Afternoon summary
The SNP government has won a no confidence vote at Holyrood, but without MSPs coming any closer to knowing who will replace Humza Yousaf, who said on Monday he was resigning as party leader. John Swinney and Kate Forbes, the two leading candidates, are both still deciding what to do. According to a report in the Times, Swinney and Forbes met to discuss the leadership yesterday. In their story John Boothman and Kieran Andrews say:
A number of senior SNP politicians have publicly endorsed Swinney while support for Forbes has been more muted. However, Forbes, who narrowly lost last year’s leadership election to Yousaf after Nicola Sturgeon resigned, has refused to back down and said on Tuesday that she was seriously considering her options.
One of her supporters confirmed that Swinney and Forbes had met. However, when it was suggested that Swinney supporters would prefer an uncontested transfer of power, the source said: “They are not going to get it. Everything they do makes Kate look stronger.”
Several figures in the Swinney camp believe that he would have to offer Forbes a significant post to secure a deal to become SNP leader or to win a leadership battle. “He would need to say, ‘I would have Kate in cabinet’,” said one friend of Swinney.
According to a poll by Ipsos Scotland, Forbes has a five-point lead over Swinney amongst all voters on who would make the best first minister. But Swinney has a 10-point lead on this measure amongst people who voted SNP in 2021.
Women are understood to be among those detained by Home Office enforcement officers in a series of raids this week after being picked to be sent to Rwanda, PA Media reports. PA says:
Department officials refused to say how many people had been held so far, arguing that ongoing operations prevented them from doing so. They confirmed more than two people had been detained, with both men and women in custody.
Pictures of some of the operations, released by the Home Office, indicate at least two of those detained so far are men and both appeared to have been taken into custody while they were in houses.
Enforcement action is said to have taken place throughout the UK – in England, Wales and Scotland as well as Northern Ireland – since midday on Monday.
Children are not expected to be detained as part of the operations.
Home Office officials strongly suspect legal challenges will be made in light of the detentions ahead of Rwanda flights but are confident they will be able to defend any such action thanks to the laws and policies in place.
It is understood officials also fully expect applications for immigration bail to follow but stressed that anyone released from detention will be subject to strict bail conditions.
Migrants can only be detained if there is a realistic prospect of their removal from the UK. This means they could be released on bail in future if no action is being taken to deport them.
The Home Office may have to refer migrants for a bail hearing if they have been detained for four months or more.
How MSPs voted in no confidence debate
The Scottish parliament has released the division list for the no confidence vote. All 63 SNP MSPs and all seven Green MSPs voted for the government, and against the motion.
And all 31 Tory MSPs, all 22 Labour MSPs, all 4 Lib Dem MSPs and Alba’s Ash Regan voted for the motion.
Updated
Scotland's SNP government wins no confidence vote called by Labour
The Scottish government has won the vote by 70 votes to 58. There were no abstentions.
Jackie Baillie, the deputy Scottish Labour leader, wound up the debate with an attack on the SNP’s record on issues like the NHS, housing and drug deaths. MSPs are now voting on the motion.
Willie Rennie, the Lib Dem MSP, said he favoured an early election.
The Scottish government could either heal the rift with the public, or heal the rift with the Green party. But it could not do both, he said. So an election was necessary to allow the government to renew its mandate, he said.
Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Greens’ co-leader, started by paying tribute to the way Humza Yousaf responded with “immense dignity” after the start of the Israel-Gaza war, when his parents-in-law were trapped in Gaza. He said:
At a time when global political events were impacting greatly on his own family, Hamza Yusuf rightly gained huge respect for speaking out for and in many cases, humanising the people of Gaza, humanising the victims of collective punishment, in a way that no other national leader I can think of was able to do.
He also said it would be wrong to hold an early election (a possible consequence of the no confidence motion being passed). He said that having fixed-term parliaments had given Holyrood stability, in contrast to the “decade of chaos” at Westminster.
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, started his speech by saying his party would be backing this motion.
But he says Anas Sarwar had failed to get a majority for it. Ross said the motion he tabled last week, in Humza Yousaf personally, failed.
He said the fact that so many ministers were not standing to succeed Yousaf showed that, never mind having no confidence in the government, they did not even have confidence in themselves.
And he said the two candidates who did want to replace him, John Swinney and Kate Forbes, were just continuity candidates.
Yousaf is now defending his government’s record. He says the SNP has taken different decisions from Westminster. He says:
I am exceptionally proud of our choices. Where the Westminster consensus, Labour and Tories, have chosen Brexit, Scotland chose to remain in the EU.
Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer will choose to retain the two child limit and the rape clause, the SNP government opposes them.
Labour chooses to lift the cap on bankers bonuses [but has] left the cap on child benefits …
While the NHS and other public services get slashed to the bone, we choose progressive taxation to increase investment in the NHS and public services. We choose to launch a 10-year just transition fund to support [the drive to net zero].
[Labour] refused for months to call for an immediate ceasefire, even failing to condemn the collective punishment of the people of Gaza. I and the government I lead chose to be a voice for peace and humanity in the world.
Humza Yousaf is responding.
He starts by saying how unnerved he has been by all the messages of support he has had from opposition MSPs since he announced he was standing down.
And he mocks Anas Sarwar for saying his motion was not personally – only moments before he launched personal attacks on Kate Forbes and John Swinney.
Sarwar said the SNP government in Edinburgh was now in a similar position to the Conservative one at Westminster.
I think the similarities between the UK Conservative government and the SNP Scottish government are now so clear to see.
Two political parties, chaotic, divided, dysfunctional, unleadable, ungovernable, incompetent, distracted by internal wars, distant from the people’s priorities, and unable to fix the mess of their own making.
Both looking to pitch community against community, both entrenched in the politics of division.
Both unable to meet the ambitions, hopes and aspirations of the people.
That’s why our country is crying out for change.
They want to get rid of this rotten Tory government across the UK.
Updated
MSPs debate Labour no confidence motion in Scottish government
At Holyrood Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, is opening the debate on his no confidence motion in the Scottish government.
He started by acknowledging Humza Yousaf’s announcement that he is resigning, and he thanks Yousaf for his service and wished him well for the future.
But he said he had no confidence in the government as a whole, for two reasons.
First - it is now clear that the SNP as a political party is so chaotic, divided and dysfunctional, that it can’t deliver competent government and is failing Scots every day.
I don’t believe changing the face at the top is going to change that.
Let’s look at the two candidates being suggested.
Kate Forbes and John Swinney.
There are already SNP ministers briefing journalists that if Kate Forbes was to become leader they would actively look to stop her being able to form a government – that would be even more chaos.
And John Swinney – the man who has been at the heart of the SNP government for the last 17 years, the heart of the SNP leadership for the last 40 years. The finance secretary that broke the public finances and the worst education secretary in the history of the Scottish parliament. Hardly the competence or the change our country needs.
And, second, he said it would be untenable for the SNP to impose another first minister on Scotland without holding an election.
Jonathan Ashworth, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, has issued a press notice on behalf of Labour attacking Rishi Sunak for not ruling out raising the state pension age to 75 to fund his plan to abolish national insurance. (See 12.13pm.) Ashworth said:
Rishi Sunak has again failed to categorically rule out raising the retirement age to 75 to pay for his reckless and unfunded Liz Truss style £46bn blackhole.
It has been 56 days since days of silence since the prime minister first made this pledge, with pensioners and those approaching retirement age left in the dark about how he will pay for this tax pledge and how the state pension will be changed.
The prime minister might think he can squat in 10 Downing Street and dodge these questions forever, but Labour won’t stand by and let Rishi Sunak and the Tories inflict yet more hardship on pensioners because of his weakness and desperation.
As Jessica Elgot reports, Labour at its post-PMQs lobby briefing was unable to say what it would do about asylum seekers who are already in the UK, but who are banned from applying for asylum under the Illegal Migration Act (precursor legislation to the Rwanda Act).
Tricky post-PMQs briefing for Labour.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 1, 2024
The party is committed not to sending flights to Rwanda but can't say what will happen to this new category of people who, under the new law, cannot claim asylum as they came here illegally.
Tricky post-PMQs briefing for Labour.
The party is committed not to sending flights to Rwanda but can’t say what will happen to this new category of people who, under the new law, cannot claim asylum as they came here illegally.
The party says it will get returns agreements to countries of origin but accepts that cannot apply to countries like Afghanistan. The logic is for those people to be able to enter the asylum system, but that adds to the backlog.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 1, 2024
The party says it will get returns agreements to countries of origin but accepts that cannot apply to countries like Afghanistan. The logic is for those people to be able to enter the asylum system, but that adds to the backlog.
The government says it will send people in this category to Rwanda. But given that one estimate says the number of people in asylum “limbo”, stuck in the UK but unable to apply for asylum, could reach 115,000, it is not realistic to think they could all be sent to Africa and the government, like Labour, will have to find an alternative solution.
A likely outcome is that eventually many of these people will be allowed to stay in the UK, but neither the government nor Labour wants to say that publicly.
Updated
Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s outgoing first miniser, has given his first interview since his resignation to BBC Scotland, ahead of this afternoon’s debate in the Scottish parliament of a motion of no confidence in his government.
He insisted that he did not regret ending the Bute House agreement, which resulted in him stepping down as first minster on Monday following a furious backlash from the Scottish Greens.
He told BBC Scotland editor James Cook:
In my mind, whether it was a matter of days or weeks, the Bute House agreement was coming to an end.
That’s why I say that ending the Bute House agreement was the right thing to do for the party and the country.
But I accept fully the manner in which it was done clearly caused upset and therefore I’ve paid the price of that.
He conceded that Green co-leader Patrick Harvie’s refusal to accept the Cass review as a valid scientific document had “upset a lot of people” in the party but said it was “not necessarily” a factor in ending the partnership.
Later this afternoon, his government faces a vote of no confidence brought by Scottish Labour – the Scottish Tories withdrew the other confidence motion in Yousaf’s leadership yesterday, declaring “job done”. The Labour motion is unlikely to pass given the Greens and Alba will not support it but it promises to be an uncomfortable for the SBP nonetheless.
'Fascist nonsense' - MPs condemn Home Office's release of video showing migrants being detained for flights to Rwanda
The Home Office has confirmed that it has started detained asylum seekers with a view to sending them to Rwanda. It says this “a key part of the plan to deliver flights to Rwanda in the next 9 to 11 weeks”.
But it has not said how many people have been detained, who they are, or where they were seized. In a statement the Home Office’s director of enforcement, Eddy Montgomery, said:
Our specialist operational teams are highly trained and fully equipped to carry out the necessary enforcement activity at pace and in the safest way possible.
It is vital that operational detail is kept to a minimum, to protect colleagues involved and those being detained, as well as ensuring we can deliver this large-scale operation as quickly as possible.
The Home Office has also posted a short video with clips of the detention operation.
BREAKING: The first people set to be removed to Rwanda have been detained. pic.twitter.com/2WWNhQVC1l
— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) May 1, 2024
The decision to release the video has been strongly criticised.
During a Commons statement on migration, Alison Thewliss, the SNP’s home affairs spokesperson, described the release of the video as “fascist nonsense”.
This morning, the UK Home Office revelled in its horrific attack on asylum seekers, releasing a video of its enforcement staff detaining people in their homes before sending them to Rwanda.
— Alison Thewliss 🧡 (@alisonthewliss) May 1, 2024
This is fascist nonsense. Not in Scotland's name. pic.twitter.com/5OAfx0WflG
The Green party MP Caroline Lucas said the release of the video was a sickening move which is clearly being done for party political purposes.
Sickened @ukhomeoffice have posted a promotional video about detaining asylum seekers to send to an unsafe country, Rwanda. This is tantamount to state-sponsored human trafficking & it's being done the day before elections for party political purposes.
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) May 1, 2024
We are better than this. https://t.co/EIFg12d3PK
Sickened @ukhomeoffice have posted a promotional video about detaining asylum seekers to send to an unsafe country, Rwanda. This is tantamount to state-sponsored human trafficking & it’s being done the day before elections for party political purposes.
We are better than this.
And Detention Action, a charity that helps asylum seekers, said the video was grotesque.
We're appalled that the Home Secretary has released video footage of people seeking asylum being taken in handcuffs from their accommodation & driven into detention. This grotesque display only adds to the inhumanity of the government's Rwanda plan. We stand against this cruelty.
— Detention Action (@DetentionAction) May 1, 2024
We’re appalled that the Home Secretary has released video footage of people seeking asylum being taken in handcuffs from their accommodation & driven into detention. This grotesque display only adds to the inhumanity of the government’s Rwanda plan. We stand against this cruelty.
Updated
Andy Street and Ben Houchen turn to Boris Johnson in mayoral election run-in
Andy Street and Ben Houchen, who are standing for re-election as Conservative mayors of West Midlands and Tees Valley respectively, have both turned to Boris Johnson to support their campaigns, Kiran Stacey and Jessica Murray report.
PMQs – snap verdict
In the end, although focused on the local elections, PMQs was marginally calmer and more good tempered than usual. The Rishi Sunak/Keir Starmer exchanges did not contain any flash quips, or dramatic moments, and mostly it was quite forgettable. But Starmer did make progress in one respect; it won’t resonate much in coverage today, but it might at some point in the future.
In the budget Jeremy Hunt announced a long-term aim to abolish employees’ national insurance. He did not set out a timetable for this, and so it is just an aspiration, and not a policy that has to be costed by the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility, but it allows Hunt and Rishi Sunak to frame the election as a choice between a party that will cut taxes over the long term, and one that won’t. The electoral politics of this are questionable; there is a lot of evidence suggesting voters want better public services, not tax cuts. But the internal party politics are compelling; for Tory MPs, activists and newspapers, having their leader take them into an election without a tax cut offer would be unthinkable.
Even a vague aspiration has to be paid for, and for the last two months Labour has been challenging Sunak to explain how he will fund this £46bn proposal. At first Labour depicted this in general terms, as meaning that taxes would have to go up or services would have to be cut. But increasingly it has been presenting this as a specific threat to pensioners – which is an effective line, because many people wrongly think national insurance is directly linked to welfare payments, and if that goes, the “pot” of money that funds pensions will disappear.
Today Starmer challenged Sunak to rule out cutting pensions to fund the plan. When he tried a variant of this question two weeks ago, he did not get an answer. Today he did; Sunak ruled out cutting the value of the state pension.
That sounded like a convincing response. But, as soon as politicians give a direct question to one question, they open up a second line of questioning, and Starmer was prepared:
Luckily for [Sunak] one of his peers, Lord Frost, yes him again, does. He says to solve the Tory spending plans the state pension age should be raised to 75, now understandably that will cause some alarm.
So will the prime minister rule out forcing people to delay their retirement by years and years in order to fulfil his £46bn black hole?
Sunak replied:
I’ve answered this multiple times to [Starmer], I’m happy to say it again. This is the party that has delivered and protected the triple lock.
When a politician says they have answered a question many times before, it is normally a clear sign that they haven’t. And Sunak did not rule out raising the age at which people get the state pension. He can’t, because it is going to have to go up. And if he starts ruling out raising it to 75, he then comes under pressure to explain exactly how far it will actually rise. That is not something he will want to talk about before the election, for obvious reasons.
Starmer won’t want to make many firm commitments about the state pension age under a Labour goverment ahead of the next election either. But he is not under pressure to explain how he would fund a £46bn tax cut. And so today he left Sunak a bit more exposed on pensions. It wasn’t his biggest PMQs victory, but it sets up a decent attack line for the general election.
Updated
Karen Bradley (Con) asks Sunak to praise the Staffordshire police and crime commissioner.
Sunak claims people with Labour crime commissioners are more likely to be victims of burglary and robbery.
(This is mostly just a point about Labour crime commissioners representing cities. I posted about this BTL in response to a query about a Tory election leaflet.)
Updated
Catherine West (Lab) says the Guardian is reporting that Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for London mayor, is a member of some of the racist Facebook groups mentioned early. Will the PM close those down?
She is referring to this story today.
Sunak ignores the point and just attacks Sadiq Khan’s record as London mayor.
Sunak backs DUP MP who accuses Irish government of border hypocrisy over its move to stop migrants arriving from NI
Carla Lockhart (DUP) recalls a former Irish PM holding a press conference in Brussels talking about a bombed border post, and insisting there must be no border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. She accuses the Irish government of hypocrisy, now that it wants to stop asylum seekers coming to Ireland from Northern Ireland.
Sunak agrees. He says the Irish government must support international agreements. There must be no cherry-picking, he says (using the term EU leaders used to attack the UK’s stance during the Brexit negotiatons). He says the UK is seeking “urgent clarification that there will be no disruption or police checkpoints at or near the border”. And he says the UK will not agree to accept the return of illegal migrants from Ireland.
UPDATE: Lockhart said:
Hypocrisy needs called out and everyone in this house will recall the former Irish prime minister [Leo Varadkar] in Brussels with a photograph of a bombed customs post lamenting that any border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was unworkable. It was in breach of the Belfast agreement and could result in such troubles again,
The hypocrisy of the Irish government from such a position has not been lost, with the Irish police now tasked to patrol the border to protect from the unsubstantiated, unfounded 80% figure of asylum seekers who supposedly make their way to the Republic of Ireland from the UK via Northern Ireland, when actually the reverse is true.
And Sunak replied:
The house will be aware that we have made commitments to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and the honourable lady makes a very important point that the Irish government must uphold its promises too.
We can’t have cherry-picking of important international agreements and so the secretary of state is seeking urgent clarification that there will be no disruption or police checkpoints at or near the border and I can confirm that the United Kingdom has no legal obligation to accept returns of illegal migrants from Ireland.
Now, it’s no surprise that our robust approach to illegal migration is providing a deterrent but the answer is not sending police to villages in Donegal. It’s to work with us in partnership to strengthen our external borders all around the common travel area that we share.
Updated
Mark Pawsey (Con) claims unemployment would go up under Labour.
Sunak praises Pawsey’s record at MP for Rugby. And he says the government needs to stick to its plan.
Sunak declines to condemn Tory activists being involved in anti-Ulez Facebook groups riddled with racism
Deidre Brock (SNP) asks about the Facebook groups opposed to Ulez and 20mph zones that are run by Tory activists. They have been spreading racist abuse. Will the PM tackle this “grubby, gutter politics”?
That is a reference to this Observer story.
Sunak says he is not aware of this. But he will not apologise for Tories attacking the SNP’s record, he says.
Peter Aldous (Con) sasy the east of England is playing a role in the transition to net zero. But the coast has taken a battering recently. Will the government do more to protect infrastructure there.
Sunak says the east of England is benefiting from the levelling up programme.
Andrew Selous (Con) asks what they govenrment will do to attract more doctors into working in community paediatrics.
Sunak say the NHS has a working group looking at this. And the government is increasing the number of medical places available, he says.
Caroline Lucas (Green) asks about the prospect of an attack on Rafah in Gaza. If that attack starts, will the PM ban arms exports to Israel?
Sunak says Lucas did not acknowledge that Israel suffered an appalling terrorist attack. It has the right to defend itself, he says. He says he has repeatedly said Israel should take care to avoid civilian casualties.
SNP's Stephen Flynn says troops should only be deployed delivering aid in Gaza if MPs vote in favour
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, asks Sunak if he is giving active considering to the deployment of troops in the Middle East. He says the MoD has refused to comment on reports that troops could help deliver aid into Gaza.
Sunak says he would not be expected to comment on operational matters. But the government is working to get more aid in.
Flynn says deploying troops would be a “potentially dangerous” development. He says it should only happen after a vote in the Commons.
Sunak says he will not apologise for wanting to deliver aid to Gaza. He says a hostage deal could deliver a ceasefire. He says the SNP should encourage all parties to back that.
Starmer attacks Sunak again for not being able to say how he will fund his tax cut.
Sunak says people should vote Tory to cut crime and deliver lower taxes.
Starmer asks again where the £46bn will come from to get rid of national insurance.
Sunak says Labour has got a new adviser who calls pensioners codgers.
(The adviser is a former adviser to a Tory chancellor.)
Sunak refuses to rule out raising state pension age to fund national insurance cut
Starmer says the Tory peer Lord Frost says the pension age should be raised to 75. Will Sunak rule that out?
Sunak says the triple lock will protect pensioners. He does not address the question, but he points out that, as a former DPP, Starmer has his own, protected pension.
UPDATE: See 1.27pm for the direct quotes.
Updated
Sunak rules out cutting value of pensions to fund his proposed plan to get rid of national insurance
Starmer says that was a non-answer. When Sunak is asked questions, like about the date of the election, he acts as if answering questions is beneath him. He says, under Sunak’s plan, the value of the state pension would be halved. Will Sunak rule that out?
Sunak says “of course we can rule that out”. He says state pensions will rise in every year of the next parliament, thanks to the triple lock. Labour delivered an insulting 75p rise in pensions. Labour always let down pensioners.
Starmer says that reply was nonsense. He says Tory MPs are following Tory voters in concluding only Labour can give the country the change it needs.
He asks if Sunak has found the money for his £46bn plan to scrap national insurance.
Sunak says he addressed this before. Economics is not Starmer’s strong point, he claims.
One party will deliver tax cuts, and it is the Conservative party, he says.
Keir Starmer starts by backing what Sunak said about the attack in Hainault. He praises the emergency services, and sends his condolences to the family of the boy killed.
He says he was glad to see the king back on a visit yesterday.
And he welcomes Dan Poulter to the Labour benches. Poulter defected from the Tories at the weekend.
When a lifelong Tory and doctor says the only cure for the NHS is a Labour government, shouldn’t the PM admit he has failed.
Sunak says he is glad to see Poulter in the Commons. (Tories accuse Poulter of not turning up to parliament often.)
Lisa Cameron (Con) asks if Sunak knows why Labour refused to back his plan to support the armed services?
Sunak says it is right to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. He says he hopes Starmer will “stop dithering” and back the plan.
Kirsten Oswald (SNP) says more than one teenager in five is vaping. They could be at risk of toxic metals, she says. She says she backs the tobacco and vapes bill. Does the PM agree vape companies should be banned from advertising on sports kit?
Sunak says that is a decision for individual teams.
Rishi Sunak starts by saying the thoughts of all MPs are with the people affected by yesterday’s sword attack in Hainault.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs
PMQs is about to start. With local elections tomorrow, it may be be even more combative and cantankerous than usual.
Labour accuses Badenoch of engaging in 'culture war' over single-sex spaces
Labour has accused Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, of championing single-sex spaces as part of a “culture war”.
Speaking about the initiative announced by Badenoch this morning (see 10.10am), Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secreary, told Times Radio this morning:
[Badenoch] does love nothing more than a culture war. And it is so transparent what she is doing. She is pitching to Conservative members for the leadership contest to come in the Conservative party. And frankly, our country deserves a lot better than it always being about the Conservative party.
Phillipson also suggested that it was hypocritical for Badenoch to stress her support for single-sex wards in hospital when there has been “a massive explosion in the use of mixed sex wards because the NHS is an absolutely parlous state”.
In a separate interview with Times Radio, Badenoch objected when a presenter suggested she was waging a culture war. She said:
I do take issue with you calling this culture wars.
Four years ago, when I was alerting people to the danger of puberty blockers, and a lot of the issues that we had in clinics, people like you were accusing me of fighting culture wars.
And now we have the Cass review and the report that is actually a medical scandal.
So I think it’s really important that especially when journalists talk about this, that you take the heat out. It’s not helpful. It is really unhelpful to call this culture wars. We’re trying to do the right thing by children and women in particular.
Some interesting local election polling came out overnight.
YouGov has used MRP polling to try to predict the results for particular councils. It says the Conservatives face significant losses.
We've used MRP to call 16 key local authority battlegrounds at the coming local elections - we predict significant Tory losses to Labour
— YouGov (@YouGov) April 30, 2024
You can see our calls in the chart below, and read more detailed analysis from @PME_Politics here: https://t.co/BpN5k8XcOJ pic.twitter.com/cKZywoi7GC
And the Yorkshire Post has published the result of a poll commissioned by Labour Together, a Labour campaign group, suggesting that Labour is on course for a clear victory over the Tories in the York and North Yorkshire mayoral contest.
This is a new mayoralty, which means it is hard to say who should be favourite because there are no past results to look at. It comprises two council areas: York City, where there is a strong Lib Dem and Labour vote; and North Yorkshire, which is predominantly Tory.
But most of the MPs with constituencies covered by the mayoralty are Tories, and they include Rishi Sunak.
In his story, Mason Boycott-Owen says:
Polling indicates that Labour could have a lead as large as 14 points over the Conservatives in the York and North Yorkshire mayoral race.
It placed Labour’s David Skaith on 41 points, ahead of the Conservatives’ Keane Duncan on 27 points, among voters who had made up their mind on who to vote for.
Both the Green’s Kevin Foster and the Lib Dems’ Felicity Cunliffe-Lister polled at 11 points.
YORKSHIRE POST: Labour ‘could win’ in Sunak’s backyard #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/7WJ1YepADL
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 30, 2024
Updated
Tory hopeful for London mayor joins anti-Ulez Facebook group rife with Islamophobia
Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for London mayor, has joined a Facebook group which contains Islamophobic hate speech and abusive comments about her opponent Sadiq Khan, the day after an exposé about its contents. Helena Horton has the story.
There are two statements afte PMQs in the Commons: Tom Pursglove on migration, and Kemi Badenoch with a “business and trade facts and figures update” (which sounds like boasting about trade deals, perhaps with reference to this story).
AFTER 1230 TODAY:
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) May 1, 2024
1Statement: Migration Update @VotePursglove
2Statement: Business and Trade Facts and Figures Update @KemiBadenoch
Badenoch claims Sunak's position not 'under threat' regardless of how Tories perform in local elections
Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, was doing a fairly extensive media round this morning. In her appearance on Sky News, she rejected claims that Rishi Sunak might be under threat because of the Tory performance in the local elections. When this suggestion was put to her, she replied:
I don’t think the prime minister’s position is under threat.
I think there’s a lot of noise being made by people who want to get attention but the prime minister has the full backing of the cabinet, he has my full backing.
Asked whether this would be the case regardless of the outcome of the elections, she said: “I think that is right.” She claimed she was expecting “a good result”.
Badenoch may be correct, at least about Sunak’s position. Polling suggesting that the Conservatives might win the mayoral contests in the West Midlands and in Tees Valley have steadied Tory nerves a little, and yesterday, in a story in the i, Hugo Gye reported that “Conservative rebels who are plotting to overthrow Rishi Sunak have been rebuffed by MPs they have tried to recruit for their proposed coup.” Gye said:
Many loyalists remain sceptical that there will be enough rebels to put the prime minister’s position in serious danger, regardless of the results.
But an MP told i: “I was approached by part of their team last week – they were sounding me out. I told them where to go.” The need for the rebels to proactively recruit more allies “doesn’t denote strength”, the backbencher added.
Badenoch is widely seen as having ambitions to replace Sunak as Conservative leader. But, unlike some of his rivals, she seems to have no interest in Sunak being replaced before the election. Earlier this year it was reported that she had been heard saying “Rishi has got to own the defeat”.
Birmingham city council accused of basing drastic cuts on ‘imagined’ data
A £760m equal pay liability bill at Birmingham city council, which led it to effectively declare bankruptcy and make a swathe of drastic budget cuts, could be hugely overstated, councillors, researchers and whistleblowers have said. Jessica Murray has the story.
Badenoch urges people to call out examples of organisations enforcing 'bad guidance' on single-sex spaces
Kemi Badenoch, who is minister for women and equalities as well as business and trade secretary, is launching a move to root out “bad guidance” on access to single-sex spaces. The initiative seems intended to restrict the extent to which trans women use these facilities.
She said:
Single-sex spaces are essential for ensuring privacy and dignity for women. I do recognise, however, that the law in this area is complex, and I know that some organisations are confused and afraid of backlash if they are seen to get it wrong.
So I am asking people to submit real-world examples of organisations using incorrect guidance, so that our policymaking continues to tackle any confusion and we ensure single-sex spaces are maintained.
In a news release the Government Equalities Office explained the need for the initiative in these terms.
Where certain conditions are met, businesses and other organisations can legally provide single and separate-sex services such as toilets, changing rooms, and female-only fitness classes, which exclude transgender people of the opposite biological sex who do not have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). Where it is justified, they are also able to exclude transgender people with GRCs.
In some cases organisations believe they are required to allow self-identifying transgender people to access these services. Now, as part of raising awareness and to understand how well single-sex spaces are maintained, Kemi Badenoch is calling on the public to submit their examples to the government.
In an interview with LBC, asked to give an example of bad guidance on this topic, Badenoch cited toilets in schools. She said there was a difference between gender neutral toilets (“when you have urinals, and stalls and cubicles all in the same place, genitalia from opposite sexes might be visible”) and unisex toilets (“like a disabled toilet, everybody has their private cubicle”). And she said gender neutral toilets could be bad for girls.
If I were to give an example of a school that had gender-neutral toilets and young girls there didn’t want to use the same toilets as boys so they weren’t going to the toilet at school and got urinary tract infections.
This is obviously a terrible thing but the school though they were following a guidance because they had used some policy analysis that was by an organisation that wasn’t looking at the equality law.
Nigel Railton, the ex-chief executive of the former national lottery operator Camelot, has been named as the new interim chair of the Post Office. Jack Simpson has the story.
Nigel Farage, honorary president (and owner) of Reform UK, and the former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party, has dismissed the story about an asylum seeker flying voluntarily to Rwanda as part of a presentational con.
Don't be conned by this new government spin on the Rwanda deal.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) April 30, 2024
This African man, who did not even cross the Channel, was refused asylum and has voluntarily accepted £3,000 + free board.
It won't stop the boats. https://t.co/UbxT0I8mHh
Don’t be conned by this new government spin on the Rwanda deal.
This African man, who did not even cross the Channel, was refused asylum and has voluntarily accepted £3,000 + free board.
It won’t stop the boats.
Badenoch rejects claim that voluntarily flying migrant to Rwanda just ‘extortionate pre-election gimmick
Good morning. When the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill was in the House of Lords before Easter, a mysterious delay crept in. There was plenty of time to get it passed before the Easter recess, but the government held it back, without giving a good reason, and even when parliament returned, the government did not make passing the law a matter of urgency. It only cleared parliament, and got royal assent, last week.
And now it is fairly clear why. With the bill on the statute book, we are seeing a flurry of Rwanda-related activity from the government – which, by miraculous coincidence, seems to be turning up in the papers just days and hours before people in England vote in the local elections.
Some of this activity is only possible because the Rwanda bill is law. As Rajeev Syal and Severin Carrell report, the Home Office has started detaining people and telling them that they will be sent to Rwanda.
The Sun today has got, what at first glance, seems an even more dramatic story. “Britain has removed the first failed asylum seeker to Rwanda,” it reports. “It is the first time the government has ever relocated a failed asylum seeker to a third country in what ministers are hoping is the first of thousands.”
At second glance, there is rather less to this than the headline implies. This is a voluntary relocation. The asylum seeker, who is described in the Sun as a man of African origin, is being paid £3,000 to fly to Rwanda. The Home Office has for a long time operated a voluntary returns programme, where it pays people to return home if their asylum application has failed, and this scheme, announced in March, is a variant of that policy, sending people to Rwanda instead. The government did not need the Safety of Rwanda Act to allow this, and it could have been done long before this week.
The opposition parties have described the news as an election gimmick. In a statement Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said:
The Tories are so desperate to get any flight off to Rwanda before the local elections that they have now just paid someone to go.
British taxpayers aren’t just forking out £3,000 for a volunteer to board a plane, they are also paying Rwanda to provide him with free board and lodgings for the next five years. This extortionate pre-election gimmick is likely to be costing on average £2m per person.
Former Tory Home Office ministers warned that the government’s plan was just to get token flights off before a general election. Now we know what they mean.
And Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesperson, said:
This is cynical nonsense from a Conservative party that is about to take a drubbing at the local elections. Paying someone to go to Rwanda highlights just how much of a gimmick and farce their plan is.
But Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, welcomed the development this morning. In an interview with LBC, she said it disproved the “myth” that Rwanda is not a safe country. She said:
This is somebody who has actually volunteered to go to Rwanda, which puts to bed this nonsensical myth that Rwanda was not a safe place.
It is. People go on holiday there. I know somebody who’s having a very lovely gap year there. We need to move past a lot of those myths, which are actually just disparaging about an African country.
This scheme was set up as a deterrence. It is working. Somebody has volunteered to go. Obviously, the easiest cases will be the first but there will be many more.
And if you look at what the Irish government has been saying recently, it looks like it is already working. They’re complaining that they’re getting people, failed asylum seekers, coming over there because they didn’t want to go to Rwanda.
And when it was put to her that paying the person to go voluntarily to Rwanda, and then paying for his accommodation , was expensive, she replied:
There is no cost free option, that is the truth of it. It’s better this way than for him to be in the UK, either claiming benefits or being entitled to things that other people in this country can’t have, which be much more expensive for the taxpayer. But there is no free way to police our borders.
Here is the agenda for the day.
12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.
2.50pm: MSPs debate a motion of no confidence in the Scottish government. The debate will run for half an hour.
Afternoon: Starmer is on a visit in Essex.
If you want to contact me, do use the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
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