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Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, was not exactly on message in his Sky News interview with Kay Burley this morning. As well as implying that he thought the bullying inquiry into Dominic Raab was a mistake (see 10.37am), he made at least three other comments that suggest Rishi Sunak does not have the enthusiastic support of all his backbenchers.

Rees-Mogg said that Sunak was performing “perfectly competently” as PM. Asked how he was doing, Rees-Mogg replied: “I think he’s doing perfectly competently.” When Burley put it to him that that was not much of an endorsement, Rees-Mogg went on: “I made no bones about the fact I thought Boris Johnson was a better prime minister and I wanted him to remain.”

Rees-Mogg criticised the government for stalling the Northern Ireland protocol bill. The bill, which is popular with hardline Brexiters but widely seen as contrary to international law, because it would allow the UK to unilaterally ignore some of the provisions in the protocol treaty, passed through the Commons when Boris Johnson was PM. But it is stuck in the Lords, where it has not been debated since October and where a date has not been set for its report stage. Sunak has shelved it because he wants to negotiate a compromise on the protocol with the EU, and passing the bill would make agreement much harder. But Rees-Mogg said the government should pass it. He said:

The government has just got to get on with it. There’s a bill that has been through the House of Commons that is waiting its report stage in the House of Lords and I don’t understand why the government hasn’t brought it forward.

He renewed his criticism of the strikes (minimum service levels) bill. When MPs debated it last night, Rees-Mogg said he agreed with Labour criticisms of the Henry VIII powers in the bill.

The government doesn’t know what changes it will have to make once this bill is passed. Under clause 3, the secretary of state would be able to make regulations that “amend, repeal or revoke provision made by or under primary legislation passed before this act or later in the same session of parliament as this act”. This is a supercharged Henry VIII clause. Why should MPs or peers pay any attention to any related legislation that may be brought before them later in this session when they know that, unless they object, a secretary of state may simply amend, repeal or revoke it?