Markus Andrews

Boris Johnson will urge workers to go back to the office in his Tory conference speech on Wednesday, according to a report.The prime minister is said to be confident that there will not be another wave of Covid infections large enough to force him to reinstate the work-from-home order this winter.A government source told the Daily Mail that Mr Johnson “believes very strongly in the value of face-to-face working”, particularly for younger employees.Ministers were forced to reinstate the work-from-home order last Autumn amid a rise in Covid cases – just weeks after ordering employees back to their desks.This year, the government has stopped short of publicly encouraging workers back to the office, instead allowing employers to promote a “gradual return”. Official “work from home” Whitehall guidance was removed on 19 July – though many employees in the public and private sector are continuing to work remotely. However, remote working could be reintroduced as part of the government’s “Plan B” this winter should cases spike, along with the return of mask mandates.Ministers are reportedly confident that these measures will not need to be brought back should hospitalisations remain stable. A separate Tory source told the Daily Mail that officials were “not at the point” of thinking about Plan B and that mask-wearing or vaccine certification were likely to be promoted ahead of remote working.However, Covid infection rates remain high and scientific advisers have suggested remote working is key to preventing transmission of the virus. Professor Andrew Hayward, an epidemiologist at University College London and member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, last month said remote working would make “a significant difference to transmission if we get into trouble”.He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The most important and effective way of reducing spread of the virus is not to be in contact with other people.”At the Conservative party conference on Monday, Tory MPs claimed it was imperative that workers returned to the office. Speaking at a fringe event, Conservative former minister Jake Berry urged civil servants to go back to their desks. Asked about Mr Berry’s comments, Mr Johnson’s official spokesman defended the civil service but emphasised the importance of “working in person”.He said civil servants “have been able to deliver for the public whilst working from home”, but added: “That said, as the prime minister has said repeatedly, there are significant benefits to being in work, to office working, and those should not be discounted. “That’s why we are encouraging all employers to start steadily bringing in their workforce, as we are at this stage of the epidemic.” More

Ministers have been told that just 27 fuel tanker drivers have applied to work in the UK from the EU through the government’s emergency visa scheme which is designed to fix the country’s petrol shortages, according to a report.The Times has reported that there has been little interest in the visas available for HGV drivers in the fuel industry, raising questions over how many people will actually come to the UK to fill vacancies.Earlier this week, the government announced that 300 fuel drivers would be allowed to come to the UK from overseas “immediately” and stay until March, while a further 4,700 visas for foreign food truck drivers will be allowed from later this month until the end of February.There are now concerns among ministers that the failure to recruit drivers will lead to further delays in restocking service stations and to the government having to rely on the army for assistance for longer, according to The Times.“People don’t want to come unless it is a really attractive alternative,” Rod McKenzie, director of policy at the Road Haulage Association, told the newspaper.“You don’t give up a well-paid job for a better-paid job if it will only last a few months.”It came after health secretary Sajid Javid insisted on Saturday that he was “confident” that workers would come to the UK.“Of course there is competition for drivers – that’s taking place throughout Europe – but it is important that we try to do what we can,” Mr Javid told Sky News.“I am confident with the temporary visa changes that have been announced we will get more drivers.”On Monday, industry leaders warned that there would be gaps on supermarket shelves this Christmas due to shortages as chancellor Rishi Sunak argued that he could not “wave a magic wand” to make the supply chain problems go away.“We’re seeing supply disruption, not just here but in lots of different places, and there are things we can try and mitigate, and we are,” Mr Sunak told BBC Radio 4’s Today show.“But we can’t wave a magic wand. There’s nothing I can do about the decision by a country in Asia to shut down a port because of a coronavirus outbreak.”About 200 military personnel – half of them drivers – have been deployed to help deliver petrol to forecourts as about 22 per cent of filling stations in London and the southeast reportedly still do not have fuel.Additional reporting by PA More

The UK’s Brexit minister has warned Joe Biden to stay out Northern Ireland Brexit talks, branding the president no more than an “interested observer”. Last month Mr Biden told Boris Johnson not to renege on treaties preventing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic – warning that the US had “spent an enormous amount of time and effort” on the peace process.But asked about Mr Biden’s stance on the issue at Tory conference Lord Frost said the border question was “for us to decide and sort out with the EU as we wish”.The minister had earlier that day threatened to invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Brexit agreement, which would suspend key parts of the Brexit treaty and could see a hard border emerge. Asked what role Mr Biden could play in talks, Mr Frost told a fringe event: “I think this is a negotiation between us and the European Union. Outsiders are kind of interested observers, but not more than that.”Lord Frost, who personally negotiated the treaty he now wants to rewrite, added: “I think every country around the world that takes an interest thinks the Belfast agreement is something very important and very worth protecting and we agree with the Americans on that as has been said many times. “The more the context can be made helpful in support of what we’re trying to do to sustain the peace process at a time that’s being undermined the better. But I think, ultimately, is for us to decide and sort out with the EU as we wish, and nobody would expect anything different really I think.”On 22 September Mr Biden told media at the White House during a UK visit that that he felt “very strongly” about the issue.”We spent an enormous amount of time and effort, the United States, it was a major bipartisan effort made,” he told media, referring to former president Bill Clinton’s key role in the Northern Ireland peace process. “And I would not at all like to see, nor I might add would many of my Republican colleagues like to see, a change in the Irish accords, the end result having a closed border in Ireland.”Mr Biden’s election was a serious blow to Boris Johnson’s Brexit ambitions – partly because the US president has made clear he is willing to use his diplomatic muscle on behalf of Ireland and the EU over the border issue.But the new Democratic administration is also significantly less interested in a trade deal with the UK compared to the one led by Donald Trump, who viewed Brexit more positively. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Sunday appeared to concede that a US trade deal was unlikely any time soon and suggested the UK should focus elsewhere.After a few months out of the limelight the issue of Brexit is likely to make a significant comeback before the end of the year, as the UK seeks more talks with the EU over the Northern Ireland agreement.The EU has so far refused to come to the table, says it considers the issue settled, and that the UK must implement the protocol as agreed. But Lord Frost used his keynote speech to Tory conference this morning to issue a warning that the UK could act unilaterally.“We cannot wait for ever. Without an agreed solution soon, we will need to act, using the Article 16 safeguard mechanism, to address the impact the protocol is having on Northern Ireland,” he told the Tory faithful.“That may in the end be the only way to protect our country – our people, our trade, our territorial integrity, the peace process, and the benefits of this great UK of which we are all part.”The minister said “intensive” talks would have to lead to a “decision point” around early November.Northern Ireland has faced shortages of goods imported from the rest of the UK because of the new frictions to trade added by Lord Frost’s agreement.The situation has also inflamed community tensions, with protests from some loyalists and threats against staff working at ports.European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic said in July: “We will not agree to a renegotiation of the protocol. Respecting international legal obligations is of paramount importance.” The EU position is yet to shift on the issue.Asked about Lord Frost’s speech, a European Commission spokesperson told reporters in Brussels on Monday:”You will not be surprised to hear that we do not comment on the sayings or the statements of our partners or any stakeholders, whatever nature they have and however lyrical or aggressive they may be. We are not going to depart from that position in these specific circumstances at all.”Despite empty shelves, crops rotting the fields, a shortage of lorry drivers, and long queues at petrol stations, Lord Frost was upbeat about Britain’s prospects as he toured fringe events stacked full of Tory activists and lobbyists.He promised to “show Brexit was worth it” by making Britain’s economy “work better” than the EU’s, stating: “The power of example is very strong.”Asked whether he took responsibility for any of the problems his deal caused, Lord Frost blamed remain campaigners. “We prioritised getting ourselves out of the backstop and giving the country free choice about where to go to the future and we achieved that,” he said.”We always worried that the things that were imposed on us in this protocol, because we didn’t any choice in the matter in the end: The Surrender Act made it impossible for us to leave without some sort of agreement.” At the time the government claimed it would leave without a deal no matter what. More

Dominic Raab is set to announce a dramatic escalation in the use of GPS tags to track ex-offenders, with tens of thousands more people being fitted with devices on leaving prison over the next three years.In his first speech as justice secretary to the Conservative conference in Manchester, Mr Raab will set out plans to spend £183m to increase the use of satellite location devices to track the movement of released offenders around the clock, with the number tagged at any one time rising from 13,500 this year to about 25,000 by 2025.And he will announce a £90m plan to increase to 8 million hours a year the community work carried out by offenders in what Boris Johnson has referred to as “fluorescent-jacketed chain gangs”.GPS tags, which have been deployed since 2019 to monitor compliance with licence conditions and court requirements, are also used by the Home Office to monitor foreign national offenders awaiting deportation. Alcohol-monitoring tags, which measure alcohol levels in sweat, have been ordered for at least 1,500 offenders serving community sentences since they were first rolled out last October.Mr Raab will say that both are being dramatically stepped up over the next three years, with an extra 10,000 thieves and burglars GPS-tagged and 12,000 prison-leavers with a history of committing crimes while drunk being required to wear sobriety tags for 12 months each.More than 3,500 high-risk domestic abusers will have their location monitored to protect victims and children from further trauma. And the tags could also help the Probation Service discover relationships that offenders are keeping secret so they can alert new partners.Mr Raab will say: “This major increase in high-tech GPS tagging will see us leading the world in using technology to fight crime and keep victims safe.“From tackling alcohol-fuelled violence and burglary to protecting domestic-abuse victims, we are developing tags to make our streets and communities safer.”In the wake of the murders of young women including Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, the deputy prime minister will pledge to make the protection of women and girls his “number one priority”, reaffirming his commitment to implementing a victims’ law to enshrine in legislation the support available to victims.He will tell the Manchester gathering that his aim is “making our communities safer, so that women can walk home at night, without having to look over their shoulder”.And he will set out plans to recruit 500 more unpaid community work supervisors to oversee offenders cleaning up streets, alleyways and housing estates.Under a deal with the Canal and River Trust – the first of a planned series of national partnerships between the Probation Service and major organisations – offenders will clean up hundreds of miles of rivers and canals in England and Wales every year.Civil liberties pressure group Liberty raised concerns about the plan.“As highlighted by the prime minister’s reference to ‘chain gangs’, this is a short-termist stunt that will increase stigma and spread division, but it’s one that will cause long-term harm,” said Liberty’s head of policy and campaigns Sam Grant.“This short-sightedness is a feature of a range of this government’s proposals when it comes to serious violence, including the Policing Bill, which continue to emphasise increasing police powers even at a time when the broad and unaccountable powers available to the police are under scrutiny.”The Bar Council warned that an extra £2.48bn in government spending would be required just to return the justice system, excluding police, to 2010 levels after a decade of cuts.In a submission to the Treasury ahead of chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review later this month, the Council, which represents barristers in England and Wales, warned of a backlog of more than 60,000 cases waiting to be heard at crown court. More

Jacob Rees-Mogg has hailed Jeremy Corbyn for helping to save Brexit, claiming that the former Labour leader’s lack of appeal to pro-Remain Tories prevented an interim prime minister from being installed. The Conservative minister said that the former Labour leader’s “stubbornness” prevented Brexit from being halted. Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Monday, Commons Leader Mr Rees-Mogg said: “It’s amazing how close it came to us not getting Brexit, that the British establishment wanted to stop it and were trying very hard.”And you know who we should thank, oddly? Let’s see if the Conservative audience can cope with this: we should thank Jeremy Corbyn.”I’ll tell you why. Because our side who hated Brexit would have accepted any other Labour leader as interim prime minister to stop Brexit and have a second referendum.”Mr Rees Mogg, who has campaigned for a “hard Brexit”, went on to claim that “any other Labour leader” would have accepted an interim Tory prime minister in order to stop Britain’s departure from the EU. He continued: “Jeremy Corbyn was unacceptable to Tories who would simply not, however much they hated Brexit, have him as leader, and there was absolutely no way he was going to make way for anybody else.”Therefore we got to an election and won it handsomely because the people wanted what they voted for to ​be delivered. “But without Jeremy Corbyn’s obduracy, stubbornness, we might not have got it – and I think it came very close to not happening.”In August 2019, Mr Corbyn urged rebel Tories and opposition leaders to halt a no-deal Brexit by ousting Boris Johnson and installing him as the leader of a caretaker government until the next general election. He stressed this would be a temporary administration on a “strictly time-limited basis”.The idea was swiftly dismissed by leaders of other parties. Jo Swinson, the then-leader of the Liberal Democrats, claimed there was “people in his own party and indeed the necessary Conservative backbenchers who would be unwilling to support him”. During the campaign for the 2019 general election, Mr Corbyn promised to negotiate a new Brexit deal with the EU and put this to a public vote alongside the option to Remain. He defended the policy as a “sensible way forward that can bring people together”.Elsewhere during Monday’s conference, Mr Rees-Mogg was confronted by a disability activist who accused the senior Tory of being “just another Eton millionaire” who looks down on disabled people.Dominic Hutchins, who has cerebral palsy, took the minister to task over policies that he blames for causing the loss of his job as a youth worker and saw him undergo a “humiliating” test to prove his disability.He accused the minister of talking “rubbish” and accused him of being “shameful”.“I’m sorry you think that but I wish you well in your search for a job, I really do,” Mr Rees-Mogg responded.The Independent has contacted Jeremy Corbyn’s representatives for comment. More

Priti Patel will unveil draconian new powers to stop climate activists travelling to protests and to allow police to search them for equipment such as glue, handcuffs or chains.The measures, to be called criminal disruption prevention orders, will bar repeat protesters from going to demonstrations, the home secretary will say – reviving memories of the targeting of striking miners attempting to reach pickets in the 1980s.And a second crackdown will introduce stop-and-search powers in respect of people who are suspected of carrying items that would allow them to attach themselves to motorways.The plans come amid growing Conservative fury about the way the group Insulate Britain has continued to block major roads, evading attempts to stop it.Ms Patel has already announced that protesters blockading routes will face jail sentences of up to six months – increasing the punishment from a £1,000 fine.And ministers are applying for a new, single court order to ban protests on all major roads in southeast England, after traffic was brought to a standstill on the M4 and the M1 as well as the M25, which is already covered by an injunction.Ms Patel will announce the additional measures in her Conservative Party conference speech, vowing to “close down the legal loopholes exploited by these offenders”.“So, today, I can announce I will increase the maximum penalties for disrupting a motorway, criminalise interference with key infrastructure such as roads, railways and our free press, and give the police and courts new powers to deal with the small minority of offenders intent on travelling around the country causing disruption and misery across our communities,” she will tell the Manchester gathering. The criminal disruption prevention orders will target “prolific offenders” to stop them from “attending particular protests” if they are considered “likely to commit a criminal offence”.“We see a small number of prolific offenders travelling around the country, causing disruption and misery to others, most recently in repeated attempts to block the M25,” a Tory source said.At present, a police officer can carry out a stop-and-search in relation to someone believed to be planning to commit an offence – but this will be extended to those who are suspected of carrying equipment for a protest.The measures will be added to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that is currently going through parliament, which already allows a clampdown on demonstrations considered to be “noisy”.In her speech, Ms Patel will also pledge to step up her campaign to stop migrants and refugees crossing the Channel, including controversial plans for Border Force to push back small boats.The home secretary will say that those attempting to make the crossing are coming from “vast camps outside Calais of mainly male, economic migrants” and are being “exploited by people-smugglers”, who she calls “vile criminals characterised by ruthlessness and greed, who even threaten to drown small children to line their pockets.“At the heart of this plan is a simple principle: control. That is not unreasonable. Through our New Plan for Immigration, Britain will be fair but firm.” More

Michael Gove attacks Starmer’s speech with irony at Tory party conferenceCabinet minister Michael Gove has suggested that Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner called the Conservatives “scum” last month because of her childhood in a poverty-stricken family.“If you consider the circumstances under which she’s had to grow up, and what she’s achieved, then anyone can make a mistake,” Mr Gove told the Conservative Party’s conference in Manchester.Ms Rayner has previously spoken about difficulties in her childhood and said that if she had grown up in “modern times” she “definitely” would have been taken away by social services.It came as five people were arrested after former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith was allegedly assaulted by being hit on the head with a traffic cone.Sir Iain said that he was pursued by a group on his way to a Brexit talk on the fringes of the conference on Monday afternoon.Show latest update

1633330688Good morning, and welcome to The Independent’s rolling politics coverage as Day 2 of the Conservative Party conference gets going. Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates from Manchester, where the summit is being held, Westminster and beyond. Sam Hancock4 October 2021 07:581633331219Sunak pledges £500m to help people back into work after CovidRishi Sunak is to commit more than £500m in fresh funding to help people back into work as he seeks to stem the continuing turbulence of the coronavirus pandemic.He will explain, during his first in-person speech at the conference as chancellor that the new funding will be used to help workers leaving the furlough scheme and unemployed over-50s back into work, while the “kickstart” scheme for young people will also be extended.It comes after he resisted expanding all of the support announced during the pandemic, with the furlough scheme ending and the £20-a-week uplift to Universal Credit falling away.Sam Blewett reports:Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:061633331520Chancellor admits unemployment will rise now furlough endedSky News’ Alan McGuinness reports the following:Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:121633331939PM accused of being out of touch with struggling pig farmers Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, has said he was “surprised” that Boris Johnson appeared to be unaware of problems facing pig farmers when questioned on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show. Mr Allen added that tens of thousands of butchers are needed and the training period for each is around 18 months.He told Sky News: “We’ve been talking to government on a daily basis about the problems we’ve been having, so I’m somewhat surprised that he [Mr Johnson] wasn’t aware of the situation.“We’re short of skilled-up butchers and these aren’t people you can just pull off the street and put in the process. It takes time to train these people and we’re about 10,000 to 15,000 people short.“It takes 18 months to train a butcher and get them up and running, so we’re looking for some help here to manage the transition, not just stopping everything overnight.“We’ve had a long-term reliance on non-UK labour and it’s going to take a long time to adjust.”Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:181633332113Farmer crisis could see pigs in blankets absent from Christmas tableFollowing my last post, Nick Allen said Christmas turkeys are likely to be from the continent this year due to labour shortages in Britain following Brexit, adding some foods like pigs in blankets may not be available.“We’re not saying that there’s not going to be food on the table at Christmas, but we’re struggling to put the party food together – the pigs in blankets, the netting of gammons,” he said. “But I suspect that food can be imported and probably the turkeys might not be British turkeys but they may end up being French, or even turkeys from further afield.“We’re not saying there’s going to be desperate shortages, but there certainly won’t be the choices available for British food, that’s for certain.”Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:211633332373Blairs avoided £312,000 in tax by acquiring offshore firmTony and Cherie Blair avoided paying £312,000 in tax on the purchase of a London property by acquiring an offshore company, according to a trove of leaked documents.The former British prime minister and his wife bought the £6.45m townhouse on Harcourt Street, Marylebone, in 2017 as an office for her legal advisory firm Omnia and her foundation for women, writes Daniel Keane.The manner of the deal allowed the Blairs to avoid having to pay stamp duty, as the tax is not paid when the holding company of a property is acquired rather than the building directly. There is no suggestion the Blairs actively tried to avoid paying the tax and the transaction was not illegal.Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:261633332934More than 20% of petrol stations without fuel in LondonAlthough better in much of the country, the fuel crisis persists in London and southeast England.Gordon Balmer, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association, said 22 per cent of filling stations remain without fuel in that region. BP is the worst affected, he added.Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:351633333330NFU suggests govt must do more to get food on shelvesThe president of the NFU appeared to go after the government this morning, saying there is “plenty of food out there” and more work simply needs to be done to get it on the shelves.Minette Batters added Boris Johnson did not look to be “as well briefed as perhaps he should have been” on the issue, adding it was her job to get the facts across to him.“There’s been a whole-chain approach from the NFU, the British retail consortium to the Hauliers Association and many others,” Ms Batters told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “We’ve got to look at this as a whole supply chain approach, there’s plenty of food out there, we’ve got to get it on the shelves.”Addressing people’s concerns over the union’s calls for help from foreign workers, she said: “I’ve continually reiterated it, we are part of national living wage, we are highly regulated in the food and farming sector, so it is no different to any other part of the economy, but we do have the most affordable food in Europe, that’s been an enormous success story for consumers that are facing rising costs on every level.“They want to continue to have affordable food, we want to make sure, as Britain’s farmers, that they have that food, we need to get into the shelves. This is short term, things will change, but in the run-up to Christmas, we need to resolve this crisis.”Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:421633333471Sunak declines to rule out further tax hikesRishi Sunak, the chancellor, has declined to rule out a hike in income tax ahead of the next election or whether the government will allow councils to increase bills in order to pay for social care.It comes after the Local Government Association (LGA) warned that council tax may have to rise to plug a black hole in social care, claiming that authorities in England face extra cost pressures of almost £8 billion by 2024/5 “just to keep vital local services running at today’s levels”.Quizzed on whether he could guarantee the public won’t see a rise in council tax, Mr Sunak told Sky News: “Social care is funded by a max of different ways — one way is through local taxes, like council tax. Later in the year, we have something called the local government finance settlement, where the secretary of state for local government sets out all the plans for local government for the coming year.”Our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn reports:Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:441633333601‘No magic wand’ to solve global supply chain issues – SunakChancellor Rishi Sunak said this morning he cannot “wave a magic wand” to make global supply chain issues disappear as Britain faces shortages.He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s reasonable that people expect us to do what we can.“But we can’t wave a magic wand and make global supply chain challenges disappear overnight.”Moving to discuss the pig industry crisis, Mr Sunak added: “With regards to butchers, my understanding is that those are indeed on the shortage occupation list that we already have.”Sam Hancock4 October 2021 08:46 More

British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak promised Monday to deliver an economy based on “good work, better skills and higher wages,” as the governing Conservative Party tried to shrug off the U.K.’s economic turmoil as the growing pains of a thriving, self-reliant post-Brexit economy.Sunak touted the U.K.’s low unemployment rate of under 5% as a sign it is putting pandemic disruptions behind it. He said now that Britain has left the European Union, it will embrace “the agility, flexibility and freedom provided by Brexit” to create a dynamic, high-tech economy.For some, Sunak’s optimism in a speech to a conference of the ruling Conservatives struck a jarring note. It came as the combination of coronavirus and Brexit is sending shock waves through the British economy, with soldiers drafted in to ease fuel shortages and businesses scrambling to get enough staff. Since the Tories’ last in-person conference two years ago, the party won a huge parliamentary majority under Prime Minister Boris Johnson But Britain also has been hammered by a coronavirus pandemic that has left more than 136,000 people in the U.K. dead, Europe’s highest death toll after Russia. The country also left the EU last year, ending its seamless economic integration with a trading bloc of almost half a billion people.In recent weeks, a shortage of truck drivers, due to factors including pandemic disruptions and a post-Brexit exodus of European workers, has snarled British supply chains, leaving some empty shelves in supermarkets, fast-food chains without chicken and gas pumps without fuel. Scores of soldiers began driving fuel tankers Monday after more than a week of gas shortages.A major factor is post-Brexit immigration rules that mean EU citizens can no longer live and work visa-free in Britain. As well as trucking, staff shortages are hitting hotels, bars and restaurants, sectors that once relied heavily on European workers. Some hotels in the northern England city of Manchester where thousands of Conservatives are meeting through Wednesday, have sent guests emails apologizing for being short-staffed.Agriculture has also been hard hit, with abattoirs saying they are critically short of butchers. Angry farmers, some dressed as pigs, greeted Conservative delegates outside the conference center on Monday, demanding that the government “Save our bacon.”“Pigs are backed up,” said Vicky Scott, a pig farmer from east Yorkshire in northern England. “There are farmers who are having to make decisions about which pigs to kill on the farm, which is barbaric. (They go) to landfill, a complete waste. It’s disgraceful.”Like businesses across the economy, British farmers are urging the government to let in more EU workers to ease the shortages.Johnson has done that for truckers and poultry farmers, offering 5,000 emergency visas to foreign hauliers and 5,500 visas to chicken and turkey workers. But the government has resisted easing restrictions on what it calls low-skilled workers, saying British people should be trained to take the jobs.“The way forward for our country is not to just pull the big lever marked uncontrolled immigration,” Johnson said Sunday. He said Britain was ending “a broken model of the U.K. economy that relied on low wages and low skills and chronic low productivity.”Some economists point out that more immigration does not automatically mean lower wages. And, while the government insists wages are rising, many Conservatives are worried about the impact on voters’ pocketbooks of a new tax hike to fund health and social care, rising energy bills from a global surge in natural gas prices and a cut to welfare benefits for millions that kicks in this week.Government opponents staged protests in Manchester ahead of the four-day conference, which is being held under tight security. Police said five people were arrested Monday after a former Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, was harangued and hit with a traffic cone outside the convention center.Police also were called to the conference hotel after a guest speaker said she was assaulted by a Conservative delegate. There were no arrests, but the party said the man accused of the assault had been expelled from the conference and suspended.Sunak, whose Treasury has spent billions in the last 18 months supporting workers and businesses as coronavirus lockdowns put the economy on ice, hinted more tax hikes might be coming, saying Britain needed to cut its ballooning debt.“Yes, I want tax cuts,” he said. “But in order to do that, our public finances must be put back on a sustainable footing.”To fuel growth, he promised programs to help young people get skilled jobs and more investment to make Britain a tech and science “superpower.” Sunak’s approach got a mixed reception. David Willetts, president of economic think-tank the Resolution Foundation, said Sunak was “right that in the long run, it is innovation and investment that will boost productivity and pay.”But farmers like Scott say those long-term plans are little help to them now.“I agree we should upskill our workforce in the U.K.,” she said. “But we should have done it months ago, years ago.”___Follow all AP stories on post-Brexit developments at https://apnews.com/hub/Brexit. More