Evening summary
It’s almost 5pm here in London. Here is a round-up of all the day’s stories:
Downing Street insisted officials rather than Rishi Sunak authorised more than £3,000 of spending on fine art photographs for the Treasury. The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “Hotels for G20 finance ministers and central bank governors … the hotels were recommended by hosts and as such the prime minister was not involved in those decisions at all. In terms of art work in the Treasury, the PM – when chancellor – was not involved in that decision either. It was a non-ministerial decision related to refurbishment of some of the offices.”
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, denied that her decision to expense hundreds of pounds on Apple electronics is the same as Whitehall’s use of government procurement cards on luxury items. Labour claimed that a “lavish spending” culture in the civil service has seen taxpayer’s money wasted on fine art and fine dining. Civil servants at 14 of the 15 main government departments spent nearly £150m on government procurement cards in 2021, the figures show, a steep rise since 2010-11, when David Cameron warned about the lax rules and oversight governing their use.
But the transport minister Richard Holden said a Labour investigation into government procurement cards (GPCs) had “wasted” civil servants’ time as the information was “already publicly available”. It comes after Labour compiled a dossier on the use of the cards – with the party using parliamentary questions to secure some of the data – showing that across 14 major Whitehall departments in 2021 at least £145.5m was spent using GPCs.
The government will do “whatever it takes” to keep the UK safe from the threat of spy balloons, Sunak said. Asked whether such spying devices had been seen in UK airspace, Sunak told broadcasters: “I want people to know that we will do whatever it takes to keep the country safe. We have something called the quick reaction alert force which involves Typhoon planes, which are kept on 24/7 readiness to police our airspace, which is incredibly important.”
Meanwhile, the UK will conduct a security review after the appearance of a series of mysterious objects – including a suspected Chinese spy balloon – over North and South America in recent days, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has announced. It comes after US fighter jets shot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday – the fourth similar object to enter US or Canadian airspace in just over a week.
The UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator has urged ministers to “fully and enthusiastically embrace the advantages of Brexit”, portraying a private meeting of prominent former leave and remain campaigners to discuss how to move on from Brexit in the national interest as a plot to undermine the deal he struck with the EU. The two-day summit, revealed by the Observer on Sunday, was attended by the government minister Michael Gove, who is a former co-leader of the official Brexit campaign, and senior members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet.
However, Sunak insisted he is focused on the benefits of Brexit after it emerged the senior minister Michael Gove attended a summit addressing the EU withdrawal’s failings. Leading Brexiters, including David Frost, reacted angrily to the “secret” conference, with the Tory peer saying it was “further” evidence of a plot to “unravel” the existing Brexit deals.
Downing Street said it would “carefully” look at the findings of a review by the commissioner for public appointments into the appointment of Richard Sharp as BBC chairman. The prime minister’s official spokesperson, asked whether Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell had been correct to say on Sunday that it was for the BBC board to decide on Sharp’s future, said: “The office for the commissioner of public appointments has announced a review. That is still ongoing, so we’re going to let that process take place.”
Sunak’s spokesperson also refused to criticise Mitchell for his claims that sending migrants to Rwanda would only have a “marginal benefit”. The Downing Street official said the policy of giving migrants arriving illegally in Britain a one-way ticket to the east African country was an “important part of what will be the solution” to the issue of small boats crossing the Channel.
Sunak said he would welcome tougher fines for water companies as he denied reports his government is backing away from hitting sewage polluters with penalties. Sunak was speaking to broadcasters on a visit to a rapid cancer diagnosis centre in Royton, Oldham, and was asked about a report in the Times suggesting the government is prepared to dilute fines for water companies that spill sewage.
A former minister in Tony Blair’s government is seeking to make a comeback at Westminster almost a decade after losing his seat. Douglas Alexander was in both Blair’s cabinet and that of his successor, Gordon Brown, PA Media reported. But as the Scottish National party virtually swept the board in Scotland in the 2015 general election, winning all but three of the Scottish seats at Westminster, Alexander lost his Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat to Mhairi Black – then a 20-year-old student.
A long-running dispute involving more than 1,800 bus drivers in London has ended after the workers accepted a “greatly improved” pay offer. Members of Unite employed by Abellio have staged a series of strikes in recent months, PA Media reported. They have accepted a pay increase that Unite said will result in drivers with more than two years’ service being paid £18 an hour, equating to a pay increase of 18% on the basic rate.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. See you then.
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Here are some photos from Rishi Sunak’s visit to Oldham Community Diagnostic Centre in Greater Manchester earlier today.
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It was a secret Brexit summit with a lot of striking names attending – the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, the former EU negotiator Oliver Robbins, the ex-Treasury permanent secretary Tom Scholar.
But the name that has raised the most eyebrows is the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove.
The gathering revealed by the Observer has riled pro-Brexit Conservatives, including the former negotiator Lord David Frost.
Attendees have attempted to play down its significance, suggesting it was more of a “grandees’ talking shop” – albeit one with an extraordinary guest list.
It was not, they say, a secret plot to influence the current government, though it might be the start of a blueprint for the next one.
How can we make Brexit work better?” is exactly the question Keir Starmer wants his shadow ministers to grapple with.
But why does Gove want to grapple with it now?
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A long-running dispute involving more than 1,800 bus drivers in London has ended after the workers accepted a “greatly improved” pay offer.
Members of Unite employed by Abellio have staged a series of strikes in recent months, PA Media reported.
They have accepted a pay increase that Unite said will result in drivers with more than two years’ service being paid £18-an-hour, equating to a pay increase of 18% on the basic rate.
The Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham, said:
This is an important pay victory. Workers have stood firm and with the support of their union, Unite, they have secured a richly deserved pay increase.
Unite’s constant focus on the jobs, pay and conditions of our members is continuing to deliver increased pay awards for workers.
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Rishi Sunak has insisted he is focused on the benefits of Brexit after it emerged the senior minister Michael Gove attended a summit addressing the EU withdrawal’s failings.
Leading Brexiters, including David Frost, reacted angrily to the “secret” conference, with the Tory peer saying it was “further” evidence of a plot to “unravel” the existing Brexit deals.
Downing Street said the prime minister had not been aware in advance of the cross-party gathering at the Ditchley Park retreat in Oxfordshire last week.
Sunak told broadcasters during a visit to Oldham:
I was proud to vote for Brexit and now as prime minister I’m keen to make sure we deliver the benefits of it.
He said the UK had already “taken control” of its immigration system and was rolling out freeports, adding:
Now what we want to do is make sure we drive growth in our economy by seizing the opportunities of Brexit to do things differently.
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Rishi Sunak’s spokesman has refused to criticise Andrew Mitchell, a Foreign Office minister, for his claims that sending migrants to Rwanda would only have a “marginal benefit”.
The Downing Street official said the policy of giving migrants arriving illegally in Britain a one-way ticket to the east African country was an “important part of what will be the solution” to the issue of small boats crossing the Channel.
However he refused to criticise Mitchell, who told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil Show on Sunday that the policy was “a marginal benefit”.
Mitchell, who was critical of the plan as a backbencher, added: “What we have to do is to stop these boats and there are a series of other mechanisms which we could use to do that.”
In its morning email bulletin, Politico reported that the Workington MP, Mark Jenkinson, sent a clip of Mitchell’s comments to a Tory WhatsApp group with the words: “How does one go about getting one of these passes that absolves you of collective responsibility?”
The prime minister’s official spokesman, when asked about the minister’s remarks, said there was “no single lever” that could be deployed to put a stop to the small boat crossings.
“I think we’ve always been clear that when it comes to dealing with this challenge, which has been very longstanding, there is no single lever, no single policy, which can solve it in one bound,” he told reporters on Monday.
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Lunchtime summary
As we approach 1pm, here is a brief round-up of the day’s headlines so far:
The government will do “whatever it takes” to keep the UK safe from the threat of spy balloons, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said. Asked whether such spying devices had been seen in UK airspace, Sunak told broadcasters: “I want people to know that we will do whatever it takes to keep the country safe. We have something called the quick reaction alert force which involves Typhoon planes, which are kept on 24/7 readiness to police our airspace, which is incredibly important.”
Meanwhile, the UK will conduct a security review after the appearance of a series of mysterious objects – including a suspected Chinese spy balloon – over North and South America in recent days, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has announced. It comes after US fighter jets shot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday – the fourth similar object to enter US or Canadian airspace in just over a week.
The UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator has urged ministers to “fully and enthusiastically embrace the advantages of Brexit”, portraying a private meeting of prominent former leave and remain campaigners to discuss how to move on from Brexit in the national interest as a plot to undermine the deal he struck with the EU. The two-day summit, revealed by the Observer on Sunday, was attended by the government minister Michael Gove, who is a former co-leader of the official Brexit campaign, and senior members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet.
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has denied that her decision to expense hundreds of pounds on Apple electronics is the same as Whitehall’s use of government procurement cards on luxury items. Labour claimed that a “lavish spending” culture in the civil service has seen taxpayer’s money wasted on fine art and fine dining. Civil servants at 14 of the 15 main government departments spent nearly £150m on government procurement cards in 2021, the figures show, a steep rise since 2010-11, when David Cameron warned about the lax rules and oversight governing their use.
But the transport minister Richard Holden said a Labour investigation into government procurement cards (GPCs) had “wasted” civil servants’ time as the information was “already publicly available”. It comes after Labour compiled a dossier on the use of the cards – with the party using parliamentary questions to secure some of the data – showing that across 14 major Whitehall departments in 2021 at least £145.5m was spent using GPCs.
Downing Street insisted officials rather than Rishi Sunak authorised more than £3,000 of spending on fine art photographs for the Treasury. The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “Hotels for G20 finance ministers and central bank governors … the hotels were recommended by hosts and as such the prime minister was not involved in those decisions at all. In terms of art work in the Treasury, the PM – when chancellor – was not involved in that decision either. It was a non-ministerial decision related to refurbishment of some of the offices.”
Downing Street said it would “carefully” look at the findings of a review by the commissioner for public appointments into the appointment of Richard Sharp as BBC chairman. The prime minister’s official spokesperson, asked whether Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell had been correct to say on Sunday that it was for the BBC board to decide on Sharp’s future, said: “The office for the commissioner of public appointments has announced a review. That is still ongoing, so we’re going to let that process take place.”
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said he would welcome tougher fines for water companies as he denied reports his government is backing away from hitting sewage polluters with penalties. Sunak was speaking to broadcasters on a visit to a rapid cancer diagnosis centre in Royton, Oldham, and was asked about a report in the Times suggesting the government is prepared to dilute fines for water companies that spill sewage.
A former minister in Tony Blair’s government is seeking to make a comeback at Westminster almost a decade after losing his seat. Douglas Alexander was in both Blair’s cabinet and that of his successor, Gordon Brown, PA Media reported. But as the Scottish National party virtually swept the board in Scotland in the 2015 general election, winning all but three of the Scottish seats at Westminster, Alexander lost his Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat to Mhairi Black – then a 20-year-old student.
My colleague Harry Taylor will be along shortly to see you through the next hour or so.
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No 10: Officials signed off £3,000 to spend on fine art photos, not Sunak
Downing Street has insisted officials rather than Rishi Sunak authorised more than £3,000 of spending on fine art photographs for the Treasury.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said:
Hotels for G20 finance ministers and central bank governors … the hotels were recommended by hosts and as such the prime minister was not involved in those decisions at all.
In terms of art work in the Treasury, the PM – when chancellor – was not involved in that decision either.
It was a non-ministerial decision related to refurbishment of some of the offices.”
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Downing Street said it would “carefully” look at the findings of a review by the commissioner for public appointments into the appointment of Richard Sharp as BBC chairman.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson, asked whether the Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell had been correct to say on Sunday that it was for the BBC board to decide on Sharp’s future, said:
The office for the commissioner of public appointments has announced a review. That is still ongoing, so we’re going to let that process take place.
In terms of speculation on things like termination, the details and the way that works is set out in the royal charter, which is published.
Asked whether the prime minister held confidence in Sharp, the No 10 official said:
Yes, we are confident the process was followed. This was a two-stage process, including assessment by an advisory assessment panel, constituted according to the public appointments code.
But there is a review into this process and we will look at that carefully.
The spokesperson said he did not want to “speculate” on what the review might conclude.
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UK 'well prepared' to deal with potential Chinese spy balloons - No 10
The UK is “well prepared” to deal with security threats to British airspace, Downing Street said when asked about suspected Chinese spy balloons.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said:
We are well prepared to deal with threats to our airspace, as the prime minister highlighted.
The No 10 official said threats would be judged on a “case-by-case basis”.
Asked about the transport minister Richard Holden saying it was “possible” spy balloons had already been deployed by Beijing over the UK, Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said:
I’m not going to comment on security issues.
Pressed on the UK’s capability to deal with such balloons, he said:
We have a quick reaction force, as the prime minister spoke about this morning.
And we have very capable ways of maintaining and spotting threats to our airspace.
The UK foreign policy designation of China will be reviewed as part of the update to the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, the spokesperson said.
Asked whether the UK government was likely to change China’s designation, he said:
It is something that is being reviewed as part of the integrated review. You’ll see our position when it is published.
Asked whether it was Sunak’s view that China was growing more authoritarian, the spokesperson said: “Yes.”
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The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said he would welcome tougher fines for water companies as he denied reports his government is backing away from hitting sewage polluters with penalties.
Sunak was speaking to broadcasters on a visit to a rapid cancer diagnosis centre in Royton, Oldham, and was asked about a report in the Times suggesting the government is prepared to dilute fines for water companies that spill sewage.
Sunak said:
That reporting is categorically not true, right. I want to … actually would welcome tougher fines for water companies and that is what we are putting in place.
Not only are we holding them to account for putting in place the largest investment in our water infrastructure in decades – £56bn of investment that we are expecting the water companies to put in – we will hold them to account for their part in reducing the overflows, and there will be very significant fines for them if they don’t do their part in this.
That is what the government is delivering and that’s what I’m committed to doing.
It comes as the Labour deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said her party would not pay bonuses to the bosses of water companies that pump raw sewage into the UK’s rivers and seas.
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, she said:
We would enforce the current laws which they’re breaching, the current situation where they know they shouldn’t be doing it and they are doing it, we would enforce and make sure they’re not doing it.
And no, we wouldn’t be paying them bonuses when they’re carrying out activities that they know they shouldn’t be doing. We would be enforcing the current regulations and the law that governs them.
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Here is a bit more from Rishi Sunak’s comments to broadcasters this morning.
Pressed on whether he has confidence in Richard Sharp – the BBC chairman who is facing calls to quit after MPs found he made “significant errors of judgment” by acting as a go-between for a loan guarantee for Boris Johnson – the prime minister did not fully answer the question.
He commented:
This relates to a process that happened before I was prime minister, obviously.
It is currently being looked at by the independent office of public appointments and that process is ongoing so I can’t speculate or pre-judge the outcome of that, but it is an independent process that is going to look at it and make sure that everything was followed correctly and all the rules and procedures were adhered to, and obviously we will wait for that report.
He also declined to commit to increasing the government’s £5m support for areas in Turkey and Syria devastated by earthquakes despite public support passing £60m, saying:
It’s been amazing to see the response from the country to what is an unbelievable, devastating tragedy that is hard to comprehend the scale of …
That’s why it’s important that we do our bit and I’m grateful to everyone who’s given generously, the government has matched £5m of those donations but we’re also providing lots of other support directly to the authorities in the region.
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Government will do 'whatever it takes' over threat of spy balloons
The government will do “whatever it takes” to keep the UK safe from the threat of spy balloons, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said.
Asked whether such spying devices had been seen in UK airspace, Sunak told broadcasters:
I want people to know that we will do whatever it takes to keep the country safe.
We have something called the quick reaction alert force which involves Typhoon planes, which are kept on 24/7 readiness to police our airspace, which is incredibly important.
I can’t obviously comment in detail on national security matters, but we are in constant touch with our allies and, as I said, we will do whatever it takes to keep the country safe.
When pressed about the possibility of incidents in UK airspace, the prime minister added:
As I said, I wouldn’t comment in detail on security matters but people should be reassured that we have all the capabilities in place to keep the country safe.
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A former minister in Tony Blair’s government is seeking to make a comeback at Westminster almost a decade after losing his seat.
Douglas Alexander was in both Blair’s cabinet and that of his successor, Gordon Brown, PA Media reported. But as the Scottish National party virtually swept the board in Scotland in the 2015 general election, winning all but three of the Scottish seats at Westminster, Alexander lost his Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat to Mhairi Black – then a 20-year-old student.
He is now seeking to return to elected politics, standing as Labour’s candidate for East Lothian in the next general election. The seat is currently held by the former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, who left the SNP to join Alex Salmond’s Alba party.
The East Lothian constituency will be one of Scottish Labour’s top targets when the next Westminster election is fought, with Alexander saying he was “humbled and grateful” to be chosen for the contest.
Announcing his selection on Twitter on Sunday, Alexander wrote:
He’s running! Humbled and grateful to be overwhelmingly selected today by local party members as Scottish Labour’s candidate for East Lothian.
Change is coming to our country and I’m determined to play my part by winning East Lothian back for Scottish Labour.
He’s running! Humbled and grateful to be overwhelmingly selected today by local party members as Scottish Labour’s candidate for East Lothian. Change is coming to our country and I’m determined to play my part by winning East Lothian back for Scottish Labour. https://t.co/JQALCs4KRR
— Douglas Alexander (@D_G_Alexander) February 12, 2023
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Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, invested in a furniture firm that received nearly £300,000 in taxpayer-funded loans handed out under policies he put in place while chancellor.
The New Craftsmen, whose upmarket range included a £7,340 mirror and a £2,220 table lamp, collapsed into liquidation in November 2022, according to Companies House filings.
The brand was sold later that month to Sarah Myerscough, a gallery owner and former company employee.
The unsecured creditors – those who are not guaranteed to receive what they are owed when a company fails – include employees who were owed £75,437, and trade and consumer creditors who were due more than £412,000.
Taxpayers also appear to have lost out in two ways, the filings suggest.
Lloyds Bank had lent The New Craftsmen £37,500 under the Covid bounce-back loan scheme introduced by Sunak in April 2020. The bank is listed among the unsecured creditors, whose claims exceed the assets in the business by £535,863.
The government also held 450,000 shares in the company via the Future Fund. The £250m investment scheme, designed by Sunak, was intended to help small startups ride out the pandemic.
Under the scheme, the government extended loans that would then convert into shares when the companies attracted new funding.
A source familiar with the loan said the government lent The New Craftsmen £250,000, a sum that was matched by private investors. The loan was converted into equity, Company House fillings suggest, the value of which has been wiped out.
As well as the government, the company’s shareholder register included several well-known wealthy investors, with the largest single stake held by Prudence MacLeod, the eldest child of Rupert Murdoch.
UK plans security review after spate of mysterious objects over America
The UK will conduct a security review after the appearance of a series of mysterious objects – including a suspected Chinese spy balloon – over North and South America in recent days, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has announced.
It comes after US fighter jets shot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday – the fourth similar object to enter US or Canadian airspace in just over a week.
“The UK and her allies will review what these airspace intrusions mean for our security. This development is another sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse,” Wallace said on Monday.
On Sunday, the US military shot down the fourth flying object, with the air force general overseeing North American airspace indicating he would not yet rule out any explanation for the objects.
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Labour would not pay bonuses to the bosses of water companies that pump raw sewage into the UK’s rivers and seas, Angela Rayner has said.
This comes following reports that the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, is backing away from plans to hit water companies with fines of up to £250m for spilling sewage.
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Labour’s deputy leader said:
We would enforce the current laws which they’re breaching, the current situation where they know they shouldn’t be doing it and they are doing it, we would enforce and make sure they’re not doing it.
And no, we wouldn’t be paying them bonuses when they’re carrying out activities that they know they shouldn’t be doing. We would be enforcing the current regulations and the law that governs them.
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Meanwhile, a transport minister, asked about the offer made to the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) in an attempt to break the strikes impasse, has said he thought “a lot” of railways workers would “like to see this settlement happen”.
Speaking to Sky News, Richard Holden said:
The RMT has been offered a backdated pay rise of 5% for last year, compounded with a 4% rise for this year. That, I think, is a pretty generous offer, around 9% for the average rail worker and higher for those on the lowest incomes. I think that’s a good deal.
The unions, I think they need to have the confidence, if they are still rejecting our offer, to go to the membership and say that’s what they want and they want a fresh ballot. They have not done that, they won’t ask their members for their views.
The truth is, I think a lot of people who are working in the rail industry now would like to see this settlement happen, they’d like to see the pay rises in their pay packets – that would be a big boost to a lot of those lower paid railway workers.
In an earlier interview with Times Radio, he said:
This is the final offer from the government. We have done everything we can to facilitate talks.
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The government’s “hostile” attitude towards nurses has led to them going on strike, Angela Rayner has said.
Asked on Sky News this morning if she supported the idea of the Royal College of Nursing extending its strike action to A&E and cancer wards, Labour’s deputy leader said:
Well, first of all, the RCN and the nurses have never taken industrial action ever before. So I think that context is really important.
And the leader of the RCN has made it clear the government have just absolutely, point blank refused to negotiate with them. And I think that we’re in this situation because the government are acting in a hostile way towards these workers that kept us going through the pandemic.
And they really urgently need to get around the table. No nurse wants to take industrial action and cause disruption to the care that they provide.
But of course, we’ve seen record numbers of vacancies in nursing care. And therefore their jobs are becoming increasingly difficult because of staff shortages, and because of the conditions in which those nurses are trying to do their job.
So without this intervention, without the government getting around the table, these issues are ongoing, regardless of the strike, because we can’t carry on as things are.
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David Frost urges UK to ‘embrace’ Brexit and warns of plot to unravel deal
The UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator has urged ministers to “fully and enthusiastically embrace the advantages of Brexit”, portraying a private meeting of prominent former leave and remain campaigners to discuss how to move on from Brexit in the national interest as a plot to undermine the deal he struck with the EU.
The two-day summit, revealed by the Observer on Sunday, was attended by the government minister Michael Gove, who is a former co-leader of the official Brexit campaign, and senior members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet.
They were joined by diplomats, defence experts and the heads of some of the biggest businesses for a discussion under the title: “How can we make Brexit work better with our neighbours in Europe?”
On Monday, David Frost referred to it as “a further piece of evidence that many in our political and business establishment want to unravel the deals we did to exit the EU in 2020 and to stay shadowing the EU instead”.
Attempting to explain the presence of prominent Brexit backers at the meeting alongside former remain supporters, he told the Daily Mail:
That’s why so many of those responsible for Theresa May’s failed backstop deal were there, while I and those who actually delivered the Brexit agreements were not.
The Observer revealed that a confidential introductory statement acknowledged there was now a view among “some at least, that so far the UK has not yet found its way forward outside the EU” with Brexit “acting as a drag on our growth and inhibiting the UK’s potential”.
A source who was there told the paper it was a “constructive meeting” that addressed the problems and opportunities of Brexit but which dwelt heavily on the economic downside to the UK economy at a time of global instability and rising energy prices.
But Lord Frost said:
Brexit doesn’t need ‘fixing’. It needs this Conservative government, elected with a huge mandate on a Brexit programme, to fully and enthusiastically embrace its advantages instead of leaving the field to those who never wanted it in the first place.
I and millions of others want the government to get on with that instead of raising taxes, deterring investment and pushing public spending to its highest level for 70 years.
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The transport minister Richard Holden said a Labour investigation into government procurement cards (GPCs) had “wasted” civil servants’ time as the information was “already publicly available”.
It comes after Labour compiled a dossier on the use of the cards – with the party using parliamentary questions to secure some of the data – showing that across 14 major Whitehall departments in 2021 at least £145.5m was spent using GPCs.
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Holden said:
In the big picture, what we’ve seen since 2010, is an 85% reduction in this. All of this data is publicly available online, it has been since 2012 – something which didn’t happen under the last Labour government.
We publish it on a monthly basis. The Labour party has spent half-a-million pounds asking parliamentary questions, 2,500 of them, wasting my civil servants’ time for information that is already publicly available and that they hid when they were last in office.
Holden also told Times Radio:
I don’t think any government minister would have been involved in that decision.
I could be wrong but that’s not my [understanding]. What wouldn’t normally happen is a spending of around £3,000 going over a minister’s desk because, if you did, that’s all ministers would do on a daily basis.
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Labour's Angela Rayner defends own spending after criticising government's 'lavish' culture
Good morning. Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has denied that her decision to expense hundreds of pounds on Apple electronics is the same as Whitehall’s use of government procurement cards on luxury items.
Labour claimed that a “lavish spending” culture in the civil service has seen taxpayer’s money wasted on fine art and fine dining.
Civil servants at 14 of the 15 main government departments spent nearly £150m on government procurement cards in 2021, the figures show, a steep rise since 2010-11, when David Cameron warned about the lax rules and oversight governing their use.
Rayner said yesterday:
Today’s shocking revelations lift the lid on a scandalous catalogue of waste, with taxpayers’ money frittered away across every part of government, while in the rest of the country, families are sick with worry about whether their pay cheque will cover their next weekly shop or the next tranche of bills.
However, she was asked on Times Radio this morning about her own spending habits, including using £249 of taxpayers’ money on AirPods.
“I’m actually using the equipment right now as I’m speaking to you on the iPad,” said said. “This is what I’m using to do my job – in fact I think it’s three years old now – to do my work as an MP and it’s totally transparent.”
She added:
I don’t think the £1,600 on that is the same as millions of pounds that is being used on these credit cards in an inappropriate way. You know, we need to make sure there’s transparency and that the public are getting value for money.
I can absolutely justify my use of using electronic equipment to do my job, especially when I’m not – during the pandemic – when I wasn’t in the office in Westminster. And as I say, now I’m speaking to you on that very iPad that was purchased.
The Commons is still in recess. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be covering the UK politics live blog today and for the rest of this week while my colleague Andrew Sparrow is away.
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