Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
AMAZON WINS £200M IN PUBLIC CONTRACTS
and
TAX row internet giant Amazon has landed Government contracts worth more than £200million.
The deals – largely to store digital data – came as Chancellor Rishi Sunak pledged a tax blitz on online firms.
Since December, Amazon
Web Services has renewed deals worth £120million with the Home Office and £57million with the Department of Work and Pensions.
Tie-ups with the likes of Public Health England, the Cabinet Office and DVLA are worth another £23million.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s UK online sales soared £2billion in lockdown and the fortune of owner Jeff Bezos hit a mindblowing £136billion.
Labour’s Chi Onwurah said of the deals: “It is deeply worrying how dependent we are on the company.”
The Cabinet Office said: “Amazon Web Services is just one of the Government’s thousands of cloud service providers. Procurement decisions are always based on value and the best services.”
AWS said the deals benefit an “ecosystem” of smaller UK firms and added: “Public sector organisations use the UK branch of AWS Europe which registers its sales in the UK and pays all taxes.”
Well, the highlight of my week was Pancake Day. I don’t know what it is about flour, milk and eggs that gets my kids so excited, but as soon as I’ve flipped one pancake, they’re standing there for more. The tradition in my house, however, is savoury first and sweet later, which seemed to upset some of my social media followers. One wrote: “Saira, I’ve never seen anyone put tuna and cheese in a pancake before!”
They were a lot more complimentary when I showed a reel of me spreading a thick layer of chocolate spread on to a pancake. One follower commented: “I was just about to unfollow you for being unkind to your kids, but now I’ve seen you’ve got the chocolate spread out, I’m liking you again.” Wow, I never knew there was so much passion over pancakes – now I know how to keep my followers sweet!