Closing summary …
We will be wrapping this blog up shortly. Here are the main political headlines of the day …
The owner of Port Talbot steelworks has confirmed that the plant’s two blast furnaces will shut down, in what unions have described as an “absolute disgrace” that will cost up to 2,800 jobs directly and many more in the south Wales community. Rishi Sunak insisted that the government’s investment showed it was “absolutely committed” to British steelmaking, but Keir Starmer is urging the government to take another look at the plan proposed by steel unions that would have saved thousands of jobs
A Fujitsu boss condemned the “shameful” editing of witness statements and said the company had “clearly let society down” while appearing before the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry. He also offered an apology for what he described as an “appalling miscarriage of justice”.
Downing Street added to an earlier Sunak statement that he was “determined” to get the Rwanda bill through parliament “as quickly as possible” by saying it was “confident” Rwanda would implement improved measures into its asylum system in time for a new treaty with the UK being ratified by parliament.
The Home Office has hired an aircraft hangar and aeroplane body to train security staff on how to deport people, as the UK government increases the number of people it forcibly removes each year.
Sunak added to speculation on pre-election tax cuts by saying there was “more to come” if voters stuck with the Conservatives. Speaking to broadcasters during his visit to Hampshire, Sunak said a 2p cut to the main rate of national insurance that came into force this month had been a “tax cut for 27 million people in work”. Inflation unexpectedly jumped on Wednesday, and this morning figures revealed retailers in Great Britain suffered a dire Christmas, with shops recording the biggest fall in monthly sales since closing during the pandemic.
The defence secretary, Grant Shapps, posted on social media that yesterday he visited HMS Diamond, which is deployed in the Red Sea and has been one of the vessels involved in UK strikes against Yemen’s Houthis.
Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of “a shocking betrayal of the people of Scotland” as it emerged that the former first minister, along with other senior ministers and health officials, deleted all their WhatsApp messages related to the Covid pandemic.
Three victims of IRA bombings in London and Manchester can sue Gerry Adams in a personal capacity for damages, a high court judge has ruled.
Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said he will introduce “pragmatic, appropriate and limited” legislation to try to break the political deadlock there which has been preventing Stormont from meeting since May 2022.
The European court of human rights (ECHR) has issued a press release stating that Ireland has lodged an inter-state application against the UK over the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.
Churn in the UK’s civil service is at its highest level since 2010 aside from its post-pandemic peak, with almost 12% of Whitehall staff changing department or leaving the government workforce in the year to the end of March, according to an analysis.
Thank you for reading today. I will be back with you bright and early on Monday.
Key points from Fujitsu CEO appearance at Post Office Horizon IT inquiry
Today’s session of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry was dedicated to hearing evidence from Fujitsu’s Europe chief, Paul Patterson. Here are the key points that emerged …
Patterson said it is “shameful and appalling” that courts hearing cases against Post Office operators over missing funds were not told of 29 bugs identified as early as 1999 in the accounting system it built.
When bugs were acknowledged, witness statements from Fujitsu staff due to be heard in court were then edited by the Post Office as it sought to maintain the line that the system was working well as it pursued innocent people through the courts. Patterson agreed that both organisations had failed the accused.
Patterson said Fujitsu had “let society down” and that the company would contribute to a fund to compensate “victims of this crime” although he admitted to not having met a single Post Office operator as he had not believed it appropriate.
Patterson said there was “evidence” that Fujitsu employees had a “don’t share with the Post Office” approach to a document chronicling the known errors in the system.
He said the “vast majority” of bugs, errors and defects (BEDs) in the Horizon system were shared with the Post Office contemporaneously. But Post Office operators were not informed about known errors nor provided with the accessible raw data. Patterson admitted that Fujitsu’s witness statements in support of Post Office cases in the criminal and civil courts were misleading.
Fujitsu had previously described its audit data as “gold standard”. Pressed on this, Patterson responded: “No, it wasn’t.”
Patterson, the most senior Fujitsu Services Ltd director, who started his career at the company in sales, had opened his evidence with an apology to the men and women pursued by the Post Office with the assistance of his company.
Patterson said: “To the subpostmasters and their families, we apologise, Fujitsu apologises and is sorry for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice. We are determined to support this inquiry and get to the truth, wherever it lies, and at the conclusion of the inquiry and the guidance from this inquiry engage with government on suitable contributions and redress to the subpostmasters and their families.”
You can read Daniel Boffey’s full report on the day’s proceedings here: Post Office IT scandal – Fujitsu boss condemns ‘shameful’ editing of witness statements
Updated
Rowena Mason is the Guardian’s Whitehall editor
Churn in the UK’s civil service is at its highest level since 2010 aside from its post-pandemic peak, with almost 12% of Whitehall staff changing department or leaving the government workforce in the year to the end of March, according to an analysis.
The Institute for Government’s annual Whitehall monitor found there had been a drop since 2022 when, after the worst of the Covid crisis, 13.6% of civil servants left their jobs – but it remained higher than at any point since the Conservatives took power 14 years ago.
In the introduction to the report, Dr Hannah White, the director of the IFG, said: “Staff turnover fell from its immediate post-pandemic peak but remains too high and continues to harm institutional memory. Further real-terms pay cuts continue to hinder the civil service’s ability to attract and retain top talent, as do slow and onerous processes for recruiting from outside government. A worrying fall in staff morale has raised questions about how the institution is led.”
Rhys Clyne, one of the report’s authors, said churn was a serious and longstanding problem in the civil service, and its high level may be related partly to dissatisfaction with pay and levels of morale.
Read more of Rowena Mason’s report here: Staff turnover in UK civil service ‘at highest level since 2010’
The Plaid Cymru leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, has responded to Rishi Sunak’s earlier comments that the government was “absolutely committed” to British steelmaking. He posted to social media:
Hollow words and little action by the prime minister on Tata just won’t cut it. The economic uncertainty his party created is bad enough, let alone the personal uncertainty crippling thousands of workers and their families in Port Talbot and beyond today. The UK government claims it’s committed to the future of steelmaking – at this eleventh hour, the reality must match the rhetoric.
Hollow words and little action by the Prime Minister on Tata just won’t cut it.
— Rhun ap Iorwerth (@RhunapIorwerth) January 19, 2024
The economic uncertainty his party created is bad enough, let alone the personal uncertainty crippling thousands of workers and their families in Port Talbot and beyond today.
1/2 https://t.co/iQl2Trr2Dt
Updated
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is urging the government to take another look at the plan proposed by steel unions that would have saved thousands of jobs at the Tata Steel plant.
Starmer said he was “very concerned” after Tata Steel confirmed plans to close blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot, south Wales.
He told broadcasters:
I was there just in October so I know how this is going to impact on the workforce. The government said it had a plan for steel. It transpires the plan involves thousands of redundancies. There’s a better plan, a multi-union plan, that the government needs to look at again.
That’s a viable way forward. It’s vital we have a viable steel industry in the UK. Labour has got a plan for that viable future, not just for the next year or two but for decades to come.
Updated
One of the main stories today has been the announcement that the Tata Steel blast furnaces at Port Talbot are to close, costing up to 2,800 jobs. Nils Pratley has this analysis of the alternative plan being suggested by unions:
The plan from the Community and GMB unions – rejected as unaffordable by Tata – was not an other-worldly proposal that imagined Port Talbot’s blast furnaces could keep polluting for ever, or that every last job could be preserved (just that compulsory redundancies could be avoided). It made the reasonable-sounding point that an electric arc furnace-only approach carries industrial risks and has uncertain benefits for global emissions reductions. For purer specialist grades, UK manufacturers may end up importing those volumes from blast furnaces elsewhere.
The unions’ proposal called for a two-stage, decade-long transition to “green” steel. In stage one, only one of the blast furnaces – the one that is near the end of its life anyway – would be closed and the other would keep producing until 2032. The output would be replaced by an electric arc furnace half the size of the model proposed by Tata. In the second stage, the other blast furnace would close but the choice of replacement technology would be kept under review. It could be direct reduced iron and hydrogen, the green steel technology that uses raw materials and is being widely adopted in Germany and Scandinavia.
“It is an industrial choice we are making as a country to get rid of blast furnaces,” says Jess Ralston of the independent analysts Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. “The government keeps talking about energy security, but this move is not going to do anything for energy security. It is going to make it worse.”
Read more of Nils Pratley’s analysis here: Tata’s Port Talbot decision goes beyond Wales and even steel
Updated
Fujitsu Europe CEO: company 'let society down' and trust in technology 'has been broken'
The head of Fujitsu Europe, Paul Patterson, has said trust in technology “has been broken” as a result of the Horizon scandal, and offered to meet post office operators who had been affected. He said the company had “clearly let society down”.
At the afternoon session, Patterson was being questioned by Sam Stein KC, a lawyer acting on behalf of post office operators.
Referring to Fujitsu’s online mission statement “to build trust in society through innovation”, Stein asked: “Do you agree, instead, that the combination of Fujitsu and the Post Office’s creation of this scandal has damaged trust in innovation within society?”
Patterson replied: “I think the history of this appalling miscarriage, Mr Stein, would tend to point that yes, trust has been broken and trust in technology and how technology is used and not used.”
Stein later asked: “Will you commit today to meeting with subpostmasters, their legal representatives … and discussing with them the way forward that can assist in seeking to show that Fujitsu means what it says by its apology and by its commitment to provide financial redress?”
Patterson said “I have not met any subpostmasters in the past because I didn’t feel it was appropriate for me to do that. If that is a request from the subpostmasters and their representation, I will absolutely do that.”
During the course of the afternoon session, he said:
This is a decades-old miscarriage which started a long, long time ago and involves many, many people in organisations, in that I think Fujitsu more recently, as we’ve understood more, we have clearly let society down and the subpostmasters down.
I think we had our obligations to the Post Office to be at the front of everything we were doing and that was wrong.
I think subsequently we’ve now seen where the evidence is taking us and the investigation is taking us and that’s why you’ve had the statements from Fujitsu more recently.
I can’t comment on the past, I don’t know why things weren’t done in 1999 or 2005 – I don’t know. But what I can say is that as long as I’m here and doing what I’m doing, I’m going to do everything to make sure that we get to the truth.
Updated
Rowena Mason is the Guardian’s Whitehall editor
Sky have issued a slightly longer version of Rishi Sunak’s awkward encounter with a former health worker challenging him about the struggling state of the NHS, which shows the encounter want on longer than first shown.
In the initially released clip, Sunak was seen being hustled away by aides as the woman said to him “If you had a problem, you could go to the hospital. My daughter spent seven hours waiting ….”
The longer version shows that the prime minister continued talking to her as she carried on walking with him, saying: “I’m sorry to hear that. The key thing is we have resolved all the industrial action apart from the junior doctors who have still not settled yet.”
At the end of the encounter, the woman thanked him and shook his hand.
Sunak had been explaining to the woman that there was progress in reducing the waiting lists before strikes hampered the government’s efforts to bring them down last year.
A No 10 source said the interaction had ended cordially and pointed out that they had carried on walking and talking together.
The footage had been captured by an off-duty Sky News camera operator.
Asked about the incident, the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, told broadcasters: “It further reinforces, I think, what many people across the country think: that this prime minister doesn’t talk to people, doesn’t engage, doesn’t understand what so many people are going through.
“We have a terrible problem with our waiting lists and that is why we have been really clear that we would get rid of the non-dom tax status where the super-rich don’t pay their tax in this country, and use that to bring down those waiting lists … We have got a plan, we engage with people over our plan, we don’t laugh and walk away.”
Updated
Labour: Sturgeon's deleted Covid WhatsApp messages are 'shocking betrayal of people of Scotland'
Libby Brooks is Scotland correspondent
There has been a furious response across the political spectrum to the official confirmation that the former first minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon and her deputy John Swinney deleted their Covid messages – and that the national clinical director, Jason Leitch, joked in a group chat about his “pre-bed ritual” of deletion. [See 14.24 GMT]
The Scottish Labour deputy Jackie Baillie described the news as “a shocking betrayal of the people of Scotland”, and said it “shows the lengths that Nicola Sturgeon is prepared to go to in order to prevent justice for Covid-bereaved families”.
The Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, said both Sturgeon and Swinney “have huge questions to answer over their conduct in the wake of this devastating revelation”, adding that their actions “beg a very simple question: what were they trying to hide? Shamefully and outrageously for families of those who died during the pandemic, we may never know.”
In December, the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, told the Covid inquiry he was not advised that he should save WhatsApp messages from his phone, even after it was set up, and claimed he had no messages remaining from the pandemic period.
Sturgeon herself has previously responded through a spokesperson: “Any messages she had she handled and dealt with in line with the Scottish government policies. Nicola has provided a number of written statements to the UK inquiry – totally hundreds of pages – and welcomes the opportunity to give oral evidence to the inquiry again next month when she will answer all questions put to her.”
Updated
There has been some reaction to that awkward interaction between Rishi Sunak and a woman in Winchester over the NHS, where the prime minister appeared to laugh at her suggestion he could put the NHS back to how it was and then walk away from her.
Exclusive footage of Rishi Sunak challenged this morning by a former health worker on the state of the NHS, - captured by an off duty @skynews camera operator pic.twitter.com/aN8QKTjnH4
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) January 19, 2024
The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said: “Rishi Sunak has no idea of the misery NHS patients are going through. When patients try to tell him, he laughs in their faces and walks away. When Sunak asks for their vote later this year, he will get a taste of his own medicine.”
The Liberal Democrat Christine Jardine accused the prime minister of “laughing in the face of a former health worker whilst they are trying to explain to him the dire straits the NHS” is in, calling it “frankly shocking”.
The woman had been saying to Sunak: “You could make it all go back to how it used to be … where, if you had a problem, you could go to the hospital. My daughter spent seven hours waiting.”
PA Media has put together some facts and figures on NHS waiting lists in England, which Sunak’s government is responsible for. The prime minister had been trying to tell the woman that the backlog of cases in the NHS had been going down during the periods there were not strikes.
It reports about 6.39 million patients across England were waiting for routine hospital treatment in November, figures suggest, which was down slightly from 6.44 million in October.
But the NHS in England is still failing to hit most of its key performance targets, with 11,168 people waiting more than 18 months to start routine hospital treatment at the end of November, up from the previous month.
A&E times also worsened in England, with 69.4% of patients seen within four hours in December, down from 69.7% in November and against a target set for March this year of 76%.
Health has been a primarily devolved matter for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland since 1999.
Updated
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has wrapped up for the day. Paul Patterson, Fujitsu’s Europe CEO, has been told he can expect to be recalled at a later date. He is told he is released as a witness for now, so that he is able to talk to his team in order to answer questions and make such further inquiries as the proceedings may require. The presiding retired judge high court judge Sir Wyn Williams said it wouldn’t be practical in these circumstances to do anything else.
The inquiry will resume on Tuesday at 10am with a session featuring Robert Daily – a former Post Office investigator involved in the criminal investigation of Peter Holmes and William Quarm – in a section titled “Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions in Scotland and Northern Ireland” which is expected to last two weeks.
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is continuing. Fujitsu Europe CEO Paul Patterson has just told the session he was surprised that Fujitsu was offering, and being paid, to send expert witnesses to Post Office prosecution cases. There is a stream you can watch here.
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon deleted all her Covid WhatsApp messages, inquiry told
Libby Brooks is Scotland correspondent
With the UK Covid inquiry still taking evidence in Scotland, today’s hearing in Edinburgh has been told that the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon did not keep any of her Covid WhatsApp messages.
The startling revelation came from Lesley Fraser, the director general corporate of the Scottish government, who said messages were deleted “in routine tidying up of inboxes or changes of phones” but that Sturgeon would have worked with her private office and those instructions would be retained.
This is the first official confirmation that Sturgeon did not keep any of her pandemic messages – she previously refused to clarify to journalists whether she had deleted messages, while insisting she had “nothing to hide”, and it also contradicts the commitment she made in August 2021 when she announced there would be a Scottish Covid inquiry and pledged to disclose her private messages.
The inquiry was also told that the former deputy first minister John Swinney had set up an auto-delete function whilst the national clinical director Jason Leitch had sent a message to a colleague stating that “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual”.
Asked by Jamie Dawson KC for the inquiry if the Scottish government’s record retention policies “were simply not fit for purpose” during the pandemic, Fraser said she did not accept this but understood “hurt and frustration” about not being able to access WhatsApp messages and the policies should be reviewed.
Also giving evidence, Ken Thomson, the former manager of the Covid Coordination Directorate of the Scottish government, said that Sturgeon “did not take a decision in informal messaging”. He told the inquiry: “It would be very rare that she would message me at all, never mind to make a decision.”
Updated
Rishi Sunak challenged by member of the public over state of NHS
Here is a clip you might see a few times between now and the election. Rishi Sunak was speaking to a woman about the NHS earlier today, arguing that when there weren’t strikes the backlog was going down. She said to him that he could put things back to how they used to be, to which he laughed, and then as she began to explain about an NHS experience her daughter had, Sunak was hustled away by his team.
Exclusive footage of Rishi Sunak challenged this morning by a former health worker on the state of the NHS, - captured by an off duty @skynews camera operator pic.twitter.com/aN8QKTjnH4
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) January 19, 2024
Updated
Daniel Boffey, our chief reporter, has also been watching the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry this morning, and here is an excerpt from his report:
The public inquiry, led by the retired high court judge Sir Wyn Williams, heard that 29 bugs and defects in the system were identified from as early as November 1999 and they led to false records being posted.
The Fujitsu Europe chief executive, Paul Patterson, said there was evidence that Fujitsu employees had a “don’t share with the Post Office” approach to a document chronicling the known errors in the system.
“In your reading of the materials in your investigation of the issues … did you notice any reluctance on the part of Fujitsu in the past to reveal the existence of a thing called the known error log?” the counsel to the inquiry, Jason Beer, asked.
Patterson responded: “There is, in the submission to the inquiry today … there is evidence of that ‘don’t share with the Post Office yet’ – I don’t know the individual situation where it was subsequently shared with the PO but there was certainly those.”
Read more of Daniel Boffey’s report here: Post Office IT scandal – Fujitsu boss condemns ‘shameful’ editing of witness statements
Updated
Just a little bit more here from this morning’s session of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, where Fujitsu’s European boss Paul Patterson admitted the ARQ auditing data accessible to post office operators during criminal proceedings was not “sufficient … to understand whether Horizon was operating correctly at the relevant branch”.
PA reports a Post Office expert had previously described Fujitsu’s audit data as a “secure gold standard for branch accounts” during high court proceedings.
In his witness statement, Patterson said of the ARQ data: “Fujitsu cannot confirm that ARQ data on its own was sufficient to enable a postmaster to understand whether Horizon was operating correctly at the relevant branch in the time period covered by the ARQ data requested by (the Post Office).”
Addressing the issue, the counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC said: “I think you would agree that the provision of the ARQ data in the form that it was provided and the extent that it was provided was not really the gold standard at all.”
Patterson replied: “No, it wasn’t.” Offered the alternatives of “bronze standard or copper standard”, Patterson said, “I wouldn’t use that characterisation at all”. Beer then suggested “Pewter?”
Updated
The defence secretary, Grant Shapps, has posted on social media that yesterday he visited HMS Diamond, which is deployed in the Red Sea and has been one of the vessels involved in UK strikes against Yemen’s Houthis. He thanked the Royal Navy for defending “freedom of navigation”.
Yesterday I visited @HMSDiamond in the Red Sea to thank the Ship's Company for their incredible work defending Freedom Of Navigation, saving innocent lives and ensuring merchant shipping is protected from the illegal Houthi attacks. Thank you Royal Navy. https://t.co/qnOEwDV2iT
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) January 19, 2024
Updated
Sam Fowles was part of the legal team that successfully overturned the convictions of 39 post office operators in the court of appeal in 2021, and he has written for the Guardian today:
Ministers (at least in public) are now railing against Fujitsu. Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, suggested the company may have to repay the “fortune” spent on the scandal. The business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, has “demanded” talks about Fujitsu’s contribution to the compensation scheme for victims. Any attempt by the government to use the courts to force Fujitsu to pay up will face headwinds. [Fujitsu’s European boss] Paul Patterson told MPs that Fujitsu had a “moral obligation” to contribute to the compensation scheme. His choice of language is telling; the words allow Fujitsu to appear contrite without admitting any legal – and therefore enforceable – liability.
Read more from Sam Fowles’ opinion piece here: Fujitsu will never be held accountable for the Post Office scandal. It is too important to this government
Updated
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has broken for lunch and will resume at 2pm.
Paul Patterson told the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry he was “surprised” that details of bugs, errors and defects (BEDs) in the scandal-hit software were not included in witness statements for criminal proceedings against post office operators.
The Fujitsu director said some witness statements used in the prosecutions of post office operators were “misleading” as they did not mention that the company provided incomplete audit data to the Post Office.
Patterson also told the inquiry he did not believe Fujitsu “knew at the time” that the Post Office was prosecuting post office operators based on the inaccurate data it was providing to them.
The morning session established that when handing data over to the Post Office, “members of the [Fujitsu] SSC (software support centre) undertook a process of filtering ARQ (audit) data before it was provided to the Post Office, and that filtering of data meant that some relevant data may not have been provided to the Post Office”.
Witness statements used in the prosecution, however, “give the impression that all the raw data” had been passed over.
The counsel to the inquiry went on: “So if the evidence that we’ve heard from Fujitsu witnesses this week is correct, then a witness statement that followed the template and didn’t mention the filtering out exercise, would mean that the witness statement was false and misleading by omission, wouldn’t it?”
Patterson said: “I think the witness statement generally needed to be more comprehensive and it absolutely missed those points you’ve just alluded to and it would be misleading.”
The statutory inquiry, which began in 2021, was established to ensure there was a “public summary of the failings which occurred with the Horizon IT system at the Post Office” and which subsequently led to the wrongful convictions of post office operators.
The Post Office began rolling out the Horizon IT system in 1999, and prosecutions continued until 2015, despite the apparent knowledge there were flaws in the system. Patterson has been CEO of Fujitsu Europe since July 2019.
Updated
The Wales Green Party leader, Anthony Slaughter has said it is “unacceptable” that the government is allowing Tata to cut so many jobs in Port Talbot, by not following the alternatives proposed by the GMB and Community unions.
Slaughter says:
This is devastating news for the local community and beyond. Wales knows only too well what happens when communities are abandoned by government and industries. We saw it with the coal industry and now it is happening again with the steel industry. Decarbonisation of industry is vital, but communities and people’s jobs must be protected.
The GMB and Community unions say it is “extremely disappointing” that Tata rejected its proposal to keep blast furnaces running.
In a joint statement, describing the decision as “an absolute disgrace”, the unions say:
It’s unbelievable any government would give a company £500m to throw 3,000 workers on the scrapheap, and our government must re-evaluate its miserly offer to support investment at Tata Steel. The German, French and Spanish governments are all committing billions to secure the future of their strategically important steel industries, and our government must show similar ambition.
A UK government spokesperson has said there is help available for those losing their jobs in Port Talbot.
Follow the latest developments with the Tata Steel plant with Graeme Wearden: Tata Steel accused of ‘industrial vandalism’ over plan to cut up to 2,800 UK jobs – business live
Updated
A planned strike by thousands of construction workers at energy sites across the UK has been called off, PA Media reports.
More than 3,000 workers at Stanlow, Fawley, Valero, Grangemouth and Mossmorran oil refineries, as well as at Sellafield nuclear facility had voted in favour of industrial action.
Unions said they had accepted a pay deal worth more than 17% over two years, with improvements to sick pay and other allowances.
Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national officer, said: “These skilled workers have fought for the pay rise they so richly deserve. They should be rightly proud of themselves.”
Downing Street: PM 'confident' Rwanda will implement improved measures in its asylum system
Downing Street has added to Rishi Sunak’s earlier statement that he was “determined” to get the Rwanda bill through parliament “as quickly as possible” by saying it was “confident” Rwanda would implement improved measures into its asylum system in time for a new treaty with the UK being ratified by parliament.
The House of Lords international agreements committee said “significant legal and practical steps” must be taken before Rwanda can be deemed safe and the treaty approved by Westminster.
Asked whether ministers would be following through on the committee’s recommendations, the prime minister’s spokesperson said:
So I think more broadly on the process, we will let it follow its course as it is looked at in the Lords. We will consider issues that are raised – motions and amendments – in the usual way.
In terms of the improvements and the assurances that we have with the government of Rwanda, we are confident that there will be implementation of all of those measures in line with the timelines for the treaty.
So those assurances that we provided, which responded to issues raised by the supreme court, will be in place when we get flights off the ground.
The spokesperson declined to get into speculation about how the government might react to changes to the bill introduced during its passage, saying: “I’m not going to get ahead of parliamentary processes and processes in the Lords – that starts to get into hypotheticals.”
Earlier today the prime minister said:
In order to fully solve this problem we need to have a deterrent, so that when people come here illegally they won’t be able to stay and will be removed.
That is why the Rwanda scheme is so important, and that’s why I’m determined to get it through parliament and get it up and running as quickly as possible so we can properly solve this problem.
In November, five judges at the supreme court unanimously upheld an appeal court ruling that found there was a real risk of deported refugees having their claims in the east African country wrongly assessed or being returned to their country of origin to face persecution.
Updated
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has restarted. Fujitsu Europe’s CEO is giving evidence. You can watch it here:
Here is political correspondent Kiran Stacey’s report on the Home Office hiring an air hangar to practise deportations:
The Home Office has hired an aircraft hangar and aeroplane body to train security staff on how to deport people, as the UK government increases the number of people it forcibly removes each year.
Officials confirmed on Friday the department had increased its capacity to train officials to carry out deportations, including how to handle people who physically resist. Details of the expansion of the programme were first reported by the Times. The specialist training, which the government has carried out for years, will also be given to staff who deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
A Home Office spokesperson said:
Since 2015, the government has had training facilities to ensure escorts can respond professionally to the challenges of removing people with no right to be in the UK. This includes practical sessions so escorts have the skills they need to deal with different scenarios. As we ramp up removal activity we will continue to ensure new escorts have the training facilities necessary.
A government source said the department had recently hired the hangar and fuselage so that staff could practise accompanying people on to planes and learn what to do if they resisted, either by fighting back or refusing to move.
It comes as the government steadily increases the number of people it deports after a sharp drop during Covid and as a result of the new returns deal with Albania. In the year to March 2023, Britain forcibly returned 4,193 people, nearly a third more than in the previous 12 months.
Read more here: Home Office hires hangar for staff to practise Rwanda deportations
Updated
Sunak hints 'more to come' on tax cuts following Hunt's comments in Davos
During his media appearance this morning, Rishi Sunak added to speculation on pre-election tax cuts by saying there was “more to come” if voters stuck with the Conservatives.
Speaking to broadcasters during his visit to Hampshire, Sunak said a 2p cut to the main rate of national insurance that came into force this month had been a “tax cut for 27 million people in work”.
He continued:
And we said that we do want to cut taxes for future events when we can responsibly do so. Our priorities are very clear. It is controlling spending and welfare so that we can cut people’s taxes. The plan is working, because we are already doing it – stick with it and there is more to come.
Inflation unexpectedly jumped on Wednesday, and this morning figures revealed retailers in Great Britain suffered a dire Christmas, with shops recording the biggest fall in monthly sales since closing during the pandemic.
Yesterday, speaking in Davos, where he was attending the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said:
In terms of the direction of travel, we look around the world and we note that the economies growing faster than us in North America and Asia tend to have lower taxes, and I believe fundamentally that low-tax economies are more dynamic, more competitive and generate more money for public services like the NHS. That’s the direction of travel we would like to go in but it is too early to say what we are going to do.”
My colleague, Phillip Inman, writing an analysis piece for the Guardian today, said that the surprise fall in December sales damages the chancellor’s claims that the UK economy is on the right track, and suggests it was probably in recession during the second half of 2023.
Read more of Phillip Inman’s analysis here: Retail slump raises spectre of recession as Hunt looks more Truss-like by the day
Updated
Bugs and errors in Horizon IT system known 'by all parties' for 'many, many years', says Fujitsu Europe CEO
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is taking a break until 11.45am. I would say the main thing we have learned this morning is that Paul Patterson, CEO of Fujitsu’s Europe region, is not the kind of boss who worked their way up from the factory floor starting as an IT developer, as the technical evidence on bugs and defects was a lengthy series of awkward exchanges.
On the business side of things, he described the editing of witness statements that were used to prosecute post office operators to defend the Horizon IT system as “shameful”.
He told the inquiry bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon IT system were known about by “all parties” and had been known for “many, many years”.
He was asked if “each and every bug was notified to the Post Office contemporaneously, or more or less contemporaneously, or is it the case that there may have been some bugs which were not?”
To that he replied: “The vast majority of bugs and errors and defects were shared”, but conceded he didn’t know off the top of his head whether an example shown to the inquiry had been.
The session finished with him being grilled on why, in the process of creating documents outlining the information gathering and disclosure during a prosecution, the list of known bugs and defects wasn’t part of that.
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When asked by the media this morning, Rishi Sunak played down the prospect of packing more peers into the House of Lords in order to pass his controversial Rwanda bill.
Speaking to reporters in Hampshire, he told the PA news agency:
We shouldn’t be talking about these things because the House of Lords will be able to see that this is part of the strong majority in the Commons, they can see that this is a national priority.
And I would urge them strongly to crack on with it because we all just want to get this done.
The country is fed up and frustrated with the merry-go-round on this topic.
I think people can appreciate that we have made progress last year, but we now need to finish the job and that’s why we should pass this scheme as quickly as possible.
The House of Lords has 785 members, making it the second-largest legislative chamber in the world, behind only the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, which numbers nearly 3,000 members.
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Tata Steel confirms plan to close blast furnaces at Port Talbot with 3,000 jobs cut
PA Media has just published a quick snap that Tata Steel has confirmed its plans to close blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs.
You can follow that live with my colleague Graeme Wearden here:
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My colleagues Mark Sweney and Rob Davies have this updated wrap-up of the news on the expected Tata Steel Port Talbot blast furnace shutdown.
The owners of the Port Talbot steelworks are expected to confirm the shutdown of its blast furnaces on Friday morning, putting almost 3,000 jobs at risk.
Trade union representatives have gathered outside the gates of the works in south Wales to protest against the decision, which members have said will be a “crushing blow” to workers and UK steelmaking.
The owners of Port Talbot steelworks have rejected a trade union plan designed to keep its blast furnaces running.
An announcement confirming the decision is expected before midday on Friday, after trading on the stock exchange ends in Mumbai. Shares in Port Talbot’s owner, Indian-owned Tata, rose 2% in trading, ending a two-day decline.
Read Mark Sweney and Rob Davies’ report here: Port Talbot steelworks owners expected to confirm blast furnace shutdown
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Just on Northern Ireland and Stormont for a moment, the Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has said he will introduce “pragmatic, appropriate and limited” legislation to try to break the political deadlock.
He said the legislation would “support Northern Ireland departments to manage the immediate and evident challenges they face in stabilising public services and finances”.
In Northern Ireland this morning, the Belfast Telegraph is reporting, via the BBC Nolan show, that the DUP are to have a “crunch” meeting today. It reports:
A senior source was quoted by the show saying the numbers in the party of those who wished to return to the Assembly compared with those opposed “are so close” and that any vote on returning may come down to one or two individuals.
The source in the show was also quoted as saying: “Get it all up and running by next week and move on from the Windsor framework.”
The assembly in Northern Ireland has been paralysed since May 2022.
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Sunak: I am determined to get Rwanda bill through parliament as quickly as possible
Rishi Sunak has spoken to broadcasters while on a visit to Hampshire, and said he is “determined” to get the Rwanda bill through parliament “as quickly as possible”.
He told the media: “I think it’s really important that we stop the boats, it’s one of the priorities I set out to the country last year.
“I am pleased our plan is working and that we’re making progress. The numbers last year were down by over a third; that hasn’t happened before, so that shows that we can make a difference here.
“In order to fully solve this problem we need to have a deterrent, so that when people come here illegally they won’t be able to stay and will be removed.
“That is why the Rwanda scheme is so important, and that’s why I’m determined to get it through parliament and get it up and running as quickly as possible so we can properly solve this problem.
“We have got a plan, this plan is working, if we stick with it we can deliver the change people want to see.”
Sunak has repeatedly claimed that the government’s plan to deal with asylum seekers and people it says have entered the UK illegally is working, although yesterday he was rebuked by the UK’s statistics watchdog over his boast to have cleared the backlog of asylum claims.
The prime minister had posted on social media to say “the backlog of asylum decisions” had been cleared, but the watchdog states that official figures show that there are nearly 100,000 cases where an initial decision has yet to be made.
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At the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London, Fujitsu’s European boss, Paul Patterson, has reiterated his apology to post office operators, describing the scandal as an “appalling miscarriage of justice”.
Patterson said: “To the post office operators and their families, we apologise. Fujitsu apologises and is sorry for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice.
“This inquiry is examining those events forensically over many, many decades, which involve many parties, not least Fujitsu and the Post Office, but other organisations and individuals.
“We are determined to continue to support this inquiry and get to the truth wherever it lays and at the conclusion of the inquiry and the guidance from this inquiry, engage with government on suitable contribution and redress to the post office operators and their families.”
The evidence in the inquiry so far this morning has been a technical examination of the bugs that were discovered in the system, including some quite detailed programming concepts, which Patterson has not been answering with great confidence.
Apologies by the way, I was calling him William Paul Patterson earlier, which is how he was billed by Reuters in the live feed in advance, but it appears nobody else uses the William.
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ECHR says Ireland has lodged inter-state case against UK over Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act
The European court of human rights (ECHR) has issued a press release stating that Ireland has lodged an inter-state application against the UK over the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.
In its release, it says:
The Irish government argue that certain provisions of the act are not compatible with the European convention [on human rights]. The Irish government allege, in particular, that sections 19, 39, 40 and 41 of the act guarantee immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences, provided that certain conditions are met, contrary to [articles of the convention].
New inter-State application brought by Ireland against the United Kingdomhttps://t.co/eboGNmjVzm#ECHR #CEDH #ECHRpress pic.twitter.com/gKK5N9I6iC
— ECHR CEDH (@ECHR_CEDH) January 19, 2024
Ireland claims the act infringes on articles 2 (right to life), 3 (right against torture), 6 (right to a fair trial), 13 (right to an effective remedy) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination).
In December, Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach of Ireland, said about the prospect of legal action: “It is something that we’re genuinely doing with a sense of regret, and would prefer not to be in this position, but we did make a commitment to survivors in Northern Ireland and to the families of victims that we would stand by them.”
Rory Carroll reported for the Guardian at that point:
The Northern Ireland Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) bill was introduced by Boris Johnson’s administration in 2021 and became law in September. The government said it would draw a line under a conflict that killed more than 3,600 people from 1969 to 1998 and left thousands of cases unresolved. The legislation offers immunity to security force veterans and former paramilitaries who cooperate with a new commission for reconciliation and information recovery.
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Kinnock questions UK not being able to produce its own steel in 'dangerous and turbulent world'
Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP for Aberavon, home of the Port Talbot steelworks, has urged Tata Steel to “look again” at a union-proposed alternative plan to closing the blast furnaces in south Wales, and questioned the prospect of the UK lacking the capacity to manufacture steel in what he described as “the dangerous and turbulent world in which we live”.
There was no government minister put up today to the media to answer questions about it, but Kinnock was on the media round this morning, and told Sky News:
Unions have come together and put a plan on the table which would actually be much more of a bridge rather than a cliff edge to the changes that we know have to take place within our steel industry.
But instead of that, we have got a plan which has been cobbled together between Tata Steel and the UK government which is going to use £500m of taxpayers’ money to make 3,000 men and women redundant.
And it is also going to remove the British capability to make its own steel from scratch.
We will become the only country in the G20 that is no longer able to do that, so that is not the right way to go. Tata Steel should really look again at the multi-union proposal.
Do we really want to be a country, given the dangerous and turbulent world in which we live, that isn’t able to produce its own steel?
There isn’t a single household in my Aberavon constituency that isn’t connected to the steelworks in some way, and the impact would be utterly devastating.
Vaughan Gething, the Welsh government’s economy minister, said that Tata Steel’s expected decision meant it was an “incredibly worrying day, not just for the steel workforce, but for Wales, and I think across Britain”.
On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gething said:
What this would mean, if this plan goes ahead, is that the UK would be the only G7 country that can’t make primary steel.
If you don’t wait for the technology to change, you will transfer your ability to do that to other parts of the world and be reliant on imports for a number of years. That is an issue not just for Wales – a strategic sovereign issue for the UK.”
My colleague Graeme Wearden is across all this in our business live blog, where he notes:
The prospect of thousands of job cuts at Port Talbot is particularly galling as the UK government agreed to pump up to £500m into the steelworks last year. That money was to help fund plans to produce “greener” steel, through the new electric arc furnace.
As we await confirmation that Tata Steel UK is to cut 3,000 jobs at Port Talbot, here's the business minister Kemi Badenoch agreeing to give them £500m in September. https://t.co/i8CFurPHxv
— Rob Davies (@ByRobDavies) January 19, 2024
You can follow that here: Tata Steel’s Port Talbot blast furnaces expected to close, in ‘utterly devastating’ decision – business live
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Paul Patterson, the director of Fujitsu Services is giving evidence in the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry today, and the session has started. You can watch that here.
We will bring you any key lines that emerge …
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A quick whiz through today’s front pages. It is one of those days where there is quite a wide range of stories taking the lead in different titles.
Jeremy Hunt’s hint at tax cuts makes the cut for the Guardian and the Telegraph, although the latter leads with a Nato warning over possible war with Russia. The Guardian’s main story though was Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments about a Palestinian state. The Daily Express also splashes on possible tax cuts, as does the FT.
Friday’s Daily TELEGRAPH: “Nato warns of war with Russia in the next 20 years” #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/iI68DPU5Kr
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) January 18, 2024
Rwanda is top of the bill at the Mail and the Independent, with the former picking up Sunak’s line challenging the Lords not to hold up the bill. It also features on the Telegraph front page, where they are already pinning the blame on any delay on Labour.
The Sun has its focus on royal health, noting that Prince William visited his wife in hospital. The Mail also features the royals on the front, inevitably using the health stories as an opportunity to also somehow have a potshot at Harry and Meghan.
Friday’s Daily MAIL: “Don’t Defy Will Of The People, Rishi Warns Lords” #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/x1uJlLMV24
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) January 18, 2024
The Mirror has a report on the poor state of dental hygiene among kids. The Belfast Telegraph, incidentally, claimed this morning that the material allowed in dental fillings might become a new Brexit flashpoint.
Friday's front page: Dental health crisis #TomorrowsPapersToday https://t.co/JRl020aH1F pic.twitter.com/zZAtIWCR1M
— The Mirror (@DailyMirror) January 18, 2024
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Incidentally, the speaker programme is a little sparser today, but my colleague Graeme Wearden is in Davos for the Guardian. Today the conference will wrap up with its traditional set-piece panel on the global economic outlook, where key figures will include Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, and Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank. He will also be following the Tata Steel developments closely, although I expect I will take in a little bit of that here too.
You can follow that live here: Davos day four – global economic outlook in focus
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Ruth Davidson: Rwanda deportation flights are 'probably never going to happen'
Speaking to the BBC, the former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has said there “are dogs in the street that know” deportation flights are “probably never going to happen”.
She told the broadcaster:
Let’s have a debate about immigration, absolutely. Every sovereign nation should be in charge of who comes in; not everybody has a right to go to every country in the world – I completely get all of that.
But where is the balance in this, rather than some of the language that is being used, some of the knots that people are getting into?
And this thing about putting people on planes to Rwanda. I mean, there are dogs in the street that know that, one, it is probably never going to happen. And two, if it does, it is going to be a number so small that it makes very little difference to the bottom line.
Davidson is in the House of Lords, where both the treaty with Rwanda and the safety of Rwanda bill will need to make progress in the next couple of weeks before Rishi Sunak can make another attempt at getting his deportation policy off the ground.
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Home Office reported to have hired hangar to practise Rwanda deportations
Aside from the question of how Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation legislation can actually get on to the statue books and survive subsequent legal challenges, there are also practical considerations. There are reports this morning in the Times that the Home Office hired an aircraft hangar and a fuselage to practise the actual delivery of potential deportees to the planes themselves.
Matt Dathan writes, in what the paper labels as an exclusive:
Migrants will be escorted from a detention facility on an airbase one by one by security guards. As part of preparations for the first flights, the guards have undergone special training programmes to deal with “disruptive” people.
Staff will mimic different scenarios that the Home Office expects them to encounter when they move migrants on to aircraft bound for Kigali.
Scenarios that are being practised include migrants resorting to violence to prevent being put on a plane or Extinction Rebellion-style protests where individuals “play dead” by lying on the floor and refusing to move. They are also preparing for the prospect of dirty protests and demonstrations by campaigners outside the airbase in an attempt to halt flights.
It is estimated that five officers will be needed for each migrant being removed.
There is liable to be criticism that this represents further Home Office spending on the Rwanda plan, with the actual legal departure of flights still a distant prospect.
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Welcome …
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling live coverage of UK politics for Friday. Rishi Sunak will be out and about in south-east England today, where the prime minister can expect further questioning on how his Rwanda plan can get through the Lords.
The former Scottish Tory leader and peer Ruth Davidson has said flights are “probably never going to happen” amid reports the Home Office has hired a hangar and aircraft fuselage to rehearse forcing people on to flights in the teeth of expected protests.
There will be further fallout from the news that Tata Steel is expected to close its blast furnaces in south Wales. The local MP and shadow minister Stephen Kinnock has said this morning they “should really look again” at the plan.
And Paul Patterson, the director of Fujitsu Services will be giving evidence in the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry today. You will be able to watch that here.
Here are the other headlines:
The Home Office spent a six-figure sum on mental health support for frontline Border Force officers after mental health-related absences for staff across the agency increased by 45%, an FoI request has revealed.
The Home Office has also made a significant U-turn on the rights of EU citizens who were in the UK before Brexit. It is going to reverse a rule it made in August that barred those who mistakenly applied for permanent residency cards after the referendum to make a late application for EU settled status if they were unaware of the specially created immigration scheme.
A bad signal on the economy for Sunak’s government, as retailers in Great Britain suffered a dire Christmas. Cash-strapped consumers cut back on shopping in December, fuelling the biggest fall in monthly sales since shops closed during the pandemic.
A UN torture expert has repeated her call for prisoners jailed under the indefinite sentencing regime in England and Wales to be granted release dates.
Sadiq Khan has announced a fare freeze for some tickets on London’s public transport network.
As it is a Friday, it is a quiet day in Westminster. There will be debate on private members’ bills in the Commons, and the Lords are not sitting. The Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd are also not sitting.
The day after the public service strike in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, is saying he will introduce “pragmatic, appropriate and limited” legislation to address the deadlock in Stormont. More on developments there in a bit.
It is Martin Belam with you today. I will try to dip into the comments if I get the chance, but if you want to draw my attention to anything – especially if you spot an error or typo – it is best to email me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
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