Top story: Push to broaden FoI laws

Hello – Warren Murray with you at the halfway point of the week.

The government is being urged to adopt changes to freedom of information laws that might have exposed fire safety failings before the Grenfell Tower disaster. Housing associations including the body that managed Grenfell would be made subject to FoI requests under a private member’s bill going before parliament. It would also place firms like Carillion, G4S and Serco under greater public scrutiny.

“The general public has a right to know as much about Carillion or Serco when they are given public contracts or providing public services as we do about public authorities doing the same work,” says the Labour MP Andy Slaughter, who is proposing the bill. When Carillion collapsed with the loss of thousands of jobs, there had been little advance notice of its financial vulnerability. And Grenfell residents had tried before the fire to get information but the building’s managers were able to claim exemption as a non-public body.

Slaughter, the MP for Hammersmith, has campaigned about high-rise fire risks since a 2016 blaze in a Shepherd’s Bush tower block not far from Grenfell. Other areas that would be subject to FoIs under Slaughter’s bill include local safeguarding children boards, electoral registration officers, returning officers and the housing ombudsman.

Quick catch-up - Here is the latest on some developing stories.

> In news just breaking this morning, Saudi-led forces have launched their threatened assault to reclaim Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah from Houthi rebels. Aid agencies fear it could push the Arab world’s poorest country into further chaos.

> Whether the Trump-Kim meeting produced a “deal” on denuclearisation appears debatable. Kim has won a halt to US military exercises (a big tradeoff) and an invitation to the White House, while giving only his signature on a vaguely worded statement that reaffirmed previously stated intentions. And then there was that weird video …

> Theresa May has staved off Commons defeat on her Brexit bill after giving assurances to rebel Tory MPs on a “meaningful vote” for parliament. The government won all 11 votes on amendments and more votes take place today.

> The Brexit donor Arron Banks has been questioned by MPs about his dealings with Russia, including lunching and boozing with its ambassador. Banks suggested he made a practice of lying to journalists and politicians during the EU referendum.

> Macedonia has agreed to rename itself the Republic of Northern Macedonia – to placate Greece, which wanted a clear territorial distinction between the former Yugoslav republic and the Greek province of the same name.

Fatal selfie – A couple probably fell to their deaths while taking a selfie above a seaside cliff, officials in Portugal say. The bodies of a man in his 40s and a woman in her 30s were found on the Praia dos Pescadores (Fishermen’s Beach) at the bottom of a 40-metre drop. “Since we found a mobile phone on the wall, everything suggests the victims might have been taking a selfie, when they allowed the phone to fall, leaned over to grab it and fell,” said a local rescue official. One victim was an Australian, and authorities in Australia said they had been in contact with Britain’s Foreign Office about the other person.

Tesla job cuts – Elon Musk is expected to fire more than 3,000 staff from his electric car company. Tesla is under intense pressure to prove that it can achieve mass production of the Model 3 and reach Musk’s goal of turning out 5,000 cars a week – originally promised for the end of 2017. The job cuts will be centred on salaried employees, not factory workers, says Musk.

Ireland on referendum roll – After the success of the abortion referendum, Ireland is moving to continue its constitutional overhaul with a vote to remove the offence of blasphemy. The referendum is likely to be held on the same day as the next presidential election, due this November at the latest.

Lunchtime read: Why don’t more women ride bicycles?

“Fifty-one per cent of the UK population is female, yet most of our cities are failing to design roads and streets for women to cycle.” So says Xavier Brice, from Sustrans, which campaigns to get people out of their cars. Is he right that metropolitan planners are to blame for half as many women as men getting around on bicycles?

“The main reason most women don’t cycle in the UK is because they think it is dangerous,” writes north of England editor and avid cyclist Helen Pidd. “When they sit on the top deck of a bus and look down to see a cyclist squashed up against the kerb they feel no compulsion whatsoever to join them … 10 out of 13 cyclists killed in London in 2009 were women, and eight of them were killed by left-turning HGVs.” Seventy-six percent of women say segregated lanes would persuade them to cycle. Until there are more, Pidd writes, “when women tell me cycling is too dangerous I can’t, in good conscience, persuade them otherwise”.

Sport

Greg Rutherford, the former Olympic long jump champion, will retire after the summer due to an ongoing injury. “At times I am in so much pain I can’t even sit on the floor and play with my two kids,” he says before his greatest leap into the unknown.

England’s rugby union players have held a meeting to discuss their on-field discipline and vowed to clean up their act in the second Test against South Africa on Saturday. The wait is nearly over and the World Cup is just around the corner; but before the tournament in Russia gets under way, our writers deliver their predictions. Arsenal have agreed a £26.4m (€30m) deal to sign the Sampdoria midfielder Lucas Torreira and were discussing personal terms with the Uruguayan’s representatives in Milan yesterday.

England’s women levelled their one-day series with a comfortable win over South Africa, highlighted by a pair of superlative hundreds from Tammy Beaumont and Sarah Taylor, while the men’s captain, Eoin Morgan, has accepted a request from Australia for players on both sides to line up for handshakes before their much-anticipated ODI series opener at the Oval today.

Business

Asian stocks have mostly fallen after a muted market response to the Trump-Kim summit. Investors are turning to this week’s central bank meetings: the Fed today will deliberate on a rate rise of 0.25%, while the ECB on Thursday will consider the future of its stimulus programme, and the Bank of Japan will give a policy update on Friday. The pound is worth $1.336 and $1.137 at time of writing.

The papers

There are two big stories today and most papers have the Trump-Kim summit, the Brexit vote in the Commons, or both on their fronts. The Guardian, FT and Telegraph have photographs and stories about the Singapore talks but give Brexit top billing. “May escapes Brexit bill defeat as Tory rebels accept concession” is the Guardian splash. The FT leads with: “Tory rebels force May into Brexit climbdown”, and the Telegraph says: “Three ministers ‘meet anti-Brexit group over second referendum’”. The Express splits the front page evenly between the two stories – its headlines are: “May fights off Brexit rebels” and “Taming of the tyrant”.

The Times has Brexit on the front, but splashes with “No more games: Trump gives path to peace”. There’s nothing of North Korea on the front of the Sun, which is so furious about the Brexit bill that it opts for a Theresa May/Star Wars pun: “May the farce be with you”. Marching to the beat of its own drum, the Mirror has a story on headteachers demanding: “Teach our kids web safety”.

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