Afternoon summary
Hunt has refused to quash claims that the Treasury intervened to block a pay offer to rail workers that may have ended their strike action. (See 1.47pm.)
Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has accused the government of cruelty in its asylum policy, and said that people-smuggling is as serious as slave trading in the 19th century. He has posted a link to the full text of his speech on Twitter.
When we fail to challenge the rhetoric that refugees are the cause of this country’s ills – that they are problems not people, or invaders to be tackled and deterred – we deny the essential value and dignity of fellow human beings.
— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) December 9, 2022
🔗 https://t.co/TaDPsvMf1i pic.twitter.com/DprPWC6LH2
Savanta has released a poll suggesting Labour has a lead over the Conservatives of 11 points – down 10 points from its lead in the middle of November.
🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention
— Savanta UK (@Savanta_UK) December 9, 2022
📈11pt Labour Lead
🌹Lab 42 (-5)
🌳Con 31 (+5)
🔶LD 10 (=)
➡️Reform 5 (=)
🎗️SNP 4 (=)
🌍Gre 3 (+1)
⬜️Other 5 (=)
2,106 UK adults, 25-27 Nov
(chg from 18-20 Nov) pic.twitter.com/lyGVqVsKsa
Commenting on the findings, Chris Hopkins, Savanta’s political research director, said:
Polls like this come with their typical health warning: it’s just one poll, we’d need to see more polls move in similar directions before claiming that this is a trend, and it could very much be an outlier.
However, Labour’s inflated lead in VI [voting intention] polls has been exacerbated by higher-than-usual proportions of 2019 Conservatives being undecided. In this poll, just 10% of those who voted Conservative in 2019 are undecided, compared to 15% last week, and therefore the Conservatives are retaining more of their 2019 vote and fewer are being removed from the headline VI numbers.
That is something to keep an eye on, because if Rishi Sunak can shore up more of the 2019 vote, he could at least save the party from the complete electoral oblivion that is making so many of its MPs decide to stand down rather than fall to an inevitable defeat at the next election.
Updated
Sunak tells Ukrainian president that he will soon be getting more arms from UK
Rishi Sunak has told Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, that the UK will be providing his country with more anti-aircraft guns and air defence missiles in the coming week. The two leaders spoke this afternoon, and this is what No 10 said about the call:
The leaders discussed the fresh wave of Russian attacks on critical national infrastructure in Ukraine, and President Zelenskiy thanked the UK for its crucial support to help restore power through the supply of generators.
The prime minister paid tribute to the success of Ukraine’s armed forces in intercepting dozens of potentially devastating missiles this week, and said the UK was thinking of the Ukrainian people as they continued to defend their country through the winter.
Updating on the latest lethal aid deliveries from the UK, the prime minister said that more anti-air guns and further short-range air defence missiles would arrive in the coming weeks.
Both leaders agreed on the importance of pre-empting Russia’s insincere calls for a ceasefire, and the prime minister added that the Kremlin needed to withdraw its forces before any agreement could be considered.
Sunak also spoke to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president-elect of Brazil. It was their first call since Lula’s election victory at the end of October.
Updated
Kwarteng claims he and Truss were right on strategy, but 'fell woefully short' on tactics
George Parker, Sebastian Payne and Laura Hughes have written a good long read for the Financial Times on the inside story of Liz Truss’s premiership. It is well worth reading the whole thing, but here are five of their revelations.
Truss cancelled polling when she took office because “she was fed up with politicians agonising about ‘optics’”, the FT says. It says this is one reason why she did not realise how unpopular the mini-budget was going to be.
Kwasi Kwarteng was not talking about wide-scale, further tax cuts when he gave an interview on the Sunday after the mini-budget saying there was more to come. The interview was widely seen as a mistake, because it fuelled market panic. But it was misunderstood, the FT says.
Later that weekend, Kwarteng caused further concern when he suggested there was more to come. “We have only been here for 19 days,” he boasted to the BBC on Sunday. “That was a disaster,” said one No 10 official. Kwarteng was cryptically referring to a specific anomaly in the tax system – where earnings from £100,000 to £125,140 are taxed at 60% – but few outside his inner circle knew what he was talking about. Instead, his statement added to the confusion and sense of panic hours before the markets reopened.
Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, was instrumental in persuading Truss she had to change course and sack Kwarteng, the FT says. It says:
“It was Case who finally got through to Liz,” said one ally of the former prime minister. “He said if you don’t start to reverse some of these measures, there will be an economic catastrophe.” Kwarteng believes that Case and others “got to Liz” while he was away, according to his supporters. Case declined to comment.
Truss still thinks her overall approach was right, the FT says. It says:
Truss is said by friends to have been initially “very low” after her resignation, but has now bounced back, telling allies: “I lost a battle, but I haven’t lost the war”.
And Kwarteng also thinks that he and Truss had the right strategy. It was just the tactics that were wrong, he says. He told the FT in an interview:
The strategic goal was right. Her insight and diagnosis of the problem was right. Where we fell woefully short was to have a tactical plan.
Updated
Government backs private members' bill to make public sexual harassment specific offence
The government will back a private member’s bill increasing the penalty for sexually harassing a person in public, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, told MPs this morning.
She was speaking in the debate on the protection from sex-based harrasment in public bill, introduced by the former Tory cabinet minister Greg Clark, which received an unopposed second reading.
As PA Media reports, public sexual harassment is already illegal, but does not exist as an offence of its own. The new bill would create a specific offence, “causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress to a person in public where the behaviour is done because of that person’s sex”.
The maximum jail sentence would be two years – up from the six-month maximum that applies under the Public Order Act currently used against most people prosecuted for this behaviour.
Braverman told MPs:
Every woman should feel safe to walk our streets without fear of harassment or violence. And that is why we are supporting this bill to introduce a specific offence on public sexual harassment.
Updated
Sunak confirms some armed forces personnel will 'miss Christmas' as they fill in for Border Force staff
In his interview at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire this morning, Rishi Sunak confirmed that some members of the armed forces will “miss Christmas” because they will be covering for Border Force staff who are on strike. He said:
I had the opportunity to say thank you to some of our armed forces personnel because many of them are going to miss Christmas to help us deal with the disruption from strikes, whether that’s manning border posts or driving ambulances. And we all owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.
As Sky News reports, some armed forces personnel have been getting training at Heathrow and Gatwick for when they need to stand in to replace Border Force officials on strike days.
International human rights watchdog accuses some British MPs of contributing to 'toxic' environment for trans people
An international watchdog has accused British politicians of contributing to a “hostile and toxic” environment for transgender people in the UK.
Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, made the comment in a wide-ranging report on the UK, based on what she observed during a visit in the summer.
She accused the government of being “increasingly antagonistic” towards human rights and seemed to be referring to politicians such as Boris Johnson when she criticised parliamentarians who have exploited trans issues for partisan advantage.
The report said:
Trans persons in the UK face increasingly hostile and toxic political and public discourse …
Both government officials and certain parliamentarians have actively contributed to an intolerant and stigmatising discourse. In line with her previous warnings about the increasing political manipulation of intolerance against LGBTI people in Europe, the commissioner is particularly concerned by the apparently deliberate attempts by some politicians to turn the situation of trans people into ‘culture wars’ or ‘wedge’ issue for electoral purposes.
Mijatović did not identify who she was referring to in her report, but some Tories have been explicit in using this as an issue to attack Labour, as Johnson did when he was the prime minister and mocked Keir Starmer in the Commons as someone who “struggled to define what a woman was”.
In her report, Mijatović also criticised attempts to present protecting the rights of trans people as incompatible with protecting the rights of women.
Another worrying feature of the current discourse is the framing of the protection of the rights of trans people as diametrically opposed to, and incompatible with, the protection of the rights of women, or of lesbians, gays or bisexuals. The commissioner is of the opinion that such distortions of human rights as a zero-sum game between different groups must be vigorously rejected.
My colleague Rajeev Syal has more on the report here.
Updated
Jeremy Hunt fails to quash claims the Treasury vetoed higher pay offer for rail workers
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has refused to quash claims that the Treasury vetoed a pay offer that may have led to a resolution of the rail dispute.
Last month the Daily Telegraph claimed the Department for Transport wanted to offer rail workers a rise worth between 8% and 9% over two years, but that it was prevented from doing so by the Treasury.
At the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom webinar, Hunt was asked if the Treasury had blocked a pay rise of around 10% for rail workers. He did not contest the claim, but instead replied:
There is unanimity across the government in that it wants high inflation to be temporary, and I think there is understanding that that is essential for the very people who are feeling most angry about their situation.
Hunt claimed the government could not accept the unions’ public sector pay demands because they would be inflationary. He said:
We have to be really careful not to agree to pay demands that have the opposite of the intended effect because they lock in high inflation.
So if we make the wrong choices now, we won’t have that 3.7% of inflation in January or February of 2024 and this will change from being a one-off problem, to being a permanent problem, which will be the worst possible thing for people working in public services. That is why it’s generally a very difficult issue.
Updated
Boycotting Netflix over Harry & Megan documentary not government policy, says No 10, after minister's outburst
Boycotting Neflix over the Harry & Meghan documentary is not government policy, No 10 has said.
Downing Street was asked to clarify its stance after Guy Opperman, the employment minister, told BBC Question Time last night that he would urge people to avoid the streaming service in retaliation for its decision to broadcast the documentary, which is critical of the royal family. Opperman said:
I would urge everyone to boycott Netflix and make sure that we actually focus on the things that matter.
Asked if Opperman’s stance reflected government policy, a No 10 spokesperson told journalists at the morning lobby briefing that “it’s a matter for the public what channels they want to watch”.
The spokesperson also said the government did not support the proposal by the Tory MP Bob Seely that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex be stripped of their royal titles.
Updated
Here is my colleague Harriet Sherwood’s full report on Justin Welby’s speech to the House of Lords criticising the government’s asylum policy.
Updated
Badenoch claims Scotland's new transgender law could be harmful to rest of UK, raising prospect of supreme court challenge
Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister at Westminster, has told the Scottish government she is “concerned” about the UK-wide impact of its gender recognition reform bill.
In a letter to Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, Badenoch said the bill, which will significantly simplify the process for people wanting to legally change gender, will have consequences not just for Scotland, but for the rest of the UK.
Badenoch combines the equalities brief with her job as international trade secretary, and her intervention suggests the bill could trigger a constitutional clash between the Scottish and UK governments.
Ministers at Westminster are reportedly considering refusing to recognise the gender recognition certificates issued under the new Scottish law, and even challenging the Scottish legislation at the supreme court.
In her letter, seen by the Times, Badenoch said some women have objected to the Scottish legislation. “I have heard from a number of women who have highlighted their concerns about these proposals and the implications for wider society,” she said.
She also claimed it was “not possible” for the legislation to be “fully contained” within Scotland. She explained:
Individuals contemplating the very serious step of changing their legal sex need clarity on the process that they must undertake and I am concerned about the impact [of] having divergent regimes in the different parts of the UK.
The Scottish bill intends to introduce a system of self-declaration for obtaining a gender recognition certificate (GRC), removing the need for a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
It will also cut the amount of time a person must permanently live in their gender before applying, from two years to three months, and allow people to apply from the age of 16, not 18, the current minimum age.
A UK government spokeperson said no decisions have yet been made about whether Wesminster might challenge the new law in the supreme court. She said:
As the UN special rapporteur has set out, the Scottish government’s proposals currently raise a number of clear concerns.
In order to understand the potential impact of the bill on the rights of people across the United Kingdom, we will continue to monitor its progress. We have made no decision on any potential action at this time.
The Scottish government responded to the concerns raised by the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, in this letter to the Scottish parliament’s equalities, human rights and civil justice committee.
Updated
Sunak welcomes partnership with Italy and Japan to build new combat jets
Rishi Sunak has been visiting RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire today to publicise a deal with Italy and Japan to build a new generation of fighter jets.
In a news release about the initiative, No 10 said:
Due to take to the skies by 2035, the ambition is for this to be a next-generation jet enhanced by a network of capabilities such as uncrewed aircraft, advanced sensors, cutting-edge weapons and innovative data systems.
By combining forces with Italy and Japan on the next phase of the programme, the UK will utilise their expertise, share costs and ensure the RAF remains interoperable with our closest partners. The project is expected to create high-skilled jobs in all three countries, strengthening our industrial base and driving innovation with benefits beyond pure military use.
Sunak said the partnership would keep the UK “at the cutting-edge of advancements in defence technology – outpacing and out-manoeuvring those who seek to do us harm”.
There are more details here.
Updated
The government is under pressure to get more children into Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) to tackle skill shortages in industry, but Labour believes the problem is a lack of creative skills rather than technical ones.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has told LBC’s Theo Usherwood she wants to see a much broader national curriculum, including more focus on creative and sporting subjects. She says this has come from her regular contact with business leaders in the last few months as part of the party’s outreach to the corporate sector.
She said:
You talk to any business, and they worry that our curriculum at school has become too narrow, and the young people aren’t always leaving with the skills ready to take on the big opportunities that are out there in the economy.
Creativity has been too often sucked out of the curriculum, with less sport, less drama, less music, less art, and less coding … We’re very keen to look at how the modern curriculum can meet the needs of businesses today.
Updated
Rishi Sunak’s claim that families would have to pay an extra £1,000 in taxes if the government gave in to public sector pay demands is based on its estimate that this would cost the Treasury an extra £28bn.
Previously ministers have argued that they have to resist the union demands because agreeing to them would be inflationary. But more recently they have been using the £28bn figure, and dismissing the demands as simply unaffordable. Presumably they think, or know, that people find this argument more convincing.
But is it actually true? Earlier this week the BBC published a reality check analysis saying that the £28bn figure looked a bit high. It said:
The public sector pay bill for all 5.7 million employees was around £233bn last year.
Inflation is expected to be about 10% this year, so you could assume that an inflationary pay rise would cost about £23bn.
There are about 28 million households in the UK, so that’s about £820 per household.
But Ben Zaranko, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, points out that it isn’t really the figure that matters because the government was already budgeting for a 3% average pay rise for the public sector, so increasing that to match inflation would cost about £18bn, or about £640 per household.
And here are the IFS figures, from its green budget, on the cost of giving public sector worker a pay rise matching inflation.
Updated
Sunak claims giving in to public sector pay demands could cost families £1,000 in higher taxes
Rishi Sunak has claimed that families would have to pay an extra £1,000 a year if the government met the pay demands of public sector workers in full.
Asked about the strikes during a visit to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, he said:
The government is always going to try and act fairly and reasonably.
What I’m not going to do is ask ordinary families up and down the country to pay an extra £1,000 a year to meet the pay demands of the union bosses. That wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t be fair.
In a clip for broadcasters, when asked to give details of the new anti-union legislation being planned, Sunak would not go beyond saying he was looking at “tough” new laws. He said:
We’re looking at everything right now at pace but my priority is going to be to protect lives and to minimise the disruption on people’s lives.
So the government is trying its best to act reasonably. That’s why we’ve accepted in full the recommendations of independent bodies who make recommendations to the government about pay settlements in the public sector, and often those pay settlements have been higher than what many people in the private sector are receiving, but the government accepted them in full to be reasonable, to be fair.
But it’s right now that we also look to minimise the disruption on people’s lives and that’s why we’re looking at tough new laws.
When pressed on whether emergency workers could be banned from going on strike, Sunak just said he was “looking at all options”.
And he again said he wanted to “always be reasonable” – repeating the word that he and No 10 are now using obsessively when describing their policy on strikes.
Updated
Archbishop condemns government's asylum policy, saying Rwanda scheme 'immoral' and processing delays 'disgraceful'
Good morning, and I’m sorry for the late start.
There is a big financial announcement from the government this morning, which can be added to the list of things the Treasury is doing now which undo, wholly or partly, things that the Treasury was doing when the Conservatives first came to office. My colleague Graeme Wearden is covering that on his business live blog.
In non-business politics, there are interesting developments in asylum policy today. As my colleague Kiran Stacey reports, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, has said Labour would rush through asylum applications for people from certain countries deemed “safe”, including Albania, in an attempt to clear the backlog of claims.
And in the House of Lords Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has just opened a debate on asylum and refugee policy. He called for a “compassionate” asylum policy and, in what seemed like a criticism of the language used by Suella Braverman, the home secretary, he said it was wrong to demonise asylum seekers.
A compassionate policy is one that has confidence to reject the shrill narrative that all who come to us for help should be treated as liars, scroungers or less than fully human.
Braverman has never said all asylum seekers are criminals, but she has said many Albanian ones are.
Welby also restated his criticism of the government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. He and the other bishops in the House of Lords were united in thinking this was “an immoral policy that shames Britain”, he said.
But he also attacked not just the morality of government policy, but its efficiency. It was taking far too long to process asylum claims, he said. He told peers:
The average processing time for an asylum case is currently around 15 months. It should be a maximum of six. In Germany, in 2021, the average asylum procedure took 6.6 months, despite a far higher refugee and asylum seeker population.
Nearly one third of those who’ve been waiting more than six months are made up of nationals from 10 countries that have a successful application rate of between 75% and 99%.
It is ridiculous, and disgraceful, that people fleeing Afghanistan and Syria are having to wait so long when their applications will almost certainly be granted.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: MPs debate private members’ bills, including Greg Clark’s protection from sex-based harrasment in public bill. The government announced yesterday that it is in favour of legislating to create “an offence of public sexual harassment”.
10am: The House of Lords holds a debate on the asylum and refugee policy, proposed by Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury.
Morning: Rishi Sunak is on a visit in Lincolnshire.
Afternoon: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is due to give an interview to broadcasters about his plans for an overhaul of City regulation.
Afternoon: James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, holds a press conference in London with his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions and, if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.
Updated
