Markus Andrews

Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the government wants to “explore an option” of using sanctioned oligarchs’ mansion homes in Britain to house refugees from Ukraine.However, the levelling up minister conceded there would be a “high legal bar to cross” in using frozen assets – and suggested it could only house refugees temporarily.Asked about reports in the Daily Mail that he wants to “seize” mansions and use them to accommodate people fleeing the war, Mr Gove told the BBC: “There’s quite a high legal bar to cross and we’re not talking about permanent confiscation.”He told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme: “I want to explore an option which would allow us to use the homes and properties of sanctioned individuals – as long as they are sanctioned – for humanitarian and other purposes.”Mr Gove added: “We are saying: ‘You’re sanctioned, you’re supporting Putin, this home is here, you have no right to use or profit from it – and more than that, while you are not using or profiting from it, if we can use it in order to help others, let’s do that’.”When challenged by host Sophie Raworth that oligarchs can continue to live in properties that have been frozen under sanctions – which only prevent assets from being sold – Mr Gove said: “We’ve moved as rapidly as we possibly can.”The housing minister added: “If we can use those assets for as long as someone is sanctioned, then we should.”Mr Gove’s desire to use frozen property assets is reportedly being blocked by officials at the Treasury and the Foreign Office who believe it is “not legally workable”.Ministers have understood to have expressed concerns that properties cannot be seized under current sanctions legislation.The government has imposed sanctions on 20 Putin-linked oligarchs – as well as 386 members of the Russian parliament. Foreign secretary Liz Truss has said she has a long “hit list” of Russians as part of a “rolling programme” of sanctions.Mr Gove also suggested he was personally considering offer a home to Ukrainian refugees, as he set out details of a government sponsorship route, allowing British citizens and community groups to offer up rooms and receive a “thank you” payment of £350 per month.Asked if he would take someone fleeing the Russian forces, the cabinet minister told the BBC: “Yes.”He explained: “I’m exploring what I can do, I know that there are others who have. Without going into my personal circumstances, there are a couple of things I need to sort out – but yes.”Mr Gove said there are potentially “hundreds of thousands of people” in the UK willing to take Ukrainians into their homes – but had earlier conceded that he expected the route would only see “tens of thousands” welcomed in.The housing minister also revealed that local authorities would receive £10,000 for each Ukrainian refugee it sponsors and provides support.But government has been criticised for insisting that British sponsors go through online paperwork and security checks on behalf of a particular, “named” refugee.Mr Gove said charities would help in the “matching process”, and said the government believed individuals and community groups would use social media to connect and fill out online paperwork together.The Refugee Council accused the government of putting too many “bureaucratic hurdles” in the way – and said “it will inevitably be restricted to those who are known to people in the UK”. More

Vladimir Putin is “out of control” and has committed war crimes with his invasion of Ukraine, said cabinet minister Michael Gove – who said the UK government was concerned about Russia’s nuclear threat.Mr Gove said he does not think it is helpful to think of Russian president as “mad” – but said he was operating in a “moral sphere the rest of us would find almost impossible to conceive of”.Asked whether the possibility that the Putin regime could use nuclear weapons was a real concern for the UK government, the senior minister says: “Yes.”Mr Gove said it is was known that Putin was capable of “terrible, terrible violence”, but said it was not for him to specify how the UK government would respond to a chemical attack on Ukraine.“[Use of chemical weapons] would be a war crime. It was a war crime in Syria – it is the case that already Vladimir Putin has committed war crimes,” he told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme.Mr Gove added: “Our response is something that will be agreed in concert with our allies … It would be a response specifically targeted to deal with that escalation.”Leonid Volkov – a close adviser to the stanch Putin critic and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – said Mr Putin was a “crazy person” and it was difficult to predict what he could do next.Asked on Sky News on Sunday if he believed Mr Putin could use nuclear weapons, Mr Volkov said: “He is crazy enough. We cannot we can expect, unfortunately, everything.”However, Mr Gove was reluctant to go into further detail on Putin’s “grisly options” and the issue of Russia’s nuclear threat, saying: “I hope you’ll excuse my caution when we’re talking about such momentous and potentially terrifying escalation.”The levelling up minister said Putin was operating “according to a set of criteria, totally detached from those which you or I would consider to be reasonable or rational”.He added: “I don’t think it’s helpful to think of Putin as mad. I think what we do need to think of him as, and indeed we do need to recognise, is someone whose ruthlessness takes them into a moral sphere that the rest of us would find almost impossible to conceive of.”Mr Gove also told the BBC that the Ukrainian people were facing “a series of war crimes perpetrated by a leader who is out of control”.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he agreed that Putin has committed war crimes during the invasion of Ukraine. “What I have seen already amounts to war crimes. Particularly the awful attacks on civilians,” he told Sky News.Attorney General Suella Braverman said Boris Johnson’s government would help put Russian soldiers found guilty of war crimes in Ukraine behind bars.Ms Braverman wrote: “The evidence is there, the world can see it accruing. Our job now is to collect it, preserve it and use it when the moment comes.”It comes as deputy prime minister Dominic Raab prepares to travel to the Hague on Monday to assist the international effort to gather evidence of war crimes.The justice secretary, a former lawyer who has prosecuted war crimes, has previously said that the UK has acquired intelligence during past investigations which would prove “absolutely critical” to the International Criminal Court (ICC).The ICC has already started an investigation that could target senior officials believed to be responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide following Russian’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.Meanwhile, Mr Gove said also he wants to look at the possibility of using the properties of sanctioned oligarchs to house refugees and for other purposes – even though legal experts have warned that frozen assets cannot be seized.He told the BBC: “We are saying you are sanctioned, you are supporting Putin, you have no right to use your home or profit from it, while you are not using or profiting from it, if we can use it to help others, let’s do that.” More

Cabinet minister Michael Gove blundered over the number of Ukrainian refugees accepted by Britain – incorrectly claiming that 300,000 visas has been issued to those fleeing the Russian invasion.Challenged over the figures on Sky News, Mr Gove admitted he had got the figured wrong, before revealing that only around 3,000 visas had been granted on the Ukraine family scheme.The levelling up minister set out details of the new sponsorship route, allowing Britons to offer homes to Ukrainian refugees and receive a “thank you” payment of £350 per month.Mr Gove said “tens of thousands” of refugees could come through the route, and revealed that local authorities would receive £10,000 for each Ukrainian refugee sponsored in their area.The government has been criticised for insisting that British sponsors go through online paperwork and security checks on behalf of a particular, named refugee.The Refugee Council accused the government of putting too many “bureaucratic hurdles” in the way – and said “it will inevitably be restricted to those who are known to people in the UK”.Mr Gove said charities would help in the “matching process”, and said the government believed individuals and community groups would use social media to connect and fill out online paperwork together.“The alternative to that would be the government attempting to match people in Ukraine to individuals here – that could be quite a slow, bureaucratic process,” he told Sophy Ridge on Sunday.Mr Gove added: “We know charities, and we are working with them, who are working to identify people on the ground, and helping to identify people here to create the matching process.”Asked if he would personally use to scheme to offer a room to a Ukrainian refugee, Mr Gove said he is in the process of “seeking to see what I can do”.The Homes for Ukraine scheme will allow individuals, charities, community groups and businesses to bring people fleeing the war to safety, even if they have no ties to the UK.Sponsored refugees will be granted 36 months leave to remain in the UK, with entitlement to benefits and public services. Sponsors will be expected to guarantee a minimum stay of six months.But a lot of questions remain unanswered. The government appears to be expect refugees and sponsors to find each other online, or through family and friendship networks, before making an application on the website launched on Monday.Britons offering accommodation will be vetted and the Ukrainian applicants will also have to undergo security checks.Mr Gove said Britons could register their interest on a new website from Monday, and claimed “matching” would start taking place from Friday. “I would expected that in a week’s time we will see the first people arriving under this scheme,” he said.Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “By establishing a visa route and naming scheme, it will inevitably be restricted to those who are known to people in the UK”, adding that it would be a “lengthy” application process.Labour also cautioned that “too many questions remain unanswered” about the new scheme.Shadow levelling-up secretary Lisa Nandy said that if Britons were required to have a prior connection to a Ukrainian family to sponsor them, that would be a “severe limitation”.Ms Nandy said it was still unclear what support would be offered to vulnerable children and older people, whether provision would made for unaccompanied children, and what help would go to local government and housing providers.Mr Gove also appeared to suggested the government would consider a third route to Ukrainian refugees, akin to the humanitarian resettlement scheme set up to welcome Syrians from refugee camps.The minister told Sky News the UK could continue to send humanitarian to countries on the Ukrainian border. “Alongside that we can then see how many people how many we can take to the UK … there are of course many others we can support and whom we can provide a warm welcome.”Former immigration minister Caroline Nokes said security checks must be carried out at an “impressive speed” on the “brilliant people” wishing to offer homes to refugees under the government’s new sponsorship scheme.She added: “It is imperative that all these brilliant people who are contacting me and contacting charities offering up their homes, they do need to be checked. That’s a sad, stark reality. But that has to happen quickly.” More

Sir Keir Starmer has sparked criticism from children’s author JK Rowling for saying “trans women are women” and calling for a more respectful debate on the issue.The Labour leader backed calls to reform the Gender Recognition Act – but said existing UK law meant that transgender women can already be considered women.Asked to define what a woman is, Sir Keir told The Times: “A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view – that is actually the law.”Mr Starmer added: “It has been the law through the combined effects of the 2004 [Gender Recognition] Act and the 2010 [Equality] Act. So that’s my view. It also happens to be the law in the United Kingdom.”Rowling took to Twitter to claim Sir Keir “publicly misrepresents equalities law”, adding: “Women are organising across party lines, and their resolve and their anger are growing.”The author and political campaigner said Mr Starmer’s latest comments were “yet another indication that the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women’s rights”.The row followed renewed political debate over the issue, after two of Sir Keir’s shadow cabinet members appeared to struggle to define what a woman was.Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, said she did not wish to go down the “rabbit hole” of definition, while party chair Anneliese Dodds got into a row with Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin on the subject.The senior Tory told the Commons that MPs should be “clear and courageous about what a man is and what a woman is” – claiming the rights of women in women-only safe spaces such as public toilets were being “threatened”.Mr Jenkin also accused Ms Dodds of struggling to define a woman during a BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour interview, prompting the Labour MP to fire back: “It’s quite easy for me [to define], given that I am a woman.”Ms Dodds had told BBC Radio 4 that there were “different definitions legally”. But the Labour chair also said that when it came to trans women “understandably because they live as a woman, they want to be defined as a woman”.In his interview with The Times, the Labour leader said he supported reform to the Gender Recognition Act. The government has dropped plans to allow people to legally change their gender without a two-year-long process involving medical diagnosis.“The process that people have to go through does need to be looked at,” said Sir Keir. “If you talk to anybody who’s been through the process there’s a real issue about respect and dignity.”Labour MP Rosie Duffield said earlier this year she was considering leaving the party, accusing Labour officials of failing to protect her from “obsessive harassment” over the issue.Ms Duffield has come under fire over her views on trans issues, after expressing her opposition to “male-bodied biological men” being allowed to self-identify as female in order to access women-only spaces.The Canterbury MP decided to stay away from the main Labour conference at the end of last year, saying she had been unfairly branded “transphobic” for “knowing that only women have a cervix”.Asked about the row at the time if the conference in Brighton, Sir Keir said Ms Duffield was wrong to say that only women have a cervix. More

Britons opening their homes to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion will receive a “thank you” payment of £350 per month, the government has announced.The Homes for Ukraine scheme, to be rolled out this week, will allow individuals, charities, community groups and businesses to bring people fleeing the war to safety – even if they have no ties to the UK.Sponsors can nominate a named Ukrainian individual or family to stay with them in their home, or offer a separate property for them to use rent-free.It comes as the government has faced criticism over the speed and scale of its efforts to bring fleeing Ukrainians to the UK.People sponsoring refugees through the new uncapped route will be required to commit to the scheme for a minimum of six months but are encouraged to keep up the offer for as long as they can.Those offering accommodation will be vetted and Ukrainian applicants will undergo security checks.A website gathering expressions of interest is set to launch on Monday.The government said it is also working to enable communities, the voluntary sector and charitable and religious organisations to sponsor groups of Ukrainians.Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the UK “stands behind Ukraine in their darkest hour” and urged people to “join the national effort” to help refugees as he announced the plan on Saturday night.The levelling up, housing and communities secretary said: “The crisis in Ukraine has sent shock waves across the world as hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been forced to flee their homes, leaving everything they know and love behind.“Together we can give a safe home to those who so desperately need it.”Mr Gove is also calling for Russian oligarchs’ multi-million-pound mansions to be seized and used to house Ukrainian refugees as “payback”, according to the Mail on Sunday.Ukrainians who have sponsors will be granted three years’ leave to remain in the UK, with entitlement to work and access public services.Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford have said both Scotland and Wales are willing to become “super sponsors” for Ukrainian refugees.In a letter to Mr Gove, they also renewed their calls on Westminster to waive all visa requirements for Ukrainian nationals trying to get into the UK.The governments in Holyrood and Cardiff said super sponsorship would enable Ukrainians to get clearance to enter each country quickly and be housed temporarily while they work with local partners to provide longer-term accommodation, safeguarding and access to services.Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi announced on Saturday that online lessons will be made available to 100,000 refugee pupils as they transition to “life and safety” in the UK.He told BBC’s Question Time earlier in the week: “What you are seeing now is a surge in our capability to take more Ukrainians.“I can tell you in my own department in education, I have a team that’s already making plans for a capacity of 100,000 children that we will take into our schools.”Responding to Mr Gove’s announcement, Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, said too many questions still remained unanswered.“We have known for weeks that generous Brits want to help Ukrainians fleeing war,” she said.“The problem is that once again the government has failed to plan and has been dragging its feet.“We still need far more urgency and too many questions remain unanswered. More

Boris Johnson has told the Irish premier that “significant changes” are still needed to the protocol – after the taoiseach said there is a growing view in Northern Ireland that the Brexit deal is working.Micheal Martin said “everyone he has met” in Northern Ireland wants continued access to the EU single market as he met Mr Johnson in London for talks.The taoiseach’s comments come after Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said his party would not resume the power-sharing arrangement until the UK-EU protocol row is resolved.Mr Martin suggested the hotly contested issue of the Northern Ireland Protocol would not be resolved by the time of the province’s May elections – saying London and Brussels would strike a deal “in the fullness of time”.Speaking to reporters ahead of talks with the prime minister in London, Mr Martin said business leaders north of the border thought the Northern Irish economy was benefiting from current arrangements.“What’s very interesting from our perspective, though, is that what’s increasing and growing is a view within Northern Ireland, particularly in Northern Ireland business and industry, that the protocol is working in terms of inward investment into Northern Ireland, and in terms of access to the EU single market,” he said.Mr Martin told reporters: “So anybody I’ve met in Northern Ireland all want to continue access to the EU single market. It’s a good basic principle to start off on.”However, Mr Johnson insisted that “significant changes” were still needed to the agreement, as foreign secretary Liz Truss continues to lead talks on easing border checks with her EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic.A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The prime minister reiterated the need to make significant changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to protect peace and stability in Northern Ireland and safeguard the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in all its dimensions.“He said that while greater ambition and flexibility was needed from the EU in the negotiations, it was his hope that the same spirit of co-operation that had characterised the UK-EU relationship in respect of Ukraine could also be applied to resolving the issues with the protocol.”The Irish leader – who attended the England v Ireland rugby match at Twickenham on Saturday with Mr Johnson – defended his decision not to consult the UK before deciding to waive visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees.“It was never on that we would be acting outside of the European Union approach to this,” he said. “I think the UK would have been well aware of the direction of travel of the European Union in respect of this measure.”Asked if he would encourage Mr Johnson to take in more people fleeing the war in Ukraine, the taoiseach said: “Well to be fair I’m not here to tell Boris Johnson what to do,” before adding: “I have to acknowledge the leadership of the UK government in terms of the sanctions it has imposed on Russia.”The meeting in London follows the latest remarks by the DUPs leader, who was applauded at Crossgar Orange Hall on Friday night for saying his party would not re-enter the Stormont Executive until Mr Johnson’s government acts to “protect Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom”.Paul Givan resigned as first minister earlier this year as part of the DUP’s action against the protocol in a move which also removed Sinn Fein’s deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill from the joint office. More

Boris Johnson and officials at No 10 are said to have halted Home Office plans to expand the UK’s offer to Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.Home secretary Priti Patel has come in for fierce criticism from both Conservative and Labour MPs for her response to the Ukraine refugee crisis and the insistence on visa requirements.Downing Street intervened to stop a plan by Ms Patel to open up a new “humanitarian route” for refugees fleeing the war, according to Sky News, citing government sources.“The problem is No 10 – the PM and [chief of staff] Steve Barclay – who are personally slapping this down,” one source told the broadcaster.On Monday Ms Patel told The Sun she was “urgently escalating” the government’s response and was “now investigating the legal options to create a humanitarian route”.But No 10 has been cautious on the idea of opening up routes for large numbers of Ukrainians to come to the UK without extensive checks.Downing Street is also understood to have reigned in a Home Office plan to allow the family members of Ukrainians on temporary visas enter the UK. Only those with permanent visas can currently bring in family.Only 1,305 Ukrainian refugees have been granted with a visa under the Home Office’s family migration scheme, the government said on Friday – despite tens of thousands applying for refuge.Levelling up secretary Michael Gove has been tasked with setting up a new sponsorship route that will allow local authorities, community groups and individuals to provide a home to Ukrainian refugees.But refugee charities have told The Independent that Ukrainians may end up in hotels and hostels because of the “decimation” of official resettlement programme funding.They warned that sponsorship scheme set to be launched by Mr Gove on Monday should not replace large-scale state humanitarian programmes, amid fears that community groups could be expected to “pick up the pieces”.Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, told The Independent that the failure to maintain previous resettlement programmes had left the UK unprepared for an influx of refugees.“That is why 12,000 Afghan refugees are still stuck in hotels seven months on from the Afghanistan evacuation, and why we are deeply concerned that the government is considering similar forms of “temporary” accommodation for Ukrainians.”The Times reported that the government expects accommodation providers such as hotels, landlords and B&B owners to form “the bulk of offers” under the new sponsorship scheme.Britons keen to house Ukrainian refugees under the government’s new sponsorship scheme will need to agree to do so for at least six months, reports suggest.But uncertainty remains about the length of time sponsored refugees will be allowed to stay, and the leve of benefits the new arrivals will be allowed to claim.It was thought that Ukrainians welcomed under the sponsorship scheme would be allowed to stay for an initial period of 12 months. But there are concerns that it would put them at odds with refugees coming through the Ukrainian family visa scheme entitled to remain in the UK for 36 months.It comes as the French president Emmanuel Macron accused the UK of failing to live up to its “grand statements” on helping Ukrainian refugees.“I would hope that the Ukrainian men and women who have lived through horror and crossed Europe to reach their families on UK territory will be better treated,” said Mr Macron, following the difficulties some have had in applying for visas at Calais and elsewhere.On Thursday, Ms Patel announced that from Tuesday people will be able to apply online for a visa and will no longer have to go to a processing centre to give their biometrics.“We are now making the process quicker and simpler by removing the need to physically visit visa application centres for many of those who are making the perilous journey across Europe,” said a Home Office spokesperson.A government spokesperson denied claims of a row between No 10 and the Home Office over routes for Ukrainian refugees.“The government is united and working at pace to deliver our new sponsorship route which will allow individuals and organisations in the UK to provide accommodation and support for Ukrainian refugees,” said the spokesperson. More

Britain’s households are facing a £38bn hit on energy bills in the year ahead due to the soaring costs of wholesale gas and electricity, new analysis has found.Chancellor Rishi Sunak is under growing pressure to set out extra help for families struggling with the cost of living crisis, as the war in Ukraine causes major spikes in energy prices.Fuel bills are set to rise almost £700 in April when the energy price cap is raised – but experts are now warning that further increases are now “baked in” for the coming winter.Regulator Ofgem will need to impose another 50 per cent rise in the energy price cap from October and push average energy bills over £3,000, economists at Investec and Goldman have estimated.Analysts at Aurora Energy Research told the Financial Times the move would increase households’ gas and electricity consumption to £74bn in the year ahead, an increase of £38bn since last year.“It’s a hugely substantial impact, especially on lower-income households,” said Dan Monzani, a managing director at Aurora Energy Research.Last month Mr Sunak announced plans for an energy rebate loan, giving all households discounts of around £200 in October, which is then to be repaid over give years.But the chancellor so far resisted calls to take further action to ease some of the pressure on hard-pressed families from rising fuel bills.Labour has called for further help through windfall tax on oil companies, with Sir Keir Starmer warning that families could see a further £1,000 spike in household bills this autumn.Mr Sunak held meetings with several worried Conservative MPs this week to listen to the ideas on how to help households with soaring energy bills, PoliticsHome has reported.One Tory MP said: “I’ve never seen the fear in peoples’ eyes that I’m seeing at the moment, people are genuinely scared. People are scared and I don’t blame them. He has got to do something.”Some MPs are understood to have asked the chancellor if he could expand the support given to the poorest households, while he is also facing calls from Tory backbenchers to cut fuel duty and the green levies from fuel bills.On Friday Mr Sunak said he would continue to “monitor” the economic impact of the Ukraine crisis. “We have provided unprecedented support throughout the pandemic which has put our economy in a strong position to deal with current cost-of-living challenges,” he said.The chancellor added: “We know that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is creating significant economic uncertainty and we will continue to monitor its impact on the UK.”Money saving expert Martin Lewis has accused the government of trying to blame the Ukraine war for the cost of living crisis – when people were already at risk of “starving or freezing”.Ahead of a mini-Budget in two weeks’ time, he urged Mr Sunak to take further action. “We are going to see a real increase in genuine poverty in this country, millions of people being thrown into poverty,” he told the BBC. More