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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Starmer calls Tory claim UK would accept 100,000 EU migrants per year under Labour ‘embarrassing nonsense’– as it happened

​​Rishi Sunak Sir Keir Starmer European Union Raac (Person) Steve Barclay NHS United Kingdom Yvette Cooper Europol Stefan Rousseau
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer leaving Europol in The Hague.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer leaving Europol in The Hague. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Gerald Knaus, the head of the European Stability Initiative thinktank, has welcomed Keir Starmer’s suggestion that he would negotiate a returns agreement with the EU. He points out that, in a report earlier this year, the ESI suggested that, in return for France and other countries agreeing to take back migrants crossing the Channel, the UK should agree to take in 40,000 asylum seekers per year. Here is an extract.

Currently the EU is responding to irregular migration to the UK the way Turkey responds to irregular migration from it to the EU: no legal returns of those who cross the water have been possible. For this to change, France, Germany, and others forming a coalition of the willing would need to offer to the UK that they – not Rwanda – will take everyone back who crosses the Channel, as soon as the UK has processed them in line with its laws.

The UK in turn should agree to resettle refugees or asylum seekers, who are now in the European partner countries, through legal ways. If the UK were to offer to take 40,000 people a year for three years, this would be real solidarity with France, Germany or the Netherlands.

Why 40,000? Last year, Germany granted protection to more than 128,000 people. Austria (population 9 million) to more than 17,000. In 2022, France had 150,000 asylum applications and granted 50,000 people international protection, including decisions on appeal and resettlement. The UK had 90,000 asylum applications and gave 25,000 people some form of protection, including decisions on appeal and resettlement (all excluding Ukrainian refugees).

For the UK, such cooperation would bring back control. And the commitment to resettle would ensure a continued interest on the other side of the channel in cooperation.

Updated

Mujtaba Rahman, who provides Europe analysis for the Eurasia Group consultancy, has posted a good thread on X/Twitter about Keir Starmer’s plan to negotiate a returns agreement with the EU. It starts here.

Rahman argues that it won’t be easy, not least because the current voluntary EU scheme is not working. But he says Starmer’s ambition is sensible, and that he is being more realistic about what might be achieved than the government.

Here are some of his points.

So is it a daft idea for Starmer to seek a migrant deal with an EU which can’t make its own internal deals stick? No. A/ Because there is no alternative. B/ Because EU will have to re-think its approach in the coming months/years and the UK should be part of that discussion 8/

It is apparently Starmer’s intention to agree a “return policy” with the EU. Any unauthorised migrants reaching Kent would be returned to France/the EU. This would discourage/destroy the small boats traffic. BUT the UK would in return accept an agreed number of migrants 14/

How many? To be negotiated. Over 45,000 arrived by small boats last year. It might be many fewer than that. It is a little reported fact that the arrivals are 20% down so far this year (just over 23,000) 15/

All the same, Starmer will have his work cut out. The present EU returns policy – voluntary and Hungary/Poland refuse to take part – is clearly in trouble. No point in the UKG joining a failing scheme 16/

But talks are already under way to improve the EU deal. The present Govt has agreed, in theory, to be part of those talks but it seems to think that it can get something for nothing. Starmer at least is trying to confront the messy and much-misrepresented reality

Updated

Mims Davies MP and and her cockapoo TJ, who was declared winner of the Westminster Dog of the Year competition today.
Mims Davies MP and and her cockapoo TJ, who was declared winner of the Westminster dog of the year competition today. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Shutterstock

Updated

Foreign diplomats in London owe nearly £150m in congestion charge debt, the Foreign Office has said.

In a written ministerial statement, it says that diplomatic missions and international organisations have racked up debts of £145m in unpaid congestion charge since the scheme was introduced in 2003. Diplomats argue that it is a tax, from which they are exempt, but the UK government says it is more akin to a parking fee or a toll charge, which they should pay.

In a separate written ministerial statement, the Foreign Office says 15 serious and significant offences were allegedly committed by people entitled to diplomatic immunity between 2019 and 2022.

Updated

Mordaunt claims default 20mph speed limit in Wales on residential roads 'absolutely insane'

Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, has described the decision by the Labour government in Wales to introduce a default 20mph speed limit on residential roads as “absolutely insane”.

Asked about the policy at business questions by Virginia Crosbie, the Conservative MP for Ynys Môn, Mordaunt said:

This is absolutely insane even by the standards of Labour’s Welsh government.

They have ignored businesses and they have ignored the public. They are pushing ahead with this scheme despite huge opposition to it and I think the latest estimate is it will cost the Welsh economy £4.5bn.

But more disturbingly it is going to increase individuals’ fuel bills considerably and actually be harmful to the environment.

[Crosbie] is right, there are circumstances where of course 20mph speed limits are a good idea, but having them as the default for many roads is crazy.

Instead of punishing motorists, Labour should be focusing on fixing public transport, in particular the trains.

In a Q&A on its website the Welsh government says the calculation that the policy would cost £4.5bn over 30 years, included in an initial impact assessment, may not be accurate.

Mordaunt is the MP for Portsmouth North. As PA Media points out, on its website Portsmouth city council boasts that it was “the first British city to implement a 20mph speed limit on almost all residential roads to reduce road casualties and protect pedestrians and cyclists”.

Updated

Podcast star and former Tory minister Rory Stewart praises Starmer's small boats policy as 'brave and principled'

Rory Stewart, the former Tory cabinet minister and co-host of the hit podcast The Rest is Politics with Alastair Campbell, has praised Keir Starmer’s small boats policy as “brave and principled”.

@Keir_Starmer new ideas on asylum seem brave and principled. He is taking a political risk but it will mean a workable asylum policy and far fewer dangerous boat crossings. It is logical, moral, good for Britain - and far better than the current government policy. Well done Keir

Stewart was commenting on a tweet from Nick Timothy, the former co-chief of staff to Theresa May who is now a Conservative election candidate. In his tweet on Labour’s policy, Timothy said:

Starmer’s solution to the Channel crossings? To agree quotas of migrants already in safe EU countries.

We didn’t accept asylum quotas even when we were in the EU.

This is a surrender - and a recipe for yet more immigration.

Updated

Keir Starmer has posted a picture on X/Twitter of his meeting today with Catherine De Bolle, the executive director of Europol.

In his Times interview Starmer said he was comparing dealing with people smugglers to dealing with terrorism (see 9.50am) because they were both cross-border criminal enterprises. He said:

The features are the same. Very few terrorist operations are within one nation, one border. They are nearly all cross-border. They are highly organised and involve the movement of people and apparatus across borders. There’s usually a lot of finance involved.

He said that, when he was director of public prosecutions, he was often involved in working with international partners against gangs. He said:

I was involved in this sort of work when I was director of public prosecutions. What I want to replicate is the model that I used for very serious organised crime across borders. That involves real-time intelligence sharing. It involves decisions about what evidence can be used, where a case is going to be prosecuted, and then operational details about where arrests are going to take place, at what time.

He told the Times he wanted to use serious crime prevention orders, which allow suspects to have their movements restricted and their assets frozen before they have been convicted, against people smugglers. He said:

They’ve been used, these powers, for terrorism, for drug trafficking, but they’ve never been used for serious, organised immigration crime. My own view is that they should be used for that.

Updated

Figures showing backlog of cases in crown courts at record levels 'very alarming', says Law Society

The backlog of cases in crown courts reached a record figure of 64,105 in July, up from 59,361. After the focus on prison funding and staffing cuts in the wake of the escape of Daniel Khalife last week, the backlog figures, published today, bring renewed focus on the criminal justice system.

Lubna Shuja, the Law Society of England and Wales president, said:

The terrible backlogs in our criminal courts continue to spiral out of control. Outstanding cases in the crown court have risen by more than 4,000 in a year, and the magistrates’ court backlog by more than 15,000 in the same period.

The fact that the backlogs continue to get worse, not better, is very alarming. Even the government’s own unambitious target of reducing the crown court backlog to 53,000 by March 2025 now looks like wishful thinking.

The figures demonstrate another year of failure in tackling the backlogs. Efforts to tackle crime and keep communities safe will fail if these backlogs aren’t addressed.

In the run-up to the general election, Labour is seeking to highlight the criminal justice system as another area where it claims the Conservatives are falling short, alongside lengthy NHS waiting lists and problems with school buildings.

The government has previously blamed Covid and the barristers’ strike for the backlog but those arguments become increasingly difficult to maintain given that coronavirus restrictions were lifted last year and the strike ended in October.

Updated

The Migration Observatory, a migration study centre based at Oxford University, has posted this on X/Twitter about the Labour small boats proposals.

Keir Starmer’s announcements on Labour’s plan to manage irregular arrivals moves away from the current deterrence approach, and relies more on cooperation with the EU. Here’s our recent analysis on UK policies to deter people from claiming asylum.

This does not amount to a formal endorsement. But, given that the paper cited in the tweet is sceptical about the value of the deterrence approach, you might assume the experts at the Migration Observatory are hinting that Labour’s approach could be an improvement on the status quo. Here is an extract from the paper.

The available evidence suggests that the deterrent effect of asylum policies tends to be small. This is because:

Policy has been found to not be the most important factor influencing changes in the number of people claiming asylum. Global developments, such as conflicts in countries of origin, appear statistically to be more important.

Prospective asylum seekers do not always know what policies will face them when they arrive. The information they have may be inaccurate or misleading and not particularly detailed.

Decisions about where and how to move depend not just on policy. Many other factors, such as the presence of family members, also play a role.

An internal Home Office report released in response to a freedom of information request examined the drivers of asylum seekers’ choice of destination country. It stated that the “role of welfare policies, economic factors and labour market access as potential drivers of migration to the UK is limited as many asylum seekers have little to no understanding of current asylum policies and the economic conditions of a destination country”.

Updated

More forms of ID may be allowed for UK voters, minister suggests, after damning report

The government has indicated it could expand the list of ID people can use to vote, after a damning Electoral Commission report about the rollout of the new rules, but has said this is unlikely to cover documents used by younger people, such as 18-plus travel passes. Peter Walker has the story.

Peter has sent me a further line on this story, which is based on what Rachel Maclean, a minister in the Department for Levelling Up, was saying in response to an urgent question. Peter says:

One other detail of the UQ on voter ID was that Rachel Maclean, the minister speaking for the government, said several times that the Electoral Commission had specifically recommended mandatory photo ID to vote.

This appears to be incorrect. When pilot schemes were done using various types of ID, the commission found that while photo documents gave the greatest security, others like polling cards also made some difference, and it didn’t make a recommendation.

There is a sense that the commission was, in fact, somewhat caught out by the decision of ministers to not just go for photo-only ID, but to also make the list of acceptable documents so limited.

Updated

Keir Starmer described Rishi Sunak as “inaction man” at PMQs yesterday. In a bid to ensure that the quality of Britain’s political debate continues to at such an elevated level, Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, retaliated this morning with her own insult involving a plastic toy simile.

Responding to her Labour opposite number, Lucy Powell, who repeated Starmer’s jibe, Mordaunt told MPs:

[Powell] echoes the hilarious gag the leader of the opposition made yesterday to attempt to insult the prime minister by comparing him to a popular children’s figurine. I am happy to focus on that.

I don’t think that line will survive contact with the prime minister’s work rate, but let me rise to the bait and return the serve, because I think the Labour leader is Beach Ken.

Beach Ken stands for nothing on shifting sands, in his flip-flops, staring out to sea, doing nothing constructive to stop small boats or grow the economy.

When we examine his weak record on union demands, on border control, on protecting the public and stopping small boats, we discover that, like Beach Ken, he has zero balls.

Penny Mordaunt in the Commons this morning
Penny Mordaunt in the Commons this morning. Photograph: HoC

Updated

Sunak says it will be 'very hard' to keep pledge to cut NHS waiting list while strikes continue

Rishi Sunak has said that it will be “very hard” for him to keep his promise to cut hospital waiting lists while strikes in the NHS continue.

In January, as one of his five priorities, Sunak said: “NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly.” He suggested he wanted to achieve the overall target by the time of the general election, although he also said he wanted to eliminate 18-month waits by spring 2023 (a target he narrowly missed) and 12-month waits by spring 2024.

Figures out today show the NHS waiting list in England has hit a new record high, with nearly 7.7 million people – about one in seven – waiting for treatment.

Asked about the figures, Sunak told the BBC:

Obviously that is challenging, with industrial action, there’s no two ways about it. We were making very good progress before industrial action.

Asked if he would miss his goal, he replied:

With industrial action it is very hard to continue to meet these targets.

But he also claimed the government was “making very good progress despite industrial action”.

Rishi Sunak meeting patient Steven Robshaw during a visit to the North Devon district hospital today.
Rishi Sunak meeting patient Steven Robshaw during a visit to the North Devon district hospital today. Photograph: Finbarr Webster/PA

Updated

No 10 refuses to confirm government remains committed to extending HS2 to Manchester

Downing Street has refused to say the government remains committed to extending the HS2 high-speed rail line to Manchester.

The PM’s spokesperson declined to make the commitment when asked about a report in the Independent saying Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, discussed cancelling the Birmingham to Manchester leg of the project at a meeting earlier this week.

The Independent has seen a briefing document prepared for the meeting saying that, although £2.3bn has already been spent on HS2 phase two, scrapping it could save up to £34bn.

Construction for phase one, from London to Birmingham, is already well under way.

Asked about the Independent report, the PM’s spokesperson told journalists:

I can’t comment on speculation around a leaked document. It is obviously standard process for departments to discuss the phasing of major projects like HS2 … but the work is already under way.

Asked if Rishi Sunak remained committed to the line going to Manchester, the spokesperson replied:

We are committed to HS2, to the project. I can’t comment on the speculation that’s a result of a photograph. We are as you know looking at the rephasing of the work in the best interests of passengers and taxpayers.

Construction work on HS2 at Wendover, Buckinghamshire.
Construction work on HS2 at Wendover, Buckinghamshire. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Shutterstock

Updated

Government accepts 'further investment' needed to counter intelligence threat posed by China

The government has accepted that “further investment” is needed to protect the UK from the threat posed by China. It made the admission in its formal response to a lengthy report from parliament’s intelligence and security committee, which suggested the government did not have an effective response to the “whole-of-state” Chinese effort to spy on the UK an interfere in its affairs.

The government says:

The government does ... recognise that further investment in capabilities will be needed to ensure the government is equipped with the tools, expertise and knowledge to respond to the systemic challenge that China poses to the United Kingdom’s security, prosperity, and values. IR2023 [the update to the integrated review of defence and security] took the first steps towards this, doubling funding for a government-wide programme, including further investing in Mandarin language training and deepening diplomatic, and wider, expertise. We will continue building expertise across the system to better address the long-term challenge that China poses.

In a written ministerial statement about the response, Rishi Sunak says:

I am particularly conscious that many of the issues detailed in the committee’s report, and wider concerns about foreign interference, highlight the necessity for a robust approach to any and all state threat activity. It remains an absolute priority for the government to take all necessary steps to protect the United Kingdom from any foreign state activity which seeks to undermine our national security, prosperity and democratic values. I am clear-eyed about that challenge and will call out unacceptable behaviour directly just as I did last weekend with Premier Li at the G20 Summit in New Delhi.

We recognise that the report identifies areas where we can do better and welcome these insights and recommendations as we further develop our approach.

Updated

Scotland's first minister says Braverman's migrants tweet shows UK has become 'pathetically insular' under Tories

The SNP says Suella Braverman should apologise for the “appalling language” it says she used in a tweet this morning about asylum seekers. (See 12.23pm.) Chris Stephens MP, the party’s justice and immigration spokesperson, said:

The home secretary’s appalling language warrants an urgent apology. It is truly abhorrent that she thinks it is acceptable to refer to refugees and asylum seekers with such disdain.

Such language makes a mockery of ‘compassionate Conservatism’ and in years gone by would have been met with calls for the home secretary’s resignation. Now though, it seems Suella Braveman can break the ministerial code and have her colleagues admit she’s unfit for office, and still keep her role in the cabinet.

And Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, said Braverman’s language was “woeful” in a post on X (formerly Twitter). He also said it showed how “pathetically insular” the UK had become under the Tories.

Just woeful.

The data tells us that migration is good for this country & is needed to help with our labour shortages. Migrants also contribute to our culture, academia, public service, and in many other ways.

What a pathetically insular country the UK has become.

No 10 rules out returns agreement with EU on asylum seekers involving UK having to take quota of migrants

Downing Street has said the government would never agree a returns agreement with the EU for asylum seekers that involved the UK having to take in a quota of migrants.

In August the government said: “We remain open to working with the EU to take forward negotiations on a UK-EU returns deal, as part of our international efforts to tackle illegal migration and to crack down on these exploitative gangs.” And Keir Starmer has confirmed today that Labour wants a returns agreement.

Starmer has not ruled out this involving the UK taking a proportion of asylum seekers coming to Europe. But this morning No 10 said any government deal would not include this. The PM’s spokesperson told journalists:

We have set out that migration across Europe is a is a shared problem and it involves work with our European partners.

The discussions we’ve had with the EU, and the basis for our discussions, have been on sending migrants back on the basis they travelled through a safe country.

But the government has never and would never be open to a burden-sharing agreement where we take a quota.

But the spokesperson did not rule out the possibility of the UK agreeing to pay money to the EU in return for a returns agreement. Asked about this option, he said:

There are discussions ongoing, so I’m not going to get into whether or not we would or would not fund any further cooperation.

Updated

Starmer says 'nonsense' Tory response to his small boats plan shows 'they've nothing sensible to say on issue'

Here are more lines from what Keir Starmer has been saying in interviews this morning about the new (or newish – see 9.50am) Labour approach to tackling small boats.

  • Starmer described the Tory claims about his plans (see 12.18pm and 12.23pm) as “nonsense”. He said:

It’s embarrassing that the government is pumping out this nonsense. I can only assume it’s because they’ve got nothing sensible to say on the issue.

What I’m discussing today is a security agreement, sharing of information, operationalising the way that we can smash these gangs.

I think anybody would say that’s common sense, we need to do it, get on with it. But I’m afraid this is now typical from a government that’s completely lost control of the situation.

  • He refused to discuss how many asylum seekers a Labour government might be willing to accept as part of a returns agreement with the EU. His priority was to stop people crossing the Channel in small boats in the first place, he said.

The question of whether people can then be returned only applies if people are still getting across the channel and what I want to do is to stop this trade, stop this vile business in the first place.

Asked if creating more safe and legal routes for asylum seekers would lead to higher immigration, Starmer replied:

Under Labour, we get in control of this situation.

At the moment we’ve got the appalling situation where we are not deciding, as a country, who’s coming to the UK, the gangs are deciding. That is fundamentally wrong.

Keir Starmer leaving Europol this morning.
Keir Starmer leaving Europol this morning. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Braverman claims Labour would make UK 'dumping ground for illegal migrants Europe does not want'

And here is Suella Braverman, the home secretary, also responding to Labour’s plan for tackling small boats. She is making the same point as Rishi Sunak (see 12.18pm), only in more inflammatory language.

Finally we see Sir Keir Starmer’s migration plan.

He’ll let Brussels decide who comes to the UK.

He’ll agree to make Britain the dumping ground for many of the millions of illegal migrants that Europe doesn’t want.

And none of this will stop the boats.

Sunak claims UK would end up accepting 100,000 EU migrants a year under Labour's plan for returns deal

Rishi Sunak has claimed that 100,000 EU migrants could come to the UK every year under the approach outlined by Labour today. Keir Starmer says he would negotiate a returns deal with the EU, and he has not ruled out this involving the UK having to agree to take in a proportion of refugees.

Speaking to reporters in Devon, Sunak said:

Keir Starmer spent all of this year voting against our stop the boats bill, the toughest legislation that any government has passed to tackle illegal migration.

I think he spent most of last year voting against a previous bill which has since then led to almost 700 arrests related to organised immigration crime, so I don’t think it’s credible that he really wants to grip this problem.

And his plans today seem to amount to saying that we might one day accept 100,000 EU migrants every year. That doesn’t seem like a credible plan to me to stop the boats.

Meanwhile, we are getting on and delivering: for the first time ever this year the number of small boat arrivals is down by almost a fifth, the number of illegal migrants crossing from Albania is down by 90%. We’ve got a plan, the plan is delivering and I’m determined to stop the boats.

Sunak seemed to be basing his claim on the assumption that, under a returns agreement negotiated by Labour, the UK would be required to accept a proportionate share of the 1 million migrants who arrive in Europe annually, based on the size of the British population. But Sunak has said in the past he is open to agreeing a returns deal with the EU himself.

According to Home Office figures, more than 50,000 people arrived in the UK by irregular means in 2022, mostly on small boats.

But total immigration into the UK in 2022 was around 1.2m, with net migration (immigration minus emigration) at 606,000, a record high.

Updated

Sunak defends his record as chancellor in funding hospital Raac repairs, claiming he took issue 'very seriously'

Rishi Sunak has joined Steve Barclay (see 10.31am) in rejecting suggestions that when he was chancellor he did not provide the NHS with enough funding to tackle Raac in hospitals.

The Guardian has revealed that in 2020 just two of the seven hospital rebuilding projects requested by the Department for Health were signed off by the Treasury.

But when Sunak was asked if this meant he had ignored the problem, he said that was “not right”. He said he had taken the issue “very seriously”. Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to Devon, he said:

The NHS has been looking at the issue of Raac since 2019 and was funded with almost £700m to mitigate Raac that it was finding in hospitals.

There are now seven hospitals that are in the new hospital programme; as new evidence came to light about the scale of Raac it was important to prioritise those hospitals.

We made that decision earlier this year and on top of that other hospitals are being mitigated in line with the technical guidance and, as I said, backed by almost £700m which was announced years ago.

Rishi Sunak on a visit to North Devon district hospital this morning.
Rishi Sunak on a visit to North Devon district hospital this morning. Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

Updated

Sunak committed 'minor and inadvertent' breach of MPs' code when No 10 briefed on standards inquiry, report says

Rishi Sunak committed a “minor and inadvertent” breach of the code of conduct for MPs when his office spoke to journalists about an inquiry into him by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, a report says today.

The Commons standards committee says that this should be a reminder to Sunak and all ministers that “it is their responsibility, as individuals, to ensure that such breaches do not occur”.

The complaint relates to the inquiry by the commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, into claims that Sunak did not properly declare an interest when giving evidence to the Commons liaison committee about childcare policy. Last month Greenberg published a report saying that Sunak did break the rules in this instance, but that this was inadvertent and that Sunak had apologised.

The media first learned about the investigation when Greenberg said on his website that Sunak was being investigated. The commissioner did not give details of the complaint, but a press spokesperson for Sunak told journalists that this related to the liaison committee hearing.

Greenberg said this was a breach of a rule saying that, when MPs are under investigation, they are not allowed to comment on it publicly. Breaches of this rule have to be referred to the Commons standards committee, and in its report today the committee says:

Mr Sunak’s staff should not have issued any statement about the details of the case under investigation, without the approval of the parliamentary commissioner for standards. The commissioner has made clear that it had no impact on his inquiry. Nevertheless, it constitutes a breach that should not have occurred.

Sunak argued that his office had only confirmed what was already in the public domain. But the commissioner, and the standards committee, did not accept this, because they said the precise nature of the original complaint had not been confirmed (although journalists were assuming that it related to the liaison committee hearing).

Updated

More Scots want immigration to rise than to fall, research shows

With immigration a key battleground for the coming general election, there’s a fascinating study from the charity Migration Policy Scotland which finds that Scots are becoming more welcoming to migrants.

The research, which is the first representative study of Scottish attitudes to migration since the independence and Brexit referendums, found that more people want immigration to increase than decrease, with nearly four in 10 people wanting more immigration and less than a third thinking there should be a drop.

This is more positive than a similar survey of Scottish attitudes in 2014 when nearly 60% said they wanted immigration to go down.

The research found that nearly 60% of respondents thought immigration was positive for Scotland, with almost half reporting that immigration had a positive impact in their local area.

This compares with research from Migration Observatory in June which sampled people across Britain, and found that 52% favour a reduction in immigration.

Updated

Starmer insists there is 'no case' for rejoining EU, saying working with Brussels on small-boats policy doesn't make Labour soft on Brexit

Keir Starmer has said there is “no case” for rejoining the EU. He made the point in an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain in which he insisted that his call for closer cooperation with the EU on small-boat crossings of the Channel did not mean he was weakening his stance on Brexit.

He told the programme:

There is no return to freedom of movement. We have left the EU.

There’s no case for going back to the EU, no case for going into the single market or customs union, and no freedom of movement. I’ve been really clear that that’s the parameter.

I do not accept that that prevents us working with other police units here, with prosecutors here, to smash the gangs in this vile trade.

Updated

Record hospital waiting times show Sunak really is 'inaction man' on NHS, claims Streeting

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, says the latest NHS waiting list figures show Keir Starmer was right to label Rishi Sunak “inaction man” at PMQs yesterday. In a response he says:

Record numbers of patients are waiting for healthcare and they are left waiting unacceptably long, whether it’s for an operation, ambulance, or in A&E. For millions of patients across England, the NHS is no longer there for them when they need it.

On the NHS, Rishi Sunak is inaction man, refusing to meet with doctors to end NHS strikes and adding to the Conservatives’ NHS backlog, leaving patients waiting for months on end in pain and agony.

Here is our story about the figures.

Updated

Barclay rejects suggestions Sunak ignored hospital Raac problem as chancellor, saying he was 'on issue early'

Steve Barclay, the health secretary, has rejected suggestions that Rishi Sunak downplayed the risk played by Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) in hospitals when he was a chancellor.

Barclay was responding to a Guardian story saying Sunak blocked plans to rebuild five hospitals riddled with crumbling concrete three years ago. Barclay, who was Sunak’s deputy at the Treasury at the time, did not deny the facts as reported in the story, but he said it was wrong to suggest Sunak ignore the Raac problem.

Barclay told Sky News that Sunak was “on this issue early”. He said:

What Rishi Sunak as chancellor put in place was a £700m fund for replacement – that was put in place from 2021.

In fact, we were on this issue early, we were surveying hospitals from 2019 and we’ve been following the Institute for Structural Engineers’ advice, which is that not all Raac has to be replaced.

What we need to do is monitor it, assess it, and where there is a concern with deterioration then it does need to be replaced.

And that’s why a £700m fund was put in place – two schemes for full replacement of those hospitals were agreed – but further work was then commissioned and a study from [Mott MacDonald, an engineering consultancy] was then commissioned to assess the other five hospitals.

Once we got that information, those schemes have then come into the programme – so a significant investment, specifically in Raac.

Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper arriving for a meeting at Europol in The Hague, Netherlands, this morning.
Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper arriving for a meeting at Europol in The Hague, Netherlands, this morning. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Waiting list for hospital treament in England hits new record at almost 7.7m

The number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has risen to a new record high, PA Media reports. PA says:

An estimated 7.68 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of July, up from 7.57 million in June, NHS England said.

It is the highest number since records began in August 2007.

Rishi Sunak has made cutting waiting lists one of his priorities for 2023, pledging in January that “lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”.

Tories claim Starmer would take ‘more illegal migrants from EU’ as Labour sets out plan to tackle people-smuggling

Good morning. Keir Starmer is in The Hague this morning, talking to Europol, but more importantly perhaps he has also been talking to the Sun and the Times in a move to quash any Tory attempts to use the small boats issue as an issue against Labour at the election.

Rishi Sunak has made “stopping the boats” a priority, but the government has failed to implement its Rwanda policy, small-boat crossings continue and the plan to house asylum seekers on a barge collapsed when it had to be evacuated for health reasons. Labour is already ahead as the party seen as best able to tackle immigration.

That has not stopped the Tories trying to weaponise the issue. The thinking within No 10 seems to be that eventually (If flights to Rwanda take off? If the Illegal Immigration Act starts to work? If they threaten to leave the ECHR?) they will reach a point where policy aligns with public opinion, but the Labour party (whose activists hate punitive migration policies) has to say no.

In response, Starmer is launching a small-boats blitz. He has written an article for the Sun, and given an interview to the paper, and spoken to the Times as well. We are likely to hear more from him today.

In policy terms, what is being announced today is limited. Labour already had a five-point plan to tackle small boats, and Starmer is not announcing a radical departure from it. But he is being a bit more explicit about something that was always implicit. He has suggested that, under Labour, the UK would agree to take in some asylum seekers as part of a returns agreement with the EU that would allow small-boat migrants to be returned. Labour has been calling for a returns agreement for some time, and this was always the obvious implication of the policy. (Why else would the EU agree to take back migrants?) But until now Starmer has been reluctant to say so.

In rhetorical terms, today marks a major escalation. Starmer is sounding a lot, lot tougher on small boats than he has before. He said people-smuggling posed a threat on a par with climate change, war and terrorism. He said:

The government’s failure to tackle the criminal smuggling gangs orchestrating boat crossings is now so profound that I believe it needs to be considered on a par with the other three big security threats we face: climate change, hostile foreign powers and terrorism.

This is not particularly credible (most analysts would conclude that the threat from climate breakdown is far, far more serious than the threat posed by small boats), but it is the sort of thing that goes down well with people who are concerned about irregular migration, and with the newspapers they read.

Ben Quinn has more on this here.

Rishi Sunak is due to give a broadcast interview later today, and we will get his response then. But we got a flavour of what he will say in the response from the Conservative party issued overnight. A party spokesperson said:

Keir Starmer’s Labour party have been doing everything to undermine our plans to stop the boats - and now he’s opening the door to voluntarily taking even more illegal migrants from the EU.

Sir Keir belongs to the same failed politics that won’t take the necessary long-term decisions to tackle this issue. He clearly doesn’t care about illegal immigration and is trying to take the easy way out. Fundamentally his ideas would do nothing but weaken our tough measures.

Only the Conservatives are taking the tough, but necessary decisions to stop the boats. Crossings are down by 20 per cent this year and our deal with Albania has seen illegal Albanian crossings fall by 90 per cent - and proves that delivering on our Rwanda plan, which Labour oppose, is essential to finally ending the small boats altogether.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, have a meeting at Europol in The Hague.

Morning: Rishi Sunak is due to speak to broadcasters during a visit to a hospital in Devon.

9.30am: NHS England publishes hospital waiting time figures.

Midday: Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions at Holyrood.

Around lunchtime: The government is due to publish its response to the intelligence and security committee’s report on China.

If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line, privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate), or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.

Updated

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