Afternoon summary
Liz Truss, the former PM, and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, have committed themselves to an unadulterated form of rightwing, anti-establishment populism at the launch of a new group, Popular Conservatism. In speeches at the launch, Truss claimed British institutions were riddled with “wokeism”, while Rees-Mogg named the ECHR, World Health Organization and Cop as he attacked “international cabals and quangos telling hundreds of millions of people how to lead their lives”. (See 12.18pm and 12.29pm.) It is not clear how much public support there is for this agenda, but it is likely to be popular with the party members who will choose the next leader. However, it is quite different from traditional Conservatism, as William Hague, a former party leader, made clear in his Times column today. Identifying five “rules” needed for Tory success, he said:
A second rule is to mobilise elites and the wider nation in partnership, not turn one against the other. There is no case in history of conservatives being popular while attacking the country’s institutions, or its business community. So many aspects of government in Britain need kick-starting, or speeding up, or new expertise, or more accountability, but Churchill or Thatcher picked the people to do that and made the system work for them. Paranoia about “anti-growth coalitions” is for the populists. Popular conservatives have always learnt from expert advice, while running governments with high standards of conduct and integrity.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, has described the government’s dental recovery plan as “remarkably similar to Labour’s”. He was responding to a BBC report saying the plan involves dentists cash incentives to take on NHS patients and send teams to schools to treat children’s teeth. According to the BBC, the government plan was due to be published tomorrow, but was inadvertently emailed to MPs. Earlier, in response to a story about hundreds of people queuing outside a dental surgery in Bristol because it was willing to see NHS patients, Labour used the incident as an opportunity to deploy a famous Conservative election poster image against the party.
Yesterday, hundreds of people desperate for an NHS dentist appointment queued for hours when a new practice opened in Bristol.
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) February 6, 2024
After 14 years of Tory decline, this is the Britain we live in today.
It's time for change. pic.twitter.com/GQAIRUosCA
Labour has a fully funded plan to rescue NHS dentistry with 700,000 emergency appointments and new dentists where they're needed the most.
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) February 6, 2024
Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
Updated
According to a snap poll by YouGov, almost three quarters of people (72%) think it was unacceptable for Rishi Sunak to accept a £1,000 bet on the success of his Rwanda policy. Only 14% of people think that was acceptable, the poll suggests.
72% of Britons say it was unacceptable for Rishi Sunak to accept Piers Morgan's £1,000 bet on whether his government would be able to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda before the general electionhttps://t.co/dxwSYP0EiA pic.twitter.com/eyOpeeRy5H
— YouGov (@YouGov) February 6, 2024
A reader asks:
Would there be a list of all of the Tory MPs that are gathered under this PopCon group? I can’t really find any reference to it online but it’d be interesting to see who exactly these MPs are supposedly representing with their extreme views.
They have not published a list of MP supporters, and their website is little more than a sign up platform. But Beth Rigby from Sky News posted this list of Tory MPs she spotted at the launch.
Launch of the PopCons, lots of MPs here including Liz Truss, Jacob Rees Mpgg, Lee Anderson, Andrea Jenkyns, Priti Patel, Wendy Morton, Alec Shellbrooke, David Jones
Launch of the PopCons, lots of MPs here including Liz Truss, Jacob Rees Mpgg, Lee Anderson, Andrea Jenkyns, Priti Patel, Wendy Morton, Alec Shellbrooke, David Jones pic.twitter.com/RxZQ53AhMu
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) February 6, 2024
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has said the government will examine proposals for a memorial to honour thousands of Muslims who served with Britain and its allies during the two World Wars.
As PA Media reports, the World Wars Muslim Memorial Trust registered in 2016 and seeks to honour those Muslim soldiers from the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and North Africa who were involved in the two global conflicts. It would also honour Muslim personnel from the UK who have died in combat in recent times.
During Treasury questions, the former cabinet minister Sir Sajid Javid said the trust wanted “a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum honouring an estimated 750,000 Muslims that have fought for British armed forces, with tens of thousands of them paying the ultimate sacrifice”.
Pointing out that previous budgets have included funding for memorials, he asked Hunt to back the plan.
Hunt said Javid was right. He went on:
We must remember and honour the sacrifices made by those of all nationalities and religions who fought for our freedom, including I believe nearly 150,000 Muslims who died in the Second World War.
My officials will be happy to engage with him to identify how best the government can help make this vision a reality.
Government departments still holding back from public too much official data, MPs told
Governement departments are still holding back too much official data, MPs have been told.
Ed Humpherson, head of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), made this argument as he gave evidence to the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee.
He said that although official statistics are routinely published, making the data used to inform policy making was not yet “the norm” – either because officials deciding that releasing the information did not fit in with their communications strategy, or because they just forgot.
But he said the culture was gradually changing. He explained:
I think of this as being like a garden on a bright morning where the shadow is gradually retreating and the sunlight is gradually coming across.
We have got the sunlight on official statistics. We are gradually moving into that space for government statements being supported and I would love that sunlight to extend into further parts of analysis as well.
Humpherson said there was a “risk” in policy making if data was not being openly assessed. He went on:
The thing I am concerned about is that whenever we talk senior officials about this, we call it intelligent transparency, we get sign-up from senior officials, permanent secretaries who absolutely endorse and recognise it.
What we then find is cases where, in a specific moment, a particular department concludes that it is not in its communications interests, or they forget to make the underlying data available.
So I would really want to see those commitments that we hear from senior officials being much more publicly made, and much more embedded in their practices and processes.
Updated
Rishi Sunak has had a meeting with Britons who have relatives still held hostage by Hamas. He posted this on X.
To have a loved one taken hostage by terrorists is an unthinkable horror.
Today I met again with British families still going through that harrowing ordeal.
We will continue to do all we can to bring hostages held by Hamas in Gaza safely home.
To have a loved one taken hostage by terrorists is an unthinkable horror.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) February 6, 2024
Today I met again with British families still going through that harrowing ordeal.
We will continue to do all we can to bring hostages held by Hamas in Gaza safely home. pic.twitter.com/2F28R7PGhp
Stormont unanimously backs calls for better funding settlement for Northern Ireland
Stormont has sent a clear, unified call to the government for fair funding for Northern Ireland, first minister Michelle O’Neill said. PA Media reports:
The Stormont parties united this morning to call on prime minister Rishi Sunak to give Northern Ireland the “resources that it needs to deliver effective public services”.
The motion was passed unanimously following a debate in the chamber.
An amendment by the opposition SDLP calling on finance minister Caoimhe Archibald to work with ministers to produce costed plans for immediate priorities was also passed.
The motion passed unanimously said the assembly “endorses the letter sent to Prime Minister Sunak by all executive ministers calling for our public finances to be placed on a sustainable footing and for the executive to have the resources that it needs to deliver effective public services”.
Truss claims Britain's institutions are too leftwing
Liz Truss, the former prime minister, has given an interview to GB News in which has restated her belief that Conservatives have not been able to achieve everything they wanted to because Britain is too leftwing.
Describing the philosophy behind her new group, Popular Conservatism, she said:
We’ve had a Conservative government for 14 years and we’ve achieved many things, including Brexit trade deals, keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of office.
But one of the problems we have, even though we’ve got a Conservative government, is what we’re seeing in our schools, in our universities, in our corporate sector, the spreading of wokery and leftwing ideas.
What PopCon is about, is about combating that because the people of Britain want us to deal with real issues.
Immigration is too high. The government’s too big, taxes are too high. But what we constantly hear is the left. So PopCon is about challenging that, it is about challenging the leftwing orthodoxy and making it positive to be a Conservative.
Updated
Good afternoon. I’m Andrew Sparrow, picking up again from Martin.
Being out of the office this morning, I missed the Popular Conservatism (or PopCons) launch this morning. You can get the gist of it from the coverage here. (See 12.18pm and 12.26pm.) Lewis Goodall from the News Agents podcast has some good coverage on X too. Here are some of his posts.
Mark Littlewood opening “popcon”: “this is not about the leadership of the Conservative Party…we will position ourselves as a genuine grassroots movement.” pic.twitter.com/oVS1xeCj6i
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) February 6, 2024
Mark Littlewood opening “popcon”: “this is not about the leadership of the Conservative Party…we will position ourselves as a genuine grassroots movement.”
Littlewood says we’re not governed by our parliament but by a network of state organisations, bodies, left wing infrastructure. Says a complete overhaul of the state necessary. Littlewood is articulating a right wing Bennism focussed on the state rather than market.
Truss says democracy has become “unfashionable” among the young She may be confusing democracy with conservatism Truss says Britain is full of “secret conservatives”- again echoing Bennism. The voters are there really, they just have to be inspired with a true ideology.
Another feature of the launch that has not received much comment, as far as I can see, is the extent to which the Trussite right has split already. (Something else it has in common with Bennism.) At one point Sir Simon Clarke and Ranil Jayawardena were both due to speak. They both served in her cabinet, and were both close to her politically. But Clarke was dropped from the event after he launched a one-man bid to topple Rishi Sunak’s leadership and Jayawardena declared last night that he was not going be in a tweet implying he thought the PopCons were being too disloyal.
We’ve made progress, and we need to stick with the plan – to scrap the bureaucracy that’s held Britain back.
❌ Labour would take us back to square one.
📈 I won’t be there tomorrow. I’ll keep making the positive case for growth from the common ground of British politics.
✅ We’ve made progress, and we need to stick with the plan – to scrap the bureaucracy that’s held Britain back.
— Ranil Jayawardena MP (@ranil) February 5, 2024
❌ Labour would take us back to square one.
📈 I won’t be there tomorrow. I’ll keep making the positive case for growth from the common ground of British politics. https://t.co/Oo4W2mhObp
So, that gives you three categories of Trussites: openly anti-Sunak (Clarke), ostensibly pro (Jayawardena) and somewhere-inbetween (Truss herself).
And there was a further split in evidence today. Kwasi Kwarteng used to be very close to Truss but, according to some reports, they stopped speaking to each other after she sacked him. Is it coincidence that he decide to announce that he is standing down from parliament on the same day PopCons was being launched by his publicity-hungry ex-boss?
It is opposition day in the Commons today and shadow Home Office minister Alex Norris has opened a debate on banning knives and swords from UK streets.
The motion “condemns the government for overseeing a 77% increase in knife crime since 2015”, and asks the government to extend recent measures “to cover ninja swords” and “to establish an end-to-end review of online knife sales and introduce criminal liability for senior management of websites which indirectly sell illegal knives online.”
Norris said:
We believe the government should introduce criminal sanctions on the tech executives who allow knife sales on their online market places.
Not just Ofcom sanctions as the government have opted for, but proper criminal sanctions to send a very serious message to these leaders that if their platforms are being used, and they are not actively making sure they are not being used for the sale of dangerous weapons, there are going to be serious consequences.
Regarding ninja swords, Norris said “We would broaden the ban to include a wider range of weapons and to toughen existing rules on serration and length. That would mean finally banning blades such as ninja swords … if knives and machetes are prohibited, these firms will just move on to pushing ninja swords at customers. This is a hole in the government’s plan and it must be plugged.”
MPs have criticised the government for not acting over the Horizon IT scandal through its representative on the Post Office board, with one calling it a “fatal flaw” in the way it handles the governance of companies over which it has oversight.
The head of UK Government Investments (UKGI) – the body responsible for managing the portfolio of wholly or partially state-owned companies such as NatWest and Channel 4 – admitted the Post Office board needed to be questioned over its lack of “curiosity” about the scandal, which resulted in wrongful prosecution of more than 900 subpostmasters.
The Treasury select committee questioned executives from UKGI, which maintains one representative on the Post Office’s 10-strong board, on Tuesday about why the government did not take action sooner given it had a shareholder representative with direct access to the governance and running of the company.
Keir Mather, the Labour MP for Selby and Ainsty, questioned whether the lack of action showed “insufficient robustness” by the Treasury-owned UKGI and whether the existence of a shareholder representative undermined the government’s argument that it “couldn’t exercise oversight” of the Post Office.
Read more of Mark Sweney’s report here: MP criticises ‘fatal flaw’ in government’s oversight of Post Office IT scandal
Mordaunt says MPs have complained 10-day suspension threshold for a recall petition is too low
Giving evidence to the Commons Standards Committee this morning, Penny Mordaunt said several MPs had complained to her that the 10-day threshold meant there were no “middle options” for sanctioning misbehaving MPs short of seeing them potentially losing their seat.
Current legislation means any MP who is suspended from the Commons for 10 days or more can be subject to a recall petition, which triggers a byelection if it is signed by 10% of the MP’s constituents.
The leader of the house said: “I think that the main complaint and concern is the trigger for that process, that by the original legislation having gone from 30 to 10 days it doesn’t give you a lot of options, and I think that’s the chief concern with that.
“It’s been in operation for a while. You are starting to get these cases, you of all people will know, where you have found yourself maybe wishing you had more options for individuals, but that’s the chief complaint that’s made to me from colleagues.”
Helena Horton is an environment reporter for the Guardian
Greenhouse gas emissions fell slightly in 2022, new government figures reveal, with homes and transport remaining the highest emitting sectors. The emissions for the territorial UK were equivalent to 406.2m tonnes of CO2, down 3.5% from 2021 and 50% from 1990.
Homes and transport contributed the most to the problem, with domestic transport responsible for 28% of greenhouse gas emissions, and homes and product use 20%. Agriculture was responsible for 12%, electricity supply 14% and industry 14%. Fuel supply was responsible for 8%, and waste 4%. Land use and forestry created 0.2% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Domestic transport emissions rose 2% year on year, but government officials mostly attributed this to a bounce-back from the coronavirus pandemic. There was a significant drop in transport emissions in 2020 when people stayed at home due to lockdowns, and travel has not yet recovered to pre-2020 levels.
Government policies, such as scrapping high-speed rail projects, building more roads and failing to ensure that rail travel is as reliable and affordable as driving, mean that emissions are unlikely to fall to levels needed to reach net zero, experts have said.
Read more of Helena Horton’s report here: UK’s emissions fell slightly in 2022 but transport and homes still biggest emitters
Unsurprisingly the topic of Rishi Sunak’s bet with Piers Morgan over the Rwanda deportation policy has cropped up in questions to the prime minister’s spokesperson this morning. Some clarification was asked for on those spread betting comments from 2023 that have been unearthed after Sunak said he was not a betting man. [See 12.02 GMT]
The spokesperson said:
As he said this morning, he was surprised by it [the bet] but it reflects the conversation that he had with Piers Morgan [and] reflects his absolute confidence in getting flights of the ground. Does he regret having that confidence? No.
He has previously talked about his love and interest in cricket. Obviously, what he was referring to is the fact that in general he’s not a betting person, and obviously the point he was trying to get across in the interview was his full confidence and commitment in getting flights off the ground.
The spokesperson said Sunak’s comments about enjoying spread betting while at work and watching the Ashes in 2005 were “referring to many, many years ago”.
Rory Carroll is the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent
Irish leaders have paid tribute to John Bruton, a former taoiseach who has died aged 76 after illness, as a decent, thoughtful man and a giant of Irish politics.
“John was one of the reasons I became involved in politics and joined Fine Gael,” said the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar. “John was doer and a philosopher. He was passionately pro-European in government and in opposition.”
Varadkar said Bruton, who led a coalition government from 1994 to 1997 during a fraught phase of the peace process, had reached out to Northern Ireland unionists. “He advocated a new patriotism and opposed narrow nationalism. While these views are now held by the majority of people, that was not always the case and he was willing to lead, even when it meant going against the grain.”
Varadkar said he drew on his predecessor’s knowledge and experience during Brexit talks with the UK. “The whole Fine Gael family mourns his loss, and he will always be remembered for his service to our party and to the Irish state.”
The former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who led Fianna Fáil, lauded Bruton’s integrity. “He was a totally genuine person and always acted in the interests of the people of the country, of the people of need and I wouldn’t have a bad word to say about John Bruton.”
Earlier cross-party tributes were paid to Bruton in the Northern Ireland assembly. [See 11.42 GMT]
PA Media has a quick snap that a 46-year-old man has been arrested after MP Mike Freer received a threatening phone call last week. The Conservative minister announced at the start of this month that he will stand down at the next general election, citing a series of death threats and an arson attack on his constituency office.
Rees-Mogg says 'age of Davos man is over' as he attacks ECHR, WHO and COP at PopCons
Former minister for Brexit opportunities Jacob Rees-Mogg was one of the main speakers at the launch of the “Popular Conservatism movement” in London today, and he named the ECHR, World Health Organization and Cop as he attacked “international cabals and quangos telling hundreds of millions of people how to lead their lives”.
Declaring that the “age of Davos man is over”, and championing the protests of French farmers, he said that around the world millions of voters have had enough of an “internationalist, unaccountable approach to governing”, also citing the election results in Argentina.
Rees-Mogg said bodies such as the World Health Organization and Cop climate summit “limit our freedom for manoeuvre”.
“We have to restore power to our democratic institutions and take it away from those that seek to override democracy,” he told the event.
Judges are tied to the “international elite”, and “unaccountable, unelected” quangos are “plugged into EU lawmaking,” he said. “We need to re-establish the traditional relationship between the judiciary and parliament.”
He said that popular conservatism is about giving voters “freedom over their lives and taking it away from the unaccountable, the faceless, the bureaucrat and the pious platitudes of pompous politicians which have been running this country for too long.”
He added “Popular conservatism is the answer and we should be a patriot of this nation alone. A friend of every country, but conscious of the one that is ours and whose interests we must put first.”
Liz Truss says Sunak’s government has failed to take on 'left-wing extremists'
Former prime minister Liz Truss has told the PopCons event in London that Britons want to see lower immigration and want illegal immigrants deported, but that ministers’ efforts are “constantly being stymied”, and that “Conservatives have not taken on the left-wing extremists.”
Saying that for two decades Tories had tried to “appease these people”, and also argued that ministers have “responsibility without having power”, because of institutions having greater sway.
“I’m afraid we have not taken on the left enough” she said.
She claimed the ideology of leftists disguising themselves as environmentalists is about “taking power away from families and giving it to the state and unelected bodies” and is drowning out the need for cheaper energy, and hit out at the government for “pandering to the anti-capitalists”, while ordinary people believe “the wokery that is going on is nonsense”. She said “wokeism seems to be on the curriculum” in schools.
Truss, who became prime minister after being appointed by the Conservative party as leader, said “We need to restore faith in democracy and we can only do that by restoring democratic accountability”.
She said “the left have been on the march” in UK institutions, in the corporate world and globally, but “Britain is full of secret Conservative forces” of people who are ashamed to admit their values, and that the PopCons group must rally them.
Rishi Sunak told BBC Radio 5 Live this morning “I’m not a betting person and I was taken totally by surprise in the middle of that interview” after the fierce backlash to him appearing to accept a £1,000 bet over the success of the government’s Rwanda deportation scheme with broadcaster Piers Morgan.
Which is making it slightly awkward that lots of people have pointed out that in July last year he spoke on the BBC’s Test Match Special View from the Boundary podcast with Johnathan Agnew and explained how much he had enjoyed spread betting on cricket.
In the clip doing the rounds on social media he told Agnew:
It was around that time that spread betting had become a thing online. I had certainly never done it before. I was sitting there working on one side doing my investing finance job, and on the other screen – it is quite helpful in those jobs you have multiple screens – I was doing next wicket partnership, next wicket fall, innings total. I just discovered this thing and it was great, so I had the summer doing that as well.
It is worth noting, perhaps, that in the interview he was talking specifically about a period of time when he was living in the US, and came back to the UK for the summer doing an internship, during the 2005 Ashes series, and preceded the anecdote by saying discovering spread betting “was quite dangerous”. The segment starts at 9’20” here.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is up speaking in the House of Commons at the moment for oral questions for the Treasury.
Cross-party tributes paid in Northern Ireland assembly after former Irish taoiseach John Bruton dies aged 76
Just a quick note that former taoiseach John Bruton has died aged 76 after a long illness, his family has confirmed.
A statement from the Bruton family, released by Fine Gael on Tuesday, said: “It is with deep sadness we wish to announce the death of former taoiseach John Bruton. He died peacefully in the Mater private hospital in Dublin, surrounded by his loving family, early this morning following a long illness. He was a good husband, a good father and a true patriot. We will miss him greatly.”
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson is among those who have already paid tribute, posting on social media to say “So sorry to hear of the passing of former taoiseach John Bruton. John was a gentleman who as prime minister reached out to unionists to try and gain a better understanding of our position and to encourage practical cooperation. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.”
Northern Ireland first minister Michelle O’Neill (Sinn Féin) expressed her condolences to the Bruton family, speaking in the recently reconvened Assembly, saying: “I want to pass on my condolences to the family of former taoiseach John Bruton, who we’ve just been notified has sadly passed away. To his family and friends, we send them our condolences at this very sad time.”
Deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly (DUP) also expressed her condolences, while speaker of the Northern Ireland assembly Edwin Poots (DUP) said he will write to the Bruton family to express his condolences.
Bruton was leader of Fine Gael from 1990 to 2001 and taoiseach from 1994 until 1997
Starmer says he will 'fight fire with fire' in election campaign
In his interview with Times Radio earlier today, Labour’s leader Keir Starmer has said he expects the Conservative party to “go low” during the forthcoming election campaign, because they aren’t in a position to defend their record in government, but said he would “fight fire with fire”.
He told Kate McCann:
I’m going to be up against an opponent, a Conservative party, that the prime minister can’t go to the country on their record, they can’t say, look, we’ve delivered all these brilliant things over 14 years. Vote us back in to keep delivering. They couldn’t do that with a straight face.
They can’t go to the country saying, we’ve got great leadership because they burned through five prime ministers. And the chop and change is a laughing stock across the world.
So they inevitably will go to, you know, culture wars and go low. I don’t want to have the argument there, but what I will say is I’ll fight fire with fire, because this election is too important for me to back off.
So I’m very happy to have a positive argument. But I will absolutely be fighting fire with fire because I have done everything I can to change this Labour party in four short years, and I’ve shown a ruthlessness and a determination to do so.
That will be the same mindset to changing our country for the better, so that I hope we can have an interview in four or five years’ time. And I can say to you … most of the change that you and others challenged me couldn’t be done, we’ve actually done.
The PopCon gathering, a new grouping of Conservative MPs and supporters, is taking place in London. Nigel Farage is also there, and perhaps unsurprisingly, is speaking to all and sundry of the media in attendance – I’ve already seen clips of him speaking to LBC and GBNews on social media. He also had some words for PA. He told them:
I’m motivated and interested by ideas. That’s why I was in Ukip and not the Conservative party. I suspect I would agree with a lot of what is said on the platform this morning, but none of it is going to be Conservative manifesto policy.
And that’s really the point here. Whilst there were some big names like Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg – I saw Priti Patel coming into the audience earlier – they are a very small minority within the parliamentary Conservative party.
He went on to say the party is now “so far away from the centre of gravity of most Conservative voters, it is almost untrue”.
In one of its tweets/Xs ahead of the event, the organisers said of today “on Tuesday the fight back begins”. The Conservatives have been in power for 14 years, and during that time Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel all held multiple roles in government.
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor
Health and social care spending will fall in Scotland in real terms this year, breaking a significant political promise from the Scottish National party, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
MSPs at Holyrood are currently examining next year’s Scottish budget before a final vote on the full package later this month, with Humza Yousaf’s government again putting substantial stress on protecting NHS spending in the next financial year.
Yet in a quite striking finding, the IFS has asserted that in real terms, the overall budget for the NHS will fall by 0.7% when additional spending on health and social care since last year’s budget was passed are included. Official budget documents say health spending will grow by 1.3% year on year, including the effects of inflation.
The IFS also argues the Scottish government’s presentation of the situation for councils is “seriously misleading.”
The budget papers say council funding will increase by 6.2% in real terms compared to last year’s budget, after years of cumulative cuts. But counting in-year increases last year, and the fact councils will have additional spending “burdens” from April onwards, the IFS argues the actual real terms increase is closer to 1.8%.
David Phillips, an associate director at the IFS who specialises in devolved government spending, said that overall the budget papers give a “misleading impression” of actual funding next year. He said:
“The Scottish government has argued that comparing its latest spending plans for one year with its initial budgets for the next year is problematic. It says this ignores the fact that plans in the next year can change too. And yes, they often do. But plans are plans, and at present the latest stated plan is to spend less on health next year than was spent this year.”
The government insists that comparing budget figures is valid, but agreed actual spending would change. “As this IFS report acknowledges, additional in-year funding is crucial to maintaining that real-terms growth, requiring the UK government to prioritise additional funding for health over the course of the year,” a spokesman said.
You can find the IFS report here.
The first preliminary hearing for module 5 of the UK Covid-19 inquiry is under way. There is a live stream that you can watch on YouTube here.
This module will ultimately be of considerable interest, one would imagine, as it “will consider and make recommendations regarding the procurement and distribution to end-users across the four nations of the UK of key healthcare related equipment and supplies, including PPE, ventilators and oxygen.”
It will also “assess the robustness and effectiveness of procurement processes, the adequacy of the items obtained (including their specification, quality and volume) and the effectiveness of their distribution to the end-user. It will also consider the UK-wide procurement of lateral flow tests and PCR tests.”
The live stream does contain the warning “occasional strong language may form part of evidence”, although we aren’t expecting any of that today from Lady Heather Hallett who will make opening remarks.
Here is a little bit more from political correspondent Ben Quinn on the news that former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is to stand down as an MP:
The MP’s announcement came as a reminder of the debacle of the ill-fated “mini-budget” under the short-lived government of Liz Truss, hours before Truss was to launch a rightwing Conservative movement called PopCon joined by other senior figures from the party.
His has been a generally safe Conservative seat, returning a Labour MP only once in more than 100 years, and Kwarteng secured a majority of 18,393 at the last election.
Truss and Kwarteng had once been close but the MP, who was sacked in 2022 by her after only 38 days as chancellor, has since made critical comments, such as that she was “not wired” to be prime minister.
As chancellor, Kwarteng was accused of delivering a reckless mini-budget for the rich after his £45bn tax-cutting package sent the pound crashing to its lowest level against the dollar in 37 years.
He has since declared thousands of pounds from media appearances and was due to start advising the Australian iron ore miner Fortescue on its clean energy ambitions from last year October – one year after his disastrous mini-budget crashed the pound.
Read more here: Kwasi Kwarteng to stand down as MP at next election
Popular Conservatism's director Mark Littlewood says his new group wants to influence what's in Tory manifesto
The new Popular Conservatism group being launched later this morning wants to influence what is in the Tory manifesto at the next election, Mark Littlewood, its director, said this morning.
The group is associated with Liz Truss, the former PM, who is speaking at the launch. In an interview with Times Radio, Littlewood insisted that Truss was not the group’s leader. But he went on:
I think the lessons we can draw from her very short time in office are important lessons for Conservatives who want to change Britain, want to see taxes come down.
He also said the group was interested in ideas, and “what might go into party manifestos at the next election”.
Littlewood, a former head of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a libertarian thinktank, set out more about the aims of the Popular Conservatism movement in an article in the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend. He said:
We need to break the business model of the anti-free-speech warriors who want to cancel everyone for everything. I do not want to live in a country where people are scared to voice their opinions or politicians cannot legislate to stop young children being socially transitioned at schools because of the Equality Act.
This agenda has gone too far. It is time we repealed the Equality Act and rooted out all the taxpayers’ money that is being poured into diversity and inclusivity projects.
We need to dismantle the tools being used by the detached elites to tell us how to think and speak. At present, debate is stifled, voices are silenced and division is sowed …
Conservatives want power transferred to families, communities, businesses and individuals, instead – but the institutional infrastructure that has grown up in the past two or three decades mitigates against that. If we don’t have a plan to tackle these impediments to freedom, achieving Conservative outcomes will forever feel like pushing water uphill.
This is why I am launching a new grassroots movement of Popular Conservatism this week, alongside senior Conservative MPs and some newly selected candidates. PopCon’s mission is twofold: first, to inform and educate candidates and MPs about the need to reform Britain’s bureaucratic structures to allow Conservatives values to flourish. And second, to advance these policies across the country, whilst demonstrating their popularity.
I’m handing over to Martin Belam now. I will be back this afternoon.
Starmer says he's 'unwavering' in determination to deliver green energy, which will need borrowing to invest
Keir Starmer has insisted that he is “unwavering” in his determination to deliver green energy for Britain, and that this will in involve borrowing.
In an interview with Times Radio, he also restated Labour’s desire to get annual green investment up to £28bn a year – although he stressed that was dependent on the party’s fiscal rules.
Labour has now dropped £28bn a year as a cast-iron commitment, and the shadow Treasury team are reluctant to quote the figure at all. This has led to claims that the party is watering down its green energy pledge.
But Starmer insisted this morning he was still determined to deliver on his pledge to make electricity generation zero-carbon by 2030. Referring to the clean energy mission, he said:
We’re going to need investment, that’s where the £28bn comes in. That investment that is desperately needed for that mission.
You can only understand the investment argument by understanding that we want to have clean power by 2030 … We need to borrow to invest to do that.
That’s a principle I believe in and I’m absolutely happy to go out and defend. And of course, what we’ve said as we’ve got closer to the operationalisation of this, is it has to be ramped up, the money has to be ramped up… and everything is subject to our fiscal rules.
Starmer also said he had “been unwavering in relation to the mission – clean power by 2030”.
Updated
Kwasi Kwarteng is the 54th Tory MP to say they are standing down at the next election, according to this House of Commons library briefing which contains a spreadsheet listing all MPs, from all parties, who have said they are leaving parliament.
Kwasi Kwarteng to stand down as MP at next election
Kwasi Kwarteng, whose career as chancellor under Liz Truss was even shorter than hers as prime minister, because she sacked him after his mini-budget triggered the economic turmoil that brought down her government, has announced he is standing down as an MP at the next election.
He has posted this on X.
Yesterday I informed my Association Chair of my decision not to stand at the next General Election. It has been an honour to serve the residents of Spelthorne since 2010, and I shall continue to do so for the remainder of my time in parliament.
Yesterday I informed my Association Chair of my decision not to stand at the next General Election. It has been an honour to serve the residents of Spelthorne since 2010, and I shall continue to do so for the remainder of my time in Parliament.
— Kwasi Kwarteng (@KwasiKwarteng) February 6, 2024
Kwarteng was elected MP for Spelthorne in Surrey in 2010. At the last election he had a majority of 18,393.
Updated
Sunak tries to explain shaking hands on £1,000 Rwanda policy bet by saying he was 'taken totally by surprise' in interview
Good morning. Rishi Sunak gave an interview to Rachel Burden on Radio 5 Live this morning and he was asked about a £1,000 bet he appeared to accept from Piers Morgan about the success of his Rwanda policy. The move has been widely condemned as distasteful. Sunak did not argue that he did not accept the bet. (We saw him shake hands on it, although at the same time he was avoiding confirming verbally that he accepted Morgan’s challenge.) But this morning he did imply that he was bounced into it. He said that, twice, that he was taken “totally by surprise” and he insisted that betting wasn’t his thing. He said:
I’m not a betting person and I was taken totally by surprise in the middle of that interview.
Asked if it was a mistake, he said:
No, well the point I was trying to get across – as I was taken totally by surprise – the point I was trying to get across was actually about the Rwanda policy and about tackling illegal migration because it’s something I care deeply about.
Obviously people have strong views on this and I just was underlining my absolute commitment to this policy and my desire to get it through parliament, up and running, because I believe you need to have a deterrent.
Burden then put it to him that casually shaking hands of a £1,000 bet, when that sum is worth more than the combined cost of the three cost of living payments being given to low-income families (the final payments start going out today) suggested he did not really understand the pressures people were facing. Sunak said that he was being asked about the Rwanda policy, and that he wanted to stress that he was totally committed to it.
On cost of living, Sunak insisted that he did understand the pressures people were facing, and he claimed his record showed that.
When it comes to cost of living, when I first got this job I set out five priorities – the first of them was to halve inflation because I absolutely understood that the cost of living was the most pressing problem most families faced.
The Liberal Democrats were not impressed by Sunak’s explanation. Responding to this morning’s interview, Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said:
Rishi Sunak either does not care or does not get it. As the prime minister buries his head in the sand and pretends everything is fine, people across the country are suffering.
Most people when they are hit with a surprise £1,000 bill worry about how they are going to make their next mortgage payments or put food on the table for their children.
Instead, the prime minister does not even register the significance of that amount of money. Out of touch does not even begin to describe Sunak.
The prime minister’s cold soundbites that everything is working simply do not survive contact with reality.
I’m Andrew Sparrow and I will be here until 10am, when Martin Belam will be taking over the blog. I will be back to pick it up in the afternoon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.
10.30am: Heather Hallett, chair of the Covid inquiry, makes an introductory statement at a procedural hearing about the module 5 stage of the inquiry, covering procurement.
11am: Liz Truss, the former PM, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, and Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chair, speak at the launch of a new group called Popular Conservatism.
11.15am: Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons, gives evidence to the Commons standards committee on disciplinary processes in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.
2.30pm: Edward Argar, the prisons minister, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
Updated
