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Former Labour MP Keith Vaz was responsible for “sustained and unpleasant” bullying of a parliamentary clerk, a House of Commons inquiry has found.A two-year inquiry into Mr Vaz carried out by an independent expert panel (IEP) found his bullying had a “real and enduring psychological impact” on a member of staff.The ex-MP for Leicester East “should be ashamed of his behaviour”, said the panel – which also ruled that his eligibility to hold a pass allowing for members access to parliament should never be restored.Mr Vaz’s behaviour towards Jenny McCullough when he was chair of the home affairs select committee “robbed her of confidence in her judgment and abilities, so that ultimately she felt compelled to leave her work”, the report found.Ms McCullough, who has waived her right to anonymity, she was repeatedly on the receiving end of Mr Vaz’s aggressive tirades and was forced to leave her job in 2011 because of his behaviour.She accused the former MP of subjecting her to outbursts of “inappropriate anger”, sometimes using foul language and making “demeaning references” to her in front of others.The inquiry found that Mr Vaz breached the Commons’ bullying and harassment policy in his dealings with the former committee clerk between 2007 and 2008.Sir Stephen Irwin, chair of the IEP, said the panel “found that [Mr Vaz’s] misconduct represented sustained and unpleasant bullying, with a real and enduring psychological impact; and that it led to the complainant leaving her career in the House of Commons”.The chair added: “His eligibility to hold a former member’s pass should never be restored. [His] conduct to the complainant was hostile, sustained, harmful and unworthy of a member of parliament. He should be ashamed of his behaviour.”Among the claims the IEP found to be in breach of the bullying policy, Ms McCullough said that after meeting he had had with some sex workers, Mr Vaz said they “had reminded him of” her.The former clerk also said he had accused her of not knowing how to effectively support the committee since she “wasn’t a mother”.Although Mr Vaz previously denied the clerk’s claims and said he was too ill to engage with the inquiry, the panel said “there was no good basis for concluding that those health problems precluded him from engagement”.Mr Vaz, who retired from parliament before the last general election, was formally suspended from the Commons for six months in 2019 after he was found to have offered to buy drugs for sex workers and failed to cooperate with an investigation.He had chaired the home affairs committee from 2007 to 2016 – until he was forced to quit when the Sunday Mirror first revealed he had engaged in unprotected sexual activity with male sex workers and offered to buy them cocaine.Mr Vaz could not be reached for comment on the inquiry report. More

The government has remained silent on whether the new foreign secretary challenged her Russian counterpart over the Salisbury attack during a meeting held after a third suspect was charged.Liz Truss met the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday – a day after police announced the prosecution of GRU agent Denis Sergeev.A summary of their discussion provided by the government made no mention of the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, which Theresa May said was approved “at a senior level of the Russian state” in 2018.The readout said: “The foreign secretary met Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov ahead of the meeting of P5 foreign ministers convened by the UK. “They discussed the need for Iran to return to nuclear talks. They also discussed stability and security in Afghanistan including the need for the Taliban to form an inclusive government. They looked forward to the COP26 conference in Glasgow in November.”Boris Johnson had urged Russia publicly to “hand over” the three suspects identified by British police, so they can go on trial in the UK.The meeting came a week after Ms Truss replaced Dominic Raab as foreign secretary in a cabinet reshuffle.Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released its own summary of the meeting, which also made no mention of the Salisbury attack.It said the ministers discussed “the current state of bilateral relations”, and suggested that Mr Lavrov accused the British government of refusing to treat Russia with “equality and regard for each other’s interests”.Russia has denied responsibility for the Salisbury attack and refuses to extradite its nationals, meaning the likelihood of the three suspects facing a British court is slim.On Tuesday, MPs asked the home secretary what stance the foreign secretary would take with her Russian counterpart “so that these suspects are forced to face justice”.Priti Patel told parliament that Ms Truss and the Foreign Office were “undertaking a range of diplomatic engagements in UN forums right now”.Russian spy Denis Sergeev accused of attempted murder over Salisbury novichok attack“The foreign secretary is currently in New York at the UN General Assembly, and we are in no doubt that we are pressing every single lever,” she added. “The FCDO and the foreign secretary will rightly lead on the key discussions.”Ms Patel pledged that the government would “take every possible step” to detain the suspects and added: “Our government will be relentless in our pursuit of justice for the victims of these attacks.”Dean Haydon, the Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, previously said that police were relying on the Foreign Office and diplomatic channels for any hope of moving the case forward.“There is no extradition treaty with Russia,” he told a press conference. “We had very little cooperation from Russia or the Russian state. The FCDO will be talking on diplomatic channels to Russia but from the police investigation side our due process is to seek arrest warrants and circulate them through Interpol.“If there is an opportunity to arrest those individuals and put them in front of a UK court to seek justice for those individuals [poisoned] or the people of Salisbury, we will do that.”Interpol red notices have been circulated internationally for the past three years for the two suspects previously charged over the attack, GRU agents Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga, but no arrests have been made.The new suspect, Denis Sergeev is also thought to remain in Russia.The Crown Prosecution Service has authorised the same charges against him as the two previous suspects, including the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia, the grievous bodily harm of police officer Nick Bailey and the use of novichok as a chemical weapon. They do not cover the death of Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old-mother killed by novichok, because the investigation into how she came by the discarded chemical weapon in June 2018 is ongoing.Sergeev, who travelled to the UK under the alias Sergey Fedotov, is believed to have commanded the poisoning operation from London.He arrived in Britain hours before his alleged accomplices on 2 March 2018, and met them “on more than one occasion” before the attack.Sergeev flew back to Moscow from Heathrow at 1.45pm on 4 March, under two hours after the nerve agent was applied to Mr Skripal’s front door.Mr Haydon said the three suspects “operated as a team” to target Mr Skripal and had previously worked with each other “on behalf of the Russian state on operations outside of Russia”.No new sanctions or diplomatic action against the Kremlin have been announced after the new charges against Sergeev, which were revealed hours after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for the fatal poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. More

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s address to the UN General AssemblySadiq Khan today repeatedly refused to be drawn on if he supports Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to change the Labour Party’s leadership election rules.Under the controversial proposals Labour would ditch the one member, one vote system and replace it with an electoral college system which would give MPs and unions a stronger say in future leadership contests.Mr Khan was asked on three occasions if he supported the alterations suggested by Labour but said that “internal party rules isn’t at the fore of my mind”.Meanwhile, former prime minister Gordon Brown lambasted ministers for an upcoming cut to universal credit, adding that he had never seen a government act “so callously”.He also called the withdrawal of the £20-a-week uplift “more economically illogical, socially divisive and morally indefensible than anything I have witnessed in this country’s politics”.It comes as Boris Johnson has told leaders at the UN the world is not “indestructible” and that the upcoming climate summit in Glasgow is “the turning point for humanity”.The prime minister was addressing the General Assembly in the early hours on Thursday in the final act of his US visit, where he also discussed the Covid-19 pandemic and trade.Show latest update

1632404641Kwasi Kwarteng denies ‘complacency’ over energy crisisBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng denied being complacent over 18-month-old warnings about risks to the UK’s energy supply.A host of suppliers have gone to the wall in recent weeks after the energy sector was hit by rocketing global wholesale gas prices.Labour used an urgent question to drag Mr Kwarteng before MPs to face questions over the crisis.Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband quoted a letter from energy regulator Ofgem warning of a “systemic risk to the energy supply as a whole” which had been sent 18 months ago.Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer tweeted that the details showed the Government was “warned about a looming crisis and didn’t prepare”.Speaking in the Commons, Mr Miliband accused ministers of being “complacent” about the shock that rising gas prices could wreak upon the market, as well as families and the cost of living.But Mr Kwarteng said the Conservative administration had “not been complacent” as suppliers collapsed.The Cabinet minister said that Ofgem’s concerns had been “interrogated” during the coronavirus pandemic, with the supplier of last resort programme, where consumers are automatically transferred to a new provider if their supplier exits the market, was “found to work”.Joe Middleton23 September 2021 14:441632402968Government was warned energy firms could collapse 18 months ago, Ofgem letter revealsThe government was warned 18 months ago that some of the UK’s struggling energy companies faced possible collapse, a newly-released letter has revealed.Regulator Ofgem wrote to business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng last March to warn him of the “systemic risk” faced by energy suppliers, urging the government to consider action to help stabilise the market.Shared by Labour on Thursday, the Ofgem letter warned that many firms had only “thin cash reserves” – telling the minister that any shocks could mean “significant numbers of suppliers who have otherwise good business models may fail”.Adam Forrest has the details.Joe Middleton23 September 2021 14:161632400856’We’ve got the perfect storm’, says London mayor about energy crisisJoe Middleton23 September 2021 13:401632399056Coronavirus unlikely to become more deadly because it’s run out of ‘places to go’, says Oxford jab creatorCovid is unlikely to mutate into a deadlier, vaccine-evading, variant because it’s run out of “places to go” , the creator of the Oxford jab has said.Dame Sarah Gilbert said coronavirus is likely to become less severe in its effects. Speaking at a Royal Society of Medicine webinar on Wednesday, she said: “We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily and there is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of Sars-CoV-2.”Dame Sarah said that some variations were to be expected but predicted that coronavirus would eventually become like the flu virus, saying: “What tends to happen over time is there’s just a slow drift, that’s what happens with flu viruses. You see small changes accumulating over a period of time and then we have the opportunity to react to that.”Holly Bancroft reports.Joe Middleton23 September 2021 13:101632397438We will push ‘rogue regime’ of Iran ‘as far as we can’ for release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, says Jacob Rees-MoggJacob Rees-Mogg said the Government will push the “rogue regime” of Iran “as far as we can” for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.Shadow Commons speaker Thangam Debbonaire said: “Today marks the 2,000th day of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention in Iran. Outside, a demonstration is taking place to raise awareness of her case, of Anoosheh Ashoori’s, and of countless others imprisoned there.“When will the Government bring them home?”Commons Leader Mr Rees-Mogg replied: “I hope she is assured to note that the Foreign Secretary (Liz Truss) raised this issue and said that it was quite inexcusable for Nazanin to still be detained by the Iranian authorities as one of the first things she said as Foreign Secretary.“I think it is extremely reassuring that the Government is publicly saying that this must happen, but there are limits to the power of the Government in forcing rogue regimes to doing what we want and that has been the case for too long.“But it is inexcusable Nazanin is still held and the Government will push the Iranian authorities as far as we can.”Joe Middleton23 September 2021 12:431632396656Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s address to the UN General AssemblyJoe Middleton23 September 2021 12:301632396056Ex-Labour MP Keith Vaz engaged in ‘sustained and unpleasant’ bullying, inquiry findsFormer Labour MP Keith Vaz was responsible for “sustained and unpleasant” bullying of a parliamentary clerk, a House of Commons inquiry has found.A two-year inquiry into Mr Vaz carried out by an independent expert panel (IEP) found his bullying had a “real and enduring psychological impact” on a member of staff, writes The Independent’s Adam Forrest.The ex-MP for Leicester East “should be ashamed of his behaviour”, said the panel – which also ruled that his eligibility to hold a pass allowing for members access to parliament should never be restored.Joe Middleton23 September 2021 12:201632395456Ending Troubles prosecutions in Northern Ireland ‘could breach international law’, Council of Europe warnsThe UK may be about to breach international law with its controversial plan to end all Troubles-era prosecutions in Northern Ireland, the Council of Europe is warningThe controversial plans – which would also end all legacy inquests and civil actions from the conflict – appears to be an unconditional amnesty, its human rights commissioner says.In a letter, Dunja Mijatović tells ministers they “might bring the United Kingdom into conflict with its international obligations, notably the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)”.The Independent’s deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports.Joe Middleton23 September 2021 12:101632394664Tory MPs call for Government to reduce or abolish VAT on energy billsThe Government should reduce or abolish VAT on energy bills, two Conservative former ministers have told the House of Commons.Christchurch MP Sir Christopher Chope said: “Why don’t we reduce VAT on fuel as a temporary measure?“We did it for the hospitality industry, which was badly affected by Covid-19. Why don’t we abolish VAT for consumers on fuel now?”He was followed by the MP for Harlow, Robert Halfon, who told the Commons: “I am sure the Conservative answer to this is to reduce VAT on energy bills, something that was pledged by those who support Brexit in the EU referendum.“He will say it is up to the Treasury to decide, but he is very persuasive. He believes in tax cuts and I know if he went to see the Chancellor, he would ensure that we will get VAT cuts on energy bills.”Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng replied: “As he knows, I see the Chancellor on a regular basis and I am delighted to inform him that these conversations tend to be confidential.”Joe Middleton23 September 2021 11:571632393533Sadiq Khan refuses to back Keir Starmer over Labour leadership rulesMayor of London Sadiq Khan has refused to back Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to end the one member, one vote system which elected Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.Labour mayor was asked three times if he supported Sir Keir’s proposal to replace existing rules with a return to an electoral college system, which would give MPs and unions a much greater say.But Mr Khan three times spurned the chance to back the party leader. “I’ve got to be frank, as the mayor of London, internal party rules isn’t at the fore of my mind,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.The Independent’s Adam Forrest has the details.Joe Middleton23 September 2021 11:38 More

The UK may be about to breach international law with its controversial plan to end all Troubles-era prosecutions in Northern Ireland, the Council of Europe is warningThe controversial plans – which would also end all legacy inquests and civil actions from the conflict – appears to be an unconditional amnesty, its human rights commissioner says.In a letter, Dunja Mijatović tells ministers they “might bring the United Kingdom into conflict with its international obligations, notably the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)”.“The blanket, unconditional nature of the amnesty in your proposal effectively means that none of those involved in any serious violations will be held to account, leading to impunity,” says the letter, seen by The Guardian.“Beyond the impact on justice for victims and their families … this is also deeply problematic from the perspective of access to justice and the rule of law.”In July, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis announced an end to all prosecutions for Troubles incidents up to April 1998, involving both military veterans as well as ex-paramilitaries.Boris Johnson hailed an opportunity to “draw a line under the Troubles” and the plans were welcomed by Conservative MPs for ensuring British soldiers will not face possible prosecution.But the Irish government, all main parties in Northern Ireland, Labour and victims’ groups condemned them, several branding them a “de facto amnesty for killers”.Legal experts in Belfast concluded the proposed amnesty would be wider than the one Augusto Pinochet introduced to shield human rights violators in Chile.The level of impunity would be more sweeping than almost 300 other post-conflict amnesties introduced around the world, their report said.More than 3,500 people died during the Troubles, which began in the early 1970s and only ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.In a reply to Ms Mijatović, Mr Lewis appears to indicate that the government has not yet decided on the extent of a possible statute of limitations.“In publishing our proposals for addressing the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past in the command paper of 14 July, we were clear that these were intended not to represent a final position but rather to inform a process of engagement,” he wrote.“This engagement – which involves meeting with political representatives, representatives from the victims’ sector and victims and survivors directly – is ongoing.”The plans have also triggered opposition in the US Congress, where 36 members wrote to Mr Johnson warning they would put a severe strain on the British-Irish relationship.The proposed legacy laws would also “cement widespread feelings” that justice is being denied, they said. More

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has refused to back Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to end the one member, one vote system which elected Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.Labour mayor was asked three times if he supported Sir Keir’s proposal to replace existing rules with a return to an electoral college system, which would give MPs and unions a much greater say.But Mr Khan three times spurned the chance to back the party leader. “I’ve got to be frank, as the mayor of London, internal party rules isn’t at the fore of my mind,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.The senior Labour figure said he had not had “a chance to look into the changes being considered” and repeated that the plan was “not at the fore of my mind as mayor”.Sir Keir’s efforts to change the leadership rules have sparked another internal dispute after failing to secure union support ahead the party’s conference in Brighton, which starts on Saturday.The Independent understands union leaders do not want the proposal to go to a vote at the party conference, while left-wing grassroots group Momentum warned it could “mark the start of a civil war in the party”.Unite’s new general secretary Sharon Graham has urged Sir Keir to “think again” – calling the proposed changes “unfair, undemocratic and a backwards step”.Under Sir Keir’s plan, Labour members would only get a third of the votes in future leadership contests, while Labour MPs and the unions would also be given a third of the vote.Despite pressure to delay the proposal until after the conference, the Labour leader is said to be considering putting his idea to the party’s governing body on Friday.Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, a leading figure in the Corbyn era, accused Sir Keir of focusing on “internal factional pursuits” in a bid to give the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) more power.The attacks come as Sir Keir said set out his vision for Labour to be “Britain’s bricks and mortar” in an 11,500-word essay for the Fabian Society published on Wednesday night.The response has been mixed. Commentator Rafael Behr said the document was “a necklace of platitudes strung together with banalities, fastened with cliche,” but former Gordon Brown adviser Theo Bertram said it had “substance and significance”.Labour frontbencher Lucy Powell called it a “well-written, compelling read”, but Mr McDonnell told The Independent the lengthy pamphlet was filled with “platitudes” and did not have any information on “what a Labour government would actually do.”Oliver Dowden, Conservative Party co-chairman, said: “If this is Starmer’s ‘big vision’ then he should have gone to Specsavers. Labour are talking to themselves about themselves. They’re all essays and no action.”Meanwhile, Mr Khan has warned that time is running out to act on the climate emergency, set to have devastating effects on the capital. “We either take bold action now or face the consequences, with catastrophic impacts on our environment,” he will say at a speech on Thursday.The mayor will launch a London-wide environmental campaign to raise awareness of the crisis and engage Londoners with changes such as the ultra-low emission zone expansion.It comes as analysis suggests rising temperatures could make the Tube potentially unbearably hot for more than a month a year, while a quarter of London’s rail stations are now at high risk of flooding. More

Gordon Brown has fiercely condemned ministers for the upcoming cut to universal credit, suggesting he has never seen a government act “so callously”.The former prime minister said the withdrawal of the £20-a-week uplift on 6 October could not come at a worse time for struggling households, which face the prospect of rising food and energy costs.“I have never seen a government act so callously and with so little concern for the consequences of their actions on the poorest in our society,” he said.Writing in the Guardian, he also called the reduction “more economically illogical, socially divisive and morally indefensible than anything I have witnessed in this country’s politics”.The universal credit uplift was introduced at the start of the pandemic and was initially intended to last a year, before being extended by another six months.However, politicians and charities have urged the government to make the change permanent, warning that its removal in the current financial climate could push hundreds of thousands more people into poverty.A new report by Citizens Advice predicted that as many as 1.5 million people could be plunged into hardship this winter by what it called a “disastrous decision”. It also estimated that up to 600,000 universal credit claimants are concerned about not being able to afford food if the change goes ahead.Dame Clare Moriarty, the organisation’s chief executive, said: “The government has shown in this pandemic that it’s willing to support people through hard times.”With a cost of living crisis under way, it must reverse the disastrous decision to cut this lifeline.”Some Tory politicians are also opposed to the reduction, including former leader Iain Duncan Smith and former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson.Ms Davidson recently told ITV that the decision was “bad politics”, adding that “it’s the wrong thing to do for people on low incomes”. More

A second data breach at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could have compromised the safety of dozens more Afghans, it has emerged.The details of 55 Afghan citizens who might be eligible for relocation to the UK under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap) were mistakenly made public in an email, rather than being hidden to shield their identities, according to the BBC.This comes shortly after the defence secretary Ben Wallace launched an investigation into how a similar error – affecting more than 250 people – was made.There are fears that the two email chains could endanger lives if the Taliban were to get hold of the personal information they contained.Politicians from both sides of the aisle were quick to condemn the government over the mistakes, with shadow defence secretary John Healey saying the breach had “needlessly put lives at risk”.“This is the second major data breach from the MoD this year, after sensitive documents were discovered at a bus stop in Kent in June. Clearly, the defence secretary needs to get his house in order.”Tory MP Johnny Mercer, a former soldier and defence minister, also hit out at the MoD and Home Office by suggesting they had failed in their duty to protect Afghan interpreters.After the first Afghan data breach came to light, he tweeted on Monday that the “vast majority” of interpreters had been left behind and were “probably moving house again tonight”.Responding to the saga, an MoD spokesperson said: “We have been made aware of a data breach that occurred earlier this month by the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy team. This week, the defence secretary instigated an investigation into data handling within that team.”Steps have now been taken to ensure this does not happen in the future. We apologise to those affected and extra support is being offered to them.”Mr Wallace apologised in the Commons on Tuesday for the first error. “It is an unacceptable level of service that has let down the thousands of members of the armed forces and veterans. On behalf of the Ministry of Defence, I apologise.”The latest debacle is not the first time the government has been accused of endangering Afghan lives. It was revealed last month that documents identifying Afghan workers had been left at the British diplomatic mission in Kabul, something Mr Wallace said was “not good enough”.After the Taliban swept to power last month, they went on a PR offensive, promising the international community they would respect women’s rights and not take retribution against government workers. However, their actions seem at odds with their words, as they have clamped down on women’s freedoms and hunted down former officials. More

Priti Patel’s new asylum plan stigmatises those seeking asylum in the UK as “unworthy and unwelcome” and creates a two-tier system that would be in violation of international law, the UN Refugee Agency has said.The UK Nationality and Borders Bill, which the government has introduced in order to deter people from attempting “illegal” entry into the UK, will create a “lower class of status” for the majority of refugees who arrive in the country spontaneously, the UNHCR said.The bill, which was published in July and is currently going through parliament, would make it a criminal offence for an asylum-seeker to arrive in the UK without permission. Asylum seekers would face up to four years in prison if convicted.It also seeks to “rapidly remove” asylum seekers who arrive in the UK via unauthorised routes, and grant them only temporary protection, with limited rights if it cannot immediately do so.Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor, UNHCR’s UK representative, said there was no evidence the bill would achieve its aim of deterring asylum-seekers from travelling to the UK without the correct documents. She said: “This bill would undermine, not promote, the government’s stated goal of improving protection for those at risk of persecution. It seems to be aimed at deterring refugees, but there’s no evidence that would be the result.“Those arriving irregularly will be stigmatised as unworthy and unwelcome, kept in a precarious status for ten years, denied access to public funds unless destitute. Family reunion will be restricted.”The bill is based on the notion that asylum-seekers should seek sanctuary in the “first safe country” they arrive in – however the UNHCR said there was no such requirement under international law, and the principle was not in the 1951 Refugee Convention. The UN body said requiring all refugees to claim asylum in the first safe country would be “unworkable”.Ms Pagliuchi-Lor added: “This differentiation of treatment has no basis in international law. “The Convention’s definition of a refugee doesn’t vary according to the route of travel, choice of country of asylum, or the timing of a claim. Are we saying that an Afghan refugee is less deserving in the UK than when in Iran or Pakistan?“There are no quick fixes to what is a global problem. The humane solution lies in working with neighbours on refugee transfers – and with countries of origin on returns of those who are not refugees and have no right to remain – and improving the UK system.” More