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Eagle how the pay settlement for health workers will be funded.
Hunt says, as with all pay settlements, departments fund them from the money they get in the spending review. But in exceptional circumstances they can speak to the Treasury about extra help.
But we make a commitment that there will not be a degredation of frontline services for the public.
Continue reading...Former PM suggests ‘unsocially distanced farewell gatherings’ were allowed at work and that he didn’t think following guidance meant following it perfectly
Turning back to the Northern Ireland protocol deal vote for a moment, Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister, has said that Boris Johnson risks being remembered as a “pound shop Nigel Farage” for his stance on the Windsor framework.
Baker said that reviving the Northern Ireland protocol bill, Johnson’s declared alternative to Rishi Sunak’s deal (see 9.40am), would “wreck our relations with the European Union and damage our standing internationally”. Sky’s Sam Coates has posted the full quote on Twitter.
Continue reading...Latest updates: home secretary says ‘it’s vital we fix this problem’ as Rishi Sunak prepares to face Keir Starmer at PMQs
Suella Braverman has denied the government is breaking the law with its illegal migration bill in interviews this morning. But, as my colleague Aletha Adu reports, Braverman struggled to clarify if the Olympian Sir Mo Farah would have been deported as soon as he turned 18 years old under the proposed regulations.
Good morning. When Rishi Sunak made five pledges in January, four of them looked relatively easy to meet, and one of them looked impossible. He promised to “pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed”.
Continue reading...Minister for women and equalities dismisses suggestion government should pilot menopause leave for women
PMQs is about to start.
Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s chief whip, has said that he thinks the Stormont brake – the mechanism at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s deal to revise the Northern Ireland protocol – will turn out to be “fairly ineffective”.
Let’s not underestimate the fact that when the EU introduces new laws in the future, it will have an impact on Northern Ireland. And the point of the brake was meant to be to give a means for unionists to oppose that. I think it will have to be used on lots of occasions, though I suspect to be fairly ineffective.
As long as it takes us to get, first of all, the analysis, and secondly, the answers from the government, before we make that decision, that’s the time we’ll take.
But the one thing I’ll say to you is that we will not have a knee-jerk reaction to this deal. It means too much to us. And we have got to give it real consideration.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM says Commons will be given a chance to ‘express its view’ on any final deal
British Steel has announced the closure of the coking ovens at its Scunthorpe works with the loss of 260 jobs, my colleague Jasper Jolly reports.
Graeme Wearden has reaction to this on his business live blog.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM, fresh from greeting Zelenskiy at No 10, to face questions from Labour leader and other MPs
Rishi Sunak was at Stansted to welcome President Zelenskiy, he reveals. That explains how they are going to fit in a meeting before PMQs. (See 10.47am.) It is very unusual for a visting leader to be greeted at the airport by the PM. Normally someone more junior is there to do the honours.
To coincide with President Zelenskiy’s visit, the government will today announce further sanctions against Russia, “including the targeting of those who have helped Putin build his personal wealth, and companies who are profiting from the Kremlin’s war machine”. The details are due out later this morning.
Continue reading...Dominic Raab under increasing pressure as civil servants’ union calls for him to be suspended until bullying inquiry concludes
MPs have been told that paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland have coerced young people with drug debts to take part in rioting, PA Media reports. PA says:
A community worker gave an example of a user’s debt being reduced by £80 for doing so.
Megan Phair, coordinator of the Journey to Empowerment Programme and member of the Stop Attacks Forum, said both loyalist and dissident republican groups use the tactic to force people on to the streets.
It’s time for the prime minister to come out of hiding and face the music. The public deserves to know the truth about what he knew and when, including the full disclosure of any advice given to him by the Cabinet Office.
Continue reading...PM not aware of formal complaints at time of appointment, says spokesperson, as Starmer attacks ‘addiction to sleaze and scandal’
Downing Street has repeatedly refused to say whether Rishi Sunak knew of any informal complaints about Dominic Raab’s behaviour before making him a minister, after Keir Starmer attacked the government’s “addiction to sleaze and scandal”.
Speaking after a session of prime minister’s questions in which the Labour leader tackled Sunak over a series of ethical and conduct issues, the prime minister’s press secretary refused to be drawn on possible complaints about Raab before he was made justice secretary and deputy prime minister.
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Rishi Sunak has welcomed Germany’s decision to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
There is more coverage of the German decision on our Ukraine live blog.
Continue reading...Prime minister facing questions from leader of the Labour party and other MPs
Huw Merriman, the rail minister, told MPs this morning that the government has lost more money due to the impact of rail strikes than it would have cost to settle the disputes months ago, PA Media reports. PA says:
Merriman told MPs the row has “ended up costing more” but insisted the “overall impact” on all public sector pay deals must be considered.
Ben Bradshaw, a Labour member of the committee, put it to Merriman that “we’re talking of a cost to the government of over a billion (pounds) so far” from the impact of strikes, which have repeatedly decimated services for several months.
Continue reading...Latest updates: prime minister faces Labour leader ahead of industrial action by nurses on Thursday
Yesterday Mark Harper, the transport secretary, claimed that public support for the rail strikes was declining. Today Ipsos has published some polling that backs up this claim, although support for the RMT has not collapsed, and public opinion is still divided. It puts support for the strikes at 30%, down from 43% in September. And opposition to the strikes is at 36%, up from 31%.
Yesterday Savanta published polling showing a similar trend. It said that net support for the rail workers on strike was +21 in October (those supporting them, minus those not supporting them), and that now it was down to +13.
Continue reading...The prime minister says due process needs to be followed after revelations about Baroness Mone in the Guardian
Everyone is hard up at the moment – including the Conservative party, it seems. According to Bloomberg’s Alex Wickham, the party is raising membership fees by 56%.
This morning Steve Barclay said Rishi Sunak was taking “a very strong stand in terms of the priority of getting inflation down”. (See 10.02am.) But not for Tory members, it seems.
Continue reading...PM responds to question from Keir Starmer about Tory peer who appears to have received millions from PPE firm awarded government contracts
Rishi Sunak has said he was “shocked” to read allegations surrounding the Conservative peer Michelle Mone, after Keir Starmer used prime minister’s questions to ask him how she appeared to have received millions from the profits of a PPE company.
“How did his colleague, Baroness Mone, end up with nearly £30m of taxpayers’ money in her bank account?” the Labour leader asked, citing information revealed by the Guardian.
Continue reading...The chancellor is facing questions at the Commons Treasury committee
Reed says the Scotland Act gives the Scottish parliament limited powers. It cannot legislate on reserved matters. Those include fundamental matters, including the union of the UK.
If legislation related to the union, or the UK parliament, the Scottish parliament would have no power to enact it.
Continue reading...Prime minister U-turns on attending climate conference in Egypt following criticism of decision not to go
Sam Hall, director of the Conserative Environment Network, has welcomed Rishi Sunak’s decision to attend Cop27.
Rishi Sunak has confirmed that he will attend the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt next week.
Continue reading...PM said he stood by Tories’ 2019 manifesto policy when asked in Commons, in rebuff to Liz Truss
Fracking will in effect remain banned under Rishi Sunak’s government, his spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday, saying the new prime minister was committed to the policy in the 2019 manifesto.
The confirmation came after the prime minister told the Commons that he “stands by” the manifesto, which put a moratorium on shale gas extraction.
Continue reading...PM accused of immediately breaking integrity pledge by restoring home secretary in ‘grubby deal’
Rishi Sunak has been accused of immediately breaking his pledge to restore government integrity by bringing Suella Braverman back as home secretary in exchange for a key endorsement for his leadership bid.
Coming under pressure in his first prime minister’s questions, Sunak did not deny that civil servants had raised concerns about one of the most senior roles handed out in his cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Home secretary departs after sending an official document by personal email but uses resignation letter to criticise PM
Plans to create Great British Railways, a public sector body to oversee Britain’s railways, have been delayed, MPs have been told.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the transport secretary, told the Commons transport committee that the transport bill, which would have set up the new body, has been delayed because legislation to deal with the energy crisis is being prioritised. She said:
The challenges of things like the energy legislation we’ve got to bring in and various others has meant that we have lost the opportunity to have that [bill] in this third session.
What we are continuing to pitch for will be what I would call a narrow bill around the future of transport technologies, the legislation around things like e-scooters.
Continue reading...Statement from No 10 comes straight after PM told MPs she was ‘absolutely’ committed to avoiding public spending cuts
Sajid Javid, the former Tory chancellor, has been speaking at an event organised by the Legatum Institute thinktank this morning. As Chris Smyth from the Times reports, Javid said the turmoil in the markets was caused by the fact that the tax cuts in the mini-budget went “way beyond” what Liz Truss promised during the leadership campaign, and by the fact that her energy bills bailout was also much bigger than expected.
The government has drawn up a plan to cap the unit cost of gas and electricity for two years. Labour proposed its own plan to freeze energy bills, but it only proposed a commitment for six months.
Continue reading...PM suggests borrowing will rise as she surprises MPs by saying she has no plans to cut public spending
Liz Truss has said the Conservatives will push ahead with tax cuts without cutting public spending, instead allowing borrowing to rise over the next few years.
Senior economists had warned on Wednesday that such a strategy, if set out by Kwasi Kwarteng in the chancellor’s fiscal plan at the end of this month, would be likely to spook investors, creating renewed market turmoil.
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