Category Archives: House of Commons

UK coronavirus: ‘We will not hesitate to take further measures’ if pandemic worsens, PM warns – as it happened

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News updates: PM promises more frequent press conferences on Covid situation; MPs vote by 330 to 24 to renew Coronavirus Act

Related: Coronavirus live news: Italian senate suspended as lawmakers test positive; Covid travel slump could cost 46m jobs

The government has this evening ruled out giving refunds to people holding railcards they have been unable to use – or granting a time extension – despite ongoing travel restrictions in place as a result of coronavirus.

There are an estimated 5.1m railcards in circulation in the UK, typically triggering discounts of about a third on ticket prices, and valid for a year.

After careful consideration, the government has confirmed to us that railcards will remain non-refundable and will not be extended.

We understand that this decision may not be the news our customers had been hoping for. Refunding or extending railcards for over 5.1m customers would come at a significant cost to the taxpayer at a time when the focus must be on maintaining rail services to support the country’s recovery from the pandemic.

Passengers bought railcards in good faith and will be disappointed by the decision not to extend them or offer a discount on renewal to make up for the period when we were encouraged not to travel.

While the Government continues to provide high levels of support to make sure the day to day railway keeps operating, it seems a pity some slack could not be given on this issue to encourage people back to rail travel.

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Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 policy critics: who says what?

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A selection of comments from across the political divide on PM’s handling of pandemic

The brewing rebellion among Tory backbenchers over the lack of scrutiny afforded to parliament on Covid-19 restrictions – as well as concerns about their impact – has left Boris Johnson facing criticism from within and outside his party. Here are some of the more pointed comments levelled against the prime minister and his policies from across the political divide.

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UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer at PMQs after new restrictions unveiled

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English rules don’t go ‘anywhere near far enough’, says leading government Covid adviser

Starmer says Johnson said the opposite yesterday. Everyone can read it in Hansard. He says a week ago the PM acknowledged that there was a problem. Is the PM saying capacity is the problem, as Dido Harding says? Or he is saying that too many healthy people are requesting tests, as Matt Hancock says?

Johnson says the attacks on Harding from Labour are unseeming. He says the government is going to get testing up to 500,000 per day. He says he wants to hear “more of the spirit of togetherness” that was on display yesterday.

So why did Johnson says yesterday it had “very little” to do with the spread of the disease, Starmer asks.

Johnson says it is an “epidemiological fact” that transmission takes place human to human. And capacity today is at a record high, he says.

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Coronavirus: Boris Johnson sets out new restrictions to last ‘perhaps six months’

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PM announces 10pm closing for pubs, a ban on indoor team sports and new weddings curbs

The UK is at a “perilous turning point” and must act, Boris Johnson has told MPs, announcing new restrictions for England including slashing the size of wedding celebrations and bans on indoor team sports, as well as a return to home working.

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Johnson announced a ban on indoor team sports, such as five-a-side football, and said plans for a partial return of sports fans to stadiums from 1 October had been “paused”. Wedding celebrations will be limited to just 15 guests, half of what was previously permitted, though funerals will be allowed to go ahead with up to 30 mourners.

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Desperate Boris Johnson to step up personal attacks on Keir Starmer

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Prime minister said to be ‘furious’ after being asked in the House of Commons to withdraw comments about the Labour leader

An increasingly desperate Boris Johnson has ordered his staff to step up personal attacks on the Labour leader Keir Starmer and his record as a lawyer, as confidence in the prime minister’s leadership collapses among Tory party members.

The Observer has been told that Johnson was so furious after last Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions – where he was asked to withdraw comments he made about the Labour leader and the IRA by the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle – that he turned on his staff for leaving him under-prepared, and asked them to come up with more attack lines on the Labour leader’s career as a lawyer.

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Boris Johnson’s proposal for York parliament during restoration is rejected

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Repairs body says it will not review idea of temporary move as decision is for MPs and peers

Boris Johnson’s suggestion of moving parliament to York while a multibillion-pound restoration of the Palace of Westminster takes place will not be considered by a body reviewing the plans.

The prime minister had requested that a “possible location outside London” be looked at as a place for parliament to sit while the crumbling palace is revamped at an estimated cost of £4bn.

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DfiD merger will ‘severely impact’ UK’s status, concludes cross-party inquiry

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Commons committee chair warns of ‘damage beyond repair’ over abolition of overseas aid department

A cross-party committee of MPs has said Boris Johnson’s “rushed and impulsive” merger of the Foreign Office and Department for International Development will “severely impact the UK’s superpower status”.

Attacking the prime minister’s decision as “coming out of the blue”, a report published on Thursday from the Commons international development committee (IDC) said it was likely it would be disruptive and “incredibly costly”.

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Boris Johnson confirms plans for ‘government hub’ in York

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PM says city should be in frame if Commons or Lords have to move during restoration work

Boris Johnson has confirmed that Downing Street is thinking of setting up a “government hub” in York, telling officials drawing up restoration plans for the Palace of Westminster that they should consider the city if the Commons or Lords have to be moved.

Restoration of the parliamentary estate, which is crumbling in many places and viewed as a significant fire risk, could cost an estimated £6bn, and the plans are still being debated.

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Boris Johnson indicates at PMQs he has not read winter coronavirus report

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Keir Starmer presses PM over scientists’ call for preparations for possible second wave

Boris Johnson has indicated he has not read a government-commissioned report setting out urgent measures needed to prepare for a possible second wave of coronavirus, telling the Commons only that he was “aware” of it.

Johnson was questioned at length by Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions about the study by 37 senior doctors and scientists, published this week, and the need for an effective test-and-trace system to mitigate any new outbreak.

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Business secretary Alok Sharma appears unwell in House of Commons chamber – video

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Alok Sharma, the business secretary, has been tested for coronavirus after feeling unwell while delivering a statement in the Commons. Sharma appeared ill and to be sweating while he spoke about a bill. The parliamentary authorities are understood to have given the area a deep clean and MPs were at the time sitting at least two metres apart. 'This was done as a precaution,' a House of Commons source said

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MPs join 90-minute-long queue to vote to end virtual voting

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Critics say move to physically-distant voting puts vulnerable and BAME politicians at risk

MPs are to return to parliament after a government motion was passed to prevent the resumption of virtual voting, despite what one MP called “absurd” scenes of a kilometre-long conga line of politicians trying to vote.

The 527 MPs snaked through Westminster halls and courtyards for an hour and 23 minutes to vote on the proposal by the Commons leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg, which was carried by 261 votes to 163. It incited a furious reaction from many MPs, including those who are shielding and black and ethnic minority (BAME) politicians.

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PMQs: Keir Starmer presses Boris Johnson over care home deaths

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PM accused of not knowing government’s coronavirus advice after clash in Commons

Boris Johnson has been accused by Labour of not knowing the government’s advice on coronavirus after he told Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions that it “wasn’t true” that the care home sector had been advised it was unlikely to face an outbreak.

In a tricky series of exchanges in the Commons, Starmer put Johnson under intense pressure to explain the extent of care home deaths.

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Slow-moving Commons debates the key issues of March

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Something called the coronavirus had become a pandemic, a minister told MPs

Just as Matt Hancock was explaining at the Downing Street press conference how he hoped his test, track and trace app might work to ease the lockdown, parliament was finally getting the opportunity to debate the coronavirus regulations the government had put in place back in March. Though debate might be putting it a little strongly. The tech in the new virtual Commons isn’t up to allowing any interventions, so what we actually got was each MP making an uninterrupted five-minute speech.

The junior health minister Edward Argar appeared slightly bewildered by the need for even an ersatz debate. And you could rather see his point. The real key date here is this Thursday, when the government is obliged to say whether it plans to maintain the emergency powers or introduce some form of relaxation, so being asked to justify the current regime that had been in place for six weeks and might change in a few days’ time felt a wee bit pointless.

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Refuges from domestic violence running out of space, MPs hear

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Dame Vera Baird warns select committee Covid-19 lockdown is leading to ‘perfect storm’

Refuges providing sanctuary to victims of domestic violence are running out of space, with many full or effectively closed amid an “epidemic inside this pandemic”, the victims’ commissioner has told MPs.

A “perfect storm” of problems is in danger of overwhelming support services for those trying to escape violent and abusive partners, Dame Vera Baird QC warned members of the House of Commons justice select committee.

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Welsh minister’s mic mistake broadcasts sweary rant to assembly

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Vaughan Gething heard decrying Labour colleague after leaving his audio live on video call

Wales’s health minister, Vaughan Gething, has learned the hard way about one of the risks of videoconferencing after he accidentally broadcast a sweary rant about one of his colleagues during a virtual session of Welsh assembly.

Having apparently left his microphone live after addressing the assembly, the minister could be heard loudly decrying his fellow Labour assembly member Jenny Rathbone.

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Matt Hancock says ‘we are at the peak’ of Covid outbreak – video

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The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has told MPs: ‘We are at the peak’ of the pandemic. ‘But before we relax any social distancing rules or make changes to them we have set out the five tests that have to be met.’

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Jeremy Corbyn presses Boris Johnson on coronavirus in last PMQs as Labour leader – video

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Jeremy Corbyn pushed Boris Johnson for clarity on government guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic in his last PMQs as the leader of the opposition.

The prime minister said he agreed with Corbyn that people are having to make a sacrifice, but they are doing so gladly

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Minority staff asked for security passes more in parliament, report finds

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House of Lords changes rules after warning BAME workers excluded from facilities for mostly white peers

Parliament has been accused of operating a form of apartheid after a report found that minority ethnic staff were asked to show their security passes more often than white counterparts.

Black and minority ethnic staff who responded to a survey carried out last year also complained that historic parliamentary rules meant that they were not allowed to eat or drink in the same rooms or even use the same toilets as the mostly white members of the House of Lords.

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Wartime bomb damage and asbestos inflates Big Ben repair bill to £80m

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Conservation work on Elizabeth Tower is ‘more complex than anticipated’

The repair bill to fix parliament’s Elizabeth Tower that houses Big Ben has increased by £18.6m to nearly £80m following the discovery of asbestos, second world war bomb damage and pollution problems.

Conservation work on the 177-year-old structure, which is supposed to be completed at the end of next year, led to the discovery by the project team after intrusive surveys, parliamentary officials have disclosed.

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‘One rule for black boys and another for white’: Corbyn attacks PM

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Jeremy Corbyn confronts Boris Johnson on drug use after deportation of ex-offenders

Jeremy Corbyn launched a scathing personal attack on Boris Johnson over the way black and white children connected to class A drugs are treated by the government in the wake of the deportation of ex-offenders to Jamaica.

Speaking in the Commons, the Labour leader called out the prime minister over allegations of Johnson’s own drug use, saying: “If there was a case of a young white boy with blond hair who later dabbled in class A drugs, and conspired with a friend to beat up a journalist, would he deport that boy?

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