Summary of the day …
We will shortly be closing the blog for the day. Here are the headlines …
Rishi Sunak said his government would give a “considered” response to a report saying Waspi women deserved compensation, without promising when any response could be expected. Leading campaigner Angela Madden said he was on a “sticky wicket” asking for votes from the women affected unless “he heeds the clear instructions of the ombudsman that Waspi women should be compensated”. Labour’s Emily Thornberry said they would await the government response before making any committment themselves.
Sunak was in Derbyshire launching the Tory local election campaign for England and Wales, in which the government are expected to suffer heavy losses. He criticised local Labour councils for failing to balance their books after over a decade of Conservative governments reducing central funding to local councils.
The prime minister, who was appointed to the role by the Conservative party seven weeks after losing a leadership contest to Liz Truss, urged voters to send a message to Keir Starmer during May’s local elections. Sunak said the Labour leader was “arrogantly taking the British people for granted” and “assuming that he can just stroll into Number 10 without saying what he would do”.
Environment secretary Steve Barclay has come under scrutiny for failing to declare a potential conflict of interest over a proposed waste incineration plant in his constituency. The minister has now recused himself from the process, but No 10 refused to say when that had happened.
A private member’s bill by a Conservative MP, backed by the government, which was attempting to overturn London’s elected mayor’s Ulez expansion team failed to pass a second reading in the House of Commons.
Plaid Cymru have begun their spring conference. Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has attacked both the current government and any future Labour government for failing to provide the investment he says Wales needs. He said “a new Welsh first minister coupled with a likely Starmer-led government in Westminster” would lead to “more stagnation, more managerialism, more cuts to public services”
Former Channel Islands data commissioner Emma Martins will lead the external review into the use of WhatsApp and mobile messaging in the Scottish government.
Thank you for all your comments today. I do try to read them all and find them helpful. I hope you have an enjoyable weekend.
Zoe Williams is on sketching duties today while we wish John Crace all the best with his recovery. She watched Rishi Sunak’s English local election campaign launch in Derbyshire:
Rishi Sunk wanted to talk about Labour-run councils – Nottingham, “effectively bankrupt”. After having a fire-sale of assets, they still can’t balance the books, in contrast to the extraordinarily well-run Conservative Nottinghamshire county council; Birmingham, and the scandal of its bankruptcy. A 21% rise in council tax for residents, decimated services, mismanaged finances.
I find it quite hard to imagine anyone being taken in by this. Everyone knows that local authorities have taken savage hits to their spending power, due to cuts by central government. Say what you like about the Conservative party and their messaging, everyone is reasonably clear on one thing: that austerity was their idea.
Nobody’s going to need more councils, of varying political hues, also going bust, to realise that the problem is a little more systemic. Every local authority is now like Schrödinger’s cat: it could be alive or dead, but if you open the box and look in, it’s dead. This is Sunak’s unlovely task of 2024, to keep the box closed until he’s out of office.
Read more of Zoe Williams’ sketch here: On the buses with Rishi Sunak, we see only side-streets and diversions
Rowena Mason, Kiran Stacey, Peter Walker and Eleni Courea all share a byline on this campaign preview going into the May local election campaign in England:
Launching his party’s local election campaign, the Rishi Sunak is six weeks away from a moment of maximum danger for his premiership. Qualms about the prime minister’s leadership are rumbling on, with talk of installing Penny Mordaunt or Tom Tugendhat in his place, but those calls may become more public and louder from some Conservative MPs if the party loses mayoralties in Tees Valley and the West Midlands on 2 May.
Few political experts anticipate anything other than a resounding victory for Labour in the 107 council contests on that date, but the possibility of Keir Starmer’s party getting a clean sweep when it comes to mayoral polls in London and 10 other areas is what is really causing jitters in Conservative party headquarters.
Senior Tories say they will measure success or failure mostly by a handful of mayoral contests, rather than how many councillors they lose. One cabinet minister said: “We are at risk of losing both the Teesside mayoralty and West Midlands. If we can hold one or both of those, we will have done well.”
The cabinet minister added, however: “The polls currently have us 20 points behind. If that were to be repeated at the locals, we would do well to hold on to a single council.”
Labour dismisses such suggestions as setting unrealistically low expectations in order to outperform them come election night. One shadow minister said: “They’ll easily hold both of those mayoralties. But that won’t eclipse the hammering they will get in local authorities.”
Read more here: ‘This isn’t a game of 4D chess’: Tories braced for bruising local elections
Plaid Cymru have been having the first day of their spring conference today, and Rhun ap Iorwerth has attacked both the current government and any future Labour government for failing to provide the investment he says Wales need.
He said:
The sight of Rachel Reeves walking in lockstep with Jeremy Hunt only offers more austere times. Sacking a shadow minister for standing on a picket line is a new Labour low.
Sunak and Starmer’s HS2 betrayal only keeps Wales in the slow lane. And the Labour-Tory coalition on lifting the bankers’ bonus cap only goes to prove whose side they are really on.
That is why Plaid Cymru will be unapologetic in demanding fair funding for Wales from whoever holds the keys to 10 Downing Street by the end of this year. Decades of chronic underinvestment must come to an end.
What does a new Welsh first minister coupled with a likely Starmer-led government in Westminster mean for us? My fear is that it’s be more of the same.
More stagnation, more managerialism, more cuts to public services.
I mentioned earlier that parliament had been debating a private member’s bill aimed at curbing the London mayor’s Ulez expansion scheme. It didn’t get voted on before the 2.30pm cut-off time, and so at present would be expected to be debated again on 19 April.
London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s team had warned that ministers risked “fundamentally undermining devolution” if they started “seizing powers from directly elected mayors”.
Labour’s Nottingham South MP Lilian Greenwood spoke for 33 minutes, a move criticised by Conservatives in the chamber as an attempt to talk the bill out.
During her speech, Greenwood accused the bill of trampling over devolution, saying:
The whole purpose of devolution is for local people to determine the policies that are needed for their area. The Government has set the targets for air quality, it is for democratically elected mayors and local authorities to run their cities or their counties in the way that works best for their area.
Transport minister Guy Opperman had said: “The government supports this particular bill.”
Not everybody is in full sympathy with the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign. Ross Clark writes at the Telegraph:
How bizarre it would be if women, after being told they can have equal pay, equal opportunities for promotion and everything else, had continued to be allowed to swan off at age 60 while their male colleagues had to continue to work for several more years.
They tell us that the decision of John Major’s government to equalise state pension ages has ruined carefully planned retirements. Yet somehow that detailed planning didn’t seem to extend to looking up at what age they would retire?
Women were given more notice than I received about my pension age rising to 67. Not that I am complaining. I fully accept – as should everyone – that as longevity increases so must the length of our working lives.
The government doesn’t give remotely as much notice of other fiscal changes as it did the change of the women’s retirement age. When the Chancellor jacks up taxes we usually get little notice – even though it can have serious consequences for our future financial lives.
There may be slightly less sympathy for Clark in some quarters on account of this payoff line though, where he writes “For many of us with private pensions the age at which we think we have enough to retire goes up and down daily with the stock market.”
Angela Madden, chairwoman of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign, also had questions for the Labour party over an ombudsmen finding that potentially hundreds of thousands of women are owed compensation, saying they wanted to see Labour “step up” support, not “step back”.
She said “We also want to hear what a Labour government would do if they were in office. Labour MPs have long supported the Waspi cause. At this critical moment, we want to see the Labour leadership step up that support, not step back.”
In her media round appearance this morning, Labour shadow cabinet minister Emily Thornberry said her party would not be making any commitments until the government had put forward its response, telling Sky News viewers:
It has to be done in the right way. At the moment, we have to make sure that the government doesn’t wriggle out of this. The government has to make a decision about what is the appropriate way of compensating these women, and then they have to make a decision about how we make sure that Whitehall never makes this mistake again.
During the 2019 election campaign, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour manifesto committed to a £58bn compensation package, which would have involved an average of £15,380 being paid to each of those affected. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has recommended payouts of between £1,000 and £2,950.
Waspi campaigner: Sunak on 'sticky wicket' asking for local election votes after response to compensation report
A leading campaigner from the Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) group has said the prime minister is on a “sticky wicket” asking for the votes of Waspi women during May’s local elections in England unless “he heeds the clear instructions” from an ombudsmen over compensation.
Angela Madden expressed frustration at the unwillingness of politicians to commit to compensation, saying:
Rishi Sunak will be on a sticky wicket asking for Waspi women’s votes at these local elections – and at the coming general election – unless he heeds the clear instructions of the ombudsman that Waspi women should be compensated.
MPs of all parties signed up to the case for £10,000 compensation each. The prime minister has the power to bring legislation before parliament which would deliver that, and that is what 1950s-born women now rightly expect.
Asked about the issue earlier during a local election campaigning event in Derbyshire, the prime minister promised “a considered and thoughtful response” to the report, but stopped shy of promising that the government would commit to setting up a compensation scheme.
Sunak said “hopefully people will appreciate that we’ve only just received the report yesterday. It is very long and detailed, and the right thing for us to do is to go through it carefully, and then come back with a considered and thoughtful response.”
This block was amended at 16.01 GMT. Due to a transcribing error, it originally said Sunak had promised a “considerate”, not “considered” response.
Updated
With impeccable timing, just as Rishi Sunak is out and about on a transport-themed day launching the Conservative local election campaign, Conservative MPs in Westminster have been debating to try to override the Ulez expansion in London.
Gareth Johnson, Conservative MP for Dartford, has tabled the Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) bill in a bid to give ministers the power to overturn the expansion.
Johnson said the expansion was “unfair” on people who lived outside London as they had “no say on who the London mayor is” but may have to frequently drive into the city.
Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP Steve Tuckwell, whose byelection victory after Boris Johnson resigned the seat was widely ascribed to a campaign that focused on Ulez expansion, said “the expansion of Ulez to outer London has nothing to do with air quality, it has everything to do with punishing hard-working families and businesses of all sizes.”
He said he continues to be “contacted by people sharing examples of financial hardships, collapsed businesses and the negative social consequences.”
Walthamstow’s Labour MP Stella Creasy reminded MPs that the London mayoral election takes place on 2 May, adding voters will “have an opportunity to express an opinion at the ballot box” in connection with Ulez expansion. She questioned if the bill suggested Tory MPs have “no confidence in their mayoral candidate being able to win that argument”.
Labour’s shadow energy minister Kerry McCarthy said the bill was “a desperate last-ditch attempt to try to boost the Conservative vote, and I think we know how that will turn out. We’ve seen some sort of quite depressing attempts to make it part of these cultural, anti-woke wars against net zero, to try to sort of say that net zero comes at a cost. We saw the secretary of state for transport buy into the whole conspiracy theory about 15-minute cities at party conference, which again is incredibly depressing.”
Sunak says government 'doing everything it can' to support threatened Alstom train-making plant
Rishi Sunak has claimed that his government is “doing everything it can” to try to support the Alstom train-making plant in Derby, which has recently said it might close, threatening thousands of jobs, as it has an 18-month gap until its next orders.
Visiting the company as part of his campaigning trip today to launch the Conservative local election campaign for May, the prime minister said:
I know it will be a concerning time for everyone, both in the plant and more generally. That’s why we’ve set up a dedicated cross-government taskforce to make sure there is appropriate support in place for all the workers.
More generally, without obviously being able to comment on commercial conversations, as you’ll appreciate, the government is doing everything it can to support the supply chain and make sure there is a good pipeline of work to do.
It has been private members’ bills in the House of Commons today, and the revived Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill passed its second reading.
Sponsored by Labour former minister John Spellar and supported by the government, it would ban the import of hunting trophies from species of conservation concern. A similar bill was blocked by unelected peers in the last parliamentary session, despite clearing the Commons.
Spellar, the MP for Warley said there is an “overwhelming majority” of MPs and members of the public in favour of prohibiting the import of bodies of animals killed for sport. He told parliament:
This is an issue that runs across parties, across classes, across regions. This is a universal view across the country that they want this country to have no part in this vile trade.
The bill will undergo further scrutiny at a later date, but with a looming election, it may still not get on to the statute books.
Environment minister Rebecca Pow said the government will support the bill to ensure trophy hunters from the UK “are not putting additional pressure on already threatened species”.
We have published two stories in the last couple of hours which are both about water and the environment. Alex Lawson has reported on the options for Thames Water, which serves 16 million customers but which is feared to be near collapse. You can read that here.
Meanwhile Helena Horton and Sandra Laville have reported that England won’t adopt EU river pollution rules for pharma and cosmetics firms. They write that despite government promises not to weaken environmental protections post-Brexit, campaigners say the country is falling behind. You can read that here.
Steve Barclay under scrutiny for failing to declare potential conflict of interest
Our political correspondent Kiran Stacey reports:
The UK environment secretary, Steve Barclay, has come under scrutiny for failing to declare a potential conflict of interest over a proposed waste incineration plant in his constituency.
Barclay has been a vocal opponent of the waste-to-energy plant in Wisbech, which is due to be one of Europe’s biggest such incinerators.
The most recent register of ministers’ interests shows Barclay has not declared the plant project in Cambridgeshire as a potential conflict of interest, even though it must be approved by the Environment Agency, which he oversees.
The BBC reported on Thursday night that officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had raised concerns over the potential conflict of interest, even raising it with the ethics team at the Cabinet Office.
The department now says Barclay has recused himself over the approval decision, but Labour has raised questions over whether he has communicated with officials at the Environment Agency about it.
No 10 on Friday refused to say when Barclay had recused himself. A spokesperson for the prime minister said: “It’s not uncommon that ministers to balance their work as a constituency MP with their roles of ministers and there are established processes which support that.”
Read more of Kiran Stacey’s report here: Steve Barclay under scrutiny for failing to declare potential conflict of interest
A former Channel Islands data commissioner will lead the external review into the use of WhatsApp and mobile messaging in the Scottish government. Emma Martins said she will “look carefully” at the government’s current practices.
Martins, who has worked in the information regulatory office in Jersey, said:
I am grateful for this opportunity to support the Scottish government as they reflect on recent events and seek to learn from them. In delivering this external review, I will look carefully at the current practices of Government with the objective of producing appropriate, meaningful and deliverable recommendations for them going forward.
Minister for parliamentary business George Adam said:
We are committed to openness and transparency and constantly seek to maintain and improve our performance in this area, which is why the first minister commissioned this important external review. It will consider how mobile messaging apps and personal devices are used in Government in line with the principles of digital ethics, records management, freedom of information, and human rights.
The use of WhatsApp by ministers and senior officials in the Government came under scrutiny at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry. Separately, Scotland’s information commissioner David Hamilton has launched his own inquiry into the use of WhatsApp and informal messaging.
Our chief reporter, Daniel Boffey, has been speaking to shadow defence secretary John Healey:
With Keir Starmer’s party 25 points ahead in the polls, and Rishi Sunak seemingly unable to unite the Conservatives, the bookies are sharply shortening the odds on a Labour government, but few in the party’s top ranks have been in government before and can point to the scars to prove it.
Healey, 65, now the shadow defence secretary, holds a unique spot in the Labour Venn diagram. Along with Ed Miliband, 54, Yvette Cooper, 55, Hilary Benn, 70, and Pat McFadden, 58, he was a frontbencher in the Blair-Brown years. But he was also a loyal member of the shadow cabinets of Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn and now enjoys Starmer’s confidence.
It is a consistency that speaks to Healey’s natural reticence to become embroiled in Labour’s regular bouts of internecine warfare. But for an unshowy politician, his advice to colleagues new to potential ministerial office might surprise: “If we go into government, the one thing we’ve got to remember is to remain political.”
The mechanics of government can dull the drive for radical change. “You’d be put into a room in the bowels of Westminster or in the Cabinet Office and, essentially, you’d have perhaps eight or nine ministers from different departments around the table,” he says. “And, too often, people simply read out their departmental line rather than as government ministers with a sense of what we were trying to achieve.”
Labour frontbenchers have been having “coaching” dinners with top Whitehall mandarins and former cabinet ministers in recent weeks in a sign of the lack of in-house knowledge in the party’s top ranks. But Healey has been able to offer advice within his shadow team.
Read more here: John Healey – frontbench veteran uniquely equipped to ready Labour for office
Asked about a delay in pushing through his government’s Rwanda deportation legislation at a campaign event in Derbyshire this morning, Rishi Sunak defended the policy, without talking about the timetable for trying to get it through parliament. Sunak said
When I got this job as prime minister I set out five priorities. One of them was to stop the boats. I think this is really important for our country. The current situation is simply unfair and unsustainable. People shouldn’t be able to jump the queue, come here illegally, put pressure on local services, undermine our sense of fairness, and ultimately put their lives at risk as they’re exploited by gangs. That is why I am determined to stop the boats. Our plan is working. The numbers last year were down by a third. That’s never happened before.
The House of Lords inflicted seven defeats on the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill on Wednesday. It has emerged that James Cleverly, the home secretary, spent £165,561 chartering a private jet for a one-day round trip to Rwanda to sign Sunak’s deportation deal in Kigali.
Inevitably during his media appearance in Derbyshire Rishi Sunak was asked about the row that has blown up over the design of the new England football kit.
The kit features a design detail that looks like the St George Cross but isn’t in red. When asked about it yesterday, Keir Starmer said “I think they should just reconsider this and change it back. I’m not even sure they can properly explain why they thought they needed to change in the first place. They could also reduce the price of the shirts.”
Sunak actually laughed out loud when the question was put to him, suggesting he didn’t think it was the most pressing issue – the question came before he was asked about women’s pensions and his Rwanda policy. Asked as a football fan whether he would like to see manufacturer Nike “change the design of this new England shirt featuring different colours in the cross of St George” Sunak said:
Well obviously I prefer the original. And my general view is that, when it comes to our national flags, we shouldn’t mess with them, because they are a source of pride, identity, who we are, and they are perfect as they are.
Culture secretary Lucy Frazer has also intervened, saying on social media:
Fans should always come first, and it’s clear that this is not what fans want. Our national heritage – including St George’s Cross – brings us together. Toying with it is pointless and unnecessary.
She linked through to an apocalyptically headlined Telegraph piece “Nike has devalued 1,000 years of English history with St George’s Cross stunt”
As an aside, keen observers of England football kit designs might note that previous iterations that featured variations on the design of the cross of St George (For example 2018 Nike away kit with dark red cross on light red background, 2011 Umbro goalkeeper kit with cross in several shades of green, 2008 Umbro home with cross rendered in lozenge design, and 2006 Umbro home with distorted cross on the sleeve) did not spark similar political interventions. It is just possible that it is the culture war around politics that has changed in the last couple of years to make this a story today, rather than the approach to designing football kits that has changed. I promise not to write another word on the subject.
Sunak says government will give 'considered and thoughtful response' to Waspi women report, but makes no promise on compensation
Speaking at a campaign launch event in Derbyshire, prime minister Rishi Sunak has said his government will come back with “a considered and thoughtful response” to a report that said women were owed compensation for failings in the way the government has handled their pensions. He gave no indication that there would be any compensation paid.
Asked if the government would establish a compensation scheme quickly, Sunak said:
I know there’ll be a lot of interest in this matter, and I completely get that, and hopefully people will appreciate that we’ve only just received the report yesterday.
It is very long and detailed, and the right thing for us to do is to go through it carefully, and then come back with a considered and thoughtful response.
And more broadly, what I would say is, I want a country where people can actually put in all their lives and have the dignity that they deserve in retirement.
That is why we’ve protected the triple lock and the state pension is going up by £900 in just a few weeks time.
Sunak went on to say that his government had a good track record when dealing with this kind of issue, citing the Post Office Horizon scandal, telling reporters:
My track record on these things is that we actm and you’ve seen that when it comes to the Post Office and the Horizon scandal. We’ve introduced legislation which is going through Parliament now to quash people’s convictions. We’ve already paid out hundreds and millions of pounds in compensation. I’ve described that as one of the greatest injustices of our time. I’m determined to do everything to put that right.
The Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) issue led many front pages this morning. Yesterday the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) said thousands of women, potentially hundreds of thousands, are owed compensation because of government failings related to the way changes to the state pension age were made.
The recommended payouts of between £1,000 and £2,950 a person fall far short of the £10,000-plus that campaigners were calling for, and the ombudsman cannot compel the government to pay. It said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had clearly indicated it would “refuse to comply”, which was “unacceptable”.
This block was amended at 16.01 GMT. Due to a transcribing error, it originally said Sunak had promised a “considerate”, not “considered” response.
Updated
Sunak urges voters to send message to 'arrogant' Keir Starmer during England's local elections
The prime minister has urged voters to send a message to Keir Starmer during May’s local elections, telling supporters at a bus depot in Derbyshire that Starmer was “arrogantly taking the British people for granted” and “assuming that he can just stroll into Number 10 without saying what he would do”.
Sunak raised the issue of cash-strapped local councils, saying that Labour is unable to balance the books when it is in local government.
He said “They tax you more and deliver less. It’s the same across our councils too. Just look what’s happening here, Nottingham Council effectively bankrupt. After having a fire-sale of assets, they still can’t balance the books, in contrast to the extraordinarily well-run Conservative Nottinghamshire County Council.
“Whenever Labour runs something, they run it into the ground. In Birmingham, they have effectively bankrupted the largest local authority in Europe. They have saddled their constituents with a 21% council tax rise.”
A House of Lords library report notes that:
According to the National Audit Ooffice, total spending power for local authorities fell by 26% between 2010/11 and 2020/21. Spending power funded by the government fell in real terms by more than 50% on a like-for-like basis between 2010/11 and 2020/21. It fell every year in that time period up to 2019/20.
The Conservatives have been in government since 2010. Incumbent governments generally try to portray poor local election results as being a reflection of local politics rather than a voter judgment on national issues.
Nationally, last year’s local elections saw the Conservatives lose more than 1,000 councillors. Against a background of good results when these seats were last contested and poor national polling, Conservatives are expecting a tough set of results.
Rishi Sunak has arrived at a bus depot in Heanor in Derbyshire. We are expecting some words from him at some point as he launches the Conservatives local election campaign for England.
Rishi Sunak is lagging behind not just Keir Starmer but also Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson in net favourability in some latest polling from YouGov.
Politicians’ net favourability ratings: March 2024
— YouGov (@YouGov) March 22, 2024
Keir Starmer: -18
Sadiq Khan: -32
Nigel Farage: -40
Jeremy Corbyn: -41
Nicola Sturgeon: -44
Boris Johnson: -46
Jeremy Hunt: -48
Rishi Sunak: -50
Liz Truss: -73
Rachel Reeves: -6 (54% say "don't know)https://t.co/7hhrlUOSaG pic.twitter.com/si453ftSUn
Other highlights include Sadiq Khan having a large lead over Susan Hall in popularity ahead of London’s mayoral contest in May, and Vaughan Gething and Humza Yousaf both still having work to do to overhaul the popularity of their predecessors.
There was a decent showing for fictitious politician Andrew Farmer though, who only ended up with a net unpopularity of nine points. YouGov include him in the survey to see how many people will say they have a firm opinion about somebody who doesn’t exist.
By the way, our polling aggregator for headline party support is always available here:
A bit of economic news with political implications from my colleague Richard Partington, who writes that the governor of the Bank of England has said interest rate cuts will be “in play” at forthcoming policy meetings amid progress in sharply reducing the UK’s headline rate of inflation over the past year.
The central bank kept interest rates on hold at 5.25% on Thursday for a fifth consecutive time. However, its rate-setting monetary policy committee said there were “encouraging signs” of falling inflation that could open the door for interest rate cuts in future.
Read more from Richard Partington here: UK interest rate cuts ‘in play’, says Bank of England governor
Plaid Cymru’s spring conference opens in Galeri, Caernarfon today, and one of the speakers will be SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn.
Some details of the speech have been released in advance. PA Media report Flynn is expected to say that his party and others must “break up the cosy Westminster consensus” in a direct attack on the direction of Keir Starmer’s Labour party. He will say:
It is becoming ever clearer that the ambitions of Sir Keir Starmer are not just the return of new Labour, he is now an active fanboy for new Thatcherism.
Not for the first time, Labour’s leadership has abandoned progressive politics in the pursuit of power. It is therefore up to us – the SNP, Plaid Cymru and others to offer an alternative.
An alternative that will break up the cosy Westminster consensus. An alternative that demands real investment in the NHS and public services, a closer relationship with the EU, help with the cost of living, action to tackle poverty and an ethical foreign policy.
This week the Guardian has been reporting on the membership of the Garrick Club and its men-only policy. Today’s edition of Today in Focus, if you fancy something to listen to, features Amelia Gentleman talking to Hannah Moore about it.
You can listen to that here.
Nesrine Malik has also spoken about the reporting, this time to Nimo Omer for today’s First Edition, our free daily briefing email. She told Nimo:
Why would you want to be a member of such a club unless the values of that membership and its exclusivity already permeate your life and your professional existence?
You can read that here.
The government has announced that funding has been allocated for nearly 955 new electric buses in England, with 25 councils across the country sharing the £143m expenditure.
Transport secretary Mark Harper said “As part of our plan to improve local transport across the country, we’re providing a further £143m to improve journeys for bus passengers, particularly in rural areas, with almost 1,000 brand-new, zero-emission buses due to hit the road.”
The spending allocation is, according to PA Media, broken up as follows:
North-west £9.4m
North-east £14.8m
Yorkshire and the Humber £5.7m
East Midlands £25.4m
West Midlands £7.4m
South-west £43.4m
South-east £30.2m
Sunak’s local election campaign launch in Derbyshire today is expected to have a transport element to it, and he is likely to try to talk up government transport policies, which have been under increased scrutiny after the long-drawn out demise of the HS2 plans and the promised redistribution of the funds.
George Osborne calls for Sunak to name general election date
Former Chancellor George Osborne has said that Rishi Sunak should name the general election date to avoid a summer of speculation. On his Political Currency podcast he said:
I would today say: “I’ll tell you when the general election is going to be”. That ends all the speculation about early elections. It means you don’t go through the whole summer with questions on is it going to be October or November. The marginal advantage he’s going to get by having a bit of a surprise … is more than outweighed by the endless speculation. The only reason people know he isn’t calling an election right now is because he knows he couldn’t win it.
Rayner: tax allegations were 'non-story manufactured to try to smear me'
Overnight Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has defended her handling of her tax affairs.
In an appearance on the BBC’s Newsnight programme she told viewers:
I’ve been very clear there’s no rules broken. [The Conservatives] tried to manufacture a police investigation. [The police] said there’s no issues there.
I got tax advice which says there was no capital gains tax. It’s a non-story manufactured to try to smear me. I was a home care worker, you know, I didn’t have an accountant. I had, as most people would: you put your house on the market, you get a legal conveyancing solicitor, and you get an estate agent.
But since those allegations were put to me, I got expert tax advice to make sure that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I wasn’t aware of the HMRC rules … when I sold that property. I sold it as most people would put it on the market, got the solicitor and the estate agents, etc.
Since those allegations were put to me – the tax laws on capital gains tax and principal private residency – is very complex, including marriage. I got that advice that is categoric that I do not owe any capital gains tax on that.
PA Media notes that a book by former Conservative Party deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft had suggested that she failed to properly declare her main residency when she sold a property in 2015 before she entered parliament.
Former Conservative party treasurer Ashcroft resigned from the House of Lords in 2015 to focus on other activities.
Labour have announced a series of proposals on the justice system, including a trial scheme in which six police forces will be given powers to charge domestic abuser suspects without the involvement of the Crown Prosecution Service. The plan is based on a pilot implemented by West Yorkshire police which has invested in a cohort of trained police decision-makers.
Our Home affairs editor Rajeev Syal has more here: Labour to give police emergency powers to charge domestic abuse suspects
Rishi Sunak to launch Tory English local election campaign
Rishi Sunak is planning to launch the Conservative party’s local election campaign in Derbyshire today.
The party is facing the expectation of poor results on 2 May, due to a combination of the Sunak government’s unpopularity – Labour is broadly 20 points ahead in polling – and that Conservatives performed comparatively well when the same seats were contested in 2021, after the elections were delayed for a year due to Covid restrictions.
Sunak is hoping to push a message about the economy and the finincial situation of Labour-controlled local government, but his planned media appearance script is likely to be derailed by questions about what the government is proposing to do about the situation with Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) women.
Yesterday the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) said thousands of women, potentially hundreds of thousands, are owed compensation because of government failings related to the way changes to the state pension age were made.
The recommended payouts of between £1,000 and £2,950 a person fall far short of the £10,000-plus that campaigners were calling for, and the ombudsman cannot compel the government to pay. It said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had clearly indicated it would “refuse to comply”, which was “unacceptable”. The issue led many of this morning’s newspaper front pages.
The local elections are being held in England. Wales also has four police and crime commissioners up for election, three of which are held by Labour and one by Plaid Cymru.
Welcome and opening summary
Good morning. Welcome to our live UK politics blog for Friday. We are expecting Rishi Sunak to be out and about in Derbyshire today kicking of the Tory campaign for local elections in England. Here are your headlines …
It has emerged that home secretary James Cleverly spent £165,561 chartering a private jet for a one-day round trip to Rwanda to sign Rishi Sunak’s deportation deal in Kigali.
Kent council is the latest to warn that it is running out of cash.
The public accounts committee has warned morale in the civil service is being hit by chronic low pay.
Also being hit by the cost of living crisis: nurses. Six in 10 nurses in England are having to turn to credit or savings due to low pay.
Keir Starmer has unexpectedly inserted himself into a row about the new men’s England football kit, calling for it to be scrapped. Lee Anderson has described the kit as “virtue-signalling woke nonsense” because a small cross design on the back of the neck isn’t the correct colour for the St George’s Cross.
Private members’ bills are being discussed in the Commons today, and there is some business in the House of Lords too. There is no business scheduled in the Scottish parliament, Senedd or Northern Ireland assembly.
It is Martin Belam with you today. I very much enjoy reading your comments and will try to chip in when I think I can be helpful, but by far the easiest way to contact me if you have spotted a typo/error/omission or just want to point me in the direction of something is by emailing martin.belam@theguardian.com.
