Paul Kagame also says he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped
Rwanda’s president has said there are limits to how long attempts to implement an asylum deal with Britain can “drag on”, indicating he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped.
Paul Kagame’s comments on Wednesday came before Rishi Sunak faced a potentially leadership-ending rebellion by Conservative MPs threatening to vote down his Rwanda deportation bill on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...The prime minister faced PMQs for the final time before the Christmas recess
Rishi Sunak is about to take PMQs. It will be the last of 2023.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Continue reading...Former prime minister also admits he should have worked more closely with devolved administrations
Hugo Keith KC is questioning Johnson.
He asks if Johnson’s approach has been to give all relevant material to the inquiry.
I understand the feelings of these victims and their families and I am deeply sorry for the pain and the loss and suffering of those victims and their families.
Continue reading...PMQs clash comes as Suella Braverman expected to heavily criticise government’s immigration plans
Rishi Sunak’s government has been accused by Keir Starmer of giving Rwanda “hundreds of millions of pounds for nothing in return” following the signing of a deportation treaty.
In a clash at prime minister’s questions, the Labour leader mocked the treaty, signed on Tuesday, saying the Rwandan government of President Paul Kagame had seen the prime minister coming “a mile off”.
Continue reading...Prime minister’s record shows he has the ‘reverse Midas touch’, Keir Starmer says
Back at the home affairs committee, Tim Loughton (Con) has just had another go at getting answers about the number of asylum applications that have been withdrawn. (See 10.38am.)
He said, when he said earlier 95% of withdrawn applications were categorised as withdrawn for “other” reasons (and not because the claims were not substantiated), he was quoting figures for the last quarter.
Whilst the prospect is perhaps what none of us would wish to plan for, I believe the reality will be that we will need to discharge Covid-19 positive patients into residential care settings for the reason you have noted.
This will be entirely clinically appropriate because the NHS will triage those to retain in acute settings who can benefit from that sector’s care.
Continue reading...Chancellor cuts employee national insurance to 10% while abolishing class 2 national insurance
Keir Starmer has said that a pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas must be used to tackle the “urgent and unacceptable humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.
Welcoming the deal, which is expected to involve the release of 50 hostages being held by Hamas and a number of women and teenagers from Israeli jails, the Labour leader said his party had been calling for “a substantial humanitarian pause”. He said:
There must be immediate access to aid, food, water, fuel and medicine to ensure hospitals function and lives are saved. Aid and fuel need to not just get in but be distributed widely and safely.
We must also use the space this pause creates to take more steps on a path towards a full cessation of hostilities rather than an escalation of violence.
The real function of the projected spending squeeze is as a trap for Labour. If the opposition rejects the Tory trajectory, it will be accused of planning a profligate spree with public money. And if it pledges adherence to impossible targets, it will enter government with its hands bound too tight to deliver prompt satisfaction to the people who voted for it.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have so far operated a sensible policy of not walking into traps of this kind. That approach restored swing voters’ trust in Labour as stewards of the economy. But it tests the patience of an activist base that sees reversal of austerity as a moral imperative and can smell the incipient disappointment in promises of fiscal discipline.
Continue reading...Alex Cunningham, MP for Stockton North, claims James Cleverly made comment during Wednesday’s PMQs
A Labour MP has claimed that his constituency was described as a “shithole” by the home secretary, James Cleverly, during prime minister’s questions.
Alex Cunningham said Cleverly had uttered the phrase when the Labour MP for Stockton North asked: “Why are 34% of children in my constituency living in poverty?”
Continue reading...Prime minister says he is prepared to ‘revisit legal frameworks’ to stop the boats as supreme court says policy is unlawful
Reed says the court has had to decide whether the Rwanda policy breaches the non-refoulement rule.
The policy is in the Home Office’s immigration rules, he says.
Continue reading...Letter from Labour leader stresses his concern for international law and sympathy with the plight of the Palestinian people
Rishi Sunak will be taking PMQs shortly. It will be his first exchange with Keir Starmer since the party conferences.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
We were the victims of an inside job by someone, we believe, who over a long period of time was stealing from the museum and the museum put trust in.
There are lots of lessons to be learnt as a result of that, the member of staff has been dismissed by us. The objects have started to be recovered … We have changed our whistleblowing code, changed our policy on thefts … tightened up security on thefts.
If someone is entrusted by an organisation to look after something and they are the person removing those objects, that is hard for any organisation, and it was hard for the museum, where there is a trusting culture.
If that trust is completely abused and as I think will become clear in the coming months quite a lot of steps were taken to conceal that, it wasn’t just that things were taken, records were altered and the like, it’s hard to spot.
We are intending to put on display the objects we have recovered, there is a lot of public interest in these objects.
350 have now been recovered and titles have been transferred to us so we have the makings of a good exhibition that was not previously planned.
Continue reading...Labour leader accuses government of failing to heed warnings which has led to series of crises this week
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question at PMQs.
Yesterday it emerged that ministers are mulling over a plan to tweak the triple lock for pensions so that what might be a bumper 8.5% increase in its value next year ends up being marginally less generous, at 7.8%.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer likens the Tories to ‘cowboy builders’ as the PM insists the government acted decisively in response to the problem
The DfE list shows pupils at 24 schools across England will receive some remote learning because of the concrete crisis, with four schools switching to fully remote learning, PA Media reports.
And the list shows 19 schools where the start of term has had to be delayed as a result of collapse-prone concrete.
Continue reading...Labour leader accuses prime minister of neglecting pupils at state schools during combative PMQs
Keir Starmer has likened Rishi Sunak’s government to a group of “cowboy builders” during a prime minister’s questions in which the Labour leader sought to portray the prime minister as out of touch over the concrete crisis.
Starmer also contrasted the chaos faced in the state system with the private education enjoyed by the PM and his children, saying Sunak neglected the problem because he saw it as a problem affecting “other people’s children”.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our UK political coverage here
Civil service chief Simon Case said the last five years had seen a deterioration in relations between officials and politicians, although he added the situation had improved since Rishi Sunak became prime minister, PA News reports.
The cabinet secretary told MPs:
The last five years or so have seen, I think, an increased number of attacks on civil servants individually and collectively by significant political figures which has undoubtedly undermined the good functioning of government.
I’m very happy to say that under this prime minister things have changed very significantly.
Obviously I don’t agree with a characterisation which is insulting, dehumanising, totally unacceptable.
It would surprise me if current ministers were using this language, not least because if they were it would indicate something akin to self-defeating cowardice.
Yes, was aware of those communications and have flagged them to both the chief whip and Speaker of the House.
Continue reading...Labour leader presses prime minister to admit his party will not meet promised targets over house building
PMQs is coming up soon.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
We remain seriously concerned about the potential implications of the illegal migration bill on human rights and the safety of individuals.
Careful consideration should continue to be given to the impact of the bill on different groups with protected characteristics – including children, pregnant women, disabled people, torture survivors, and victims of trafficking.
Continue reading...PM’s office says Mid Bedfordshire deserves ‘proper representation’ and delay to resignation ‘obviously unusual’
Fell put it to Braverman that customers were not learning to protect themselves from online fraud because, if they are cheated, they tend to get their money back from banks. He suggested that people were being “coddled”. It was as if they were leaving their front door open, leaving themselves vulnerable to burglary, he said.
Braverman said Fell had a point. She told him:
I think that’s a really important point and I’m passionate about increasing awareness - much like practice changed when it came to wearing a seatbelt …
I think we need a step change when it comes to online activity. We are far more vulnerable than we appreciate and I think people’s lives are lived so politically online that they forget that there are fraudsters operating in that online world.
Continue reading...Dowden stands in for Rishi Sunak as prime minister travels to Japan for G7
Keir Starmer has confirmed that Labour would seek to improve the Brexit deal that the UK has with the EU. Asked about the reports that the car manufacturer Stellantis wants the trade and cooperation agreement renegotiated because it believes that in its current form it puts manufacturing jobs in the UK at risk, Starmer told BBC Breakfast the UK needed “a better Brexit deal”. He said:
Look, we’re not going to re-enter the EU. We do need to improve that deal. Of course we want a closer trading relationship, we absolutely do. We want to ensure that Vauxhall and many others not just survive in this country but thrive.
Keir Starmer is absolutely right to say developers and landowners need to be prevented from deliberately slowing the rate at which they build houses to drive up prices – local authorities need more control to direct housebuilding where it is most needed.
And he’s bang on when he says targeting the green belt for ‘expensive executive housing’ upsets local communities because that’s not the homes that are needed. We’re facing a bona fide housing crisis, with an entire generation effectively priced out of home ownership. What’s more, far too many people are barely able to afford their rent.
Continue reading...Justin Welby says bill is ‘morally unacceptable’ and rules on protection of refugees are not ‘inconvenient obstructions’. This live blog is closed
In the House of Lords peers are just starting to debate the second reading of the illegal migration bill.
Simon Murray, aka Lord Murray of Blidworth, is opening the debate. He is a lawyer who was made a Home Office minister, and a peer, when Liz Truss was PM.
We now face a perfect storm of factors driving more people into homelessness while giving us fewer good options to help them when they do. These factors include soaring private rents (above the benefit cap), private landlords leaving the sector, a national shortage of affordable housing, and a backlog of court cases after Covid-relating housing support was removed. At the same time, we have a cost-of-living crisis which is reducing real-term incomes and putting further strain on relationships.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM and Labour leader face off in final prime minister’s questions before voters head to the polls
George Osborne, the Conservative former chancellor, has come out in favour of banning smoking over the long term, and taxing orange juice, to promote public health.
He proposed the ideas – neither of which have much chance of featuring in the next Conservative manifesto – in evidence to the the Times Health Commission, a year-long project to investigate ideas that would improve health and social care.
Since the dawn of states, [the government] has regulated certain products and medicines, and made certain things illegal. I don’t see why you can’t do that in a space such as food. Food’s been heavily regulated since the 19th century.
Of course you’re going to have lots of problems with illegal smoking, but you have lots of problems with other illegal activities. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and ban them and police them and make it less readily available. I thought that was a compelling public health intervention.
We’re making sure that we stop those sort of cold calls and those spoof text messages that pretend to be from somebody else, that’s the first thing.
The second thing we’re doing is we’re making sure there’s more ability for the police to pursue fraudsters and that’s where the national fraud squad with 400 new investigators and a new national fraud intelligence unit comes in. That’s a huge development.
Continue reading...Theresa May had warned bill will cause more people to be consigned to modern slavery while Geoffrey Cox also raised concerns. This blog is now closed
Q: [From Matthew Barber, the police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley] What can the Home Office do to cut bureaucracy for the police?
Braverman says, if someone is having a mental health crisis, there should be a healthcare response, not a police response. She says police officers are having to spend too much time in hospital with people.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more on this story here
PMQs is starting in five minutes.
The Cabinet Office has just published the revised list of ministers’ interests. This is the document that is supposed get updated every six months, but which has not been updated for around a year – partly because it’s the job of the No 10 independent adviser on ministes’ interests (aka, the ethics adviser), and for months the post was empty because two of Boris Johnson’s resigned, and then he gave up trying to find a replacement.
The prime minister’s wife is a venture capital investor. She owns a venture capital investment company, Catamaran Ventures UK Limited, and a number of direct shareholdings.
As the prime minister set out in his letter to the chair of the liaison committee on 4 April 2023, this includes the minority shareholding that his wife has in relation to the company, Koru Kids. The guide to the categories of interest (section 7, pages 4-6) sets out the independent adviser’s approach to the inclusion of interests declared in relation to spouses, partners and close family members within the list. The prime minister’s letter of 4 April is available at https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/38992/documents/191876/default/
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