Early evening summary
Ministers have resisted calls from some opposition parties, and from some Labour MPs, who want the government to denounce the US raid on Venezuela leading to the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro, or to declare it a breach of international law. Instead, while stressing their support for international law in principle, they have not said anything overtly critical of Donald Trump. (See 10.28am and 1.01pm) Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, will shortly give a statement to MPs on the subject. Some Labour MPs, mostly from the left of the party, have said Starmer should be more outspoken. One of them, Steve Witherden, said:
With a textbook case of American gangsterism, President Trump has brought back gunboat diplomacy. Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Panama, it is anybody’s guess who might be next.
The government’s response has been insufficient. The post-war order is in tatters, our foreign policy assumptions are outdated, and we need to realign.
The only serious response is to pursue the closest possible relationship with our European neighbours. I would like the prime minister to say so.
Starmer says government considering further help for pubs to help them deal with increasing business rate costs
As Kiran Stacey and Raphael Boyd reported before Christmas, some Labour MPs have been banned from their local pubs because publicans are so angry about the impact the budget will have on the hospitality sector. They report:
After a difficult few years in which pubs have been hit by high costs, the pandemic and the impact of younger people going out less, publicans were optimistic this budget might bring some relief – specifically with a long-promised revamp of business rates.
But the chancellor poured cold water on those hopes, choosing instead to reduce headline rates and commit £4.3bn over three years in financial support for the retail and hospitality industries.
It may have seemed a gesture of goodwill, but the value of that support package has been dwarfed by the impact of a three-yearly property revaluation that has caused the taxable value of pubs and restaurants to spike from their Covid-affected lows.
Starting from next April, rates will rise by 115% for the average hotel and 76% for a pub, compared with 4% for large supermarkets and 7% for distribution warehouses. Whitbread, which owns pubs, restaurants and the Premier Inn hotel chain, says it will have to pay between £40m and £50m in tax as a result.
In an interview with LBC today, asked if there would by any extra help for pubs, Keir Starmer said this was being considered. He explained:
With business rates, obviously, what’s happened is there were reductions in place during Covid which were always going to be unwound at some point.
The overall rates are going to be lower, but I accept that because of re-evaluation, that means that some will have their bills going up.
We’re putting in place transitional relief. We’re talking to the sector, particularly hospitality and pubs, about what further support we can put in, whether that’s licencing freedoms or other measures. We want to talk to the sector. I want to keep working with them to make sure we can work this through.
