Category Archives: House of Commons

C of E must welcome gay people or face questions in parliament, says MP

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Labour’s Ben Bradshaw says church is ‘actively pursuing a campaign of discrimination’ against lesbian and gay people

The Church of England must move swiftly to welcome lesbian and gay people and embrace same-sex marriage or face mounting questions in parliament about its role as the established church of the country, a senior MP has said.

The church was “actively pursuing a campaign of discrimination” against lesbian and gay people that was incompatible with its role as a church for England, said Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter and a former secretary of state for culture, media and sport.

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‘Disconnected from reality’: Tory MPs plan rebellion over Liz Truss’s economic agenda

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Prime minister is facing the same fate as Theresa May when the Commons returns and could even be removed as leader

Liz Truss is already facing the possibility of crippling parliamentary rebellions over welfare, planning and a new wave of austerity, as MPs warn that No 10 has become “disconnected from reality”.

With some Conservatives in talks with Labour over how to block elements of the prime minister’s sweeping plans, senior Tories believe that Truss is now heading into the bruising parliamentary warfare that characterised Theresa May’s beleaguered premiership.

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Tory MP Charles Walker expected to join Partygate committee

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Exclusive: Walker is to be involved in the inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled MPs

The veteran Tory MP Charles Walker is expected to be handed a spot on the committee investigating Boris Johnson over claims he misled MPs over Partygate.

A well-respected, long-serving backbencher, who was vice-chair of the 1922 Committee for about a decade, Walker was quietly nominated by the Liz Truss government as the House of Commons went into conference recess.

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Health secretary sets up £500m fund to discharge medically fit NHS patients

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Thérèse Coffey announces measure aimed at freeing up beds in hospitals in England before winter pressures

Ministers are setting up a £500m emergency fund to get thousands of medically fit patients out of hospital as soon as possible in an attempt to prevent the NHS becoming overwhelmed this winter.

Thérèse Coffey, the new health secretary, unveiled the move in the Commons on Thursday as part of her plans to tackle the growing crisis in the health service, especially patients’ long delays for care.

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MPs and peers retake parliamentary oaths to swear allegiance to King Charles III

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First MP to take new oath was Lindsay Hoyle, followed by Harriet Harman and Peter Bottomley, then Liz Truss

MPs and peers, among them Liz Truss, have formally retaken their parliamentary oaths to swear allegiance to the new King, followed by another round of tributes in both parliamentary houses to the late monarch.

The first MP to take the revised oath, which refers to the King rather than Queen, was the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, followed by the two longest-serving MPs, Peter Bottomley and Harriet Harman, then Truss and a dozen or so other senior MPs, mainly ministers, shadow ministers and party leaders.

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Liz Truss holds first cabinet meeting as Thérèse Coffey denies claim PM put loyalty before competence – UK politics live

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Health secretary says Truss did not focus too much on rewarding friends as new ministers attend first cabinet meeting

According to a report by Jason Groves in the Daily Mail, Liz Truss may announce an end to the ban on fracking this week. During the leadership campaign she said she wanted to allow fracking, but only in areas where there was a clear public consensus in favour.

On the Today programme this morning Lord Deben, the Tory peer who chairs the Committee for Climate Change, said fracking was not a solution to the UK’s energy problems. He explained:

The price of gas is not affected by the relatively small amount that we can get, in addition to the North Sea or indeed from fracking.

This is an international price and we would be paying the same price we got out of the fracked gas as we are for the gas we’re using now.

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Ministers to make it easier for foreign nurses and dentists to work in NHS

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Exclusive: change to registration process will pave way for thousands of staff trained overseas to come to UK, says government

Ministers will introduce legislation as soon as parliament returns on Monday to tackle the NHS’s worsening staffing crisis by making it easier for overseas nurses and dentists to work in the UK.

The move is part of a drive by the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to increase overseas recruitment to help plug workforce gaps in health and social care.

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No 10 spending £130,000 of public money scrutinising Partygate inquiry

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Boris Johnson accused of trying to ‘intimidate and bully’ inquiry into claims he misled MPs

Boris Johnson has been accused of trying to “intimidate and bully” an inquiry into claims he misled MPs over Downing Street parties, after No 10 took the highly unusual step of commissioning a senior QC to scrutinise the legal basis for the process at a public cost of almost £130,000.

The crossbench peer David Pannick had argued that the Commons committee on privileges and standards was “proposing to adopt an unfair procedure” in examining allegations that Johnson falsely told the Commons he knew nothing about lockdown-breaking gatherings.

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New Tory leader urged to scrap MPs’ break for party conferences amid cost of living crisis

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Exclusive: Ministers encouraged to stay at Westminster to devise emergency plans to address cost of living crisis

The next Conservative leader has been urged to scrap MPs’ four-week break for party conference season and told it would be “immoral and insulting” to go “missing in action” during the worsening cost of living crisis.

With the Commons due to go into recess for a month in mid-September for the parties’ annual conventions, ministers were encouraged to remain in Westminster to devise and debate emergency plans for supporting struggling people through the winter.

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Keir Starmer defends Labour’s response to cost of living crisis – as it happened

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Labour leader hits back at criticism saying his party has been ‘leading’ on the issue

Keir Starmer has teased Labour’s package to tackle the cost of living crisis, saying his party would end energy prepayment premiums which he claims would offer 4m households relief on bills.

The announcement, which came in what is reportedly his first tweet this month, follows criticism of Labour’s inaction on the cost of living crisis.

Every organisation has its culture, but it’s not fixed, it can be changed.
That’s what ministerial leadership is about: it’s about making sure that the policies we represent, the values we stand for, are reflected in what we do.

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Sunak accuses Truss of major U-turn after she says she will do ‘all I can to help struggling households’ with fuel bills – UK politics live

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Tory leadership contender says rival had previously dismissed direct support as ‘handouts’

Suella Braverman, the attorney general, is giving a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank on equalities and rights. There is a live feed here.

In a preview of the speech published in the Daily Telegraph, Braverman says she wants to clarify the law on trans rights as it applies in schools. She says:

When it comes to gender-questioning children, we should always have compassion. At the same time, our compassion should never blind us to the harm it is possible to do to children by misplaced affirmation. Many schools and teachers believe – incorrectly – that they are under an absolute legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to the preference of the child. Many are scared of the consequences of not doing so.

I want to make it clear that it is possible, within the law, for schools to refuse to use the preferred opposite-sex pronouns of a child.

The UK and partners have condemned in the strongest terms China’s escalation in the region around Taiwan, as seen through our recent G7 statement.

I instructed officials to summon the Chinese ambassador to explain his country’s actions.

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Chris Bryant to say sorry to billionaire over money-laundering claims

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Labour MP will make court apology to financier Christopher Chandler over Commons comments he later tweeted

The Labour MP Chris Bryant is to make a formal court apology to a billionaire financier he accused in parliament of money laundering, after being sued for repeating the claims in a tweeted letter.

In a highly unusual legal case, Bryant was taken to court by Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand-born investor and co-founder of a London-based thinktank, over comments initially made during a debate in the House of Commons in 2018, during which another MP accused Chandler of links to Russian intelligence

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Just one in 100 Tory MPs came from a working-class job, new study shows

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Institute for Public Policy Research study also shows proportion of working-class Labour MPs has halved since 1980s

Only about 1% of the current crop of Tory MPs entered parliament from a working-class job, according to new research that suggests a growing “representation gap” in parliament.

Just 7% of all MPs can be considered “working class”, compared with 34% of all UK working-age adults. While 13% of Labour MPs joined parliament from a working-class occupation, the proportion has halved since the 1980s.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss reach final two of Tory leadership race – as it happened

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The final two will face each other in a TV debate on Monday before weeks of hustings with Conservative members

In an analysis of the yesterday’s public sector pay awards published this morning, the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank says the new prime minister will have to decide whether to increase departmental spending budgets, to fund the higher-than-expected pay awards, or to require the awards to be funded from existing budgets, requiring cuts elsewhere. It says:

One option is to top up spending plans to at least partially fund the costs of higher-than-expected pay awards, shoring up departments’ ability to deliver on the government’s public service objectives (such as clearing the NHS backlog). This would come at the cost of higher borrowing and reduced fiscal room for the tax cuts seemingly desired by the entire field of would-be prime ministers.

The other option is to stick to existing spending plans, instead requiring public services to make some painful cuts: to other budgets, to headcount, or to the range and quality of service provision. Reducing the government’s public services ‘offer’ is a coherent response to a series of global economic shocks that make us poorer as a nation. But the government should be honest about what that implies for the NHS, local government, and other public services.

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Tea strain: MPs’ stab at being funny gets steeped in ridicule

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Twitter complaints of sexism and dated views pour in after 1922 Committee tries jest with teapot amid Tory leadership contest

Attempts to inject some levity into the Conservative leadership contest on social media fell flat on Wednesday when a photograph tweeted of the 1922 Committee led to criticism that it was sexist and outdated.

With the announcement of the two remaining candidates for the UK prime minister role about to be announced (at 4pm this Wednesday) or at “tea time” as it was described, the photograph showed members of the committee representing Tory backbenchers posing with teacups in hand and a teapot.

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Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer at first PMQs since resignation – UK politics live

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Latest updates: prime minister takes penultimate PMQs as Conservatives wrangle over who will replace him as leader

Mordaunt says she is committed to the manifesto commitments on defence spending, and meeting the Nato defence pledge.

But she would also take some tasks away from the defence forces, she says. She says she wants to set up a civil defence force to deal with civil defence matters.

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Eight MPs make it on to first Tory leadership ballot as Sajid Javid pulls out of the race – live

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Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat and Nadhim Zahawi garner enough support

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit opportunities minister, and Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, have just told Sky News that they are backing Liz Truss for the Tory leadership.

Rees-Mogg says Truss had been his strongest supporter in cabinet in terms of seeking Brexit opportunities. He went on:

When we discussed taxation, Liz was always opposed to Rishi’s higher taxes. That again is proper Conservatism. And I think she’s got the character to lead the party and the nation.

Liz Truss is the best candidate. She’s a proper Eurosceptic. She will deliver for the voters. She’ll deliver for the voters. She believes in low taxation.

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MP asks if ex-KGB agent tried to arrange private Johnson and Lavrov call

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Yvette Cooper requests more details about Boris Johnson’s meeting with Alexander Lebedev in Italy in 2018

Yvette Cooper has used an urgent question in the Commons to ask if Alexander Lebedev sought to arrange a private phone call between Boris Johnson and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during a weekend party in April 2018.

A day after Johnson admitted for the first time that when foreign secretary he had met former KGB agent Lebedev without officials present, the shadow home secretary told the Commons there were further questions raised by the trip to the party at an Italian palazzo owned by Lebedev’s son.

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Welsh secretary resigns after Boris Johnson sacks Michael Gove and refuses to quit – as it happened

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Levelling up secretary had told PM to step down in face-to-face meeting as Simon Hart says it is too late to ‘turn the ship around’

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Hamish Mackay.

Tory MPs critical of Boris Johnson claim that a majority of their colleagues are now in favour of replacing him.

I think there is a majority in the party that wants to see change.

I personally have lost confidence in the prime minister now and I’m very sorry to say that. I think he does need to go.

We are regarded as rebels. We’re not. Well over half the parliamentary party now now want Boris Johnson to leave office. That means we’re the mainstream …

About a month ago we had the no confidence vote. Since then there’s been a lot of buyer’s remorse from those who backed him and it’s only been one-way traffic. I haven’t heard anybody who voted no confidence in the prime minister has changed their mind since then.

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‘Charge of the lightweight brigade’: Starmer uses PMQs to mock Tories

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Labour leader says Conservative MPs backing Boris Johnson do not have ‘a shred of integrity’

Keir Starmer has accused Conservative MPs and ministers of complicity in propping up a prime minister with a history of indefensible behaviour, as he both condemned and mocked what he called the “dying spectacle” of Boris Johnson’s political career.

Focusing in particular on Johnson’s decision earlier this year to promote Chris Pincher to be deputy chief whip, despite a known history of sexually predatory behaviour, Starmer said any Tory MPs still backing Johnson did not have “a shred of integrity”.

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