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Ministers are considering introducing a windfall tax on firms that have benefitted from soaring wholesale gas prices in recent weeks as energy firms struggle, the business secretary has suggested.Kwasi Kwarteng did not rule out such a move when asked by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee about the possibility of a levy on “the generators and traders who are making very significant profits”, which has been used in Spain, to fund protections for customers.“We are looking at all options,” Mr Kwarteng told the committee. “What they are doing in Spain is recognising that it’s an entire system – the energy system is an entire system.“I am in discussion with Ofgem and other officials, looking at all options.”However, the minister added that he was “not a fan” of windfall taxes in principle, despite the option being considered in order to protect the UK’s energy system.His comments came as Avro Energy and Green Supplier Limited became the latest energy suppliers to go out of business due to the price spike, with about 1.5 million customers now affected by firms leaving the market this month.The UK’s electricity and gas regulator Ofgem has said that it will ensure that a new supplier is appointed to take over Avro’s 580,000 customers and Green’s 255,000 households, which collectively supply 2.9 per cent of the UK’s domestic energy customers.The regulator also said on Wednesday that households could continue to use gas and electricity as before while a new supplier is found.“Under our safety net we’ll make sure your energy supplies continue. If you have credit on your Avro Energy or Green Supplier Limited account this is protected and you will not lose the money that is owed to you,” Ofgem director of retail Neil Lawrence said.Additional reporting by PA More

Ireland’s prime minister has rejected a suggestion that US president Joe Biden does not fully understand the issues around Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trading arrangements after comments made by a UK government minister.Environment secretary George Eustice suggested on Wednesday that Mr Biden’s concerns were based on “just reading the headlines” and listening to accounts from the EU on the post-Brexit situation.“Anybody who suggests President Biden doesn’t get Northern Ireland or understand it is wrong. He understands it very well,” Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin told reporters in New York.Mr Martin, who will chair a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday, added that Irish diplomats in Washington had taken every opportunity to brief the US administration on the situation in Northern Ireland.He also suggested that he was confident a solution could be found to the ongoing row between London and Brussels over the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which has created a trade barrier for products crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain.“The focus has to switch now, for the UK government, the Irish government and the EU working in partnership to resolve these issues,” Mr Martin said.“I believe the European Union is up for a solution. Where there’s a will there’s a way and these issues can be resolved.”On Wednesday, Mr Eustice claimed that the US president was “wrong” to have concerns about the Good Friday Agreement and did not “fully appreciate” the row over the Protocol.“[Mr Biden] is probably at the moment just reading the headlines, reading what the EU is saying, reading what Ireland might be saying, which is that they would like the Northern Ireland Protocol to work in the way the EU envisage,” the Cabinet minister told Sky News.“We think he is wrong because the truth is that unless we have a sustainable solution that enables trade to continue between GB and Northern Ireland then we are going to have issues, and that itself would become a challenge to the Belfast Agreement.”His comments followed a White House meeting between Mr Biden and Boris Johnson, in which the US leader said that he felt “very strongly” about issues surrounding the peace process in Ireland and Northern Ireland.“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 said.Mr Johnson also noted that he agreed with the president on this issue, adding: “On that point, Joe, we’re completely at one, nobody wants to see anything that interrupts or unbalances the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.”Downing Street said this week that the prime minister updated Mr Biden on developments with the protocol since they last met in June.Additional reporting by PA More

Boris Johnson has called on world leaders to be “awesome” at November’s climate change summit in Glasgow, as he completed a US visit which has heightened expectations of a deal to curb global warming.The prime minister said he had upgraded his assessment of the chances of success in Glasgow from six out of 10, following a $5bn (£3.7bn) climate finance pledge from Joe Biden and a Chinese promise to stop building coal-fired power stations overseas.But he stepped up pressure on Beijing to follow up its initiative by also swearing off investment in the fossil fuel domestically, at a time when 43 new coal-fired power plants and 18 blast furnaces are slated for construction in China.In a keynote speech to the United Nations general assembly in New York, Mr Johnson said that Glasgow must mark “a turning point for humanity”, when countries come together to throw off the adolescent belief that they can continue trashing their home planet for their own gratification without reaping the consequences.But he insisted that this need not mean sacrificing prosperity or the capitalist search for economic growth.Instead, he said that private sector investment in science and innovation would deliver the breakthroughs needed to keep temperature rises within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.He pointed to the UK’s record of moving from 80 per cent reliance on coal to less than two per cent, as well as the rapidly growing British market for electric vehicles and the country’s position as the “Saudi Arabia of offshore wind”, as indications of how government investment and private sector innovation could drive the move towards net-zero.In a direct challenge to Beijing, he said: “I thank President Xi for what he has done to end China’s international financing of coal and I hope China will now go further and phase out the domestic use of coal as well, because the experience of the UK shows it can be done.”Assuring fellow leaders that halting climate change need not mean destroying growth, he said: “When Kermit the frog sang It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green, I want you to know, he was wrong – and he was also unnecessarily rude to Miss Piggy.“We have the technology. We have the choice before us.”Failure at Glasgow to deliver the carbon-emission reductions and the $100bn fund to help developing countries adapt would consign the world to insupportable temperature rises of 2.7 degrees or more by the end of the century, leading to “desertification, drought, crop failure, and mass movements of humanity on a scale not seen before”, he warned.And he said: “Our grandchildren will know that we are the culprits, and that we were warned.“And they will know that it was this generation that came centre stage to speak and act on behalf of posterity and that we missed our cue“And they will ask what kind of people we were to be so selfish and so short-sighted.”Mankind was “awesome in our power to change things and awesome in our power to save ourselves”, said the prime minister.“And in the next 40 days we must choose what kind of awesome we are going to be.“I hope that Cop26 will be a 16th birthday for humanity in which we choose to grow up, to recognise the scale of the challenge we face, to do what posterity demands we must.“And I invite you in November to celebrate what I hope will be a coming of age and to blow out the candles of a world on fire.”Arriving in the US at the start of his three-day visit on Monday, Mr Johnson gave a gloomy “six out of 10” assessment of the chances of reaching a deal at Glasgow to take on the climate accords secured in Paris in 2015.But as he completed his stay, buoyed by president Biden’s promise to double US contributions to climate finance, a more confident PM told reporters: “When I said six out of 10 it was more than 50/50. I thought we were in with a good chance.“The worst thing now would be any kind of complacency. There are lots of things that now have to go right. Some things are starting to go a bit better now.” More

Keir Starmer has unveiled “10 key principles” behind his pitch for power, but omitted many of the left-wing pledges that helped win him the Labour leadership.Promises to pursue “economic justice”, “common ownership”, “equality” and to “defend migrants’ rights” are not mentioned in a 14,000-word essay released ahead of a make-or-break party conference.Instead, the Labour leader’s “10 simple key principles” include to “put hard-working families first”, to reward people who “work hard and play by the rules”, and to restore “honesty, decency and transparency in public life”.They are intended to “form a new agreement between Labour and the British people”, Sir Keir said – but the essay has already been criticised by left-wingers as no substitute for “concrete, punchy opposition”.In the piece, written for the Fabian Society, the party leader also lashes out at Boris Johnson for the Tory party’s “nationalism” and for trying to kick-start a US-style culture war.The “lost decade” since 2010 began with the Tories “using the global financial crisis as a smokescreen for rolling back the state”, he writes.“Second, a lazy, complacent veer from patriotism to nationalism, resulting in a botched exit from the European Union, the erosion of our defence and military capabilities and an unfolding foreign policy disaster in Afghanistan.“And third, the ongoing attempts to import American-style divisions on social, cultural and sometimes national lines.”The document also quotes footballer Raheem Sterling (“England is still a place where a naughty boy who comes from nothing can live his dream”) and punk rocker Joe Strummer (“The future is unwritten”).As he battled to succeed Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 – and to win over Labour’s left-wing membership – Sir Keir unveiled 10 pledges, echoing the aims of the outgoing leader.But instead of promising “equality”, Sir Keir now says he will tackle “inequality of opportunity” – and there is no mention of whether “rail, mail, energy and water” will still be nationalised.A 2019 pledge to “repeal the Trade Union Act” has become a vow to “give people stronger rights to be represented at work by their trade unions to help raise standards and protect workers”.Labour would also “introduce a new Race Equality Act in the UK, aimed at tackling the complex structural racism that holds back people”, according to the document.The 10 principles in the essay, titled “The Road Ahead”, are listed as follows:* We will always put hard-working families and their priorities first.* If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be rewarded fairly.* People and businesses are expected to contribute to society, as well as receive.* Your chances in life should not be defined by the circumstances of your birth – hard work and how you contribute should matter.* Families, communities and the things that bring us together must once again be put above individualism.* The economy should work for citizens and communities. It is not good enough to just surrender to market forces.* The role of government is to be a partner to private enterprise, not stifle it.* The government should treat taxpayer money as if it were its own. The current levels of waste are unacceptable.* The government must play its role in restoring honesty, decency and transparency in public life.* We are proudly patriotic but we reject the divisiveness of nationalism.John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor under Mr Corbyn, told The Independent: “It reads like a focus-group-crafted version of the Sermon on the Mount, filled with platitudes but with no content of what a Labour government would actually do.”And Jon Trickett, Mr Corbyn’s campaign coordinator in 2017, accused the new leader of “a policy-free retread of language from the mid 1990s”, the era preceding Tony Blair’s period in office.“He needs to explain how we judge the differences between the two ten-point plans and why this has happened. Has the first-ten point list been abandoned, and why?” Mr Trickett said.Sir Keir also makes an audacious snatch for the slogan that delivered the Brexit referendum result, arguing that only Labour can finally allow people to “take back control”.“The desire of people across the country to have real power and control – expressed most forcibly in the Brexit vote – remains unmet,” he writes. More

The Labour leader started writing his long essay, now published as a Fabian Society pamphlet, when he was travelling the country this year, talking to people whose votes the party had lost.He claims to have sensed that Boris Johnson’s appeal was beginning to wear thin, and that people were prepared to look again at Labour, so he tried to set out the kind of argument that might win them back.The pamphlet begins by declaring: “People in this country are crying out for change.” He sets out where the country went wrong in the “lost decade” of the 2010s; what it learnt about “the power of people working together” during the pandemic; and the choice for the future.He tries to tie Boris Johnson to 11 years of Conservative rule, including the attempt by David Cameron and George Osborne to “roll back the state”. More ambitiously, however, he tries to lay claim to the slogan Take Back Control. “The desire of people across the country to have real power and control – expressed most forcibly in the Brexit vote – remains unmet,” Starmer argues. He promises that the next Labour government will “give people the means to take back control”.Although Johnson presents himself as different from his Tory predecessors and points to the huge public spending on furlough and business support as evidence, Starmer argues that this conversion is not real, and that the Conservatives’ true colours are starting to show. “This current government might talk a different talk,” he says, “but when it came down to it, they used the pandemic to hand billions of pounds of taxpayer money to their mates and to flout the rules they expected everyone else to live by.”That is the argument running through the pamphlet: that the country now has the chance to build on the solidarity shown during the pandemic, or to go back to the selfishness and individualism of Conservative business as usual. With a secondary argument that, although Johnson presents himself as the change, his party hasn’t really changed and he cannot be trusted.The essay contains a number of side-arguments. It accuses the Conservatives of having veered from patriotism to nationalism – the symptoms of which include “a botched exit from the European Union, the erosion of our defence and military capabilities and an unfolding foreign policy disaster in Afghanistan”. It distinguishes between nationalism, which divides, using the flag as a threat, and patriotism, which unites, using the flag as a celebration. And it attacks Johnson for trying to import “American-style divisions on cultural lines”.It includes some surprisingly pro-business lines: “Business is a force for good in society.” But also some rather airy rhetoric about fundamental change to the economy: “That means a new settlement between the government, business and working people. It means completely rethinking where power lies in our country – driving it out of the sclerotic and wasteful parts of a centralised system and into the hands of people and communities across the land.”The pamphlet concludes with 10 “principles to form a new agreement between Labour and the British people”. The cynic might say that these are designed to overwrite the 10 Corbynite pledges on which Starmer was elected leader, as none of them bears any resemblance to his leadership manifesto.These are described as 10 principles for a “contribution society”, which Starmer defines as: “One where people who work hard and play by the rules can expect to get something back, where you can expect fair pay for fair work, where we capture the spirit that saw us through the worst ravages of the pandemic and celebrate the idea of community and society; where we understand that we are stronger together.”The principles begin with: “We will always put hard-working families and their priorities first.” Only two of them are remotely specific. The fourth is: “Your chances in life should not be defined by the circumstances of your birth.” That is the end of the royal family, then. And the eighth: “The government should treat taxpayer money as if it were its own. The current levels of waste are unacceptable.” That could be a popular theme if ministers become complacent.Overall, the pamphlet sets out an ambitious but mostly platitudinous argument for Labour to lay claim to one of the oldest political slogans, namely “change vs more of the same”. Its test will be in whether those lost Labour voters to whom Starmer spoke in Ipswich, Wolverhampton and Blackpool decide that Johnson can offer them the change they say they want. More

Boris Johnson has told Emmanuel Macron to “get a grip” in the row over Britain’s new defence partnership with the US and Australia, telling reporters he was “taken aback” by the vitriolic reaction from Paris.US president Joe Biden sought to soothe French anger today with a phone call in which he assured Macron that France would get better consultation on future initiatives.But Mr Johnson insisted that the Aukus pact had never been intended to “crowd out” the French, and said that he and Biden want the partnership to form part of a wider democratic counterweight to Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.In their White House meeting on Tuesday, the pair discussed how to build on the new arrangement to bring like-minded nations on board with technological and political initiatives to “recapture the Western lead” in what is increasingly becoming a theatre of contest between different ideologies.Mollified by the Biden call, Mr Macron agreed to send his ambassador back to Washington, days after withdrawing him for the first time in US history in what was a remarkable expression of hostility between such close allies.But Mr Johnson risked restarting the row by telling the French president to “donnez-moi un break” after a week of invective directed at the Anglophone trio from Paris, which characterised the new trilateral partnership as a “stab in the back”.Biden and Johnson expressed astonishment in their Oval Office chat at the furious tone of the French response, which saw ministers accuse Australia of “betrayal” and brand the UK a “vassal” of Washington.Both were assured by Australian prime minister Scott Morrison that he had warned Paris in advance of his decision to ditch a €56bn (£48bn) deal for French diesel-electric submarines, in favour of nuclear-powered vessels from the US which he believes are better suited to Canberra’s needs.There are suspicions in London that French ire was fuelled by embarrassment at their intelligence and diplomats having failed to pick up on signals of a change of heart in Australia, as well as by considerations of what compensation may be payable.The loss of the contract is thought to have been particularly keenly felt by foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian because the diesel subs were due to be built in his constituency, supporting large numbers of jobs.Mr Johnson suggested that Mr Morrison may have left it late to inform Paris of his intentions, comparing the Aussie PM to a lover putting off telling his partner that she is being dumped.“It’s just one of those things,” said the PM. “There are no easy ways of having these conversations. It’s a very human thing to delay the conversation until the last possible moment. I don’t know if anyone’s been in that situation in their emotional life, but it’s very human to put it off.”In their Oval Office talks, Johnson and Biden slammed the door shut on further countries joining the Aukus defence pact, with the most obvious candidates ruled out because New Zealand has a no-nukes policy and Canada is not seeking access to the technology.“Aukus has its own logic,” said Johnson. “This is the right group.”But the pair spent much of the 90-minute meeting discussing methods of building up democratic influence in the region, talking through the advantages of offering greater involvement for countries like Australia, India and South Korea in the activities of the G7 group of leading economies or establishing a more formal D10 group of democracies.Mr Johnson said a key factor would be building up technological capability in areas like cyber and artificial intelligence so democratic nations never again find themselves dependent on Chinese hardware as the UK was when it was forced to tear out Huawei 4G telecommunications kit. Other areas for deepening the strategic relationship would include mutual support for open markets and human rights.The conversation reflected growing conviction that the West must not cede any more ground to China and Russia and should counter the attractions of their authoritarian models to smaller countries seeking powerful mentors.Speaking after talks with leading Democrat and Republican Congressmen, Mr Johnson said the Aukus concept had been given a universal “thumbs-up”, adding: “What I found on Capitol Hill was they want to populate the agenda with all sorts of other things which matter.“What we need Is a Western technology on which we can rely and the fact is the Chinese are ahead on some of these things. We want to try and recapture the western lead on some of these things – on cyber, on AI.“We want to reach out to other partners, this is not an exclusive thing. Joe is keen to look at the formula and the detail on D10, the G7-plus, the other Indo-Pacific democracies,  Japan, India, Australia and try to bring everyone in that way. In that group, you couldn’t do the full sharing of the technology which underpins Aukus.”Mr Johnson said the row over Australia’s contract for French subs was a matter for Paris and Canberra, but that the UK remained “massively” invested in its relationship with its cross-Channel neighbour. “We love France,” he told reporters.But in a TV interview earlier in the day, the PM betrayed his irritation at a week of invective from Paris, saying: “I just think it’s time for some of our dearest friends around the world to prenez un grip about this and donnez-moi un break.“Because this is fundamentally a great step forward for global security. It’s three very like-minded allies standing shoulder to shoulder creating a new partnership for the sharing of technology. It’s not exclusive. It’s not trying to shoulder anybody out. It’s not adversarial towards China for instance.”His foray into Franglais won a scathing response from former ambassador to France and national security adviser Peter Ricketts, who said they were likely to antagonise Paris further.“Words fail me,” said Lord Ricketts. “How is mocking the French going to help anything?” More

A former police and crime commissioner candidate is to be charged with making a false declaration in the nomination papers.Jonathon Seed won the election in Wiltshire, but was barred from taking up the role just hours after the polls closed in May, when it emerged he had a conviction for drink-driving.The Conservative councillor withdrew from the role before voting took place, saying he was disappointed at not being able to take up the post.It transpired that he won a combined total of 47 per cent of the vote.Thames Valley Police launched an investigation into the circumstances of the election and passed a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).Rosemary Ainslie, head of special crime at the CPS, said: “The Crown Prosecution Service has today authorised police to charge Jonathon Seed with making a false declaration in the nomination papers for the Wiltshire 2020 Police and Crime Commissioner elections.“The charge relates to an allegation he made a false declaration that he was not disqualified from election as a Police and Crime Commissioner.“The CPS made the decision that he should be charged after reviewing a file of evidence from Thames Valley Police.“The CPS reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are active and that he has the right to a fair trial. It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice proceedings.”In a by-election for the post last month, Conservative Philip Wilkinson was elected.Seed, 63, is due to appear at Oxford magistrates’ court on 19 October. More

Keir Starmer is facing the prospect of defeat or a humilitating U-turn over his plans to change Labour leadership election rules, after he failed to secure the backing of trade unions at a crucial meeting.A rejection or backtrack over the controversial plans would be a major blow to Sir Keir’s authority ahead of his first in-person party conference as leader, which is due to kick off in Brighton at the weekend. Critics have even raised the possiblity of a fresh leadership election if he presses ahead with the proposals.The Labour leader met with union chiefs at the party’s trade union liaison committee on Wednesday, and was hoping to secure their votes for the changes on Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and at conference next week. But The Independent understands that all unions in the room were either hesitant or outright opposed to the rule change, leaving Sir Keir with the choice of either shelving the changes or pressing ahead and potentially losing the vote.Under the proposals, outlined yesterday, Labour would ditch the system of ‘one member, one vote’ introduced by Ed Miliband in 2014 – under which both Sir Keir himself and his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn were elected.Instead, the party would move back to an electoral college system, in which Labour MPs’ 199 votes would hold as much weight as the party’s entire 430,000-strong membership.Critics say the move amounts to “gerrymandering” and a factional ploy to lock the party’s left out of power by concentrating power in the hands of MPs, but Sir Keir’s allies say MPs’ votes should count for more than those of ordinary members. Yet sources present at the meeting say Sir Keir failed even to secure cast-iron support from moderate-led unions such as USDAW and Community, traditional allies of the Labour right, whose votes he would need in order to pass the changes.One key union, the GMB, did not attend the gathering, though its position is still undecided. The Independent understands that its general secretary, Gary Smith, could not attend as he already had plans to meet with members in Yorkshire. One GMB source said: “He is very members-first.”Some union chiefs are said to be particularly nonplussed at having the rule change sprung on them at the last minute, while one source on the Labour left described the electoral college plan as “dead” following the meeting, despite assurances from the leader’s office and unions that discussions would continue. Labour’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, a key figure on the party’s left wing, said Sir Keir should hold a leadership contest over the proposals if he wanted them to go ahead. “If he wants to plough ahead, in all honesty he should go back to the people who elected him in the first place and say, look, this is what I didn’t tell you. This is what I want to do.“And yes, that does mean a leadership election… why not? If he feels so strongly about this,” said Mr McDonnell, speaking on the Northern Agenda podcast.In a joint statement, the Labour Party and Aslef’s Mick Whelan, the chair of the committee, said: “Keir Starmer and Labour’s affiliated trade union leaders had a positive meeting this afternoon to discuss the rule changes that the Labour leader would like to bring to conference in Brighton.“There was broad consensus on the need to refocus the Labour party on the country and concerns of working people. Discussions will continue.”Sir Keir’s plans to strip members of equal votes in leadership elections have been fiercely opposed by MPs on the party’s left wing, with veteran MP Jon Trickett saying on Tuesday that any such move was “a wrong-headed backwards step which ought to be rejected”.To pass, the proposals would need to be approved by the NEC at a scheduled meeting on Friday evening. Sir Keir ordinarily has a majority on the committee for most business, but relies on the support of moderate-led unions, who are not convinced of the plan.If the plan makes it through the NEC it will then be considered by the party conference, where the outcome is more uncertain as much would depend on the balance of forces among delegates, whose allegiances are not always obvious. Issuing his own statement after the meeting, Sir Keir said: “Today’s TULO meeting was a welcome opportunity to set out some of the rule changes I believe will strengthen our party, our link with the unions and our ability to win the next election.“We had a positive conversation and I look forward to continuing those conversations through the coming days, because the principles are important and we have to look at how we need to change to win again.“I said yesterday this was never a ‘take it or leave it’ conversation. I am continuing to take suggestions and have discussions about how we do everything we need to in order to make the Labour Party the party of working people again.” More