Afternoon summary
Labour has said it is “disgraceful’” that the former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is claiming his mini-budget is not to blame for the poor state of the public finances. (See 1.10pm.)
Senior civil servants at the Ministry of Justice were offered “respite or a route out” of the department when Dominic Raab was reappointed last month, amid concerns that some were still traumatised by his behaviour during a previous stint there, the Guardian has revealed. The Liberal Democrats have called for an inquiry. Responding to the Guardian’s story, Daisy Cooper, the deputy Lib Dem leader, said:
This government hasn’t got a shred of integrity left - every day more chaos, sleaze and scandal is unearthed. These latest reports are deeply disturbing and must be investigated immediately by the Cabinet Office. Britain has had enough of bullies running the country.
Dominic Raab now joins a long list of Conservative ministers to have allegations made against them for inappropriate behaviour.
Updated
MoJ staff offered ‘route out’ amid concerns over Dominic Raab behaviour
Senior civil servants at the Ministry of Justice were offered “respite or a route out” of the department when Dominic Raab was reappointed last month, amid concerns that some were still traumatised by his behaviour during a previous stint there, my colleague Pippa Crerar reports. Pippa writes:
Several sources told the Guardian that about 15 staff from the justice secretary’s private office were taken into a room where departmental chiefs acknowledged they may be anxious about his behaviour and gave them the option of moving roles.
Some of the civil servants were said to have been in tears during the meeting and several subsequently decided to move to other positions in the department, with one thought to be considering leaving entirely, although sources suggested a couple of staff had since returned.
It is also understood that Antonia Romeo, the MoJ permanent secretary, had to speak to Raab when he returned to the department to warn him that he must treat staff professionally and with respect amid unhappiness about his return. One source, who was not in the room at the time, claimed she had “read him the riot act”.
The full story is here.
Labour says Sunak should apologise to Japanese for Tory MP's 'crass racial slur'
David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, is calling on Rishi Sunak to apologise to the Japanese for the fact that a Conservative MP used the term “Japs”, the Independent is reporting.
In her story Kate Devlin says the Japanese embassy in London submitted a formal complaint to Mark Francois, the MP who used the term in the House of Commons on Monday. “The embassy of Japan informed MP Mark Francois that the word used was inappropriate and requested the correction,” an embassy spokesperson told Devlin.
Next week Sunak is due to meet the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, at the G20 summit in Bali and Lammy said Sunak should apologise for the language used by his backbencher first. Lammy said:
Before the G20 summit next week, Rishi Sunak must apologise on behalf of his whole party and take action against Francois if he does not make a full personal apology. We cannot have Tory gaffes damaging Britain’s bilateral relationships at a time when global cooperation is vital for Britain’s security and prosperity.
After a Labour MP criticised Francois for using a “crass racial slur”, the MP issued a statement saying that he had not intended to cause offence and that he was just using an abbreviation. He declined to apologise.
No 10 has not commented.
'They reversed all the measures' - why Kwarteng thinks mini-budget not to blame for government's financial situation
TalkTV has now released a slightly fuller version of the excerpt from the Kwasi Kwarteng interview where he insisted that his mini-budget was not to blame for what is being described as the “black hole” in the national finances. I quoted in full the excerpt broadcast last night, at 9.15am. But here is the full, uncut version, with the new quotes in bold.
Kwarteng was responding to a question about how Jeremy Hunt, the current chancellor, is blaming the mini-budget for the government’s financial problems. Kwarteng replied:
I don’t understand the causality [the argument that the mini-budget caused the current problems]. The national debt wasn’t radically changed by Liz Truss. They reversed all the measures, and Liz Truss herself reversed corporation tax going up to 25p. The only thing that hasn’t been been reversed is national insurance [the cut]. But everything else has been has been swept away. So there isn’t a black hole and the interest rates and the gilt rate funding the debt is exactly the same as it was before the mini-budget. So the black hole hasn’t been caused by the mini-budget. It’s something that Jeremy and Rishi [Sunak] and their officials are going to have to tackle on their own regardless of what happened in the budget. How can that be the fault if they reversed all the measures?
This is from Tom Newton Dunn, the TalkTV presenter who interviewed Kwarteng.
“How can it be our fault if they’ve reversed all the measures? It’s something that Jeremy and Rishi are going to have to tackle on their own”
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) November 11, 2022
Don’t blame me for your austerity. As the Kwarteng vs Hunt row deepens, the full exert from our interview that didn’t play out last night pic.twitter.com/KDlZ6kX9Pc
Met takes no action over Tory lockdown event attended by Shaun Bailey
The Metropolitan police took no action over an apparent Christmas party at Conservative headquarters in London during lockdown in 2020 attended by Shaun Bailey, then the party’s candidate for London mayor, my colleague Peter Walker reports.
UK lagging behind other G7 economies on growth
The UK is the only member of the G7 with a shrinking economy in the third quarter of 2022, my colleague Graeme Wearden reports on his business live blog. Japan has not yet produced Q3 GDP data, but the figures are available for other G7 economies, Graeme says. He writes:
In contrast, Germany and France kept expanding despite the energy crisis, while the US returned to growth.
Here’s how G7 nations fared in the July-September quarter:
Canada: +0.4% (according to advance data)
France: +0.2%
Germany: 0.2%
Italy: +0.5%
United States: +0.6%
United Kingdom: -0.2%
We should remember the UK’s economy was pulled down by the bank holiday for the Queen’s state funeral, which caused around half of the 0.6% drop in GDP during September.
You can read more on this on Graeme’s blog here.
Irish PM says meeting Sunak left him more 'positive' about NI protocol deal and 'window of opportunity' now exists
Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM), has said that he and Rishi Sunak agreed when they met last night that they wanted to resolve the Northern Ireland protocol dispute “as soon as possible”.
But Martin also stressed there would have to be “substantive engagement” from the UK and the EU to make that possible.
Martin was speaking at a press conference at the end of the British-Irish Council summit in Blackpool. He said relations between the Irish and UK governments had improved “very significantly” in recent months, and that he was impressed by Sunak’s “pragmatic approach” when the pair met last night. He said:
I was struck by the prime minister’s pragmatic approach, understanding where the European Union are coming from, but also he then seeking: ‘Do you understand where the United Kingdom is coming from’. And that’s always a good basis to start negotiations.
Martin would not set a deadline for a resolution of the protocol dispute, but said they both wanted it sorted out “as soon as posssible”.
And he said the decision to postpone elections in Northern Ireland created a new “window of opportunity”. He said:
It’s my assessment that the window of opportunity now does exist, the space now exists to resolve the outstanding issues pertaining to the protocol by negotiation.
Obviously that will need momentum. It will need substantive engagement with the EU and UK government to make that a reality.
But I must say I take away a positive perspective from last evening’s meeting with the prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Northern Ireland has been without a proper executive for months because the Democratic Unionist party are boycotting the power-sharing body until the Northern Ireland protocol – a set of post-Brexit trade rules agreed with the EU – is removed or reformed. The UK government is also demanding wholesale changes to the protocol, which it orginally signed, but the EU is only offering more limited amendments.
The two sides have been negotiating for weeks, but they do not appear to have got much closer to a deal – in part because there have been two recent changes in leadership in London.
Now there is pressure for a deal to be agreed before elections have to be called in Northern Ireland next year (it is generally assumed a fresh poll would be counterproductive), and certainly before the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agremeent next Easter.
'I was struck by Rishi Sunak's pragmatic approach'
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 11, 2022
Irish PM Micheal Martin says he 'remains hopeful' that the issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol will be resolved - but he 'does not understate the challenges'. https://t.co/PAiZ4D1RJB
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/cMWZaVsxcv
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Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, is holding a press conference in Blackpool with Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM), following the conclusion of the British-Irish Council summit.
Asked whether the UK government would pause the progression of the Northern Ireland protocol bill, which is currently in the House of Lords (see 12.39pm), Gove said that was not a decision for him. This is from UTV’s Tracey Magee.
At the BIC press conference @michaelgove says it’s above his pay grade to say whether the NI Protocol bill will be paused but says the focus is to find a negotiated solution pic.twitter.com/b0j3B0bdr0
— Tracey Magee (@Tracey_utv) November 11, 2022
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Reeves claims it's 'disgraceful' for Kwarteng to say his mini-budget not to blame for problems with public finances
Labour has escalated its criticism of the former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng for claiming his mini-budget is not to blame for the poor state of the public finances. (See 9.15am.) Asked about his comments, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said:
It is really disgraceful that Kwasi Kwarteng has the cheek to do this interview. He crashed the economy with his mini-budget just a few weeks ago. It’s caused untold damage to people. Anyone coming off a mortgage deal will be blaming the Conservatives, including Kwasi Kwarteng, for those huge increases, up to £500 a month more in interest payments because of the decisions by Conservative chancellors over the last few months, including Kwasi Kwarteng.
The Labour claim that the mini-budget alone, or “even decisions by Conservative chancellors over the last few months”, are responsible for mortgages going up by up to £500 a month is misleading. As the fact checking organisation Full Fact explains here, Labour produced the figure by comparing the cost of an average mortgage after the mini-budget with the cost in August 2020. But interest rates had already risen significantly between August 2020 and the summer of 2022, before Liz Truss’s election as Tory leader, it says.
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Getting deal with EU on Northern Ireland will become much more difficult if NI protocol bill passes, EU ambassador suggests
João Vale de Almeida, the outgoing EU ambassador to the UK, has signalled that, if the Northern Ireland protocol bill becomes law, then reaching a deal over the future of the protocol will become more difficult.
Vale de Almeida has been giving interviews ahead of his departure from London and, speaking to Times Radio, he echoed what he told the Financial Times about relations between London and Brussels improving now that Rishi Sunak is prime minister.
He told Times Radio he thought it would be possible for the EU and the UK to reach an agreement about reforms to the protocol – the post-Brexit agreement governing the import of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland – “with a certain degree of urgency that we can find a way out”.
But he also said all this would change if the Northern Ireland protocol bill, which would allow the UK government to ignore its international legal obligations under the protocol, became law. He said:
It’s an understatement to say that [the bill] is not helpful … We think it’s not lawful. It’s illegal in terms of the respect of an international treaty.
We accepted to talk even if the bill goes through parliament, but one should be very clear: if the bill becomes law, the situation changes considerably.
The bill had its second reading from MPs in June, and it has cleared the House of Commons. It was debated in the Lords last month, but a date has not yet been set for the final report stage and third reading debates, where the crucial votes will take place.
Vale de Almeida also said that although the EU was willing to be “pragmatic” about changes to the way the protocol operates, it would still require some sort of minimal checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. He explained:
There will always have to be a degree of checks at the border, because we need to protect half a billion people in the internal market in order to continue to allow Northern Ireland to have access to both markets.
We are ready to go for a minimum level. Some of them would not even be visible, will not even have an impact on people’s lives, provided we have the degree of assurance that everything that we get from the British side is enough for us to assess the risk and to limit the risk at the end of the day.
Updated
Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, has released polling suggesting that half of Londoners are financially either “struggling” (18%) or “just about managing” (32%).
According to the polling, 49% of Londoners are also using less water, energy or fuel.
Khan says he wants the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to help people with the cost of living in next week’s autumn statement. Khan says:
This shocking new polling highlights the realities of the worst cost of living crisis in generations.
With spiralling inflation and soaring interest rates meaning many Londoners are struggling to make ends meet – a situation made worse by the government’s failed mini-budget – the chancellor has a duty to take decisive action on Thursday to support vulnerable Londoners.
Khan is urging Hunt to adopt various policies that he says would help, including: a further windfall tax on energy companies; uprating benefits in line with inflation; the extension of free school meals to all primary school children; a “lifetime tariff” that would allow the most vulnerable people a minimum amount of energy use before charges apply; and City Hall having the power to freeze private rents in London.
Updated
NHS trusts paying as much as £2,500 for single agency nursing shift, Labour says
NHS trusts are paying as much as £2,500 for a single agency nursing shift, research by the Labour party has revealed.
The party produced the figures by submitting freedom of information requests, and it says the results show the need for a big investment in NHS recruitment – which is what Labour is promising.
In a news release summarising its findings, Labour says:
In total, the NHS paid more than £3bn to agencies who provide doctors and nurses on short notice. The figure represents a 20% rise on last year, when the health service spent £2.4bn. Trusts spent a further £6bn on bank staff, when NHS staff are paid to do temporary shifts, taking the total spent on additional staff to around £9.2bn.
One in three NHS trusts paid an agency more than £1,000 for a single shift last year, while one in every six trusts paid more than £2,000, results from freedom of information requests reveal.
The most expensive shift was £2,549, paid by Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Swindon. Medway NHS Trust in Kent spent more than any other trust on agency staff, paying out £77m last year alone.
A BBC investigation on the same topic found that, even though pay rates for agency staff are supposedly capped, these limits are regularly ignored, on the grounds that patient safety would otherwise be at risk.
Commenting on the problem, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said:
Taxpayers are picking up the bill for the Conservatives’ failure to train enough doctors and nurses over the past 12 years. This is infuriating amounts of money paid to agencies, when patients are waiting longer than ever for treatment.
Labour will tackle this problem at its root. We will train the doctors and nurses the NHS needs, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status.
Updated
Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss used to be close friends, but following her decision to sack him as chancellor, and his comments about her in his TalkTV interview last night (see 10.14am), it is hard to imagine that relations are still cordial.
Tom Newton Dunn asked Kwarteng in the interview if they were still friends and he said they were. They spoke “relatively recently”, Kwarteng said.
But he then said that she had called him a few days ago, but that he had missed the call. Was he going to call her back? “I will call her back,” he replied, implying that responding to her has not been much of a priority.
Kwarteng was also asked if he thought he would return to government one day. Kwarteng said he would not rule it out, but that he was not looking for a ministerial job soon. He explained:
I think I need to just take stock … I just want to get back to basics of being an MP.
Updated
Kwarteng criticised for claiming that Truss mainly to blame for mini-budget disaster because he was urging slower approach
Kwasi Kwarteng’s interview with TalkTV last night was the first time he had spoken in public about the events leading up to his sacking, and one of the main lines was his suggestion that Liz Truss was primarily to blame for the mini-budget imploding.
Kwarteng accepted a lot of responsibility himself. He told the programme:
I’m responsible. I’m not going to wash my hands with it. I was chancellor of the exchequer. I was also part of the top team.
But he also said that they went too fast, that Truss was driving this, and that he warned her to slow down. He said:
The prime minister was very much of the view that we needed to move things fast. But I think it was too quick. If you look at it, it was on the 23rd of September. We only got into the office on the sixth of September. And looking back, hindsight is a wonderful thing, I think a measured pace would have been much better …
I said, actually, after the budget that because we were going very fast – even after the mini-budget we were going at breakneck speed – and I said: ‘You know, we should slow down, slow down’.
Kwarteng said that, in response, Truss said she had to move quickly because she would only have two years in office.
But Kwarteng’s attempt to offload some of the responsibility for what went wrong on to Truss has been criticised by journalists, commentators and opposition MPs – not least because Kwarteng gave an interview on the Sunday after the mini-budget implying he wanted to go further.
Here is some of the reaction.
From my colleague Pippa Crerar
Yet just two days after the disastrous mini-budget Kwarteng spooked the markets further by saying “there is more to come…” https://t.co/yXd6uBHOOa
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) November 10, 2022
From ITV’s Anushka Asthana
Slightly confusing thing about this from Kwasi Kwarteng is he seems to be suggesting he told Liz Truss to slow down AFTER the mini-budget. But really it was the measures IN the budget that were the issue and his suggestion that Sunday on @bbclaurak that there was more to come? https://t.co/flRfMYeYoy
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) November 10, 2022
From Sky’s Rob Powell
In the Kwarteng interview with @TalkTV, he repeatedly says he called for govt to slow down "after" the mini-budget & in Oct.
— Rob Powell (@robpowellnews) November 11, 2022
Surely by that point (after mini-budget & after KK said 'more to come'), the damage was already done? And Kwarteng played a massive role in that.
From my colleague Jessica Elgot
This does not make much sense when Kwarteng specifically briefed the weekend papers there were more tax cuts to come https://t.co/5zGYWG9xyT
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) November 10, 2022
From Marc Stears, a former aide to Ed Miliband
These are extraordinary denials from Kwasi Kwarteng. I saw him speak at Conservative Party conference fringe meeting a few weeks ago and there was no sense of a need to “slow down” the pace of reform then, quite the opposite. https://t.co/yQfjpvE9Kh
— Marc Stears (@mds49) November 11, 2022
From Tim Bale, an academic who has written extensively about the modern Conservative party
Sorry but, honestly, this really is absolute bollocks from Kwasi 'more tax cuts to come' Kwarteng. Mate, you needed to warn Liz Truss *before* your mad mini-Budget, not after it! https://t.co/vgNP0GzgGR
— Tim Bale (@ProfTimBale) November 11, 2022
From the Labour MP Diane Abbott
Kwasi Kwarteng now claiming that Liz Truss wanted to go too fast. Ridiculous to blame her for disastrous budget. When thieves fall out… pic.twitter.com/S8WJ7SetnS
— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) November 11, 2022
Updated
Labour criticises Kwarteng for refusing to apologise for impact of his mini-budget
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, has criticised Kwasi Kwarteng, the former chancellor, for refusing to apologise for the impact of his mini-budget in his interview with TalkTV last night.
Even after the wrecking ball mini-budget, Kwasi Kwarteng said “there’s more to come”. His own MPs sat on their hands as the disaster unfolded.
— Angela Rayner 🌹 (@AngelaRayner) November 11, 2022
The Tories crashed the economy - and they won’t even apologise to you for all the damage they’ve done.pic.twitter.com/r2EGtDubXi
When Kwarteng was asked by the presenter, Tom Newton Dunn, if he would apologise to people who had to pay more for their mortgages after the mini-budget, as lenders put their interest rates up in response to the assumption that Kwarteng’s policies would lead to the Bank of England raising interest rates by more than expected, Kwarteng replied:
I’m not going to, I’m not going to comment on that. I think it was regrettable. And I think people were very, very concerned. Interest rates were going up. The Bank of England has put interest rates up and all of that was happening. But there was turbulence and I regret that.
Newton Dunn asked Kwarteng twice more if he would apologise, but Kwarteng continued to refuse. “I don’t want to relive the past,” he said. “I just want to focus on where we are next week.”
But he did say he felt sorry for what people who were having to remortgage were going through. “I really feel sympathy for that,” he said. But he still felt the “strategic goals” of the mini-budget were right, he said, even though the implementation was flawed.
I will post more from the Kwarteng interview shortly. Here is our overnight story on it, by my colleague Nadeem Badshah.
Updated
Sturgeon and Drakeford describe talks with Sunak as constructive
As my colleague Lisa O’Carroll reports, Rishi Sunak seemed to make a reasonably good impression when he held his first face-to-face meeting with the taoiseach, Micheál Martin, last night, at the opening of the British-Irish Council summit.
The Irish government’s account of the meeting is here.
Sunak’s meetings with Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister (in person), and Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister (virtual – he has Covid), were also described as constructive. His predecessor, Liz Truss, did not even bother making a courtesy call to them in her 45 days as PM, and Boris Johnson’s relations with them both were fractious.
This is from Sky News.
Rishi Sunak has met Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon for his first face-to-face meeting with her since becoming prime minister.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 10, 2022
She described their meeting as "cordial and constructive".
Latest: https://t.co/WUnquWe61F
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/GnfuyP7Vlc
And this is from Adrian Masters, ITV Cymru’s political editor.
The most positive I’ve heard the Welsh Govt be for years following talks with a Prime Minister. A spokesperson says that “it’s worth noting that the feeling is the relationship with the U.K. Govt is back to normal after a strange couple of years.” https://t.co/OkU2zlCWib
— Adrian Masters (@adrianmasters84) November 10, 2022
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Hunt dismisses Kwarteng’s claim that mini-budget not to blame for state of UK finances
Good morning. We’ve got less than a week to go now until the autumn statement – in effect, the second budget of the autumn – and already a blame game has broken out in the Conservative party about who is responsible for the massive spending cuts and tax rises the nation is about to face.
In an interview with TalkTV last night, his first since he was sacked as chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng rejected claims that his mini-budget was primarily to blame. When it was put to him that Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the new chancellor, were going to blame him for all the problems, Kwarteng replied:
You know, the only thing that they could possibly blame us for is the interest rates, and interest rates have come down and the gilt rates have come down. The black hole and structural problems are already there. I mean, it wasn’t that the national debt was created by Liz Truss’s 44 days in government.
When he was challenged again, Kwarteng even questioned whether it was right to talk about a black hole in the first place. He said:
The national debt wasn’t radically changed by Liz Truss … There isn’t a black hole and the interest rates and the gilt rate funding the debt is exactly the same as it was before the mini-budget. So the black hole hasn’t been caused by the mini budget. It’s something that Jeremy and Rishi and their officials are going to have to tackle on their own regardless of what happened in the budget.
But Hunt does not accept this. He was asked about Kwarteng’s claim in an interview with Sky News this morning, and he replied:
All I would say is that when we produced a fiscal statement that didn’t show how we were going to bring our debts down over the medium term, the markets reacted very badly and so we have learned that you can’t fund either spending or borrowing without showing how you are going to pay for it and that is what I will do.
Hunt did not engage with Kwarteng’s specific argument, but he was clearly implying that his predecessor was at fault.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt responds to comments made by his predecessor, Kwasi Kwarteng, saying: 'we've learnt that you can't fund spending or borrowing without showing how you'll pay for it - and that's what I'll do'.https://t.co/PAiZ4D1jU3
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 11, 2022
📺 Sky 501, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/sZxs2VF42E
Hunt was giving an interview to respond to this morning’s growth figures showing the economy shrank by 0.2% in the third quarter of the year. Larry Elliott and Richard Partington have the full story here.
And Graeme Wearden has more on the business live blog.
Parliament is not sitting today, and there is not much in the diary. But Keir Starmer is visiting veterans in north London, and Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, is due to hold a press conference at around 12.45pm at the end of the British-Irish Council summit.
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.
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