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Eagle how the pay settlement for health workers will be funded.
Hunt says, as with all pay settlements, departments fund them from the money they get in the spending review. But in exceptional circumstances they can speak to the Treasury about extra help.
But we make a commitment that there will not be a degredation of frontline services for the public.
Continue reading...Mexico’s president says fire was caused by migrants lighting mattresses in protest at planned deportations
Rights groups have blamed poor conditions and overcrowding for a fire that killed at least 40 migrants from Central and South America at a migrant detention centre in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city on the US border.
The fire, which broke out late on Monday, was caused by migrants setting fire to mattresses in protest after discovering they would be deported, Mexico’s president said. “They didn’t think that would cause this terrible tragedy,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador told a news conference. He did not provide more details about how so many died.
Continue reading...Kit Malthouse tells home secretary of risks of moving substance from legitimate market into the illegitimate market
As Alex Wickham from Politico points out, the questions Rishi Sunak is getting this morning suggest this audience is not happy with the government’s record on crime.
Q: The Conservatives have “dropped the ball a little bit, to be honest”. The questioner says laughing gas is the least of their problems. People are using much harder drugs. He has skimmed through the action plan document. Some of it is good. But punishments need to be firmer. People probably won’t turn up for community sentences. And the government needs to tackle drugs at source.
Continue reading...New Human Rights Watch head Tirana Hassan says UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers is ‘cheap politics’
The UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda would “completely erode” Britain’s standing on the world stage, the new head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.
Tirana Hassan, who takes over as HRW’s executive director on Monday, also said other conservative governments in Europe were considering following Britain’s lead and looking at African states as an offshore dumping ground for asylum seekers, potentially dealing further blows to established refugee protections.
Continue reading...Latest tragedy comes as authorities in north African country crack down on undocumented people
At least 29 people from sub-Saharan Africa have died while trying to reach Italy after two boats carrying them across the Mediterranean sank off the coast of Tunisia.
The deaths, which occurred early on Sunday, are the latest tragedies involving people departing from the north African country, where the authorities have launched a crackdown on undocumented people from sub-Saharan Africa.
Continue reading...Refugee Council figures reveal potential human and economic cost of government’s illegal migration bill
Nearly 200,000 people, including more than 40,000 children, could be locked up or forced into destitution if the government’s controversial illegal migration bill becomes law, according to new analysis by the Refugee Council.
The charity has used government data and the numbers of asylum seekers the Home Office said it hopes to deport from the UK, to project how many people are likely to either be forcibly removed or left in limbo in the first three years of the new legislation if it becomes law, at a cost to the taxpayer of around £9bn. Home Office officials say they do not recognise these figures.
Continue reading...Former prime minister’s session with inquiry will be televised
Humza Yousaf, the Scottish health secretary who is seen by many as the frontrunner in the SNP leadership contest, claimed this morning that his support has “dramatically increased” among SNP voters.
Speaking on a visit in Dundee, he acknowledged that he and his opponents’ approval ratings were a long way behind Nicola Sturgeon’s. “What we’re trying to do is build upon that legacy,” he said.
In three weeks I’ve also quadrupled my support among the Scottish public.
If I’ve been able to do that in three weeks, I believe that bodes well for the next three months and even the next three years.
Continue reading...Crowd demonstrate in Westminster as MPs debate government’s controversial immigration reforms
Hundreds of people have gathered in Parliament Square to protest against the government’s controversial new asylum and migration law as MPs debated the measures in the Commons.
The crowd, which first congregated around the Winston Churchill statue, chanted “What do we want? Safe passage. When do we want it? Now”, and “Who built the NHS? Migrants built the NHS.” Many held placards, which read “migrants and refugees welcome here: blame austerity, not migrants”.
Continue reading...Hundreds of migrants tried to race across the Paso del Norte bridge to El Paso after false internet post said the border was open
Hundreds of people near an El Paso, Texas, border crossing who tried to enter the US from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on Sunday were met with physical barricades erected by shield-wielding authorities, according to reports on what is the latest episode to pit US immigration officials against a group of migrants.
Many of the migrants, who were largely Venezuelan, had gone to the center of the Paso del Norte international bridge to determine whether a rumor that the border had been temporarily opened to them was true, the Texas Tribune reported. Many trying to flee lives in Mexico, where they cannot legally work and are often confronted by police, had hurried through toll booths on the Mexican side of the bridge and arrived at the center.
Continue reading...Downing Street declines to say whether PM has confidence in BBC director-general after furore over Match of the Day presenter
The former journalist and Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell praised Lineker for his “professionalism, accountability and integrity” and Tim Davie for “admitting they got it wrong” after the BBC apology.
Before the BBC statement, the former BBC director of news James Harding told Radio 4’s Today programme that the corporation had got itself into a bit of a muddle over impartiality.
Continue reading...Search continues for seven more people after small craft suspected to have been carrying 15 migrants overturned off Black’s Beach
At least eight people were killed when two suspected smuggling boats approached a San Diego beach and one capsized, authorities said. Crews were searching on Sunday for an estimated seven additional victims.
A woman on one of the panga-style boats called 911 late on Saturday to report that the other vessel overturned in waves off Black’s Beach, US coast guard petty officer Richard Brahm said.
Continue reading...PM announces £500m package to stop people trying to cross Channel, after meeting Emmanuel Macron in Paris
Britain will help fund a detention centre in northern France as part of a £500m package to stop refugees trying to cross the Channel, Rishi Sunak has said, amid continuing criticism of his plans to lock up and deport those arriving in small boats.
After a meeting in Paris, Sunak and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said they had agreed joint funding for more French border patrols, including 500 additional officers and new drones.
Continue reading...Alternative für Deutschland leaders were among those lauding Sunak’s bill, while other EU figures raised doubts about its legality
European far-right leaders have praised Rishi Sunak’s illegal immigration bill, after a senior EU official repeated her doubts about the legality of the plans.
“Bravo,” wrote the Alternative für Deutschland party on social media. “Way to go! The current [British] government plans now to deny asylum to illegal immigrants and fly them out to Rwanda,” the party wrote on Facebook, saying Germany should follow this approach. “When will we finally have it?”
Continue reading...Kate Forbes, Ash Regan and Humza Yousaf take part in debate hosted by Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Lucy Frazer won’t be happy. (See 10.40am.) Interviewed by reporters leaving home this morning, Gary Lineker said that he had had a conversation with the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie. He would not reveal what was said. “We chat often,” was all Lineker said.
But Lineker did not look chastened. In fact, he was smiling like a Cheshire cat. Asked if he regretted sending his tweet, he replied “No,” and, asked if he stood by what he said, he replied, “Of course.”
Continue reading...Latest updates: home secretary says ‘it’s vital we fix this problem’ as Rishi Sunak prepares to face Keir Starmer at PMQs
Suella Braverman has denied the government is breaking the law with its illegal migration bill in interviews this morning. But, as my colleague Aletha Adu reports, Braverman struggled to clarify if the Olympian Sir Mo Farah would have been deported as soon as he turned 18 years old under the proposed regulations.
Good morning. When Rishi Sunak made five pledges in January, four of them looked relatively easy to meet, and one of them looked impossible. He promised to “pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed”.
Continue reading...In Australia, hostile rhetoric has fuelled a toxic public debate and sought to dehumanise people fleeing harm
“Stop the boats.” The white-on-red slogan on Rishi Sunak’s podium on Tuesday was – word for word – the slogan used by Tony Abbott to win the Australian prime ministership a decade ago.
To Australian audiences, so much of the rhetoric emerging from the UK over its small boats policy is reminiscent of two decades of a toxic domestic debate. A succession of Australian prime ministers have led the rhetorical charge against asylum seekers, insisting that their arrival is an issue of “national security” and “border protection”. They are “illegals”, “queue jumpers” and “terrorists”, Australians have been told, while people-smugglers are the “scum of the earth”.
Continue reading...UNHCR says bill extinguishes the right to seek refugee protection in the UK for those who arrive irregularly
Downing Street has said that Rishi Sunak is going to Dover to meet frontline officers dealing with small boat crossings. He will then return to London for a press conference later in the afternoon.
One of the questions raised by Rishi Sunak’s small boats bill – or illegal migration bill, to give it its formal name – is to what extent ministers believe it will work, and to what extent they are not that bothered about whether it works because they believe that, if it fails, they will be able to use this in election campaign against Labour.
Unlike Labour who have voted against taking action on this issue, this government has a plan to break the business model of people smugglers.
A plan to do what’s fair for those at home and those who have a legitimate claim to asylum – a plan to take back control of our borders once and for all.
Labour and others who oppose these measures are betraying hard-working Brits up and down the country - they don’t have any answers themselves but they will still seek to block us in parliament.
Continue reading...Lawyers condemn EU asylum policies and demand freedom for young Afghans jailed for 2020 blaze at ‘hellish’ Lesbos camp
A new investigation has casts doubt on evidence used to imprison six Afghan teenagers over a fire that destroyed much of a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Four were sentenced to 10 years in jail for “arson with risk to endanger life” and two were given five years by a youth court. The fire reduced much of the infamous “hell on earth” Moria refugee camp to ashes in September 2020.
Continue reading...Immigration Service Union says criminals will get people across channel before rules change
Good morning. Rishi Sunak started the year with two urgent, intractable problems in his in-tray. Last week he unveiled a solution to the Northern Ireland protocol problem which has attracted more support, and less opposition, than had been expected. Tomorrow he will unveil his legislation to “stop small boats”.
Sunak announced the key elements of his plan in December. There has been more briefing over the weekend, but nothing that substantially alters what we were told three months ago, and nothing that addresses the claims made by many experts in asylum law who argue that trying to stop small boat crossings by legislating to say that people who arrive in the UK illegally will be banned from claiming asylum here just won’t work. The Nationality and Borders Act passed last year already says migrants arriving in the UK illegally are not eligible to claim asylum, but the small boats keep coming.
Not as things stand at the moment. In fact, it’s actually going to be the converse when these things are published and announced in this way.
What it actually does is fuel the service, if you like, that the criminals provide.
Continue reading...Asylum seekers in Karachi tell of terror of being sent back to the Taliban and despair at being shackled and held in Pakistani jails
Refugees are reportedly dying in Pakistani prisons, and children are being arrested and tied together with ropes, as a wave of detentions and deportations spreads fearamong the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have crossed the border since the Taliban took power.
According to lawyers representing Afghans in detention, at least four people have died in custody, and thousands more, including children, are being held in prisons as Pakistan hardens its stance against Afghan citizens.
Continue reading...