A summary of today's developments
The government has paused an internal inquiry into Sue Gray’s departure from Whitehall which was widely expected to have concluded that she had broken the civil service code. In a written statement, the Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden said the former senior official had not engaged with the investigation into her departure so it would be suspended while the government considered “next steps”. The report was now not expected to be published until after the government’s appointments watchdog decided whether to delay Gray’s start date as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. Gray is prioritising the government’s anti-corruption watchdog investigation into her move to Labour over the Cabinet Office’s, Dave Penman, leader of the FDA union which represents senior Whitehall staff, told Times Radio.
Pat Cullen, the RCN general secretary, said the union is balloting its members again on strike action. Last time the union organised ballots by individual employment unit, which means some hospital trusts voted to strike and some didn’t. This time the RCN is holding a single ballot across the NHS as a whole.
Steve Barclay, the health secretary, said no complaints have been raised with him about his treatment of officials. Asked about last week’s Guardian report saying officials from the Department of Health have “raised concerns” about his alleged conduct towards civil servants, Barclay told journalists: “Well, no complaints were raised with me. But it’s important that we work constructively together. I hugely value the work officials within the department do.”
Survivors of the Grenfell Tower disaster are facing a longer wait for justice than hoped after the public inquiry team said it was unlikely to send its report to Rishi Sunak before 2024. The inquiry said: “We shall send the report to the prime minister, as required by our terms of reference, as soon as we can but that will probably not be possible before the beginning of next year.
“The prime minister will decide when the report will be published and by whom, but we are ready to act quickly if he asks us to publish it, as we think likely.”
Health unions representing the majority of NHS workers have recommended that a revised pay offer made by the government should be implemented, according to a joint statement from members of the NHS staff council. This means that the NHS staff council is backing the pay deal for nurses, ambulance staff and other non-doctor employees working for the NHS, and that the deal will be implemented.
James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, risked the wrath of his backbenchers by saying he expects to meet China’s vice-president when he visits the UK for the king’s coronation. Han Zheng, who has been blamed for overseeing a crackdown on freedom in Hong Kong, was recently appointed as president Xi Jinping’s deputy and is set to represent China at the event.
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The last government-arranged flight carrying British nationals out of Sudan has arrived back in the UK.
The evacuees arrived at Birmingham airport at 4.58pm on Tuesday after a four-hour, 40-minute flight on a Titan Airways Airbus A321 from Larnaca, Cyprus, having been taken out of Port Sudan on Monday.
They were the last of 2,341 people evacuated by the UK government from Sudan on 28 flights since fighting between the armed forces and a paramilitary force began in the capital, Khartoum, three weeks ago.
They were greeted at Birmingham airport by members of the British Red Cross.
Any Britons left in Sudan have been told to leave through Port Sudan, which has become a hub for several foreign countries organising evacuations, or via land borders into neighbouring countries.
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