Scott Benton faces Commons suspension over lobbying to give Tories potential byelection headache – UK politics live

Commons standards committee recommends 35-day suspension for Scott Benton, who had Conservative whip suspended in April

Rishi Sunak has said that he is open to considering ways in which his Rwanda bill can be “improved”.

With Conservative rightwingers and centrists both wanting to amend the bill, in opposite directions, when it returns to the Commons in the new year, Sunak signalled that the government would be open to accepting some changes.

I’ve been very consistently clear, as have all ministers, if there are ways that the legislation can be improved, to be made even more effective — with a respectable legal argument and maintaining the participation of the Rwandans in the scheme — of course we would be open to that, who wouldn’t be?

This is a damning report from the cross-party standards committee, clearly concluding that Scott Benton seriously breached parliamentary rules in flaunting his position as a parliamentarian in exchange for remuneration.

This is not an isolated case, but comes off the back of a wave of Tory sleaze and scandal.

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Sadiq Khan: plans to cut migration will trigger London recruitment crisis

Exclusive: Key sectors of capital’s economy worth billions to exchequer could be left understaffed, mayor warns

Sadiq Khan has said ministers’ plans to cut legal migration will lead to a “full-blown recruitment crisis” in London, with vacancies in hospitality alone still higher than they were pre-pandemic.

Net migration to the UK boosted the UK population by 672,000 in the year ending June 2023, and about half (48%) of the country’s foreign-born population live in London or the south-east of England.

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Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer clash over homelessness and the UK economy at PMQs – as it happened

The prime minister faced PMQs for the final time before the Christmas recess

Rishi Sunak is about to take PMQs. It will be the last of 2023.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

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Rwanda bill ‘pushing at edge of the envelope’ but ‘within framework of international law’ says home secretary – UK politics live

James Cleverly says deportation bill contains ‘novel measures’ as MPs debate it

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, a former lord chief justice of England and Wales, has said the government should not try to ignore the jurisdiction of the European court of human rights. In an interview for a podcast called the Judges, he said:

If you have subjected yourself to a court, and it was our voluntary decision to do so, then you have to take the rough with the smooth and if they’ve decided [the court] have this jurisdiction then you ought to follow it.

You can’t expect others to respect the law if you say you won’t respect the law of someone else.

You ought to actually be able, within a set period of time, say a fortnight, to investigate, decide, give him one right of appeal – why you should have more than one right of appeal I simply don’t understand – and remove them.” But, he concedes, it costs money.

Britain is a practical nation – always has been. People can’t afford Christmas. If they call an ambulance this winter – they don’t know if it will come. 6,000 crimes go unpunished - every day. Common sense is rolling your sleeves up and solving these problems practically, not indulging in some kind of political performance art.

This goes for stopping the boats as well. It’s not about wave machines, or armoured jet skis, or schemes like Rwanda you know will never work.

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Asylum seeker on Bibby Stockholm barge believed to have killed himself

‘Sudden death of resident’ onboard vessel in Portland, Dorset, is being investigated by police

A man seeking asylum is believed to have killed himself while being housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge.

Police said they were investigating the “sudden death of a resident” on the giant vessel in Portland, Dorset, which was leased by the former home secretary, Suella Braverman, to house recent arrivals to the UK.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Why the outcome of the Rwanda bill matters for Sunak – and the Conservatives

Defeat for flagship immigration plan in the Commons would present serious legal and political problems for the PM

A revolt by 29 Conservative MPs could be enough to defeat the government’s Rwanda bill at its first Commons hurdle – something that has not happened to a piece of government legislation since 1986.

The legislation was designed to overcome concerns raised by the supreme court, which ruled last month that the previous policy for deporting people to Rwanda violated domestic and international law.

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Scale of bullying and harassment of women in City ‘shocks and alarms’ MPs

Cross-party Treasury committee says its private hearings suggest there has been no improvement in 20 years

MPs on the cross-party Treasury committee have been “shocked and alarmed” to hear about the scale of bullying and sexual harassment against women in the City of London, which suggests there has been “no improvement whatsoever” over the past 20 years.

The Labour MP and committee member Angela Eagle said private hearings held as part of the committee’s sexism in the City inquiry had raised significant concerns about the conditions women were forced to endure in the UK’s financial services sector.

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Peers call for urgent overhaul of secondary education in England

Lords report says there is too much learning by rote and many key Tory changes should be reversed

A major parliamentary report has called for an urgent overhaul of secondary education in England that would reverse many of the Conservatives’ key education changes of the past decade.

The House of Lords report says the education system for 11- to 16-year-olds is too focused on academic learning and written exams, resulting in too much learning by rote and not enough opportunity for pupils to pursue creative and technical subjects.

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Keir Starmer promises ‘red wall’ voters the basics of government done better

Labour leader to attack Tory ‘psychodrama’ and ‘self-importance’ in speech marking four years since last election

Labour will end the Conservative “psychodrama” and return government to the “mundane stuff”, Keir Starmer will pledge, in a plea to the “red wall” voters the party is targeting.

His “changed” party is committed to national security and careful management of taxpayer money, he will emphasise in a speech that has been moved to Buckinghamshire from a northern constituency in order for the Labour leader to stay close to Westminster as MPs prepare to vote on the government’s Rwanda bill.

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One Nation Tory MPs vow to drop support for Rwanda bill if there are amendments as ERG calls for it to be rewritten – as it happened

Damian Green says government must ‘stick to guns’ but chair of European Research Group calls for bill to be pulled and rewritten

Sunak says the PM had to balance competing interests during Covid.

Only he could do that, because only he saw all the competing arguments made by different cabinet ministers.

Your phone, you said, doesn’t retain, and nor do you have access to, text messages at all relating to the period of the crisis.

In addition, you said although on occasion you use WhatsApp to communicate around meetings and logistics and so on, you generally were only party to WhatsApp groups that were set up to deal with individual circumstances such as arrangements for calls, meetings and so on and so forth. You don’t now have access to any of the WhatsApps that you did send during the time of the crisis, do you?

I’ve changed my phone multiple times over the past few years and, as that has happened, the messages have not come across.

As you said, I’m not a prolific user of WhatsApp in the first instance – primarily communication with my private office and obviously anything that was of significance through those conversations or exchanges would have been recorded officially by my civil servants as one would expect.

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Next UK election set to be most unequal in 60 years, study finds

Voter turnout gap between top and bottom earners growing since 60s, says IPPR thinktank

The next election is set to be the most unequal in 60 years thanks to a rising gap in voter turnout based on age, income, class, home ownership and ethnicity, a new study has found.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a centre-left thinktank, found that the turnout gap was negligible between social groups in the 1960s, but that it had grown by 2010 to 18 percentage points between the top set of earners – who are more likely to vote – and the bottom set.

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David Cameron threat over Humza Yousaf’s meeting with Turkish president

Foreign secretary says FCDO support for Scottish ministers could be withdrawn after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan talks

David Cameron has threatened to withdraw Foreign Office support for Scottish ministers after Humza Yousaf met the Turkish president without UK officials.

The foreign secretary wrote to the Scottish National party government saying it was a breach of protocol for Yousaf to have discussed Gaza and other matters with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Cop28 summit.

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Wes Streeting says NHS uses winter crisis as excuse to ask for more money

Shadow minister tells health service ‘money is tight’ and that it must provide better value for taxpayers

The shadow health secretary has accused the NHS of using every winter crisis and challenge it faces as an excuse to ask for more money.

Speaking on a visit to Singapore, Wes Streeting said the health service needs to accept “money is tight”, and that it must rethink how the care it provides could provide better value for money for the taxpayer.

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Robert Jenrick says he will not vote for Sunak’s Rwanda bill

Former immigration minister says legislation will not work, as talk grows of Tory plot to oust PM

The former UK immigration minister Robert Jenrick has said he will not vote for Rishi Sunak’s bill aimed at deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda this week, in a blow to the prime minister.

Jenrick, who resigned over the bill, said it would not work and needed to go further in setting aside human rights law if it was to have a chance of getting the Rwanda scheme to work.

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Covid lockdowns had ‘catastrophic effect’ on UK’s social fabric, report claims

Research by centre-right thinktank says gap between the mainstream and poorest in society is widening

Covid lockdowns had a “catastrophic effect” on the UK’s social fabric and the most disadvantaged are no better off now than at the time of the financial crash, a new report claims.

The country is in danger of sliding back into the divisions of the Victorian era, marked by a widening gap between the mainstream and the poorest in society, according to an inquiry by the centre-right thinktank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).

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David Cameron urged to tell China to free Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai

Newspaper tycoon’s son seeks meeting with foreign secretary as Briton, 76, faces trial and possible life sentence

Foreign secretary David Cameron is being urged to demand the release of newspaper tycoon Jimmy Lai as the British national prepares for a high-profile trial in Hong Kong this month.

Lai, 76, is facing a life sentence, accused of colluding with foreign forces under the draconian national security law introduced by Beijing in 2020 following mass protests.

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Labour steps up criticism of ‘intolerable’ killings in Gaza

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy slams Israeli ‘death and destruction’ and urges UK travel ban on violent settlers

• Read more: Labour will oppose expulsions of Palestinians and bar violent settlers from UK

The Labour party today delivers its strongest criticism of Israel over its attacks on Palestinians, describing the death and destruction in Gaza over the past two months as “intolerable” and attacking two far-right Israeli cabinet ministers for “totally unacceptable” support of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

In a sharp change of tone, David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, with the full backing of party leader Keir Starmer, attacks the Israeli authorities for “turning a blind eye” to violence by settlers in the West Bank, which has “forcibly displaced” more than 1,000 Palestinians from their homes since the attacks on Israel by Hamas on 7 October.

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Row brews between Home Office and Foreign Office on eve of UN refugee summit

Furore over the controversial Rwanda scheme labelled far from ‘helpful’ as Britain seeks to fulfil role in the international forum

Tensions between the Home Office and Foreign Office are said to be “strained” before the largest international gathering in years on the refugee crisis, with the UK’s contribution overshadowed by the row over Rwanda.

Headed by development minister Andrew Mitchell, the UK delegation at this week’s UN Global Refugee Forum will unveil what it describes as an “ambitious package” that includes delivering schooling to hundreds of thousands of refugee children.

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Why the Tories’ hardline immigration policies won’t win over UK voters

Visa changes may cut numbers of students and skilled workers who enjoy public support while Rwanda plan won’t address concerns over small boats

‘If you don’t fix immigration, immigration will fix you.” This was new foreign secretary David Cameron’s stern warning to US senators, but it could equally have been addressed to parliamentary colleagues back home.

Last week saw the latest in a series of immigration reform packages, yet nearly a year on from Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” his government seems no closer to a fix which satisfies his party or its supporters.

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Sunak faces new questions at Covid inquiry after pranksters claim they reached his old phone number

PM likely to be asked about WhatsApp messages from pandemic that he says are irretrievable, despite reports number accessed

Fresh questions are being raised over whether Rishi Sunak has handed over all relevant material to the Covid inquiry after reports that pranksters have been able to access an old phone number he used during his time as chancellor.

The prime minister will face a day of questioning at the inquiry on Monday, where he is expected to be questioned about his claims that scientists had too much power. He will also be asked detailed questions about the “eat out to help out” scheme that many experts believe allowed the virus to spread.

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