker made clear, this was a constructive meeting ahead of the negotiations formally getting under way.”

The first Elizabeth line services on London’s long-awaited £14.8 billion Crossrail project will run for the first time next month.

Pic:The first Elizabeth line train spotted at Liverpool Street this week.
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Eight years after building work began on the mammoth cross-London project, the first stage of the railway will launch towards the end of May.

The stretch of the line between Liverpool Street heading east to Shenfield will be the only part of the line to run, until the next stage launches in May 2018.

Around 11 new Elizabeth line trains will be gradually rolled out across that section of line from now until September.

Transport for London has not yet announced the exact date of the first service next month as more tests and practice runs are carried out by as drivers and Crossrail staff.

The first passenger trains have been spotted across London during the tests but TfL are keeping information about what the trains look like on the inside closely guarded.

What is Crossrail?

Crossrail is the much-anticipated new high-speed railway which will go through the capital.

It will run for more than 60 miles from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through London via tunnels and out the other side to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

The Crossrail project is made up of one line, called the Elizabeth line, named in honour of the Queen. 

The line branches off into two on both its ends, but joins up at Hayes and Harlington in the west and at Whitechapel in the east.

Where does the Elizabeth line run?

The line will connect some of London’s busiest national rail stations with central London, parts of Berkshire and Essex when it is fully complete.

The central London stations on the line will be Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon and Liverpool Street.

Other stations on the line include Reading, Maidenhead, Slough, West Drayton, Ealing Broadway, Canary Wharf, Stratford, Woolwich, Romford and Shenfield.

How quick will journeys be on Crossrail?

The new high-speed Elizabeth Line will cut most journey times by half and some journeys will be five times quicker.

How quicker will a Crossrail journey be?

Destination	Current time	Crossrail time
Paddington to Tottenham Court Road	20	4
Paddington to Liverpool Street	23	10
Paddington to Canary Wharf	34	17
Bond Street to Paddington	15	3
Bond Street to Whitechapel	24	10
Canary Wharf to Liverpool Street	21	6
Canary Wharf to Heathrow	55	39
Whitechapel to Canary Wharf	13	3

From Paddington to Tottenham Court Road, which usually takes 20 minutes, the journey time will be just four minutes and just three minutes to Bond Street.

For people in Abbey Wood in south east London, a journey to Heathrow will take just over 51 minutes – 42 minutes quicker than the current time.

Bond Street to Whitechapel in east London normally takes 24 minutes but on the Elizabeth line will take 10.

How many people will use it?

Around 200 million passengers are expected to travel on the Elizabeth line each year.

Because of the huge amount of travellers, 10 new stations are being built to deal with the capacity. An extra 1.5 million people will now be within 45 minutes of central London thanks to the new trains.

Each of the main line-size trains will be able to carry around 1,500 people at peak periods.

Which stations are being rebuilt?

Paddington is undergoing its biggest ever transformation since the main station opened in the 19th century.

Bond Street, serving one of the UK’s busiest shopping districts, is also being upgraded to accommodate more than 225,000 people changing Tube and Crossrail lines and upgrades at Farringdon station will see it become one of the busiest stations in the UK 

Other stations being transformed are Abbey Wood, Canary Wharf, Custom House, Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road, Whitechapel and Woolwich.

How often will trains be?

When the route fully opens in December 2019, Crossrail promises a train every two and a half minutes at peak time at central London stations.

From stations like Custom House and Abbey Wood, trains are expected to be every five minutes in peak time.

When will it open?

The whole of the Elizabeth line will fully open in December 2019.

Until then, as work to finish building stations continues, stretches of the line will open in stages.

The first new Elizabeth line car train will enter passenger service between Liverpool Street and Shenfield towards the end of May this year.

After that, the next milestone will be May next year, when a TfL rail service will open between Paddington and Heathrow Terminal 4. This route will replace the current Heathrow Connect service.

In December 2018, the new stations open and the Elizabeth line opens between Paddington and Abbey Wood, Liverpool Street to Shenfield and Paddington main line to Heathrow Terminal 4.

May 2019 will see the service extend from Shenfield to Paddington and by December of that year the whole shebang is expected to be up and running.

May refuses to rule out income tax and NI rises

Pic:Theresa May said on the Andrew Marr Show: ‘I don’t want to make specific proposals on taxes unless I’m sure I can deliver on those.
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Theresa May has all but confirmed she will drop the Conservative pledge not to raise three key taxes, as she ruled out higher VAT but declined to make a similar promise not to hike income tax and national insurance.

The prime minister said she did not want to make promises she was not absolutely confident she could keep, as she also signalled she would ditch the “triple-lock” formula by which the state pension would increase each year.

She was unable to promise that either of the commitments would continue, just two years after they formed a central plank of David Cameron’s 2015 election campaign.

In her first long interviews of this election campaign, the prime minister told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday she had “absolutely no plans to increase the level of tax” and an intention to lower taxes on working families.

But pressed about Cameron’s promise not to raise income tax, NI or VAT, she added: “I don’t want to make specific proposals on taxes unless I’m sure I can deliver on those.”

In a subsequent interview on ITV’s Peston on Sunday, she refined her position, saying: “We won’t raise VAT.”

May was in a similar position when asked about the triple-lock on state pensions – a promise that it would rise by a minimum of either 2.5%, the rate of inflation or average earnings growth, whichever is the largest. Labour has promised to keep the guarantee.

In a signal that it is to be dropped, potentially to pay for more social care funding, the prime minister said the state pension would continue to rise every year but “exactly how we calculate that rise” was for the manifesto.

She suggested there could be a comprehensive shakeup of social care funding, saying the government had to deal with “long-term issues about the ageing population”.

The prime minister was also tackled by Marr over her use of soundbites and slogans, but continued to use her favoured phrase about showing “strong and stable leadership”.

There has been speculation since the election was called that May would drop the tax lock promise and pensions triple lock to avoid tying her hands as the UK economy goes through the Brexit process.

But John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said it was wrong for May to drop the triple-lock formula and that he did not want to see pensioner incomes go backwards.

He also told ITV’s Peston on Sunday that Labour would pledge not to raise VAT and there would be no tax rises for middle or low earners, without giving a definition.

“We will end the tax giveaways to the corporations and the rich; we will demonstrate item by item how we can fund those and that will be about a fair taxation system. But let me give this assurance: there will be no increase in income tax for middle and low earners,” he said.

“We will protect middle and low earners. I will say also we will not increase VAT – and I want you to ask Theresa May that question because, if you remember, last time the Tories promised no increase in VAT and then they increased it afterwards. That’s a regressive tax. It falls on some of the poorest and middle earners as well, so that’s one guarantee we’re giving.”

Polling suggests May’s lead against Labour has been cut but she is still heading for a Conservative majority on the current trajectory.

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, made a prediction on Sunday that there would be a “colossal coronation” for May and therefore no hung parliament.

He urged voters to make the Lib Dems the official opposition, saying there was a “vacancy for leader of the opposition” because Labour backs Brexit, unlike his own party.

This would require an enormous electoral shift, given the party has just nine MPs and Labour has 229, while the SNP has 56.

UK may have to recognise ECJ court rulings to keep security cooperation

Pic:Sir Julian King, Britain’s most senior EU official
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Britain’s most senior EU official has warned that a post-Brexit Britain would have to recognise the rulings of the European court of justice if it wished to maintain the current level of cooperation in countering terrorism and organised crime.

Sir Julian King, the European commissioner responsible for security, said the UK’s security services had become increasingly reliant on shared crime-fighting tools to carry out their work.

In an interview with the Weastar Times, King suggested that there would be difficult discussions to be had in order to maintain something near the status quo on security cooperation, which will form part of negotiations with the remaining 27 members of the EU.

The bloc unanimously agreed this weekend a tough set of negotiating guidelines, including the declaration that the EU would not discuss trade matters or security cooperation until the issues of Britain’s divorce bill, citizens’ rights and the border on the island of Ireland were settled.

At the Brussels summit on Saturday, both the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, indicated some concern that this message had yet to be understood in London.

Over dinner, Juncker is said to have pulled out a copy of the EU-Canada trade deal, a document of 2,000 pages that took nearly a decade to negotiate, and suggested Theresa May study its complexity.

It has been claimed that at a meeting between Juncker and the prime minister on Wednesday in Downing Street, May asked for a full outline of a future trade deal before agreement on an estimated €60bn withdrawal bill was arrived at. One EU diplomat was quoted by the Sunday Times as claiming: “This was a rather incredible demand. It seemed as if it came from a parallel reality.”

On Sunday, May was tackled about reported comments from Juncker that she was living in another galaxy when it came to her demands for trade talks before the exit bill was settled.

The prime minister denied this was the case. “I’m not in a different galaxy but what this shows is that there are going to be times when these negotiations are going to be tough; we need strong and stable leadership.”

She insisted she was still confident the UK could get a trade deal, saying: “I want to ensure that we agree on a trade deal and our withdrawal arrangements so we know what both of those are.”

King told the Weastar Times that in order for security cooperation to be maintained, the EU institutions would need to break new ground and there may be tough political compromises to make on either side, including over the role of the ECJ.

In the latest example of the work of Europol, the UK joined 16 other member states earlier this year in uncovering the identity of child victims of sexual abuse posted on the internet.

“The UK has exported 8,000 people under the European arrest warrant and imported a thousand, it is an active user, but there you are talking about an element of the acquis [EU law] and legal and criminal proceedings, so you have to have some level of arbitration,” King said. “The existing level of arbitration is the European court of justice, so that is an issue that will have to be worked through in the negotiations.”

He added that it may be possible for a new independent arbitration body to be established to avoid the ECJ being directly involved, but that it would be rulings made by the court in Luxembourg that would be at issue when the new body came to adjudicate. “By definition the jurisprudence relating to the European arrest warrant is ECJ jurisprudence,” he said.

Along with leaving the single market and ending the free movement of people, Theresa May has set taking back control of British law and ending the jurisdiction of the ECJ as a test of whether the UK has left the bloc.

A softening of Downing Street’s position on the ECJ would be likely to be fiercely resisted by some senior Tory MPs, who accuse the the court in Luxembourg of eroding British sovereignty.

Asked whether he agreed with the prime minister that no deal with the EU would be better than a bad deal, King said: “You are not going to get me to comment on aspects of the UK government’s position. From the commission’s point of view on terrorism, cyber and serious organised crime, we have a shared assessment of the threat and we are stronger countering them if we are working together.”

King, a former ambassador to France who was nominated last year by David Cameron for his post in Brussels following the referendum, said the European commission believed continued cooperation on security was in everyone’s interests, and the European council’s negotiating guidelines outlining the EU’s negotiating position indicated a willingness to come to a deal.

He added that the UK’s decision last year to opt back in to Europol, which from Monday is more firmly under the control of the commission and has greater flexibility in sharing criminals’ data, suggested the UK felt the same.

Up to 40% of traffic through Europol comes from the UK or concerns issues involving the UK. Between 2015 and 2016 the number of enquiries the UK made of the Schengen information system, which holds an 8,000-name watchlist of suspected terror suspects and is used to monitor those coming in and out of the EU, increased by 100%.

But King said: “At the moment there are no precedents for non-EU member states having a link to the Schengen information system. So if the UK wanted that, it would have to be something to be discussed, it would have to be a particular bespoke arrangement.

“There is no precedent for such a thing. You get into the wider issue of data protection rules and data adequacy. An overall arrangement on data adequacy, ie the EU recognising that it accepted the level of data protection in the UK.”

King, who will be the last commissioner from Britain in Brussels, added of membership of Europol: “Just because you want something doesn’t mean it is easy.

“Full membership as such, at the moment, is available to EU member states. So it would have to be, if the UK wanted it, subject to discussion and agreement with the member states, something new and different, the terms of which and how that operates would have to be agreed.

“The issue that at some point will need to be confronted is two years down the track, if you don’t have something sorted out for the day that there is a change, then you have a problem and a potential gap.”

Denmark opted not to be a member of Europol, and has come to an arrangement under which it is able to ask for data, rather than have direct access. “They have to present effectively a request to Europol to say: ‘We would like to be working with you on this, that or the other,’” King said. “It is obviously short of the situation that member states are in and the UK is in, having opted in to the new regulation.” The Danish position was “workable”, he added, but it “does make it a bit more cumbersome to organise your security”.

Police hunt car that struck and killed four-year-old boy in Leeds

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Tributes have been left to a four-year-old boy who died after being hit by a car outside a medical centre in Leeds.

Flowers and a teddy were tied to traffic lights on a crossing outside the Reginald Centre on Chapeltown Road.

West Yorkshire police said officers were called to the scene of the collision at about 4.50pm on Saturday.

A spokesman said: “Emergency services, including ambulance, were at the scene in three minutes and found a four-year-old child with serious injuries.

“The young boy was taken to Leeds General Infirmary and was sadly pronounced deceased.” The child’s parents are being supported by specialist officers.

Police said a Vauxhall Corsa was travelling away from the city centre on Chapeltown Road northbound when it hit the child.

Officers are appealing for information from anyone who may have witnessed the collision or seen the vehicle beforehand. There have been no arrests.

Markings made on the road by collision investigators appear to show that the incident happened on or close to the pelican crossing outside the Reginald Centre, a community hub housing a medical centre as well as council services.

Chapeltown Road is a busy road into the city and the area is usually bustling with people, with a number of shops and cafes close by.

There was no sign of emergency services activity on Sunday morning and traffic was running on the road as normal.