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Boris Johnson should introduce financial penalties, including cuts to pensions, for former ministers and officials who flout lobbying rules, according to a major report calling for a reform of standards in office.The independent Committee on Standards in Public Life, which was set up by John Major in 1995 to advise prime ministers, argues the existing system for “transparency around lobbying is not fit for purpose”.The report, which also calls for an overhaul of the ministerial code, comes after the Greensill lobbying scandal, when it emerged David Cameron had privately messaged senior ministers, and concerns over ministers breaching the code without facing sanctions.In a withering verdict of the current systems, the authors warn: “It is clear to this committee that degree of independence in the regulation of the ministerial code, public appointments, business appointments and appointments to the House of Lords falls below what is necessary to ensure effective regulation and maintain public credibility.”The committee said it recognises “widespread discontent” over the operation of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) – a system that vets jobs taken on by former ministers and ex-senior civil servants.The report recommends extending a lobbying ban to five years in certain cases where officials were privy to privileged information, and stressed: “The lack of any meaningful sanctions for a breach of these rules is no longer sustainable.”Chaired by the former MI5 chief, Jonathan Evans, the committee added: “The government should set out what the consequences for any breach of contract will be.“Possible sanctions may include seeking an injunction prohibiting the uptake of a certain business appointment, or the recouping of a proportion of an office holder’s pension or severance payment.”Lord Eric Pickles – a former Tory cabinet minister who chairs ACOBA – has previously expressed concerns about “anomalies” in the vetting system when it emerged a former official held a role at Greensill Capital while remaining as a civil servant.On the ministerial code, the report suggests there “still needs to be greater independence in the regulation … which lags behind similar arrangements for MPs, peers and civil servants”.The recommendation follows last year’s controversy when Sir Alex Allan resigned as Mr Johnson’s ethics adviser after the prime minister overruled his findings that the home secretary, Priti Patel, had bullied staff – in breach of the ministerial code.The report, published today, urges the government to enshrine the ministerial code in primary legislation and ensure it details sanctions prime ministers may issue, “apologies, fines and asking for a minister’s resignation”.Taking power away from No 10, it also suggests the prime minister’s independent adviser should “be able to initiate investigations into breaches of the ministerial code” and have the authority to “determine breaches” of the code.Mr Evans said there was a “particular need” for reform in central government, adding: “It has become clear that a system of standards regulation, which relies on convention, is no longer satisfactory.”He stressed: “Whereas parliament has undergone significant reform in recent years, and local government was reviewed by this committee in 2019, many of the arrangements in central government have not changed for over a decade.”Lord Evans added: “We concluded that the current system of standards regulation is overly dependent on convention. The ethics regulators and the codes they enforce should have a basis in primary legislation, and government requires a more thorough and rigorous compliance function.“The arrangements to uphold ethical standards in government have come under close scrutiny and significant criticism in recent months. Maintaining high standards requires vigilance and leadership. We believe our recommendations outline a necessary programme of reform to restore public confidence in the regulation of ethical standards in government.”Responding to the report, the deputy leader of the opposition, Angela Rayner, said the Labour Party welcomed the recommendations. She said: “Boris Johnson and his Conservative colleagues’ actions have repeatedly undermined standards in our public life.“The system is supposed to uphold the ministerial code. Lobbying rules, business appointments and transparency is clearly unfit for purpose. Ministers have disregarded the rules and it is about time for a radical overhaul of the system.” More

Lord Frost has accused the EU of acting “without regard to the huge political, economic and identity sensitivities” in Northern Ireland, in a further escalation of tensions with Brussels.The Brexit minister claimed the bloc had “destroyed cross-community consent” with a strict enforcement of the Northern Ireland Protocol – a key part of the Brexit agreement he negotiated and that Boris Johnson signed in 2019.Lord Frost’s remarks – in the foreword to a Policy Exchange paper – came as talks between London and Brussels over the protocol broke up without a breakthrough on Friday, with the UK government insisting differences remained “significant”.“We must return to the protocol and deliver a more robust, a more balanced, outcome than we could in 2019,” Lord Frost insisted, as he argued it had “begun to damage” the Good Friday Agreement.The UK has already threatened to suspend the Northern Ireland Protocol as early as mid-November, in a move that would almost inevitably trigger retaliatory measures.The terms of the protocol effectively kept Northern Ireland in the single market, creating a trading border down the Irish Sea between Great Britain – angering unionists and hitting the UK’s internal market.Earlier this month, Brussels proposed significant relaxations, offering to scrap 80 per cent of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland while Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice president, called on the UK to engage “earnestly and intensively”.But the European Commission has also told EU member states that the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was “not up for discussion” – a key demand of the UK government.In his article, Lord Frost said: “It [the protocol] has begun to damage the thing it was designed to protect – the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.“The insistence of the EU on treating these arrangements as like any other part of its customs and single market rules, without regard to the huge political, economic, and identity sensitivities involved, has destroyed cross-community consent well before the four-year mark.“We also have the lived experience of aspects that are simply unsustainable in the long-term for any government responsible for the lives of its citizens – like having to negotiate with a third party about the distribution of medicines within the NHS.“That is why we must return to the protocol and deliver a more robust, and more balanced outcome than we could in 2019. I hope the EU will in the end join us in that.”The bloc has previously stressed, however, that the package of measures outlined earlier in October was aimed at “solving practical problems” affecting businesses while preserving peace provided by the Good Friday Agreement.The Policy Exchange paper – The Northern Ireland Protocol: The Origins of the Current Crisis, by Roderick Crawford – provides a chronology of Brexit negotiations and what went wrong in 2017.Lord Frost also uses the piece to claim that the 2017 EU-UK joint report – setting the terms of the Brexit process – was a result of the “extreme weakness” of Theresa May’s government after her ill-fated election gamble in June 2017. More

Boris Johnson is pledging to put an extra £1bn into a climate crisis fund for poor nations – but only if the UK economy bounces back from Covid.The pledge comes alongside a warning from the prime minister that it is “one minute to midnight” in the fight against the climate disaster and an appeal for the world “to act now”.“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow,” Mr Johnson is expected to tell 120 world leaders at the Cop26 opening ceremony in Glasgow.But the United Nations summit gets underway with some of those leaders being accused of having already “fluffed their lines” after the G20 summit in Rome failed to beef up commitments to cut carbon emissions fast enough.A gloomy prime minister has downgraded his hopes for Glasgow – calling it only a stopping point towards halting climate change, with “no chance” of a deal to keep global temperature warming to 1.5C.There was anger when wealthy nations announced last week that they would not achieve a long-promised $100bn (£73bn) annual target for the fund for developing countries until 2023 – three years late.The UK is currently contributing around £2.3bn a year, but had refused to increase its share in the run-up to Cop26, even as other countries did so.It also stands accused of breaking the rules of the initiative because, as The Independent revealed, the cash will be swiped from the overseas aid budget – despite a requirement that it be “additional”.Think tank Overseas Development Institute also suggested the UK was short-changing poor countries by around £1.9bn a year, based on its population size and historic carbon emissions.Now Mr Johnson has pledged the extra £1bn – but only by 2025 and if the UK economy grows fast enough to revert the aid budget back from 0.5 per cent of national income to 0.7 per cent.The cash would fund programmes for developing nations to cope with the devastating impact of climate change, helping to protect nature and supporting a transition to clean and green energy.In Glasgow, the prime minister will also say: “Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change. It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now.”Mr Johnson will add: “We have to move from talk and debate and discussion to concerted, real-world action on coal, cars, cash and trees.“Not more hopes and targets and aspirations, valuable though they are, but clear commitments and concrete timetables for change.” More

Boris Johnson has not responded to an MP’s call for action on Islamophobia for a year, it can be revealed.Afzal Khan, a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, wrote to the prime minister in November 2020 warning of rising hate crime and questioning “the inaction of this government in tackling the issue”.An official guide says that government departments should respond to correspondence from MPs within 20 working days, but Mr Khan has not received a reply.The delay will be formally raised in the House of Commons on Monday, which marks the beginning of Islamophobia Awareness Month.Mr Khan will call the lack of response “shocking and wholly unacceptable” and urge the prime minister to make a statement to MPs on Islamophobia.His 2020 letter, seen by The Independent, accused the government of reinforcing “disgraceful racism” towards Muslims with actions during the coronavirus pandemic, including a sudden regional lockdown on the eve of Eid al-Adha.“It contributed to a deeply concerning, and false, far-right narrative that British Muslims are ‘spreading corona’,” Mr Khan added.“As prime minister it is your duty to protect and safeguard all communities. However, I am disappointed, if not surprised, at the inaction of this government in tackling the issue of Islamophobia, which is clearly growing.”A report into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, published in May, found that two-thirds of discriminatory incidents reported to the party’s headquarters over six years related to anti-Muslim hatred.The review was commissioned in December 2019 after accusations of Islamophobic behaviour by some party members and representatives.It considered cases including a 2018 column written by Mr Johnson comparing Muslim women who wear full-face veils to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.Boris Johnson apologises for ‘hurt and offence’ caused by Islamophobia in Tory PartyThe review said such incidents “give an impression to some of a party and leadership insensitive to Muslim communities”.The government was previously accused of “utterly neglecting” Islamophobia by failing to produce a definition that can be used to combat anti-Muslim hatred for more than two years.A group of MPs and peers formulated a working definition and called for it to be adopted in 2018, saying the lack of one was allowing Islamophobia to “increase in society to devastating effect”.The Conservative government rejected the proposed definition in May 2019 and announced that it would commission independent experts to draw up a different one.But only one adviser is known to have been appointed and no proposals have ever been published.During a parliamentary debate on the definition last month, minister Eddie Hughes said: “We remain committed to there being a robust and effective definition, and we will outline our steps to achieve that in due course.”The Independent asked Downing Street to comment on the delay in responding to Mr Afzal’s letter but has not received a reply. More

Boris Johnson has lashed out at world leaders for failing to make the commitments needed to halt the climate emergency, as he spoke at the close of the G20 summit.A visibly frustrated prime minister admitted the Rome gathering had fallen short of what was required to put the Cop26 summit on course for success in Glasgow.Promises made to tackle the climate crisis are “starting to sound hollow”, Mr Johnson told a press conference – when the “solution is clear”.And he agreed a pledge for all the biggest economies to achieve net zero emissions was “vague”, after the G20 failed to set a target date of 2050.The commitments made at the G20 were “drops in a rapidly warming ocean when you consider the challenge we’ve all admitted is ahead of us”, the prime minister warned.“We have made reasonable progress at the G20, all things considered – but it is not enough,” Mr Johnson admitted.For the first time, he named-and-shamed the US for not contributing enough money to the $100bn climate crisis fund for poor nations, saying it was “well down”.And on the prospects for Cop26, the prime minister said: “If Glasgow fails then the whole thing fails. The Paris Agreement will have crumpled at the first reckoning.”It would be “holed beneath the waterline”, he warned, calling it “just a piece of paper” and adding: “We need to fill that piece of paper – to populate it with real progress.”Mr Johnson was speaking after G20 leaders agreed merely to “enhance when necessary” plans to cut carbon emissions by 2030 – the cut-off point for averting disaster, scientists say.Far from agreeing to “consign coal to history” – the UK’s aim for the Glasgow summit – it sets no date for phasing out the fossil fuel, which will happen only “as soon as possible”.There is also no deadline for ending fossil fuel subsidies, which would have soared since the easing of the Covid pandemic, with an aim to achieve that only “over the medium term”.In the run-up to Cop26, the UK had urged all countries to follow it in committing to net zero emissions by 2050 – but the communique also fails to do that.The omission reflects the reality that China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, has set a target date of 2060, while India and Russia are also not committed to the 2050 date.Greenpeace attacked the lack of progress, warning that “if the G20 was a dress rehearsal for Cop26, then world leaders fluffed their lines”.“Their communique was weak, lacking both ambition and vision, and simply failed to meet the moment,” said Jennifer Morgan, the organisation’s executive director.Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa, said: “This weak statement from the G20 is what happens when developing countries who are bearing the full force of the climate crisis are shut out of the room.“The world’s biggest economies comprehensively failed to put climate change on the top of the agenda ahead of Cop26 in Glasgow.”A downbeat Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, tweeted: “I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled – but at least they are not buried.”Mr Johnson said: “Just 12 G20 members have committed to reach net zero by 2050 or earlier.“Barely half of us have submitted improved plans for how we will cut carbon emissions since the Paris Summit in 2015.“And we have also failed to meet our commitment to provide $100bn a year to support developing countries to grow in a clean and sustainable way.“The UN says emissions will rise by 15 per cent by 2030 – and they need to halve by then.”Accusing the world’s first industrialised nations of “not doing their fair share of the work”, Mr Johnson added: “If we are going to prevent Cop26 from being a failure then that must change.” More

Britain must give ground in a post-Brexit fishing dispute or France will trigger trade reprisals, Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, warning: “The ball is in Britain’s court.”“I don’t want escalation. We need to be serious,” the French leader told a news conference after the G20 summit in Rome, minutes after Boris Johnson revealed the pair had held a “frank” conversation on the crisis.French officials have warned they will bar UK fishing boats from some ports and tighten customs checks on lorries entering the country with British goods from Tuesday unless more licences are granted for their small boats to fish in British.Britain has said the threats represent a breach of post-Brexit agreements and is standing by its threat to launch a legal battle and do “whatever is necessary to ensure UK interests”, Mr Johnson has said.He told a post-G20 press conference: “I must say I was puzzled to read a letter from the French prime minister explicitly asking for Britain to be punished for leaving the EU. I don’t believe that that is compatible either with the spirit or the letter of the withdrawal agreement or the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.”The wrangle over fishing access escalated this week after French authorities detained a Scottish-registered scallop dredger, accusing it of fishing without a licence.The captain of the Cornelis Gert Jan, understood to be an Irish national, has been told to face a court hearing in August next year.In his comments, Mr Macron said: “We have given the prime minister’s team a document [explaining how to work towards a solution]. Now the ball is in Britain’s court.” “I don’t want to have to use retaliation measures, because that wouldn’t help our fishermen, he said. “Measures will have to be put in place” if there is no movement.London is “actively considering” triggering a dispute resolution mechanism in the post-Brexit trade deal that would send the dispute to independent arbitration – and a potential trade war if that fails.Mr Macron, meanwhile, has appealed to the EU for support, calling the row a test of the UK’s credibility and reliability in the eyes of the world. More

Boris Johnson has issued a frank warning about the prospects of global leaders tackling the climate emergency, saying: “If Glasgow fails, the whole thing fails”.The prime minister’s gloomy remarks — as the Cop26 summit kicks off — came as he described current commitments from countries across the globe as “drops in a rapidly warming ocean”.Mr Johnson also admitted a net zero pledge inserted in the G20 communique — pledging to achieve carbon neutrality “by or around mid-century” — was too vague when challenged at a press conference.“Some countries, as you know, have made commitments to 2060 rather than to 2050,” Mr Johnson told reporters in Rome.“What they’ve said is 2060 or earlier, and what we want to do is bring those commitments earlier.”Marking the end of the G20 summit, he stressed that the Cop26 target of keeping global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5C degrees above pre-industrial levels “hangs in the balance”.“I must be clear if Glasgow fails then the whole thing fails,” he said. “The Paris Agreement will have crumpled at the first reckoning”.He said that agreement is currently “just a piece of paper”, adding: “We need to fill that piece of paper, to populate it with real progress and I know that humanity has in it the power to rise to the challenge.”Asked about the prospects of making progress as representatives from around 200 countries in Glasgow, the prime minister also told reporters it depended on the will, the courage, the leadership of everyone in the room”.He added there were “granola commitments” countries needed to make on “coal, cars, cash and tress”, warning: “Otherwise I’m afraid that the increase in temperatures will be considerably in excess of 1.5C degrees and that’s the challenge. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.“I’m not going to pretend it’s otherwise than it is. I think there’s a chance, I really do, I think there’s a chance that we can make the progress.“Everybody can see how to do it, it’s a question of will and leadership.” More

Boris Johnson refuses to rule out escalating France fishing row after possible treaty breachThe UK has rejected French claims of a deal to try to end their fishing dispute, leaving Paris on course to launch restrictive measures against British fishing boats operating in the Channel in just 48 hours.While France claimed Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson had agreed to work on “practical measures” to resolve the dispute, No 10 insisted that was wrong and it is up to France to back down.“We stand ready to respond should they proceed to breaking the Brexit agreement,” Mr Johnson’s spokesman told reporters at the G20 summit in Rome, adding the UK’s position had not changed and it was up to the “French to decide if they want to step away from the threats they have made in recent days”.The measures France has said it will introduce include banning British vessels from some French ports, making fishing extremely difficult.Brexit minister Lord Frost revealed on Saturday the UK is “actively considering” triggering a legal battle with France over the possible steps – a claim the PM echoed today. Follow our live coverage belowShow latest update

1635691362Charities urge G20 to allow aid funding into AfghanistanAid charities have issued a plea to G20 leaders meeting in Rome this weekend, including Boris Johnson, to allow funding for humanitarian work into Afghanistan, where more than half the population are facing the danger of famine.Some 16 charities backed a joint letter warning that the impacts of drought and conflict have been compounded by a collapse in the country’s banking system, after western powers including the UK froze international assets in the wake of this summer’s Taliban takeover.They called on the G20 to establish “safe, efficient payment channels” to allow the flow of funds for aid work including the distribution of food and emergency supplies, reports our political editor Andrew Woodcock.Sam Hancock31 October 2021 14:421635690803Emily Thornberry: Brexit deal ‘skinny’ with too many holes The shadow trade secretary appeared on Times Radio today where she spoke about ongoing post-Brext fallout in the UK.Sam Hancock31 October 2021 14:331635689626PM accused of ‘giving into pressure’ over NI ProtocolNorthern Ireland’s former first minister Arlene Foster has claimed Boris Johnson gave into pressure to accept the NI Protocol “as proposed” by the Irish government.Mrs Foster also criticised Irish government ministers Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney for their handling of the Brexit process, blaming their “aggressive nationalism” on the growth of Sinn Fein in the Republic.The current terms effectively kept Northern Ireland in the single market, creating a border down the Irish Sea between Great Britain and the fourth nation of the UK.“I couldn’t have done any more to alert the Prime Minister to the problems that would arise, but when you are the DUP leader you are blamed regardless,” Ms Foster said, adding: “There is no doubt the implementation of the Protocol was hugely damaging to my time as leader.”Since leaving politics earlier this year, Mrs Foster has been carving out a career in the media, including as a contributor on GB News, and speaking out against abuse on social mediaThe UK and EU have brought forward proposals in a bid to resolve the dispute over the Protocol. More