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It is an increasingly common message from websites: browse for free - if you allow us to track your data and target you with personalised ads - if you don't, hand over some cash.

The model is known as "consent or pay" and, while it may be becoming increasingly common, questions remain over whether it is ethical or even legal.

The UK data regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has launched a consultation, external on the practice - it will report its findings later this year.

"In principle, data protection law does not prohibit business models that involve 'consent or pay,'" the ICO says on its website.

But it continues: "However, any organisation considering such a model must be careful to ensure that consent... has been freely given and is fully informed, as well as capable of being withdrawn without detriment."
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Newspapers such as MailOnline, The Sun, The Independent and The Times have all recently brought in "consent or pay" models.

"It's basically saying, 'We're giving people a choice. They can either pay and get ad-free access to our articles, or they can be tracked, or they can walk away and not read it,'" Philippa Donn says.

This question being considered by the ICO and others is - is that a fair choice?

Labour lost 37,000 more members during 2023, leaving its total membership at 370,450 at the end of the year.

Although it still has the most members of any UK party, the figure is significantly down from a peak of 532,046 at the end of 2019.

The Liberal Democrats saw their membership fall by around 11,000 to 86,599, though the party said it had seen a rise in new members since its gains in July's general election.

The Conservatives do not publish membership figures, but their income from membership fees fell from £1.97m to £1.5m.

However, the Green Party saw its membership remain stable at around 53,000.

Reform UK said its membership had grown "significantly", although it did not publish figures.
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In a turbulent year for the Scottish National Party, which saw the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon as leader and an ongoing police investigation into the party's finances, its membership fell by around 18,000 to 64,525.

Archive

Reeves intends to introduce a 10-year formula in October’s Budget that will increase annual rents in England by the CPI measure of inflation — currently 2.2 per cent — plus an additional 1 per cent, according to government insiders.

The move is aimed at encouraging the building of more affordable homes by providing certainty over cash flows to housing associations and councils — which are grappling with heavy debt burdens and large maintenance backlogs.

In recent years local authorities have almost stopped building homes, leaving housing associations — not-for-profit organisations — to build most new social housing in the UK.

The government sets rent levels in subsidised social housing using a national formula. Guaranteeing higher rents will delight housing associations but could worsen the cost of living for millions of tenants and could land the government with a much higher benefits bill.
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The previous Conservative government made a similar promise in the early 2010s but ministers subsequently ripped it up on several occasions.

David Cameron’s coalition set a 10-year annual rent settlement in 2012 based on the retail price index, plus 0.5 per cent. But then-chancellor George Osborne reneged on the agreement in 2015 with four years of below-inflation increases in order to reduce housing benefit costs for the Treasury.

More recently, the Conservative government announced a five-year settlement of CPI plus 1 per cent in 2020, but was then forced to cap rent increases at 7 per cent following a jump in inflation to more than 11 per cent in 2022. It extended the settlement for one further year this April.

Although that provided relief for the 30 per cent of the 4mn households in the social housing sector whose rent is not covered by housing benefit, it put further pressure on already cash-strapped providers.
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Labour has made big commitments to address the UK’s chronic affordable housing shortage that has left a record 109,000 households in England living in temporary accommodation, including more than 142,000 children, according to the latest government data.

Angela Rayner, the UK’s deputy prime minister and secretary of state for housing, told MPs last month that the Budget would provide “rent stability” to help deliver the “biggest increase in affordable house building in a generation”. She also promised “appropriate protections” for tenants against exceptional rent rises.

Guaranteeing rent certainty was a critical demand of 20 of the UK’s largest local council landlords who published a report last month warning that England’s council housing system was “broken”.

It warned that councils were facing a £2.2bn “black hole” in housing budgets by 2028, partly as a result of the Osborne-era cuts that they estimated had reduced council landlords’ rent revenue by £2.4bn between 2016 and 2020.

The new-build Perry Barr estate, described by local people as a ghost town, with many flats standing empty for more than a year, was intended to be an athletes’ village for the Commonwealth Games, which Birmingham hosted in 2022.

Due to delays caused by Covid, the development was not completed in time for the event so athletes were housed in student accommodation. The council said the Perry Barr apartments would become homes for local people instead.

But the properties have sat empty for months, with the council unable to sell them due to a lack of “market appetite” for one- and two-bedroom apartments in the area, and issues with mortgage providers valuing the properties at less than they were being sold for.

A report presented to the council’s cabinet last week said selling off 755 properties to a private bidder, who has yet to be named, would result in a “significant loss to the public purse” but was the best outcome.
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The council has spent £325m on the development, of which £292m was borrowed. After selling off the homes, it is expected that £142m-£152m of debt will remain unpaid, costing £8m-£9m a year over a 40-year period to repay, taking the projected total loss in the region of £320m.

The multi-millionaire businessman admits he set up a family trust in the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey more than three decades ago.
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Tice said the trust, called the RJS Tice Family Settlement, was set up to avoid being “double taxed” on his “international investments”.

He would not tell us what "international investments" were in the trust. But in 2016, when it was still offshore in Jersey, Tice transferred one million of his shares in his UK property business Quidnet Reit Limited into the trust.

Quidnet owns £32m worth of commercial property in the UK and the trust now owns a 17% stake which is worth around £3m. Tice told us the beneficiaries of the trust were his three children with his ex-wife and insisted they are all UK taxpayers like him.

The trust was listed by Tice’s company Quidnet as having an address in Jersey as recently as July 2021. Tice said this was just a “correspondence address” and that he had already brought the trust onshore to the UK. But our investigation with the Good Law Project raises awkward questions for Mr Tice and his Reform UK party who present themselves as patriots standing up against “elites”.
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We asked Tice why he accused [union boss Steve Hedley] of libel, he told us: “Because he was alleging/insinuating illegal activity.” We have found a separate company registered in Jersey linked to Tice. Gellymill Limited, with the same Jersey office address as the trust, lent £125,000 to Quidnet in 2022.

Tice told us he was not a director of Gellymill but admitted: “Gellymill is under my ultimate control.” Mr Tice was elected as the MP for Boston and Skegness in last month's general election and is required to declare details of his financial interests, which will be published later this month.

The rules state that MPs must register "formal unpaid roles such as an unpaid directorship, a directorship of a company not currently trading, or a trusteeship".

They must also declare any companies that they own more than 15% of, or shares worth more than £70,000. Mr Tice initially told us he was not declaring Gellymill as he is “not a director so not needed”.

He later added that “as you have asked and taken an interest, I have voluntarily declared to Parliament Authorities the Family Settlement trust which includes Gellymill, even though strictly according to the rules I do not have to”. Asked about his trust in Jersey, he said: "It's been relocated to the UK.

"I was living abroad at the time back in 1990 and it was unclear if I would ever come back to the UK. It is very simple. The reason for the Jersey trust was to avoid double taxation on international investments as I have been an international businessman for much of my career but always UK taxpayer. I have always been a UK taxpayer, as have my children. It was set up when I was living in Paris."

The skipper of a Royal Navy 'bomber boat' submarine that carries nuclear missiles has been given the boot. Top brass saw an X-rated video he made while on duty, according to reports.

The Sun reported that he was in command of a Vanguard-class nuclear submarine, armed with Trident Two missiles, when he shared the graphic vid with a junior sailor on the sub. It is not clear which of the four Vanguard subs – HMS Vanguard, Vengeance, Victorious and Vigilant – he skippered.

Colleagues alleged that the pair had an illicit physical relationship when the bomber boat was at sea, but a Royal Navy source reportedly told the aforementioned title that sex on board did not form part of the investigation.