Brexit news – live: Frost ridiculed for downplaying figures as UK sees record 40.7% slump in EU exports

Proposals to help make school uniforms more affordable have moved closer to becoming law.

The Education (Guidance About Costs of School Uniform) Bill, which would make guidance given to schools about the cost of uniform policies legally binding, cleared its final stages in the House of Commons after a lengthy debate.

The proposed legislation aims to keep branded items, such as blazers, to a minimum in order to cut the cost of school uniforms for parents.

Prime minister Boris Johnson has held “frank” conversations with the DUP on the Northern Ireland Protocol as he visited the region.

Extra checks on goods passing through its ports from the rest of the UK following Brexit have angered unionists.

Mr Johnson toured a mass vaccination centre in Arlene Foster’s Co Fermanagh constituency.

Ms Foster urged him to “stand up for Northern Ireland” and ditch the “intolerable” Protocol governing Irish Sea trade post-Brexit.

She said he had been in “listening mode” and “alive to the issues”.

The first minister also told Mr Johnson a school in Fermanagh was unable to order trees from England due to red tape surrounding the transport of soil.

Boris Johnson has been snubbed by deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill, who refused to greet him during a visit to Northern Ireland.

Ms O’Neill, Sinn Fein’s deputy leader, refused to welcome the prime minister to Belfast today in her Stormont role after a request for a meeting with her and Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald was turned down.

Mr Johnson is, however, to hold a meeting with first minister and DUP leader Arlene Foster during the trip, tied to the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Goods sales to the EU plunged by 40.7 per cent in January – and imports slumped by 28.8 per cent – the largest declines since comparable records began in 1997.

But David Frost, picked by Boris Johnson to negotiate the Christmas Eve agreement, pointed to pre-Christmas “stockpiling” and “Covid lockdowns across Europe” as explanations for the slump.

Our deputy political editor Rob Merrick has the full report:

Mid and East Antrim Borough Council, in Northern Ireland, has said it could cost up to £5m for workers to deliver post-Brexit food standards checks at a Northern Irish harbour once full regulation is introduced.

Each shift at Larne Port would require 17 officers if 100 per cent checks are required following the end of soft-touch grace periods.

A council spokesman said: “Mid and East Antrim Borough Council understands it could be required to provide 72 full-time staff at a cost of almost £5m to deliver on its obligations at Larne Port for 100 per cent checks to be completed at the end of the grace period.

“Data has been provided to council by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), and assuming there are no changes, they have advised council that potentially each shift at Larne Port would require a total of 17 officers.

“Council is currently operating four shifts with three staff per shift, so the total staff complement could rise to 17 staff across four shifts – meaning 68 staff would be required.”

The government has unilaterally extended grace periods limiting bureaucracy linked to the Northern Ireland protocol until October. They had been due to expire at the end of March.

It seems Rishi Sunak likes more than the odd sweet treat.

The chancellor has admitted he remains “very bad on sugar,” consuming a cinnamon bun, muffins, cokes and cake every day.

“I’m very bad on sugar. I eat a lot of sugar,” Mr Sunak told Politico’s Westminster Insider podcast. “I have cinnamon bun in the morning, chocolate chip muffins for breakfast, cookies and cake in the afternoon. So I eat quite a lot of sugar.”

My colleague Adam Forrest has more:

The Institute of Directors (IoD) and Labour Party have each given their verdict on the mass EU export slump caused by Brexit.

The IoD’s senior policy adviser Allie Renison said: “The fact that services trade was far less affected and goods exports to non-EU rose marginally all in the same period reflects the particular impact that disruption from new Brexit changes has had.”

Meanwhile, Labour’s Rachel Reeves said: “Businesses have been appealing to the government to start listening to the problems they’ve been facing, but they’ve been left out in the cold.

“The government must up their ambition here, and take practical action, hand-in-hand with businesses, to build on the limited deal they negotiated with the EU.”

Because the value of imports fell more than exports in January, the trade deficit for the month narrowed by £3.7bn to £1.9bn.

Companies had been stockpiling ahead of the end of the transition period and may also have been using their stock instead of buying new goods in January.

Labour has criticised the £4.8bn fund for disproportionately directing regeneration cash to wealthier Tory-voting areas above ex-industrial and mining towns, prompting the government to publish its methodology for allocating cash.

It appears to explain why areas like leafy Richmondshire and Newark are ranked above Barnsley and Salford as a priority for money. The former two areas’ MPs are chancellor Rishi Sunak and communities secretary Robert Jenrick, respectively.

Our policy correspondent Jon Stone reports:

Labour has stepped up its election campaign attack over nurses’ pay by issuing a direct challenge to the Conservative candidate for London mayor to rebel against Boris Johnson’s 1 per cent offer.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock explains more in this exclusive report:

The prime minister’s Brexit negotiator appears to have attempted to downplay today’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures which show UK goods exports to the EU plunged by a record 40.7 per cent in January after the end of the transition period.

David Frost tweeted: “I have been looking at today’s trade numbers. This month’s unique combination of factors made it inevitable that we would see some unusual figures this January. As ONS has pointed out, caution should be applied when interpreting these statistics.”

He added: “The latest information indicates that overall freight volumes between the UK and the EU have been back to their normal levels for over a month now, ie since the start of February.”

A Green Party peer has suggested a 6pm curfew for men following the disappearance and suspected murder of Sarah Everard.

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb argued the move would “make women a lot safer” and reduce “discrimination of all kinds”.

Emily Goddard has more details:

Arlene Foster has urged Boris Johnson to “stand up for Northern Ireland” and ditch the “intolerable” Northern Ireland Protocol governing Irish Sea trade post-Brexit.

Stormont’s first minister and DUP leader welcomed Mr Johnson’s announcement setting out plans to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland’s formation, but added: “The prime minister must also stand up for Northern Ireland and replace the Protocol, which is damaging to the economic and constitutional position of Northern Ireland.”

“Not a single unionist party in Northern Ireland supports this unworkable Protocol. Rather than protect the Belfast Agreement and its successor agreements, the Protocol has created societal division and economic harm,” she said.

“Whilst grace periods have been extended unilaterally, we need a permanent solution so business can plan and the integrity of the United Kingdom internal market can be restored.”

“We need the prime minister to act to deliver unfettered trade from GB to NI and to restore the balance of relationships between East-West as well as North-South.”

One of the few dairies allowed to make Stilton has said it lost 20 per cent of its online turnover ‘overnight’ due to Brexit.

Hartington Creamery at Pikehall, Derbyshire, said the paperwork needed to send orders to the European Union was too expensive to make business with the EU viable.

Ella Glover has more details:

The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says her case has been a “failure of diplomacy and campaigning” ahead of her return to court in Iran on Sunday.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, last week completed a five-year sentence in Tehran on spying charges levied by Iranian authorities, the last year of which was spent under house arrest due to the pandemic.

But she must return to court to face more charges in the case some observers have linked to a long-standing debt Iran alleges it is owed by the UK.

Speaking to Times Radio on Friday, Mr Ratcliffe said: “She served her full sentence, she’s still being held. That’s a failure of diplomacy. It’s also a failure of campaigning.

“I don’t think it ever occurred to me at the beginning that it would last this long, because it shouldn’t have done.”

Boris Johnson is facing a huge backlash from Conservative MPs in the north of England after the government decided to “call in” a controversial plan for a new deep coal mine in Cumbria.

Workington MP Mark Jenkinson said the move represented a “capitulation to the climate alarmists”.

Adam Forrest has more on this story:

Priti Patel has said the “vast majority” of police officers “represent the very best of public service” in the wake of the arrest of a constable over Sarah Everard’s disappearance.

Joanna Taylor has more on the home secretary’s comments:

PwC’s chief economist has said figures released by the Office for National Statistics today suggest the UK is “managing from an economic perspective” about seven times better than during the first lockdown in April last year.

Jonathan Gillham said: “Looking back to April last year, when the country had gone into lockdown, the economy shrunk by 20.4 per cent. This was the largest decline in GDP that the country had ever seen.

“However, now the economy is becoming much more adaptable to lockdown and the figures published for January suggest that we are managing from an economic perspective around seven times better than last April.

“The 2.9 per cent reduction in GDP is slightly worse than our own prediction of 2.6 per cent and it should not be forgotten that this contraction is still substantial and is a reflection of the difficulties that many businesses and households are facing.

“Our services-focused economy is still taking the brunt of the lockdown impacts, shrinking by 3.5 per cent, and manufacturing also fared badly – down 2.3 per cent, the first decline since April. Despite their adaptability and resilience many businesses are still struggling – 19 per cent of the workforce is estimated to still be on furlough and many businesses are close to using up their cash reserves.

“Data released today suggests that businesses are still struggling to import and export. With only roughly 40 per cent of businesses saying they have no problems, and many saying they are struggling with transportation costs, paperwork and tariffs.”

Speaking ahead of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s return to court in Iran on Sunday, her husband said keeping her “visible” had “kept her a bit safer”.

Richard Ratcliffe said his wife “remains in harm’s way until she gets on the plane” and that her case had been a failure of both diplomacy and campaigning.

“I think we’ve kept her a bit safer. It sounds a bit rich given all she’s been through already but some of the stories from her cellmates… are even more harrowing,” he said.

“I don’t think it ever occurred to me that it would last this long, because it shouldn’t have done.”

His comments came after a new report warned the British-Iranian national is “a victim of torture” and in urgent need of medical support. Mayank Aggarwal has more details:

Boris Johnson has been accused of “a callous disregard for others” by the father of a child killed in the 1996 Dunblane massacre, over an article he had written as a journalist calling a move to ban firearms “something-must-be-done-ism” and implying the action was “authoritarian”.

Vincent Wood has more details:

The government is exploring whether anti-harassment education should be given to men in the wake of the Sarah Everard case, ministers have said.

Education minister Michelle Donelan said the school system should not just be about academia but also “developing people’s character and their interactions with others”.

Our policy correspondent Jon Stone has more details: