No 10 declines to say Sunak confident Zahawi has always told him truth about his tax affairs
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said Rishi Sunak expects the inquiry into Nadhim Zahawi’s tax arrangements being carried out by the PM’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, to be carried out “swiftly”.
But the spokesperson said there was no deadline for its conclusion. He explained:
We haven’t set a timeline for it because whilst we want this to be conducted swiftly, it’s important equally that it is thorough, hence why we’re not restricting to a particular date.
Asked if the PM was confident that Zahawi always told him the truth about his tax affairs, the spokesperson said:
The investigation looks at any potential breaches of the ministerial code. As you’ll know, I won’t get into being prescriptive about how the advice goes about ascertaining that.
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At the No 10 lobby briefing this morning, asked if Rishi Sunak had ever paid a tax settlement to HM Revenue and Customs himself, the PM’s spokesperson was unable to give a clear no. As my colleague Peter Walker points out, that might not be significant; the spokesperson often doesn’t know the answer to questions like this. But, as Peter says, it would be worth hearing someone ask Sunak about this directly.
Asked if Rishi Sunak has ever, like Nadhim Zahawi, had to pay a tax settlement to HMRC, the PM’s spokesman said Sunak has always abided by the ministerial code, but he doesn’t have any more detail. Could easily be nothing but worth someone asking Sunak directly, you’d think.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) January 24, 2023
Labour frontbencher Alex Davies-Jones is under investigation for a possible breach of lobbying rules, PA Media reports. PA says:
Commons standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg has launched an inquiry into whether the shadow culture minister broke the MPs’ code of conduct with “paid advocacy”.
Davies-Jones, who has represented the Welsh constituency of Pontypridd since 2019, was understood to have referred herself to investigators and is cooperating fully.
She received a trip to Tokyo, Japan, valued at nearly £3,000 paid for by the British Council last autumn.
On 8 November, the day after returning, she brought up the trip in the House of Commons, praising the council’s “brilliant work” in “educating people in our English language and using our arts and culture for the greatest good”.
She asked Foreign Office minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan: “What more can the government do to support the British Council, not just in Japan, but across the world?”
Labour is not suspending Davies-Jones from her frontbench position because the party believes any breach of the rules would be minor and inadvertent.
Richard Sharp, the BBC chairman, will appear before the Commons culture committee a fortnight today to take questions about the claims that there was a conflict of interest in his appointment. In a letter, Damian Green, the acting committee chair, said the committee wanted to ask him about “the issues raised in your pre-appointment hearing and any developments since then”. Sharp has accepted, and the hearing will take place on the morning of Tuesday 7 February.
Labour says government plan to tackle ‘fire and rehire’ practices ‘not worth paper it’s written on’
Labour has dismissed a government plan to tackle so-called “fire and hire” practices as “not worth the paper it’s written on”.
The government claims the plan, which involves a new code of practice and potentially higher costs for rogue firms in employment tribunals, shows it is taking “strong action against unscrupulous employers”.
Grant Shapps, the business secretary, promised action on this when, as transport secretary, he had to deal with the consequences of P&O Ferries’ decision to sack 800 members of staff, with replacement workers being hired much more cheaply.
But the government is not attempting an outright ban on “fire and rehire”.
Instead, as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy explains in a news release, a code of practice will oblige employers not to use the threat of dismissal as a means of getting workers to acccept lower pay or worse conditions. It says:
Through a planned statutory code of practice, the government is protecting employees and cracking down on employers that use controversial dismissal tactics. The code, subject to a consultation first, will make it explicitly clear to employers that they must not use threats of dismissal to pressurise employees into accepting new terms, and that they should have honest and open-minded discussions with their employees and representatives …
This new statutory code of practice will set out employers’ responsibilities when seeking to change contractual terms and conditions of employment, including that businesses must consult with employees in a fair and transparent way when proposing changes to their employment terms.
Once in force, courts and employment tribunals will be able to take the code into account when considering relevant cases, including unfair dismissal. They will have the power to apply a 25% uplift to an employee’s compensation in certain circumstances if an employer is found to not comply with the statutory code.
Commenting on the plan, Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader and shadow secretary for the future of work, said:
This code isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. It’s shameful that nearly a year after the P&O Ferries scandal the Conservatives can only offer this weak half-measure, which they admit will allow fire and rehire tactics to continue.
If the Conservatives want to protect workers, they’d finally bring in the employment bill they promised but have abandoned. Instead, they’re bringing in a law to threaten nurses, firefighters and other key workers with the sack.
Labour says it would ban “fire and rehire”. But the government’s consultation document for its proposed new code of practice argues that an outright ban would be a mistake. It says:
Although there have been calls for the practice of dismissal and re-engagement to be banned outright, the government has judged that this would not be right as there are some situations in which dismissal and re-engagement can play a valid role as businesses may need the flexibility to use this option to save as many jobs as possible. We believe that this Code strikes the right balance between labour market flexibility and worker protections.
Church of England criticised by MPs for not allowing same-sex marriage in church
The Church of England was criticised by MPs earlier for failing to allow clergy to conduct same-sex marriages. Under a compromise proposed by the church’s bishops last week, vicars will be allowed to bless couples in church after civil ceremony, but same-sex marriages are still deemed incompatible with church teaching, and not allowed in church.
The Labour MP Ben Bradshaw tabled an urgent question on this. Unusually for a UQ, a minister did not reply, because the government does not run the church. But the Church of England is an established church, and there is always an MP appointed as the the second church estates commissioner who serves as a link between parliament and the church. It’s Andrew Selous (Con), who responded to the UQ.
Bradshaw, and most of the other MPs who spoke, condemned the policy unveiled by the church last week as discriminatory. Bradshaw asked:
What can [Selous] say to reassure parliament that the bishops are not allowing policy to be dictated by a minority of very vocal Anglicans in England and in some overseas provinces while neglecting their primary duty to serve all of God’s people in England?
Could he perhaps explain to parliament how continuing to discriminate against lesbian and gay Anglicans in England is compatible with the unique duty of the established church to serve everyone?
How sustainable is it when gay Anglicans in Scotland, and soon in Wales, may marry in church but our constituents in England may not?
The most moving contribution probably came from Chris Bryant, a former vicar. He asked MPs to imagine a church warden volunteering in church every week, falling in love with someone of the same sex, but banned from marrying in “the place that you’ve devoted your life to”. That was “terribly, terribly painful”, he said. He went on:
And I think there’s still a cruelty in what the bishops have brought forward. There’s a sort of hypocrisy. I know they’re trying to square everything off, but in the end there’s a hypocrisy that will bless the individuals but not the relationship …
And is there any biblical teaching that says that this is wrong? Any, really? Did Jesus say a single word about same-sex relationships or marriage? I don’t think he did. He said a great deal about love, the God of love, and St Paul said that in Christ there was neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek. And I think he would have also said neither gay nor straight.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, told MPs:
Nothing made it harder for me to come out as a gay Anglican than the church’s teaching on sexual orientation and human sexuality.
And in the end I made the choice that I think many young gay Anglicans did of choosing to be myself and choosing not to go to church. And that is such a tragedy for so many, particularly young Anglicans across our country …
I would never cast my vote in a way that compels any place of worship to perform same-sex marriage because I believe in freedom of religious belief.
Given this is an established church, surely permissive legislation that enables places of worship to enable churches and priests to make that choice for themselves would be a different matter, and certainly I know where my vote would go on that.
Selous said that the bishops themselves recognised that for many people the new rules did not go far enough.
But he said that to change the canon law on holy matrimony there would have to be a two-thirds majority in the General Synod, which he said was a devolved body of parliament, and he said that majority did not exist.
At the health committee this morning Chris Hopson, the chief strategy officer for NHS England, said Monday 6 February would be the biggest strike day in the organisation’s history. He explained:
We expect February 6 to be the biggest strike day in NHS history for five reasons: Firstly, we’re going to have nursing and ambulance unions planning coordinated industrial action across the country.
Secondly, we know that the nursing stoppage will last for two days, rather than one.
Thirdly, we know that the numbers of trusts affected will go from 44 in December, to 55 in January, to 73 in February; there is now a shorter gap between the strikes; and this strike starts on a Monday, which effectively makes it difficult to deploy the discharge of patients to improve flow, which is what we’ve been doing in previous strikes.
So, just to make the point, we are now entering a new and more difficult phase in the dispute.
Hopson also said that, even though the strike was taking place, it was “incredibly important” that people with a life-threatening emergency on the day should call 999, and people needing other urgent care should use 111 online.
Ministers accused of ‘staggering complacency’ over missing child asylum seekers
Ministers were accused of “staggering complacency and incompetence” after the revelation that 200 children seeking asylum have gone missing from hotel accommodation provided by the Home Office.
In a Commons urgent question, Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, said it was “entirely foreseeable that children were at risk of being snatched, abducted and coerced by criminals”.
Lucas represents a constituency in Brighton, where some of the child asylum seekers have been housed, and she said the problem should have been anticipated. She said:
The staggering complacency and incompetence from the Home Office is shameful. We need immediate answers, we need an urgent investigation. We need to ask how many more children are going to go missing before we actually see some action?
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, was replying for the government. He said that the Home Office wanted to end the use of hotels for this group and, echoing what his fellow Home Office minister Simon Murray told the House of Lords yesterday, he said the government did not have the power to detain unaccompanied asylum seekers.
Jenrick said:
Of the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children still missing, 88% are Albanian nationals, the remaining 12% are from Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkey.
When any child goes missing a multi-agency missing persons protocol is mobilised alongside the police and relevant local authority to establish their whereabouts, and to ensure that they are safe. Many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located.
Barclay rejects claims government wants to extend charging in NHS
During health questions in the Commons, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, challenged the government to rule out “any extension of user charging in the NHS”.
Echoing an argument used by the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown in a Guardian article yesterday, Streeting pointed out that Sajid Javid, the Tory former health secretary, has argued for people to be charged to see a GP. And he claimed Rishi Sunak supported charges when he was standing for the Tory leadership in the summer.
In response Steve Barclay, the health secretary, accused Streeting of misrepresenting Sunak’s position. (Sunak backed a £10 charge for patients who missed a second GP appointment, but has since dropped the idea.)
Barclay also insisted the government was committed to keeping the service free at the point of use. He told Streeting:
We are committed, and we remain committed, to keeping [the NHS] free at the point of use. That is the prime minister’s position, that is the government’s position.
In his article for the Daily Mail (see 11.33am), Boris Johnson said Ukraine should be getting “hundreds” of tanks from its allies. The former prime minister said:
The Ukrainians need hundreds of tanks, and they should be getting them from the Americans, the Germans, the Poles and many others.
Johnson’s comment seemed to be aimed in particular at Germany, which is not sending its own tanks to Ukraine, and has also been reluctant to approve the deployment of German-made tanks from Poland.
But at the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson refused to back Johnson’s position. Asked if Ukraine’s allies should be sending more tanks, the spokesperson said:
As the foreign secretary and others have said, we would like to see additional support provided to Ukraine.
What we are not going to do is dictate to other countries exactly what they should or should not provide – first and foremost that must be for those countries.
No 10 declines to say Sunak confident Zahawi has always told him truth about his tax affairs
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said Rishi Sunak expects the inquiry into Nadhim Zahawi’s tax arrangements being carried out by the PM’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, to be carried out “swiftly”.
But the spokesperson said there was no deadline for its conclusion. He explained:
We haven’t set a timeline for it because whilst we want this to be conducted swiftly, it’s important equally that it is thorough, hence why we’re not restricting to a particular date.
Asked if the PM was confident that Zahawi always told him the truth about his tax affairs, the spokesperson said:
The investigation looks at any potential breaches of the ministerial code. As you’ll know, I won’t get into being prescriptive about how the advice goes about ascertaining that.
Poorer students will lose out because of the government’s changes to the student loan system, a House of Lords committee said today.
Regulations that implement the changes are being considered by peers and, in a report, the Lords secondary legislation scrutiny committee said the changes “make the system less progressive and may not be consistent with government policy elsewhere, for example in the levelling up agenda”.
It also said the changes made the system too complicated.
The changes were widely criticised when they were announced last year on the grounds that students who go on to earn lower or middle-income salaries will have to pay more than they do under the current system. Students who go on to become top earners will pay less.
Lady Bakewell, a Lib Dem member of the committee, said:
The regulations will adversely affect students from disadvantaged backgrounds which is in clear contradiction to the government’s levelling up agenda.
Additionally, the government have implemented the policy in such a way as to render an already complex system so opaque and convoluted it would be very difficult to for anyone to navigate their way through it.
SNP condemns reported plan to bring forward rise in state pension age to 68
A government review of the state pension age is currently in the pipeline. It was launched in December 2021 and, under a law requiring the state pension age to be reviewed during every parliament, the results must be published by May.
Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, hinted, when he gave evidence to a committee last year, that the review would lead to the state pension age rising more quickly than planned.
In a story for the Sun, Natasha Clark says that announcement could come in the budget in March, and that the Treasury wants the state pension age to rise to 68 as early as 2035 – instead of between between 2044 and 2046, as planned now.
Clark says:
The state pension age is already due to rise from 66 to 67 by 2028.
The next increase – to 68 – was not due to happen until 2046, but an upcoming review is set to say it should be brought forward …
The Treasury is said to want the change to 68 to come in as early as 2035 – affecting those who are 54 and under today.
The Sun has learnt the chancellor is eyeing up announcing the move as early as the March budget.
Clark says Stride himself is pushing for 2042, not 2035, as the date for the next increase because he is “arguing that predicted increases in life expectancy have failed to materialise”.
The SNP has criticised the plan as reported by the Sun. David Linden MP, the SNP’s social justice spokesperson, said:
This is just the latest in a long line of attacks from the Tories on the UK’s state pension.
In 2014, the people of Scotland were warned that the only way to protect their pensions was by voting no.
Fast forward nine years and the current state pension doesn’t support the minimum standard of living, with the state age now set to rise to a staggering 68.
This is scandalous, and must be condemned in the strongest possible way.
David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, will give a speech at Chatham House later on the foreign policy of a Labour government. As my colleague Patrick Wintour reports in his preview story, Lammy will argue for closer cooperation with Europe across security, trade and diplomacy.
In an interview with LBC this morning, Lammy said Labour would have to repair the damage done to the UK’s international reputation under the Tories. He said:
The bottom line is the last few years, the Kwasi Kwarteng, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson Partygate stuff, has damaged our reputation.
Diplomats have said to me that they have been in situations where they are being pitied by international colleagues.
What I’m setting out today is that we have to reconnect Britain to our allies.
Boris Johnson says Ukraine must join Nato for sake of long-term peace
Boris Johnson has called for Ukraine to be admitted to Nato and launched a thinly veiled attack on Germany and the US over the failed deal to donate tanks, after a return to Ukraine this week, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Johnson made his comments in an article for the Daily Mail, which provides the paper’s splash.
