Rishi Sunak refuses to repeat Suella Braverman’s claim ‘hurricane’ of migrants coming – Tory conference live

Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has appeared on the cover of US publication Time Magazine, which has included him in a list of 10 “next generation leaders”, owing to his youth and the fact he is the first Muslim leader of a Western country.

He appears alongside the likes of actor Florence Pugh, racing driver Jamie Chadwick, drag queen Pattie Gonia and Ghanian visual artist Prince Gyasi.

Speaking to the magazine, Mr Yousaf outlined his upbringing, issues of race and religion, as well as the impact of the 9/11 attacks on him as a teenager, and spoke about what the SNP has to do to increase support for Scottish independence.

“The way we shift the dial on independence is give people a little bit of hope, and I believe the SNP can absolutely do that,” he said. “The challenge over the past few months, to be frank and to be blunt, is that we’ve not been able to get cut through because of other events that have dominated the party space.”

Rishi Sunak’s move to curtail HS2 could harm investor confidence in the UK, the Labour chair of the public accounts committee of MPs has warned.

Dame Meg Hillier said: “Stop-start approaches on large and complex infrastructure projects plainly do not represent value for money for the taxpayer. And this approach undermines wider confidence that government programmes for major infrastructure investment will be delivered. In a globally competitive world companies may now choose to invest their time and skills in other countries.

“The original plans for HS2 were calculated on the basis of the line extending beyond Birmingham, both the cost to the taxpayer of construction, and the boost to local economic development.

“As a committee we have been raising concerns about HS2 for a full decade, so this latest change is little surprise. It has been confirmed that HS2 will run to London Euston, but it was only in July that we warned that government does not know what it is trying to achieve with the planned new station there, and we had raised concerns about the considerable cost of the two-year pause which had been presented by government as a money-saving move.

“Our HS2 Euston report highlighted that the costs of such major course-changes are not that simple. We will continue to closely scrutinise the delivery of HS2, and it is likely we will be examining the costs of this latest decision in the months to come.”

The UK is set to sign a deal with the EU’s border agency to get access to the bloc’s intelligence on migration, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Officials in London and Brussels have concluded the substance of the agreement, which sources said is in the “final stages” and could be announced this week. It would allow domestic agencies to monitor the entirety of the EU’s external borders rather than just shared frontiers, according to the paper.

It comes as Rishi Sunak meets European leaders at a summit in Granada, where Downing Street said he will announce bilateral initiatives with Belgium, Bulgaria and Serbia to increase intelligence-sharing and operational co-operation.

Under the plan, the UK would work with Belgium to try to disrupt organised immigration crime and clandestine entry to Britain and seek to co-operate further with Serbia on prosecuting and disrupting criminal networks.

Paying off contracts previously awarded for cancelled HS2 sections will cost hundreds of millions of pounds, the transport secretary has indicated – as he suggested the cost of pulling out of the agreements will “broadly balance out” with money recovered from selling land and property acquired for the high-speed railway.

HS2 Ltd figures show £562m was spent on land and property for HS2 north of Birmingham. And government figures show a total of £2.3 billion had been spent on those phases as of June. A £300m contract for ground works north of Birmingham was awarded last week, but it is likely that most if not all of this spending can be withdrawn.

Repeatedly pressed about how much would be spent paying off contracts, Mark Harper told BBC Breakfast he could not say “in detail”, adding: “We’ve made some assumptions. But we’ve also made some assumptions about the money we’ll recover from land sales, we think they will broadly balance out. They may not exactly.”

West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin said Rishi Sunak had not consulted northern leaders on his transport plans.

She told BBC Breakfast: “It also feels quite frustrating that when the Prime Minister was on the platform, he was saying ‘I know what the North needs’.

“He hasn’t spoken to any northern leaders and we could have been helpful in trying to work out what was actually a priority for us and it is that capacity that HS2 was there to solve.”

She also complained about a lack of detail on the transport schemes announced by Mr Sunak.

“We’ve had a decade of underfunding on transport in the North. Now we’ve been given the things that we’ve been campaigning on, pots of money – we don’t know what they are, we don’t know where they’re coming from, we don’t know the timeframe.”

A rise in hate crimes against transgender people may have been fuelled by comments by politicians, the Home Office has admitted.

Transgender identity hate cimes have risen by 11 per cent in the year up to March 2023, the highest number since these figures started being recorded in 2012.

Recorded crimes have gone from 4,262 in 2022 to 4,732 the year after.

A Home Office briefing outlining the statistics published on Thursday said: “Transgender issues have been heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offences, or more awareness in the police in the identification and recording of these crimes.”

Holly Bancroft reports:

Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the decision to cut HS2 north of Birmingham “is in the interest of the country” as he shrugged off criticism from Tory former premiers David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

He told Sky News: “They’re absolutely entitled to their opinion. I worked closely with both of them in government and was very proud to serve with them. But that was a number of years ago.

“The facts have changed, the costs of the project have escalated, the patterns of travel have changed post-pandemic.

“So this Government’s taken a different decision. The Prime Minister’s taken a different decision that he thinks and I think is in the interest of the country.”

Rishi Sunak declined to repeat Suella Braverman’s claim that a “hurricane” of mass migration is coming and dodged questions on whether she was right to vilify people seeking to migrate to the UK as part of an “invasion”.

The Home Secretary’s comments in her Tory conference speech caused unease among some senior Conservatives.

Asked whether he agreed with her words, the Prime Minister told the BBC’s Today programme on Thursday: “Illegal migration is putting unsustainable pressure on our country and, for me, it is non-negotiable that it should be the British people who decide who comes to our country and not criminal gangs.

“I made a speech myself eight months ago about illegal migration. I pointed out the number of people who potentially could come to the UK, figures that have been mentioned by international organisations. That’s clearly unsustainable, which is why we’re taking action to stop the boats.”

He said it is “right when people come here that they integrate”.

When it was put to him that he was happy with the Home Secretary’s remarks, Mr Sunak said: “Your words, not mine.”