Boris Johnson news – latest: PM under pressure over Universal Credit as fishing industry stages Brexit protest

Boris Johnson and his chancellor Rishi Sunak will speak to a group of 30 top business leaders on Monday for their thoughts on cutting regulation and boosting growth after Brexit. The Times reported the meeting as part of government plans to turn the UK into the “Singapore of Europe”.

It follows criticism over reported plans to scrap the 48-hour week could be ditched, along with other protections enshrined in EU law as part of an overhaul of labour rules.

The PM and chancellor will speak to the leaders of some of Britain’s largest companies, including British Airways, BT, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and Jaguar Land Rover. The government is also setting up a “better regulation committee”, chaired by Sunak.

Several people at Westminster have been issued with fixed penalty notices after the fishing industry protest over the Brexit deal. Metropolitan Police confirmed 14 people had been hit with fines on Monday for “Covid-related offences”.

Seafood hauliers descended on roads near Downing Street, saying they were being “tied in knots with paperwork” by the government’s deal.

One protester Gary Hodgson, of Venture Seafoods, said: “We strongly feel the system could potentially collapse.” David Rosie, of DR Collin & Son, said fishermen “lost their livelihoods in the turn of a clock” when Britain left the EU.

We’ve already heard from one Tory MP, Stephen Crabb, who plans to rebel today and back the Labour motion on extending the Universal Credit increase.

Influential Conservative MP Robert Halfon – chair of the education committee – says he is “most likely” to vote for the Labour amendment too. “I absolutely believe that universal credit should be extended,” he told BBC Politics Live.

Labour leader Keir Starmer accused the government of trying to blame fishing communities for the issues caused by Brexit.

As a convoy of Scottish seafood lorries descended on Westminster, Starmer said: “They are beyond frustrated, they are pretty angry about what’s gone on because the Government has known there would be a problem with fishing.

“It didn’t prepare for it and now it is doing the classic thing of the government, which is trying to blame the fishing communities rather than accepting it’s their failure to prepare.”

He added: “I’m not in favour of dumping fish on Boris Johnson’s lawn or anything like that, but the point they are trying to make is a very important point about the government not preparing, and then again blaming somebody else for the mess that they have created.”

No 10 has accused Labour of a “political stunt” and spreading fear about the threatened £1,000-a-year cut to Universal Credit – despite admitting it could still go ahead.

Defending Boris Johnson’s decision to boycott a vote in the Commons tonight, his press secretary said it was “not the proper moment” to be discussing it.

Rishi Sunak will give further information on the next steps for the temporary increase on Universal Credit “shortly”, Downing Street has said.

The prime minister’s press secretary, Allegra Stratton, said: “The key thing in our position on Universal Credit is that the chancellor will be coming, he has always said he will be coming, back to the House of Commons in due course.

“We know it runs out at the end of March, we know that households want to know what is coming next and he is going to come forward with more information shortly.”

She declined to state when the chancellor would make his update, other than saying it would come “ahead of” the end of the uplift and in the “weeks to come”.

Priti Patel has suggested tougher action would be taken against lockdown sceptic protesters. Speaking outside St Thomas’s Hospital in central London, the home secretary also said experts were working “flat out” to address the issues with the Police National Computer records.

Asked whether there would be tougher enforcement to target protesters she said: “Absolutely, without hesitation. When you look at the pressures on the NHS – and we have been saying this for too long, quite frankly – the public need to take responsibility, act conscientiously, wear their masks, wear face coverings, follow the rules, follow the regulations.

On the police records, she added: “It is our priority always to keep the public safe. We are working with our policing partners, our operational partners and we have been every day since this technical coding error has been identified.

“Everyone is working flat out on this. We want to reconcile the data, we want to correct what has happened but that is a major, major technical operation right now and everybody is working flat out on this … The policing minister will be providing an update later on today on this.”

Talk last week of the UK reportedly considering a plan to tear up protections for workers in the form of the Working Time Directive has reached Brussels, where officials are said not to be concerned about the impact of such a move on the implementation of the post-Brexit trade deal.

The government plans on introducing new legal protections for statues linked to colonialism and racism, with a minister saying the UK should not try to edit or censor its history.

Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, said decisions to take down heritage assets in England will need both planning permission and a consultation with local communities to go ahead.

The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has been criticised over the nation’s vaccination plan after he said doses of the Pfizer jab were being held in storage and released at regular intervals rather than being administered as quickly as possible to avoid healthcare workers having nothing to do when the vaccines had all been administered. 

He said supplies of the Pfizer vaccine had to last until the beginning of February as that was when the next delivery would arrive and that using them all at once would mean “our vaccinators standing around with nothing to do with for another month”.

But in a tweet the British Medical Association was said to be “extremely concerned the Welsh government is spacing out the Pfizer vaccine to make it last until the next delivery”.

Plaid’s health spokesman, Rhun ap Iorwerth, said: “Wales appears now to be dramatically behind England in terms of vaccine rollout, so to see the first minister being relaxed about the slow pace of the vaccine rollout here is very, very frustrating.”