Office for Budget Responsibility says Rachel Reeves ‘had every right to expect that the [report] would not be publicly available until she sat down at the end of her budget speech’
Q: Yesterday you said Rachel Reeves was lying. Today you are saying she gave out false information. Are you still accusing her of being a liar?
Badenoch replies: “Yes.”
Continue reading...Government announces overnight levy ahead of tomorrow’s budget
John McFall is standing down early as Lord Speaker in the House of Lords so that he can care for his wife, Joan, who has was Parkinson’s. According to Sam Blewett and Bethany Dawson in their London Playbook briefing for Politico, the main candidates to replace him are Michael Forsyth, a rightwing Scottish secretary in the final two years of the John Major government, and Deborah Bull, a crossbencher and former Royal Opera House creative director. They reports:
Labour isn’t expected to put forward a candidate as McFall’s previous political affiliation means it’s seen as another party’s turn to rule the roost, Noah [Keate] writes in to say. Forsyth has garnered support from some Labour grandees who like his traditional approach and aversion to modernization while Bull has being promoted by some female peers keen for a woman to take charge. One Tory peer described Forsyth as a “political animal” who may struggle to encourage a consensus across the chamber. A list of candidates’ register of interests and election addresses (up to 300 words) will be emailed to all peers on Dec. 1. Watch your inboxes!
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander rejected a rival proposal from Arora Group, saying Heathrow’s own plans were “the most credible and deliverable option”.
The Heathrow proposals involve building a 3,500-metre runway and require a new M25 tunnel and bridges to be built 130 metres west of the existing motorway.
Following a comparative assessment of the remaining proposals for Heathrow expansion, the government’s view is that the Northwest runway scheme brought forward by Heathrow Airport Limited offers the most credible and deliverable option, principally due to the relative maturity of its proposal, the comparative level of confidence in the feasibility and resilience of its surface access plans, and the stronger comfort it provides in relation to the efficient, resilient and sustainable operations of the airport over the long-term.
The HAL scheme is considered comparatively more mature in its approach to road infrastructure. While the HAL scheme requires major works to the M25, assessment indicates that the HWL scheme would also have a considerable impact on the M25.
Continue reading...It would be expedient for Reform to take Labour’s advice and disavow ‘Putin talking points’
The discovery of a pro-Russian asset, Nathan Gill, at the heart of a British political party reads like the plot of a John Le Carré novel.
Russia was long known to have been trying to interfere in foreign politics with online bots and cyber-disinformation over the past decade.
Continue reading...As Reform announces what it claims are £25bn in savings through cuts, Labour says ‘Farage’s fantasy numbers don’t add up’
Alf Dubs, the Labour peer and former MP who came to the UK on Kindertransport in 1939 and who campaigns on behalf of migrants, told the Today programme this morning that he was “depressed” by the asylum politicies announced by the government yesterday. He explained:
I find it upsetting that we’ve got to adopt such a hard line – what we need is a bit of compassion in our politics, and I think that some of the measures were going in the wrong direction, they won’t help.
The hard line approach will not, in fact, deter people from coming here – at least on the basis of people I spoke to in Calais, for example – I don’t think it will deter them.
I think there is a proper case for children, there’s a proper case for family reunion – when there are children who are on their own and who’ve got family in this country, then I think the right thing to do is to have family reunion and bringing children over here.
But to use children as a weapon, as the home secretary is doing, I think is a shabby thing – I’m lost for words, frankly, because my concern was that if we remove people who come here, what happens if they’ve had children in the meantime?
Continue reading...Traders report long waits at Sevington inspection post and claim trees and shrubs are repeatedly being damaged
Importers of plants say long delays and damage to shipments at a Kent border control post risk driving up prices and could lead to transport companies stopping deliveries across the Channel.
Traders have reported long waits in recent weeks at the government’s Sevington facility off the M20 near Ashford, which was built to check goods of plant and animal origin arriving from the EU. One importer said delays were adding £200 of costs to each load.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
Lindsay Hoyle starts by telling MPs that speakers from the parliaments in Fiji and Ukraine are in the gallery. And he says it is four years to the day since David Amess was murdered.
It’s PMQs. Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Continue reading...Experts call for urgent strategy to end overfishing as report shows just 41% of stocks of species such as cod and mackerel considered healthy
The UK’s populations of fish such as cod, herring and mackerel are still being “grossly mismanaged” by politicians and overfished, despite hitting unhealthy levels, a study has found.
British fish stocks have been under growing pressure for decades, but during the Brexit campaign some politicians promised that leaving the EU would allow the UK to take control.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor distances himself from words after Robert Jenrick accused of racism in comments he made about Handsworth
Asked about the Jenrick story, Badenoch again suggests Guardian reporting is reliable.
Q: Jenrick was making a distinction between white faces and brown faces.
Continue reading...Reform UK plans to force non-citizens to apply for visas with high salary thresholds and no access to NHS services
Nigel Farage has said Reform UK would scrap the main route that migrants take to gain British citizenship, leaving tens of thousands of legally settled people facing deportation unless they met strict rules.
Farage said the plans would tackle the “Boriswave” – the increase in the number of legal migrants who came to work in the UK under post-Brexit migration rules established under Boris Johnson. Much of that increase was because of schemes from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan to settle refugees.
Continue reading...The MP said police should be focusing on people who are members of the group, not those who ‘recklessly express support’ for it
Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, used his speech to conference this morning to say that the TUC expected the government to deliver its workers’ rights bill “in full”. He said employment rights were “overwhelmingly popular with voters across the political spectrum”.
And he condemned Reform UK for its stance on employment rights. After saying that Nigel Farage claimed to represent working class people, he went on:
Here’s the truth – there is a world of difference between what Nigel says and what Nigel does.
Every single Reform MP, including Mr Farage, voted against outlawing fire and rehire, against banning zero hours contracts and against day one rights for millions of workers.
Ask yourself this fundamental question. Do you believe in your gut that that Nigel Farage really cares about the people of Clacton when he’s off collecting his speaker’s fees in the United States?
Do you believe that Richard Tice really worries about the people of Skegness while he’s living it up at home in Dubai, or are they just rightwing conmen lining their own pockets?
I just have to say this. No amount of TikToks, or ozempic, or expensive haircuts, will ever hide the eager inner ugliness of Robert Jenrick.
The man who ordered murals painted over in a reception centre for children seeking asylum is indeed a xenophobe, an opportunistic xenophobe hoping to create a political climate that ends up with far right folks laying siege to hotels and black and Asian people being threatened and harassed on our streets.
If we look at the powerful geopolitical push factors, they’re things like regime change. We think Afghanistan, war, civil conflict. And when we look at people crossing in small boats, where do they come from? Well, the top nationalities: Afghan, Eritrea, Iranian, Syrian, Sudanese – just those five nationalities account for almost two thirds of all small boat arrivals, and these individuals are from some of the most chaotic parts of the world.
But there are also some pull factors, and the question is, why not claim asylum in France, why come to the UK? A number of reasons recur there when we speak with asylum seekers. It’s the presence of family members, the English language.
In those circumstances, typically, flagged upon the system, the UK government would be able to issue a speedy refuse refusal and try and effect removal.
As it is, people arrive, we don’t have that record, so we don’t know who they are.
Continue reading...Labour MP says she and Reform MP want a committee set up, after news of UK’s post-Brexit environmental rollbacks
Stella Creasy and Richard Tice are pushing for Labour to allow a Brexit scrutiny committee to be formed in parliament, after the Guardian revealed environmental protections had been eroded since the UK left the EU.
The Labour and Reform UK MPs argue that there is no scrutiny or accountability over how Brexit is being implemented. Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow and chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, said the UK needed a “salvage operation” to clear up the environmental and regulatory havoc caused by Brexit.
Continue reading...Former minister says Tories are ignoring heartland voters and risk losing ground to Reform in next election
The Conservatives are “not close to recognising” how badly they are positioned for the next election, the former cabinet minister David Gauke has said.
Gauke, a former justice secretary who also worked in the Treasury under George Osborne, said many in the party were not willing to fully repudiate Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.
Continue reading...Former chancellor says employees’ contributions should rise to help address a £6bn shortfall caused by recent U-turns
The Unite union has voted to re-examine its relationship with the Labour party in the light of the government’s failure to support its members in the Birmingham bin strike.
It has also said it was suspending Angela Rayner’s membership, given her role as minister in charge of the department that oversees local government. The union is in dispute with Birmingham city council over proposals to reorganise waste disposal services in the city, and Unite has repeatedly said the government should step in and force the Labour-led council to settle.
Unite is crystal clear it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette. Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
Continue reading...Biometrics app not ready, meaning travellers through Port of Dover will have to exit vehicles to have identity verified
British citizens who travel frequently to the EU face having their fingerprints individually checked each time they cross the border into the Schengen area because of delays in developing an app to verify biometrics digitally, it has emerged.
It will be “business as usual” this summer but “a big change” in travel will be phased in from November, Doug Bannister, the chief executive of the Port of Dover has said.
Continue reading...Court decision in favour of Alice Bouilliez reignites push for bilateral treaty on electoral enfranchisement
A French court has ordered electoral officials to restore a British woman’s pre-Brexit right to vote in European elections, triggering calls for a renewed push for a bilateral treaty on electoral enfranchisement in each other’s countries.
Alice Bouilliez, a former British civil servant who has lived in France for 38 years, said she was “extremely surprised” but delighted that the court in Auch in south-west France had ordered that the authorities put her name back on the electoral register for the EU elections.
Continue reading...New trade deal with EU could make 41 border control posts built after Brexit redundant
The UK government is reportedly considering selling a post-Brexit border check facility in Kent that could fall out of use as a result of this week’s trade pact with the EU.
The site, based in Sevington, Ashford, was erected in 2021 with capacity for 1,300 lorries that were expected to face extra checks on plants and animal goods, including dairy and meat, entering and leaving Britain after Brexit.
Continue reading...Impact of agreements on food, energy and defence may not be huge but chancellor believes it will draw investors to UK
Rachel Reeves joked to journalists after Monday’s EU-UK reset that trade deals were coming along “like buses”, given the agreements with India and the US that had also been sealed in the past fortnight alone.
The chancellor described the EU deal as the best that had been secured by any non-member country, but she was also keen to talk about the three successful negotiations as a package.
Continue reading...UK prime minister heralds a ‘win-win’ but faces criticism for concessions on fishing rights
Keir Starmer has vowed his EU reset deal will deliver cheaper food and energy for British people, heralding a “win-win” as he sealed the high-stakes agreement with concessions on youth visas and fishing.
“Britain is back on the world stage,” the prime minister said after shaking hands on the deal with the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen in London. “It gives us unprecedented access to the EU market, the best of any country … all while sticking to the red lines in our manifesto.”
Continue reading...While getting UK-EU deal through parliament should be easy enough, cries of ‘betrayal’ may chime with some voters
There were two moments at the UK-EU summit where it felt as if a corner had truly been turned. It was not on agrifoods, nor youth mobility, defence or fishing.
When Keir Starmer said the UK had changed, the most symbolic evidence of that came in a press release from No 10 that set out the terms of the agreement brokered at Lancaster House.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer says Britons have moved on but many in Thurrock think they were lied to in debate about leaving EU
When Keir Starmer was asked last week whether he thought Britons had finally moved on from the issue of Brexit, his answer was a definitive yes.
It’s not difficult to see why the prime minister would hope to settle the question, before a week in which he hopes to reset the UK’s relationship with the EU, clearing a way for easier access to a marketplace that could help increase the economic growth he badly needs.
Continue reading...