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
Continue reading...Category Archives: House of Commons
MPs join 90-minute-long queue to vote to end virtual voting
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.
Continue reading...PMQs: Keir Starmer presses Boris Johnson over care home deaths
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.
Continue reading...Slow-moving Commons debates the key issues of March
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.
Continue reading...Refuges from domestic violence running out of space, MPs hear
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.
Continue reading...Welsh minister’s mic mistake broadcasts sweary rant to assembly
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.
Continue reading...Matt Hancock says ‘we are at the peak’ of Covid outbreak – video
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.’
Continue reading...Jeremy Corbyn presses Boris Johnson on coronavirus in last PMQs as Labour leader – video
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
Continue reading...Minority staff asked for security passes more in parliament, report finds
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.
Continue reading...Wartime bomb damage and asbestos inflates Big Ben repair bill to £80m
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.
Continue reading...‘One rule for black boys and another for white’: Corbyn attacks PM
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?
Continue reading...PMQs: Boris Johnson faces Jeremy Corbyn – live news
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
- BBC licence fee: proposals to decriminalise non-payment
- Morgan rejects claim BBC being punished for anti-government coverage
- Morgan’s Q&A after BBC speech - Summary
The SDLP’s Colum Eastwood asks about the involvement of the IRA in the murder of Paul Quinn in 2007. It was claimed Quinn was a criminal, he says. That was a lie, he says.
Johnson says the government will implement the Stormont House agreement so as to provide justice for victims.
The SNP’s Owen Thompson asks when the report into Russian interference in UK elections will be published.
Johnson says it will be published when the intelligence and security committee is reconstituted. He says conspiracy theorists will be disappointed by its conclusions.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson’s Big Ben Brexit bong plan falls flat
No plan for a public fund to sound bells on UK’s exit from EU, despite PM’s assertions
An energetic if perhaps niche campaign to ensure the chimes of Big Ben sound at the moment of Brexit on 31 January appears doomed after Commons authorities played down the idea, while a funding plan promised by Boris Johnson to pay for it turned out to not exist.
Staunchly pro-Brexit Tories such as Mark Francois and some newspapers have called for lengthy restoration work on the parliamentary clocktower to be paused so the bell can sound at 11pm, marking the moment the UK leaves the EU.
Continue reading...Brexit: MPs pass withdrawal agreement bill by 124 majority
Bill passes second reading by 358 votes to 234 leaving UK on course to leave EU by end of January
Britain has taken a pivotal step towards leaving the European Union as Boris Johnson was rewarded for the Conservatives’ thumping general election victory with a majority of 124 for his Brexit deal in the House of Commons.
Addressing MPs on Friday morning, the prime minister sought to draw a line under three years of bitter parliamentary conflict, urging his colleagues to “discard the old labels of leave and remain”.
Continue reading...‘Extra pathos’: belongings of ex- Labour MP who lost seat incinerated
Commons staff mistakenly destroy some of Graham Jones’s files and favourite outfits
A former Labour whip who lost his seat in the general election has had his clothes and private documents mistakenly incinerated by parliamentary staff.
Graham Jones, the ousted parliamentary candidate for Hyndburn in last Thursday’s general election, returned to Westminster this week to clear his office, which is close to the House of Commons chamber and Strangers bar.
Continue reading...John Bercow: ‘I may be pompous and an irritant. But I am completely authentic’
What next for John Bercow – Speaker for 10 years, and a household name thanks to Brexit? One thing he knows is that it won’t be Strictly…
When John Bercow bowed out as Speaker of the House of Commons last month – in the chamber, he listened uncomplainingly for just under three hours to MPs lavishly buttering him with praise – the attention of one newspaper diarist was drawn by rumours of the sight of a somewhat unlikely observer in the gallery. Who was this attentive fellow, and what was it that he was scribbling so assiduously in his notebook? Later, a name was supplied. Apparently, it was none other than the actor Tom Hollander, who may or may not be preparing to play the former Speaker on screen.
If Bercow the biopic is shortly to become a reality, Hollander will have his work cut out. It’s not only that he’ll have to get the voice right (at his best – or worst, depending on your point of view – Bercow sounds like Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh in the 1935 movie Mutiny on the Bounty). Actually, that’s the easy part (“Order, orr-duu-rrr!”). It’s the personality that’s trickier to catch. Crikey, but he’s a strange mix. Yes, as even he admits, he is pompous, irascible, long-winded, pig-headed and, at times, utterly irritating. But he’s also quick, warm, quite funny and, most surprisingly of all for a politician, capable of great, almost dazzling, honesty. In summary, all of his emotions are perilously close to the surface and you must be prepared for spillages, even as you struggle to follow his endlessly unspooling paragraphs. In 25 years, I’ve never interviewed someone more difficult to interrupt, or more prone to tears.
Continue reading...John Bercow: Brexit is UK’s biggest mistake since second world war
Former Speaker tells foreign media UK is better off as part of EU power bloc
Days after bowing out as Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow has described Brexit as the biggest mistake Britain has made since the second world war.
Bercow, who was persistently accused of bias by Brexit-backing MPs during his term as Speaker, gave a valedictory speech to the Foreign Press Association, revealing himself to be a remainer.
Continue reading...‘Alarming’ Chinese meddling at UK universities exposed in report
Chinese embassy appears to be coordinating efforts to curb academic freedom, say MPs
Universities are not adequately responding to the growing risk of China and other “autocracies” influencing academic freedom in the UK, the foreign affairs select committee has said.
The report, rushed out before parliament is suspended pending the election, finds “alarming evidence” of Chinese interference on UK campuses, adding some of the activity seeking to restrict academic freedom appears to be coordinated by the Chinese embassy in London.
Continue reading...PM accused of cover-up over report on Russian meddling in UK politics
No 10 refuses to clear release of report into Russian political interference before election
Boris Johnson was on Monday night accused of presiding over a cover-up after it emerged that No 10 refused to clear the publication of a potentially incendiary report examining Russian infiltration in British politics, including the Conservative party.
Downing Street indicated on Monday that it would not allow a 50-page dossier from the intelligence and security committee to be published before the election, prompting a string of complaints over its suppression.
Continue reading...Brexit: Boris Johnson fails in bid to limit debate as MPs start considering early election bill – live news
Commons debating fresh attempt by government for December ballot
- General election: Labour says it will back pre-Christmas poll
- Johnson fails in bid to limit debate as MPs start considering election bill
- Does government defeat on Creasy amendment mean bill might fall?
The Labour MP Stephen Doughty says he has tabled an amendment to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote.
I have now tabled my simple and straightforward #VotesAt16 Amendment. Thanks to all colleagues who have signed. The Government have unfortunately tried to make it as difficult to table, select and vote on amendments as possible. pic.twitter.com/xzxkKoDv6n
Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, is speaking now.
He says the SNP has been accused of trying to obstruct Brexit. “Guilty as charged,” he says.
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