THE GUARDIAN
Cameron announces Tory plan to slash benefits
Housing benefit for under-25s and benefits for lone parents under threat as PM attacks 'culture of entitlement'
By Patrick Wintour
David Cameron will on Monday launch a scathing attack on what he calls the "culture of entitlement" in the welfare system, as he warns that claimants with three or more children may start to lose access to benefits, and almost everyone aged under 25 will lose housing benefit.
The prime minister will claim there is now a damaging and divisive gap in Britain between those enjoying privileges inside the welfare system and those resentfully struggling outside. It is likely to be seen on the left as the death knell for Cameron's brand of compassionate conservatism.
He will also single out lone parents of multiple children as a focus for cuts and insist the welfare system should be a safety net available only to those with no independent means of support. The reforms could see a range of benefits targeted, including income support payments.
The speech represents a shift in the prime minister's political management of the coalition because he will openly acknowledge that some of the proposals cannot be delivered in concert with the Liberal Democrats, and will have to wait for a Conservative majority government after 2015.
THE INDEPENDENT
Middle-class elderly to escape the pain as PM turns on the out-of-work
By Oliver Wright
David Cameron is to rule out means testing benefits for the elderly as a way of finding the extra £10bn needed to balance Britain's books.
In a speech today the Prime Minister will say he will not renege on his election pledge to maintain universal state pensions, winter fuel allowances and free transport for the over 65s. Instead the Tories are likely to go into the election promising swingeing welfare cuts to eliminate the structural deficit at the expense of the young and jobless.
Signalling a harsh line on welfare payments, Mr Cameron will argue the benefits system has become too skewed in favour of those who don't work.
THE TELEGRAPH
Fury as NatWest bank glitch drags on
RBS is warning its 17 million customers that the backlog caused by a technical glitch could take at least another two days to clear, meaning that the computer failure will have lasted for more than a week.
By James Hall and Harry WIlson
Customers deluged online forums with complaints yesterday, saying that they were unable to pay bills and were concerned about the impact it could have on their credit ratings.
The crisis has hit customers at RBS and two of its subsidiaries, NatWest and Ulster, and the bank admitted that the chaos caused by a technical glitch is so severe that it does not even know how many accounts are affected.
Yesterday, more than 1,200 NatWest branches were opened on a Sunday for the first time in its history, while a further 1,000 branches will be open until 7pm today in an attempt to ease the problem.
RBS has pledged to compensate affected customers by refunding overdraft charges or penalty fees incurred because of the computer glitch, and help them deal with credit rating agencies. However, it was not clear how long it would take to make refunds.
DAILY MAIL
Customers express their fury as NatWest technical fiasco goes into a SIXTH day
By Vanessa Allen
NatWest customers face another day of chaos today as the bank struggles to cope with the fallout from a computer failure last Tuesday that left them unable to withdraw cash.
Wages have gone unpaid and customers have been unable to withdraw money, pay bills or use credit cards.
Yesterday, account holders queued as 1,200 branches opened for the first time on a Sunday to clear the backlog of payments.
However, many complained that the banks were open only from 9am to noon, which did not give them enough time to take money out to pay for food and other essentials.
FINANCIAL TIMES
MPC member wants £50bn easing
By Chris Giles, Economics Editor
The Bank of England needs to pump at least another £50bn into Britain’s “stalled” economy, says David Miles of its interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, warning that only a “substantial” third round of emergency bond-buying will kick-start recovery.
His comments, in an interview with the Financial Times, came amid growing expectations that the BoE could embark on more “quantitative easing” as soon as next month, printing money to buy gilts in an attempt to drive down borrowing costs for households and businesses.
Mr Miles voted for additional QE at this month’s meeting of the Bank’s nine-strong Monetary Policy Committee – along with three other members including Sir Mervyn King the governor.
THE TELEGRAPH
Bank of England's money printing is putting UK economy at risk
By Philip Aldrick, Economics Editor
In its annual report, the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warned that artificially low rates and inflated asset prices could also be holding back growth by masking lenders' bad debts and deterring them from cleaning up their balance sheets.
"Prolonged and aggressive monetary accommodation may delay the return to a self-sustaining recovery," BIS said. "It can undermine the perceived need to deal with banks' impaired assets."
Political pressure for loose monetary policy, including quantitative easing (QE), also threatened to damage central banks' credibility and destroy their independence, BIS said.
The world's financial regulator spelt out the risks of relying too heavily on the likes of the Bank of England and other central banks as it pressed Europe's leaders to step up their efforts to fix the eurozone's problems.
THE TIMES
Blair wants ‘grand plan’ for euro - and UK joining
By Michael Savage, Political Correspondent
Britain should consider joining the euro once the current economic crisis raging across the Continent has been resolved, Tony Blair said yesterday.
The former Prime Minister said Britain would face the question of whether to ditch the pound because joining the currency would help the UK compete against the emerging economic powerhouses such as China and India.
“I always took the view that economically, you had to make an unambiguous case for Britain joining,” Mr Blair told BB One’s Andrew Marr Show. “Politically, however, I was always in favour of keeping us very positive towards the project of European integration and able to join at any time we wanted to do so. I think the same is true today.
“If they sort it all out and Europe moves forward again, then Britain’s going to have a very interesting choice in the future. That is going to be the case. And even if they have to reconstruct the euro as a result of what is happening … the rationale for Europe today is not peace any more, it is power.”
DAILY EXPRESS
Lloyds looks at price cut to seal Co-Op branch sale
By David Craik
Lloyds Banking Group is set to cut the £1.5billion sale price of -hundreds of its bank branches to seal a deal with the Co-op. It is understood that Lloyds, led by chief executive Antonio Horta-¬Osorio, is willing to slash the price of its so-called Project Verde business by as much as 50 per cent as a result of the recent volatile markets battering banking shares.
The Project Verde business, consisting of 632 bank branches Lloyds has been ordered to sell by the ¬European Commission for receiving state aid during the banking bailout of 2008, was expected to fetch between £1.5billion and £2billion last year.
It has until November next year to dispose of the branches, which account for an estimated 4.6 per cent share of the UK ¬current account market and up to 19 per cent of Lloyds’ mortgage book with about five million customers.
THE TIMES
Avoiders called to account by Parliament
By Michael Savage
Tax loopholes uncovered by The Times will be investigated by Parliament, the chairman of the powerful House of Commons Public Accounts Committee will reveal today.
Abuses uncovered by a series of articles looking into income tax avoidance “wouldn’t look out of place in a banana republic”, says Margaret Hodge. Writing in this newspaper today, she confirms her committee will demand to know what work the taxman is doing to identify rogue methods and how accountants circumvent the system.
Officials from Revenue & Customs face being hauled before MPs to explain what action they are taking, after revelations that thousands of wealthy people in Britain are able to pay as little as 1 per cent income tax using aggressive financial schemes.
Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said yesterday that cutting Britain’s £35 billion “tax gap” by just a quarter would fund a 2p cut for all basic-rate taxpayers.
In her article, Ms Hodge proposes an overhaul of the Revenue and calls for large companies to be forced to publish details of the deals they make with the taxman.
THE SCOTSMAN
Funeral firm to probe ‘shocking’ practices
The UK’s biggest funeral company has launched an inquiry following allegations that dead bodies were being stored like “television sets” in a warehouse.
Former funeral ombudsman Professor Geoffrey Woodroffe described the practices employed by Co-operative Funeralcare as “shocking” after watching the footage obtained for the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary.
They secretly filmed staff working in a so-called “hub”, a warehouse situated on an industrial estate off a busy motorway. It said the building contained a large refrigerated area where racks of bodies were stored ahead of funerals, with some corpses just centimetres apart from each other.
