Hospitals urged to sack parking pirate squads after it emerges three-quarters of trusts use them to patrol car parks. Daily Mail

  Firms targeting patients with extortionate 'fines' during appointments

  Trusts also using private companies to hound patients for payments

  Government announces formal investigation into parking cowboys

  Politicians call on hospitals to sack companies issuing unfair tickets

Hospitals last night faced huge pressure to sack pirate parking squads after it emerged more than three quarters of NHS  trusts are using them to police their car parks.

Rogue firms have been given free rein across the majority of the country, allowing them to target patients with extortionate ‘fines’ during their medical appointments.

A Daily Mail survey found many trusts are also using private companies to hound patients for payments, with threats of court hearings.

Politicians and campaigners last night called on hospitals to sack firms found to be issuing unfair tickets.

Sarah Wollaston, chairman of the Commons health select committee, said: ‘If they are behaving in an unscrupulous way, targeting the most vulnerable patients, then they should be stripped of their contracts.’ 

The former GP and Tory MP for Totnes added: ‘Patients may end up with fines for something that is no fault of their own. I don’t think the NHS can wash their hands of responsibility.’

Conservative MP Andrew Percy, also on the committee, described tactics used in NHS car parks as ‘totally unacceptable’, adding: ‘The problem the trusts have is that they have to upgrade the parking facilities and if they don’t charge it will come out of the NHS budget.

‘But what they are doing is contracting this work out and then washing their hands of it.’

Campaigner Roger Goss, from Patient Concern, added: ‘We understand they are desperate to raise more money but this is a disreputable way of going about it.’

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Further Reading:

We will curb the parking cowboys, says Cabinet Minister: Victory for Mail campaign as official probe is launched into bully boys, Daily Mail

We've lost the faith of public on immigration, says Clegg: Deputy PM thinks people do not believe what ministers tell them as it doesn't tally with what they see on the ground. Daily Mail

  Deputy Prime Minister due to give a speech on immigration tomorrow

  He will say people are 'repeatedly told one thing only to see another'

  Clegg will speak out in favour of free movement of European citizens

  But he will seek reforms ensuring fewer Eastern Europeans move here if more countries are admitted to the EU in future

  Labour's Rachel Reeves will also call for reforms to freedom of movement

The public has lost faith in government claims about tackling immigration because it does not tally with what they see on the ground, Nick Clegg will admit. 

In a speech on immigration tomorrow, the Deputy Prime Minister will say it is ‘no wonder’ that people do not believe what ministers tell them when they have been ‘repeatedly told one thing only to then see another’.

He will speak out in favour of the free movement of European citizens but seek reforms to ensure that fewer Eastern Europeans move here if more countries are admitted to the EU in future.

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Calais in crisis over UK-bound migrants: Tensions at boiling point as riot police prepare to move in on 'Jungle 2', the camp housing thousands desperate to make Britain their home . Daily Mail

  Court deadline for migrants to leave illegal camp expires this morning

  Water supplies at camp cut off and police move in to clear 1,000 migrants

  Migrants started camping at 'Jungle 2' near busy road three months ago

  Mayor of Calais calls for new Sangatte-style accommodation centre

  Original Red Cross camp at Sangatte was shut down in 2002

  Britain accepted some migrants in deal but others moved to makeshift camp

Calais was at crisis point last night as French riot police prepared to raze a camp of East African migrants desperate to make their way to Britain.

Police vans patrolled the town ahead of the imminent crackdown as a court deadline for migrants to leave the illegal camp known as Jungle 2 expired.

It comes as the mayor of Calais called for a new Sangatte-style accommodation centre to be built.

The original was closed in 2002 after triggering a British immigration crisis. 

Last night, tensions at the camp were at breaking point as water supplies were cut off and gendarmes prepared to move in to clear the 1,000 migrants living there.

Numbers have swollen in recent weeks as more and more people from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan make their way to the already crowded settlement and the surrounding countryside. 

But aid workers last night criticised the planned raids, insisting that closing the camp would not deal with the problem if no alternative solution was proposed.

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Further Reading:

My Uttermost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers , The Brave Friendship of God, Daily Devotionals

Oh, the bravery of God in trusting us! Do you say, “But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing good in me and I have no value”? That is exactly why He chose you. As long as you think that you are of value to Him He cannot choose you, because you have purposes of your own to serve. But if you will allow Him to take you to the end of your own self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him “to Jerusalem” (Luke 18:31). And that will mean the fulfilment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.

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Labour MPs tell Ed to sack Balls or we will lost the next Election: Shadow Chancellor under fire after he blocks extra health tax.

  A whispering campaign against Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has started

  Mr Balls is fighting battle with Andy Burnham over their manifesto policies 

  He has categorically ruled out a ring-fenced tax to boost funding for NHS

  MPs have now put Labour's Ed Miliband under pressure to sack Mr Balls

  A whispering campaign against Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has started

  Mr Balls is fighting battle with Andy Burnham over their manifesto policies 

  He has categorically ruled out a ring-fenced tax to boost funding for NHS

  MPs have now put Labour's Ed Miliband under pressure to sack Mr Balls

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Tom Hunter publishes Scottish independence info, The Scotsman

With just weeks to go until Scotland’s historic independence referendum, new leaflets and information booklets are being made available to help voters north of the border make up their minds.

A new e-book has been launched today, featuring contributions from leading academics who have been examining key issues in the debate.

A paperback version of the book, titled Scotland’s Decision - 16 Questions to think about for the referendum on 18 September, is also planned by its producers, which include businessman Sir Tom Hunter’s Hunter Foundation.

At the same time the Scottish Government is spending £550,000 sending a 12 page guide to the opportunities it says independence offers to all 2.5 million homes north of the border.

Meanwhile the UK Government will this week start sending out a leaflet to Scottish homes, setting it out what it believes are the five main benefits of remaining in the Union.

But Sir Tom said the decision voters will make on September 18 was “too important to leave to politicians to inform us”.

The Ayrshire-born entrepreneur said: “Like many voters, I am genuinely undecided, but I don’t feel that the campaigns so far have given me the facts and unbiased assessment to make a properly informed decision. I know I am not alone in thinking this way.

“A recent poll commissioned by the Hunter Foundation and published in early July showed 56% of undecided voters simply don’t feel they have enough impartial information to make a decision. And 45% of all voters claim they don’t trust either the UK or the Scottish Government’s predictions

“This series of papers we hope will bring some light upon the critical issues voters may wish to consider in making up their minds when they put a cross on the ballot paper on September 18.”

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Darling’s ultimate TV test... save the Union in two hours. Daily Mail.

It will be the most important televised clash in British history. On Tuesday night, Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling will debate Scottish independence.

 With only six weeks to go to the referendum, more than a million Scots are expected to tune in. Salmond has two hours to revive the flagging case for Scottish independence – and Darling two hours to secure the Union.

Salmond has been preparing intensively for this debate. The word is that he is relying on a lifestyle coach to help make sure he sounds sufficiently upbeat.

As one of his opponents observes: ‘If shouty Salmond turns up, he’ll turn off women.’

Darling is under a different kind of pressure. One big slip and he puts the entire Union in jeopardy. He will spend this weekend conducting mock debates against people playing Alex Salmond.

His team feels that after two years of public meetings and interviews on independence, he knows what he wants to say and how he wants to say it.

But this hasn’t stopped nervousness in London about how Darling will perform. Some Cabinet Ministers are fretting that Darling isn’t Scottish enough.

This might seem a bizarre thing to say about someone who went to school and university in Scotland and sits for Edinburgh South West in the House of Commons.

But in Salmond’s world, Westminster is a foreign country.

‘Salmond will play dirty,’ warns one Cabinet Minister. ‘He won’t hesitate to try to portray Alistair as an English lackey.’

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