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Boris Johnson and Prince Charles are preparing for talks with Commonwealth leaders on trade, climate change and the future of the association at a crucial summit in Rwanda this week.The prime minister is set to make the economic case for remaining part of the 54-member club, as leading Republican figures in both Australia and Jamaica discuss cutting ties with the monarchy.The Prince of Wales will represent the Queen, head of the group made up of mostly former territories of the British Empire, when prime ministers and presidents gather for the first time since 2018.But the visit of the prince and the PM has been overshadowed by a recent report in The Times which claims Charles branded Mr Johnson’s policy to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as “appalling”.The newspaper said a source had heard Charles express opposition to the policy several times in private, and that he was “more than disappointed” by the deportation plan.No 10 and Clarence House have played down the row, with Mr Johnson hoping to avoid further controversy on the “offshoring” plan when he arrives in Rwanda on Wednesday night for several days of talks.But the UK plan to send migrants on one-way flight to Rwanda for offshore “processing” of asylum claims has sparked controversy among other Commonwealth countries.The president the Democratic Republic of the Congo Felix Tshisekedi has urged Mr Johnson to use any leverage gained from the deal to pressure Paul Kagame’s government to cease funding attacks by militants in eastern Congo.Highlighting his wish to focus on economic ties at the summit, Mr Johnson wrote earlier that membership has “immense practical value for trade” – calling it the “Commonwealth advantage”.Discussion about the future of ties to the monarchy has grown in Australia and Jamaica since Barbados chose to become a Republic last year, though the Caribbean island opted to remain a Commonwealth member.Prince Charles, who arrived in Rwanda on Tuesday, hailed the potential of the Commonwealth to make a difference on issues like climate change.“Taking shared responsibility to solve problems like these means the Commonwealth has the potential to make a profound difference in the lives of its citizens – and, in so doing, to be an unparalleled force for good in our world,” he said.Charles last represented the Queen at the event in Sri Lanka in 2013 – a move that was interpreted as preparation for his future role as monarch – and in 2018 he was appointed the monarch’s designated successor as head of the Commonwealth.The prince and Duchess of Cornwall lamented the atrocities committed during the Rwandan genocide as the toured the Kigali Genocide Memorial and were shown the personal testimonies of families.The couple read intently the comments about the youngsters murdered during the 1994 genocide, and Charles reacted by saying: “Terrible, happens all too often.” More

Boris Johnson fails to deny he offered Carrie Symonds top jobJacob Rees-Mogg has been accused of unveiling a Brexit “gimmick” – a quarterly dashboard of reformed EU laws – which will “do nothing to address the real challenges that the public face today”.The Brexit opportunities minister sought to claim the new digital publication would usher in a “British-style revolution”, pointing to regulations on vacuum cleaners as he spoke of the need to “ultimately grow the economy and cut the cost of living”.Labour frontbencher Stephen Doughty called it “quite extraordinary” for the government to introduce what “simply appears to be a vanity project” on the day that inflation topped a 40-year high of 9.1 per cent.Earlier at PMQs, Boris Johnson failed to deny he offered his then-lover Carrie Symonds a top job while foreign secretary, ducking the question when challenged in the Commons.Shortly afterwards, justice secretary Dominic Raab proposed a new Bill of Rights which will allow the government to ignore interim rulings from a European court and potentially make it easier to deport foreign offenders.Show latest update

1655907864Stanley Johnson calls for parliament ban on ‘agreeable’ Chinese ambassador to be liftedBoris Johnson’s father has called on the UK parliament to lift a ban on the Chinese ambassador ahead of his own visit to China to retrace the steps of Marco Polo, our political correspondent Adam Forrest reports.Stanley Johnson is planning a summer trip to Xinjiang province, home to the Uighur minority persecuted by Beijing, for a TV programme on the famous explorer.China’s ambassador to Britain Zheng Zeguan was banned from the parliamentary estate last year – a move which sparked retaliatory sanctions on nine Britons, including senior Conservative MPs.In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Mr Johnson Snr described Mr Zheng as a “very agreeable, capable and intelligent man” following talks with him about his travel plans for television.The 81-year-old added: “I would very much hope that by the time parliament returns [after the summer break], these bans will no longer be in place.”Andy Gregory22 June 2022 15:241655907191Government claims Rishi Sunak’s £1.9bn subsidy for fossil fuels is ‘not technically a subsidy’The government has claimed Rishi Sunak’s new £1.9 billion tax break for fossil fuel companies is not technically a subsidy and so compatible with its climate plan, our policy correspondent Jon Stone reports.Green groups lambasted ministers for playing “semantics” with the planet over the new incentives to invest and oil and gas production – announced just months after the UK’s own climate summit promised to put an end to them.The chancellor’s doubled the rate of tax relief for oil and gas projects in his Budget, a measure that is expected to cost taxpayers nearly £2 billion and produce 899 million tons of extra CO2.But responding to criticism of the measure from green groups, Treasury minister Helen Whately claimed that the policy was compatible with the UK’s international commitment, because of a technicality.Andy Gregory22 June 2022 15:131655906291Labour dismisses Rees Mogg’s Brexit dashboard ‘gimmick’Responding to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s new Brexit dashboard (see post below), Labour has warned that gimmicks do nothing to address the “real challenges” that the public face today.Shadow foreign office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs the Brexit opportunities’ minister’s new quarterly list of reformed of EU laws “simply appears to be a vanity project”. “It’s quite extraordinary that on the day that inflation tops 9 per cent, the cost of energy is soaring, families facing massive pressures wondering how they will put food on the table, prices rising at the fastest rate of increase for 40 years, the government’s offer today to the British people is a digital filing cabinet of existing legislation, which the gentleman describes, in his own words, as marginal,” he said.“And while the government plans to cut 20 per cent of civil servants, the minister for so-called government efficiency is running his own make-work scheme in the Cabinet Office, creating tasks for them to satisfy his own obsessions.”He added: “For all the government’s talk about changes we can make outside the EU, they still refuse to make the one concrete change that the Labour Party has been demanding for months with the overwhelming support of the British people as promised by the prime minister himself, which is the removal of VAT on home energy bills.”Andy Gregory22 June 2022 14:581655905513Rees-Mogg touts ‘revolution’ with new government dashboardJacob Rees-Mogg has claimed that a new dashboard showing how many EU laws have been reformed will usher in a “British-style revolution”.“With inflation running high we need to search everywhere and under every stone and sofa cushion for supply side reforms that make products and services cheaper, make things easier for business and ultimately grow the economy and cut the cost of living,” the Brexit opportunities minister told MPs.“This dashboard therefore is the supply side reformers’ El Dorado and naturally I am pointing to the treasure trove of opportunity this publication represents. It highlights unnecessary and disproportionate EU regulations on consumer goods such as those regulating the power of vacuum cleaners, why should that trouble Her Majesty’s Government?”Mr Rees-Mogg added: “We will continue working with departments to cut at least a billion pounds of business costs from EU red tape, to ensure greater freedoms and productivity.“Ensuring we have the right regulation is crucial, excessive and unnecessary regulations which burden business or distort market outcomes, reduce productivity, pushing up prices and negatively affecting everyone’s cost of living.”Andy Gregory22 June 2022 14:451655904671Government to create public dashboard showing EU law reforms, Rees-Mogg saysA dashboard will be made available to the public to show on a quarterly basis how much EU law has been reformed, Jacob Rees-Mogg has announced.In a Commons statement, the minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency said: “As we maximise the benefits of Brexit and transform the UK into the most sensibly regulated economy in the world we must reform the EU law we have retained on our statute book.“Only through reform of this retained EU law will we finally be able to untangle ourselves of nearly 50 years of EU membership.”He went on: “I am pleased to announce that today we publish an authoritative catalogue of over 2,400 pieces of legislation spanning over 300 individual policy areas.“This catalogue will be available on gov.uk through an interactive dashboard. It will be updated on a quarterly basis so that the public can count down retained EU law as the government reforms it.”He added: “The publication of this dashboard offers the public a real opportunity. Everything on it we can now change.”Andy Gregory22 June 2022 14:311655903881Julian Assange extradition part of government’s ‘increasingly totalitarian bent’, his wife warnsAs Dominic Raab speaks in the Commons on reducing the power of European human rights legislation in the UK, Julian Assange’s wife Stella Morris has warned that Priti Patel’s decision to send the Wikileaks founder to the US to face espionage charges is part of the government’s “increasingly totalitarian bent”.Writing for The Independent, she condemned the home secretary for “flouting” calls from the Europe’s leading human rights organisation, doctors and journalists to stop his extradition to the US.Ms Morris, a lawyer and campaigner, said the home secretary had “flouted calls from representatives of the Council of Europe, the OSCE [Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe], almost two thousand journalists and three hundred doctors for the extradition to be halted”.She added: “Priti Patel’s decision comes amidst sweeping government reforms of an increasingly totalitarian bent – the plans to weaken the influence of the European Court of Human Rights and the decision to extradite Julian are the coup de grace.”Andy Gregory22 June 2022 14:181655903283Lib Dem MP asks whether Bill of Rights is ‘unilateral repudiation’ of Belfast AgreementThe Liberal Democrats’ Northern Ireland spokesperson Alistair Carmichael has asked whether Dominic Raab’s proposed new Bill of Rights constitutes a “unilateral repudiation” of the Belfast Agreement.“Paragraph 2 of the Human Rights Charter of the Good Friday Agreement provides that the British government will complete incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), with direct access to the courts and remedies for breach of the convention.“So will the justice secretary tell the House whether his Bill constitutes a unilateral repudiation of that, or is this something that he’s negotiated with the government of Ireland?”Mr Raab said Mr Carmichael was “wrong” because the UK will “remain a state party to the Convention”, adding that the “ECHR remains incorporated into UK law through the schedule”.Amid some disagreement from the opposite bench, the justice secretary then accused the Lib Dem MP of “chuntering from a sedentary position”, adding: “Read the bill and I’m very happy to address any other questions he’s got.”Andy Gregory22 June 2022 14:081655902374Raab’s predecessor ‘welcomes’ statement on Bill of RightsFormer justice secretary Robert Buckland has said that he “welcomes” his successor Dominic Raab’s statement on the government’s proposed Bill of Rights.Mr Buckland said that it “builds upon the work” that he and Sir Peter Gross did during the review of the Human Rights Act, adding – contrary to earlier comments in the Commons – that “Sir Peter’s balanced committee did not say that all was well with the Human Rights Act”.He added: “There were issues to be dealt with and according to our manifesto commitment to update the Act, this Bill is timely.”Mr Buckland asked whether Mr Raab agreed that “over and above domestic action that we can take to reform and improve legislation, there is a strong case for international work to be done on the same basis that we did in Brighton 10 years ago, to deal with issues such as extraterritorial jurisdiction, which is a common concern, not just of this country, but of our judges and many member states on the Council of Europe”.Andy Gregory22 June 2022 13:521655901917Who is RMT leader Mick Lynch?Away from the Commons for a moment, my colleague Joe Sommerlad has this piece on the RMT union’s general-secretary Mick Lynch, whose uncompromising interviewing style has seen him go viral multiple times since the rail strikes began this week: More

Boris Johnson has suggested that Britain should start mining and burning its own coal again, despite the climate emergency.The prime minister said it “makes no sense” for Britain to be importing coal from abroad for use in steelmaking “when we have our own domestic resources”.While the UK has largely abandoned coal for for power generation, slashing CO2 emissions, it still uses some in steelmaking, where the substance is harder to cut out.During an exchange at prime minister’s questions Chris Green, the Conservative MP for Bolton West, said he had “concerns about the ethics of holding back British industry and exporting and magnifying our carbon emissions overseas”.This was being done “in the name of net zero”, he said, adding that “for much of Britain, levelling up means the revitalisation of British industry and the jobs that go with it”. Responding, prime minister Mr Johnson said: “I think we can we can all be proud of the way we’ve reduced CO2 emissions in this country, but plainly it makes no sense to be importing coal, particularly for metallurgical purposes, where we have our own domestic resources.”His comments come after a row over the potential opening of a new coal mine in Cumbria. The proposed pit would mine coal for the steel industry, but 85 per cent of it is expected to be exported.There are currently no deep coal mines left in operation in the UK, though some open pits are still in operation. Environmentalists point out that every extra tonne of coal on the world market will also tend to drive down its price and drive up emissions, no matter where it is used. To met net zero emissions targets to avert catastrophic climate change, steelmaking must phase out ordinary coal use by 2035, but the technology to do so it at a relatively early stage.Friends of the Earth energy campaigner Tony Bosworth said: “The Prime Minister is simply wrong: opening new UK coal mines makes no sense for energy security or tackling the climate crisis.“A new mine in Cumbria would have little impact on coal imports. Steelmakers use a blend of different coals so they would still have to import the majority of their coal. And one of the two blast furnace sites in the UK– British Steel in Scunthorpe – has expressed doubts about whether it can use Cumbrian coal.“The UK steel industry says it isn’t lobbying for a new mine. It knows its future lies in moving away from coal to low carbon steel-making – something that’s already happening in Europe. “Only a few months ago, the Prime Minister was sounding the death knell for coal. If his government approves the new mine, its climate reputation would be ruined.“Green steel is the future. It’s time to leave coal in the ground where it belongs.” More

European Union leaders will seek to offer support this week to six Western Balkan countries that have long been knocking at the bloc’s doors, and now see the war in Ukraine raging not far from their borders amid fears Russia could turn its sights on their region.The two-day summit starting Thursday in Brussels is expected to approve the European Commission’s proposal to give Ukraine and Moldova candidate EU membership status, the beginning of a long process that the Western Balkan Six started years ago. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased the urgency of getting the historically volatile Western Balkans into the EU fold as some of the region’s states — chiefly Serbia — are increasingly turning toward Moscow, both politically and militarily.The EC has repeatedly told Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia that their future lies within the 27-nation bloc. But progress has stalled — for all sorts of reasons. The countries are at different levels of negotiations and fulfilling numerous membership requirements, with Montenegro leading the pack and Kosovo not even starting the talks.Clement Beaune, France’s minister for European affairs, said the war in Ukraine makes it even more essential that the six countries get a renewed perspective.WHY ALL THE FUSS?The Kremlin has for years been saying it considers the Balkans its zone of “strategic interest,” although the six Western Balkan states were never part of the Soviet bloc. Russian officials say they don’t mind them joining the EU, but strongly objected when Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia joined NATO, and when Bosnia announced plans to seek alliance membership. Tiny Montenegro was warned that it could be targeted by Russian long-range missiles after it joined EU sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine.WHAT’S THE ROLE OF SERBIA?Serbia, the largest of the six countries, is pivotal in Russia’s regional influence. After a brief pro-Western government in the early 2000s — when the country launched its EU accession bid — former ultranationalists took power 10 years ago, leaning Serbia more toward traditional Slavic ally Russia, and China.While still formally seeking EU membership, and although the EU is by far Serbia’s biggest trading partner, Belgrade refused to align its foreign policies with the bloc’s, including to impose sanctions on Moscow.Pro-Putin propaganda in state-controlled media is so widespread that for the first time since Serbia submitted its EU bid support for joining the bloc is below 50%. Top EU officials have told Belgrade it will soon have to make up its mind whether it wants to continue on its EU path by complying with its policies and standards.AND BOSNIA?After the European Commission tapped Ukraine for candidate status, many asked why multi-ethnic Bosnia — which also went through a bloody war in the 1990s — doesn’t get the same status. EU member Slovenia said it will propose Bosnia’s candidacy at this week’s summit.The move to let Ukraine leapfrog others in the long candidacy queue has reawakened fears in the Western Balkans that the region could be left behind as the EU focuses on Ukraine and its neighbor Moldova.Bosnia has faced open threats from Russian officials for its plan to seek NATO membership and has also been destabilized by secessionist threats from Bosnian Serbs who control about half of the Balkan country.NORTH MACEDONIA: LOUD NEIGHBORSNorth Macedonia applied for EU membership in 2004, and is still waiting for the start of its accession talks after repeated obstacles placed by neighboring EU members. First Greece required that the country then known as Macedonia should change its name, saying it implied claims on the northern Greek province of Macedonia. In 2018 the country agreed to rename itself North Macedonia, hoping that would unlock its EU bid. But then Bulgaria vetoed membership talks, pending settlement of its own disputes with North Macedonia that include historic and cultural issues. France said it is making last-ditch efforts to overcome the problem — although it doesn’t help that Bulgaria is currently facing a new political crisis.WHAT ABOUT MONTENEGRO?Tiny Montenegro has fulfilled most of its EU membership obligations, but still seems far from becoming a member. It has applied EU sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, drawing angry responses from the Kremlin. It has also managed to stave off attempts of destabilization from both Russia and neighboring Serbia after it joined NATO.ALBANIA: COLLATERAL DAMAGEAlbania’s candidacy bid has been stalled mostly because it’s tied to North Macedonia’s, which is being blocked by Bulgaria.Prime Minister Edi Rama said if no progress is made at the EU summit this week he will seek to decouple the two processes.But in a recent visit to Kyiv alongside Montenegrin counterpart Dritan Abazovic, Rama said both still fully support Ukraine’s request to get EU candidate status. “No one should speculate with the fact that because Europe has not kept its promise to us, we do not feel well now it is taking the step for Ukraine,” Rama said.KOSOVO: AT THE BACK OF THE LINEKosovo, a former Serbian province that broke off following a separatist uprising and NATO bombing campaign against Serbia, declaring independence in 2008, seems to be last in line for membership talks. Five EU states don’t even recognize it as a country, and its U.N. membership has been blocked in the Security Council by Serbia’s allies Russia and China.____AP writers Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania, and Konstantin Testorides in Skopje, North Macedonia, contributed. More

Boris Johnson’s father has called on the UK parliament to lift a ban on the Chinese ambassador ahead of his own visit to China to retrace the steps of Marco Polo.Stanley Johnson is planning a summer trip to Xinjiang province, home to the Uighur minority persecuted by Beijing, for a TV programme on the famous explorer.China’s ambassador to Britain Zheng Zeguan was banned from the parliamentary estate last year – a move which sparked retaliatory sanctions on nine Britons, including senior Conservative MPs.In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Mr Johnson Snr described Mr Zheng as a “very agreeable, capable and intelligent man” following talks with him about his travel plans for television.The 81-year-old added: “I would very much hope that by the time parliament returns [after the summer break], these bans will no longer be in place.”Mr Johnson’s government has accused Beijing of “egregious” abuses against the minority group, and slapped sanctions on Chinese officials deemed responsible for alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang.The prime minister’s dad said his Xinjiang trip, funded by the English Path language school, would see him follow Marco Polo’s steps along the Silk Road – and will allow state broadcaster China Central Television to film his journey.Asked whether he would raise any human rights concerns see along the way, Johnson Snr said: “We will be travelling with [our] eyes open and our ears open.”He added: “You can be absolutely sure that … the TV team who are with us are absolutely professional – they will film what we see. I think that’s all we can say.”He said his trip was “not a political exercise”, but also added: “Anyone who doesn’t want to improve British-Chinese relationships strikes me as being rather narrow-minded”.Last month the PM’s dad was told his application to become a French citizen had been approved – calling it a “very nice gesture” of Paris authorities. No 10 would not comment on Mr Johnson Snr’s trip to China or his call for the ambassador’s ban to be lifted.Labour MP Catherine West, shadow minister for Asia, said Mr Johnson Snr’s comments were “particularly questionable when British MPs have been sanctioned by the Chinese government for speaking up for human rights”.Announcing the ban on Mr Zheng last September, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said it would not be “appropriate” to let the Chinese envoy on to the estate while MPs were subject to sanctions.Beijing had earlier imposed sanctions on five MPs and two peers, including former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, over their stance on Xinjiang and China’s human rights record. More

Downing Street has said it would be “reckless” to raise public sector pay in line with inflation.The comment came after chancellor Rishi Sunak indicated that pensions and benefits will retain their link to price rises, setting the scene for double-digit percentage increases next year.His assurance came despite Boris Johnson urging workers to accept pay hikes well below the inflation rate, currently running at 9.1 per cent and forecast to hit 11 per cent later this year.The PM has warned that pay rises at or close to the inflation rate for striking rail workers risked triggering an inflationary spiral which would undermine the value of pay packets across the board.Asked why the government believed that increases in pay would fuel inflation, while pension rises would not, the PM’s official spokesman said: “I’m not going to jump ahead to what it will or won’t be next year in terms of pensions.“Most commentators recognise that the primary risk from current high levels of inflation that becomes embedded through the labour market, and through wages, there’s not the same risk of this spillover effect to private sector wages from any increase to the state pension age.”Asked if the prime minister is worried about fuelling intergenerational resentment between working-age people and older pensioners, he said: “We will keep explaining to the public why we think this is the right approach.“We are confident that the public will understand that it would long term have a bigger impact on their take-home pay if we were to take actions – reckless actions – now that could spike inflation.“It’s important to stress that does not mean we do not want to reward public sector workers with a pay rise. We do.“It’s just we must make sure that we don’t do anything that has a knock-on impact which feeds into this global inflationary spiral that there is the potential to see.” More

Boris Johnson has failed to deny that he tried to offer his lover Carrie Symonds a top government job while foreign secretary.The prime minister was challenged in the House of Commons over reports that he raised the idea of appointing her to the £100,000-a-year job of chief of staff at the Foreign Office in 2018.There has been no denial from Downing Street that the PM had to be talked out of the plans by aides, and Mr Johnson’s decision to dodge the question at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons is likely to be seen by many as an effective confirmation of the reports.There is growing pressure for an inquiry into the claims that Mr Johnson repeatedly pressed for Ms Symonds to be picked for the taxpayer-funded job at the Foreign Office.But there is no-one to carry out the probe – after his ethics adviser quit last week, over what Christopher Geidt alleged was a separate plan which would breach the ministerial code.Meanwhile, it has been alleged and not denied that as prime minister in 2020, Mr Johnson suggested that Carrie – by then his wife – could take a senior environmental role linked to the COP26 climate change summit or the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Earthshot Prize. Reports suggest that he wanted Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who had previously been Prince William’s private secretary, to “take soundings”. But advisers were said to have vetoed both suggestions, warning either position could undermine his wife’s status as a private citizen.In the Commons, the Labour MP Chris Elmore asked Mr Johnson: “Has he ever considered the appointment of his current spouse to a government post or to any organisation in one of the royal households?Mr Elmore added: “Be honest prime minister – yes or no?”But the prime minister evaded the question, saying: “I know why the party opposite wants to talk about non-existent jobs in the media because they don’t want to talk about what’s going on in the real world.”Sir Keir Starmer pounced on his failure to answer, telling MPs to laughter: “If I ever need advice – let’s say on a £100,000 job at the Foreign Office – I will ask him for a recommendation”.A senior spokesperson for the Labour leader later confirmed he regarded the PM’s failure to engage with Mr Elmore’s question as an effective confirmation of the accuracy of the claims. “It was a total non-denial from the prime minister in PMQs,” he said.Downing Street has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the controversy since the allegation was made at the weekend. Instead, the PM’s official spokesperson referred reporters to statements from Ms Johnson’s spokesperson, who described the Foreign Office story as “untrue” and said the suggestion that the PM’s wife was considered for jobs at COP26 or the Earthshot Prize was “as untrue now as it was then”.No 10 sources were unable to explain today how Ms Johnson, as a private citizen, had obtained confidential information about internal government discussions on recruitment to taxpayer-funded posts.The PM’s press secretary said only that the prime minister “has never recommended Mrs Johnson for a government role or one as part of the Earthshot Prize”, but declined to say whether her possible appointment was ever discussed with aides.Downing Street has also stalled on replacing Lord Geidt, leaving a vacancy which means there is no watchdog to police alleged breaches of the code laid down for all ministers.A former Foreign Office minister, Alan Duncan, said he was told that Ms Symonds – then in charge of communications at Conservative party headquarters (CCHQ) – was being lined up for a special adviser role in the department.“For someone slightly unproven who knew nothing about foreign affairs to come straight out of CCHQ and into the Foreign Office was rather noticeable,” he said.The chair of the Commons standards committee, Chris Bryant, has called for the “paper trail” behind the controversy to be published.“It is manifestly corrupt to appoint your lover as a Spad [special adviser],” he wrote on Twitter. More

The government has claimed Rishi Sunak’s new £1.9 billion tax break for fossil fuel companies is not technically a subsidy and so compatible with its climate plan.Green groups lambasted ministers for playing “semantics” with the planet over the new incentives to invest and oil and gas production – announced just months after the UK’s own climate summit promised to put an end to them.The chancellor’s doubled the rate of tax relief for oil and gas projects in his Budget, a measure that is expected to cost taxpayers nearly £2 billion and produce 899 million tons of extra CO2.But responding to criticism of the measure from green groups, Treasury minister Helen Whately claimed that the policy was compatible with the UK’s international commitment, because of a technicality.”The UK does not give fossil fuel subsidies, and follows the approach of the International Energy Agency, which defines fossil fuel subsidies as measures that reduce the effective price of fossil fuels below world market prices,” she said.The minister argued that the measure did not meet the IEA definition “using a commonly applied methodology” which was developed by the G20 developed countries.However this definition is at odds with the standard economic definition of a subsidy, which is a direct or indirect payment, in the form of a cash payment from the government or a targeted tax cut, to increase supply of a product. The sleight-of-hand comes just months after the UK hosted the Glasgow Climate Summit COP26, where nearly 200 countries agreed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.Greenpeace UK’s political campaigner, Ami McCarthy, told the Independent: “A hand-out, free ride, reward, tax break, subsidy – don’t be distracted by semantics. “Whatever you want to call it the Chancellor is playing a dangerous game by incentivising new oil and gas extraction as a way to allow fossil fuel giants to dodge paying tax on their hugely bloated profits.“More domestic fossil fuel production will not bring energy security or reduce bills, since they take decades to extract and will be sold on the international market at international prices. As for how these plans square with the government’s climate commitments – they don’t.“Sunak should ditch the tax breaks and bring in a permanent tax on oil and gas company profits of at least 70% – the global average. This cash should be used to transform cold, damp, energy-wasting homes into warm, efficient ones. Green homes now mean lower bills forever.”Jamie Peters, campaigner at Friends of the Earth, added: “Whichever way you look at it, the UK is still propping up the fossil fuel industry through massive tax breaks at the expense of the planet. “Getting off oil and gas isn’t just needed to guarantee a safer future, it’s vital to protect people now from energy price hikes. Yet the government is allowing firms to pay 91p less tax for every £1 spent on new oil and gas infrastructure. This means there will be less money overall to help those struggling most, and to insulate the UK’s inefficient homes. “The logical solution would be to increase investment in clean energy. Not only is it quicker and cheaper to develop, but it will help to bring down soaring bills, unlike expensive fossil fuels.”The minister Ms Whately made the argument in response to a written question by Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson, who had asked whether the “Government’s decision to double tax relief for oil and gas companies investing in domestic fossil fuel extraction projects until the end of 2025 with its COP26 commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies”.Responding to the comments, the Lib Dem MP told the Independent: “It’s complete hypocrisy that the Conservatives are giving tax breaks for fossil fuels just months after hosting the COP climate summit.”Giving the go ahead to gas drilling in places like Surrey flies in the face of the concerns of local communities and our green commitments.Liberal Democrats would cancel this decision and work to expand our renewable energy to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.”Treasury minister Helen Whateley said: “The UK does not give fossil fuel subsidies, and follows the approach of the International Energy Agency, which defines fossil fuel subsidies as measures that reduce the effective price of fossil fuels below world market prices.”The International Energy Agency has a long-standing track record in systematically measuring fossil-fuel subsidies using a commonly applied methodology. This definition was originally developed with the European Commission and G20 EU Member States to respond to the G20 commitment to phase out such subsidies.”The UK has been a longstanding supporter of multilateral efforts to promote fossil fuel subsidy reform since these were first proposed in 2009, including through the G20, and the G7. The UK is a signatory of the Glasgow Climate Pact and is committed to the agreed phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies across the globe that encourage wasteful consumption, and sees clear benefits in doing so.” More