Afternoon summary
- P&O Ferries has been strongly condemned by MPs from all parties for the way it sacked 800 workers today without notice. In an emergency Commons statement, Robert Courts, the transport minister, said the tactics were “completely unacceptable”. Asked when the government was first told what the company was planning, he said “yesterday evening”. His Labour shadow, Louise Haigh, said the company’s behaviour was “beneath contempt – the action of thugs”. (See 5.11pm.)
Labour’s Barry Gardiner says P&O have a £146m deficit in their pension fund. Yet their parent company spent £147m sponsoring a golf tournament, he says. He says the company has been treating the government like fools.
Courts says he agrees with the general point he is making about how the company has behaved.
Updated
Karin Smyth (Lab) says Courts is a member of the government. But he has not said anything about what the government will be doing in response.
Courts says he has not had much time. He has asked his officials to take various steps.
Peter Bone (Con) urges Courts to suspend the licences for P&O Ferries (which he stresses is not connected to P&O Cruises).
Courts says he has been clear that what happened was unacceptable.
Dame Diana Johnson, the Labour MP for Hull North, says this is not just a commercial decision. Will the minister instruct DPW to resinstate the workers?
Courts will not give that assurance, but he says the government is on the side of the workers.
Back in the Commons Sir John Hayes, a Conservative rightwinger, has just echoed Labour’s call for P&O to be forced to repay any Covid money it received during the pandemic.
All the MPs who have spoken so far - government and opposition - have condemned the company strongly.
Here is an extract from the Commons statement from Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary.
The action taken by P&O Ferries today is a national scandal. It is a betrayal of the workers that kept this country stocked throughout the pandemic.
I have heard directly from the crew throughout the day – their lives upended. The jobs they depended on, scrapped. Workers are now left wondering how on earth they will put food on their family’s table, and the management did not even have the decency to tell them face-to-face.
They were told this life-changing news on a pre-recorded video.
There are images circulating of what we are told are handcuff-trained security, some wearing balaclavas, marching British crew off their ships.
This is not a corporate restructure, it is not the way to go about business. It is beneath contempt – the action of thugs.
It is quite simply a scandal that this overseas-owned company – which received millions and millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money in the pandemic, without consultation and without notice, have upended the lives of 800 British workers overnight.
All while the profits of their owners, DP World, soared by 52% in the first half of 2021. We need a clear unequivocal statement from the government.
No ifs, no buts – an overseas conglomerate cannot be given free rein to sack workers in secure jobs here in Britain at the click of a button and replace them with agency staff.
Updated
Courts is responding to Haigh.
He says he agrees with what she said about the tactics used to sack the seafarers. He has seen the same videos, he says. He says workers should be treated with dignity.
He says he cannot comment on the legality of the company’s actions.
On claims the goverment has sided with bad bosses, he says he does not accept that. “No one should be treated in the way that they were today,” he says.
Labour brands P&O's sacking tactics 'beneath contempt - the action of thugs'
Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, says what happened to the workers who were sacked was a “national scandal”. They were told the news on a video. And there are videos of handcuff-trained security staff, some wearing balaclavas, trying to remove workers from shops. This is “beneath contempt – the action of thugs”, she says.
She says this cannot be allowed to stand.
She says DPW, the P&O parent company, runs two freeports. Will the government terminate those contacts?
She asks if P&O gave notice of the sackings.
And she asks if the government will recover Covid bailout money given to P&O.
But she also makes a wider point. For too long the government has sided with bad employers, she says. She says it should have outlawed fire and rehire.
This is an assault on British seafaring, she says.
Updated
Courts turns to the way the P&O staff were treated. They are hardworking and dedicated, and the way they were treated was “wholly unacceptable”, he says.
He says he was “frankly, angry” about the way the workers were treated, and he made this clear when he spoke to the company today.
He says his department is working with the DWP to make sure the workers are signposted to where they can get help.
The pandemic has had a devastating impact on many companies, he says. But while their finances are a matter for them, he says he would have expected the workers to be treated much more fairly.
UPDATE: Courts said:
These are hardworking, dedicated staff who have given years in service to P&O. The way they have been treated today is wholly unacceptable and my thoughts are first and foremost with them.
Reports of workers being given zero notice and escorted off their ships with immediate effect while being told cheaper alternatives would take up their roles shows the insensitive way in which P&O have approached this issue, a point I have made crystal clear to P&O’s management when I spoke to them earlier this afternoon.
I am extremely concerned and frankly angry at the way workers have been treated by P&O.
Updated
Courts says P&O is suspending services for a week to 10 days.
He says four routes will be affected: Dover to Calais, Larne to Cairnryan, Dublin to Liverpool, and Hull to Rotterdam.
He says this is primarily a commercial decision. There will be some disruption, he says, but people will still be able to travel to and from the UK.
He says he does not expect the supply of goods and services to the UK to be affected.
Updated
Transport minister tells MPs way P&O staff sacked 'completely unacceptable'
Robert Courts, the transport minister, is making a Commons statement now about the P&O sackings.
He says the way staff were informed they were losing their jobs was “completely unacceptable”.
P&O mass sackings 'reprehensible and unlawful', TUC says
Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has said the P&O Ferries mass sackings were unlawful. In a statement, she said:
No one should be laid off with zero notice and no consultation, let alone a whole workforce. P&O’s secret plan to sack their workers is reprehensible and unlawful.
When an employer lays off more than 100 staff at once they must consult workers and unions in advance. And they are required to notify the secretary of state in writing in advance too. The government must urgently explain what they knew and when.
If P&O breached the law they must suffer severe consequences – with ministers increasing the legal penalties if necessary. If one employer gets away with this, every worker is at risk.
No 10 says tactics used by P&O to sack 800 crew 'completely unacceptable'
At the afternoon lobby briefing Downing Street condemned the way P&O Ferries sacked its 800 crew today. The PM’s spokesperson said:
The way these workers were informed was completely unacceptable. Clearly the way that this was communicated to staff was not right and we have made that clear.
Our sympathies are with these hardworking employees affected during this challenging time who have given years of service to P&O.
Staff were told they were losing their jobs by video message, and then private security guards were sent to remove them from their ships.
The No 10 spokesperson said officials were in “urgent” talks to find out what the company’s plans were. He said that if the company was planning to fire staff and then employ them again on worse terms – so-called fire and rehire – the government would be “dismayed”. He said:
We weren’t given any notice to this. We are speaking to the company to understand what approach it is taking.
We do not agree with the practice of fire and rehire and would be dismayed if this is the outcome they were seeking to achieve.
The spokesperson said he did not believe the issue was discussed when Boris Johnson was in the UAE on Wednesday, even though the company is owned by Dubai-based logistics giant DP World.
Robert Courts, the transport minister, will make a Commons statement about the sackings at 5pm.
Also confirmed:
— UK House of Commons (@HouseofCommons) March 17, 2022
Statement from @robertcourts at 5pm: P&O Ferries update.
You can also watch live on Parliament TV: https://t.co/Oym8VGcqwJ
Here is my colleague Gwyn Topham’s story about what’s happened.
Updated
Defence secretary attacks Russian 'dirty tricks' after impostor calls pretending to be Ukrainian PM
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, says he got a call today from an impostor pretending to be the Ukrainian PM. He suggests Russia was behind the attempt to trick him.
Today an attempt was made by an imposter claiming to be Ukrainian PM to speak with me. He posed several misleading questions and after becoming suspicious I terminated the call 1/2
— Rt. Hon Ben Wallace MP (@BWallaceMP) March 17, 2022
No amount of Russian disinformation, distortion and dirty tricks can distract from Russia’s human rights abuses and illegal invasion of Ukriane. A desperate attempt.
— Rt. Hon Ben Wallace MP (@BWallaceMP) March 17, 2022
Updated
In the Commons earlier Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, made a statement on Inclusive Britain, the government’s response to the Sewell report on race published last year. My colleague Heather Stewart has a summary of its main points here.
The Sewell report generated huge controversy partly because it questioned the existence of institutional or structural racism in the UK. (The row was fuelled by a press release about the report that went beyond what the document itself said, and members of the commission that produced the report found it hard to agree on what they were saying on this topic.) As my colleague Rajeev Syal says in an analysis, today’s government response does not reopen this argument, and it says that “removing personal and structural barriers which block the way” will be part of the government’s plan to promote racial fairness.
In her Commons statement Badenoch said that, while racial disparities persist, mostly that was not do to with prejudice. She said:
[The Sewell] report conclusively showed something which I and honourable members on all sides of the house know to be true: that disparities do persist in the UK and that racism and discrimination continue to shape people’s experiences.
It also showed that most of these racial disparities are not driven by individual acts of prejudice committed by people behaving either consciously or subconsciously in a racist way.
What the report’s analysis shows is that, for the most part, negative disparities arise for reasons not associated with personal prejudice, that is why so many disparities stubbornly persist even in this progressive age where there has never been such an acute awareness of racism and so much action and policy against it.
She also said it was “quite wrong” to conflate racism and institutional racism, adding:
We see crime in our country every day but we do not say that this is an institutionally criminal country, and that is the same when we look at the accusation of racism. It is important to distinguish the two.
Updated
Labour MP Graham Stringer pulls out of anti-net zero rally with Nigel Farage
Labour MP Graham Stringer has pulled out of a rally with Nigel Farage at the launch of an anti-net zero campaign for a referendum on policies to tackle climate change.
The MP was contacted by party whips on Wednesday about the appearance, concerned about association with Farage. Stringer emailed local party members after the Guardian reported his appearance, telling them it was off. He said:
There is a report in today’s Guardian that I will be appearing in Bolton with Nigel Farage to discuss net zero. I would like to make clear that I will not be appearing at the meeting.
My views on obtaining security of energy supply and doing everything we can to reduce the price of domestic and industrial fuel are well known.
Stringer, a prominent Brexiter who has appeared with Farage at pro-leave events and on his GB News show, was billed as appearing alongside the former Brexit party leader, along with the Reform UK leader Richard Tice and the broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer.
The Vote Power Not Poverty rally is scheduled to launch Farage’s campaign for a referendum on net zero, taking in place in Bolton next Saturday.
Stringer, who rebelled on numerous occasions over Brexit legislation, has long expressed doubts about climate policies and is a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the most prominent climate crisis-denying group in the UK.
Updated
The Telegraph has apologised and paid £40,000 in damages for falsely describing a former aide to Jeremy Corbyn as an “anti-Jewish racist” and part of the “vile antisemitism of Corbyn’s Labour”, my colleague Haroon Siddique reports.
Labour says Raab's proposal to stop abuse of libel laws 'too little, too late'
In his statement to MPs setting out his plans stop stop the abuse of libel laws by powerful people trying to silence journalists and authors (see 12.18pm), Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, claimed this would have an effect on President Putin’s allies. He told MPs:
The war in Ukraine has highlighted the urgency of tackling what is a recent but nonetheless growing problem because the same kleptocrats availing themselves of Slapps are often found bankrolling President Putin’s war machine.
It is wrong that unscrupulous individuals and corporations are able to exploit our laws and our courts, this jurisdiction, with claims designed to muzzle respected journalists, academics, campaigners in order explicitly to stop them shining a light on corruption and links to organised crime. If you think about it for a moment, it is the modern-day struggle between David and Goliath ...
Slapps [strategic lawsuits against public participation] have their most pernicious impact through the pre-action letters, the legal pressure applied well before the court proceedings are initiated,” he said, adding that in the face of “bullying tactics” some people “understandably” back down before a formal case is begun.
That’s the harm that we must guard against, publishers and authors forced to hesitate before publishing properly-grounded stories. Legitimate well-researched investigative reported reigned in, or perhaps not even done in the first place for fear of the crushing legal costs.
In response, Steve Reed, the shadow justice secretary, said the announcement marked a “welcome shift” by the government. He said that when Boris Johnson was mayor of London, he actively encouraged oligarchs to sue in British courts.
But he also claimed the measures were “too little, too late”. He said:
These measures are too little, too late. Anti-Slapp measures are needed now, not in three months’ time, to stop oligarchs from hiding money that funds Putin’s war machine.
The Conservative party has become hooked on the Kremlin’s dirty money, so it’s no surprise that they have sided with oligarchs against journalists until it was far too late.
Starmer accuses Johnson of ‘breaking promise’ to cap MPs’ earnings from second jobs
Keir Starmer has been talking to the media this morning, and he used the interview to criticise the government on a number of fronts. Here are the key points.
- Starmer said Boris Johnson was to blame for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being held in detention for longer than would otherwise have been the case. In a reference to a notorious error Johnson made when talking about her when he was foreign secretary, Starmer said:
The first thing I’d say is I think, like everybody else, it is fantastic to see Nazanin, Richard and their family reunited – just a very human emotion, I think, has poured out over the last few hours as we’ve seen those images.
I’m sorry to say that the actions of the prime minister caused this to go on longer than it might otherwise have done and obviously there will be questions about that.
Johnson’s false claim that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran teaching journalism when she was detained was cited by the Iranians as evidence she had been engaged in “propaganda against the regime”, which they claimed strengthened the case for her imprisonment. No one claimed Johnson’s comment was helpful to Zaghari-Ratcliffe. But at that point she was in jail already, and arguably the Iranians did not need any provocation to prolong her detention.
- Starmer accused Johnson of “breaking his promise” to limit opportunities for MPs to have second jobs. (See 1.38pm.) He said:
[Johnson] said he was going to deal with second jobs. There was going to be this cap. That was his proposal in the height of this scandal of his own making.
And now, as soon as he gets the opportunity, he’s breaking his promise yet again. It goes to the heart of the problem with this prime minister, which is this problem of trust and moral authority.
"Yet again, we've got this prime minister saying one thing and doing another."@Keir_Starmer accuses Boris Johnson of "breaking his promise yet again" over the introduction of a cap on MPs' second jobs.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 17, 2022
Latest: https://t.co/hp3MkVOB8W
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602 and Freeview 233 pic.twitter.com/w8LPG7Ewm8
- Starmer said Johnson had “serious questions” to answer about his relationship with Evgeny Lebedev, the oligarch Evening Standard owner and son of a former KGB agent who received a peerage from Johnson. Starmer said:
I think there are very serious questions in relation to his peerage and his relationship with the prime minister, and we’re going to have to get to the bottom of this. Because this isn’t just an ordinary question of peerages, it is actually a question of national security, so those questions, I’m afraid, are there.
- Starmer said that Johnson seemed to have got “very little” out of his trip to Saudi Arabia. (See 10.16am.) Starmer said:
The prime minister has achieved, it seems, very little out of this trip ...
While of course we all want the prices to come down – there is a crisis – you don’t have a strategy that is built around going cap in hand from one dictator to another dictator.
- Starmer said any peace settlement in Ukraine “can’t allow Russian aggression to triumph in any manner or form”.
- He sidestepped a question on whether his family had decided whether to take in a Ukrainian refugee as part of the UK government’s sponsorship scheme, saying that “all of us want to play our part in whatever way we can”.
Updated
No 10 defends dropping plan to impose cap on amount MPs can earn from second jobs
Here are the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
-
Downing Street has defended its decision not to cap the amount that MPs can earn from second jobs. In November, following controversy over lobbying by a former Tory cabinet minister, Boris Johnson said he would back a change to the rules for MPs, saying their second jobs should be “within reasonable limits and should not prevent them from fully carrying out their range of duties”. Dominic Raab, the deputy PM, subsequently said that “reasonable limits” could be defined either with a limit on earnings from a second job, or on time spent on a second job. But, as Rowena Mason and Jessica Elgot report today, No 10 has now ruled out imposing earnings or time limits on second jobs. Defending the new position, the PM’s spokesperson said:
It is not necessarily the issue of time spent which determines the acceptability of the outside interest, it is what best serves the needs of the constituents, and that can vary.
For example, placing time limits on MPs’ outside interests may stop MPs with professional service requirements, such as doctors or nurses.
Setting limits on income from outside interests could prevent MPs from undertaking activities which can enhance their ability to engage with the public.
The spokesperson also claimed that it was still committed to ensuring second jobs were “reasonable”, and that that was why it was proposing a ban on MPs working as political consultants. And he said the final decision would be one for parliament, not the government.
- The spokesperson said more than 150,000 people had now registered their interest in the Homes for Ukraine scheme. They also said that by yesterday afternoon, 6,100 visas had been issued to Ukrainian refugees through the family scheme.
- The spokesperson confirmed that the UK would deploy the Sky Sabre missile defence system and about 100 personnel to Poland. Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, announced the deployment on a visit to Warsaw.
Updated
Staff Covid absences at English hospitals at highest level for a month, latest figures show
Staff absences at NHS hospitals in England due to Covid have jumped to their highest level in a month, with numbers climbing in all regions, PA Media reports. PA says:
It comes as Covid patient levels continue to rise across the country – though more than half of people in hospital with coronavirus are still being treated primarily for something else.
An average of 17,579 staff at hospital trusts in England – 2% of the total workforce – were absent each day last week, either because they had Covid-19 or were self-isolating.
The figure is up 19% on the previous week, and is the highest since 21,325 absences in the week to 13 February.
But it is still below the level reached at the peak of the Omicron wave in early January, when absences due to Covid-19 averaged nearly 46,000.
Updated
The first notable thing about first minister’s questions in Holyrood this week was who wasn’t there: the Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, was replaced by his justice spokesperson, Jamie Greene, at the last moment, having developed a sore throat that left him unable to speak, according to the party.
On any given Thursday this would be a manageable inconvenience, but tomorrow brings the start of Scottish Tory conference in Aberdeen, with Boris Johnson scheduled to speak on Friday afternoon, and the dynamics between Johnson and Ross is likely to be under significant scrutiny after Ross last week withdrew his letter of no confidence in the prime minister, citing the war in Ukraine and saying it was no time for a change of leadership.
The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, challenged the first minister to support Labour’s proposals to tackle the cost of living crisis – set out by Gordon Brown here – including scrapping the national insurance increase, reversing the cut to universal credit, and a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.
Updated
It is now being reported that the £400m paid by the UK to Iran, to settle a long-standing debt, was not paid through the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), but was paid to an Iranian account with the Central Bank of Oman. I’ve updated the post at 10.54am with more details.
Tax rises announced under Johnson as big as those during entire 10 years of Blair premiership, says IFS
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a briefing today saying that the tax rises announced while Boris Johnson has been prime minister are as big as those announced during the entire 10 years of the Tony Blair premiership. It says:
The chancellor has cut taxes temporarily in response to Covid-19, but large tax rises – including increases to national insurance and corporation tax – will start kicking in from April.
If fully implemented, these tax increases will add around 2% of GDP to the UK tax burden – equivalent to around £46bn in today’s money (about as much money as would be needed to double the UK’s annual defence budget). To put this increase in context, tax rises announced over the last two years are as large as those announced over the entire decade of Tony Blair’s premiership.
The IFS also says tax rises are becoming “the new normal”. It explains:
Tax rises since 2010 have in part been a response to a weakening of the public finances (in particular an increase in the structural deficit), caused initially by the financial crisis and more recently by the Covid-19 pandemic. Such pressures will likely be compounded by surging energy prices and the conflict in Ukraine.
But governments have also faced an ageing population that demands both more, and more expensive, health and social care. Health spending has been increasing as a share of both national income and total spending for over 70 years. To a large extent, this has been achieved by steadily cutting the amount spent on defence, but defence spending has more or less flat-lined since the mid-2000s. More recently, demands for higher spending have instead been met through higher taxes.
If the chancellor’s plans remain unchanged, next month will mark the beginning of a steep ascent in the path of UK taxation. It will come hand in hand with a spike in inflation, only fuelled further by the conflict in Ukraine. Not for nothing did TS Eliot call April the cruellest month.
Updated
In the Commons, Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, is making a statement about the government’s plans to discourage so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps). These are aggressive libel actions used by rich and powerful figures to silence journalists and writers who publish material critical of them.
The libel laws have been used in this manner for years, but the term Slapps is relatively new. There is some evidence that the practice is growing, and Slapps are particular popular with Russian oligarchs – which explains why the government is acting now.
Here is my colleague Jessica Elgot’s story about the announcement.
Here is the Ministry of Justice’s summary of what Raab is announcing. And here is the MoJ’s call for evidence on its proposals.
Updated
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has said the government should fly Ukrainian refugees from Poland to Britain.
In a letter to the Foreign Office and the Home Office sent after he visited the Polish border with Ukraine earlier this week, Davey said he was “appalled by the lack of any organised UK government sponsored or supported welcome, and the absence of UK government personnel on the ground at the border”. He said:
I met people who are desperate to come to the UK – often to join family members.
However, there was no-one from the government and no-one supported or sponsored by the UK government to help them to get here or even to explain how they might get to the UK.
In just the past few days, more than 100,000 people across the UK have offered to host refugees fleeing Ukraine – demonstrating clearly the immense compassion of the British people. The government must urgently step up its response to match that spirit of generosity.
Updated
Yachts moored in UK suspected of being linked to Russian oligarchs have been stopped from leaving, MPs told
Yachts moored in the UK suspected of being linked to Russian oligarchs have been stopped from leaving, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has told MPs.
During transport questions this morning, Shapps said a “small number” of yachts were affected, and that inquiries into their ownership were still underway. He told the Commons:
I would like to update the House on the actions we’ve taken to clamp down on Russian interests in the UK.
We have detained private jets that we believe are owned by or connected to [Vladimir] Putin’s cronies. And now I can confirm that we’re investigating a small number of yachts moored in this country we suspect are also linked to Russian oligarchs.
I have taken steps to ensure that they are unable to depart and investigations are ongoing.
I can reveal 10 Russian-linked ships have been turned away or redirected on their course, and eight ships or their companies had severed their Russian ties.
Shapps also said the UK was “the only country in the world to have a Russian-connected ban on our ports” and that he looked forward to other countries following its lead.
Asked by Labour’s Mike Amesbury if he would join him in congratulating members of the Unite union for refusing to unload Russian oil at Stanlow in Cheshire, Shapps replied:
Yes, I do join [Amesbury] in congratulating them. It came after I wrote to all the ports and asked them not to allow in Russian ships and Russian-connected ships.
Updated
More than 1,100 DWP jobs are risk from reorganisation, union says
A number of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) offices are to close, threatening more than 1,100 jobs, a union has warned. As PA Media reports, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said thousands of other members of staff are at risk of redundancy when other sites are transferred to new premises by June 2023.
Speaking during a Commons urgent question on the closures, Justin Madders, the shadow business minister, said:
It looks as if the Department for Work and Pensions doesn’t believe in levelling up, it doesn’t believe in its own rhetoric on jobs, and it doesn’t believe in keeping people in work.
We hear that offices are going to be closed in Stoke, in Southend, in Peterborough, in Chesterfield and Aberdeen, in Kirkcaldy, in Barrow, Bishop Auckland, Doncaster and Burnley, taking jobs out of these communities.
David Rutley, the DWP minister for welfare delivery, said that about 12,000 employees were being moved from one site to another in close proximity, and that there were about 1,300 who would not be able to move to a site near to where they already work. He said the government would “see what opportunities there are within DWP” and other departments for people in this category.
He also said the changes would not affect job centres and “customer-facing interactions”.
Updated
In his backgrounder on the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, my colleague Patrick Wintour says that the £400m owed by the UK to Iran was paid through the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), a channel set up in 2020 by the Trump administration to let humanitarian trade to flow into the heavily-sanctioned country. [see footnote]
In a thread on Twitter starting below, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, head of the Bourse and Bazaar Foundation, an economic diplomacy thinktank, explains in more detail what SHTA is, and how it provided a solution to the problem of how to repay the debt without breaking international sanctions.
1. There is an important detail in this @patrickwintour account of the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori. The £400m debt was reportedly paid to the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement.
— Esfandyar Batmanghelidj (@yarbatman) March 16, 2022
That strikes me as smart solution for a number of reasons. https://t.co/j3xA7qQEb0
UPDATE: Batmanghelidj now says the money was not paid through the SHTA.
21. An update... I was told by a contact this morning that SHTA was not used for the payment (so you should take the above analysis with a grain of salt).
— Esfandyar Batmanghelidj (@yarbatman) March 17, 2022
But I'm sure @patrickwintour is very well-sourced on the issue. Naturally this detail is going to be hard to nail down!
In this tweet he is quoting Abas Aslani, from the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, who is quoting the Islamic Republic News Agency.
22. Ok, so looks like it was Oman: https://t.co/YNl8X8vMQP
— Esfandyar Batmanghelidj (@yarbatman) March 17, 2022
• [This note added 16.35 GMT] A correction footnote was added to the background article cited above (Debt, sanctions and a cold Westminster tent: how the Iranian hostages were free) on 17 March 2022.
Updated
As my colleauge Aubrey Allegretti reports, in her Today programme interview this morning, Tulip Siddiq, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s MP, said the Foreign Office had advised Richard Ratcliffe not to publicise his wife’s plight. Siddiq said she thought Ratcliffe was right to ignore their advice.
In the interview, she also said Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family and supporters were worried about a last-minute hitch yesterday, since that had happened before. She said:
There were many times when we thought it was happening, mostly last year when we knew a deal had been reached. And at the last minute, Britain pulled out. And that’s when we were preparing for her arrival, we were having a celebration party and then she didn’t turn up. So this time we were cautious.
Siddiq also said that even Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s daughter, Gabriella, could not believe that her mum was finally coming home.
But when she heard Mummy was coming home, she thought her father was joking. She said to her dad: ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ and she reconfirmed with me when she saw me yesterday, and said: ‘Is it true that Mommy’s really coming home?’ And my heart just broke because this little girl has been promised her mother would come home.
Updated
PM's Saudi Arabia trip never likely to lead to immediate increase in oil production, says minister
Yesterday, Boris Johnson said that his talks with with Saudi Arabia’s ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, about getting the country to increase its oil production (in order to curb price rises for consumers in the west) had been “very productive”, but he could not say that Saudi oil output would increase. The No 10 readout from the meeting simply said the two leaders “stressed the importance of working together to improve stability in the global energy market”, while the Saudi readout did not even mention energy.
In interviews this morning, James Cleverly, a Foreign Office minister, said that it was never realistic to expect Johnson to secure an immediate agreement on increasing oil production. He told the Today programme:
I don’t think it was ever likely to be the case that it would be something that was agreed in the room. The oil-producing states will need to negotiate with each other as well as making internal political decisions, as you would expect.
Updated
Foreign Office urged Richard Ratcliffe not to make ‘song and dance’, says MP
Campaigners pushing for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe were told by the Foreign Office not to make a “song and dance” about her plight, according to her MP, Tulip Siddiq. My colleague Aubrey Allegretti has the story here.
Updated
On ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Rebecca Ratcliffe, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s sister-in-law, said her brother’s life had been on hold for six years because of the detention of his wife. She said:
His life’s been on hold for six years – it’s finally paid off. Most of us would have lost the plot long ago, but he kept going. He’s over the moon. He struggled to believe it more than the rest of us.
She also said that the family would “take it at Nazanin’s pace” when organising a reunion, and that she expected her sister-in-law would want to enjoy “simple things – tea, cooking, reading stories to Gabriella, going for walks” now she was back home.
Updated
Here is the Ministry of Defence’s latest assessment of the state of the war in Ukraine.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 17 March 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 17, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/OdjSV0U43C
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Here is the schedule for UQs and statements in the Commons today.
FROM 1030 TODAY:
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) March 17, 2022
1. UQ - @ChrisStephens - Asking DWP for a statement on proposed office closures
2. Business Questions – @Mark_Spencer
3. Statement - @DominicRaab - Justice Update
4. Statement - @KemiBadenoch - Commission on Race & Ethnic Disparities
‘Just really overwhelming’: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family tell of joy at her homecoming
Good morning. And for once it is. In the news industry all too often we end up as purveyors of gloom and misery, but the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori yesterday is a story that that has brought delight to people all across the country (and, God knows, we need it).
Rebecca Ratcliffe, Nazanin’s sister-in-law, has been giving interviews this morning and she told Good Morning Britain that seeing the film of Nazanin being reunited with her family in the early hours this morning was overwhelming.
Seeing that footage of her touching down in the arms of Richard and Gabriella was just really overwhelming. It feels a little bit like ... Christmas morning, waiting for Santa and then Santa finally arriving.
She said that, after the plane had landed, Nazanin and her husband, Richard, and their daughter, Gabriella, went to a safe house with Ashoori and his family, and went to bed.
And Gabriella slept in between Richard and Nazanin last night for the first time in six years. So a very special moment.
She said that she had had a message from Richard this morning, but “everyone else is still asleep”. She told Today:
I think they’re probably all a bit tired and overwhelmed. But he was certainly very buoyant ...
He pointed out that today’s 17 March. And six years ago, on 17 March, Nazanin flew out [to Iran, where she was arrested]. So there is a certain amount of symmetry in his story.
Richard’s parents have also been speaking to the media this morning. Richard’s father, John Ratcliffe, told BBC Breakfast: “I think Jeremy Hunt in the Commons yesterday described him as the bravest person he’d met and I think that’s a fitting tribute to him.”
Here is the video of Nazanin being reunited with her family that Rebecca was referring to.
Here is my colleague Martin Ferrer’s story about Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori arriving home.
And here is my colleague Patrick Wintour’s account of what led to the hostages being freed.
I will post more from these interviews shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12pm: Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, takes questions in the Scottish parliament.
Around 12pm: Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, makes a statement to MPs.
Around 1pm: Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, makes a statement to MPs about the Government’s response to the Sewell race report.
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