PM responds to comments by Reform activists, who were filmed by Channel 4 reporter while canvassing in Clacton
Here’s the latest in the Guardian’s series on The broken years: Tory Britain 2010-24:
Unless the polls are wildly inaccurate, the Conservative party is heading towards a catastrophic defeat in the coming election.
Continue reading...Liberal Democrats say PM is ‘laughing in the face of people crying out for change’
At the weekend the Observer splashed on a story by Toby Helm saying government lawyers have told ministers that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law in Gaza.
In an interview today, asked about the legality of what Israel is doing, Rishi Sunak said the government believes Israel has “the intention and the ability” to comply with international law. He said:
Our view is longstanding that Israel has both the intention and the ability to comply with international humanitarian law, I’ve made that very clear to prime minister Netanyahu whenever I’ve spoken to him.
There have been too many civilian deaths in Gaza, of course we want to see an immediate humanitarian pause so that we can get the hostages out and more aid into the region.
Continue reading...Gillian Keegan asks Bridget Phillipson to clarify after party refuses to commit to sticking to plan if it wins power
Labour is under pressure to clarify whether it would keep the government’s free hours childcare system, after the party refused to commit to the plan beyond the next election.
A shadow cabinet minister said on Monday that Labour “will not reduce” the number of free childcare hours parents were entitled to in England if it entered government.
Continue reading...Education secretary says conference proposals describing Israeli government as racist ‘reflect NEU’s divisive ideology’
Gillian Keegan has strongly criticised the National Education Union over a motion to be debated at its annual conference describing Israel’s government as “racist” and “guilty of apartheid policies”.
The education secretary said the motion and amendments were “wholly inappropriate and completely ignore the horrific terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on 7 October … These motions reflect the NEU’s divisive ideology, which I don’t believe is representative of our teachers.
Continue reading...Promised provision, particularly for autistic children, was announced a year ago but few schools will open on time
Plans to deliver thousands of new special school places by 2026 are falling seriously behind, with experts branding the building programme “a mess”, the Observer can reveal.
The news calls into question the only announcement on schools the chancellor made in last week’s budget – a commitment of £105m towards 15 additional special schools.
Continue reading...Daily registers will also be shared online with DfE as part of government drive to improve attendance
Taking an unauthorised family holiday is about to get more expensive, with the government announcing that fines for children in England missing school are to rise by 33%.
The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, is to overhaul the way local authorities fine parents for unauthorised school absences by bringing penalties “under a national framework to help tackle inconsistencies”.
Continue reading...Leo Docherty, Foreign Office minister, says government ‘working at pace’ to hold those responsible for Russian opposition leader’s death to account
No 10 has declined to repeat Kemi Badenoch’s claim that the former chair of the Post Office gave an interview “full of lies” about the conversation she had when she sacked him.
At the morning lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson would not adopt the language used by Badenoch in a post on X yesterday and instead claimed that Badenoch believes that the account of what she said given by Henry Staunton is a “misrepresentation”.
Obviously this referred to a conversation that she had with Henry Staunton, and you’ll have seen her words on this; she’s very clear that the interview that he gave was a misrepresentation of her conversation with him and the reasons for his dismissal.
And the government has being clear, and will refute the allegations [that it wanted to slow down compensation to victims]. The government has taken action to speed up the compensation to victims, and we’ve consistently encouraged postmasters to come forward with their claims. Any suggestions otherwise [are] not correct.
Continue reading...Latest attempt to tackle pupil absences criticised as failing to tackle the magnitude of the problem
The government is to make a new effort to repair sagging school attendance figures in England, with the education secretary to announce funding for “attendance mentors” in some of the worst-affected areas.
Pupil absences remain stubbornly higher than before the Covid pandemic, and during a visit to Liverpool on Monday Gillian Keegan is expected to announce plans for caseworkers to offer one-to-one support for pupils in 10 areas including Blackpool and Walsall, where rates of unauthorised absences remain far above national levels.
Continue reading...The prime minister has been facing questions on his government’s performance from senior MPs on the Commons liaison committee
Social care leaders felt “blindsided” by recently announced changes to visa rules banning care workers from bringing their families to the UK and have “grave concerns” it could drive people from the sector, the Commons health committee heard this morning. PA Media has filed this from the hearing.
The head of Care England, which represents social care providers across the country, criticised a lack of consultation with the sector, saying it left them “particularly concerned, annoyed and irritated”.
Prof Martin Green, its chief executive, told the committee the system is currently already “creaking at the edges” due to a lack of funding, and spoke of the “chronic workforce shortage” it faces.
Today’s guidance does not go far enough. During the many months we have been waiting for its publication, it has become increasingly clear that non-statutory guidance will provide insufficient protection and clarity, and that a change in the law of the land is required.
That is why I am today asking the government to back my private member’s bill which would change the law in this area to ensure children are fully protected.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser denies contributing to an atmosphere of misogyny at No 10, saying he was ‘much ruder about men’
Heather Hallett, the chair, intervenes at this point. She asks Cain if he is defending the 10-day gap. She says she finds that curious if he is.
Cain says locking down the country is a huge, huge undertaking. In government terms, that is government acting at speed. But it was “longer than you would hope”, he says.
Do I understand from what you said earlier that you would defend the 10-day gap between the decision taken that there had to be a national lockdown and actually implementing that decision? Because I find that curious.
As I said, I think it is longer than you would like, but I think it’s important just to emphasise the amount of things that had to be done and the amount of people we had to take with us to deliver a nationwide lockdown.
It’s a huge, huge undertaking and to be honest, from my understanding of government, that is government moving at a tremendous speed – which maybe says more about government than other things.
Continue reading...Gillian Keegan says to trust in due process as eighth Conservative loses whip over sexual misconduct allegations since 2019
A cabinet minister has said there is no “cultural issue” with Tory MPs after Crispin Blunt became the eighth Conservative during this parliament to lose the whip over allegations of sexual misconduct.
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, said all the individual incidents were separate and that the prime minister expected due process in the investigation into Blunt.
Continue reading...Education secretary’s letter emphasises copyright cannot be used as ‘excuse’ to withhold RSHE teaching resources
Gillian Keegan has written to schools in England ordering them to make the materials used in children’s sex education available to be seen by parents, warning headteachers there can be “no ifs, no buts, no more excuses”.
It is the second letter the education secretary has sent to schools on the issue, which has been seized upon by some backbench Conservative MPs amid claims that children are being exposed to inappropriate material during relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) at school.
Continue reading...Prime minister says example set by schools will not necessarily have to be followed by other public buildings
Rishi Sunak has defended his government’s decision to shut down schools because of problems with crumbling concrete, as he aims to use this weekend’s G20 summit in New Delhi to draw a line under another bruising week in office.
The prime minister told reporters on the trip to India that his education secretary, Gillian Keegan, had done the right thing in ordering 147 schools to shut buildings made with aerated concrete, after officials became concerned about structural defects. On Friday evening the Scottish government said 16 of 32 local authorities have identified Raac in their schools.
Continue reading...Authorities unsure whether the aerated concrete at risk of collapse is present anywhere on the estate
Investigations are under way into whether the Houses of Parliament have any reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), the material at risk of collapse that has led to the closure of more than 100 schools.
Maintenance teams are trying to establish whether the dangerous concrete is present in any parts of the parliamentary estate, Bloomberg reported. A source told the Guardian that parliamentary authorities are unsure whether Raac is present and are trying to find out.
Continue reading...Opposition posts spoof on education department’s ‘most schools unaffected’ tweet, referencing minimisation of shark attacks
Labour has launched a tongue-in-cheek attack on the government’s response to the school buildings crisis, comparing the response of the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to that of the fictional mayor in Jaws.
Keegan on Tuesday defended her department’s handling of the problems surrounding crumbling concrete, publishing a Twitter picture with the phrases “Raac update” and “Most schools unaffected”.
Continue reading...PM dismissed claims that he failed to properly fund school rebuilding plans when he was chancellor
Lisa Nandy has been made shadow cabinet minister for international development. She was shadow levelling up secretary.
Lisa Nandy MP @LisaNandy has been appointed Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development.
Continue reading...PM shown evidence of ‘critical risk to life’ when chancellor, says former top civil servant at Department for Education
Rishi Sunak refused to properly fund a school rebuilding programme when he was chancellor, despite officials presenting evidence that there was “a critical risk to life” from crumbling concrete panels, the Department for Education’s former head civil servant has said.
After the department told Sunak’s Treasury that there was a need to rebuild 300 to 400 schools a year in England, he gave funding for only 100, which was then halved to 50, said Jonathan Slater, the permanent secretary of the department from 2016 to 2020.
Continue reading...Article says Commons could bypass the parliamentary standards machinery after Labour leader says MP should be forced out. This live blog is closed
Starmer says there is a massive mismatch between what the government is saying about how things are going well with the economy, and the lived experience of people.
O’Brien suggests the two teenagers Starmer met today would have been happier if Starmer was still committed to getting rid of tuition fees.
I do think the current scheme is unfair and ineffective and that is why we will change it, so the current scheme will be changed by the incoming Labour government and we will set out our plans.
I am not going to pretend that there isn’t huge damage to the economy and that has meant that some of the things that an incoming Labour government would want to do we are not going to be able to do in the way we would want in the way that we would want.
We are working up our proposals on that and I will fully come back and talk them through when we got them.
Continue reading...Social Mobility Foundation says it expects GCSE and A-level attainment gap based on income to grow this year
Disadvantaged students are likely to bear the brunt of grade deflation when this year’s A-level and GCSE grades are published, according to experts, who said the government’s decision to impose pre-pandemic grading in England was premature.
This week hundreds of thousands of sixth-formers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive the results of their A-level, BTec and other exams. But a survey of students by the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) found that those from disadvantaged or low-income backgrounds in England were less likely to have received the help they needed to restore learning lost during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Letter from cross-party MPs and campaigners says slow progress on legislation is a ‘moral failing’
Senior Conservative MPs have accused the government of a “moral failing” for delaying the long-promised ban on conversion practices that they say damage the lives of LGBT+ people.
In a letter to Rishi Sunak, a cross-party group of politicians and campaigners criticised the slow progress in bringing forward new legislation since the pledge was made five years ago.
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