Early evening summary
Keir Starmer has used prime minister’s questions to repeat Labour’s attacks on the government’s record over crime, saying that Rishi Sunak had “lost control of the court service” and allowed offenders to go free.
Rishi Sunak has declared his wife’s shareholding in a childcare company that could benefit from a new government policy, four years after she invested in it, a much-delayed new register of ministers’ interests has shown.
Colin Beattie has stepped down from his post as SNP treasurer after his arrest on Tuesday (see 5.08pm).
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Jim Allister, the leader of Traditional Unionist Voice, the hardline unionist party which has been winning votes from the DUP, has posted this on Twitter in response to Rishi Sunak’s speech. He makes it clear that he is opposed to the resumption of power-sharing because he does not want to see Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill as first minister.
So PM thinks the way to protect the Union is to put in charge the party dedicated to its destruction! Didn’t end well for chickens in the coop!
— Jim Allister (@JimAllister) April 19, 2023
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DUP leader says Heaton-Harris's speech urging him to resume power-sharing 'entirely counterproductive'
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has restated his opposition to the Windsor framework. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, had described it as a “gateway to a bright future” in her speech to the conference in Belfast this afternoon, but Donaldson told journalists:
It’s a pity that the gateway has bars and locks on it and checks, and all kinds of things that we need to see removed, if Northern Ireland is going to have unfettered access to our own internal market.
That’s simply all we’re asking of our own government, to respect the integrity of its own internal market, to stand up for the union, to be the prime minister for all of the United Kingdom.
I think the prime minister will respond to that, I am hopeful that what we will hear from the prime minister is something more positive and forward looking, something that is more inclusive than what we heard yesterday from the secretary of state.
Donaldson also said Chris Heaton-Harris’s speech on Tuesday had been “entirely counterproductive”:
If Chris Heaton-Harris thinks that berating unionists on a public platform of this nature is going to find the solution that we need to get Stormont restored, then I think someone should take him aside and give him a lesson in peacebuilding and in quiet diplomacy.
Because that’s the way we’re going to resolve these issues, not shouting from platforms at each other. Put away the megaphone and let’s sit down with the government and unionists, and other parties for that matter too, and let’s sort out these problems.
That’s where the solution will be found, it will be found in those quiet conversations that enable us to get to the solution we need to see Stormont restored, that’s what we want.
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Rampant sexism and sexual harassment 'endemic' in music industry, MPs told
Rampant sexism and sexual harassment is endemic in the music industry, and is getting worse, a group of MPs have been told.
Deborah Annetts, the chief executive of the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM), said women were still being told that they should sleep with influential people to get ahead in their careers, and fear reprisals if they speak out about abuse.
Annetts told the Commons women and equalities committee, which is carrying out an inquiry into misogyny in music, that the precarious nature of work in the music industry left women exposed to abuse. She said:
It is still the case that women are told that if you want to get ahead, you have to sleep with the person who has influence over your career. And because by and large they are freelancers, they have very few rights and if they say anything, they will not work again. And that is where the power imbalance lies.
She said the ISM had carried out research published last year, based on 660 responses from those in the UK music sector, which found 58% had suffered sexual harassment and 88% had not reported the discrimination they had faced.
She also said that in a similar survey carried out in 2018, 47% of respondents said they experienced some form of discrimination while working in the music sector, which had increased to 66% last year, while non-reporting had increased:
People are now more scared to report. I think that may be a function of the pandemic, that work is even more scarce. And therefore you’re even more worried about how you can keep a roof over your head.
She said many senior women who had lost their jobs were being gagged by non-disclosure agreements which continued to cover up abuse.
You’ve got the freelancers who can’t speak out because of fear of reprisal. And you’ve got senior women who can’t speak out because of what may happen to them and that is the sector that we’re working in. I was shocked when I came into the sector 15 years ago I did not expect it to be like this. But it’s something I have learned is endemic.
Asked if she had seen an improvement in 15 years, she responded: “I think it’s getting worse.”
She called for a reintroduction of a legal requirement for employers to protect their workers from abuse by third parties such as clients or customers, which the government scrapped in 2013. The Lib Dem MP Wera Hobhouse’s private member’s bill, which would reinstate the requirement, passed second reading in the House of Lords in March.
Responding to a scandal in which no women were nominated for the newly gender-neutral category of Best Artist at the Brit Awards this year, YolanDa Brown, the chair of the British Phonographic Industry, said the change had “uncovered that there is a deeper seated issue to get more women into our industry”.
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Humza Yousaf thanks Beattie, saying standing down was in best interests of SNP
Humza Yousaf, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, has thanked Colin Beattie, saying that by standing aside he was acting in the best interest of the party.
He also says a new SNP treasurer will be appointed “as soon as possible”.
(Beattie said in his statement [see 5.08pm] that he was stepping back, not that he was resigning, but Yousaf implies he does not expect him to come back.)
I want to offer my thanks to Colin. I know that his decision to step back from the role of SNP National Treasurer will not have been an easy one, but he has done so in the best interest of the Party. A new Treasurer will be appointed as soon as possible. https://t.co/lhdsbpi0o3
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) April 19, 2023
Colin Beattie says he's stepping back from role as SNP treasurer following his arrest yesterday
Colin Beattie has announced he will step back from his role as the SNP’s treasurer following his arrest by police yesterday. In a statement he said:
This afternoon I informed the party leader that I will be stepping back from my role as SNP national treasurer with immediate effect.
I have also informed the SNP chief whip at Holyrood that I will be stepping back from my role on the public audit committee until the police investigation has concluded.
On a personal level, this decision has not been easy, but it is the right decision to avoid further distraction to the important work being led by Humza Yousaf to improve the SNP’s governance and transparency.
I will continue to co-operate fully with Police Scotland’s inquiries and it would be inappropriate for me to comment any further on a live case.
After being questioned by police yesterday, Beattie was released without charge “pending further investigation”.
Sunak tells DUP restoring power-sharing will strengthen unionism
Rishi Sunak’s speech to the conference marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement started off as an extensive thank you to those involved in reach the deal in 1998 (when Sunak was still a teenager). But after that it got a bit more interesting. Here are the lines.
Sunak told the DUP that restoring power-sharing would strengthening unionism. Echoing the argument used by Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, in his speech yesterday, he said:
I urge you to work with us to get Stormont up and running again.
That’s the right thing to do on its own terms.
And I’m convinced that it’s also the right thing to do for our union.
I am a proud unionist.
We believe passionately that Northern Ireland is stronger within the UK – and the UK is stronger with Northern Ireland within it.
But we must also build support beyond those of us who already identify as unionists.
To do that, we have to show that devolved government within the United Kingdom works for Northern Ireland.
The fact that the institutions have been down for nine of the last 25 years should be a source of profound concern.
Over the long term that will not bolster the cause of unionism – I believe that deeply.
So we need to get the institutions up and running – and keep them up and running.
Sunak did not mention the DUP, but it was obvious who he was addressing. Yesterday, in response to Heaton-Harris’s speech, the DUP said the Northern Ireland secretary sounded “clueless”.
Sunak said he hoped that over the next 25 years power-sharing would continue without further interruptions.
He said, just as Tony Blair did not give up on Northern Ireland after the Good Friday agreement was signed, he would not “walk away’” after negotiating the Windsor framework.
He said he was committed to making Northern Ireland an economic success. He said:
This is my commitment to you:
I will use the full force of the UK government to help you make this one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business, create jobs, train and learn new skills, and attract investment.
He said the Good Friday agreement showed the value of moderation. He said:
Squalid acts are always justified with some false dream about what they will achieve.
But they have never worked – and they never will.
Instead, let us glorify moderation, romanticise respect and make heroes of those with the courage to reject absolutes, not kill for them.
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Bill Clinton urges DUP to 'get this show on the road' and resume power sharing
Yesterday Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of the DUP, insisted that his party would not listen to lectures from “the great and the good” who are urging them to resume power sharing. But that has not stopped them trying, at the Queen’s University Belfast conference, and the best example of that today came from Bill Clinton. Here are the highlights from the speech from the former US president.
Clinton told the DUP it was “time to get this show on the road”. Referring to the Windsor framework, the deal to revise the Northern Ireland protocol agreed recently by London and Brussels, he said:
Now that I think the biggest roadblock that Brexit posed for Northern Ireland’s political and economic future has been dramatically mitigated, it’s to figure out what the heck practically is at issue here – not rhetorically, not ideologically – practically at issue. What else needs to change to protect the day-to-day legitimate pursuit of making a living and to deal with it?
But this whole deal was never supposed to be an engine of obstruction. The agreement was never supposed to be used to make sure there could be no self-government.
We know what the votes were at the last election, we can add them up, the allocation of seats in the parliamentary body, and it is time to get this show on the road.
Clinton was referring to DUP claims that the Northern Ireland protocol undermines the Good Friday agreement.
He said he was confident that the public wanted power sharing restored. He explained:
Do you still have problems? Sure. We need more economic growth, we need less inequality, you have got some health issues you need to resolve and you’ve got to have functioning government to do all that.
I think that is what the British government wants, I think that is what the Irish government wants and I know it’s what the people outside want.
He said the challenge was less daunting than it was 25 years ago. He said:
I ask you not to be discouraged, this is human affairs, there are very few permanent victories or defeats in human affairs. All these old ugly problems are always rearing their heads. You just have to suck it up and beat it back and deal with it.
You’ll be fine if you remember what got you here. You are no longer walking on air against your better judgment.
If Seamus Heaney were still alive and he were here he would say we walked on air against our better judgment, now you have a hard floor to walk on, for God’s sake get up and walk.
Clinton channels Heaney at #Agreement25. “You are no longer walking on air against your better judgement… now you have a hard floor to walk on. For god’s sake, just get up and walk!” @virginmedianews pic.twitter.com/SDAFP8KUi5
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) April 19, 2023
He mocked those opposed to his presence in Belfast this week for the conference. He said:
Guys like me need to get out of town. I mean, they they’re already doing what they so often do, trying to spew resentment against us for showing up in the first place. Which I think is funny because I think showing up in the first place helped you get you to where we are now.
This seemed to be aimed at more extreme unionists opposed to Clinton being in Belfast, not Donaldson and the DUP, although it was hard to be sure. Clinton also joked, in another part of his speech, about how long he had been in the city. He said:
I have been here so long that I am reliably informed that I will owe taxes if I am not gone in 48 hours.
He said the Windsor framework seemed the best deal available. He said:
This Windsor agreement – seems to me anyway, as an outsider who cares very much – is about the best deal you could get to split the baby.
It has the benefits of access to the European markets, and the necessity of access to the UK market, to be reconciled in a way that will permit the best of both worlds – something that, as far as I can tell, nobody else with this kind of access to the EU has in their domestic market. I don’t think there’s anything quite like.
So do I hope it will be enough or that it can be tweaked a little bit? I certainly do.
Because no matter how good any deal is, how much endurance there is, what really matters is how long it has a hold of people’s imagination and trust.
He said that “some things are more important than the next election”. He was talking about the past, although the remark also seemed relevant to the DUP, who are thought to be deferring a decision about restoring power sharing until after the local elections next month.
He claimed the idea that those involved in the Good Friday agreement process were better than people today as “the biggest load of bull I ever heard in my life”. He went on:
Those of us who were there then should thank God every day that we were lucky enough to be where we were to have an opportunity when time and circumstances permitted to play a small role in a big lift in the human condition.
I try to live in the present and for the future and so should we all.
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At the conference in Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, Rishi Sunak has just started delivering his speech. He has got a tough slot, because Bill Clinton was on a few minutes ago, and his speech was terrific. I will post highlights shortly.
This is from Anton Spisak, the Brexit specialist at the Tony Blair Institute.
The speech by Bill Clinton at #GFA25 just now has been one of the best political speeches I have ever heard. The master of anecdote, of humour, and of wisdom. One to remember. pic.twitter.com/uuzLGPKv0p
— Anton Spisak (@AntonSpisak) April 19, 2023
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UK and EU 'need each other more than ever', European Council president Charles Michel says
The UK and the EU “need each other more than ever”, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, told the conference at Queen’s University Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. He explained:
The Belfast agreement also represents the product and the high point of another era, an era when the values of liberal democracies were pre-eminent in the world.
In the past 25 years, the world has changed dramatically. The September 11 attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, global economic crisis, the climate emergency, Covid-19, and now Russia’s war against Ukraine, where we see the tragic consequences of war.
In these troubling times, two great allies, like the United Kingdom and the European Union, we need each other more than ever, we stand today together. We stand together to tackle common challenges like climate change, we stand together to uphold human dignity and human rights.
In this increasingly dangerous world, Northern Ireland and the Belfast/Good Friday agreement are a powerful symbol of what our shared values can achieve.
Let’s continue to build on this unstoppable belief in the potential of peace. For more freedom, more prosperity, more democracy for the people of Northern Ireland, and for all people across the world.
Declaring ministerial interests not same as making them public, says No 10
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing No 10 implied that Rishi Sunak first declared his wife’s shareholding in Koru Kids many years ago.
Referring to his declaration for the list of ministers’ interests, the PM’s press secretary said:
We have been very clear that the prime minister has taken his obligation to declare everything very seriously. He has done that for a number of years.
Three independent advisers have reviewed those declarations so one would infer by that, that those declarations – including that of Koru Kids – have been made for a number of years.
But No 10 also insisted there was a difference between an interest being declared, and an interest being made public. The PM’s spokesperson said:
It has not been published. There is a difference between declaring something as a minister … and then what is then deemed in the public interest to be put in the public domain by the independent adviser.
When ministers are appointed, they have to make a full declaration of their interests to their officials. Those are then reviewed by their permanent secretary, who considers whether any interests create a conflict with ministerial duties. If there is a conflict, action is taken to resolve that (for example, by deciding that the minister is not involved in certain decisions).
Ministers’ interests are also published in the Cabinet Office’s list. But as Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser on ministers’ interests explains in his foreword to the latest version, out today, those listings are not comprehensive. Magnus says:
The list is not a register of interests and does not therefore include every interest that a minister has declared in relation to themselves and their family members. To do so would represent an excessive degree of intrusion into the private affairs of ministers that would be unreasonable, particularly in respect of their family members. The list instead documents those interests, including of close family, which are, or may be perceived to be, directly relevant to a minister’s ministerial responsibilities.
Sunak’s entry in the list of ministers’ interests today (see below) is broadly similar to his entry when the list was last published, in May 2022, when Sunak was chancellor.
In the 2022 version Sunak said his wife “owns a venture capital investment company, Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd”. Today’s version also describes her as the owner of Catamaran Ventures UK, but it also says she has direct shareholdings, and a footnote says these include shares in Koru Kids. (See 11.50am.)
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A former anti-slavery commissioner has described the failure to find someone to replace her as “deeply regrettable”, PA Media reports.
Dame Sara Thornton left the post – which she said is a key appointment – in April last year and it has been vacant since. Giving evidence to the Commons home affairs committee this morning, she was asked if she thought the failure to replace her was intentional. She replied:
I don’t know. I think it’s deeply regrettable. Whether it’s deliberate or whether it’s just poor administration and poor bureaucracy, I don’t know.
But, given the level of public discourse about modern slavery, given that we had the illegal migration bill and also lots of issues about implementation of the Nationality and Borders Act, it seems to me that this is a key appointment and parliament surely should be informed by the expert views of an independent slavery commissioner.
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Britons delayed at Dover to miss out on compensation if EU law scrapped
Passengers taking bus and coach trips to the continent stand to lose their right to compensation for delays in Dover under government plans to delete thousands of EU laws, Lisa O’Carroll reports.
Labour accuses government of failing to stop China running 'police stations' in UK
Labour has accused the government of failing to stop the Chinese running so-called “police stations” for their own nationals in the UK.
In a Commons urgent question, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, also accused the government of failing to tells MPs what it was doing for “fear of party political embarrassment”.
Cooper said:
Other countries have taken visible action. This week two men were arrested by the FBI in New York for suspected operations. And in the Netherlands, similar operations have been shut down. But here in the UK we have heard nothing, no reports of arrests, no reassurance that these operations have been closed down.
Cooper also asked about a report in the Times today claiming that “a Chinese businessman linked to a “secret police station” in London has organised Tory fundraising dinners and been photographed with party leaders”.
She asked Chris Philp, the policing minister:
Can he tell us the full extent of this individual’s involvement with the Conservative party and his contact with any government ministers, and what action ministers and the party have taken?
Can he tell us what they have done about the alleged secret police station in Croydon and elsewhere? Has its operations been closed down? Because the lack of answers will raise grave concerns that the government is not addressing the scale of this threat and is not updating parliament for fear of party political embarrassment because of the connections with the Conservative party.
Philp said there was “a live investigation by the law enforcement community” in relation to the reports of Chinese police stations operating in the UK. He would not give details, but he said that this activity was “unacceptable” and that “it must and will be stopped”.
On the link between the operator of one alleged Chinese police station in the UK and the Conservative party, Philp said: “All political parties need to be alert to the danger that representatives of hostile states seek to infiltrate or influence their activities.”
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Michael Gove has taxpayer-funded smoking hut on roof of his office
Michael Gove has been taking his smoking breaks in a special hut built for him on the roof of his departmental office, after he was stalked by a terrorist and heckled in the street, Aletha Adu reports.
The US economic envoy to Northern Ireland, Joe Kennedy, has warned that American investors need “clarity and certainty” in the country to help deliver Joe Biden’s promise to turbo-boost the local economy.
He received a standing ovation at the final day of a Belfast conference to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement but offered little in the way of detail on that investment to a region racked by continuing boycott of power-sharing by the DUP.
He said political stability had drawn almost $2bn into Northern Ireland from the US in the past decade, including companies such as Citi and Seagate.
He said his responsibility was to the “next set of global partners”, warning:
[They] want clarity and certainty. They want to have a good idea of what may change and how and when that might happen. The sooner they have those answers, the better for a Northern Ireland economy.
Earlier the former US envoy Mitch Reiss cited the former secretary of state Colin Powell’s adage that “capital is a coward that will run to where it feel safe”.
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PMQs – snap verdict
PMQs often sounds much the same, week in, week out, but there were two new elements in the mix today, and both of them help to explain why Conservative MPs sounded relatively pleased with the way Rishi Sunak performed. Any optimism they feel is probably unfounded, but Sunak won’t be flying off to Belfast worried that his MPs felt his PMQs performance was a dud.
The main development is that Sunak has, for the first time, started to attack Starmer over his record as director of public prosecutions. (Boris Johnson tried it once, regurgitating a Jimmy Saville smear from the internet, but that prompted one of his closest advisers to resign in disgust.) Being a former DPP, who can boast of his record fighting crime and jailing criminals, has been, and is, a major selling point for Starmer with voters, but the row about Labour’s anti-Sunak attack ads has encouraged the Tories to tear holes in his story (for example, Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former co-chair of staff, called for this in the Telegraph this week) and today Sunak tried just that. His attack material wasn’t up to much (as DPP Starmer attended 21 sentencing council meetings where non-custodial sentences for sexual crimes were approved – research courtesy of the Daily Mail), but Tory MPs, who view Starmer as sanctimonious, seemed to love seeing him challenged on his own record.
The second novelty was “Sir Softy”, Sunak’s new insult for Starmer. This sounded as if it could have been coined by Boris Johnson, and rather neatly combines a jibe about Starmer’s knighthood (which leads some voters to think he is posh, even though he isn’t), with a reference to Labour not backing the Tories on some past votes toughening sentences. We’ll probably hear this again.
It is a jollier insult than the one in Labour’s controversial anti-Sunak attack, and easier to defend.
But it is also puerile (in the literal sense – it’s what you would expect from a schoolboy). And, much more importantly, anyone who has thought about criminal justice policy for more than about 30 seconds knows that lower sentences aren’t the problem; the problem is that criminals either aren’t getting caught in the first place, or when they are, cases are taking years to get to court because of the backlog. Starmer illustrated this point well with his question about the people smuggler who threw boiling water over a prison officer. Starmer said that he should have been given a jail sentence, but it ended up being suspended. He explained:
Well, the court judgment spelt it out, it’s because it took 16 months for the attacker to be charged – that’s ridiculous – and it took another two years before he was sentenced. Completely unacceptable.
Can’t the prime minister see because they have lost control of the court service because they have created the largest court backlog on record, he is letting violent criminals go free?
Starmer also said another factor was that judges have been told to send fewer people to jail because the prisons are full. The case study story was perhaps a bit too detailed to provide Starmer with a knock-out blow in the chamber, but ultimately winning the substance of the argument is more important than prevailing in the dispatch box skirmishing, and on that Starmer was easily ahead.
But his best moments were when he linked criminal justice to the public services more generally. This is what he said in his second question to Sunak.
He’s living in another world to the rest of us. People waiting more than two days for an ambulance because they broke the NHS. Only one in 100 rapists going to court because they broke the criminal justice system. A record number of small boats crossing the Channel because they broke the asylum system.
People can’t afford their bills, can’t get the police to investigate crimes, can’t get a doctor’s appointment. Does that really sound like pretty good shape?
And in his final question Starmer said:
The crisis in criminal justice is just a snapshot of public services collapsing under his watch. People can see it wherever they look. Our roads, our trains, the NHS, the asylum system, policing, mental health provision – the Tories have broken them all and all they have got left is excuses and blame.
It is hard to argue with this, which is probably why Sunak was more keen to talk about Starmer’s record as DPP. But it is obvious what matters most to voters.
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Jack Elsom from the Sun has dug out the home affairs committee report mentioned by Keir Starmer as a glowing character reference.
Here is the Home Affairs cttee praise for Sir Keir Starmer he raised at PMQs.
— Jack Elsom (@JackElsom) April 19, 2023
Govt response “noted” the committee’s remarks. pic.twitter.com/J40qfn310c
Alistair Carmichael (Lib Dem) asks why the government is not offering a bespoke visa scheme for the fishing industry. Many fishing boats are tied up and cannot go to sea as a result. It is the only time the home secretary has been able to “stop the boats”.
Sunak says the government is a proud champion of the fishing industry. Because of Brexit, it is keen to deliver, he says.
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Daniel Zeichner (Lab) says shop workers have told him they expect to suffer a violent assault at work. What will be done to protect them?
Sunak says the Sentencing Act makes sure proper sentences are in place.
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Rosie Duffield (Lab) mentions recent figures for rapes and sexual assaults in hospitals, and asks what will be done to protect them.
Sunak says he was shocked to see those figures. The government is responding.
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Harriett Baldwin (Con) says her constituents living under a Tory council pay much less council tax than other constituents living under a council run by Greens and independents.
Sunak says: “It is the Conservatives that deliver for you, it is Labour that costs you.”
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Shailesh Vara (Con) echoes the line used by Sunak earlier, and says that if people are criticising the Tories’ record on law and order, the DPP at the time (Starmer) should be blamed.
Stuart C McDonald (SNP) asks when the government will negotiate a fair deal for civil servants.
Sunak says the government has offered a fair deal.
Saqib Bhatti (Con) asks about a constituent raising money for autism awareness.
Sunak praises the constituent, Alfie, and says the government has an autism strategy.
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Chris Law (SNP) asks about air links to Dundee, and investment in the city generally.
Sunak says the government is investing in Dundee.
Anne Marie Morris (Con) asks for a commitment to improve the resilience of the Dawlish line going through her constituency.
Sunak says the government is investing in this.
Sir Ed Davey says tooth decay is a reason why so many young children end up in hospital. But children cannot get NHS dentists. Will Sunak take up the Lib Dem plan to end this?
Sunak claims NHS dentist numbers are going up, and he says there has been a 45% increase in children seeing NHS dentists.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, asks what it was that led the leader of the Scottish Tories to urge voters to back Labour, Starmer’s refusal to back striking workers, his support for Brexit, or his opposition to independence?
Sunak says he knows Flynn’s party has its problems. He says he is getting on with the job.
Flynn repeats his point about Douglas Ross’s call for tactical voting.
Sunak welcomes the SNP government’s U-turn on the deposit return scheme. If the SNP cannot fix the mess left by Nicola Sturgeon in their party, how can they fix the mess left for Scotland?
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Starmer says Tory MPs commended him when he was DPP. He quotes from a home affairs committee in 2013 (which would have had a government majority – although the government was a coalition one then). The report said Starmer would be missed when he stood down. Theresa May, then home secretary, presented that to parliament, he says. He says what is happening in criminal justice is a snapshot of what is happening to public services. He lists several services and says “the Tories have broken them all”.
Wherever they look, our roads, our trains, the NHS, the asylum system, policing, mental health provision – the Tories have broken them all and all they’ve got left is excuses.
Sunak says Starmer got a special law when he was DPP. He refers to the regulation saying Starmer’s pension would be exempt from the rule imposing limits on tax-free savings. He goes on:
It is literally one law for him, and tax rises for everyone else.
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Starmer says another factor in the case he mentioned was that the court was told to take into account prison overcrowding. Dominic Raab has been busy trying to save his own job, rather than doing it. When will he ignore that advice?
Sunak says the governmnet is building 20,000 more prison places. And he says Emily Thornberry said the CPS was letting down victims when Starmer was DPP.
Starmer says Sunak either does not use the same public services as the rest of us, or he does not see the damage done. He mentions a jail sentence given to someone who threw boiling water at a prison warder and asks if he agrees. Starmer says he does agree.
Sunak avoids the question, but says sentencing has gone up.
Starmer says the sentence was suspended, because the case took so long to go to court. Because of the backlog, violent criminals are going free.
Sunak says he is toughening the law on grooming laws. He says Labour voted against some higher sentences. And he says Starmer attended 21 sentencing board meetings where sentences were lowered. No wonder they call him Sir Softie, he says.
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Starmer says the Tories have broken the NHS, the justice system and the asylum system. Does that really sound like pretty good shape?
Sunak says crime is down by 50% since 2010. And there have been 20,000 more police officer, and tougher sentencing, “all oppose by Sir Softie over there”.
Keir Starmer asks if Sunak has met any member of the public who agrees with Greg Hands, the Tory chair, that public services are in “pretty good shape”.
Sunak says schools are improving, and investment is going up.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Lab) asks why Rishi Sunak dropped housebuilding targets to appease Tory members, as he admitted last week.
Sunak says he believes in empowering communities.
Rishi Sunak starts by saying after PMQs he will return to Belfast to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.
As my colleague Aubrey Allegretti reports, the list of ministers’ interests does not include all ministers’ interests.
Ethics adviser Laurie Magnus makes clear this isn't a full list of ministerial interests.
— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) April 19, 2023
It's a list of interests he's advised should be published.
Magnus says declaring every interest "would represent an excessive degree of intrusion into the private affairs of ministers".
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Rishi Sunak to face Keir Starmer at PMQs
PMQs is starting in five minutes.
Cabinet Office publishes long-awaited updated list of minister's interests, mentioning Sunak's wife's Koru Kids shareholding
The Cabinet Office has just published the revised list of ministers’ interests. This is the document that is supposed get updated every six months, but which has not been updated for around a year – partly because it’s the job of the No 10 independent adviser on ministes’ interests (aka, the ethics adviser), and for months the post was empty because two of Boris Johnson’s resigned, and then he gave up trying to find a replacement.
The timing is convenient. As often happens, the approach of PMQs forces the Whitehall machine to cough up something whose absence could cause embarassment for the PM at the dispatch box.
This is what is says in Sunak’s entry, under the section about relevant interest for spouse, partner or close family member.
The prime minister’s wife is a venture capital investor. She owns a venture capital investment company, Catamaran Ventures UK Limited, and a number of direct shareholdings.
And a footnote says:
As the prime minister set out in his letter to the chair of the liaison committee on 4 April 2023, this includes the minority shareholding that his wife has in relation to the company, Koru Kids. The guide to the categories of interest (section 7, pages 4-6) sets out the independent adviser’s approach to the inclusion of interests declared in relation to spouses, partners and close family members within the list. The prime minister’s letter of 4 April is available at https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/38992/documents/191876/default/
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, has written to MPs telling them that they should not refer to the investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for standards into Rishi Sunak at PMQs, Dan Bloom reports in his London Playbook briefing for Politico. Bloom writes:
Sunak is due to travel [to Northern Ireland later] with his wife, Akshata Murty, — days after parliament’s standards commissioner began investigating the way he did (or didn’t) declare her shares in childcare firm Koru Kids. But he’s been thrown a lifeline ahead of his first PMQs for a month at noon. Playbook hears Speaker Lindsay Hoyle’s office wrote to MPs on Tuesday evening, warning them they cannot refer to live commissioner cases to avoid interfering with the process. How handy!
There is nothing unusual about MPs being told not to refer to ongoing standards investigations in the chamber, although the Speaker does not always issue warnings like this in writing.
In a column for the i on this topic, Paul Waugh says the Department for Education has been unsually coy about revealing details of how many meetings it has had with Koru Kids, the childminding agency part-owned by Sunak’s wife. Waugh writes:
On the issue of engagement with the childcare sector, things are a bit murky to say the least. A Freedom of Information request was submitted to the Department for Education (DfE) in January, asking for records of any meetings between ministers, officials and Koru Kids since last October.
The DfE replied that “a minister has decided that, in their reasonable opinion, disclosure of the records of meetings that ministers/officials have conducted with Koru Kids is likely to have [an] inhibitive and prejudicial effect” on “the effective conduct of public affairs”, on free and frank exchanges of views in government and on the formulation of policy.
BBC chair Richard Sharp may quit in light of 'grim' about his appointment, FT claims
Richard Sharp, the Tory donor and former Goldman Sachs banker appointed to chair the BBC, may be forced to resign by a report into the circumstances of his appointment, the Financial Times reports.
Adam Heppinstall KC has been investigating the circumstances of Sharp’s appointment on behalf of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Heppinstall was appointed after the William Shawcross, the public appointments commissioners, recused himself because he knew Sharp.
The inquiry focuses on claims that Sharp should have revealed during the appointments process that he had organised a meeting between a friend willing to offer Boris Johnson a loan guarantee (worth up to £800,000, according to some reports) and the cabinet secretary, who was willing to approve the arrangement. Johnson, PM at the time, ultimately approved Sharp’s appointment.
The FT reports:
According to several people briefed on Heppinstall’s draft report, it is close to being finished. One said the contents made “grim” reading for Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker and a friend of prime minister Rishi Sunak.
They said Sharp had been shown the allegations against him under the “Maxwellisation process”, whereby people who are about to be criticised in a public report are shown the criticism in advance to allow them to respond.
“It may be that Richard decides to jump before he is pushed,” said one person briefed on the draft report. “This is difficult for him. He is seeking ways to justify his behaviour. It seems probable but not certain that he will have to go.”
Sharp used to be Sunak’s boss when the PM worked at Goldman Sachs and, if he were to resign, that would be seen as a blow. There is a strong chance that Sunak might also lose Dominic Raab, the deputy PM, within the next few days. The report into claims Raab bullied officials is due to be published very soon.
There will be a UQ in the Commons on Chinese police stations in the UK after PMQs, followed by a statement on the infected blood inquiry.
AFTER PMQS:
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) April 19, 2023
1 UQ – @YvetteCooperMP - Asking Home Office for a statement on the investigation into Chinese police stations in the UK
2 Statement - Infected Blood Inquiry Progress Update
Updated
Voter ID law 'nothing to do with voter fraud' and all about helping Tories, says Lib Dem leader Ed Davey
Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, told Sky News this morning that the government’s decision to people to provide photo ID when they vote was “very suspicous”.
The rule, which will cover everyone in UK general elections, will also apply for local elections in England, and will apply for the first time in the council elections next month. The plan is hugely controversial because evidence suggests it will disadvantage people least likely to vote Conservative.
Davey told Sky News:
The government has failed to make the case. They claim it was about voter fraud. There is no evidence about this at all and it will make it harder for some people to vote.
When you look at the sort of things they have done in implementing this, they’ve made it OK for retired people to use their bus passes – that’s great, I think that’s right – [as] photo ID for older people if we were to have this awful system. But they have not allowed young people to use their bus passes as photo ID.
That is very suspicious and I think it suggests the government’s motives behind this change are nothing to do with voter fraud; they are everything to do with the selfish interests of the Conservative party.
On Friday last week a reader asked if Labour is committed to repealing this law if it wins the election. By the time I got an answer, my blog had closed, but I was eventually told the party has not explicitly made that promise. “Obviously we have always opposed the government’s unnecessary and expensive voter ID laws, and we will await the independent review of the impact of it in this May’s local elections,” a source said.
Lindy Cameron, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), will give a speech to the CyberUK conference in Belfast later. As PA Media reports in a preview story, she will focus on the threat posed by China.
In an interview with the Today programme this morning, Cameron also warned that infrastructure in the UK was at risk from cyber attacks launched by groups acting on behalf of Russia. She said:
What we’ve seen over the last few months is a change in intent by what we are describing as state-aligned groups – organisations that are sympathetic to the Russian government’s position and where we see some intent to try and target the UK’s critical national infrastructure.
What we are still seeing is quite low-level activity but it is really important that our critical national infrastructure is well protected and resilient, as we called out in the recent integrated review refresh.
And we want to ensure people are ready for the kind of threat they could face in the future.
Mark Harper admits delaying HS2 won't save money
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, has conceded that the delays to HS2 announced last month will not save money. He told the Commons transport committee this morning:
In itself, delaying delivering something doesn’t save money.
But of course it does reflect the fact that you have a budget in each year, everybody listening to this has to live within their annual budget, as well as a budget over time.
We’ve had to make some sensible decisions about how you make those decisions. For me, the choice was very clear.
There’s a section of the project which we have fully mobilised. We’ve got contractors building it, spending a considerable amount of money on phase one.
Delaying the later aspects of the project, it’s much more cost effective to do that because you don’t have contractors on site, you aren’t already building the railway, and you can change the timing of that in a much more sensible way.
UK inflation falls by less than expected as food prices soar by 19.1%
UK inflation fell by less than expected in March, sticking in double figures as households came under pressure from food and drink prices soaring at the fastest annual rate since 1977, Richard Partington reports.
Starmer claims NHS is ‘broken’ and not safe under Tories, as he says he is unconcerned about poll lead falling
Good morning. Today we have got the first PMQs since the Easter recess and the first involving Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer for almost a month. Sunak has been relatively successful in recent weeks (that “relatively” is important – his predecessor was Liz Truss) and it appears that his ratings are helping his party’s. According to the Politico poll of polls, Labour’s average lead over the Conservatives has fallen to 15 points. Two months ago it was ahead by over 20 points.
But Labour is still in a strong position. This week we learned that Sunak does not spent much time in the morning reading the newspapers. At his press conference on Monday he had to admit he did not know anything about the story about the Brecon Beacons being “renamed”, and at the subsequent lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson was evasive when asked what papers Sunak does actually read in the morning. It is rumoured that he only bothers with the Wall Street Journal and the FT.
If so, someone will have to tell him this morning that Keir Starmer has given an interview saying the NHS is broken. So what, Sunak might think. That’s the sort of thing Labour always says. But what should make this worrying for him is that it’s the splash in the Daily Telegraph.
TELEGRAPH: The NHS is broken, declares @Keir_Starmer #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Rg71S4n0I0
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 18, 2023
This is significant because the Telegraph is the house journal for Tory members and it means a) the paper is taking Starmer seriously and b) he is saying something that probably matches the experience of its readers.
Starmer told the paper in his interview:
I think the NHS is broken. There’s been one way of doing things for the last 13 years, and this is where we’ve ended up now with the NHS.
This is political rhetoric, but it might be true too. Last night Prof Sir Michael Marmot, one of the world’s leading public health experts, told Andrew Marr’s show on LBC that if the government wanted to destroy the NHS, they were going about it the right way. Marmot explained:
If you had the hypothesis that the government was seeking to destroy the National Health Service, if that were your hypothesis, all the data that we’re seeing are consistent with that hypothesis.
They may say no, no that’s not what we’re seeking to do. But if you look from 2010, waiting lists have started to increase, not just the pandemic, not just the war in Ukraine, from 2010. In the period pre-2010, waiting lists came down, satisfaction with the NHS was high, spending on the NHS went up at about 3.8% per year, up to 2010.
That 3.8% increase per year went down to about 1% increase per year, waiting lists started to climb and climb and climb. 150,000 vacancies for doctors and nurses. The failure to pay doctors and nurses properly, it’s a recipe for making the NHS fall over.
That’s why I say if you had the hypothesis that this was as sort of a malicious undermining of the NHS, the data we’re seeing consistent with the hypothesis.
I have no special insight into what motivates ministers, but they’re not behaving as if they want to preserve our NHS.
And if you go back to the Commonwealth Fund, which does regular comparisons of health care systems in 11 countries, the NHS always used to be number one and we’re slipping down the rankings. It’s a tragedy.
In 1997 Tony Blair used the line during his election campaign that there were “24 hours to save the NHS”. In his Telegraph interview Starmer suggested he would be doing something similar, saying:
If they carry on like this, it can’t survive – the biggest risk to the NHS is another Tory government.
Starmer has also spoken to the i. In that interview he said he was not concerned about Labour’s poll lead falling, because the party was in a strong position. He said:
The way I look at it is my task is to take the Labour party from the worst-ever general election result since 1935 back into government within a five-year period.
Lots of people said that’s impossible to do. I’ve never believed that. Therefore the trajectory I’m interested in is that trajectory. And measuring ourselves against that I am confident as we go into these local elections.”
I think we’re probably making better progress than most people thought we could make. On the route, as in government so in opposition, there are lots of voices and opinion polls that are intended to knock you off course. But I’ve always been single-mindedly focused on this. My job is to ensure that we’ve got the Labour party into government.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Mark Harper, the transport secretary, gives evidence to the Commons transport committee.
10am: Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, speaks at the Cyber UK conference in Belfast.
12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.
2.55pm: Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, speaks on the final day of the Belfast conference to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Bill Clinton, the former US president, Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach (Irish PM) and Sunak are also speaking later in the afternoon.
If you want to contact me, do try the new “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a PC or a laptop. (It is not available on the app yet.) This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line, privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate), or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
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