Afternoon summary
Voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West will get the chance of signing the petition for a recall election between 20 June and 31 July, STV’s Kathryn Samson reports. A byelection will take place if 10% of voters sign.
Recall petition for Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be open for signing from June 20 - July 31.
— kathryn samson (@STVKathryn) June 6, 2023
Failings by the UK government to comply with its post-Brexit obligations left EU citizens struggling to work, rent and open bank accounts, a watchdog found. PA Media says:
An estimated 1.7 million digital applications by EU citizens for certificates confirming their rights in the UK were delayed over a four-year period, the Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens’ Rights Agreements (IMA) said in a report.
Insufficient numbers of available caseworkers at the Home Office amid high demand meant large numbers who applied to the EU settlement scheme (EUSS) were not issued with certificates straight away.
Under the withdrawal agreement and the EEA EFTA separation agreement, the Home Office is obligated to immediately issue certificates of application (CoAs) to applicants.
The certificate is used to evidence rights including the right to work, rent or access benefits, while the application is being considered.
For digital applications that required caseworker intervention, the inquiry identified delays due to an insufficient number of available caseworkers relative to demand.
At the peak in December 2021, the IMA said there were approximately 87,960 applications without a CoA.
At the end of today’s Covid inquiry hearing Heather Hallett, the chair, said that she wanted the Cabinet Office to make it clear by the end of the week whether it still intends to redact Boris Johnson’s notes and WhatsApp messages.
The Cabinet Office is opposed to handing over unredacted material, because it wants to have the right not to submit “unambiguously irrelevant” information to the inquiry. But Johnson has said that the inquiry can see his notes and messages unredacted.
Earlier Hugo Keith KC, the inquiry’s lawyer, said the inquiry would be comparing the redacted versions of the documents with the unredacted versions. (See 12.49am.)
In the afternoon, when Hallett asked Nicholas Chapman, the lawyer representing the Cabinet Office, whether the Cabinet Office was still planning to redact material that Johnson wanted to release unredacted, he replied: “The position is that the Cabinet Office is working out its position.”
Subsequently Hallett said that she wanted the Cabinet Office to clarify its position by the end of the week.
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Former SNP leader at Westminster Ian Blackford says he is standing down at next election
Ian Blackford, the SNP’s former leader at Westminster, has announced that he will not stand again as an MP. In a statement, he said he wanted to focus in future on developing economic plans for independence and serving as the first minister’s business ambassador.
The Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP, who worked in banking and business before he entered parliament, said:
Having stood down as SNP Westminster leader, I have gone through a period of reflection as to how I can best assist the party and the cause of independence – a cause I have campaigned for since joining the SNP as a teenager in the 1970s.
Over the last few months, with others, I have been working on producing a paper on mapping Scotland’s industrial future. This report will be available over the coming weeks and I am determined that our work can and should lead to a policy response that will see Scotland’s potential being realised through a sustainable enhancement in economic growth, driving investment and better paid jobs in Scotland, raising living standards and, as a result, delivering the wellbeing economy that our new first minister has prioritised. I look forward to finishing this work and continuing as the first minister’s business ambassador, on behalf of the SNP.
Blackford defeated Charles Kennedy, the former Lib Dem leader, when he won the seat in 2015. At the last election his majority over the Lib Dems was 9,443.
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Members of the shadow cabinet have been given stern warning that they must not make unfunded spending commitments, the i’s Paul Waugh reports.
He says the message was delivered orally at shadow cabinet this afternoon, as well as in writing, in the form of a letter from Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, and Pat McFadden, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury.
In their letter, Reeves and McFadden told colleagues “there will be no unfunded spending commitments – if something is not signed off, it is not policy”. They explained:
The economy is the territory on which the next general election will be fought, and Labour’s fiscal responsibility must be the foundation on which we build our campaign.
It is important that everyone appreciates the high level of scrutiny we are under. The test of being trusted with the public finances is not optional – it is essential – and if we pass it, it gives us the space to talk to the electorate about how a Labour government will transform Britain …
[The Conservatives] are not going to run on their record because it is so abysmal – failing public services, higher taxes and the Tory mortgage penalty. And they won’t run on their plans for the future – because they have none.
Instead, they will do whatever they can to portray Labour as a risk on fiscal responsibility – on taxation, borrowing and spending. We will not allow this and will not give the Tory party the election campaign they want to fight.
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'We're not arsonists' - Badenoch clashes with Tory Brexiters unhappy she has delayed 'bonfire' of EU laws
Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, clashed with Brexiter Tories when she gave evidence to the Commons European scrutiny committee this morning.
Badenoch, who is seen as one of the lead candidates to be next Tory leader, used to be seen as one of the most committed Brexiters in government. But her recent decision to shelve the deadline in the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill, that could have led to all remaining EU regulations becoming redundant at the end of this year, has caused a rift with some Tory hardliners on this issue.
The Tory members of the European scrutiny committee are all strongly pro-Brexit, and so today’s hearing was always likely to be feisty. What made relations even more tense was that Badenoch only agreed to give evidence after turning down at least five previous invitations.
As Stefan Boscia reports for Politico, the Tory MP Richard Drax told Badenoch that her decision to rewrite the REUL legislation had created “distrust” amongst Tory MPs who now feared that the long-promised “bonfire” of EU regulations would not take place. This provoked a strong response from Badenoch, who told him:
It is not the bonfire of regulations – we are not arsonists.
I’m certainly not an arsonist. I’m a Conservative.
My view is that what we want to do is get rid of laws we don’t want – there’s a process for that.
Badenoch also clashed with the Tory MP David Jones, who argued that her changes to a bill passed by the Commons was disrespectful to MPs. In response, as Adam Payne reports at Politics Home, Badenoch accused him of leaking to the press.
Something you’re not saying is that we had private meetings, David, where we discussed this extensively because I knew you had concerns.
It’s public knowledge that we had private meetings, because when I thought I was having private and confidential meetings, I was reading the content in the Daily Telegraph.
What is the point of us as MPs voting through legislation that is not doing what we want it to do just so we can say ‘well we have passed this legislation’?
Our job is to deliver for the people of this country and what the people of this country want is reform which makes their lives better, not just saying we have deleted things from the statute book.
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Alba MPs defend voting against 30-day suspension for Margaret Ferrier, saying punishment unduly harsh
The two Alba MPs have issued statements saying why they voted against the motion to suspend Margaret Ferrier from the Commons for 30 days.
Neale Hanvey said:
Natural justice demands that there are consequences for errors in judgment. Margaret has never sought to deny wrongdoing and has accepted multiple punishments already.
Each of us deserve to be dealt with fairly and equally. For reasons obvious to almost everyone this sanction far exceeds anything imposed on any member in relation to Covid. Even setting aside the multiple infractions from the partying PMs and their cronies, Peter Gibson MP made the same error in judgment as Margaret Ferrier, but his party stood by him.
Gibson, the Tory MP for Darlington, admitted travelling by train from London to his home in the north-east in March 2020 when he had Covid symptoms. But lockdown restrictions were not in place at the time and so, unlike Ferrier, he was not committing an offence.
And Kenny MacAskill said:
[Ferrier has] been punished by the courts and the sanction imposed by parliament is far more severe than for others. Yet again it’s one law for wealthy Tories and another for everyone else.
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For the second day in a row Boris Johnson has made an intervention during questions in the Commons. The former prime minister has mostly kept well away from the chamber since resigning last year. But yesterday, during levelling up questions, he urged the government “to accelerate the now stalled levelling up and regeneration bill and push forward urgently with Northern Powerhouse Rail, planning reform, devolution, secure affordable energy supply, gigabit broadband and all the other levelling up measures that will make this the strongest and most prosperous economy in Europe”.
And today, during health questions, he praised the government for the “rapid progress” it was making on the hospital building programme and said he was looking forward to it delivering “a superb new state-of-the-art hospital” in Hillingdon, in his constituency.
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Ministers could face criminal sanctions for using disappearing messages on WhatsApp for official business, MPs told
Ministers could face criminal sanctions for deleting their WhatsApp messages, the information commissioner has warned.
John Edwards told MPs this morning that ministers should not have auto-deleting messages turned on if they were using WhatsApp to conduct government business and could face prosecution if they did.
As PA Media reports, government guidance says “disappearing messages” have “a role in limiting the buildup of messages” but their use must not affect “recordkeeping or transparency responsibilities”, including a requirement to forward messages about government business to an official system.
Asked whether ministers should be using disappearing messages, Edwards told the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee:
I think the Cabinet Office is pretty clear that if it is government business being conducted on a non-corporate communications channel, it must be retained as part of the official record.
So no, they shouldn’t be using disappearing messages in the conduct of government business.
Asked what sanctions were available if ministers did use disappearing messages, Edwards added:
It’s a little perilous for me to speculate on hypotheticals, but there are criminal sanctions for failing to maintain a record or destroying a record.
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The independent MP Margaret Ferrier was in the Commons chamber during the vote on her suspension, PA Media reports. She was accompanied by Conservative former minister Andrew Selous and SNP MP Carol Monaghan. At one point, the Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski was seen walking to the opposition benches to shake Ferrier’s hand.
China says it has closed its 'police stations' in UK after being told they were 'unacceptable', security minister tells MPs
The Chinese embassy has been told running overseas police stations in the UK is “unacceptable” and that “they must not operate in any form”, Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, has said.
As PA Media reports, Tugendhat set out the findings of an investigation into allegations of unofficial Chinese overseas police stations operating in the UK which stood accused of seeking to intimidate dissidents.
In a written statement, Tugendhat said:
Reports by the non-governmental organisation Safeguard Defenders claimed that there were three Chinese ‘police service stations’ in the UK - in Croydon, Glasgow, and Hendon. Further allegations have been made about an additional site in Belfast …
The police have visited each of the locations identified by Safeguard Defenders, and carefully looked into these allegations to consider whether any laws have been broken and whether any further action should be taken. I can confirm that they have not, to date, identified any evidence of illegal activity on behalf of the Chinese state across these sites. We assess that police and public scrutiny have had a suppressive impact on any administrative functions these sites may have had.
However, these ‘police service stations’ were established without our permission and their presence, regardless of whatever low level administrative activity they were performing, will have worried and intimidated those who have left China and sought safety and freedom here in the UK. This is unacceptable …
The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office have told the Chinese embassy that any functions related to such ‘police service stations’ in the UK are unacceptable and that they must not operate in any form.
The Chinese embassy have subsequently responded that all such stations have closed permanently.
Any further allegations will be swiftly investigated in line with UK law.
The inquiry was launched amid claims there were Chinese overseas police stations operating in Croydon, Glasgow and Hendon as well as in Belfast and being used to “monitor and harass diaspora communities and, in some cases, to coerce people to return to China outside of legitimate channels”.
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Tory MPs accused of ‘cosying up’ to far-right Hungarian leader Orbán
Three Conservative MPs have been condemned after attending a conference hosted by the populist Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán, along with representatives from a series of hard right and far-right European parties, Peter Walker reports.
Humza Yousaf hires Alex Salmond's former spin doctor as new official spokesperson
He’s back in the room … Kevin Pringle, the softly-spoken spin-maestro widely credited with securing the SNP’s electoral dominance over Scottish politics for over a decade – and who quit politics in 2015 – has been hired by Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, as his new official spokesperson, an influential role that will pitch him right back onto the frontline at arguably the most testing time the party has known.
Pringle, who commands significant respect at Holyrood, worked for former first minister Alex Salmond, helping him lead the SNP to its unexpected Holyrood landslide in 2011. He then worked at Westminster after the 2015 general election returned an extraordinary 56 SNP MPs for Nicola Sturgeon.
Pringle made the announcement in his regular column for the Courier newspaper, in which he writes:
Despite all the difficulties and controversies, the SNP still seems to me to retain its hard-earned and relatively recently-acquired status of natural party of government in Scotland.
These “difficulties” of course include a slump in support since Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation in February, a bruising leadership contest to replace her and the ongoing police investigation into the party’s finances.
The Scottish Tories have lost no time in pointing out that Pringle hasn’t appeared a fan of the current governing partnership with the Greens. But he is also highly regarded as a supremely skilled operator – Pringle may have his work cut out already, but this appointment makes times ahead a lot more interesting.
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How more Tory MPs voted not to suspend Margaret Ferrier for 30 days than voted in favour
The Commons division list is out showing who voted for and against the motion to suspend Margaret Ferrier from the Commons for 30 days.
Normally motions to confirm punishments recommended by the standards committee get passed unopposed. When the result was called, 40 MPs were said to have voted against the motion, but the Commons website only lists 37 MPs voting against – 32 Conservatives, two DUP MPs, two Alba MPs and one Reclaim MP. Another two DUP MPs acted as tellers for the noes.
There have been claims that Boris Johnson supporters were going to vote against because they did not want to establish a precedent for an MP facing a suspension at least 10 sitting days (enough to trigger a recall byelection) over Covid breaches. And some of the MPs who voted against Ferrier’s suspension (eg, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Mark Jenkinson, Scott Mann) have been strong Johnson supporters.
But some of Johnson’s most loyal and vocal supporters did not vote. And the Johnson allegations being investigated by the privileges committee (misleading MPs) are quite different from Ferrier’s offence, making it hard to see why voting against suspending her might protect him.
In practice, most of the MPs who voted against suspended Ferrier for 30 days were probably acting as they did because they thought the punishment was excessive. Four MPs on the standards committee (three Tories and an SNP MP) tried unsuccessfully to amend the final report so that she would only be suspended for nine days. They also joined a fourth Tory in unsuccessfully proposing an amendment to the report saying Ferrier deserved lenience. It said:
Ms Ferrier was a woman on her own in London, not her home city. There were no family or close friends to assist her. Her actions were not designed to enrich her or give her any form of benefit in kind. Her behaviour and judgment was directly affected by her distress and panic in her health condition and loneliness.
Although the motion to suspend Ferrier was passed overwhelmingly, that was only because of opposition MPs voting in favour: 127 Labour MPs, 14 from the SNP, 9 Lib Dems, three Plaid Cymru MPs, two independents (both suspended from Labour), one Green and one from Alliance.
Only 28 Conservatives voted for the motion – fewer than the 32 who voted against.
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The BBC’s David Wallace Lockhart says he has visited the Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency today, and he suggests enough people will sign the recall petition to ensure a byelection happens.
If 10% of Margret Ferrier’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituents call for a by-election one will take place under recall rules.
— David Wallace Lockhart (@BBCDavidWL) June 6, 2023
I’ve been in the seat today, and safe to say there’s desire locally for a new vote and a new MP. https://t.co/XcwteSNYHK
Updated
MPs vote to suspend Margaret Ferrier from Commons, paving way for key Labour/SNP byelection battle
The Commons has voted to suspend Margaret Ferrier for 30 days by 185 votes to 40 – a majority of 145.
That means a recall byelection in Rutherglen and Hamilton West can now go ahead, provided 10% of voters sign a petition calling for one. This threshold should be met quite comfortably.
In 2019 Ferrier won the seat for the SNP with a majority over Labour of 5,230. But Labour has already been campaigning hard in the constituency, and with the SNP support falling since Nicola Sturgeon resigned, and the party’s finances being investigated by the police, Labour believes it has a good chance of winning.
Updated
In the Commons MPs are now voting on a motion to suspend Margaret Ferrier for 30 days. The standards committee recommended this as punishment for Ferrier breaking Covid rules by travelling on a train from London to Scotland when she had tested positive for the virus.
If Ferrier is suspended, a recall byelection can take place in her Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency, provided 10% of voters sign a petition calling for one. In this case, there seems little doubt this threshold will be reached.
MPs were meant to vote on this motion before the Whitsun recess, but the vote was pulled at the last minute, because the government whips feared they did not have enough MPs in parliament for it to pass easily.
Some MPs think the punishment is unduly harsh because Ferrier has already been punished by the courts for her offence.
Updated
Government not threatening Johnson with loss of legal support just for releasing unredacted messages, Covid inquiry told
At the Covid inquiry hearing this morning Hugo Keith KC, the lead counsel for the inquiry, gave further details of how his team has been liasing with Boris Johnson over the release of information it wants.
The Cabinet Office has said it is not threatening Johnson with the loss of legal support just for disclosing unredacted WhatsApp messages to the inquiry, Keith revealed. At the weekend the Sunday Times revealed that the Cabinet Office sent Johnson a letter implying that he would no longer get taxpayer-funded legal support if he undermined the government’s legal strategy. The letter said:
The funding offer will cease to be available to you if you knowingly seek to frustrate or undermine, either through your own actions or the actions of others, the government’s position in relation to the inquiry unless there is a clear and irreconcilable conflict of interest on a particular point at issue.
While the government wants to hold back private WhatsApp messages it deems “unambiguously irrelevant” to the inquiry, Johnson has said he is handing all his over because he is happy for the inquiry to decide what is relevant. This was seen as an attempt to embarrass Rishi Sunak and the government, by making them look uncooperative, and the Cabinet Office letter was seen as retaliation. But Keith said the inquiry wrote to the Cabinet Office on Sunday to check that it was only trying to ensure Johnson did not release security-related material, and he said the Cabinet Office confirmed that was its intention. Keith said:
The inquiry secretary wrote to the Cabinet Office on Sunday to seek confirmation of what we expected to be the case, which is that the Cabinet Office was only seeking to ensure that national security-protected material was not going to be disclosed by Mr Johnson.
It is our understanding that the Cabinet Office was not seeking to prevent Mr Johnson from disclosing material which it believes, to use its phrase, is unambiguously irrelevant.
Keith said the inquiry would be comparing the unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks from Johnson to redacted copies provided by the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office says it has only redacted material that is “unambiguously irrelevant” to the inquiry, but the inquiry believes that its lawyers should decide what comes into this category, not the government’s. Addressing the inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, Keith said:
The inquiry team has been liaising with [Johnson’s] legal team to arrange for the inspection of the unredacted WhatsApps that he had provided to the Cabinet Office, which he had returned to him.
We expect to begin that inspection this week. The inspection will allow your team to make its own assessment as to the redactions applied by the Cabinet Office and to satisfy ourselves and ultimately you of their appropriateness or otherwise.
Keith said the inquiry had asked the Cabinet Office to return Johnson’s notebooks to him by 12 June to start a similar inspection process so it can “compare them to the redacted copies already provided by the Cabinet Office”.
Keith said Johnson’s old mobile phone had been given to the inquiry in the hope that WhatsApp messages sent from it before May 2021 could be recovered. So far only WhatsApp messages from after May 2021 from Johnson have been disclosed. Johnson changed his phone on security advice after it emerged his number had been available on the internet for years. After getting a new one, he was told to keep his old one turned off. Keith said:
Mr Johnson also holds an old phone that was turned off in 2021 for security reasons.
Neither Mr Johnson nor the inquiry has the technical expertise to ensure the contents of the phone can be downloaded safely and properly, particularly bearing in mind the overarching need to ensure no damage is done to national security.
We have therefore agreed that this phone should be provided to the appropriate personnel in government for its contents to be downloaded.
We have asked the Cabinet Office, in liaison with Mr Johnson and those government personnel, to obtain the phone without delay, to confirm in writing the process by which it will be examined and to give confirmation that it, like the diaries and the notebooks and the WhatsApps, will be accessed fully.
That is to say, there will be no redactions made to the contents, other than in relation to national security, before we may view it.
Updated
Covid inquiry hears fresh concerns about 'regrettable' delays in release of information by government
Another battle over Covid documents appears to be on the horizon, as the public inquiry’s most senior lawyer revealed a tussle over more messages.
After the government refused to hand over unredacted WhatsApp messages, Hugo Keith KC said at the hearing this morning there were more potentially relevant messages about the pandemic on Google Spaces.
He said it took the Cabinet Office four months to supply a fairly pared-back list of which Spaces were used, who was a member of them and the length they were active.
Keith said it was “regrettable” that “so much time has elapsed”, and the Cabinet Office was now being asked to hand over the full contents.
And it seems as though government departments are taking different approaches to information sharing. Keith said the Foreign Office had redacted lots of WhatsApp messages from two special advisers, but the Department of Health had given a “much fuller” disclosure of requested material.
The preliminary hearing is the first time we’ve heard from the Covid inquiry since the government announced it was taking the very unusual step of launching a judicial review.
Ministers and officials are trying to avoid being forced to hand over unredacted material to the inquiry. Instead, they want the government to decide what information is irrelevant and should be blacked out.
Keith tried to assure the government it would take the issue of ensuring irrelevant information is redacted seriously.
The process, he said, should be for the government to hand over everything asked for. Then, the inquiry’s lawyers should go through and redact what they deem irrelevant, before the government accepts or pushes for more information to be redacted. Finally, said Keith, the inquiry would either comply or reject those requests for further alterations – and provide reasons.
UPDATE: Keith said:
We have received WhatsApp materials from Mr Johnson and two other individuals.
And all that material has had redactions applied to some of the content.
The FCDO has supplied the inquiry with potentially relevant WhatsApps from two of its special advisers, many with extensive redactions made on the basis of relevance.
May we make clear that we expect them to provide unredacted WhatsApp material without delay if, of course, the judicial review claim is dismissed?
It may be worth pointing out that the Department of Health and Social Care by contrast has to date provided much fuller disclosure, including Mr Hancock’s WhatsApp messages without any redaction at all for relevance being applied to that material.
And so we would of course invite the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office to pay close regard to the position adopted by the DHSC.
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Taking money from Dale Vince does not mean Labour backs Just Stop Oil, says Ashworth
A senior Labor frontbencher has distanced the party from the Just Stop Oil connection of one of its biggest donors, as the Tories sought to heap fresh pressure on the party over the issue.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said Dale Vince was free to donate to “whoever else he wants to donate to” but insisted that Labour did not support the activities of the activist group. He told Sky News:
We don’t agree with Just Stop Oil. I don’t agree with them throwing orange powder, disrupting the snooker and all the other things they do. But who he gives his money to is up to him. What we are influenced by is what is in the interests of hardworking families out there and we know they are struggling.
Vince, the founder of the green energy firm Ecotricity, has given at least £1.5m to Labour over the last 10 years, according to the Electoral Commission. He has suggested that he may join the protesters at some point in an action and last week he pledged to match any public donations to Just Stop Oil over a 48-hour period.
This morning the former justice secretary Robert Buckland said that Just Stop Oil crossed a line between legitimate freedom of speech and freedom of expression. He went on:
And therefore, if the leader of the opposition aspires to be a responsible leader and a prime minster of this country then I think associations of that nature perhaps tell different story which I think might lead to a conclusion that they are not ready to govern.
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At the GMB conference one delegate, a British Gas engineer, asked Keir Starmer if he would back a moratorium on offshore wind until jobs are secured. Starmer rejected the idea, saying:
At the heart of your question is a really important issue which is jobs here in the UK. And I think many people in this union, working people across the country have been badly let down and we’ve got to do more about it.
I don’t actually think a moratorium is the way forward. But I do think that we’ve got to use vehicles like GB Energy, that will be a publicly owned vehicle, where we determine where the jobs are to ensure that they are here in the UK, and that we have incentives in contracts, to look at supply chains and where the jobs are for the supply chains.
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Starmer suggests not planning transition to green energy would be like letting coalmines shut without creating alternative jobs
Starmer says oil and gas will be part of Britain’s energy mix for decades to come.
But the government has to prepare for what comes next, he says.
However, Starmer says he will never allow a repeat of what happened to coal mining – where the industry was run down, without anyone planning what the workers would do next.
He says future generations will “never forgive us” if Labour does not develop a future prosperity plan. That would be a repeat of what happened with coal mining, he says.
Starmer confirms Labour would use public procurement contracts to promote union recognition
Starmer says he wants to see Amazon recognise trade unions. He has said that today, he says. But he says he also delivers this message when he speaks to business audiences.
He says there is a lot of public money tied up with public procurement. A Labour government would be entitled to say that comes with condition. Labour would expect it to go to firms with unionised jobs, he says.
But Labour has to win the election first, he says.
UPDATE: Starmer said:
I think the point you make about contracts is really important. It’s not a free-for-all. There’s lots of public money tied up in procurement, and an incoming Labour government is entitled to say, ‘what’s the terms and conditions?’
There’s a framework for public procurement, at the heart of which is dignity and respect, and we expect to see unionised jobs, and support unionised industries.
Labour’s “new deal for working people” says:
We will choose to do business with companies that treat their workers well, recognise trade unions and have provision for collective bargaining arrangements and fair wages clauses; have effective equality policies; adhere to high environmental standards; and are fully tax compliant.
Heather Stewart has more on this here.
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Starmer says Labour would reinstate the two-tier code for local authority workers whose functions are outsourced. He says it was introduced by the last Labour government, but then scrapped by the coalition.
Starmer says all care workers would be covered by new minimum pay rate to be introduced by Labour
Q: What would the minimum wage for workers be under your fair pay agreement for care workers? (See 10.47am.)
Starmer says his sister is a care worker. He knows how hard the job is.
He says the party is absolutely committed to a fair pay agreement.
And he wants a nationwide agreement, so that providers cannot pick off one group of workers against another.
He says one in three care workers leave to go to work for the NHS because progression pay is better in the NHS.
As for pay levels, he says the unions will negotiate that. They will know what the right level is.
One agreed, that pay rate will be binding for all care workers, he says.
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Starmer says Labour would pass 'new deal for working people' law within first 100 days in office
Back at the GMB, Keir Starmer has finished his speech, and has been taking questions from union members.
He says the “new deal for working people” is one of the pieces of legislation that Labour would be ready to implement from day one.
It will be implemented in the first 100 days of a Labour government, he says.
Covid inquiry chairs says she is making 'no further comment' on government's legal challenge as hearing opens
At the opening of Covid inquiry hearing this morning Heather Hallett, the chair, she would be making “no further comment” on the Cabinet Office’s decision to challenge in court her ruling that it must hand over unredacted messages from Boris Johnson and others, even if the government thinks they are irrelevant to the subject of the inquiry.
UPDATE: Hallett said:
As has been widely reported in the media, an issue has arisen between the inquiry and the Cabinet Office as to who decides what is relevant or potentially relevant.
I issued a notice under section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005 making it clear that, in my view, it is for the inquiry chair to decide what is relevant or potentially relevant.
The Cabinet Office disagrees, claiming they are not obliged to disclose what they consider to be unambiguously irrelevant material. They invited me to withdraw the section 21 notice. I declined.
They are now challenging my decision to decline to withdraw the notice in the high court by way of judicial review.
With litigation pending and as the decision-maker, I can make no further comment.
Updated
Labour would introduce 'fair pay agreement' for care workers, says Starmer
Starmer said that, during Covid, care workers had to isolate at their own expense. Those days were “coming to an end”, he said.
He said Labour would put in place a “fair pay agreement” for every care worker in the country. The unions would be involved in that, he said. He said this would involve a higher floor for pay, with more training, more rights, better standards and fairer pay.
Starmer confirms Labour would repeal government's strike bill
Starmer confirms that Labour will repeal the government’s strikes (minimum service levels) bill.
Keir Starmer is deliving his speech to the GMB conference now. There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
He says the unions and the Labour party have different ways of fighting for workers.
During the Wapping dispute, he was there as a legal observer, he says.
Union members were there too, doing their job.
But the Labour party was not able to do its job, because it was in opposition, he says.
Labour's £28bn climate investment plan will only go ahead if it meets party's fiscal rules, shadow cabinet minister says
In their FT article on Labour’s plans for government Jim Pickard and George Parker also say there is some unease in the party about its climate investment pledge – the plan announced at the 2021 conference to spend £28bn a year until the end of the decade on climate measures.
Pickard and Parker say, in relative terms, this is more ambitious than Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which involves similar investments in green energy. They say:
The Labour plan, as currently conceived, is even more ambitious than the US IRA in relative terms. Labour’s green subsidies would cost £28bn a year against Washington’s proposed $37bn a year — even though the US has five times the population and eight times the GDP (although some estimates put the cost of the IRA’s incentives much higher).
But Pickard and Parker says some Labour figures think a spending pledge on this scale will be hard to defend in an election campaign. They write:
But there are signs that the party is starting to get cold feet about the sheer scale of what it has proposed.
The plan was born in an era of 0.1 per cent interest rates, when the idea of borrowing £28bn a year until 2030 attracted relatively little comment. Rates now stand at 4.5 per cent and are expected to rise further.
Some in Labour’s team are starting to wonder whether, given the sharp rise in borrowing costs and the competing demands to spend scarce funds on public services, the plan is still affordable. “I’m not convinced it’s the best use of that money given the deadweight costs, which could be spent elsewhere — for example, hospitals or schools,” says one influential Labour politician …
Labour officials point out it would take a couple of years to ramp up spending to the £28bn target. Others say that if Sunak announced new proposals for the green economy before the election, that spending would be deducted from the Labour target.
And, most crucially, Reeves made it clear that the spending would in any event have to comply with the fiscal rule Labour has outlined, which would see debt falling as a share of GDP after five years. “If it’s a choice between the green prosperity plan and the fiscal rules, the fiscal rules would trump the former,” says one Starmer aide.
Labour politicians do not quote the £28bn figure much in interviews, and it is not included in the overnight briefing on Starmer’s speech today. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary, was giving interviews for the party this morning. On the Today programme he was asked about the FT article and whether Labour remained fully committed to spending £28bn a year on climate investment. He replied:
Well, remember we have adopted a very tough fiscal framework. We will not borrow for day to day spending. We saw what happened when the Conservatives went on a borrowing binge. It led to turmoil on the markets.
Asked if that meant Labour was willing to drop the £28bn spending plan, he replied:
Our fiscal framework will always come first.
The difference between what the Conservatives did, and what we are doing, is we are investing in the jobs of the future which will bring inflation down.
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On Sunday Gary Smith, the GMB general secretary, gave an interview criticising Labour’s proposal not to issue any new licences for oil or gas extraction in the North Sea. He made the same point in his speech to the conference yesterday, and he restated his case in a Today programme interview this morning.
Sir Keir Starmer speaks today at the GMB conference, amid nervousness about Labour's policy of ending new North Sea oil and gas licences.
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) June 6, 2023
GMB Union boss Gary Smith says transition to green technologies is possible but 'we need a managed decline and not a cliff edge'.#R4Today pic.twitter.com/CHuiiMdrrg
But Smith is more positive about Labour in the Financial Times today, where he is quoted in a long read by Jim Pickard and George Parker about Keir Starmer’s plans for government. They report:
The shadow chancellor’s visit to Washington was a signal that a prospective Labour government wants to introduce a significantly more interventionist industrial policy and has a bolder plan for the economy than many had anticipated.
Senior figures at the helm of Britain’s main opposition party are piecing together a manifesto which, despite the soothing, pro-business rhetoric, would still represent a striking shift in the way the economy is run.“I think it’s much more radical than people give him credit for,” says Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB union, a major donor to Labour.
Sue Gray cleared to take up Labour job this autumn
The former civil servant Sue Gray has been cleared to take up her new role as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff in the autumn after a vetting board rejected calls for her to have a much longer period of gardening leave, Ben Quinn and Pippa Crerar report.
Keir Starmer to defend Labour’s energy plans in speech to GMB
Good morning. There is some good polling around for Keir Starmer and Labour today – Redfield and Wilton Strategies has Starmer leading Rishi Sunak on every single leadership trait polled, Survation has the Tory lead over Labour in the 100 most rural English seats down from 39 points in 2019 to just five points now – but this morning Starmer has to give a speech to a union whose leader has strongly criticised Labour’s energy policy.
Starmer will respond by telling the GMB that Labour’s plan to transition to clean energy will create jobs for its members. “Jobs – good, union jobs – will be fundamental to cleaner, safer work, new and better infrastructure for Britain,” he will say.
But, according to the extracts from the speech briefed overnight, he will also flesh out Labour’s critique of the Tories.
Starmer will claim Sunak would be happy to see the rest of the UK fall behind London. He will say:
I’m not even sure [the Conservatives] see the problem. If the City of London races ahead while the rest of Britain stagnates, as long as there was a hint of growth on his spreadsheet, Rishi Sunak would think that’s fine. But it’s not.
If you leave this many people behind, a nation cannot grow fairly. We can’t do it with low wages. We can’t do it with insecure jobs and bad work, with a stand-aside state that doesn’t fight for the future, without a proper industrial strategy.
In this passage Starmer is trying to draw a contrast between his economic mission, which promises “good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better of”, and Sunak’s priorities, which seem to be more focused on just the national, headline rate of growth (although Sunak says growth would lead to “better-paid jobs and opportunity right across the country”).
Starmer will accuse the Tories of being willing to see British industry fail. He will say:
For too long, Britain has allowed the opportunities of the new energy technologies to pass us by. Without a plan, the energy industries we rely on will wither and decline.
The Tories think it’s the market doing its job when British industry falls behind. It’s not some glitch in their model – it is the model.
He will defend Labour’s plans, saying “holding back the future” won’t lead to growth. He will say:
There is no way to growth in Britain in holding back the future. But equally, there is no way to growth that doesn’t involve bending and shaping it.
We can create a new business model for Britain, one which creates economic security and grows not just our productivity, but our hope and our optimism.
Although this passage seems to be mostly aimed at the Tories, it is probably also directed at those on the left, such as the GMB leader, Gary Smith, who believe Labour should not be proposing to block all new domestic oil and gas developments. Starmer believes clean energy is the future.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.
10.30am: Keir Starmer gives a speech to the GMB conference. He will pledge to put “good, union jobs” at the heart of Labour’s energy policy.
10.30am: Heather Hallett, the chair of the Covid inquiry, is expected to comment on her legal battle with the government during a preliminary hearing in public relating to UK decision-making and political governance.
11.15am: Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, gives evidence to the Commons European scrutiny committee about the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 12.30pm: MPs debate all stages of the British nationality (regularisation of past practice) bill.
If you want to contact me, do try 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 PC or a laptop. 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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