Evening summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
- Boris Johnson is facing a backlash from senior Tories over plans to privatise Channel 4, with the former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson describing it as “the opposite of levelling up”. Davidson led calls for the government to reconsider, along with the former cabinet ministers Damian Green and Jeremy Hunt.
- DCMS select committee chair Julian Knight has questioned if the government’s plans to forge forward with the privatisation of Channel 4 are “revenge”, adding that many Tories believe the move is “payback time” for “biased coverage”.
- Privatising Channel 4 “doesn’t make any sense” and will cause a “great deal of damage to jobs and opportunities”, Labour has said. Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I can’t find many people [who] are in favour of it.”
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The government should “feel ashamed” about announcing plans to sell off Channel 4 while MPs are not sitting, the Lords have heard. Liberal Democrat peer Lord McNally asked the culture minister Lord Parkinson: “Is he not ashamed that this extraordinarily well-run company is being dealt with in this way? A shabby decision made in an appalling way while the House of Commons is in recess.”
- The UK’s LGBT+ business champion has resigned “with a heavy heart” over the government’s “profoundly shocking” position on banning conversion therapy for transgender people. Iain Anderson said trust and belief in the government’s commitment to LGBT+ rights has been damaged, after a series of U-turns on plans to introduce legislation to ban conversion therapy.
- Pro-green cabinet ministers are frustrated by Boris Johnson’s decision to back away from ambitious onshore windfarm plans for England, as it emerged more than 100 Tory MPs are lobbying against the policy behind the scenes and he has been hit by a cabinet split over onshore wind.
- The UK government is moving too slowly to tackle the climate emergency, leading scientists have said in the wake of the latest IPCC report. This comes after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit minister, declared that he supported “exploiting every last cubic inch of gas from the North Sea” the day the report was released.
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Civil service chiefs are braced for the behaviour of top Whitehall officials to be severely criticised in the Sue Gray partygate report, after the government’s former ethics chief apologised for attending an illegal gathering.
- A cross-party group of MPs and peers has joined forces with UK universities in calling for the visa scheme for Ukrainian refugees to be extended to temporary placements for students and academics. The letter argues that the amount of interest shown in the sponsorship system illustrates that many Britons are willing to help.
That’s it from me today. Thanks for joining me.
Here’s our latest story on Channel 4 privatisation plans:
For the latest news on Ukraine, follow our dedicated live blog:
Updated
PA reports that a Conservative peer questioned that Channel 4’s programming was made up only of “rare cultural gems”.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere read out a list of Channel 4’s daytime programmes, including Kitchen Nightmares and Undercover Boss, as he hit back at claims that privatising the channel would diminish its output.
As peers asked the government about its plans to sell Channel 4, Lord Hannan said: “Ever since the announcement was made we have been hearing about all these rare cultural gems that are made possible by the unique way in which Channel 4 is financed, which somehow wouldn’t be possible in a red in tooth and claw jungle of capitalism.
“I have just been looking at what the programming is now. With your permission I will tell the House, it is: Kitchen Nightmares; Undercover Boss; Steph’s Packed Lunch; Countdown; a Place in the Sun; A New Life in the Sun; Sun, Sea and Selling Houses.”
The former MEP and Vote Leave founder added: “Is it really credible to say that we are defending something that could not be provided by the private sector? Will the minister comment on the disparity between the funds that come from the private sector to independent production companies and those that come from state broadcasters?”
Culture minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay replied that he would not join Lord Hannan in “singling out particular programmes.”
He added: “This is not about the content that Channel 4 currently produces or about its recent results. It is about making sure that it is able in the decades to come to compete, to invest and to continue to provide a range of programming which a range of people can benefit from.”
Updated
Boris Johnson is facing a backlash from senior Tories over plans to privatise Channel 4, with the former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson describing it as “the opposite of levelling up”.
Davidson led calls for the government to reconsider, along with the former cabinet ministers Damian Green and Jeremy Hunt. The scale of Conservative opposition to the proposals has already raised questions over whether the government has the votes to pass the required legislation through the House of Commons, with even tougher opposition expected in the House of Lords.
Davidson said: “Channel 4 is publicly owned, not publicly funded. It doesn’t cost the taxpayer a penny. It also, by charter, commissions content but doesn’t make/own its own. It’s one of the reasons we have such a thriving [independent] sector in places like Glasgow. This is the opposite of levelling up.”
Green pointed out the channel was founded by a Conservative government, with part of its remit being to boost Britain’s private television sector: “The sale of Channel 4 is politicians and civil servants thinking they know more about how to run a business than the people who run it. Very unconservative. Mrs Thatcher, who created it, never made that mistake.”
Jeremy Hunt, a former culture secretary, told Sky News: “I’m not in favour of it, because as it stands Channel 4 provides competition to the BBC on what’s called public service broadcasting – the kinds of programmes that are not commercially viable – and I think it would be a shame to lose that.”
He said he had never considered privatising it when he was culture secretary.
Another Tory who criticised the proposed sale was the father of the house, Peter Bottomley, who said it was “bad for the diversity of television, bad for viewers and bad for independent producers”.
“It was considered in the mid-1990s and turned down. It should be rejected now,” he said.
The backlash came after the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, pushed ahead with plans to privatise Channel 4 after 40 years in public ownership.
Read the full story from my colleagues Rowena Mason and Jim Waterson here:
Updated
The government expects “a lot of interest from around the world” in its plans to sell Channel 4, a minister has said.
In the Lords, Labour peer Lord Dubs asked:
If the government insists on pursing this policy, what safeguards will there be against a foreign company buying Channel 4 and there will be yet another of our major media owned by people outside this country?
Culture minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay replied:
Like the sale of any government asset, the sale of Channel 4 would need to meet a careful assessment process to ensure value for money for the taxpayer. Further detail will be set out in the white paper to address that.
To groans from peers, he added:
We expect a lot of interest from around the world in Channel 4.
Conservative former minister Lord Deben asked:
If a former constituent came up to me in the street and said Lord Deben, given Covid, the disastrous Brexit, the European war, the cost of living crisis, why has the government thought it urgent to bring forward something for which there is no public demand, and real opposition across the House?
Lord Parkinson replied that not all constituents would “phrase it like that”, adding:
The risks of doing nothing are to leave Channel 4 reliant on linear advertising, currently 74% of its income comes from linear advertising which is a part of the broadcasting landscape which is changing rapidly, trying to compete with the likes of Netflix which spent 9.2 billion on original content in 2019 compared to 2.1 billion from all of the UK’s public service broadcasters.
We want to make sure that Channel 4 is fit for the future so it can continue to thrive and flourish.
Updated
Government should feel ashamed over Channel 4 sell-off, Lords told
The government should “feel ashamed” about announcing plans to sell off Channel 4 while MPs are not sitting, the Lords have heard.
Liberal Democrat peer Lord McNally said:
Will the government publish immediately the consultation which was completed over six months ago and which has not yet seen the light of day on which the Secretary of State (Nadine Dorries) is allegedly making this decision?
Is he not ashamed that this extraordinarily well-run company is being dealt with in this way? A shabby decision made in an appalling way while the House of Commons is in recess.
Culture minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay replied:
The responses to the consultation will be published alongside the white paper to which I alluded in my initial answer. I disagree deeply with the rest of his question. The government values highly Channel 4 and the part it plays and has played for 40 years in our broadcasting ecosystem.
We want to ensure that its next 40 years and beyond are just as successful and it can flourish. It is doing that in a very rapidly changing and increasingly competitive media landscape. Channel 4 is uniquely constrained by its current ownership model and its current access to capital.
Lord Parkinson said the broadcaster would be an “attractive proposition for people to buy” because of its success.
Updated
The UK’s LGBT+ business champion has resigned “with a heavy heart” over the government’s “profoundly shocking” position on banning conversion therapy for transgender people, PA News reports.
Iain Anderson said trust and belief in the government’s commitment to LGBT+ rights has been damaged, after a series of U-turns on plans to introduce legislation to ban conversion therapy.
He is the latest in a series of high-profile individuals and groups to hit out at the government, with at least 100 organisations pulling out of its forthcoming landmark LGBT conference.
More than 80 LGBT+ groups and more than 20 HIV groups have said they will not take part in the Safe To Be Me conference, scheduled for June, unless Boris Johnson reverts to his promise for a trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy.
Read more on that story here:
Last week it was initially announced that ministers were scrapping plans to ban the practice, sparking a furious backlash. A government spokesman confirmed that they were looking instead at ways of preventing it through existing law and “other non-legislative measures”.
However, within hours the PM was said to have “changed his mind” and a senior government source was quoted as saying legislation would be introduced.
The government now says it is committed to a legislative ban, but that separate work is required to “consider the issue of transgender conversion therapy further”.
When announcing the initial consultation into the conversion therapy ban, the government had said the protections would cover people in terms of their sexual orientation and gender identity.
Anderson said it had been the honour of his life to serve as the UK’s first LGBT+ business champion, but felt he had “no choice” but to resign.
In a letter to Johnson shared on Twitter he wrote:
As a young gay man I lived through fear and oppression under the backdrop of Section 28. I could never have dreamt then that a government - any government - would appoint an LGBT+ champion later in my lifetime.
However the recent leaking of a plan to drop the government’s flagship legislation protecting LGBT+ people from conversion therapy was devastating. Conversion therapy is abhorrent.
Only hours later to see this plan retracted but briefing take place that trans people would be excluded from the legislation and therefore not have the same immediate protections from this practice was deeply damaging to my work.
Anderson added that it was “profoundly shocking” that the government had backtracked on protection for transgender people during the same week that the first trans MP felt able to share his journey.
Jamie Wallis, conservative MP for Bridgend, last week came out as trans in a highly personal statement.
A government spokeswoman said:
We thank Iain for his contributions as LGBT Business Champion.
The government has a proud record on LGBT rights and we remain committed to building upon that work with sensitivity and care.
Updated
The UK government is moving too slowly to tackle the climate emergency, leading scientists have said in the wake of the latest IPCC report.
This comes after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit minister, declared that he supported “exploiting every last cubic inch of gas from the North Sea” the day the report was released.
While the report warned that global emissions must peak by 2025 to stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis, which would require decisive and immediate action from all countries, scientists say they are concerned the UK government is dragging its feet.
Dr Jem Woods, Interim Director of Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College and Reader in Sustainable Development, said:
There is minimal to zero alignment between the UK’s net zero strategy and policies and crucial legislation that affect long run infrastructure and investment. In particular, the Local Plan 2030 which has been encouraging new house building has made no consideration of the implications for climate. We can also see similar issues with the Environment Act. New houses built over the next 10 years will lock-in infrastructural investments for decades to come with substantial implications for retrofitting as per Ajay’s (Gambhir) point about not being offered heat pumps rather than gas boilers.
On Monday Rees-Mogg declared that “every last drop of oil from the North Sea” should be excavated.
Speaking to LBC radio, he said:
We need to be thinking about exploiting every last cubic inch of gas from the North Sea. We are not going for net zero tomorrow – 2050 is a long way off.
In response to Rees-Mogg’s comments, Ajay Gambhir, a senior research fellow at the Imperial College London Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, warned:
It’s 1,013 days since the UK government legislated for net zero … we’re not seeing translation of this into on-the-ground measures fast enough.
He added that their actions are unlikely to meet their own carbon reduction targets, let alone those set by the IPCC.
Read more here:
Dorothy Byrne, president of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and the former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, has written a comment piece about the government’s proposals to sell off Channel 4.
She writes:
In 1982, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government established Channel 4 in order to create an independent television production sector in the UK. Unlike the BBC or ITV, it was not to make any of its own programmes, not even its flagship Channel 4 News. All over the UK, independent companies sprang up to make its content. In the 40 years since, they have made billions of pounds – not just for themselves but also for Britain, selling their wares around the world. And, unlike the BBC, they have spoken with many voices, bringing diverse and radical ideas to the fore which had barely been heard before in mainstream broadcasting.
Yesterday, Boris Johnson’s Conservative government announced it was selling off the channel, claiming that by doing so it would boost independent production companies. This makes no sense. Instead of Channel 4 being a publicly-owned organisation that pumps hundreds of millions of pounds a year into the independent sector, it is being sold off, almost certainly to a giant TV production company, possibly from overseas. It will be in the interests of that company to make as many of its own programmes as it can and retain the rights in them.
Many people have never understood Channel 4’s business model, and among them is the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, the minister who announced yesterday that selling off Channel 4 would boost the independent sector. Appearing before the culture select committee last November, she said it was right that the government should evaluate the channel’s long-term financial viability because Channel 4 was in receipt of public funding. She looked embarrassed when the Conservative MP Damian Green pointed out to her that Channel 4 gains its income from advertising, not the public coffers. How can a woman who didn’t even know what the organisation’s business model was claim to be motivated by protecting its finances? Of course, as a publicly-owned organisation, Channel 4 also does not make a profit, pumping all its income back into programming, whereas its new owner will rightly expect a profit.
Read the full opinion piece here:
Updated
The DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, has accused Sinn Fein of not being honest about its plans for a border poll.
Donaldson, who was on a visit to the Foyle constituency on Tuesday, was commenting after Michelle O’Neill insisted her immediate focus was on the cost of living crisis and not a unity referendum.
The DUP leader said:
The outcome of this election will be vital for the future of Northern Ireland and will determine whether we focus on growing our economy, delivering jobs and investing in our infrastructure, or whether we face months and years of instability, focusing on a divisive border poll.
Sinn Fein should be open and honest about its divisive border poll plans. Only two weeks ago they were happy to talk about their divisive border poll plan in Washington and New York to senators and congressmen.
Why does Sinn Fein not want to talk about their divisive border plans in Northern Ireland? The people of Northern Ireland deserve honesty from Sinn Fein and its leaders.
SDLP deputy leader Nichola Mallon said it was “lazy politics” to call for a referendum on unity without doing the preparatory work on what a united Ireland would look like.
She told the PA news agency:
The SDLP has always said that it is lazy politics to just keep calling for a border poll, the hard work that needs to be done is setting out exactly what that would mean to people, what it would mean for a new health care system on the island, a new education system, a new housing system.
And that’s why the SDLP through the New Ireland Commission (party initiative) is setting out that detailed piece of work.
But, of course right now, the number one issue facing families is the cost of living emergency.
We have said that that is our number one issue in this election and that is why we set out a six-point action plan to help individuals and families through this really difficult time in terms of dealing with what is an absolute crisis.
Updated
Government facing Tory backlash over Channel 4 privatisation plans
The government is facing a Tory backlash against plans to privatise Channel 4.
Ex-Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has spoken out on Twitter, calling the proposals the “opposite of levelling up”.
Channel 4 is publicly owned, not publicly funded. It doesn't cost the tax payer a penny. It also, by charter, commissions content but doesn't make/own its own. It's one of the reasons we have such a thriving indy sector in places like Glasgow. This is the opposite of levelling up
— Ruth Davidson (@RuthDavidsonPC) April 5, 2022
Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt, the former culture secretary, told Sky News:
I’m not in favour of it because I think that as it stands, Channel 4 provides competition to the BBC on what’s called public service broadcasting — the kinds of programmes that are not commercially viable — and I think it’d be a shame to lose that.
Asked why he thought the government had made the decision to sell it off and whether money from the sale was a factor, Hunt said: “I don’t know.”
He continued:
And I’m not against privatisation in in other contexts, but what I’m in favour of is competition.
And I think that we have very high standard of broadcasting in this country because we have competition not just in the very popular soap operas and boxsets and series that are going to be commercially very successful, but we also have competition in other areas, like news and documentaries, which are not likely to be commercially viable.
And I think it’s really important to maintain that competition and I do think Channel Four is part of that ecosystem.
Last night former Cabinet minister Damian Green said Channel 4 privatisation was “very unconservative”.
The sale of Channel 4 is politicians and civil servants thinking they know more about how to run a business than the people who run it. Very unconservative. Mrs Thatcher, who created it, never made that mistake.
— Damian Green MP (@DamianGreen) April 4, 2022
Updated
Here’s the full text of Anderson’s letter:
It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be @GEOgovuk #LGBT Business Champion. Sadly today I have resigned from that role. My letter to @BorisJohnson here 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ pic.twitter.com/JTrd0yAZBB
— Iain Anderson (@iain_w_anderson) April 5, 2022
Johnson heavily criticised as adviser resigns
The government’s LGBT business champion, Iain Anderson, has resigned in a letter to Boris Johnson, criticising the “deeply damaging” move to exclude trans people from protection from conversion therapy. Anderson wrote:
It has been the honour of my life to serve as the UKs first-ever LGBT+ business champion. However, I feel I have no choice but to tender my resignation from this role.
I do this with a very heavy heart. As a young gay man, I lived through fear and oppression under the backdrop of Section 28. I could never have dreamt then that a government – any government – would appoint an LGBT+ champion later in my lifetime.
However, the recent leaking of a plan to drop the government’s flagship legislation protecting LGBT+ people from conversion therapy was devastating. Conversion therapy is abhorrent.
Only hours later to see this plan retracted, but briefing take place that trans people would be excluded from the legislation and, therefore, not have the same immediate protections from this practice was deeply damaging to my work.
Updated
Covid is continuing to cause disruption in schools in England with attendance falling again, though the number of pupils off for Covid-related reasons has eased slightly in the past fortnight.
According to the latest official statistics from the Department for Education, 179,000 pupils were off for Covid-related reasons last Thursday, compared with 202,000 two weeks earlier.
Overall attendance in state schools fell again, however, down from 89.7% on March 17 to 88.6% on March 31. Though confirmed cases of Covid among pupils have fallen from 159,000 to 120,000, numbers absent due to restrictions in place to manage a school outbreak have doubled to 34,000, keeping absence rates high. Some parents may also have taken their children out of school early for the Easter holiday.
Absence rates among teachers and school leaders remain elevated at 8.7%, though there has been a slight improvement, down from 9.1% a fortnight earlier.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, warned schools were at breaking point.
We continue to hear a sense of deep frustration from school leaders as they struggle to deal with the significant and on-going disruption caused by Covid – whilst the government removes every measure they have for controlling it.
We all assumed ‘living with Covid’ meant there would be very low case levels – this is clearly not case and absence rates remain at concerningly high-levels. School leaders feel they have been abandoned.
The ongoing risk of illness and chaos caused by staff absence, not to mention the mounting pressure of exams, Sats and Ofsted, is unsustainable. Our members and education are at breaking point.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, added:
These figures show that a fifth of schools had more than 15% of their teachers absent last week. It is very difficult to operate in these conditions.
The government’s decision to withdraw free testing in such circumstances is a retrograde step, particularly with exams a few weeks away, and we have repeatedly urged ministers to reconsider.
Updated
The government has commissioned the British Geological Survey to advise on the latest scientific evidence around fracking, as ministers consider “all possible domestic energy sources” in light of the invasion of Ukraine.
Business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said:
We have always been, and always will be, guided by the science on shale gas.
It remains the case that fracking in England would take years of exploration and development before commercial quantities of gas could be produced for the market, and would certainly have no effect on prices in the near term.
However, there will continue to be an ongoing demand for oil and gas over the coming decades as we transition to cheap renewable energy and new nuclear power.
In light of Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, it is absolutely right that we explore all possible domestic energy sources.
However, unless the latest scientific evidence demonstrates that shale gas extraction is safe, sustainable and of minimal disturbance to those living and working nearby, the pause in England will remain in place.
Updated
Channel 4 plans could be 'revenge' for Brexit coverage, suggests Conservative media committee chair
DCMS select committee chair Julian Knight has questioned if the government’s plans to forge forward with the privatisation of Channel 4 are “revenge”, adding that many Tories believe the move is “payback time” for “biased coverage”.
Knight said Channel 4 could succeed if it was privatised and managed well, but it’s “a big risk” and “must be done as part of a thorough overhaul of all public service broadcasting”.
It is certainly true that Channel 4 will have greater freedom to compete once privatised and if managed well it should be able to continue to innovate and crucially appeal to young audiences - a real usp in today’s broadcast landscape.
— Julian Knight MP (@julianknight15) April 5, 2022
He wrote on Twitter:
It is certainly true that Channel 4 will have greater freedom to compete once privatised and if managed well it should be able to continue to innovate and crucially appeal to young audiences - a real USP in today’s broadcast landscape.
However, this is a big risk. The question has to be, do you think a restricted but brilliant small state broadcaster will part compete with the likes of Apple and Amazon or does it need to be able to borrow and grow in a way only privatisation can unlock?
In all this, it’s crucial the government protects the prominence of all public service broadcasting through the new media bill, in order to give the likes of a new privatised Channel 4 a head start.
Now, elephant in the room time – is this being done for revenge for Channel 4’s biased coverage of the likes of Brexit and personal attacks on the PM? The timing of the announcement 7pm, coinciding with Channel 4 news, was very telling …
Undoubtedly, across much of the party – there is a feeling of payback time and the word privatisation tickles the ivories of many. The money is irrelevant – equivalent to four days’ national debt interest – so it must be used to support skills in creative sectors.
So, to sum up. Privatisation – even for some wrong reasons – can work for C4 but must be part of a thorough overhaul of all public service broadcasting. If this is in the media bill I will support the government. Finally, these are my views not those of the committee more generally.
Updated
The government is pushing ahead with controversial plans to privatise Channel 4 after 40 years in public ownership, it was revealed yesterday.
There have been some questions about the proposals below the line so here’s an explainer on what you need to know about Channel 4 being sold off:
Who would buy a privatised Channel 4?
The industry player most likely to buy Channel 4, with the least regulatory hurdles, is Discovery. The big US pay-TV company, which is merging with WarnerMedia, the parent company of CNN, HBO and the Hollywood studio behind the Batman and Harry Potter franchises, expressed interest the last time the broadcaster faced privatisation in 2016.
The company, which has a mix of free and pay-TV operations, continues to be highly active in the UK market, striking a deal with BT in February to launch a pay-TV sports joint venture including BT Sport, which has rights to sports including football’s Premier League and Champions League.
However, ITV has been lobbying Whitehall about the possibility of a “national champion” takeover, designed to take the political fallout of yet another buyout of a UK “crown jewel” by a foreign owner. The issue for ITV, which said in the 00s that it would bid for Channel 4 if it was combined with another broadcaster as was mooted with Channel 5, is that it would create what amounts to a TV advertising monopoly resulting in significant competition issues.
There will also be significant interest from private equity buyers, although Channel 4’s remit would have to be changed to allow a non-trade buyer to make profits from the business.
What is likely to happen to a privatised Channel 4?
Channel 4’s remit has never been to make a profit – the money it makes is reinvested in commissioning and buying programmes from mostly British TV production companies, helping to support a key national industry.
Analysts believe that a privatised Channel 4 would face 40% to 50% cuts to its £660m programming budget – spent on content such as news and current affairs, Gogglebox and It’s a Sin – to force its model into that of a commercially-focused broadcaster.
This is likely to mean cuts to content that does not bring in much income from advertising, which Channel 4 relies on for more than 90% of its £1bn annual revenues, such as news.
Channel 4 is a key commissioner of TV content from production companies based around the UK and sees itself as a key part of the government’s levelling up ambitions outside London. Analysts believe that as many 60 TV production companies around the UK could be forced to shut if Channel 4 moved to private ownership.
Has privatisation been tried before?
Privatisation in some form has been mooted about half a dozen times since Channel 4’s launch, with the most serious push coming under David Cameron’s government in 2016. That was led by the then culture secretary John Whittingdale, who is also overseeing the government’s latest push towards privatisation. Ultimately, it was decided that the benefits of a cash windfall to the government were outweighed by the scale of the detrimental impact on the independent TV sector. In 2017, the culture secretary Karen Bradley formally ruled privatisation out, saying Channel 4 was a “precious public asset” that would “continue to be owned by the country”. Instead, the government pushed for Channel 4 to relocate significant parts of its operations and staff out of London. About 300 of its 800 staff have now moved to new “national” headquarters in Leeds, as well as “creative hubs” in Bristol and Glasgow.
Read the answers to more questions here:
Fines for breaking coronavirus laws have reportedly been issued to people who attended a leaving party for a senior official who helped shape the Government’s response to the pandemic.
The Daily Telegraph reported that some of those at the farewell event for Kate Josephs, who was director-general of the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce, have been handed fixed-penalty notices (FPNs).
The drinks event was held in the Cabinet Office on December 17 2020 at a time when London was under Tier 3 restrictions, banning indoor socialising, PA news reports.
So far 20 fines have been issued following Scotland Yard’s investigation into alleged lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street and Whitehall.
Josephs, who is on discretionary leave from her role as chief executive of Sheffield City Council, has not commented on the Telegraph report.
In January, after news of the gathering emerged, she said she was “truly sorry” about the event.
She said:
On the evening of 17 December, I gathered with colleagues that were at work that day, with drinks, in our office in the Cabinet Office, to mark my leaving the Civil Service.
I am truly sorry that I did this and for the anger that people will feel as a result.
Sheffield City Council brought in an independent investigator to examine the situation and a cross-party committee is looking at the findings.
A council spokesman said:
The committee will need to meet again once they have had time to properly consider the contents of the investigator’s report. Until then, the committee needs to focus on its work.
Airline passengers are being warned to expect flight cancellations caused by staff shortages to continue.
More than 1,000 UK flights have been axed in recent days due to crews being off sick amid a rise in coronavirus cases.
Industry experts also said airlines and airports are struggling because of the number of job cuts made during the pandemic.
Aviation data firm Cirium said 1,143 UK flights were cancelled last week, compared with just 197 during the same period in 2019.
The vast majority of last week’s cancellations were by easyJet and British Airways.
The rate of staff absences at easyJet is around double normal levels.
Some 60 of its flights scheduled for Tuesday were cancelled.
A spokeswoman for the airline said: “EasyJet will operate the vast majority of its 1,525 flights today with a small proportion cancelled in advance to give customers the ability to rebook on to alternative flights. “We are sorry for any inconvenience for affected customers.”
Updated
A cross-party group of MPs and peers has joined forces with UK universities in calling for the visa scheme for Ukrainian refugees to be extended to temporary placements for students and academics.
In a letter to Priti Patel, the home secretary, the parliamentarians and Universities UK, the advocacy organisation for universities, said the scheme should provide visas and temporary places for displaced students and academics to study and carry out research.
Led by Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative MP for Romford, who is a member of the foreign affairs committee, the group also includes the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey; David Blunkett, the Labour peer and former education secretary; and Tom Tugendhat, the Tory backbencher who chairs the foreign affairs committee.
The government has so far introduced two systems to allow Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion of their country to come to the UK – a scheme for family members of people already in the country, and one by which individuals or organisations can sponsor people to arrive.
The latest Home Office statistics showed that of 32,800 applications via the family scheme, 24,400 visas had been issued. With the sponsorship route, 150,000 expressed interest in sponsoring people, with 32,200 formally applying to do so, and 4,700 visas issued.
The letter argues that the amount of interest shown in the sponsorship system illustrates that many Britons are willing to help, and that the students and academics visa would help shelter more people until they are ready to return home.
Read more here:
Civil service chiefs are braced for the behaviour of top Whitehall officials to be severely criticised in the Sue Gray partygate report, after the government’s former ethics chief apologised for attending an illegal gathering.
Amid speculation about whether Boris Johnson will be fined over lockdown parties in No 10, there is also consternation in Whitehall about how to deal with the fallout from senior civil servants being implicated as organisers of gatherings when the full report is finally published.
It comes as Helen MacNamara, the former head of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office, issued an apology after a leak named her as one of the 20 people issued with fines after a Metropolitan police investigation. It is understood a leaving party for Kate Josephs, who ran the Covid task force, has also attracted fines in the first wave of penalty notices. Josephs is currently on paid leave from her job as chief executive of Sheffield City Council pending an investigation.
A senior source said there was concern that details in the report by Gray, herself a senior civil servant, would cast some civil servants in a bad light and there may be evidence that some knowingly broke rules when organising gatherings, leading to the potential for disciplinary action.
Gray has the power to name senior civil servants in her report although she may choose not to use it. In her interim report, she named no names and referred only to the “senior official whose principal function is the direct support of the prime minister” – thought to be an allusion to Martin Reynolds, the principal private secretary.
Read the full story here:
Pro-green cabinet ministers are frustrated by Boris Johnson’s decision to back away from ambitious onshore windfarm plans for England, as it emerged more than 100 Tory MPs are lobbying against the policy behind the scenes.
The prime minister, who is to announce his energy strategy later in the week, will announce big targets for increasing nuclear power and offshore wind, as well as exploiting more North Sea oil and gas.
But he has been hit by a cabinet split over onshore wind, with Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, and Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, in favour, and others including Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, branding onshore turbines “an eyesore”.
Another nine ministers sitting in cabinet – Steve Barclay, Nadine Dorries, Simon Hart, Chris Heaton-Harris, Brandon Lewis, Priti Patel, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Mark Spencer and Nadhim Zahawi – signed a letter calling for a cut in support for onshore wind in 2012. The letter was orchestrated by Heaton-Harris, now responsible for party discipline, who co-ran a campaign called Together Against Wind and wrote a manual that was a “step by step guide on opposing a windfarm in your area”.
A spokesperson for Heaton-Harris would not comment on his communications with the prime minister about the issue of onshore wind.
Read more from my colleagues Rowena Mason, Rob Davies and Helena Horton here:
Watertight restrictions need to be put on the organisation that buys Channel 4, Dorothy Byrne has said.
When asked if Labour should commit to renationalise the network if in government, the former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4 told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I don’t think it is for me to say what the Labour government should do.
But I think if this is what the government’s going to do, and it looks like it, I think the fight is on to really ensure as much as possible that there are watertight restrictions put on to this organisation that buys it.
Meanwhile, conservative former chair of the digital, culture, media and sport committee Damian Collins spoke in favour of the privatisation.
The MP for Folkestone and Hythe said:
If we do nothing in a landscape where traditional broadcasters have got declining incomes, declining amounts of money they can spend making new programmes, will Channel 4 be sustainable?
For me that’s the test, actually. Private ownership and the injection of money that could come from that could be good for making Channel 4 sustainable long-term.
The former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4 has said the government plans to privatise the network to “throw a bit of red meat to Tory supporters”.
Speaking to Times Radio on Tuesday, Dorothy Byrne said Channel 4 was not left-wing, adding:
I think it’s being privatised to throw a bit of red meat to Tory supporters of a very right-wing nature at a time that the government is in trouble.
I think the political agenda is to show that the government is doing something radically right-wing to please people. It’s the same agenda as attacking the licence fee.
It’s that knee-jerk thing, privatise thing, that’s a good thing to do.
She also said:
Channel 4 is not there to compete with Netflix and Amazon. It’s there to provide a public service to the people of Britain, which it does brilliantly well with programmes like Channel 4 News and Unreported World.
It is flourishing and thriving at the moment, it costs the British people absolutely nothing, it is not in debt, it is very successful.
All of its programmes are made by independent production companies, so there isn’t any need to privatise Channel 4 to raise money to help independent production companies, because Channel 4 is already doing that and it makes many, many of its programmes outside London, it’s moving to making half of its programmes outside London.
Privatising Channel 4 'doesn't make any sense' and will cause 'great deal of damage', says Labour
Privatising Channel 4 “doesn’t make any sense” and will cause a “great deal of damage to jobs and opportunities”, Labour has said.
Yesterday it was revealed that the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, is pushing ahead with controversial plans to privatise Channel 4, with the government backing proposals to sell off the broadcaster after 40 years in public ownership.
The plans had met fierce reaction from the media industry, with prominent broadcasters such as Sir David Attenborough suggesting the government was pursuing an agenda of “shortsighted political and financial attacks” on British public service broadcasters.
Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme today:
It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t find many people are in favour of it.
I think it will cause a great deal of damage to jobs and opportunities in the creative industries, especially in Leeds and Bristol, and Manchester, and outside of London.
I fear that … rather than competing with some of the big US streaming giants, it is more likely to be bought by one of them.
That will take money out of the UK economy, out of the creative industries and the independent sector that has so thrived under Channel 4.
When asked if Labour would take it back into the public ownership if in government, Powell said:
Well, I have not written our manifesto commitment on this overnight since this announcement was laid. There is going to be a very long and drawn-out, difficult process because there are many people opposed on their own side of the Conservative Party on this.
They are going to have a difficult issue getting this through parliament, which is also why I don’t understand why they are doing it because of all the things that we could be spending our time doing in parliament right now, dealing with the pensioners who can’t afford to keep the heating on, the families who can’t put food on the table, people can’t afford petrol in the petrol pump, and we are going to be expending a huge amount of parliamentary and political time doing something that no-one in the public wants, and no one in the industry wants either.
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