Summary
Here is a round-up of the day’s stories:
Rishi Sunak has told his ethics adviser to investigate suggestions that Nadhim Zahawi was forced to pay a fine and millions of pounds in unpaid taxes to HMRC, as the prime minister acknowledged there were “questions that need answering”. Labour says Sunak does not need advice from his ethics adviser on this, and that it is already clear Zahawi should be sacked. (See 1.50pm.) Answering an urgent question on this in the Commons, Jeremy Quin, the Cabinet Office minister, was unable to say whether Zahawi was telling the truth in the summer when he said he had fully paid his taxes. Quin told MPs he did not know what the actual situation was at that point. See (See 3.52pm.)
Two hundred asylum-seeking children who were placed in hotels run by the Home Office have gone missing, a minister has admitted. As Rajeev Syal and Diane Taylor report, they include one girl and at least 13 children under the age of 16, the Home Office minister Simon Murray told the House of Lords on Monday.
The Labour party must have “respect and tolerance” in the face of differing opinions on gender, Keir Starmer has said after Rosie Duffield’s claim she felt ostracised by the party because of her views. Duffield last week accused male party colleagues of trying to shout her down in the Commons when she spoke to back the government’s move to block gender reforms proposed in Scotland.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak and the Irish premier Leo Varadkar had a “good conversation” by telephone earlier, the Irish government has said. They discussed the ongoing negotiations between the UK and EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol, as well as the ongoing collapse of the Stormont Assembly in Belfast, PA Media reported.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
