Afternoon summary
Sir Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, has defended his claim that the UK economy has shrunk from being 90% the size of Germany’s to 70% the size of it since Brexit. See 9.25am.
Updated
Sunak praises king for working on climate 'long before Cop1, let alone Cop27'
Rishi Sunak praised the king’s long record as an environmental campaigner in the speech he gave at the Cop27 reception at Buckingham Palace earlier.
According to PA Media, Sunak paid tribute to Charles for “helping to find practical solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss for more than 50 years, long before Cop1 let alone Cop27”. He added:
The reduction in global emissions pledged during our presidency is now equivalent to more than six times the annual emissions of the entire global aviation industry.
Sunak said perhaps the greatest breakthrough of the UK’s presidency of Cop26 was an idea suggested by Charles – bringing together leading investors and businesses at Glasgow to direct the world’s wealth at protecting the climate. He went on:
As a result of what many of you here are doing today, we’re turning the fight against climate change into a fantastic source of new green jobs and growth.
Charles ended the day by planting a lime tree in Buckingham Palace’s garden as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy project – thought to be the first time he has carried out a tree-planting ceremony as monarch. The initiative has planted more than a million trees across the UK to honour and celebrate the Queen’s 70 years of service to the nation.
Updated
Updated
Mark Harper, the new transport secretary, has described the RMT’s decision to suspend rail strikes as “positive news”.
Rail strikes being called off is positive news for passengers across the country but there will still be significant disruption and I urge people to check before they travel. It’s crucial unions and employers continue their discussions and work together to reach a solution.
— Mark Harper (@Mark_J_Harper) November 4, 2022
The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operating companies, has also warned that rail services tomorrow and on Monday are set to be very disrupted. A spokesperson for the group said:
It is positive that the RMT leadership have stepped back from the brink and called off their strike action.
Unfortunately, the late notice means that while train companies are working hard to reinstate services, they will remain severely disrupted for our passengers tomorrow and into the early part of next week.
Our advice remains to please check before you travel and on Saturday and Monday; only travel by rail if necessary.
We remain committed to intensive negotiations to agree the reforms needed to improve reliability, deliver a pay rise for our people and get the industry back on a sustainable financial footing.
Updated
Rail services on Saturday and Monday still set to be very limited, despite strike being called off, Network Rail says
Network Rail has said that, even though the RMT has called off tomorrow’s strike, services will be “extremely limited” because rail companies have already planned for disruption.
Services on Monday are also likely to be very limited, it says.
Tim Shoveller, Network Rail’s chief negotiator, said:
It’s welcome news that the RMT has called off its strikes but the very late notice means that services for tomorrow cannot be reinstated and will remain extremely limited, and while we, and our train company partners, will work without pause over the weekend, there will be limited ability to change the ‘strike timetable’ for Monday.
Our advice remains to please check before you travel and on Saturday and Monday and only travel by rail if absolutely necessary.
We look forward to getting back round the table with all our trade unions early next week to see if the progress made this week can be built on, and a resolution found.
Updated
RMT rail union suspends strikes planned for 5, 7 and 9 November, saying talks intensifying as employers 'see sense'
The RMT rail union has announced that it has suspended strikes planned for tomorrow (5 November), Monday (7 November) and Wednesday (9 November). In a news release it said:
RMT suspends strikes after securing intensive negotiations with rail bosses.
Rail union RMT has suspended planned strikes on Nov 5, 7 and 9 and will now enter into a period of intensive negotiations with Network Rail and the train operating companies.
Through a strong industrial campaign so far, RMT has secured unconditional talks on Network Rail and the promise of an offer from the train operating companies who, up until this point, have made no offer of any kind to our members.
Originally Network Rail was intent on imposing changes to maintenance without agreement with RMT.
And Mick Lynch, the RMT general secretary, said:
The threat of strike action and our strongly supported industrial campaign has made the rail employers see sense.
We have always wanted to secure a negotiated settlement and that is what we will continue to push for in this next phase of intensive talks.
Our priority is our members, and we are working towards securing a deal on job security, a decent pay rise and good working conditions.
Our re-ballot remains live and if we have to take strike action during the next six months to secure a deal, we will.
Updated
Sturgeon rejects claim bungled ferry contract awarded on 'jobs for the boys' basis
The suggestion that the Ferguson Marine ferries contract represented “jobs for the boys” is categorically untrue, Nicola Sturgeon insisted as she faced MSPs looking into the procurement of two overdue and over-budget vessels.
As PA Media reports, the first minister said she has “deep regret” about the impact on island communities the delay to the ferries entering service is having, as she gave evidence to the public audit committee at Holyrood for almost two hours this morning.
Sturgeon said she was not aware of any impropriety in the procurement process, but she labelled allegations made in a recent BBC documentary as “serious”. The auditor general is examining allegations the yard was in possession of a lengthy document of technical specifications before its bid was submitted – giving it an advantage over firms pitching for the contract.
The committee’s deputy convener, Tory MSP Sharon Dowey, asked Sturgeon:
Was there an interest from the Scottish government to award the contract to FMEL (Ferguson Marine)? Was it a kind of ‘jobs for the boys’?
There’s obviously been talk of a kind of relationship between the Scottish government and [owner] Jim McColl.
McColl was pro-independence in 2014, and sits on Sturgeon’s council of economic advisers.
Sturgeon said ‘jobs for the boys’ was a pejorative term which “I completely and utterly refute”. She said:
If you are saying was there anything untoward in this procurement process in order to somehow inappropriately steer this contract towards FMEL, then absolutely, categorically not.
As my colleague Severin Carrell explains in a story previewing Sturgeon’s appearance at the committee, the two ferries were due to enter service in 2018 at a cost of £97m. Now they are at least five years late, and set to cost at least £240m.
Updated
The king has welcomed world leaders, business figures, environmentalists and NGOs to Buckingham Palace for a reception ahead of the UN climate summit Cop27, PA Media says. PA says:
Charles will miss the gathering of world figures in Egypt next week but is likely to discuss issues around Cop27 and climate change with those invited to his royal residence.
Rishi Sunak was among a small group of guests who met the king in a separate room before the main reception was held in the ballroom and the prime minister gave a short address to those invited.
In the state dining room were leading figures including Labour leader Keir Starmer and governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey.
Among those invited were Sir Pascal Soriot, chief executive AstraZeneca, former New York mayor and business news mogul Mike Bloomberg, yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur whose foundation is working to tackle climate change and designer and environmental activist Stella McCartney.
McCartney was with Sunak in the first group to meet the king, with the designer giving Charles a kiss which he returned and the trio joked as she curtsied after the introductions.
Sunak revealed how he saw a lot of the daughter of Beatle Sir Paul McCartney as their children went to the same school.
Charles thanked them for attending the event and the prime minister replied: “It’s all about what you’ve done.”
Updated
Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, has said that Chris Philp’s comment about it being “a bit of a cheek” for asylum seekers coming to the UK “illegally” to complain shows “shocking” complacency about what has been happening at Manston migration centre. Carmichael said:
Chris Philp’s comments reveal a shocking and callous complacency over the disaster unfolding at Manston. It is unbelievable that as we hear reports of sexual assaults, disease, and chronic overcrowding, his response is to accuse those who complain of ‘cheek’.
Rather than dismissing the problem he should start to show some leadership. People have had enough of the endless evasion, chaos and incompetence we have seen from the government on this issue.
Updated
Updated
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, says that fact that Gavin Williamson is subject to a misconduct complaint (see 11.39am) shows that Rishi Sunak’s judgment was flawed when he gave him a government job. In a statement Rayner said:
These new revelations raise fresh questions about Rishi Sunak’s woeful judgment in resurrecting ministers who left government under a cloud of misconduct. Gavin Williamson was sacked from cabinet twice, yet despite risking national security he has now been put at the heart of the government’s corporate headquarters.
Given his new role and the seriousness of these allegations, there must be an urgent and independent investigation.
Far from restoring integrity, professionalism, and accountability, Rishi Sunak is failing to stop the rot. He promised that appointing an independent ethics adviser would be one of the first things he would do as prime minister, but instead he has given us more of the same old sleaze.
Updated
No 10 refuses to endorse Home Office minister Chris Philp saying it's 'bit of a cheek' for asylum seekers to complain
And here are some more lines from the No 10 lobby briefing.
The spokesperson refused to endorse what Chris Philp, the Home Office minister, said this morning about it being “a bit of a cheek” for asylum seekers coming to the UK “illegally” to complain about the conditions in which they were being held. Asked if Philp was speaking on behalf of the government on this point, the spokesperson said he had not spoken to the PM specifically about this. But he said the government was working hard to provide asylum seekers with safe and secure accommodation, and that they deserved to be treated “with compassion and respect”.
The spokesperson said that 1,200 asylum seekers have been removed from the Manston immigration processing centre in the last four days. But he said there were still 2,600 people at the site, which is only meant to accommodate 1,600 people.
The spokesperson said Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, has written to MPs with an update on plans to open new immigration removal centres at Haslar in Hampshire and Campsfield in Oxford. He said:
These new facilities will provide safe, secure accommodation, with dedicated health facilities on site, and will play an important role in efforts to control our borders, process cases and remove those with no right to be in the UK, and ensure people going through our asylum system are treated with compassion, dignity and respect.
The spokesperson refused to concede that Brexit was a factor behind people in the UK having to face higher interest rates. Asked if Mark Carney was right to say in his Today interview this morning that it was a factor (see 9.25am), the spokesperson replied:
What we are seeing is challenges caused by the pandemic and war in Europe, which have been driving factors in terms of inflation, and we are seeing high inflation in a number of countries around the world.
Asked if he was denying that Brexit was a factor, the spokesperson replied:
There are a number of variables that have an impact, and what we are continuing to see is a number of countries face similar challenges when it comes to high inflation.
The spokesperson also said the government was now focused on ensuring stability and fiscal credibility, and not on “decisions taken a number of years ago, where people made a clear decision”.
Updated
Downing Street insists Sizewell C nuclear plant going ahead, and denies report saying future of project under review
The Downing Street lobby briefing is over, and the prime minister’s spokesperson has just shot down reports that the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant could be shelved.
This morning the BBC was leading the news with a story saying this was an option. A government official told Simon Jack, the BBC’s business editor: “We are reviewing every major project – including Sizewell C.”
But either the government official was misinformed, or a hasty rethink took place this morning, because when the PM’s spokesperson was asked at lobby if the government was scrapping Sizewell C, he replied: “No.”
He went on:
I’ve seen some reporting on that, but it is not accurate to say we are scrapping it. Our position on Sizewell C has not changed. It remains crucial to ending our reliance on fossil fuels, increasing our energy security and meeting our net zero ambitions.
Asked if the project could be delayed, the spokesperson said:
We hope to get a deal over the line as soon as possible. There are negotiations are ongoing. Negotiations have been constructive.
The spokesperson also said the project was not being reviewed. He said the government had already committed £700m to the deal.
I will post more from the lobby briefing shortly.
Updated
Conservative MPs who spoke in the Commons on Monday when Suella Braverman, the home secretary, gave a statement about asylum seekers were generally supportive. But many of them still have reservations about her, and this morning Selaine Saxby said she was “on the fence” when asked to give an assessment of Braverman.
In an interview on Times Radio, asked to say on a scale of 1 to 10 how confident she was that Braverman would get a grip on the problems being caused by people arriving in small boats across the Channel, Saxby said: “I’m going to sit on the fence on that and say I hope very much that there is much work going on very rapidly to address the situation.”
Saxby represents North Devon, and she is particularly concerned about a hotel in Illfracombe being requisitioned for asylum seekers, even though she says she was told by the Home Office two weeks ago this would not happen.
Miliband says shelving plans for Sizewell C nuclear power plant would be mistake
Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, says it would be a mistake for the government to shelve plans for the Sizewell C nuclear power plant. Referring to reports claiming the project could be delayed or scrapped, Miliband said:
If the government turns its back on this project, they will be breaking all of the promises they have made and undermining our vital nuclear industry.
One of the reasons we are facing an energy bills crisis is 12 years of failed Conservative energy policy, including a decade of drift and delay on new nuclear power.
Their short-sightedness has been staggering – from closing storage facilities, to failing to insulate houses, to delaying on nuclear, and to blocking cheap, homegrown renewable power.
Updated
Rishi Sunak held a call with his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, this morning. Here is an extract from the No 10 readout.
Both leaders condemned the recent North Korean missile launches, and the prime minister said it was vital the international community remained closely coordinated on the best way forward.
Turning to trade, both prime ministers shared the view that the Pacific trade bloc, CPTPP, was an important framework and the UK’s accession offered a unique opportunity to support prosperity across the world.
Discussing progress on the UK’s future combat air system, the leaders agreed that deeper cooperation on the next-generation fighter jet programme would underline the close relationship between the two nations.
After the appointment of Suella Braverman as home secretary, the most surprising feature of Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle was his decision to bring back Gavin Williamson as a minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office, with the right to attend cabinet.
Williamson was an effective chief whip for Theresa May. But he was not a success either as defence secretary or education secretary, and he has made enemies in the parliamentary party on account of his penchant for plotting and scheming. A survey this week showed that, among Tory members, he is by a wide margin the lowest-rated minister attending cabinet.
According to Cat Neilan from Tortoise, an official complaint about Williamson has now been submitted to CCHQ by Wendy Morton, who was chief whip under Liz Truss. She claims he sent her threatening messages. He denies this.
🚨 Exclusive: A formal complaint has been submitted to CCHQ about "threatening" messages sent by Gavin Williamson
— Cat Neilan (@CatNeilan) November 4, 2022
Full story here 👇https://t.co/l33JLUUvNg
Wendy Morton, chief whip under Liz Truss, has submitted the complaint about "vile and threatening messages" sent over the course of many weeks.
— Cat Neilan (@CatNeilan) November 4, 2022
One Tory MP said the submission included screen grabs.
Morton confirmed she has submitted a complaint, but declined to comment further.
— Cat Neilan (@CatNeilan) November 4, 2022
A friend of Williamson said he “strongly refutes these allegations”
Updated
Sinn Féin accuses UK government of 'fuelling political instability' after it ruled out NI election before Christmas
Sinn Féin has accused the UK government of “fuelling political instability” after it shelved plans for new Northern Ireland elections before Christmas.
There were elections in May, but they did not result in a power-sharing executive being set up because the DUP is boycotting the process because of its opposition to the Northern Ireland protocol. By law, after six months without an executive (that deadline fell on 28 October), the UK government has to hold a new election within 12 weeks. At one point Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, said he would announce a poll “at one minute past midnight” after 28 October, leading to speculation the election would happen in December
But Heaton-Harris hesitated and this morning he said there will be no election before Christmas. He has not altogether ruled out having an election before the 19 January deadline, but his announcement will increase speculation that the government will pass emergency legislation to remove the requirement for an election – something that has happened before in Northern Ireland when the executive has been suspended.
The political parties in Northern Ireland have generally welcomed the decision, saying an election would not have resolved the stalemate, but Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin leader in Northern Ireland, and first minister designate, said the decision was prolonging instability. She said:
Today’s announcement is more dithering and indecision from the British secretary of state and a continuation of the Tory chaos in London that is now paralysing our politics.
Chris Heaton-Harris met with political parties this week and failed to give any indication of what he announced today.
Instead, he has confirmed the bizarre U-turn he made last week but once again he provides no clarity or certainty on what his next steps even are.
The British government are fuelling the political instability caused by the DUP’s failure to recognise the result of the May election when the people voted for change.
The British government and the DUP are leaving us in a prolonged state of political limbo with no assembly, executive or caretaker ministers.
This is totally unacceptable at a time when workers, families and small businesses are struggling through the cost of living crisis and a cold winter, and when our health service needs immediate investment.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, responded to the news with a tweet restating his call for the Northern Ireland protocol to be replaced.
We need a razor sharp focus on getting a solution, whether by negotiation or legislation. There is no solid basis for a fully functioning Stormont until NIP is replaced with arrangements that unionists can support. Progress in NI only made when unionists & nationalists are aboard https://t.co/6B8ftsRo50
— Jeffrey Donaldson MP (@J_Donaldson_MP) November 4, 2022
Updated
Liz Truss was primarily responsible for mini-budget decisions, not Kwarteng, says former Treasury minister Chris Philp
Chris Philp was giving interviews this morning on behalf of the government in his capacity as the policing minister in the Home Office. When Liz Truss was prime minister, he was chief secretary to the Treasury, but he was demoted by Rishi Sunak.
In his interview with BBC Breakfast, Philp was asked about his previous job and whether he would apologise for his role in the disastrous mini-budget. He declined. But he also implied that Truss herself, rather than Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, was primarily to blame for what happened. He told the programme:
The decisions around the mini-budget were taken principally by the then prime minister and to a lesser extent the then chancellor.
Kwarteng, who was chancellor at the time of the mini budget, has not talked publicly since he was sacked by Truss about whether he thinks she was primarily to blame, or he was. But it has been reported that he was cautious about abolishing the 45% top rate of tax in the mini budget, and that she insisted the measure should be included. (It was the first mini-budget measure to be abandoned). Interestingly, in an interview shortly before he became chancellor, Kwarteng said he believed the Treasury should be “constitutionally subordinate” to No 10. Speaking to Harry Cole and James Heale for their Truss biography, he also criticised Rishi Sunak for not deferring to the prime minister. Kwarteng said:
In the meetings I was in, they were very much superior, the Treasury, they were the numbers people, they were the details people, and they indulged, they humoured the prime minister. I don’t know whether they ran rings around him; they were very rude and the special advisers were very rude and they didn’t give him any deference or respect.
Kwarteng contrasted Sunak with Philip Hammond, chancellor under Theresa May, who, he said, had the “maturity” to see that May was ultimately in charge because “the prime minister was the person who won the leadership, she was head of the government”.
Updated
Minister says it’s ‘a bit of a cheek’ for asylum-seekers to complain about conditions
Chris Philp, a Home Office minister, has said it is “a bit of a cheek” for people who he said had “entered the UK illegally” to complain about conditions. My colleague Jamie Grierson has the full story here.
Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, has welcomed the UK government’s decision not to call an election in Nothern Ireland before Christmas.
Fully share the Secretary of State’s objective; restoration of functioning institutions in NI. We had a good discussion this week, including on legal obligations under NDNA. No election pre Christmas is welcome & creates space for progress on other matters.
— Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) November 4, 2022
We remain in contact. https://t.co/v1c5YbQb5Q
Our story about the no early election announcement is here.
Mark Carney defends claim UK economy has shrunk from 90% size of Germany's to 70% since Brexit
Good morning. Last month, in an interview with the Financial Times, Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, added to the considerable evidence about the harm done by Brexit to the UK economy with a striking statistic. He told the FT:
In 2016 the British economy was 90% the size of Germany’s. Now it is less than 70%.
This figure was widely quoted on social media, but it was also strongly contested, even by economists who accept that Brexit has held back the UK economy. One of the most prominent critics was Jonathan Portes, a former government economist who is now a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London, who described it as a “zombie statistic” and “nonsense”. He said Carney was measuring the size of the two economies according to the prevailing exchange rates. But he said the normal method for comparing economies was to use “purchasing power parity”. (Put crudely, this is a measure that tries to evaluate how rich Britain is not by looking at how much stuff we could buy if we took our pounds and went to the US or China, but by how much stuff we could buy if we spent it in the UK.) Portes told the Daily Mail last month:
The pound has risen by almost 10% against the dollar since the Truss nadir. Has the UK economy really grown by almost 10% relative to the US in a few weeks?
Similarly, Carney is choosing a date when the pound was abnormally high against the euro (January 2016), another one when the pound was much lower, and then saying we’ve underperformed Germany by 20%.
That’s just obvious complete nonsense. If you look at actual annual growth rate in domestic currency, the UK and Germany have grown by quite similar amounts since 2016.
But this morning, in an interview on the Today programme, Carney defended his use of the 70% figure. He said the value of the pound started to fall when the referendum was called, it went down sharply when the result was announced and “it hasn’t recovered”.
Carney accepted that there was a difference between the purchasing power parity exchange rate and the market exchange rate. The market exchange rate was what ultimately mattered, he said, because it affected the UK’s ability to buy goods from abroad. He went on:
It’s relatively rare that you get big differences between the two [exchange rates]. But you get them when you have a long-standing shock to productivity in the economy and that is unfortunately what we’re getting in the UK. It was predicted that we would get that. It is coming to pass. And … it is one of the issues the Bank of England is facing.
This is what we said [before Brexit] was going to happen, which is that the exchange rate would go down, it would stay down, that would add to inflationary pressure, the economy’s capacity would go down for a period of time because of Brexit, that would add to inflationary pressure, and we would have a situation – which is the situation we have today – where the Bank of England has to raise interest rates despite the fact that the economy is going into recession.
Carney said that he and Portes had a “difference of opinion” on this. But, Carney said, in his view what mattered was “the purchasing ability, the international weight of the economy”. And that has shrunk, he argued.
Another way to put it is that that structural shift is in part what the government, and all of us, are dealing with in the UK. We’ve had a big hit to our productivity, our capacity in the economy … and we have to take some tough decisions in order to get it back up. And that’s one of the consequences of a decision taken a few years ago.
It is worth focusing on this because it is relatively quiet at Westminster. But in other stories this morning, Sir Graham Brady, chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, has in effect confirmed that Boris Johnson did have enough support to make it on to the ballot for the latest Tory leadership contest.
And the government has indicated that plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Suffolk are under review and could be delayed or scrapped.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions and, if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
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
Updated
