Justin Welby to join peers condemning measures that seek to criminalise people seeking refuge in UK
The archbishop of Canterbury will make a rare intervention in the House of Lords to join dozens of peers condemning the government’s flagship asylum bill.
Justin Welby will argue against measures championed by Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman that seek to criminalise people seeking refuge in the UK if they arrive on small boats.
Continue reading...Lord Hain is seeking amendments to economic crime bill requiring ministers to back establishment of new court
The UK government should back the establishment of an international anti-corruption court to prosecute corrupt leaders of countries unwilling or unable to enforce their own anti-kleptocracy laws, according to Lord Hain, the former Foreign Office minister.
With cross-party support, Hain will propose that the time has come for Britain to throw its weight behind the growing global momentum for an international court, analogous to the international criminal court in The Hague.
Continue reading...Ex-PM has reportedly nominated at least four new members of Lords despite only lasting 49 days in No 10
Liz Truss has been accused of showing a “stunning lack of humility” following reports that she plans in effect to create a peer for every 10 days she spent in office.
The former prime minister is reported to have nominated at least four new members of the House of Lords, despite being forced from office after only 49 days, following a disastrous mini-budget.
Continue reading...Russian leader reacts to comments by UK defence minister that Britain will supply armour-piercing rounds to Kyiv
Vladimir Putin has sought to exploit a British statement that it would supply Ukraine with tank shells made with depleted uranium, arguing that the delivery of the armour-piercing weapons would prompt a Russian response.
The Russian leader’s comments, made during the visit to Moscow by his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, came in response to a parliamentary answer given by a junior British defence minister in the House of Lords on Monday.
Continue reading...Placing of media boss on resignation honours list despite previous rejection puts Rishi Sunak in difficult position
Boris Johnson has once again nominated Paul Dacre for a peerage as part of a pared-back resignation honours list despite the Daily Mail chief having previously been rejected by the appointments watchdog, the Guardian has learned.
Sources with knowledge of the list have said that Johnson has put forward Dacre’s name for a second time. He had been knocked back last autumn after reported doubts raised by the House of Lords appointments commission.
Continue reading...Paul Bew calls on people to respond to substance of Rishi Sunak’s revised Northern Ireland deal alone
A peer and Northern Ireland expert has urged unionists to respond to the substance of Rishi Sunak’s revised Brexit deal alone, rather than the “communal rhetoric” that has been whipped up by others.
Paul Bew told MPs on Wednesday it was “important” that people recognised the tricky political task facing the Democratic Unionist party leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, who must balance the views of the party and its base when making a decision on whether to support the Windsor framework.
Continue reading...Peers rejected letting police exercise stop and search without suspicion and sanction people without conviction
Proposed legislation aimed at curbing tactics used by protest groups has suffered eight defeats in the House of Lords.
Peers rejected key measures of the controversial public order bill, including ditching a measure to let police exercise stop and search without suspicion to tackle disruptive demonstrations.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Rami Ranger criticised over comments about Pakistani journalists
A Conservative peer has apologised and withdrawn comments that were criticised for being “racially charged”, as a second referral about his conduct was made to the House of Lords standards watchdog.
Rami Ranger, a major Conservative party donor, admitted that remarks unearthed by the Guardian that he made in a letter regarding Pakistani journalists and a later TV interview about grooming and drug dealing had “caused offence”.
Continue reading...House of Lords votes against flagship public order bill on day when Extinction Rebellion protesters disrupted proceedings in chamber
A government bill aimed at cracking down on protest has suffered a number of setbacks in the House of Lords, setting the stage for a tense showdown between parliament’s two chambers.
Peers inflicted a number of defeats on the wide-ranging public order bill, which is aimed at curbing guerrilla tactics used by protest groups.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Rami Ranger faces criticism over ‘deplorable’ comments about Pakistani journalists at the corporation
A Conservative peer has been accused of using “deplorable” and “racially charged language” in a scathing attack on the BBC’s recent documentary about the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Rami Ranger, who is already under investigation by the standards commissioners in the Lords, was criticised for comments made about Pakistani journalists at the corporation.
Continue reading...All-party group including peers backs campaign by victims’ group, saying Cape ‘knowingly put people in danger’
MPs and peers have written to one of the biggest manufacturers of asbestos, calling on it to make a £10m donation towards mesothelioma research “for knowingly putting people in danger”.
In a letter to Altrad, parent company of Cape, the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on occupational safety and health says that documents released after a long-running court battle show that Cape historically “provided misleading reassurance about the dangers of asbestos”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: After the Michelle Mone scandal and PPE questions, National Audit Office says monitoring conflicts of interest is ‘crucial’
Peers and MPs should have to declare any links to firms they recommend for contracts even in an emergency such as the Covid pandemic, the head of the National Audit Office (NAO) has said, in the wake of the PPE controversies including the Michelle Mone scandal.
Gareth Davies, the auditor and comptroller general at the NAO, said keeping on top of conflicts of interest was a “crucial part of public stewardship” that was not always followed during the VIP fast lane process.
Continue reading...DHSC accused PPE Medpro of presenting false document when tendering for PPE contracts
A company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone was referred to the UK’s health products watchdog for an investigation after it allegedly presented a false document to the government when tendering for PPE contracts.
The referral of the company, PPE Medpro, was described in a high court document made public this week, setting out the legal claim against the company by the Department of Health and Social Care. The DHSC is seeking the return of £122m in public money it paid for the supply of sterile surgical gowns, plus £11.6m for storing and disposing of them.
Continue reading...Exclusive: DHSC alleges gowns were not sterile, could not be used within NHS ‘for any purpose’, and technical labelling was ‘invalid’
The UK government has accused a company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone of supplying defective gowns that could have compromised the safety of patients had it been used in the NHS.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) paid the company, PPE Medpro, £122m for 25m sterile surgical gowns under a contract awarded in June 2020 after Mone first approached ministers offering to supply PPE. However, the DHSC has alleged the gowns were rejected because they were not sterile, their technical labelling was “invalid” and “improper”, and they “cannot be used within the NHS for any purpose”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 27 members of House of Lords have donated almost £50m in total to Conservatives
One in 10 Conservative peers are big donors to the party, giving almost £50m in total, new analysis shows, amid controversy over more financial backers believed to have been put forward on Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
After speculation about more donors due to get peerages within the coming weeks, figures compiled by the Guardian show 27 out of the party’s 274 peers have given more than £100,000 to the Conservatives.
Continue reading...After Boris Johnson took political patronage to new levels by his appointments, Labour sees public mood is ripe for radical reform
What do Boris Johnson’s brother, a historian who has written favourably about him, and a defeated MP who gave him a free holiday all have in common?
All of them now grace the prestigious red benches of the House of Lords, along with 27 donors to the Conservative party.
Continue reading...Loss of employees since Covid raises fears of weaker growth and higher inflation, says Lords report
An exodus of more than half a million people from the British workforce since the Covid pandemic is putting the economy at risk of weaker growth and persistently higher inflation, a Lords report has warned.
The House of Lords economic affairs committee said the sharp rise in economic inactivity – when working-age adults are neither in employment nor looking for a job – since the onset of the health emergency was posing “serious challenges” to the economy.
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...Labour’s motion calling on the government to release all documents and advice relating to contracts awarded to PPE Medpro has also now passed
Labour received £4.7m in donations between July and September, more than any other party, PA Media reports. PA says:
The sum received by Labour is significantly greater than that donated to the Conservatives, which, according to Electoral Commission data, received £2.9m over the same period.
The Liberal Democrats recorded about £1.7m, according to returns submitted to the Electoral Commission, with more than £11m in total donated to 19 separate UK political parties.
Lynch, the RMT general secretary, said the government was to blame for not allowing the train companies to make an offer acceptable to his members. He said:
The government are running the playbook and the strategy for the railway companies and directing what is going on. They have held back even these paltry offers to the last minute.
He claimed the rail companies were not losing out from strike action, because they were subsidised by the government, and he described this system as “perverse and corrupt”. He explained:
They get indemnified for every day of strike action. They are paid the money that they would otherwise have lost, and the only people that lose are my members who lose their wages and the public and these businesses in hospitality who lose their income as well, while the people I negotiate with lose no money whatsoever.
It is the most perverse and corrupt system we have ever seen in British business where those people that are conducting the dispute make no losses whatsoever and the taxpayer subsidises those people by money given directly from the DfT [Department for Transport].
He said the timing of the latest strikes was “unfortunate”, but he claimed the union was forced to act. He said:
We have to respond to what the companies are doing, and they’re doing that very deliberately. They’re seeking to ratchet up the dispute.
He accepted that, although the additional strikes were over Christmas, when rail services were very minimal anyway, they would create further disruption for passengers. In the past Lynch had said the RMT wanted to avoid strike action over Christmas.
He defended the RMT’s decision to object to a move to driver-only trains. Driver-only operation was “less safe”, he said. Women and disabled passengers wanted to see guards on trains, he said, because they felt that was safer and more welcoming. When the presenter, Justin Webb, put it to Lynch that driver-only trains still had another member of staff on board, and that they just did not have a staff member operating the doors, Lynch said that was wrong. He said most of these services did not have anyone else on board, apart from the driver.
Continue reading...Labour leader says, though he argued for remain, he could not argue against leave voters calling for more control over their lives
Starmer is now taking questions.
Q: [Beth Rigby from Sky] When people are struggling with the cost of living, you are talking about constitutional issues. This might look to people as if you are out of touch. Are you talking to Westminster about stuff that won’t happen. What in this will improve people’s lives from day one of a Labour government?
When you come to the next election, it may be that the Scottish National party will have a one-line manifesto and want a one-issue general election.
But we have done a huge amount of research on Scottish public opinion and people want a better health service immediately, people want living standards improved immediately, people want jobs for young people immediately, people want better housing immediately and people of course want change in the way that we are suggesting immediately.
People up and down this country are crying out for a new approach. During the Brexit referendum I argued for remain. But I couldn’t disagree with the basic case that many leave voters made to me.
They wanted democratic control over their lives so they could provide opportunities for the next generation, build communities they felt proud of, and public services they could rely on.
Continue reading...