UK home secretary insists force has sufficient staffing numbers to tackle ‘back-to-basics policing’
The UK home secretary has insisted the police have the resources required to meet a pledge to follow all “reasonable lines of inquiry” in a fresh crackdown on crime.
Police forces in England and Wales have agreed to follow all evidence such as footage from CCTV, doorbells and dashcams, as well as phone data, to find suspect or stolen property.
Continue reading...Shadow foreign secretary says Starmer government would work with President Lula on radical climate action
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has taken his green diplomatic policy for a test spin in Brazil this month in the hope that “climate justice” can serve as an international rallying cry for a future Labour government.
In an interview with the Guardian, Lammy said a Labour victory at the next general election would allow Keir Starmer to build a partnership for radical climate action with Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, before the UN’s Cop30 climate summit in Belém in 2025.
Continue reading...Home secretary confirms government considering fitting some migrants with electronic tags
Suella Braverman has said the government will “do whatever it takes” if its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is “thwarted in Strasbourg”, and confirmed the government is considering fitting some migrants with electronic tags.
In an interview with the BBC, the home secretary stepped up her attack on the European court of human rights (ECHR), calling it politicised and interventionist.
Continue reading...Exclusive: MPs looking at how to respond to calls for UK to allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults to end their lives
More people believe it is acceptable to break the law to help a friend or loved who wants to die than believe it is wrong, a snapshot of UK public opinion on assisted dying has revealed.
The finding comes as MPs weigh possible changes to laws governing end-of-life decisions and as a terminally ill Lancashire woman who is preparing to travel to Switzerland to end her life has described the UK law against assisted dying as “cruel and anachronistic”.
Continue reading...Human rights group finds growing number of cases of minors held among prisoners
Vulnerable children who arrive in Britain by small boat are being placed in an adult prison that holds significant numbers of sex offenders.
A growing number of cases have been identified where unaccompanied children, many of whom appear to be trafficked, have been sent to HMP Elmley, Kent, and placed among foreign adult prisoners.
Continue reading...The position of the PM’s wife as a shareholder in a company that could benefit from an agreement is a major headache for No 10
• Read more: Rishi Sunak faces fresh conflict of interest row of India trade talks
With a general election not far away and the economy still struggling, Rishi Sunak is on the hunt for good news. Next month he will be in New Delhi for the G20 summit – a visit that will be unusually rich with picture opportunities and chances to strike deals. Sunak’s parents are of Indian Punjabi descent and his wife, Akshata Murthy, is a hugely wealthy Indian businesswoman, fashion designer and venture capitalist. In many ways it will be a homecoming for the first Asian couple ever to occupy No 10.
Sunak’s business and trade secretary, Kemi Badenoch, has been in India over the past few days, laying the ground for a string of announcements with her G20 counterparts. Inevitably, much of the talk in UK and Indian diplomatic, business and trade circles has been about the possibility of a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and India. The two governments had hoped to conclude one last autumn but negotiations have dragged on.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Labour has called for more financial transparency after it was revealed the prime minister’s wife’s shares could benefit from the agreement
• Read more: trade deal with Indian could be double-edged sword for Sunak
Rishi Sunak faces a new conflict of interest row before a G20 summit in New Delhi next month over claims that his family could stand to benefit financially from a post-Brexit trade deal that he is negotiating with India.
MPs and trade experts say there are concerns at the highest levels of government over potential “transparency” issues relating to his wife Akshata Murty’s shareholding – worth almost £500m – in the massive Bengaluru-based international IT services and consultancy company Infosys.
Continue reading...Former culture secretary’s resignation letter accuses Rishi Sunak of risking her safety by ‘whipping a public frenzy’
Nadine Dorries has handed in her resignation letter 11 weeks after announcing she would resign in protest over not receiving a peerage.
The MP for Mid Bedfordshire announced that she would be leaving her seat with “immediate effect” in June but had failed to do so until today.
Continue reading...John Penrose is the latest MP to voice their frustration after Dorries said she was quitting but then failed to do so
MPs will try to oust Nadine Dorries as an MP next month amid growing calls for her to follow through on her vow to resign, PA media reports.
The Liberal Democrats will table a bill when parliament returns on 4 September that they hope will result in her suspension.
For months Nadine Dorries has treated the people of Mid Bedfordshire with contempt and taken them for granted.
As thousands of people struggle to get a GP appointment and face steep hikes to their mortgages, Nadine Dorries continues to be missing in action. What’s worse is that the Conservatives just don’t seem to care that they’re letting people down.
Continue reading...North-east school leaders call for government to recognise challenges for pupils in different parts of England
The largest gap on record between top GCSE grades awarded to pupils in London and those in north-east England has prompted warnings of a “continuing widening” in the north-south education divide.
School leaders in the north-east accused the government of “London-centric” policies, while Labour said it showed that “levelling up is dead and buried” through the failure to help disadvantaged communities.
Continue reading...Standards commissioner’s ruling has set precedent, says Labour MP who first asked PM about wife’s interest in childcare agency
Ministers may need to be more transparent about their financial interests after a “significant ruling” that found Rishi Sunak failed to declare his wife’s interest in a childcare agency, the MP who triggered the inquiry has said.
Catherine McKinnell, the Labour MP who first asked him about the potential conflict of interest, said the ruling set a precedent that meant ministers were likely to have to make greater disclosures in relation to their interests when questioned in parliament.
Continue reading...Pressure to reduce backlog remains acute as arrivals continue and accommodation problems mount
In a landmark speech on immigration last December, Rishi Sunak made a series of bold and apparently undeliverable commitments. He promised to stop the flow of small boats to the UK, increase the amount of non-hotel accommodation for asylum seekers and abolish the backlog of unprocessed asylum cases by the end of 2023.
The government’s spiralling difficulties in addressing the first and second pledges have been evident throughout the summer, with footage of new boat arrivals broadcast nightly, and complications with the opening of the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge mounting up. The failure to address the asylum backlog was starkly exposed in Thursday’s release of the quarterly immigration statistics.
Continue reading...Dismay over UK statement that opposes hearing altogether and is accused of ignoring significant facts
The UK has been accused of “seeking to block the international court of justice (ICJ) from addressing important international humanitarian law matters” in a submission to the world court on the legality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
A 43-page legal opinion, seen by the Guardian, was submitted by the UK last month as part of the ICJ’s fact-finding stage before an expected advisory opinion from the court on the legal consequences of the “occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian land.
An advisory opinion would effectively settle Israel’s “bilateral dispute” without the state’s consent.
The court is not equipped to examine a “broad range of complex factual issues concerning the entire history of the parties’ dispute”.
An advisory opinion would conflict with existing agreements between the parties and negotiation frameworks endorsed by the UN.
The request is not appropriate as it asks the court to “assume unlawful conduct on the part of Israel”.
Continue reading...UK trade secretary Kemi Badenoch is expected to progress talks with Indian counterparts in Jaipur, during a meeting of G20 trade ministers
A UK-India trade deal is likely to stay “tantalisingly out of reach”, one commentator warns.
Striking a deal would be a“game changer” for post-Brexit Britain, Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, says.
Hopes that the UK can give its very sluggish growth prospects a boost with a big trade win this autumn are fading after reports that a major deal with India remains elusive.
It appears that final negotiations have run into the long grass, with thorny issues such as visas for Indian workers still likely to be problematic.
Continue reading...Conservative rightwingers were calling for tax cuts after figures showing budget deficit for July was lower than forecast
Good morning. Westminister politics is largely on auto-pilot at this point in August and, for better or worse, most of the political establishment is in “out of office’” mode. But some visceral instincts never take a holiday, and so it was yesterday that, within hours of ONS figures coming out showing the budget deficit for July a bit lower than forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), Conservative rightwingers were calling for tax cuts.
The Financial Times has the best round-up. In their story, Valentina Romei and George Parker report:
Sir John Redwood, a former Tory cabinet minister, said the OBR had been “ridiculously pessimistic” in its forecasts and that Hunt should act swiftly to cut taxes and hold down public spending.
Redwood added that by cutting some businesses taxes — for example raising the VAT threshold for small companies — and reducing energy taxes, the economy could grow faster without fuelling inflation.
[The mini-budget] is not an experiment we want to repeat. I was a bit alarmed at hearing Tory calls to repeat it yesterday. I think that’s a big risk for the country – certainly not one that we would adopt.
We saw last September what happens if tax cuts are unaffordable and judged to be unaffordable. And the consequences at that time were booster rockets under mortgage, rates, the Bank of England having to rescue pension schemes and a real rocking of international confidence in the UK economy. So you can’t go down that road unless it’s affordable.
So for us, always, this term – responsibility and stability with the public finances.
Continue reading...Ministers had planned to issue visa waivers to cover staff absences on barge housing asylum seekers
The Home Office considered drafting in workers from overseas using a visa waiver scheme in the event of an outbreak of an infectious disease on the controversial Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate asylum seekers, according to documents seen by the Guardian.
The barge is moored in Portland, Dorset. It was opened to asylum seekers on 7 August as a key part of the government’s “small boats week” to signal that it was implementing its undertakings to move asylum seekers out of hotels. However, in a blow to this policy the barge was evacuated just four days later after legionella bacteria was found in the barge’s water pipes.
Continue reading...Article says Commons could bypass the parliamentary standards machinery after Labour leader says MP should be forced out. This live blog is closed
Starmer says there is a massive mismatch between what the government is saying about how things are going well with the economy, and the lived experience of people.
O’Brien suggests the two teenagers Starmer met today would have been happier if Starmer was still committed to getting rid of tuition fees.
I do think the current scheme is unfair and ineffective and that is why we will change it, so the current scheme will be changed by the incoming Labour government and we will set out our plans.
I am not going to pretend that there isn’t huge damage to the economy and that has meant that some of the things that an incoming Labour government would want to do we are not going to be able to do in the way we would want in the way that we would want.
We are working up our proposals on that and I will fully come back and talk them through when we got them.
Continue reading...Survey shows devastating impact of Brexit on music sector, says Independent Society of Musicians
Almost half of UK musicians and workers in the music industry have had less work in the EU since Brexit than before it, and more than a quarter have had no EU work at all, according to a survey.
The impact of Brexit on the music sector had been devastating, said the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM), which carried out the survey. Restrictions had impaired the viability of making a living as a musician, it said.
Continue reading...Watchdog says policy on prescribed drugs could lead to a medical emergency and endanger lives
A watchdog has condemned the Home Office for confiscating life-saving prescription drugs from people it detains.
Rules requiring guards to take away prescribed medicines from people at short-term holding facilities (STFHs), where migrants can be detained for up to 24 hours, could lead to a medical emergency and endanger their lives, says the annual report of the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for the North East, Midlands and Yorkshire & Humber STHF published on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Prime minister says he is ‘not complacent’ and figures showing fall in crossings compared with 2022 show his approach is working
Rishi Sunak and Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, were both given a chance to show off their painting skills when they visited a nursery in Harrogate this morning. According to PA Media, they were both painting bees. Keegan’s bee would merit a gold star. Sunak’s looks more like a parrot with a squint.
In his pooled TV interview, Rishi Sunak also stressed the government’s commitment to extending access to free childcare. He said:
It is really important to me that young families have access to high quality affordably childcare. That is why the government is expanding its offer of free childcare.
Currently working families can access 30 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds. As part of our big reforms we are extending that all the way down to little ones as young as nine months.
Continue reading...