Evening summary
Kemi Badenoch has accused the Post Office chair she sacked of a “blatant attempt to seek revenge” after he made explosive allegations about the government’s handling of the Horizon scandal. The business secretary launched an extended attack on Henry Staunton in the Commons on Monday, and claimed that he was under investigation for bullying when she fired him.
The extraordinary war of words began over the weekend after Staunton gave an interview to the Sunday Times accusing the government of wanting to stall compensation payments to victims of the Horizon scandal until after the general election. Badenoch dismissed Staunton from his role last month. In his interview Staunton said that Badenoch told him when she fired him: “Well, someone’s got to take the rap for this.” He also claimed that soon after starting his role in December 2022, he was instructed by a senior civil servant to delay compensation payouts so the Conservatives could “limp into” the general election.
Henry Staunton issued a stinging riposte to Kemi Badenoch on Monday night, saying he had kept a record of the alleged comment from a senior civil servant asking him to stall compensation payments to Horizon victims. A spokesperson for Staunton said he “recorded [it] at the time in a file note, which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office server”. The spokesperson said Staunton had never been made aware of any bullying allegations against him and that they were “certainly not raised by the secretary of state at any stage and certainly not during the conversation which led to Mr Staunton’s dismissal. Such behaviour would in any case be totally out of character.”
A Foreign Office minister has ruled out a prisoner swap for the imprisoned Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British citizen, who MPs have expressed concern about after the death of Alexei Navalny. Kara-Murza’s wife was now adamant that she wanted everything to be done to get her her husband out of Russia, said the Conservative backbencher Bob Seely, who urged the government to countenance swapping imprisoned spies for the pro-democracy activist who was now the most high-profile Russian political prisoner. Seely, who is in contact with the Kara-Murza and Navalny families, said when he had discussed prisoners swaps with the Foreign Office it had been made clear to him that such moves only encouraged state hostage taking.
Keir Starmer risks triggering the biggest rebellion of his leadership if he tries to stop his MPs voting on Wednesday for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, backbenchers have warned. Labour MPs are urging their leader not to whip them against voting for a Scottish National party motion this week calling for a ceasefire, three months after a similar vote saw 56 members rebel, including eight frontbenchers. Party whips have not yet decided how to approach Wednesday’s vote, but several MPs have told the Guardian they risk another damaging internal row if they try to oppose it.
Humza Yousaf has accused Labour of behaving like Margaret Thatcher by throwing oil and gas workers “on the scrapheap”, as he announced the Scottish National party would not back proposals for extending the fossil fuel windfall tax. In a campaign speech delivered in Aberdeen, the UK’s oil capital, Scotland’s first minister accused Labour of risking 100,000 jobs after Keir Starmer promised a “proper” windfall tax on oil and gas firms this month when he scaled back his party’s £28bn green investment pledge.
A scheme allowing Ukrainians to join family members taking sanctuary in the UK has been unexpectedly closed, in what opposition politicians described as a cruel and “below the radar” move days before the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full invasion. The Ukraine family scheme is being shut but government officials said a separate Homes for Ukraine scheme would continue to fulfil people’s needs as a way of “simplifying” the process.
Children’s services leaders have called for a national “plan for childhood” to transform the health, emotional wellbeing and life chances of a generation of youngsters scarred by austerity and the pandemic. In a withering assessment of the government’s record over the past few years, they said ministers had presided over deepening child poverty, crumbling schools and an exploding health and wellbeing crisis in young people, with low-income families worst affected.
Israel has gone “beyond reasonable self-defence” in its attack on Gaza, a Labour frontbencher has said, as the party prepares for a potentially difficult Commons vote on the crisis later this week. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said it was possible that Israel had broken international law in its military campaign, which has killed more than 28,000 people in Gaza since the 7 October massacre of Israelis by Hamas.
Ofcom has launched an investigation into whether a GB News programme where Rishi Sunak took questions from the public breached impartiality rules by failing to include other political views. The broadcast watchdog said it had received 500 complaints about People’s Forum: The Prime Minister, held in County Durham on 12 February on Monday last week.
The UK’s chief inspector of borders and immigration has said it is “scandalous” that his watchdog role could be left vacant while the Rwanda scheme is introduced. In a break with the treatment of his predecessors, David Neal has been told he will not serve a second term as chief inspector of borders and immigration. The Times reported that a successor was unlikely to be appointed for at least six months, covering the period when the prime minister has said he hopes the first flights carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda will take off.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
If you want to carry on following all the latest news from Westminster and beyond, see here.
Henry Staunton issued a stinging riposte to Kemi Badenoch on Monday night, saying he had kept a record of the alleged comment from a senior civil servant asking him to stall compensation payments to Horizon victims.
A spokesperson for Staunton said he “recorded [it] at the time in a file note, which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office server”.
The spokesperson said Staunton had never been made aware of any bullying allegations against him and that they were “certainly not raised by the secretary of state at any stage and certainly not during the conversation which led to Mr Staunton’s dismissal. Such behaviour would in any case be totally out of character.”
They added: “It was in the interests of the business as well as being fair for the postmasters that there was faster progress on exoneration and that compensation for wrongly convicted postmasters was more generous, but we didn’t see any real movement until after the Mr Bates programme. We will leave it to others to come to the conclusion as to why that was the case.”
