Markus Andrews

Brexit has made the shortages hitting the UK economy worse compared to the rest of the world, the government’s spending watchdog has said.Ministers have repeatedly blamed a “global crisis” for empty shelves and depleted petrol stations across the country – confusing international observers who are not facing similar problems at home.But the government was contradicted in dramatic fashion on Wednesday by its own Office for Budget Responsibility.In documents released alongside Rishi Sunak’s budget the fiscal watchdog said: “Supply bottlenecks have been exacerbated by changes in the migration and trading regimes following Brexit.”Energy prices have soared, labour shortages have emerged in some occupations, and there have been blockages in some supply chains.”The OBR also pointed the finger at Brexit for suppressed trade, noting that while goods trade with the rest of the world had recovered to 7 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, trade with the EU was still down more than twice as far at 15 per cent.Paul Johnson, director of the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, told BBC News: “You will also see in the OBR document evidence of quite a big reduction in trade with the European Union, so the continued impact of the additional trade barriers that we have with the European Union is taking its toll on business as well.”Mr Johnson also said the OBR’s estimated reduction in trade, productivity, and living standards from Brexit was “bigger than the expected long-run effect of the pandemic”.Other factors behind the crisis include a global surge in demand as the world comes out of lockdown and a lack of UK energy buffer stocks, particular for natural gas.During his speech Rishi Sunak said “demand for goods has increased more quickly than supply chains can meet” as economies around the world reopened, while global demand for energy has also “surged”.The Chancellor said: “In the year to September, the global wholesale price of oil, coal and gas combined, has more than doubled. The pressures caused by supply chains and energy prices will take months to ease.”It would be irresponsible for anyone to pretend that we can solve this overnight. I am in regular communication with finance ministers around the world and it’s clear these are shared global problems, neither unique to the UK, nor possible for us to address on our own.” More

A Tory councillor in Scotland received more than £86,000 but has sent only one email a week for nearly five years.Councillor Margaret George has not carried out a single surgery in four-and-a-half years of sitting on North Ayrshire Council and has been absent from community-focused meetings expected from elected members.The financial advisor, who represents Irvine South, has not formally logged a single piece of casework since she was elected in 2017, the Irvine Times reported.According to records from North Ayrshire Council’s customer relationship management system, Cllr George has logged zero cases between May 1, 2017 and August 16, 2021 in the time she has been an elected member.She defended her work ethic and claimed she “met people in the street” and made phone calls that would not be formally logged.In comparison, Tory colleague Todd Ferguson has logged 289 cases with the software designed to track interactions between councillor and the local authority service provision.A case is logged when councillors contact the council to request to access a service, however, non-service interactions are not taken into consideration.However, Cllr George has sent just 427 emails between May 1, 2017, and September 6, 2021 – averaging one email a week for four and a half years.According to a Freedom of Information request submitted to North Ayrshire Council, the Conservative and Unionist members sent 26,786 emails in this time, with the top performer sending 9,886 emails, 30 emails a week, in a similar time period.In addition to an £18,604 annual salary, councillors receive a salary and access to expenses as remuneration for their role in public office. Over the last five years, councillors’ salaries have increased from £14,654.61 to £18,604. In total, it is understood Cllr George has been paid around £86,000 in salary and claimed £213.15 in expenses during her time with the council.Fellow Irvine South elected members from SNP and Labour have blasted the apparent lack of work by Cllr George and urged her to reconsider her position.SNP councillor Christina Larsen said: “I am not in the habit of criticising councillors, even if they are from another party, however, I have had constituents remark on Cllr George’s absence since she was elected in 2017.“These remarks have not only been in regards to her lack of holding any constituency surgeries, but also her lack of engagement in constituency casework and her absence at the Irvine Locality Partnership.”Labour councillor Robert Foster added: “To serve the people of North Ayrshire as a councillor is a real privilege, to spend almost five years in that role and not help a single constituent is breathtaking laziness.He continued: “For Margaret George to sit in the house and pocket a wage every month for doing absolutely nothing is disgraceful. I hope the people of Irvine send a clear message to the Tories at the council election next May and kick them out.”The Conservative group for North Ayrshire released a statement on behalf of Cllr George.Cllr George said: “A lot of the casework that we do it’s not necessarily logged on the council’s Laggan system as, for example, in my case, I do a lot of that by phone and by direct email to heads of service so it’s not always logged. So one cannot imply from zero casework from the council that there has been no casework.“In terms of emails, I would’ve expected a councillor to have used the email system more frequently but also as in my case it is possible that many of the contacts were done either through community councils, or by telephone, or by meeting people in the street.”David Rocks, chairman for the Conservatives in North Ayrshire, added: “We are currently going through the selection process for candidates for next year. We are looking to assess and vet the best team to go forward to the elections.” More

Watch live as Rishi Sunak delivers the BudgetRishi Sunak has said inflation is expected to hit 4 per cent in the year ahead, as he delivers his Budget speech. The Office for Budget Responsibility made the forecast at the same time that GDP will return to its pre-coronavirus level at the turn of the year, Mr Sunak said. Meanwhile, growth this year was revised up from 4 to 6.5 per cent.The chancellor has also slashed duty on UK domestic flights, cancelled a fuel duty hike, and made sweeping changes to alcohol duty. Climate campaigners had previously urged Mr Sunak to put the environment at the heart of his Budget with the Cop26 summit just days away, but are likely to have been disappointed by the speech.In her response, Labour’s Rachel Reeves accused the chancellor of living in a “parallel world” and failing to tackle the climate crisis. She said: “With no mention of climate in his conference speech, and the most passing of references today, we are burdened with a chancellor unwilling to meet the scale of the challenges we face.”Show latest update

1635346083John Rentoul: What Rishi Sunak said in his Budget speech – and what he really meantDid the chancellor’s pre-speech Twix-and-Sprite ritual stand him in good stead today? John Rentoul takes a look.Jon Sharman27 October 2021 15:481635345483Sunak has broken manifesto pledge on UK shared prosperity fund, says lawyerRishi Sunak has broken a Conservative Party manifesto pledge on the UK prosperity fund, according to a former government lawyer.Alexander Rose tweeted that the £2.6bn pledged across the four nations for 2020-25 was well below the £7.7bn given by the equivalent EU scheme between 2014 and 2020, despite a manifesto promise that Westminster’s version would match or better it.Jon Sharman27 October 2021 15:381635344883Cost of living, or enjoying doing it, will continue to be a struggle for many, IFS suggestsAverage incomes in 2025 are predicted to be more than a quarter of where they might have been if a trend bucked by the 2008 financial crash had continued, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).The IFS released a graph after Rishi Sunak’s Budget speech setting out the data.At the same time, prices are rising and inflation is soaring, crunching the value of people’s pay packets.Jon Sharman27 October 2021 15:281635344305Budget 2021 summary: Rishi Sunak’s key announcements at a glanceWhat has Rishi Sunak offered in his Autumn Budget and Spending Review? The Independent takes a look at the key announcements, writes Adam Forrest.Jon Sharman27 October 2021 15:181635343165Priti Patel says she wants to force migrant boats back to France ‘to save lives’Priti Patel has said she wants to force boats carrying asylum seekers back to France to “save lives”, writes Lizzie Dearden.The home secretary insisted that planned operations by the Border Force in the English Channel would not risk lives and cause people to drown.During an evidence session held by the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee, she said there had been “extensive work” on legal and practical issues around push-backs.Jon Sharman27 October 2021 14:591635342625Northern Powerhouse Partnership says Sunak’s ‘levelling-up’ fund isn’t enoughRishi Sunak’s “levelling-up” funding for the north of England is not sufficient to bridge the regional divide with the south, according to the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.Even though the cash amounts to some £500m, “each bid is only large enough in scale to address specific local challenges”, the body said.It added: “The wider solution is to devolve more of central budgets to towns and cities with metro mayors, allowing them to adapt spending to their individual needs.”However, the partnership praised the fund for building on “existing well-regarded regeneration plans”.Jon Sharman27 October 2021 14:501635342025People crossing Channel ‘not genuine asylum seekers’ and just want to stay in hotels, Priti Patel saysPriti Patel has been accused of “peddling dangerous myths” after claiming that people crossing the Channel are not genuine asylum seekers but are making the perilous journey because they want to live in UK hotels, writes May Bulman.Speaking to MPs on Wednesday, the home secretary said that single men arriving via small boats were “economic migrants” and that the Home Office’s use of hotels as asylum accommodation had acted as a “pull factor” for people to enter Britain via unauthorised means.Jon Sharman27 October 2021 14:401635341596Miliband unimpressed by lack of focus on climate by SunakEd Miliband has hit out at Rishi Sunak’s Budget speech for being light on climate action, echoing his colleague Rachel Reeves and eco-campaigners.Jon Sharman27 October 2021 14:331635340909Sunak announces one-year 50 per-cent cut in business ratesBudget 2021: One-year 50 per-cent cut in business rates, Sunak announcesJon Sharman27 October 2021 14:211635340854Chancellor’s spending pledges described as ‘sticking plaster’ on wounds formed over a decade of cutbacksRishi Sunak’s spending promises are welcome but are merely “sticking plasters on a state that has been left creaking by a decade of cuts”, according to a left-wing think-tank.The Fabian Society called the Budget “a necessary rescue package” even though it sounded generous.Luke Raikes, the group’s research director, said in a statement: “The chancellor set the country up for a return to George Osborne’s short-termism [with his new fiscal charter].“Any government must ensure prudent investment and get value for taxpayers’ money. But these rules could see counterproductive public spending decisions and lead to a deepening of the very problems the chancellor is now trying desperately to repair. The chancellor risks knowing the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.“The chancellor announced a long list of ‘levelling up’ projects across the country, which may sound like good news, but we’ve heard this all before. Two years into this government and the list of broken promises is already racking up – and on top of the promises made by his Conservative predecessors.“People have become sadly used to overblown promises from the dispatch box that never come good on the ground.”Jon Sharman27 October 2021 14:20 More

Rishi Sunak has begun setting out his plans to create an economy “fit for a new age of optimism” – revealing measures to boost wages, skills and productivity as the UK recovers from the Covid crisis.The chancellor was under pressure to ease the cost-of-living concerns of families facing rising bills, ease the burden on struggling businesses, and provide much-needed investment in the NHS and public services.So what has Mr Sunak offered in his autumn Budget and spending review? The Independent takes a look at the key announcements.Universal CreditMr Sunak announced measures to help Universal Credit claimants by allowing them to keep more of the benefit as they earn more. The “taper rate” – the amount of benefit taken away for every £1 earned above the claimant’s work allowance – will be reduced from 63p to 55p.The chancellor claimed it amounted to a “£2bn tax cut” for low-income families, and promised the changes would come into force within weeks.While this will ease the burden on claimants who are in work, it does not compensate for the £20-a-week cut the government made earlier this month (worth £6bn), or do anything to help people who are not in work.Air passenger dutyFlights between airports in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be subject to a new lower rate of air passenger duty from April next year – sparking criticism from climate campaigners hoping for measures that would help to reduce aviation emissions.However, a new “ultra-long-haul band” covering flights of over 5,500 miles means long-haul flyers will pay slightly more. “Less than 5% of passengers will pay more – but those who fly furthest will pay the most,” Mr Sunak said.Fuel dutyMr Sunak said the planned fuel duty rise would be cancelled – so it will remain frozen at 57.95p a litre until next year. “With fuel prices at the highest level in eight years, I’m not prepared to add to the squeeze on families and small businesses,” said Mr Sunak.Business ratesMr Sunak announced some changes to business rates. A new 50 per cent business rates discount will apply in the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors, with eligible businesses able to claim a discount on their bills, up to a maximum of £110,000.There will also be more frequent revaluations every three years from 2023, a 12-month rate holiday on property improvements, and relief for business owners who install solar panels.It falls short of the across-the-board cut to business rates that many Tory MPs had been looking for, while Labour has called for a complete overhaul of the system.Alcohol DutyA planned increase in duty on spirits, beer and wines will be cancelled, said Mr Sunak – claiming it amounts to a £3bn tax cut for the hospitality industry. The chancellor said a 5 per cent cut in tax on pints pulled in pubs would reduce the cost of a pint by 3p.Mr Sunak said he would simplify the system of alcohol duties from 15 duty rates to just six – promising lower rates for lower-strength drinks such as rose, fruit ciders, and lower-strength beers. But he said some higher-strength drinks would see higher rates. “The stronger the drink, the higher the rate,” he said.EducationMr Sunak has promised an extra £4.7bn for England’s schools by 2024-25, saying just under £2bn of the new funding would go to help schools and colleges recover from the pandemic.The chancellor said that the government’s funding plans would mean spending for each pupil would finally return to 2010 levels, and also announced an extra £200m to continue the holiday activities scheme.Minimum wage and public sector payThe chancellor announced ahead of the Budget that he had accepted a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission to increase the national living wage from £8.91 to £9.50 an hour for workers aged 23 and over.Mr Sunak also ended the year-long public sector pay freeze, but did not reveal whether the pay rises would be above inflation (currently 3.1 per cent). He claimed there would be “fair and affordable pay rises” – but said it would be up to pay-review bodies to decide on the amounts.Every Whitehall department will receive a “real terms rise in overall spending” as part of the spending review, the chancellor said, amounting to £150bn over the course of this parliament.NHS fundingIn another pre-Budget announcement, an additional £5.9bn will go to the NHS to tackle the huge backlog in care following the Covid crisis – with investment in diagnostic services, surgical hubs, and boosting bed capacity.Although £3.8bn of the extra spending will be aimed directly at getting the health service “back on track”, some £2.1bn will go on “digitising” the NHS – as the government attempts to push the health service into an efficiency drive.TransportThe government has topped up a pledge to increase funding for trams, trains, buses and cycleways in a bid to improve local transport across England.But only a small share of the £7bn for transport touted by the Treasury before the Budget is new money – only around £1.5bn is additional funding, with most of the sum being accounted for in previous commitments.HousingBig construction companies will be charged an extra levy to raise a £5bn fund to remove unsafe cladding from highrise buildings. Developers with profits over £25m will be charged a rate of 4 per cent.The chancellor also announced £11.5bn to build up to 180,000 affordable homes, and an extra £1.8bn to bring 1,500 hectares of brownfield land into use.But James Forrester, managing director of estate agent Barrows and Forrester, accused the chancellor of “recycling” old commitments.Levelling up agendaThe chancellor announced he was allocating £1.7bn of funding from the Levelling Up Fund for over 100 local areas, including disadvantaged communities in the north of England and the Midlands.Rejecting Labour claims of “pork-barrel politics” for Tory-held seats, Mr Sunak said the money would go to Labour constituencies. “We’re so committed to levelling up we’re even levelling up the opposition front bench,” he said.Meanwhile, devolved administrations will be given the “largest block grants” since 1998, he added, with an increase to Scottish government funding in each year by an average of £4.6bn, along with £2.5bn for the Welsh government and £1.6bn for the Northern Ireland executive.Local government and council taxMr Sunak’s Budget provides English councils with £1.6bn of new grant funding in each of the next three years, on top of previous funding to implement social care reform plans.But the Office of Budget Review (OBR)’s assessment makes clear that the government expects big council tax rises ahead. The body said it expects council tax receipts to be £12.1bn above last year’s level by 2026-27 – largely thanks to the push to boost social care.The Budget also gives police and crime commissioners in England the “flexibility” to raise council tax by £10 for a band D property in each of the next three years. If fully implemented, it would see average bills rise by £30 by 2024-25.Growth, borrowing and spendingThe chancellor said that OBR forecasts show that the UK economy will grow by 6.5 per cent this year – followed by lower growth of 2.1 per cent in 2023, 1.3 per cent in 2024, and 1.6 per cent in 2025.But inflation is expected to spike to 4 per cent next year, Mr Sunak revealed – as the economy struggles to keep up with demand in the wake of Covid and Brexit. He admitted Britains supply-chain woes would take “months to ease”.Mr Sunak has also set out new fiscal rules: that debt must fall as a percentage of GDP, and the government should only borrow to invest in future growth once the pandemic has passed and the country returns to “normal times”. More

Almost £2bn has been slashed from promised development spending in poorer areas of the UK, despite Boris Johnson’s vow to “level up the country”.The government had pledged to match lost EU funding – to “tackle inequality and deprivation” – which would have required at least £4.5bn over the next three years.But Rishi Sunak’s Budget reveals just £2.6bn has been allocated and reallocates the fund to improving “functional numeracy skills”, to boost job prospects.The move will provoke fury in many ‘Red Wall’ areas of England and in Scotland and Wales – which were big recipients of EU structural funds before Brexit cut off the flow.The Conservative party manifesto at the 2019 general election promised to “at a minimum match” the lost funds in each nation of the UK. More

The government will cut taxes on domestic flights to make it cheaper to fly within the UK, Rishi Sunak has announced – despite being told by his climate advisors that he needs to reduce aviation.In a budget delivered just days before the UK hosts the Cop26 UN climate conference in Glasgow the chancellor said he wanted to make internal air travel cheaper to “cut the cost of living”.And he also announced that the government will continue to freeze fuel duty, a policy which has made it increasingly cheaper to drive compared to more environmentally sustainable alternatives.Mr Sunak’s announcement attracted the ire of environmentalists, with Green MP Caroline Lucas warning that the chancellor did not “get the memo on the climate emergency” and Friends of the Earth branding the move “astonishing”. It comes a day after the government’s own Climate Change Committee (CCC) told Boris Johnson he needed discourage people from flying and that his administration’s net zero strategy had “nothing to say” on aviation.Mr Sunak’s policy in flights is the polar opposite of some other European countries – which have increasingly moved to restrict domestic air travel where rail alternatives are available.But the government is moving to push passengers from rail to flying by cutting the price of internal flights while rail fares are set to rise at the fastest rate in a decade from January.”Right now people pay more for return flights within and between the four nations of the United Kingdom than they do when flying home from abroad,” Mr Sunak told MPs on Wednesday afternoon.”We used to have a return leg exemption for domestic flights, but were required to remove it in 2001. “But today, I can announce that flights between airports in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will from April 2023 be subject to a new lower rate of air passenger duty.”Mr Sunak claimed the policy would “help cut the cost of living with nine million passengers seeing their duty cut by half”. “It will bring people together across the United Kingdom, and because because they tend to have a greater proportion of domestic passengers it is a boost to regional airports like Aberdeen, Inverness and Southampton which are major regional employers.”The Chancellor also confirmed he would extend state support to English airports for a further six months to “help them get through the winter”.Mr Sunak also said he would create a new “ultra long haul band” of air passenger duty affecting just 5 per cent of passengers would increase air passenger duty on flights over 5500 miles long.In a statement earlier this week the CCC, a statutory body which advises the government on meeting its climate change targets said: “The government does not include an explicit ambition on diet change, or reductions in the growth of aviation, and policies for managing travel demand have not been developed to match the funding that has been committed. “These remain valuable options with major co-benefits and can help manage delivery risks around a techno-centric approach. They must be explored further with a view to early action.”Friends of the Earth’s head of policy, Mike Childs, said: “Cutting Air Passenger Duty on domestic flights is an astonishing move that completely flies in the face of the climate emergency. The Chancellor should be making it cheaper for people to travel around the country by train, not carbon-guzzling planes.“Air Passenger Duty for all flights should have been increased, or even better replaced with a frequent flyers levy, aimed at curbing multiple flights taken by a minority of people each year.“As the Prime Minister prepares to host next week’s crucial climate summit, this retrograde step is another illustration that the government’s carbon reduction plans don’t add up.”Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK said Mr Sunak was “actively making things worse by making it cheaper to fly between UK cities”, while James Thornton, chief executive of campaign group ClientEarth the announcement on fuel and domestic flight duties “goes against everything we know about climate change” and warned that the UK had “missed a crucial chance to lead by example”. Luke Murphy, head of the environmental justice commission at the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank, meanwhile said Mr Sunak had “used the budget to extend the ages of fossil fuels”.“Cutting air passenger duty was the most significant new policy mentioned in the budget speech today which will have an impact on greenhouse gas emissions – and it will increase them. Rishi Sunak talked for longer about beer duty, than our duty to future generations to address the climate and nature crises,” he said.“The truth is, this climate-void, fossil-fuel heavy budget failed to deliver the necessary £30 billion of investment needed each year to meet our climate and nature targets.”And Sam Alvis, head of green renewal at Green Alliance, said the chancellor’s approach to climate was “increasingly difficult to understand”.“Just days away from a vital climate conference championed by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak barely mentions net zero and encourages people to fly around the UK rather than take the train. The measure on air passenger duty will even cost the Treasury money rather than boost its revenue, he said.Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow energy and climate secretary said: “Another Budget from the Chancellor which failed on both the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis. “No green recovery, no plan to save families £400 on bills, no plan for green steel. Working people will pay the price of Tory climate delay.” More

Inflation is to spike to 4 per cent next year as the economy struggles to keep up with demand in the wake of Covid and Brexit, the Chancellor has revealed.In his Budget speech to the Commons on Wednesday Rishi Sunak said inflation was 3.1 per cent in September and is “likely to rise further”,.He revealed that the Office for Budget Responsibility now expected CPI to average 4 per cent over next year.But there was better news on the growth front for the UK economy as Mr Sunak told MPs that the OBR believed less economic “scarring” had happened as a result of the pandemic than previously predicted.As a result, the OBR’s latest growth forecasts expects the economy to now grow more rapidly, by 6 per cent in 2022 – and then at a rate of 2.1 per cent, 1.3 per cent and 1.6 per cent in the following years.Mr Sunak said the OBR “forecast the economy to return to its pre-Covid level at the turn of the year – earlier than they thought in March”.Addressing the issue is inflation, he said “demand for goods has increased more quickly than supply chains can meet” as economies around the world reopen, while global demand for energy has also “surged”.Mr Sunak said: “In the year to September, the global wholesale price of oil, coal and gas combined, has more than doubled. The pressures caused by supply chains and energy prices will take months to ease.“It would be irresponsible for anyone to pretend that we can solve this overnight. I am in regular communication with finance ministers around the world and it’s clear these are shared global problems, neither unique to the UK, nor possible for us to address on our own.”The chancellor also used his autumn budget to announce he would create two new fiscal rules for spending, which he claimed would “keep this Government on the path of discipline and responsibility”.The self-imposed rules are likely to restrict public spending in the coming years and could see more austerity imposed on public services. Under the rules, “underlying public sector net debt, excluding the impact of the Bank of England, must, as a percentage of GDP, be falling”.Additionally, he said, “in normal times the state should only borrow to invest in our future growth and prosperity”, with the stipulation that “everyday spending must be paid for through taxation”.He said that both rules “must be met by the third year of every forecast period giving us the flexibility to respond to crises while credibly keeping the public finances under control”. More

Sir Keir Starmer has tested positive for Covid-19, just hours before he was due to face Boris Johnson at prime minister’s questions.With the deputy leader, Angela Rayner, on bereavement leave, the shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, stood in for Sir Keir at the dispatch box on Wednesday.The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, then stood in for the Labour leader to respond to Rishi Sunak’s Budget statement.Sir Keir has had to self-isolate on four separate occasions since March 2020 under the now-expired Covid restrictions – after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive.During the summer, the Labour leader was forced to abandon a summer tour of the Midlands, as part of a series of conversations across the country with voters who abandoned the party at the last general election.Mr Miliband, who resigned as leader of the party immediately after his election loss to David Cameron in 2015, was greeted by ironic cheers from Tory MPs when he stood up in the Commons chamber.He joked to MPs: “Just like the old days.“I just want to reassure both sides of the House it’s one time only,” he added.Mr Miliband used the session ahead of the Budget to criticise the government for cutting overseas aid while simultaneously lobbying nations for $100bn of climate finance for poorer nations ahead of the critical climate summit – Cop26 – in Glasgow.“We all need the vital Cop26 summit in Glasgow to deliver next week because failing to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees will have devastating consequences for our planet and that is shared across this House,” Mr Miliband told MPs.“Does the prime minister agree that to keep that goal of 1.5 degrees alive we need to roughly halve global emissions in this decisive decade?”Mr Johnson replied: “It is of course correct that Cop26 is both unbelievably important for our planet but also very difficult and it’s in the balance.”During prime minister’s questions, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, were among senior Tory MPs wearing masks in the chamber – after the health secretary, Sajid Javid, urged politicians to set an example. More