Markus Andrews

The planned crack down on second jobs undertaken by MPs could see limits imposed on the amount they can earn outside parliament, according to a senior cabinet minister.Boris Johnson is facing warnings from his own MPs that he urgently needs to get on top of reforms after admitting to Conservative backbenchers he “crashed the car into a ditch” in the row over sleaze.Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said the government’s vague plan to restrict second jobs “within reasonable limits” – passed in the Commons on Wednesday night – could still see a cap place on earnings.“You could do it in one of two ways,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “You could do it by the amount earned. Or you could do it by the number of hours. We’ve asked the committee on standards to work up with the detail by January.”It contradicts what Mr Raab’s cabinet colleague Anne-Marie Trevelyan said on Wednesday, when the trade secretary said the government was focused on limiting the number of hours MPs spend on second jobs.Asked about the huge sums earned by Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Cox from his outside legal work, Ms Trevelyan claimed the issue with second jobs “doesn’t have anything to do with money at all”.On Wednesday, the Commons backed Mr Johnson’s proposals to ban MPs from taking paid political consultancies, and to bring second jobs “within reasonable limits”. However, just 297 MPs voted for the motion, with opposition parties abstaining.More than 70 Tory MPs did not vote for the government, and four Tory MPs even voted for a rival Labour motion which would have imposed a clear parliamentary timetable for implementing reform.The government will not wait for reforms to be drawn up by the Commons Standards Committee by the end of January, but the motion did not guarantee the parliamentary time necessary to enact detailed changes.Labour MP Chris Bryant, the head of the committee on standards currently examining potential reforms, said the government plan on tackling second jobs was “for the birds” and “not very well thought through”.He told Sky News the vague motion passed last night was only a “knee-jerk reaction to a crisis created by the prime minister himself”.Mr Raab acknowledged the government has a job of work to do to restore morale within the Conservative ranks amid the sleaze storm. He blamed the “late-ish vote” – which took place around 7pm – for the failure of dozens of Tories to back the government.At a private meeting of the Tory 1922 Committee on Wednesday, Mr Johnson took responsibility for the botched attempt to save Owen Paterson from suspension. “On a clear day I crashed the car into a ditch,” he is said to have told the gathering.Asked on Sky News about discontent within the party, the deputy PM said there is always “one or other disgruntled individual” who is prepared to complain anonymously in the media.Pressed on whether that means there is no general unrest, Mr Raab added: “Not sure I’d put it in that idyllic way. There’s always debate amongst MPs, but the most important thing is we’re fixing the problem.”Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said there is a lack of urgency from the government when it comes to dealing with the issue – and suggested No 10’s vague pledges on the issue meant real reform could be “kicked further into the long grass”.“The problem with the amendment from the government which was passed yesterday is that there is no timetable,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.Ms Reeves added: “It wasn’t a binding vote and, as a result, I just fear it is going to be kicked further into the long grass rather than the fundamental reform that people want and need to see now to restore confidence in our parliamentary democracy.” More

London’s bus services could be slashed by one-fifth and Tubes by almost one-tenth if the government does not step in with £1.9bn of extra cash, Sadiq Khan has warned.It is the opening salvo of the latest in a series of running battles the capital’s mayor has had with the government over funding, which has been crunched due to the coronavirus pandemic.Mr Khan has traded blows with Boris Johnson, who preceded him as mayor, over the running of Transport for London (TfL) since Covid-19 hit and revenue plummeted thanks to a collapse in passenger numbers.A new TfL report published on Thursday detailed worse-than-expected impacts on the transport network, just as its most recent emergency cash injection was winding down. Mr Khan said TfL was suffering an “unprecedented financial crisis”.And Andy Byford, the capital’s transport commissioner, warned commuters would be “dragged back to the 1970s” without more funding. “Without meaningful sustained investment we will see a damaging vicious circle of under-investment and service cuts,” he said, putting London at a disadvantage compared to other global cities.Under what the new report described as a “managed decline” plan, all cycle schemes not currently under construction would be scrapped – potentially embarrassing for Mr Johnson, a keen cyclist whose government has promised a green revolution. Measures to improve air quality and reduce carbon dioxide emissions would also stall.If the situation became even worse, key roads including the Rotherhithe tunnel could be shut due to a lack of money for repairs, officials warned.In a statement, Mr Khan said: “We are now less than a month away from TfL’s emergency funding deal expiring on 11 December. Unless the government provides the long-term funding needed to maintain our public transport network, there will be no choice but to make significant cuts to services just as demand is growing again.“This would mean fewer, less frequent and more run-down bus and tube services for Londoners, making it more difficult to travel around the city. It would also mean more road and tunnel closures due to a lack of funding to maintain key transport infrastructure.“The widespread disruption and gridlock all these changes would cause would not only unfairly punish millions of Londoners for the impact of the pandemic on TfL’s finances, but would put the national economic recovery at risk.”The Labour mayor said that while he supported the government’s transport investments across the country for the cause of levelling up, this should not come at the cost of “levelling down London”.Mr Johnson has previously accused Mr Khan of “bankrupting” TfL, but the mayor said he had actually reduced a huge deficit in the network’s finances left by his predecessor.A government spokesperson said: “We have repeatedly shown our commitment to supporting London’s transport network through the pandemic, providing more than £4bn in emergency funding to Transport for London.“We will continue to discuss any further funding requirements with TfL and the mayor, and any support provided will focus on getting TfL back onto a sustainable financial footing in a way that is fair to taxpayers across the country.” More

Boris Johnson’s government is focused on getting “the best bang for the buck” by scaling back on promised plans for new rail lines in the north of England, the deputy prime minister Dominic Raab has said.The government is facing a furious backlash from Conservative MPs and leaders in the north and Midlands, with transport secretary Grant Shapps expected to confirm today that the eastern leg of HS2 will be scrapped between the East Midlands and Leeds.While the government has touted its Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) programme as part of its move towards “levelling up” the country, it is also expected to confirm there will only be upgrades to existing infrastructure rather than a new line between Manchester and Leeds.Mr Raab claimed the £96bn plan set out today would still be a “win-win” – but made clear cost savings were behind the changes. “We’re looking at where you get best value for taxpayers’ money – where the infrastructure will deliver the best yield.”The cabinet minister added: “I know the transport secretary and the chancellor [Rishi Sunak] are very focused on delivering the best bang for the buck for those businesses and the regional economy on the north and Midlands.”The prime minister has insisted the government will continue to investigate ways of extending HS2 to Leeds – confirming the ditching of the eastern leg before Mr Shapps’ announcement in the Commons.In a column in the Yorkshire Post, Mr Johnson wrote: “HS2 will come to Sheffield, meaning a trip to or from London will take just one hour 27 minutes – precisely the same as under the old HS2 plans. We’ll look at how to get HS2 to Leeds too, with a new study on the best way to make it happen.”Labour’s shadow secretary of state for transport Jim McMahon said the north was being betrayed by the decision to scrap part of the HS2 extension. He said the government was “trying to present it almost in a way that people should be grateful, that at least we’re getting crumbs off the table – and that’s just not good enough”.Tory anger has been largely focused on the expected downgrading of the Northern Powerhouse Rail line between Leeds and Manchester.Roughly half of the planned project will be a new high-speed line, according to Politico, while the other half will consist of infrastructure upgrades. Bradford is said to have been excluded from getting a new stop.Sharing his anger over the failure to deliver on commitments, Lord O’Neill – former Tory minister and vice chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership – told Times Radio that “Bradford is being excluded” by the reported changes – saying they do not “make a huge amount of sense”.Leading Tory MP Jake Berry, the chair of the Northern Research Group, confronted Mr Johnson at PMQs on Wednesday by asking: “Were the voters in the north right to take the prime minister at his word?” More

Boris Johnson is facing a furious backlash from northern Tory MPs if he breaks his promise to build a new railway line for the north of England.Mr Johnson and transport secretary Grant Shapps are expected to unveil the government’s Integrated Rail Review on Thursday, billing it as “the biggest ever” public investment in the rail network.But despite promising a new line, the prime minister is now expected to scale back the plans and green-light a cheaper series of piecemeal upgrades, following pressure from the Treasury to cut costs.Northern transport bosses said leaks of the plan were “deeply worrying”, while rail experts said the expected cuts could leave trains in the region more overcrowded than ever.The Independent understands that the landmark rail plan was – unusually – still being worked on by officials on the eve of its unveiling, amid jitters in Whitehall that its contents could provoke a furious backlash.Northern Tory MPs on Wednesday broke cover and urged Mr Johnson to stand by his pledges to the region. Shipley MP Philip Davies said dropping Northern Powerhouse Rail, also known as HS3, would “be a massive disappointment and a huge missed opportunity”.Meanwhile Jake Berry, the chair of the Northern Research Group, confronted Mr Johnson at PMQs, asking: “Were the voters in the north right to take the prime minister at his word?”Martin Tugwell, chief executive of Transport for the North, told The Independent: “We are aware of speculation on the details of what may or may not be contained within the Integrated Rail Plan. “If the rumours are true, then it is deeply worrying because it means we won’t have the benefit of that comprehensive transformation of the rail network that will make all the difference to our region’s people and businesses.“We currently have a Victorian, two-track railway carrying a lot of trains and we need to make this step-change now, to ensure we create a rail network fit for the future.“That means investing in new lines and stations, as well as improving the existing ones. If all we are doing is a little bit of a tweak here and there, then it is probably going to be more disruptive and we will not get that transformational change.”Mr Tugwell said the full Northern Powerhouse Rail plan had been developed “as a co-client with the Government” and that it was “fundamental” to upgrading the region’s transport network and economy.Rail experts backed up the warnings and said cuts to the schemes imposed by the Treasury could leave the region’s transport network crippled and more overcrowded that ever.Gareth Dennis, a rail engineer and writer, told The Independent that the various leaks pointed to “a full cancellation of the eastern leg of HS2 between Birmingham, the East Midlands and Yorkshire, and of the new high speed line across the Pennines linking Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford and Leeds”.He added: “Whilst government seems to be trying to suggest that upgrades to the existing network will provide almost the same benefits, it cannot be overstated how incorrect this is. “High-speed segregation, where fast trains are put on their own new tracks to free up capacity for more useful local, regional and freight services, is not something that can be delivered partially. It’s all or nothing. “Running faster trains on the existing network will actually result in a railway that can carry fewer passengers and less freight than it can today.”William Barter, an independent consultant in rail operations and planning and fellow of the Chartered Institution of Railway Operators, meanwhile warned that cutting corners on HS2 could store up costs and capacity issues for later, which would be “expensive to resolve”. He told The Independent that failing to deliver small but important parts of the scheme, such as a link to the west coast mainline at Golborne and to the east coast mainline south of York, could leave services “crippled”, with journeys left “slow and complex”.The cuts are expected to fall most heavily on schemes serving the north of England, with the Midlands given more of what it asked for – including potentially the Midland Hub plan to improve local services around Birmingham. But the eastern leg of HS2, linking Birmingham with Leeds via the East Midlands and Yorkshire, is expected to be partially re-routed along existing railway lines, limiting its capacity.And the HS3 plan for an east-west line is expected to involve little or no new lines, with upgrades instead suggested to the existing route. In comments briefed out ahead of Thursday’s launch, the prime minister said: “If we are to see levelling up in action now, we must rapidly transform the services that matter to people most.“That’s why the Integrated Rail Plan will be the biggest transport investment programme in a century, delivering meaningful transport connections for more passengers across the country, more quickly – with both high-speed journeys and better local services, it will ensure no town or city is left behind.”The transport secretary added that “previous plans for rail schemes drawn up a decade ago … no longer fit the way we travel today”.Mr Shapps added: “Our plan will deliver a network that is fit for passengers today and for future generations – a network that works for every community and every passenger, right across the UK.” More

Boris Johnson has admitted he got it wrong on Owen Paterson, as a fortnight of sleaze rows sparked by his attempt to save the disgraced former MP ended with the Commons voting for a ban on consultancy jobs.Speaking to Tory MPs at the backbench 1922 Committee, a contrite prime minister admitted: “On a clear road I crashed a car into a ditch.”In a bid to draw a line under the avalanche of sleaze allegations, Downing Street said that the 297-0 vote in favour of Mr Johnson’s package of reforms to the rules on second jobs would “strengthen our parliamentary system”.But Sir Keir Starmer said the PM’s plan amounted to a “watering down” of a Labour motion, which was defeated 231-282. He ordered his MPs to abstain in the later division on Mr Johnson’s amendment.Just four Tory MPs – Peter Bone, Philip Hollobone, Nigel Mills and Dan Poulter – rebelled against a party whip ordering them to vote down Labour’s plan. Labour immediately launched digital ads individually targeting each Conservative MP who voted against, accusing them of trying to block action to “ban dodgy second jobs”.The Johnson plan calls for an end to second jobs involving parliamentary consultancy, strategy or advice, as well as work that takes MPs away from their constituency and parliamentary responsibilities for an excessive amount of time. The latter measure comes after widespread anger over former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox spending hundreds of hours a year working as a commercial barrister.Sir Keir said the PM’s proposals amounted to no more than “warm words” because they did not guarantee the parliamentary time necessary to enact detailed reforms to be drawn up by the Commons Standards Committee by the end of January.And he said it was clear that the sleaze issue had undermined Mr Johnson’s standing with his own troops.“It’s significant,” said the Labour leader. “I have been really struck by how many Tory MPs seem to have lost faith and confidence in the PM. It was noticeable at Prime Minister’s Questions how many gaps there were and how many MPs hadn’t turned up to support him.”Notable by her absence from the vote in favour of Mr Johnson’s reforms was his predecessor Theresa May, who on Tuesday branded the PM’s handling of the Paterson affair “misplaced, ill-judged and just plain wrong”.The vote came as a new poll by Savanta ComRes found that three-quarters (75 per cent) of the public are concerned about corruption in government, including seven in 10 of 2019 Conservative voters.Mr Johnson came under sustained pressure over his attempt to get the former environment secretary off the hook for a 30-day suspension after he was found guilty by the Commons Standards Committee of lobbying ministers and watchdogs on behalf of two companies that were paying him £100,000 a year.Giving evidence to the Commons Liaison Committee, the prime minister admitted it had been a “total mistake” for him to whip Tory MPs into voting to overrule the standards system to secure a right of appeal for the Shropshire North MP, who quit the following day after Mr Johnson U-turned.“Do I regret that decision? I certainly do,” said Mr Johnson.But he was upbraided by Labour’s Yvette Cooper for saying that Mr Paterson had “fallen foul of the standards commissioner”, as far as he could see.“We have an independent process that has looked into this,” said Ms Cooper. “Every time you say ‘as far as I could see’ and you qualify it, you are undermining the independent system that all of us need to work.“You need to have some integrity and to uphold the standards.” Mr Johnson’s attempt to defend Mr Paterson “creates an impression which is very unfortunate and very damaging to public life”, she said, asking: “Do you accept you have a responsibility … to establish much higher standards?” “I do,” replied the PM. “Yes, I think it was a total mistake not to see that Owen’s breach of the rules made any discussion about anything else impossible. I totally accept that.”Arriving at the 1922 Committee later, the prime minister was greeted by the usual banging of the tables to signify support from his troops.But one Conservative MP at the meeting said the prime minister “sounded weak” and that his “authority is evaporating” while another added it had been a “rough” few weeks.Some, however, were more effusive in their praise of Mr Johnson, whose party has dipped in the polls amid allegations of sleaze.Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant posted on social media: “As I said at the 1922, with Boris present, he got it wrong, but he ‘was motivated by loyalty, compassion (for a man who had suffered the death of his wife) and humanity’. Something very rare in a prime minister.”Labour said it was ready to take part in cross-party talks to improve the MPs’ code of conduct, but raised questions over exactly what work will be barred under Mr Johnson’s proposals.Some senior Tory backbenchers have already said that they do not believe they will have to give up their consultancies, because they do not regard them as relevant to their parliamentary work.And cabinet minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan today suggested that MPs could work for as much as 20 hours a week on second jobs without being caught by the ban on “unreasonable” commitments.Asked if Sir Geoffrey would have to cut back on his legal work, she said: “The key is, is he doing a good job for his constituents? Do they think he’s doing a good job for them? And, from what I’ve heard, no one has stood up and said otherwise.“But that he continues to practise what is his professional skill while he is a backbench MP, for me, is perfectly acceptable.”She asked: “Are we saying 10 to 20 hours a week outside your work as an MP and a parliamentarian? If that’s what you chose to do as your choice, that’s fine.”And Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg, who admitted he encouraged the PM to defend Mr Paterson, told MPs it was “a historic strength of our system that MPs should have a wider focus than the Westminster bubble” so that parliament can “benefit from MPs with a broader range of talents and professional backgrounds”. More

Britain’s Parliament voted Wednesday to restrict lawmakers’ ability to hold second jobs outside politics, in an attempt to stem a slew of damaging headlines over lobbying and political “sleaze.”Opposition lawmakers, though, accused the Conservative government of watering down proposals that could have made a bigger difference.The House of Commons voted to ban legislators from acting as paid political consultants or advisers. But lawmakers rejected a more strongly worded proposal by the opposition Labour Party that would have barred more second jobs and set out a strict timetable for making the changes.The proposals are an attempt to stem a tide of criticism over ethics that began last month when the House of Commons standards committee recommended that Conservative lawmaker Owen Paterson be suspended for 30 days for lobbying on behalf of two companies that paid him more than 100,000 pounds ($137,000) a year. Usually, such decisions are rubber-stamped by lawmakers, but the government ordered Conservative legislators to oppose the suspension and instead call for an overhaul of Parliament’s standards process.The government changed course the next day after a furious backlash, and Paterson resigned from Parliament.Prime Minister Boris Johnson told lawmakers Wednesday that the government had been mistaken to try to protect Paterson.“Do I regret that decision? Yes I certainly do,” he said.Members of Parliament are allowed to earn outside income as long as they declare it and it does not shade into lobbying. But there has been widespread criticism of politicians having second jobs since it was revealed that one lawmaker from Johnson’s Conservative Party, Geoffrey Cox, earned 400,000 pounds ($540,000) a year as a lawyer while serving in Parliament. More

Only five migrants who crossed the Channel into Britain by boat have been successfully deported back to the continent this year, an immigration minister has revealed.Speaking to MPs from the Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Tom Pursglove – a junior minister in both the Home Office and Ministry of Justice – said there had been “difficulties” in returning migrants to Europe.When quizzed by committee chair and Labour MP Yvette Cooper if this was a result of Brexit, Mr Pursglove conceded there was currently no agreement with the EU to accept migrants detained by Border Force while trying to enter the UK illegally. “On returns related to small boat arrivals … the answer in this year is five”, he said, adding: “There is not a returns agreement with the European Union in place at the moment.”“You will appreciate that there have been some difficulties around securing returns, not least as a consequence of Covid.”While a member of the EU, Britain was party to the Dublin Regulation, an EU-wide deal which meant asylum seekers were forced to apply for asylum in the first member state they arrive in and could be deported back to that country if they moved on to another.However, since Brexit there has been no formal arrangements to facilitate deporting migrants back to France or other EU nations where they were before trying to cross the Channel in small boats.Ms Cooper suggested the success rate in returning migrants to Europe had fallen dramatically because of Brexit, but Mr Pursglove insisted the government remained keen to “secure successful returns arrangements with our European friends and neighbours. And potentially with the European Union”.There has a been a surge in the numbers of migrants crossing the Channel into Britain in small boats in the past year.According to Home Office figures, more than 23,000 people have arrived in Britain via this route in 2021, which is almost three times the number who made the same journey in 2020.However, it remains unclear how much of the rise in Channel migrants is the result of increased Home Office detection and recording rather than an actual increase in those attempting the dangerous crossing.The number of applications for asylum in the year to the end of June was actually down by four per cent from the previous 12 months, at 31,115, Mr Pursglove also noted.But he insisted the Channel crossing was becoming more and more popular for those desperate to get to Britain.“What we are seeing is that small boat arrivals is becoming the route of choice for facilitations by evil criminal gangs.“The smugglers are becoming more audacious. We are seeing riskier behaviours. We are seeing bigger boats deployed. We are seeing a wider array of crossings originating from a wider stretch of coastline.“Clearly, the fact that we’ve had a five-fold increase in clandestine arrivals this summer compared with 2018 is completely unacceptable.“We’ve got to do better on this. And I will not rest until we get to a far better place on this issue.”The Home Office was continuing to give the French authorities money to improve their security and enforcement on their Channel coastline, Mr Pursglove also said, although he declined to say how much.The senior Home Office official in charge of tackling illegal Channel crossings, Dan Mahoney, also denied reports ministers were considering using giant wave machines or floating walls out at sea to prevent smugglers from sailing migrants into the Kentish coast. More

Ministers have quietly watered down plans for a cap on social care costs — a move that experts warn will hit the poorest hardest and could leave some paying twice as much.Under proposals to be voted on by MPs next week, the £86,000 threshold on costs will only count direct contributions and not any means-tested money received from the state. That makes it likely that only wealthier people will benefit from the cap.The decision risks alienating new Tory voters in former “red wall” areas, who will miss out while the assets of rich southern households are protected.Labour said the changes, released on the government website while Boris Johnson was facing MPs over the second-jobs scandal, had been “sneaked out under a cloud of Tory sleaze”.Torsten Bell, the head of the Resolution Foundation, described it as a “big change” – warning the benefit of the cap will be “much reduced”.“This techy sounding shift could double your care costs if you’ve got around £90k, but makes no difference to someone with £500k who gets almost all their assets protected,” he said.Caroline Abrahams, of Age UK, warned: “I am really worried about the impact of this change on disabled people of working age too.“As I understand it, it will make it considerably harder for many to reach the cap than we had hoped.”The move – which MPs are expected to vote on next week – is revealed in a document entitled Adult social care charging reform: further details, released as the Commons was voting on a sleaze crackdown.Claiming the move will “reduce complexity”, it said an amendment to the 2014 Care Act will alter “the way that people within the means test progress towards the cap”.The impact would be that “only the amount that the individual contributes towards these costs will count towards the cap on care costs, and people do not reach the cap at an artificially faster rate than what they contribute”.Liz Kendall, the shadow care minister, said: “We already knew most people won’t hit the cap because it doesn’t cover board and lodging in care homes.“And that, at £86,000, the cap would still mean many people will have to sell their homes to pay for their care – against everything Johnson promised.“It has now been revealed that the poorest pensioners will have to pay even more, something Andrew Dilnot – who proposed the cap – explicitly ruled out because it was so unfair.”Sir Andrew will have an opportunity to give his views when he gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee on Thursday on the social care rescue plans.Those plans, involving a £12bn-a-year tax raid, were already under fire because most of the cash will go to the NHS despite an estimated 1.6 million elderly and disabled people currently without the care they need.Councils and charities warned town halls would continue to be starved of the billions needed to provide for people in their own homes, a verdict backed by the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies.“It is clear that the extra funding will not be sufficient to reverse the cuts in the numbers receiving care seen during the 2010s,” the think tank said.Lifetime care payments will be capped at £86,000 from October 2023, to allow homeowners facing “catastrophic” care costs, for conditions such as dementia, to pass on their properties to their children.No one with assets below £20,000 will pay any social care costs – but, although there is a “floor” of £100,000, people with assets between £20,000 and that amount will contribute on a sliding scale. More