have a tentative deal with the united auto workers union. general motors was the last to settle. jeep maker stellantis reached an agreement on saturday. ford announced its deal last week with this positive reaction from one ford employee, walter robinson. it s definitely going to be life changing for the people. a career and notjust a job. gm said it was pleased with the outcome, with ceo mary barra, adding that the deal would allow it to continue to invest in our future and provide good jobs in the united states. the agreements which still need to be ratified by rank and file union members include a 25% wage increase over four and a half years, as well as other benefits for the uaw. this is a big win. historically, the union has negotiated new contracts with one car maker at a time. by taking on all three at once, uaw president sean fain successfully pitted them against each other. for the past several weeks. analysts and pundits were crying that our union was going too far.
about a developing story today. it s against the rules for taxpayers cash to be used in campaigning, but there have been allegations over the last week that snp staffers have been using postage stamps paid for with public money for campaign purposes. and the mail on sunday has a story today, that someone in your office was involved in discussions about the use of stamps allegedly paid for by the public purse. what do you say to that? well, i ve obviously discussed this with my staff and i have been assured that no parliamentary stamps that have been provided by parliament have been used to support election purposes and obviously the parliament has said they are looking into this matter and obviously will provide parliament with any assistance that they require as they undertake those inquiries was white one one whatsapp message reported this morning sent to an snp group chat, your assistant wrote, the stamp fairy is very useful when it comes to campaigns. who is the stamp fa
of fact checkers busy here at bbc verify. let s start with a claim that s dominated the debate this week. angela rayner and the labour party, keir starmer confirmed this earlier this week, they are going to put up your taxes by £2,000. no we won t. that s a lie. by £2,000 per working household. penny, your government have raised taxes. crosstalk. we have, and we hated putting the taxes up. we ve looked at this a lot in the last few days and the figure is misleading because the £2,000 is over four years and the figures the conservatives have used to calculate it are dubious. both the conservatives and labour are promising not to increase income tax, national insurance or vat during the next parliament. obviously there s a lot of politics in this too, but when it comes to the facts, that s where we re at. there was also a big claim that cuts are coming when it comes to public spending, whoever gets the keys to number ten. there s £18 billion of cuts coming down the line agr
signs of hitting the brakes. in a new report published today, the house of commons public accounts committee says that the unimaginable cost of test & trace has failed to deliver the central promise of averting a second and third lockdown. the committee chair said that the british taxpayers cannot be treated by government like an atm machine any longer. the scheme was introduced in may last year, and began with a budget of £22 billion. since then it has been allocated £15 billion more, totalling £37 billion over two years. the report also questioned the over reliance on consultants, with some being paid more than £6600 a day. joining me now is sarah olney, who s the liberal democrats mp for richmond park and is also on the committee. tell us more about why this test and trace system, many are concluding in the report, just did not work. concluding in the report, “ust did not worki concluding in the report, “ust did not work. ., . did not work. good morning. we to