Early evening summary
Boris Johnson has escalated his criticism of Rishi Sunak’s approach to the Northern Ireland protocol, saying that the “best way forward” would be to carry on with the legislation drafted under his leadership that would allow the government to just ignore the protocol. (See 5.38pm.)
Keir Starmer has defended dropping key pledges made during his Labour leadership bid, saying they have been adapted in the face of unprecedented global events.
Updated
Here is my colleague John Crace’s sketch on Keir Starmer’s speech today.
And here is an extract.
When he first became leader, Starmer had a well-deserved reputation for being a wooden performer. Someone who wasn’t entirely sure he believed in what he was saying, being forced out of his natural habitat into a public arena. He looked sweaty. Nervous. As if he had something to hide.
Now, though, Starmer seems to relish the TV cameras. Comes alive on the big occasions. He’s grown into the job. He’s seen off Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. And Sunak has given him no reason to believe he can’t see him off as well.
Not that Keir will ever be a total natural as an orator. He will never have the evangelical power of a Gordon Brown. But he’s found the self-belief and the confidence. He’s more than good enough as he is. The country doesn’t want a snake oil salesman offering shares in a promised land. We’ve given up on the all-too-fallible Tory Messiahs. Our sights are lowered. We now want someone decent and competent. Someone who looks as if he knows what he’s doing and can be more or less trusted. And Starmer knows he can deliver that.
Boris Johnson escalates criticism of Sunak over NI protocol, saying 'best way foward' would be to pass bill shelving it
Boris Johnson has escalated his criticism of Rishi Sunak’s approach to the Northern Ireland protocol, saying that the “best way forward” would be to carry on with the legislation drafted under his leadership that would allow the government to just ignore the protocol.
In an interview with Sky News, the former PM refused to commit to definitely backing Rishi Sunak’s renegotiation of the protocol, saying that he wanted to see the deal first.
But he described the Northern Ireland protocol bill as “the best way forward”. The bill would allow the UK government to ignore parts of the protocol disliked by traders with Northern Ireland, but critics say this would breach international law and that, if the UK government ever tried to use it, the EU could retaliate by imposing tariffs on imports from Britain.
The bill is stuck in the House of Lords because, since Sunak became PM, no further debates on it have been scheduled. Sunak says his preference is for a negotiated solution to the protocol problem, and he has not denied that, if a deal is struck with the EU, the bill will be abandoned for good.
Asked if he would support any deal Sunak struck on the protocol, Johnson replied:
I think that it’s important that we wait to see what there may be.
But I think the best way forward, as I said when I was running the government, is the Northern Ireland bill, which cleared the Commons very comfortably, I think unamended, when I was in office only a few months ago. So I think that’s the best way forward.
Asked a second time if he could guarantee to support any deal that Sunak negotiated, Johnson replied:
I think the best thing is to continue with the Northern Ireland bill that we agreed. It’s a very good bill. It fixes all the problems. It solves the problems that we have in the Irish Sea, it solves the problems of paperwork, VAT and so on. It’s an excellent bill and doesn’t set up any other problems in the economy of the whole island of Ireland. I’d go with that one.
When it was put to him that many people did not think it was an excellent bill, Johnson said it passed the Commons unamended.
A “source close to” Johnson told journalists at the weekend that Johnson did not want Sunak to drop the Northern Ireland protocol bill.
The source suggested this was because Johnson thought the government needed it on the statute book to provide leverage over the EU in case Sunak’s deal turns out to be flawed.
But in his interview today Johnson implied he did not favour renegotiating the protocol in the first place, and that he wants the government to press ahead with unilateral action.
In other words, Johnson is no longer just arguing for the bill as a plan B insurance policy. He seems to be arguing for it as plan A.
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Public services not likely to improve noticeably before next election, IfG thinktank says
Public services are not likely to improve noticeably before the next election, a report from the Institute for Government thinktank says. In its latest peformance tracker for 2022-23, the IfG says funding increases announced in the autumn statement will not be enough to return public service performance to pre-pandemic levels before the next election.
Health is a particular problem, it says, but it argues that there are problems across the board. The report says:
Public concern about healthcare is particularly high at the moment and [Rishi] Sunak identified tackling NHS waiting lists as one of his top five priorities in a speech in January 2023. The analysis in this report outlines the scale of the challenge in nine public services – general practice, hospitals, adult social care, children’s social care, neighbourhood services, schools, police, criminal courts and prisons. To date, the new government’s decisions have done little to shift the dial and it will need to do much better if it wishes to campaign on its public services track record.
Nick Davies, the programme director at the IfG, said:
Public services, and particularly the NHS, have had a very difficult winter, but public discontent about performance is likely to last years. Despite additional funding in the autumn statement, progress in tackling backlogs and waiting times will continue to be painfully slow. Covid recovery has been hampered by the government’s counterproductive strikes strategy, with substantially below inflation pay offers exacerbating the serous workforce problems.
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Humza Yousaf hints he would give Kate Forbes cabinet job if he becomes SNP leader and first minister
Humza Yousaf, the Scottish health secretary and favourite in the contest to replace Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister, has hinted he would give Kate Forbes a cabinet position in any future administration he leads.
Speaking to journalists at Holyrood, he praised Forbes, the finance secretary, despite the fact that has stressed that he disagrees with her opposition, for faith reasons, to same-sex marriage. He said:
I think Kate’s extremely talented, extremely able, I think anybody would want to see her at the heart of Scottish politics.
As long as we agree – and I think we do collectively – that collective responsibility is important for any government to function, and Kate has shown she is willing, and has been in her time in government, to abide by collective responsibility, I think that’s going to be an important question for all the candidates – myself included.
He also said Forbes had “a lot to give to Scottish public life, including in government”.
Nominations for the SNP leadership close tomorrow. Yousaf, Forbes and Ash Regan are all expected to have enough support to progress to the members’ vote.
The new SNP leader will be announced on 27 March.
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Two former Labour staffers have written interesting articles on Keir Starmer’s speech today. Here are extracts.
Ben Nunn, Starmer’s former director of communications, says in an article for the i that today’s speech is “arguably the most significant the Labour leader has made when it comes to helping us understand what he would do as prime minister”. He says:
As one shadow cabinet minister told me the other night, Starmer has been “heavily invested” in these missions. For weeks, shadow ministers have been holding meetings with Starmer and his close team of advisers to agree the themes, targets and potential policies.
But talk of “national missions”, “long-term plans” and “a decade of national renewal” signal more than Starmer’s thirst for power or a plan for government – it signals his determination to be more than a one-term prime minister …
If Starmer is to achieve his 10-year programme for government then it must be hard-wired in a 10-year strategy for winning. That starts with defining his purpose for government. Blair had modernisation, Cameron had the deficit, Johnson had Brexit. One of Sunak’s many weaknesses is an absence of purpose. I am still unsure why he is prime minister. At best he is there to repair his own party’s damage, at worst he is managing the country’s decline.
And Tom Hamilton, who was Labour’s head of research when Ed Miliband was leader, says in a LinkedIn post that more policy will have to follow. He says:
Nothing about the existence of missions precludes the announcement of granular policies – quite the opposite. It is perfectly possible, even likely, that Labour will still go into the election with some kind of pledge card, separate from these five missions, with concrete and costed policies with stronger consumer appeal. It is absolutely certain that Labour will have no political choice but to say things about taxation, for example, which do not feature in the missions at all except by implication. And the important policy areas which are left out of the missions – notably housing – will still need to be fleshed out, even if their absence today tells us something important about Labour’s priorities.
In the short term, the most important thing about Labour’s five missions is that they do the heavy lifting to give Keir Starmer a morning at the top of the news bulletins setting out a positive story. But in the longer term, they have a real chance of shaping the way the next Labour government works, how it defines itself and whether it succeeds or fails.
Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
Updated
Here is the five-page document published by Labour this morning explaining its new commitment to “mission-driven government”. This is the one that Amol Rajan complained about on the Today programme this morning, saying: “Hemingway, it ain’t.” He complained in particular about the passage promising “new structures and ways of working to facilitate collaboration, including replacing some of the cabinet committees with new delivery-focused cross-cutting mission boards”.
Keir Starmer told him that what mattered was not the language, but the ideas, and that different parts of government had to work together to solve problems.
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Lawyers advising Tory Eurosceptics submit fresh post-Brexit plan to Sunak
Lawyers advising Eurosceptics in the Conservative party have submitted fresh proposals to Rishi Sunak to end the rule of EU law in Northern Ireland, one of the major sticking points in the UK-EU negotiations over the protocol, my colleague Lisa O’Carroll reports.
NHS should consider charging people for missed appointment, says Matt Hancock
Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, has said the NHS should consider charging people who miss appointments.
Speaking during a general debate on the future of the NHS, Hancock said Rishi Sunak was right to float the idea of charging for missed GP appointments during the Tory leadership contest in the summer. He told MPs:
I thought that the prime minister was right to float in the summer the idea that if you miss too many appointments without a good reason then you should be charged for them.
One of the other problems of efficiency is that many, many appointments are missed, and this wastes the time of clinicians too.
I think it was right to float it, it’s right to consider it, but I would be totally against having to pay for the very first.
Hancock says charging people who abused the system would not undermine the principle of the NHS being free at the point of delivery. He said:
Of course people miss appointments for good reasons, but often, too often, don’t have a reason, and we should be thoughtful about how we address that.
Labour’s Margaret Greenwood told Hancock she completely disagreed with the idea, which might discriminate against the 7 million adults in the country who are functionally illiterate. “It would be much better to put resources into understanding why people don’t come to appointments,” she said.
In the summer Sunak proposed charging patients £10 for second and subsequent missed GP appointments. For the first missed appointment, they would receive the benefit of the doubt.
But after Sunak became PM, Downing Street said he would not be implementing the idea because “now is not the right time to take this policy forward”.
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SNP’s Kate Forbes issues apology in bid to reset leadership campaign
Kate Forbes has apologised for hurt caused and promised to protect the rights of everybody in Scotland, “particularly minorities”, as she endeavours to reset her campaign for the leadership of the SNP, my colleague Libby Brooks reports.
Ambulance handover delays outside hospitals in England have jumped to their highest level since early January in a sign the NHS is still struggling with winter pressures, PA Media reports. PA says:
One in four (25%) ambulance patients waited at least 30 minutes last week to be transferred to A&E teams, up from one in five (20%) the previous week.
It is the highest percentage since the first week of January, when the figure stood at just over a third of patients (36%).
Ben Wallace slaps down veterans minister Johnny Mercer over MoD budget comments
In an interview with LBC yesterday Johnny Mercer, the veterans’ minister, implied that Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, was overstating the funding problems he faces at the Ministry of Defence. Asked about recent comments by Wallace complaining about the MoD being “hollowed out and underfunded”, Mercer said:
He’s advocating for his department, when a spend is coming up.
But this prime minister, this chancellor, only 18 months ago gave the biggest defence settlement to defence since the end of the cold war. So it’s then not credible to go forward and say that we haven’t put money into defence.
This morning, Wallace was on LBC himself, and he retaliated. Asked about what Mercer said, Wallace replied:
Johnny is a junior minister. And Johnny luckily doesn’t have to run the budget.
Asked if he thought Mercer was being naive, Wallace went on:
No. I just think his experience is … he’s not the secretary of state. He hasn’t run … I run a department of 224,000 people, I think it is, or something like that … He’s got 12 people in the office.
In the past, veterans’ ministers have been based in the MoD. But Mercer is based in the Cabinet Office which, given relations with Wallace, is probably just as well.
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Labour says asylum backlog figures show 'shameful levels of incompetence' from government
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the asylum figures out today (see 1.51pm) showed “shameful levels of incompetence” from the government. She said:
Despite all Rishi Sunak’s grand promises, fewer than 1% of last year’s small boat cases have been decided. These are truly shameful levels of incompetence from a government that has completely lost any grip.
After 13 years of failure, today’s figures underline the shocking mess the Conservatives have made of the asylum system. The Home Office is still taking a third fewer decisions each year than it was seven years ago and they have let the backlog rise by another 60% to a record-breaking high of 160,000, with the taxpayer fronting the cost through spending on hotels.
Cooper said Labour has a five-point plan to tackle the problem: “1) Crack down on the criminal gangs through the [National Crime Agency] and in partnership with France, Belgium and Europol; 2) Speed up asylum decisions; 3) Reform resettlement schemes to better target those most at risk of exploitation by trafficking and smuggler gangs; 4) Replace the Dublin agreement; and 5) Work internationally to address crises leading people to flee their homes.”
Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
Updated
Asylum applications in 2022 at highest level since 2003, Home Office figures show
The Home Office has published asylum and immigration figures for 2022. PA Media has filed on the highlights.
A total of 160,919 people were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of December 2022, up 60% from 100,564 at the end of December 2021 and the highest figure since current records began in 2010, PA says. (See 10.07am.) The Home Office said this was “due to more cases entering the asylum system than receiving initial decisions”.
The number of people waiting more than six months for an initial decision stood at 109,641 at the end of 2022, up 77% year-on-year from 61,864, PA says.
More than three-quarters (76%) of initial decisions on asylum applications in 2022 were grants of refugee status, humanitarian protection or alternative forms of leave, PA reports. PA says:
This is a “substantially higher grant rate” than in pre-pandemic years, when around a third of initial decisions were grants, the Home Office said.
The grant rate in 2022 is the highest since 1990, when it stood at 82% – although the volume of applications was much lower at that time, with 4,025 initial decisions made in 1990 compared with 18,699 in 2022.
There were 74,751 asylum applications in the UK in 2022, relating to 89,398 people, PA reports. PA says:
This is the highest total for any 12-month period since the year to March 2003, when it stood at 80,736 applications relating to 99,338 people.
Albania was the most common nationality applying for asylum in the UK in 2022, with 14,223 applications by Albanian nationals, 9,573 of which came from arrivals on boats crossing the Channel, PA reports. PA says:
The majority of Albanian applicants in 2022 (83%) were adult males.
Afghans were the second most common nationality applying for asylum last year, with 10,011 applications, more than six times the number in the pre-pandemic year of 2019 (1,573).
The Home Office said this rise was “likely due to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan”.
Some 90% of people arriving in the UK in 2022 on small boats claimed asylum or were recorded as a dependant on an asylum application, PA reports. PA says:
Overall, just under half (45%) of total asylum applications in the UK last year were from people who arrived on a small boat.
Nearly one-and-a-half million visas were issued in 2022 to people coming to the UK for work, study or family reasons, or through one of the government’s settlement schemes, PA reports. PA says:
Some 423,013 work visas were granted, along with 626,551 study visas and 48,107 family visas, plus 5,055 visas for dependants joining or accompanying others, according to Home Office figures.
In addition, 210,906 were issued under the Ukraine visa schemes, 53,836 were granted to British national (overseas) status holders from Hong Kong, 34,338 were under the EU settlement scheme, and 3,903 were under other settlement schemes.
The combined total of 1,405,709 visas in 2022 is up 64% from 858,869 in 2021 and is the sixth successive record high for a 12-month period since current figures began in 2005.
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UK salad shortages could last a month, warns environment secretary
Shortages of salad and other vegetables in UK supermarkets could last up to a month, Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, has told MPs. My colleagues Sarah Butler and Helena Horton have the story here.
DfE figures show NEU strike on 1 February had bigger impact than assumed, with only 24% of pupils in secondary school
The teachers’ strike by National Education Union members at the start of this month had a greater impact than first realised, with fewer than one in four secondary pupils attending school in England, according to new figures published by the Department for Education.
The DfE’s data for 1 February – the day of the industrial action – showed just 24% of pupils attended England’s state secondary schools. In contrast, the DfE estimated on the day of the strike that only 9% of secondary schools were closed, while 87% were fully or partially open.
The national attendance figures had just 43% of pupils in state schools on 1 February, including 58% of primary pupils. The industrial action wasn’t joined by the NASUWT, the other major teaching union, or the two school leaders’ unions. The data includes pupils who were absent because of illness or other reasons.
The figures come as the DfE and the NEU are in a stand-off over pay negotiations, with the DfE demanding that the NEU cancel its regional strikes planned for next week before it holds formal talks. But the NEU says it will only call off the strikes if the government makes a “substantive proposal” before the weekend.
The NEU has scheduled a series of one-day school strikes starting on 28 February in north and north-west England, Yorkshire and Humber, followed by 1 March in the Midlands and the NEU’s eastern region, and 2 March involving London, south-east and south-west England. It also plans for national strikes on 15 and 16 March.
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Here is my colleague Pippa Crerar’s report on the Keir Starmer speech.
Momentum dismisses Starmer's missions as as 'reheated Third Way Blairism'
Momentum, the Labour group set up to promote Jeremy Corbyn’s policies, has described Keir Starmer’s missions for Labour as “reheated Third Way Blairism”. A Momentum spokesperson said:
Just three years ago, Keir Starmer made a series of cast-iron pledges to Labour members and trade unions: for public ownership, wealth taxes and investment in a Green New Deal.
Given the scale of the crises and inequality facing Britain, these policies are more vital and popular now than ever.
Yet today, his promises lie in tatters, ditched in favour of the reheated Third Way Blairism typified by these latest, vapid ‘missions’.
To avoid charges of serial dishonesty and ensure a Labour government actually faces up to the scale of the wreckage it will inherit from the Tories, Starmer should change course, listen to party conference and lay out a bold vision of a transformed country which delivers for the many, not the few.
In response to Starmer’s claim that the “vast majority” of Labour members supported him (see 11.12am), a Momentum spokesperson said a poll last year showed that Labour members overwhelmingly backed the renationisation of rail, the Royal Mail, energy and water companies. Labour has said it would take rail companies back into public ownership, but other renationalisations have been dismissed as too costly.
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Starmer's speech and Q&A - snap verdict
That was one of Keir Starmer’s most impressive speeches as Labour leader – not so much because of the content, but because of the confidence with which he delivered it. Starmer has often been dismissed as boring but, despite delivering a speech on “mission-driven government”, he wasn’t boring today. He looked and sounded inspiring, and prime ministerial. It is remarkable what a 20-plus point lead in the polls can do for a leader.
Starmer announced five missions for a Labour government (see 10.35am) and what he claimed was a new approach to delivering them (see 8.55am). The missions are sensible and, where they do come with dates that turn them into targets (on growth and clean energy) genuinely ambitious. But they are less specific and memorable than the Labour promises from 1997 (probably the most successful example of an election pledge card in recent British politics). With the exception of the zero-carbon electricity one, they are all things that can or will be promised by the Conservatives too. They are certainly not socialist, and there is nothing even leftwing about them. Starmer did not mention redistribution, and what he did say about making Britain fairer – breaking down barriers to opportunity, boosting jobs in every region – sounded like a watered down version of Tory levelling up.
Starmer set out in detail why he believed in a new, “mission-driven” approach to government, but it all sounded very familiar. Most prime ministers in recent times have been in favour of focusing on the long term, not the short term, tackling social problems at their root, getting government departments to work together, and partnership with the private sector. All of this was sound, and none of it was obviously wrong. But Rishi Sunak would have agreed with almost every word.
But what made Starmer’s performance so strong was what he was able to say about Sunak, and the Tories. Starmer was right to say Sunak’s pledges are short-term fixes, because they were announced as a measure to rescue a government whose reputation was completely trashed by Liz Truss. And Sunak can’t make promises without people remembering his party’s fairly dismal 13-year record in power. Starmer is free of all that.
The real measure of Starmer’s strength is how difficult the Tories are finding it to attack him. Today, rather than criticise anything Starmer actually said or promised, they resorted to attacking a completely different Labour leader – what they want him to be, rather than what he actually is. (See 11.59am.)
All they’ve really got on him is inconsistency, and flip-flopping. This works up to a point, and if politicians U-turn too often, they forfeit trust. But voters accepts that politicians can change their minds (all of us do), and U-turning to a position where you are aligned with the public is always more acceptable than going the other way. Starmer was asked repeatedly today about breaking some of the promises he made during the Labour leadership contest (see 10.24am and 11.12am) but he coasted through these questions quite comfortably.
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Tory chairman Greg Hands claims Starmer has 'never made pledge he intends to keep'
Greg Hands, the Conservative party chairman, has put out this statement in response to Keir Starmer’s speech. Hands said:
Starmer has never made a pledge he intends to keep.
He will say anything if the politics suit him. He lacks principles and has no new ideas – and that is how we know a Starmer Labour government would just revert to the same old Labour habits of spending too much, raising taxes, increasing debt and soft sentences.
Only the Conservatives will get on with delivering for the British people. Halving inflation. Growing the economy. Reducing Debt. Cutting waiting lists. Stopping the boats.
The Tories have also been attacking the speech through their Twitter account – although perhaps this tweet needs a rethink. The Tories inadvertently seem to be arguing that Starmer would control immigration, control spending, cut debt and impose tougher sentences – all policies they favour.
Labour's mission is clear (sort of) 🥀 pic.twitter.com/MYzzLSR9OI
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) February 23, 2023
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Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor and a former BBC business editor, thinks Keir Starmer will struggle to achieve the growth mission he unveiled today. (See 8.40am.)
.@amolrajan revealed that one of Starmer’s five missions is to deliver “the highest sustained growth in the G7”. That is an ambitious target, to put it mildly. If achieved it would mean the sustainable rate of growth in our prosperity would exceed the US and Germany, both…
— Robert Peston (@Peston) February 23, 2023
of which currently have significant structural advantages over the UK. Most would argue it is important for any government to aim high. It is a great way to focus minds. But given we start from a position where spare capacity in the UK is minimal even when…
— Robert Peston (@Peston) February 23, 2023
the economy is more-or-less stagnating, leapfrogging America and Germany will neither be speedy or easy. For the hope that Starmer says he will restore not to be the short-cut to despair, he needs to unveil practical building blocks. We’ll see what he says later today
— Robert Peston (@Peston) February 23, 2023
To be clear, Starmer says a Labour government would transform the UK so that it would deliver a faster sustainable rate of growth in GDP than America and Germany. This was true for about ten years vis à vis German from mid 90s, but otherwise that has never happened since WW2… https://t.co/jR1fzAqTHq
— Robert Peston (@Peston) February 23, 2023
Q: Do you need two terms to achieve these missions? Or can they be done in one parliament?
Starmer says “some of these issues are not going to be fixed within five years”. They will take longer.
But the missions come with steps to be achieved along the way.
And that’s it. The Q&A is over.
Q: Do you support the Manchester Evening New’s campaign for Awaab’s law, to ensure that problems with damp and mould have to be fixed quickly?
Starmer says what happened to Awaab Ishak was a tragedy. Labour would support “whatever measures are necessary to make sure that that doesn’t happen again”.
Q: Do you see the Treasury as a barrier to growth? And would you follow Joe Biden, and have a massive injection of government spending in post-industrial areas?
Starmer says he wants to devolve decision making outside of London.
On Biden, he says the US president is pushing ahead with challenging plans to achieve net zero. He says he thinks Labour’s plans can match that.
But, on spending, it is “the same old answer”, he says. Any plans would have to be fully costed.
Q: Can you promise Sun readers that, if you are in government, there will be no more flip-flopping?
Starmer says he has set out his missions. He is happy to have them tested.
If people want to know whether people trust him, “there’s a very good way to find out – let’s have a general election”.
He says he would be happy to have his five missions judged against Rishi Sunak’s five pledges.
Updated
Q: What is your policy on childcare?
Starmer says childcare is central to his promises.
Q: Jeremy Corbyn said he would end rough sleeping if he became PM. Will you promise that?
Starmer says ending homelessness is a “laudable aim”. But there are many factors behind it. It is an example of a problem that needs a cross-cutting approach, he says. He says some politicians are good at describing problems. But he is interested in what the solutions are.
Q: Will you rule out a reshuffle before the next election?
Starmer says no leader would announce anything that might sound like the start of a reshuffle.
Q: Rishi Sunak has made stopping the small boat Channel crossings one of his five pledges, but you haven’t. Why not?
Starmer says Labour has set out its plan for this. The most important thing is to speed up the processing of claims. Only 4% of claims from last year have been processed.
He says you also need a unit in the National Crime Agency to tackle the people smuggling gangs.
Q: You say you support the court blocking the return of Shemima Begum. So would Labour block the return of other fromer jihadists?
Starmer says, under Labour, national security will always come first.
Q: Brexit has contributed to lower growth. You say you will fix it. How?
Starmer says it would be a “big mistake” to think Brexit is the only explanation for the UK’s low rate of growth.
The deal with the EU does need to be improved, he says. But there are other things needed to promote growth, he says.
Q: When you said you were 100% behind Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister, were you telling the truth?
Starmer says of course he campaigned for a Labour government, just as every Tory campaigned for a Tory one.
But after a defeat like that, you have to accept the party has to change, he says.
Q: Isn’t this all just a way of saying there is no money left?
Starmer does not accept that. He says some of his plans will require more spending, but Labour will explain how that will be costed.
Starmer responds to claim he has ditched leadership pledges by saying 'vast majority' of Labour members back him '100%'
Chris Mason from the BBC goes next.
Q: What is your policy on the corporation tax increase? And why should people trust you when you have abandoned previous pledges?
Starmer says Labour has not opposed the decision to put up corporation tax in the budget.
But, speaking to businesses, they do not cite this as a reason for not investing in Britain, he says.
On this pledges, Starmer says when he stood for the leadership, he said none of what he promised would happen if Labour did not win. He goes on:
The vast majority of Labour members and supporters are 100% behind what we’re doing. They really liked these missions, and they want us to put them into action, and to do what I promised when I stood as leader, which is to take our party from the worst general election defeat since 1935 to a Labour victory to a Labour government.
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Starmer's Q&A
Starmer is now taking questions from the media.
He starts with Sky’s Beth Rigby, and asks her to keep her question short. (Some chance …)
Q: Are these missions relatable? Do they risk turning people off? And given that you have ditched promises you made when you stood for the Labour leadership, why should anyone believe you?
Starmer repeats his point about the problem with sticking-plaster politics. He says people should be able to see the case for long-term approaches to solutions, for example in the NHS, or in energy.
Labour led in terms of proposing a short-term solution (the price guarantee). But long-term solutions are needed. He goes on:
I reject the argument that public don’t get it.
People understand the need for a long-term approach to fix long-term problems, he says.
He tries to move on, but Rigby demands an answer to the trust point.
Starmer says the missions come with underpinning, showing how they will be achieved.
For the economy and net zero, the underpinning has already been set out.
Starmer says it is “hard to hope” at a moment like this.
He says people have pulled together to cope with problems before. The country has to come together.
He concludes:
Now is the time for us all to be part of something bigger, to say with one voice, why not Britain?
Updated
Updated
Starmer says to make this work, a new mindset will be needed. He is now elaborating on some of the process arguments he set out in his overnight press release. (See 8.55am.)
We have to understand that the how is as important as the why, so we’re going to ask different questions of public servants and ministers, difficult questions.
How do we devolve decision-making to those with real expertise on the ground? How do we bring people affected every day by the issues we must solve into the heart of our decision making? And how do we make sure that our relentless focus on the ends goes alongside flexible, creative and imagination about the mean?
He describes how he learned about the importance of the preventative approach as DPP. See 9.23am.
And he stresses that he is not concerned whether investment or expertise comes from the private sector or the public sector.
Updated
Starmer says the missions will be measurable, so that people can track progress.
They will be long term.
And they will be informed by expert opinion, he says.
Starmer is now listing the five missions. (See 10.35am.)
After reading out the crime one, he quotes the Tony Blair slogan: “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.”
He goes on: “Now you’ve heard that before, but it’s right.”
Starmer claims the government does not have a plan to solve the problems with the asylum system. He says the government should be backing Labour’s plan for the National Crime Agency to play a role.
Starmer says the Tories do not understand that “chaos has a cost”. He goes on:
The noises off you hear from them – they’re a primal scream.
The last gasp of a party caught between a rock of stagnation and the hard place of its economic recklessness.
Starmer says Labour's growth target must be driven by 'good jobs and stronger productivity in every part of the country'
Starmer says he wants the UK to have the highest sustained growth in the G7 by the end of Labour’s first term.
He says “sustained” is the key word. The target will not be gamed.
He says this will not be achieved just by having growth in London, and allowing the rest of the country to stagnate.
He says the mission “must be powered by good jobs and stronger productivity in every part of the country”.
Starmer says the missions being announced by Labour should seem bold at first glance, prompting people to ask if they really can be achieved.
But then he hopes people will think: ‘Why not?’, he says.
He cites the clean energy superpower one as an example.
Let me give you an example. Zero carbon British electricity by 2030. A huge goal which will allow us to accelerate to net zero.
Make no mistake. This goal would turn Britain into a clean energy superpower. It will put us ahead of any major economy in the world …
I’m look I’m already talking to CEOs, investors, entrepreneurs, unions, energy workers about how we get this done.
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Starmer says Tories have made Britain's problems 'deeper, longer lasting and more painful'
Starmer says he will not criticise the Tories for the problems caused by the war in Ukraine. But, he goes, on:
Over 13 years by their actions, and crucially their inactions, the Tories have made Britain’s problems deeper, longer lasting and more painful than any of our competitors.
Then he asks the Ronald Reagan/Rachel Reeves question.
Seriously, ask yourself this.
Do I feel better off today than I did 13 years ago?
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Starmer says Britian should lead the way.
Some nation is going to lead the world in offshore wind. Why not Britain?
Some nation will create the first generation of quantum computers. Why not Britain?
Some nation will design medicines personalised to match our unique DNA. Why not Britain?
Starmer says Britain has not been able to succeed in this way because of “sticking-plaster politics”.
He is making the point about the NHS he made in an interview earlier. (See 9.23am.)
Starmer announces Labour's five missions for government
Keir Starmer is delivering his speech in Manchester now.
Labour has jut released a document giving more details of its five missions. Here they are (bold text from original).
Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7, with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.
Make Britain a clean energy superpower to create jobs, cut bills and boost energy security with zero-carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero.
Build an NHS fit for the future by reforming health and care services to speed up treatment, harnessing life sciences and technology to reduce preventable illness, and cutting health inequalities.
Make Britain’s streets safe by reforming the police and justice system, to prevent crime, tackle violence against women, and stop criminals getting away without punishment.
Break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage, for every child, by reforming the childcare and education systems, raising standards everywhere, and preparing young people for work and life.
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Starmer says he's still guided 10 leadership campaign pledges - but defends dropping energy renationalistation promise
In his interview on the Today programme, Keir Starmer was asked if he could be trusted to deliver his new missions given his record for going back on pledges made in the past. The Conservative party regularly attacks on these grounds – as Rishi Sunak did at PMQs yesterday, and CCHQ has again this morning (see 9.45am) – but within the Labour party Starmer is also regularly criticised for abandoning some of the 10 pledges he made when he was running for the Labour leadership.
Asked about this, Starmer said the pledges had not been abandoned “by any stretch of the imagination”. He said:
So far as the pledges when I ran for leader are concerned, they are important statements of value of principle. And they haven’t all been abandoned by any stretch of the imagination.
But what I have had to do is adapt some of them to the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Since I ran for leader, we’ve had Covid, we’ve had the conflict in Ukraine, we’ve had a government that has done huge damage to our economy. Everybody recognises that.
In some respects – eg, the green new deal, and devolving power away from Westminster – the 10 pledges are a good guide to what Starmer has done as leader. But the party has not committed to raising income tax for the top 5% of earners, it no longer talks about abolishing universal credit and it has given up arguing for free movement.
The pledge that has been most clearly abandoned is the one saying “public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders”. Asked why he was no longer committed to nationalising energy companies, Starmer said that his team looked at this last summer, as energy bill were rising, and concluded:
We would have to spend a lot of public money on public ownership, that because the energy companies were still buying on the international market, it wouldn’t lower the price and we wouldn’t be able to lower the bills for people into the autumn.
Having done that analysis, I took the political choice that it would be better to have an energy price freeze paid for by a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies that made profits they didn’t expect to make.
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Backlog of asylum claims reaches 160,000 for first time, figures show
The UK’s asylum backlog has topped 160,000 for the first time since current records began, PA Media reports. PA says:
A total of 160,919 asylum seekers were waiting for an initial decision on their claim at the end of December.
This was up 60% from 100,564 for the same period in 2021 and the highest figure since current records began in 2010, Home Office figures published on Thursday show.
The number of people waiting more than six months for an initial decision was 109,641 at the end of 2022, up 77% year-on-year from 61,864.
It comes as the Home Office launched a plan to fast-track some asylum claims in a bid to cut the soaring backlog.
Starmer defends court saying Shamima Begum shouldn't regain citizenship, arguing 'national security has to come first'
In an interview with BBC Breakfast this morning Keir Starmer defended the special immigration appeals commission (Siac) decision yesterday to refuse Shamima Begum’s appeal against the decision to remove her British citizenship. Starmer said “national security has to come first”.
'Should Shamima Begum be allowed back in order to face justice in the UK?'
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) February 23, 2023
Labour leader Keir Starmer was questioned on #BBCBreakfast after Shamima Begum lost her latest legal challenge over the decision to deprive her of British citizenship https://t.co/ISCqbCQjbg pic.twitter.com/eF3DTSSEa4
Yesterday, after the Siac decision was announced, the Conservative party was tweeting a clip from an interview that Starmer gave to Sophy Ridge on Sky News in March 2019 saying that the decision by the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, to deprive Begum of her citizenship was “wrong”.
🚨 REMINDER: Keir Starmer doesn't think Shamima Begum should have been stripped of her citizenship and wants her brought back to Britain pic.twitter.com/wUo7a6sfhh
— CCHQ Press (@CCHQPress) February 22, 2023
This comment was put to Starmer in his interview this morning. Describing the decision yesterday as “the right decision”, he did not explain why he had changed his mind since four years ago, although he did refer obliquely to Siac considering evidence that was not available in 2019.
The court has reached its decision. It has looked at all the evidence. I support that decision. As I say, national security has to come first.
Starmer’s comment this morning opens him up to the charge of doing a U-turn, and this morning CCHQ has been using emojis to accuse him of flip-flopping.
— CCHQ Press (@CCHQPress) February 23, 2023
But Starmer may have decided that it is better to be accused of being inconsistent than to be accused of being weak on national security issues.
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Starmer rejects claims his five missions are vague, or easy to achieve
In interviews this morning Keir Starmer has been saying more about Labour’s five missions. Here are some of his main points.
Starmer rejected claims that his five missions were vague, or easy to achieve. He told the Today programme:
If you take missions, let’s take that first one — the highest sustained growth in the G7. That is going to be tough. Nobody is going to say: ‘That’s vague, that’s something that is going to be easily achievable.’
An NHS actually fit for the future, so that is not just to get through this winter but the next 75 years.
Safe streets, removing the barriers to opportunity for every child, everywhere. And then a clean, energy superpower, which means clean electricity by 2030.
“Again, that is a sharp intake of breath. When I speak to CEOs and others about this, they say: ‘Mm. That’s going to be going some, Keir.’
So the missions are not vague. They are very clear, they are ambitious.
He said the annual “winter crisis” in the NHS was an example of how the current government was just engaged in “sticking-plaster politics”. He said:
The idea behind [Labour’s five missions] is really based on the frustrations, the everyday frustrations that people have that almost nothing seems to be working, everything needs to be fixed and all we’ve really ever had for many years now is sticking-plaster politics.
The classic example of that is the NHS. We have a winter crisis in the NHS every year. We just about fix it, get through to the summer and then go back into the next year’s winter crisis.
He said his experience as director of public prosecutions made him realise the value of a “cross-cutting” approach to government (which means getting departments across Whitehall to work together addressing problems). When Today’s Amol Rajan challenged the term, Starmer replied:
I know you don’t like the language but I ran the Crown Prosecution Service for five years. I know that among the problems I had was that it was in a silo.
If you want to reduce crime, you have to get to grips with your education system, you have to recognise the mental health element to it, you have to recognise the health element.
You have to recognise that the single biggest indicator of whether someone is going to end up in prison is whether they had difficulties at primary school and whether they were excluded at secondary school.
To get to the bottom of that problem, you’ve got to have cross-cutting.
If someone wants to change the language, so be it. But the determination, the drive and passion I have to actually change and fix the fundamentals is huge.
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Starmer explains what Labour's plan for 'mission-driven government' means
The Labour party released extracts from Keir Starmer’s speech in advance. This is what he will say to explain why he thinks Labour’s “mission-driven government” approach will be different from what Britain has had before. He will say:
Each mission will be laser-targeted on the complex problems which drive our crises. The root causes that demand new thinking.
New solutions born in all parts of our country. New ways of harnessing the ingenuity that is all around us.
Each mission will come with clear, measurable outcomes …
Mission-driven government is a different way altogether.
Not state control or pure free markets, but a genuine partnership, sleeves rolled-up, working for the national interest. Not command and control, Whitehall knows best. But an approach that understands what national renewal means – change for all, from all …
The more I delve into these challenges, the more I can see things that are simply not working.
Things that could be sped up, joined up, given direction, made to work better. This is at the core of my politics. Government can prevent problems, as well as fix them. Can shape markets rather than serving them. Can lead a collective national effort on growth and innovation.
But without reforming the role of government – none of that will happen. Equally, I’m not concerned about whether investment or expertise comes from the public or private sector – I just want to get the job done. And I mean that – we have to get it done.
With missions comes greater stability and certainty – instead of a government chopping and changing all the time, blowing with the wind. The missions will be anchor points to show clearly the direction of travel.
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Starmer says ensuring UK has 'highest sustained growth in G7' to be one of Labour's five new 'missions'
Good morning. Keir Starmer is going to give a major speech today setting out Labour’s five “missions” for government. “Missions” aren’t the same as 1997-style pledges that Tony Blair set out in the Labour pledge card. They are long-term aims, and Starmer will say this is part of his ambition to lead a “mission-driven government”. This is how Labour defines that.
Mission-driven government … is about serious plans, properly understanding the root cause of problems and working in partnership with business, trade unions, and civil society. A Labour government will draw on the best expertise, and learning from those on the ground in all parts of the country. “Without a serious plan, there will be no light at the end of a very long tunnel for the British people,” [Starmer will say.]
Here is my colleage Pippa Crerar’s overnight preview story.
Starmer has been giving interviews this morning and he has confirmed that one of the missions will be for the UK to have the highest sustained growth in the G7. He told BBC Breakfast:
The missions I’m going to outline are predominately to do with the economy and to have the highest sustained growth in the G7 — and sustained is the really important word in that.
But we also need to make sure the NHS is fit for the future, we need to make our streets safe, we need to make sure that we remove the barriers to opportunity for every child everywhere, and we want to be a green, clean superpower country.
So big missions, big ambitions, and I’m not ashamed to be ambitious for our country.
In January Rishi Sunak announced his own set of five pledges. One of them was to get the economy growing, and at his press conference Sunak said he wanted to achieve that pledge by the end of this year. Starmer says Sunak’s pledges are just “short-term fixes” and that Labour’s missions are for the next decade.
The UK has had a poor record on growth for many years, but until recently politicians did not highlight the issue very much. Liz Truss will be pleased that it is now a priority for both Starmer and Sunak. Promoting growth was her obsession during her 49-day premiership, but the mini-budget with which she tried to achieve this turned out to be a disaster.
I will post more from Starmer’s interviews shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10.30am: Keir Starmer delivers his speech on Labour’s five missions in Manchester.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12pm: Nicola Sturgeon takes first minister’s questions at Holyrood.
I’ll 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.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.
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