Summary of the day …
Humza Yousaf has said he is shocked by the embezzlement charges levelled against Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National party. Police Scotland announced on Thursday evening that Murrell, who is married to Yousaf’s mentor and predecessor as first minister Nicola Sturgeon, had been rearrested and charged with embezzlement of SNP funds. Sturgeon said the situation has been “incredibly difficult”
Rishi Sunak has faced criticism from healthcare professionals and been accused by Labour of trying to score “cheap headlines” after the prime minister outlined a plan he said would end “sicknote culture” in the UK. Speaking in London, Sunak said “We don’t just need to change the sicknote, we need to change the sicknote culture so the default becomes what work you can do – not what you can’t”. He outlined five reforms he said the Conservative government would undertake in the next parliament. Keir Starmer suggested Sunak should focus on his pledge to reduce NHS waiting lists rather than producing a “reheated version” of something the government announced years ago. The British Medical Association (BMA) described the prime minister as “pushing a hostile rhetoric”.
The prime minister also said his patience has “run thin” on his failure to get his Rwanda deportation plans through parliament, and has pledged that the Commons will “sit there and vote until it’s done” on Monday.
Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office, has been accused of being involved in “suppression, obstruction and cover up” by Ed Henry KC, who is representing victims at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry. Chair Wyn Williams told Rodric Williams that “those two things don’t sit very easily together, do they?” when he was confronted with evidence that the Post Office was maintaining that the 2010 conviction of Seema Misra was safe in 2014 when it had been advised in 2013 that an expert Fujitsu witness was unreliable.
Carers have described suffering an “avalanche of utter stress” due to the government’s “abhorrent” approach to clawing back benefits, as official figures revealed the widespread ill health of those caring for loved ones
Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner campaigned together in Derby to highlight Labour’s plans to release some green belt land in areas without enough brownfield sites as part of its housing policy if it wins the next election.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has claimed his party could outperform opinion polls on general election voting intention and gain coucil seats in what he called “blue wall” constitunecies.
Disgraced former prime minister Boris Johnson has breached UK government rules by being “evasive” about his relationship with a company that set up a meeting between him and Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro, the business appointments watchdog has said. It has written to Johnson and deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden warning of the breach
The delivery of the CalMac ferry MV Glen Sannox has been delayed again for another two months
Thank you for reading, and all your comments today. I am off to listen to the new Taylor Swift album. I will see you somewhere on the Guardian website soon.
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has finished for the day. It will resume on Tuesday with Susan Crichton, the former company secretary and general counsel of the Post Office as the witness. Her name has cropped up a lot in the evidence so far and it should prove to be fascinating.
BBC business correspondent Emma Simpson has noted that one of the key bits of evidence to be laid bare today, as Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office, was giving evidence, was the discrepancy in what the Post Office was saying in public about potential remote access to the Horizon IT system by Fujitsu compared to what it appeared to know. Simpson wrote:
Subpostmasters were repeatedly told that no one else but could access their branch accounts. Prosecutions hinged on this crucial point.
Rodric Williams commissioned the Deloitte Report on Horizon in 2014. It finds remote access was possible, without postmasters knowing about it, but it would have to be a deliberate act.
Yet at the same time Second Sight [independent investigators hired by the Post Office] and BBC Panorama were being told it wasn’t possible.
Williams said he’d “missed”’ these key details of the Deloitte report, despite being the point man on it. He didn’t recall anything being done to correct the statement to the BBC.
What the Post Office was saying publicly was very different to the emails flying behind the scenes.
Crucially, once the Post Office had this information, they also didn’t appear to take any action to disclose this to the legal teams of subpostmasters who had been convicted prior to that date.
Josh Halliday and Patrick Butler have this latest report on tens of thousands of unpaid carers being forced to pay back huge sums by the DWP:
Carers have described suffering an “avalanche of utter stress” due to the government’s “abhorrent” approach to clawing back benefits, as official figures revealed the widespread ill health of those caring for loved ones.
Dozens of people who provide care for frail, sick or elderly relatives have described the “devastating” effect of the DWP’s approach, with some saying it had led them to consider killing themselves.
One woman said her mother had become “severely depressed, suicidal and self-harming” after being ordered to repay two years’ worth of carer’s allowance for mistakenly breaching the earnings allowance, currently £151-a-week, while caring for her father when he suffered a major stroke.
Another carer, forced to repay £2,100 in carer’s allowance, said she was “made to feel like a fraudster”. She added: “I couldn’t eat or sleep. I lost weight. I was on antidepressants. I was terrified I’d go to prison. I’m still traumatised, years later. It’s a terrible system. It feels like a trap.”
Dr Siobhan O’Dwyer, an associate professor in adult social care at the University of Birmingham, described the government’s approach as “abhorrent”
Read more from Josh Halliday and Patrick Butler here: ‘Avalanche of utter stress’: carers’ health suffering as DWP claws back benefits
Our Scotland editor Severin Carrell has this report rounding up the latest developments of embezzlement charges against Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National party.
Back in Scotland for a moment, the BBC is reporting that the delivery of the CalMac ferry MV Glen Sannox has been delayed again for another two months.
The first liquefied natural gas powered ferry constructed in the UK is now expected to be handed over at the end of July.
Scottish Conservative transport spokesperson Graham Simpson said it was a “huge blow to Scotland’s betrayed island communities” and that another summer season would go past without the ferry being in service.
The vessel was originally due to be delivered in 2018.
Simon Jenkins is arguing that Rishi Sunak’s proposed smoking sales ban is government meddling at its worst and most pointless, noting that “just because Liz Truss and Boris Johnson hold a belief does not make it wrong.”
First minister Humza Yousaf: charging of Peter Murrell is 'very serious development'
Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has said the news that former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell has been charged in connection with embezzlement of funds is a “really serious matter indeed”.
PA Media reports Yousaf said he first became aware late on Thursday evening.
The party leader added:
Many people in the SNP, right across Scottish politics will be shocked by the news and this is an ongoing investigation.
Police, the Crown have a job to do, just as I have a job to do as first minister, that job of course is ensuring that I support business, that I help households throughout the cost-of-living crisis, that I help to cut waiting times in the NHS, that I advance the cause of independence, so that’s the job that you can imagine I’m focused on.
As per the police statement it is a very serious development, as per the police statement it’s an allegation of embezzlement from the party, embezzlement of funds from the party. That’s really serious indeed.
With apologies for being London-centric and pandering to my own interests as a transport nerd for a moment, but Sadiq Khan has criticised mayoral election rival Susan Hall for her plan to ban noisy tube passengers, saying the policy would be “very difficult” to implement.
Hall has said that if she became mayor she would implement a ban on taking calls on speakerphone or playing music or videos out loud on the transport network.
The Telegraph quotes her saying “under Sadiq Khan, the London Underground is less safe and less civil than it used to be”.
Khan dismissed the plan, saying:
With millions of journeys every day on London’s transport network, we should all be considerate of other passengers around us, including the noise coming from our personal devices.
Implementing formal restrictions would likely be very difficult, requiring bus and Tube staff to police how passengers operated their individual phones. It would require huge extra spending on enforcement and put impossible pressures on hard-working transport staff.
It is already against TfL conditions for children under the age of 16 using a concession Oyster card to listen to music without earphones on the network, which I suspect will come as a surprise to most London underground and bus users.
Boris Johnson has breached UK government rules by being “evasive” about his relationship with a company that set up a meeting between him and Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro, the business appointments watchdog has said.
PA Media reports Lord Pickles, chairman of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), has written to both Johnson and deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden warning of the breach.
It comes after the former Conservative prime minister failed to clarify his relationship with a company called Merlyn Advisors, a hedge fund. Johnson is reported to have met Maduro alongside Merlyn Advisors co-founder Maarten Petermann in February.
Johnson stood down as a Conservative MP in June 2023 after an investigation into the Partygate scandal found the former prime minister misled parliament and recommended he serve a lengthy suspension from the House of Commons.
Pickles wrote in his letter to Dowden:
Johnson has repeatedly been asked by Acoba to clarify his relationship with Merlyn Advisors. He has not done so, nor has he denied the reports in the media that he has been working with Merlyn Advisors on a non-contractual basis.
Government rules state former ministers must not take up new jobs or appointments for two years after leaving public office without advice from Acoba first.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, a Labour shadow Cabinet Office minister, said:
Boris Johnson has once again demonstrated a complete disdain for the rules, while Rishi Sunak is too weak to do anything about it. This now creates serious and urgent questions for the government to answer.
The rules in place to stop this revolving door are wholly inadequate – and completely toothless, they expose repeated broken government promises to reform the system.
PA Media reports that a spokesperson for Johnson did not wish to comment.
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is back under way after lunch. Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office, is giving evidence for a second day. In the last session he was accused of “suppression, obstruction and cover up” by Ed Henry KC who was acting for subpostmasters who had been victims of the scandal.
If you aren’t overly familiar with the format, usually someone acting as a counsel to the inquiry – today it was Jason Beer KC – will take the witness through their statement and show them relevant documents. This process is often about gently teasing out inconsistencies and where documents contradict what the witness is recalling, effectively inviting the inquiry to then draw its own conclusions.
Witnesses can then also be questioned by lawyers acting for other “core participants”, including victims, and these passages tend to be much more adversorial. Henry earlier outright accused Williams of lying at points in his testimony.
At the end of the morning session, Williams had a chance to express regret about the scandal, saying “I take no pride having worked for an employer that was engaged in conducting the greatest miscarriage of justice that we’ve seen as it’s been described. I’m truly sorry that I’ve been associated with this.”
Henry round on him, saying “Associated with it, Mr Williams? You were in the middle of the web. And you were part of it.”
Chair Wyn Williams doesn’t often interject, but when he does it is usually with an acute or damning observation. At the conclusion of the morning session, he said to Rodric Williams:
I think the point Mr Williams, is that at a moment in time, namely 2014, when any sensible reading of Mr Clark’s advice from July 2013 was that there was a problem about Mr Jenkins’ evidence, the Post Office and you personally appeared still to be asserting to the world that the conviction [of Seema Misra in 2010 using Jenkins’ evidence] was safe, amongst other things because expert evidence had been called and the jury by inference must have accepted it. And those two things don’t sit very easily together, do they?
You can watch it here …
Sturgeon comments on husband's second arrest
Outside her Glasgow home, former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon briefly addressed the situation with her husband, Peter Murrell, who has been charged in connection with embezzlement after being arrested for a second time by police.
Sturgeon told reporters outside her Glasgow home that it has been “incredibly difficult”.
“I can’t say any more,” she said. She asked for peace for her neighbours before leaving by car.
Updated
The Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has also been out campaigning today ahead of May’s local elections in England.
Speaking to the PA news agency in Esher, he claimed his party could outperform opinion polls on general election voting intention and gain coucil seats in what he called “blue wall” constitunecies.
He told them:
We’re very excited about our opportunities on 2 May. In many, what I call, “blue Wall seats like here in Elmbridge, it’s a clear fight between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.
And it looks like we could make gains from the Conservatives in places like Tunbridge Wells, here in Elmbridge, in Wokingham, a number of other places.
And I think that will set us up both for running local councils better, but also for our prospects in the general election.
We think we can take it this time, because lifelong Conservatives, people who have always voted Conservative, are saying no, we’re not going to do it this time.
In the last two sets of local elections, we’ve added over 600 new Liberal Democrat councillors across the whole of UK. That’s a fantastic record and I think it belies the polls. I think we’re going to do really well.
In the Guardian poll tracker, which does not include people intending to vote for the SNP*, the Liberal Democrats are polling fourth on 9.2%, behind Reform UK on 13% as well as behind the Conservatives and Labour party.
[*The reason given for excluding the SNP from the nationwide polling tracker is that the SNP vote sits between 2% and 4% of national vote share. But its geographical concentration in Scotland means it will win many more seats than other small parties with a similar national vote share, so targeted Scotland-only polls give a much better indication of how well it will do in the next election than nationwide polls.]
Ed Henry KC has been questioning Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams for the last 45 minutes at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, and it has been pretty intense. Williams has at times argued he can’t follow the line of questioning, and they have had terse exchanges about which documents they are referring to. Henry is acting on behalf of subpostmaster victims of the scandal and has been very combative, accusing Williams at times of lying, and saying he was personally part of a cover-up. Williams keeps saying that he is “not a criminal lawyer” and using that as a way to deflect having to answer specific. They are just about to break for lunch, and will resume at around 2pm, when Williams will be questioned further.
Keir Starmer has been out campaigning alongside Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner today at a housing development in the Nightingale Quarter of Derby.
Inevitably he has been asked by reporters there about the ongoing attempt by the Conservative party and some quarters of the media to continue to pursue Rayner over accusations to do with her living arrangements a decade ago.
Starmer said:
I have said I am absolutely pleased to be out with Angela today, and that is the focus that she has, that is the focus that I have had. We have both answered no end of questions.
But we are actually out here, positive, on the front foot, putting our housing offer to people here in Derby, talking to residents about how they feel about what we are saying about housing, being well-received, that is really good.
The party was aiming to promote its housing policy, unveiling five “golden rules” for building on green belt land in an effort to boost housebuilding.
Labour has pledged to build 1.5m homes over the course of the next parliament, and while the party has committed to a “brownfield-first approach”, its plans also include releasing some green belt land in areas without enough brownfield sites and where that land is of poor quality.
Earlier today, after his speech about welfare reform, prime minister Rishi Sunak was asked by a Daily Mail reporter whether Rayner should step aside while a police investigation was ongoing, in the same way that she had called for the then-prime minister Boris Johnson to stand down while police were investigating ‘partygate’ allegations. To that, Sunak said:
The question is for Keir Starmer as to why he is refusing to himself read the advice that seems to exist, why it’s not been published, and make a decision on this and I think that actually just displays a lack of leadership and weakness on his part.
There clearly are questions to answer. That’s clear for everyone to see. And he, you know, rather than hiding behind his team, just actually read the advice himself, publish the advice and clear this up.
Obviously, I’m not going to comment on an ongoing police investigation. But that’s what I said on Wednesday, and that’s what I think the right thing to do is.
During the same session of media questions, Sunak said he could not comment “on our ongoing investigation” into Fylde MP Mark Menzies amid allegations he misused campaign funds.
Starmer: Sunak should be focused on NHS waiting lists
Keir Starmer has reacted to Rishi Sunak’s speech on welfare reform this morning, suggesting the prime minister should focus on his pledge to reduce NHS waiting lists rather than producing a “reheated version” of something the government announced years ago.
PA Media reports the Labour leader told broadcasters:
Labour has for a long time been urging measures to be taken to deal with the problem of people getting back into work because it is inhibiting their ability to work, it is also restraining us in terms of what we can do with the economy.
That is why we have had a laser focus on how we get waiting lists down, because the biggest problem here frankly is that the government has broken the NHS, and waiting lists are up at 7.6 million.
That is where the focus needs to be. This announcement morning from the government is a reheated version of something they announced seven years ago. It is no good talking about the problem, what we need is action to make the issues actually be dealt with.
Updated
Here is how the Conservatives have boiled down Rishi Sunak’s welfare reform speech for social media consumption.
We’ve seen a worrying trend in our welfare system.
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) April 19, 2024
More and more people are being written off work unnecessarily, and spending is growing at an unsustainable rate.
So we’re doing something about it whilst protecting the most vulnerable among us. pic.twitter.com/KJDz6mvt5K
Adding to that criticism of Rishi Sunak’s welfare reform speech this morning is Dr Sarah Hughes, chief executive of mental health charity Mind, who said:
We are deeply disappointed that the prime minister’s speech today continues a trend in recent rhetoric which conjures up the image of a ‘mental health culture’ that has ‘gone too far’. This is harmful, inaccurate and contrary to the reality for people up and down the country.
The truth is that mental health services are at breaking point following years of under investment with many people getting increasingly unwell while they wait to receive support. To imply that it is easy both to be signed-off work and then to access benefits is deeply damaging.
It is insulting to the 1.9 million people on a waiting list to get mental health support, and to the GPs whose expert judgment is being called into question.
There is a full transcript of Sunak’s speech as it was delivered here. In it he said “we should see it as a sign of progress that people can talk openly about mental health conditions,” and described it as a “moral mission” to get people back into work. He said there was a “risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.”
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry continues today. Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office, is giving evidence for a second day. Much of the testimony today has been looking through documents and trying to probe why nobody in the business appeared to be understanding that there was remote access into the Horizon system from Fujitsu. Jason Beer KC is questioning and it would be fair to say it has been quite testy. You can watch it here …
Sunak criticised by BMA for 'hostile rhetoric' in his 'sicknote culture' speech as Labour accuses PM of seeking 'cheap headlines'
Rishi Sunak has faced criticism from healthcare professionals and been accused by Labour of trying to score “cheap headlines” after the prime minister outlined a plan he said would end “sicknote culture” in the UK.
Speaking in London, Sunak said “We don’t just need to change the sicknote, we need to change the sicknote culture so the default becomes what work you can do – not what you can’t”. He outlines five reforms he said the COnservative government would undertake in the next parliament.
The British Medical Association (BMA) described the prime minister as “pushing a hostile rhetoric”, with a spokesperson saying that “Fit notes are carefully considered before they are written, and a GP will sign their patient off work only if they are not well enough to undertake their duties.
“With a waiting list of 7.5 million – not including for mental health problems – delays to diagnostics, and resulting pressures on GP practices, patients cannot get the treatment they need to be able to return to work.”
Earlier, on BBC Breakfast, Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride said that he thought GPs were signing people off work unnecessarily, telling viewers “We have 2.8 million people on long term sickness benefits. Part of the journey on to those benefits almost certainly involve visiting a GP and being signed off. We have 11 million fit notes that are signed off every year. And in the case of 94% of those fit notes that are signed off, a box is ticked that says that the person is not capable of any work whatsoever.”
Labour’s shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook, noting that chanceller Jeremy Hunt had made similar proposals when health secretary, said “This is a policy paper that’s been dusted off from 2017 to get a cheap headline and it won’t tackle the fundamental causes of the problem.”
Pennycook said “There has been a long term rise for many, many years under this government in people who are on long term sickness benefits, either because they can’t get the treatment they need through the NHS, which is on its knees after 14 years of Conservative government, or they are not getting the proper support to get back into work.”
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey described it as “a desperate speech from a prime minister mired in sleaze and scandal”.
Disability equality charity Scope said Sunak’s proposals on changes to personal independence payment (Pips) felt like “a full-on assault on disabled people.”
Sunak said that the current spending on long-term sickness and disability benefits was unsustainable at £69bn, and spending on Pip was forecast to rise by 50% in the next four years.
Updated
The BBC is reporting that anti-slavery campaigner Dr Aidan McQuade is returning his honorary OBE (Officer of the British empire) over the Rwanda deportation scheme, saying it is “something which I can no longer, in good conscience, keep.”
In a letter announcing that he had returned the honour, Dr McQuade wrote that the government’s Rwanda policy and Rishi Sunak’s intimation he was prepared to leave the European convention on human rights in order to get it operational “send to the whole world a message that the UK rejects the core bases of human rights and rule of law upon which progress in human dignity, including anti-slavery action has been based for hundreds of years. This can only impede the anti-slavery struggle and embolden other governments who seek to systematically abuse the rights of their subjects and citizens.”
Dr McQuade received the honorary OBE for services to the elimination of slavery in 2017.
Ed Davey has described Rishi Sunak’s appearance touting welfare reform plans this morning as “a desperate speech from a prime minister mired in sleaze and scandal”.
PA Media reports the Liberal Democrat leader said: “Millions of people are stuck on NHS waiting lists, unable to get a GP appointment or struggling to access mental health support.
“Rishi Sunak is attempting to blame the British people for his own government’s failures on the economy and the NHS, and it simply won’t wash.”
Ash James, director of practice and development at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, the trade union representing physiotherapists, was also critical, noting “the prime minister should look closer to home for the causes. There are long waiting times for NHS services for musculoskeletal conditions, such as back and neck pain – the second most common reason for sickness absence. Long waits lead to more complex problems and we know that the greater the amount of time someone is off work, the less likely they are ever to return”.
Updated
BMA criticises Rishi Sunak for 'hostile rhetoric' in his ‘sicknote culture’ speech
The British Medical Association (BMA) has urged Rishi Sunak to avoid using a “hostile rhetoric on sicknote culture” after his welfare reform announcement.
PA Media reports Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of GPC England, the BMA’s GP committee, said:
Fit notes are carefully considered before they are written, and a GP will sign their patient off work only if they are not well enough to undertake their duties.
We do recognise the health benefits of good work, and that most people do want to work, but when they are unwell, people need access to prompt care.
With a waiting list of 7.5 million – not including for mental health problems – delays to diagnostics, and resulting pressures on GP practices, patients cannot get the treatment they need to be able to return to work.
So rather than pushing a hostile rhetoric on ‘sicknote culture’, perhaps the prime minister should focus on removing what is stopping patients from receiving the physical and mental healthcare they need, which in turn prevents them from going back to work.”
Earlier, on BBC Breakfast, Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride appeared to say that he thought GPs were signing people off work unnecessarily. [See 9.15 BST]
The prime minister was in London today announcing a raft of reforms that he said a Conservative government would bring in during the next parliament.
The director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope has said that today’s speech by Rishi Sunak about his plans for welfare reform “feels like a full-on assault on disabled people.”
In a statement, James Taylor said:
These proposals are dangerous and risk leaving disabled people destitute. In a cost of living crisis looking to slash disabled people’s income by hitting Pip is a horrific proposal. Calls are pouring into our helpline from concerned disabled people.
Life costs more for disabled people. Threatening to take away the low amount of income Pip provides to disabled people who face £950 a month extra costs isn’t going to solve the problem of economic inactivity. Sanctions and ending claims will only heap more misery on people at the sharp end of our cost of living crisis.
Much of the current record levels of inactivity are because our public services are crumbling, the quality of jobs is poor and the rate of poverty amongst disabled households is growing.
Some economic news here from my colleague Jane Croft
Retail sales in Great Britain unexpectedly stalled in March as consumers cut back on spending because of the cost of living, according to new data.
British retail sales volumes stagnated at 0% in March after an increase of 0.1% in February, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The figures were worse than the 0.3% sales growth expected by economists polled by Reuters as a contraction in food sales and department stores offset higher sales elsewhere.
“Retail sales registered no growth in March. Hardware stores, furniture shops, petrol stations and clothing stores all reported a rise in sales,” said Heather Bovill, an ONS senior statistician.
“However, these gains were offset by falling food sales and in department stores where retailers say higher prices hit trading. Looking at the longer-term picture, across the latest three months retail sales increased after a poor Christmas.”
On an annual basis, sales volumes rose 0.8% over the year to March 2024, weaker than the 1% expected.
The gloomy figures underline the dilemma for the Bank of England over when to start cutting interest rates, as it grapples with the twin threat of weak growth and higher than expected inflation in March.
Read more from Jane Croft here: Retail sales in Great Britain flatline as households continue to feel squeeze
Sunak: my patience has 'run thin' over Rwanda and on Monday parliament will 'sit there and vote until it’s done'
Rishi Sunak has said his patience has “run thin” on his failure to get his Rwanda deportation plans through parliament, and has pledged that the Commons will “sit there and vote until it’s done” on Monday.
At a press conference in London, the prime minister was asked whether, now deportation flights taking off in spring appear to have been ruled out, could he guarantee there would be deportations of asylum seekers in the summer. Sunak said:
On Rwanda, the very simple thing here is that repeatedly, everyone has tried to block us from getting this bill through. And yet again, you saw it this week. You saw Labour peers blocking us again, and that’s enormously frustrating. Everyone’s patience on this has run thin, mine certainly has.
So our intention now is to get this done on Monday. No more prevarication, no more delay. We are going to get this done on Monday, and we will sit there and vote until it’s done.
I think everyone will be able to see that that there’s a clear choice. You’ve got a Conservative government that is doing absolutely everything it can to pass this bill so that after that, as soon as practically possible, we can get flights to leave to Rwanda, so that we can stop the boats. And you’ve got a Labour party that is doing actually everything it can to delay and frustrated us in that aim. I think the British people can see that very clearly.
But we’re not deterred. We’re going to do everything we can to stop the boats. We’re going to get this done on Monday. We don’t want any more prevarication or delay from the Labour party. We’re going get this bill passed, and then we will work to get flights off, so we can build that deterrent, because that is the only way to resolve this issue.
If you care about stopping the boats, you’ve got to have a deterrent. You’ve got to have somewhere that you can send people so that they know if they come here illegally, they won’t get to stay. It’s as simple as that.
Incidentally there is some new Lord Ashcroft polling on the Conservative Home website today that suggests 42% of people oppose the Rwanda plan, with 38% approving of it.
Among people who voted Conservative in 2019, support for the Rwanda plan stands at two-thirds. Of those that opposed it, 38% said they opposed it because it sounds “expensive and impractical”, while 55% said they opposed it because “it sounds like a harsh way to treat people.”
Christopher Hope from GB News has asked Rishi Sunak a question that seemed to be trying to turn this into a generational culture war wedge issue, asking “Is this sicknote culture a generational thing? Are you basically saying that Britain’s got to pull itself together, get back to work, older people to get on with it, and younger people don’t want to.”
Sunak has deflected blaming young people somewhat, instead insisting that he considers the system is “writing them off”, answering:
I just want to be really clear. I’m not in any way saying that mental health isn’t a serious condition. Of course it is. And look, if you’re feeling anxious or depressed of course you should get the support and the treatment that you need to manage your conditions. But that doesn’t mean that we should assume you can’t engage in the world of work
But this point on young people is important. And I said it should worry all of us the biggest proportional increase in the group of people who become economically inactive since the pandemic [is] young people.
I that is a tragedy, right. It’s an enormous waste and loss of human potential. And so as a matter of urgency, we should be wanting to tackle that.
And if you believe very strongly as I do that work is good for people, particularly early in their careers and life, then we must look at reforming this system because how it’s working at the moment, forget about what it’s doing on the money and everything else, and it’s unsustainable and bad for the economy, it is fundamentally letting these people down if we are writing them off, rather than helping them get into work. Because that’s probably one of the most positive things we can do for them.
Rishi Sunak said during his speech that an expected rise in benefits spending is “not sustainable”.
The prime minister said in his speech:
We now spend £69bn on benefits for people of working age with a disability or health condition. That’s more than our entire schools budget, more than our transport budget, more than our policing budget.
And spending on personal independence payments alone is forecast to increase by more than 50% over the next four years. Let me just repeat that. If we do not change, it will increase by more than 50% in just four years. That’s not right, it’s not sustainable.
He added that the Government’s “overall approach is about saying that people with less severe mental health conditions should be expected to engage in the world of work”.
He has now been asked which types of medical professionals might be involved if it isn’t going to be GPs. He said there is a very strong argument for changing the system. “I’ve said if you believe like me, work is a good thing, we’ve got to have a system and a culture that recognises that and encourages it. And the current fitn note system unfortunately, is not delivering that for any of us.”
He said:
Today, we’re publishing our call for evidence, because I’m not saying I’m standing here today as a precise arbiter of what it’s going to look like. But we’re going to ask people’s views, we’re going to try on a range of different things. But I do think that there is an argument for moving away from GPs doing this. There’s a lot of demands on GPS. And it may be that this is better done by other professionals.
Also, GPs have a quite special relationship with their patients and inserting this into it puts them sometimes, when you talk to them, in a difficult position, because they don’t want to damage that relationship with their patient, and it may be harder for them.
While Rishi Sunak’s press conference continues, the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is also up and running again today. Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office, is giving evidence for a second day. His written testimony can be found here, and Jane Croft and Ben Quinn’s report on yesterday’s oral testimony can be found here. I will be keeping an eye on proceedings throughout the day.
Rishi Sunak is finishing his speech by saying:
Some people no doubt will hear this speech and accuse me of lacking compassion, of not understanding the barriers people face in their everyday lives. But the exact opposite is true.
There is nothing compassionate about leaving a generation of young people to sit alone in the dark before a flickering screen, watching as their dreams slip further from reach every passing day.
And there is nothing fair about expecting taxpayers to support those who could work, but choose not to.
I’m expecting him to take questions from the media after delivering it.
Rishi Sunak is arguing that not getting people into work is an “irresponsible burden” on future generations and taxpayers. He says:
We risk not only letting those people down [the people who are long-term sickness benefits], but creating a deep sense of unfairness amongst those whose taxes fund our social safety net in a way that risks undermining trust and consent in that very system.
We can’t stand for that. And of course, the situation as it is, is economically unsustainable. We can’t lose so many people from our workforce whose contributions could help to drive growth.
And there’s no sustainable way to achieve our goal of bringing down migration levels – which are just too high – without giving more of our own people the skills incentives and support to get off welfare and back into work.
Sunak is now outlining five reforms that he says “in the next parliament, a Conservative government” will enact. The next election needs to be called by the end of January at the latest, and the Conservatives are currently about 20 points behind Labour in polling.
You can watch this Rishi Sunak press conference here …
It has been heavily trailed and I have already put some excerpts from it in the blog, but Rishi Sunak is about to speak at the Centre for Social Justice in London. I will bring you the key lines as they emerge. He is being introduced by Iain Duncan Smith, who set the centre up twenty years ago.
There was also some Labour reaction to the advanced notice of what Rishi Sunak is to say about what he calls “sicknote culture” from Alison McGovern, Labour’s acting shadow work and pensions secretary
In a statement issued overnight, PA Media quotes her saying: “A healthy nation is critical to a healthy economy, but the Tories have completely failed on both.
“We’ve had 14 Tory years, five Tory prime ministers, seven Tory chancellors, and the result is a record number of people locked out of work because they are sick – at terrible cost to them, to business and to the taxpayer, paying billions more in spiralling benefits bills.
“Today’s announcement proves that this failed Government has run out of ideas, announcing the same minor alternation to fit notes that we’ve heard them try before. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak’s £46bn unfunded tax plan to abolish national insurance risks crashing the economy once again.”
By the way, if you are confused about what is a sicknote and what is a fit note, they are essentially the same thing. Sicknotes were re-branded as fit notes in 2010. From the government website:
The fit note can be issued following a health and work assessment by the healthcare professional, either a doctor, nurse, occupational therapist, pharmacist, or physiotherapist, who may be responsible for your care plan. The fit note will provide advice to you and your employer about the impact of your health condition, where that may have an effect on your fitness for work.
The fit note is intended to support you stay in, or return to, work. It can also enable you to access health-related benefits or evidence eligibility for statutory sick pay (SSP). You can use your fit note to support a claim to benefits.
The Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride got into a terse exchange on BBC Breakfast this morning over whether he was arguing that GPs were signing people off sick from work too easily or incorrectly.
He opened the interview by saying:
We have 2.8 million people on long term sickness benefits. Part of the journey on to those benefits almost certainly involve visiting a GP and being signed off. We have 11 million fit notes that are signed off every year. And in the case of 94% of those fit notes that are signed off, a box is ticked that says that the person is not capable of any work whatsoever. We want to move on.
Naga Munchetty then asked him “Do you think fewer than 94% should have been signed off by GP?”
After a couple of attempts to get him to answer the question, Munchetty continued “you’re not answering my question. You’re telling me about how you would like to encourage or help people who have been signed off to avoid being signed off? What I’m asking is of the 94%, who were signed off by GPs, do you think of those some of those should not have been signed off?”
Stride then said “I’ve already said yes, so there’s a one word answer, yes. I’ve already said that three times.”
He then argued he was “not criticising GPs in the least,” when asked if he didn’t think GPs were being accurate. He went on to say:
What it’s saying is that we need need a more holistic approach to those that are currently going to their GP and are being signed off, and I think that will take the numbers down.
Labour's Pennycook: Sunak sicknote plan is for 'cheap headline' rather than tackling fundamental causes and long NHS waiting times
Labour’s Matthew Pennycook has accused Rishi Sunak of going for a “cheap headline” with his comments on “sicknote culture”.
He accused the Conservatives of failing to tackle the root cause of the growing number of people on long-term sickness benefits, which is that they cannot get treatment due to near record NHS waiting lists.
The shadow housing minister said:
There has been a long term rise for many, many years under this government in people who are on long term sickness benefits, either because they can’t get the treatment they need through the NHS, which is on its knees after 14 years of Conservative government, or they are not getting the proper support to get back into work
Adding that it was “not helpful” to make sweeping generalisations that GPs were signing people off too easily, Pennycook said “We need to look at the root causes of the problem”.
He said:
This announcement screams to me a government that, after 14 years, are out of ideas and out of time. This proposal, as I understand it, is a consultation on tweaks to the fit note system. So that’s a proposal that was first mooted by the chancellor Jeremy Hunt back when he was health secretary in 2017.
We’re still the only G7 country that hasn’t returned to economic activity rates pre-pandemic. This is costing the country. Something’s got to be done. I don’t think tinkering with a call for evidence on the fit note system is anywhere near the scale of the challenge.
We’ve got to bring NHS waiting lists down. We got to do more on mental health support. We’ve also got to reform social security. We’ve got to make job centres work, provide people with real support, and make work pay. This is a long term problem that is entirely of the Tories making.
Work and pensions secretary: 'enough is enough' on 'skyrocketing' benefit spending
Appearing on LBC this morning, Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride put the cost of what he described as “issues like long term sickness, disability, and you add up all the cost of all the benefits there, you get to about £69bn pounds”
He told listeners:
We have 11 million sicknotes issued every year. 94% of them state that the person concerned is not capable of any work whatsoever.
And what I want to move back to is a much healthier situation all round, in which we stand up a different approach.
And we’re calling this “work well”, where we will be combining healthcare support for those people, with work support.
So work coaches, so that if somebody is in employment at the moment, they get that support, and they’re not drifting away from the workplace into these long term sickness benefits, which we have 2.8 million people on
So I want to intervene at this stage, and I want to give people more support, and particularly having them in work, because we know that work is good for you.
And we know particularly that it’s good for those that have mental health issues. There’s plenty of evidence that shows that and that is the mission that I have.
All the forecasts are for these benefits to be skyrocketing upwards in time. And that is something that we must address. Enough is enough on that one is my message.
Rishi Sunak is to call for an end to 'sick note culture' in speech today
Prime minister Rishi Sunak is set to make what has been described as a major speech on welfare reform in which he will call for an end to the “sick note culture” and warn against “over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life”.
Sunak is expected to say:
We should see it as a sign of progress that people can talk openly about mental health conditions in a way that only a few years ago would’ve been unthinkable, and I will never dismiss or downplay the illnesses people have.
But just as it would be wrong to dismiss this growing trend, so it would be wrong merely to sit back and accept it because it’s too hard; or too controversial; or for fear of causing offence. Doing so, would let down many of the people our welfare system was designed to help.
Arguing that there is a “growing body of evidence that good work can actually improve mental and physical health” he will go on to say:
We need to be more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.
We don’t just need to change the sicknote, we need to change the sicknote culture so the default becomes what work you can do – not what you can’t.
Building on the pilots we’ve already started we’re going to design a new system where people have easy and rapid access to specialised work and health support to help them back to work from the very first Fit Note conversation.
We’re also going to test shifting the responsibility for assessment from GPs and giving it to specialist work and health professionals who have the dedicated time to provide an objective assessment of someone’s ability to work and the tailored support they need to do so.
It comes in the wake of Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride last month saying there was “a real risk” that “the normal ups and downs of human life” were being labelled as medical conditions which then held people back from working. Stride was on the morning media round this morning, and more of that in a moment.
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning. The prime minister is expected to make a major announcement on welfare reform today, claiming that too many people are being signed off work by GPs. That should come at 9.30am. In the meantime, here are your headlines …
Half a million unpaid carers in the UK may not be claiming £4,200 a year benefit they are entitled to
An estimated 85,000 additional childcare places would be required by September 2025 to enable the government’s planned expansion of funded childcare for working parents in England
Most UK dairy farms are ignoring pollution rules as manure spews into rivers
A Thames Water nationalisation plan could move the bulk of its £15bn debt to the state. It paid out at least £7bn in dividends between 1990 and 2022
There is no business scheduled today for the Scottish parliament, Senedd or in the Northern Ireland assembly. The House of Lords is sitting and the Commons is debating private member bills. Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office, is up for a second day at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
It is Martin Belam with you today. Can I just echo something Andrew Sparrow mentioned yesterday, which is that the Guardian is legally liable for what gets posted in comment threads, and there is more than one story around today where there is a lot of legal risk of potential libel, so please put your thinking caps on before hitting send. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com if you spot typos/errors/omissions.
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