Markus Andrews

Billions pledged by the UK to help poorer countries meet the climate emergency is being taken from the shrunken overseas aid budget, the government has confirmed.The £2.3bn-a-year contribution to a hoped-for $100bn global “climate finance” pot will count as official development assistance (ODA), MPs were told – despite ODA being slashed by around £4bn-a-year.The Independent revealed in July that no extra money is being provided for climate finance, despite a United Nations-brokered agreement that the funds must be “new and additional”.Campaigners protested that the sleight-of-hand left the government’s claim to be leading the world on the critical issue in tatters, ahead of hosting the crucial Cop26 summit in November.Now Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, has confirmed the arrangement, after Boris Johnson – at the UN, in New York City – announced an initial £550m is being released“The prime minister announced £550m of official development assistance that will be allocated to support developing countries to meet net zero. We are leading by example at home and abroad,” Mr Raab said.Mr Johnson has made galvanising help for developing countries adapt to the devastating consequences of global heating a top priority for Cop26 – after the $100bn annual fund stood $20bn short.Joe Biden gave that aim a significant boost when he said the US will double its contribution to $11.4bn (£8.3bn) per year and urged other wealthy countries to follow suit.The prime minister welcomed the move as a “very good start” that went “a long way” towards the $100bn goal, with little more than 5 weeks to the summit.At the G7 summit in June, he hailed his £11.6bn commitment to the developing world – spread over five years – and vowed to pester other countries to stump up more cash.“We, as the rich nations of the Earth, we need to build our credibility with those countries in asking them to make cuts in CO2,” he said.“Because this country, which started the Industrial Revolution, is responsible for a huge budget of carbon that’s already in the atmosphere.”But the government’s independent climate advisers have warned the aid cuts are already “undermining” the finance pledge.Oxfam protested that taking the money “from a declining aid budget is a bit like your bailiff leaving a bunch of flowers”.The fund recognises the “guilt” of industrialised nations – for centuries of carbon emissions – and is meant to help developing countries protect themselves against the devastating effects of global heating, while cutting their own emissions.Some other Western nations are also believed to count their climate finance as aid, but others – such as some Scandinavian nations – are providing additional money. More

The Home Office has refused to disclose the legal basis on which it plans to use “pushbacks” in the English Channel to turn small boats around.It emerged last week that home secretary Priti Patel had ordered officials to rewrite the UK’s interpretation of maritime laws to allow Border Force to carry out the controversial practice, with members being given special training to turn around small boats.The plans were met with criticism from lawyers, cross-party MPs and charities, who warned that the policy would likely be unworkable and questioning the legal basis on which the practice could be carried out.The French interior minister said his country would not cooperate with the plan, saying it would “not accept any practices that are contrary to maritime law”.During a parliamentary evidence session on Wednesday, permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft confirmed that Border Force officers had been “preparing and trialling” the “new maritime tactic”, but that it had “not been deployed yet”.When asked by Conservative MP Tim Loughton whether the policy was legal, Mr Rycroft replied that there was a legal basis for it to be used “in certain circumstances”.Asked what this legal basis was, Mr Rycroft said that it was the advice from law officers to the government which he “must not disclose”.Pressed by Mr Loughton to refer to the international maritime legal basis on which they think it would be legal for the Home Office to use pushbacks, Mr Rycroft said: “There is a legal basis to operate this policy in certain circumstances. The legality depends on the circumstances.”Second permanent secondary secretary Patricia Hayes, who was also being questioned, said the Home Office did not want to provide detail on operations publicly so as not to give people smugglers arranging the boat crossings an advantage on tactics.In response, Mr Loughton said: “If you bring this into operation and a boat sinks as a result, you’ll be in front of this committee and various other committees having to explain exactly that.”Mr Rycroft also confirmed that the practice would only lead to a “small proportion” of small boats being turned back to France, later conceding it would be closer to 1 per cent than 49 per cent.Responding to the committee hearing, Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said Mr Rycroft’s answers “gave the impression that the government announced the pushback policy for its publicity value rather than to do anything useful to address the needs of those making these perilous crossings”.“Home Office officials have been put in the hopeless position of having to defend a ministerial policy which is life-threateningly dangerous and almost certainly unlawful,” he added.It comes after the Home Office’s assessment of proposed immigration and asylum reforms found there was “limited” evidence this would reduce the number of people trying to cross the Channel.The equality impact assessment for the Nationality and Borders Bill, published last week, states: “Deploying these measures does advance the legitimate aim of encouraging asylum seekers to claim in the first safe country they reach and not undertaking dangerous journeys facilitated by smugglers to get to the UK, though evidence supporting the effectiveness of this approach is limited.”The document also repeatedly states that any discrimination would be “objectively justified” as a “proportionate means” of achieving the policy objectives of the plans, namely to “deter illegal entry into the UK”. More

Boris Johnson has told Emmanuel Macron to “get a grip” and “donnez-moi un break” after France’s furious reaction to the UK’s defence pact with the US and Australia.Paris has branded last week’s Aukus agreement a “stab in the back” because it involved Canberra ditching a 56bn euro deal for French diesel-electric submarines, in favour of nuclear-powered vessels from the US.French ambassadors were recalled from Washington and Canberra, and a senior minister in the Macron administration said that the same response was not meted out to London only because Britain was a “junior partner” in the deal.Mr Johnson earlier this week tried to soothe French anger by insisting that Macron had no reason to worry about the Aukus deal and declaring his “ineradicable” love and admiration for Britain’s cross-Channel neighbour.But speaking in Washington today, he took a more confrontational line, expressing irritation with the French stance.Breaking into Franglais in a way which might have calculated to offend Gallic pride, the prime minister said: “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 comments 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?”The Aukus pact has sparked the deepest rift in years between France and its three Anglophone allies.Paris was given virtually no notice of the trilateral announcement on 15 September, which dealt a heavy blow to France’s security strategy for the Indo-Pacific region, where it has territories in New Caledonia, French Polynesia and the Wallis & Futuna islands.While Mr Macron has not commented in public, he was reported in the French press to be “furious”. Foreign minister Jean-Yves le Drian characterised the Australian contract breach as a “betrayal”.And he explained France’s first ever withdrawal of its ambassador to the US by saying: “This exceptional decision is justified by the exceptional gravity of the  announcements”The snap cancellation of the submarine contract constituted “unacceptable behaviour between allies and partners”, said Le Drian.Meanwhile, Macron’s Europe minister Clement Beaune said that the new alliance reflected the UK accepting the role of US lapdog following Brexit.“As you can see, it is a return to the American fold and accepting a form of vassal status,” he said in a TV interview.“Global Britain seems to be more about [being] a junior partner of the US than working with different allies.”On Monday, Mr Johnson attempted to calm troubled waters in response.“We are very, very proud of our relationship with France and it is of huge importance to this country,” he told reporters travelling with him to the United Nations in New York.“It is a very friendly relationship – an entente cordiale – that goes back a century or more and is absolutely vital for us.”Mr Johnson said the UK works “shoulder to shoulder” with France in Nato’s mission to the Baltic states, as well as in operations in the west African state of Mali and in joint simulations of nuclear weapons tests.“British troops and French troops are side by side,” he said. “There are no two sets of armed forces that are more capable of integration together and working side by side.“This is something that goes very, very deep. Our love of France, our admiration of France is ineradicable.” More

Trans women can be excluded from some “women-only spaces” in some circumstances, Keir Starmer says, as the controversy threatens to open a bitter row in the party.The Labour leader’s spokesman said he remained wedded to the policy on which the party fought the last general election – and that there was “no reason to expect it is going to change”.This meant backing “the implementation of the Equality Act, including the single-sex exemption which allows the provision of women-only spaces”.The law “rightly assumes the inclusion of trans women, except in specific circumstances”, the spokesman said, normally thought to include prisons and refuges.The stance comes after Labour backbencher Rosie Duffield – who has pulled out of the Labour conference over security fears – protested that she did not know where Sir Keir stood on the issue.Last week, the Canterbury MP – who has received threats of violence after her comments on transgender rights – questioned whether Labour was about to change course.She urged Sir Keir to maintain support for “biological females” to feel “protected” in prisons and domestic violence refuges, for example, but said she was “not confident” the policy would be upheld.Ms Duffield held talks with the Labour leader yesterday, as he also met with Labour MPs in the party’s LGBT+ [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights] group.Amid the controversy over the abuse she has received, Sir Keir’s spokesman reiterated that “debate should always be held in an atmosphere of respect for all points of view”.“Keir met with Rosie Duffield yesterday, following on from her request for a meeting,” he said, adding he also met the LGBT+ group separately.On the party’s policy, he said: “Our position on this has not changed [from the 2019 manifesto].“What we have said is that Labour would work to update the Gender Recognition Act to enable a process for gender identification.“And we also continue to support the implementation of the Equality Act, including the single-sex exemption which allows the provision of women-only spaces. This law rightly assumes the inclusion of trans women, except in specific circumstances.”In contrast, the Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said trans women should be allowed to enter all public places, as he accused Boris Johnson of stirring up “a culture war” on the issue.In 2019, Ms Duffield spoke powerfully in the Commons chamber about suffering domestic abuse during a previous relationship.Last week, she said the Equality Act was not specific about women-only spaces, but laid down they should exist “where it is deemed necessary”.“Of course, that’s open to interpretation, but I would have thought – at the very least – that implies domestic violence settings,” Ms Duffield told BBC Radio 4.“Everyone has the right to be protected, and if biological females need more spaces that are just for them … we have the 2010 Equality Act and we have pledged as a party to uphold that.”But, asked if that would be Labour’s policy at the next election, the MP replied: “I’m not confident. We haven’t had another discussion, debate.” More

‘Donnez-moi un break,’ Boris Johnson tells France over AUKUS submarine deal rowBoris Johnson has told Emmanuel Macron to “get a grip” and “donnez-moi un break” after France’s furious reaction to the UK’s defence pact with the US and Australia.In undiplomatic franglais, the prime minister said: “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.”Mr Johnson also dismissed suggestions that gas price hikes could lead to panic-buying in supermarkets, after describing the energy crisis as “temporary”.But a minister has admitted the cost of gas could remain high for some time.A large spike in wholesale gas prices has led to the closure of four energy providers in recent days and to the regulator Ofgem warning that others will also soon go bust. If this happens, millions of people could be affected. Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told MPs on Wednesday that “we have to prepare for longer-term high prices”.Meanwhile, the deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner blamed the government at PMQs for the problems with gas supply. “Their failures paved the way for this crisis that will hit families and businesses. As usual, it’ll be the British people that will have to pay the price,” she said. In response, the deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said the government would maintain supply this year, citing the support it was giving “two critical CO2 plants” to help the food and drink sector. Show latest update

1632321770Rayner claims minimum wage worker needs ‘50 days’ pay’ to stay a night at Raab’s luxury Crete hotelAs mentioned earlier, Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner used PMQs to accuse Dominic Raab of being out of touch with the public. “[Mr Raab] speaks of the economy, but he doesn’t even know how much his own holiday costs – so let me tell him,” she said.“A worker on the minimum wage would need to work an extra 50 days to pay for a single night at his favourite resort.”Rory Sullivan22 September 2021 15:421632321290Unite leader to miss Labour conference Unite’s new leader Sharon Graham will not be attending the upcoming Labour Party conference, insisting that her absence is not a snub to Keir Starmer.She said she would instead be prioritising ongoing industrial disputes, having been elected on a vow to take the union “back to the workplace”.Ashley Cowburn reports: Rory Sullivan22 September 2021 15:341632319970US ban on British lamb to end, says Johnson A two-decade US ban on British lamb will soon end, Boris Johnson has said.Speaking from Washington, the prime minister said: “I can tell you today that what we’re going to get from the United States now is a lifting of the decades-old ban, totally unjustified, discriminating on British farmers and British lamb.”British beef exports to the US were also banned until last year. Rory Sullivan22 September 2021 15:121632318770What are CPTPP and USMCA pacts?Now that a free trade agreement with the US is looking unlikely in the short-term, ministers are reportedly exploring other possibilities. Joining the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) or the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) are two options, with the former seen by experts as highly unrealistic. My colleague Chiara Giordano takes a closer look at both pacts: Rory Sullivan22 September 2021 14:521632317570Energy company collapse leaves 250,000 people in limboEnergy company Green has announced it will stop trading, meaning that a quarter of a million customers will be left in limbo.In a swipe at the government, the firm claimed the government and Ofgem think “smaller suppliers should be left to fail”. “Green fears that smaller energy suppliers are being left behind by the government, with rescue packages being put in place for larger suppliers and for private discussions to be held with the business secretary,” it said. Rory Sullivan22 September 2021 14:321632316719Government eyes windfall tax on companies profiting from gas price rises The government is considering whether to impose a windfall tax on companies that profit from increases in gas prices, the business and energy secretary has said. Pushed on the issue, Kwasi Kwarteng added: “I’m not a fan of windfall taxes, let me just get that straight – but of course it’s an entire system and we have to think of how we can get the whole system to help itself.”Rory Sullivan22 September 2021 14:181632315546Bonfire Night at risk as fireworks supplies hit by Brexit Fireworks have become the latest item hit by Brexit supply chain shortages, with one company predicting a 70 per cent plunge in the industry-wide stock. One company blamed the problems within the industry on changes to product certification post-Brexit, a shortage of labour and increased checks on imports, reports Holly Bancroft:Jane Dalton22 September 2021 13:591632314913Johnson plays down fears of panic-buyingBoris Johnson has dismissed suggestions that rising gas prices could lead to panic-buying in supermarkets. The Prime Minister said: “I don’t think that will happen. I think we’ve got very good supply chains, as I’ve been saying over the last few days, and what we’re seeing is the growing pains of a global economy recovering rapidly from Covid.”Asked whether taxpayer bailouts should be going to a firm owned by a US millionaire, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said: “This is an exceptional short-term arrangement given what we have seen over the course over the last week or so in terms of the issues the lack of CO2 is causing to the industry.“It is a unique circumstance where we have seen other companies that provide the same product be in maintenance, so we will take three weeks to find a market solution.”Pressed on why the Government had not disclosed the exact amount of financial support promised to the fertiliser manufacturer, the spokesman said: “These matters are commercially sensitive. We will obviously set out any details as we always do under transparency laws.”On why CF Fertilisers was only restarting operations at one of its two closed plants, the official said: “We believe the Billingham plant will provide enough CO2 to supply our needs.“My understanding is workers were on site and start-up has commenced, and we would expect it to take 48 hours to produce CO2 for the market.”Downing Street said it had stepped in to assist CF Fertilisers due to the “unique situation” surrounding CO2 production.Jane Dalton22 September 2021 13:481632314406Donnez-moi un break, PM tells MacronBoris Johnson has told French president Emmanuel Macron to “donnez moi un break” and get over his anger about the new military pact forged between the UK, US and Australia. Speaking to reporters in Washington, the Prime Minister said: “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.”Jane Dalton22 September 2021 13:401632313947Marcus Rashford to be studied by GCSE media studies pupilsGCSE media studies pupils will learn about footballer Marcus Rashford’s use of social media after his influential campaigning on child poverty and racism in sport. The Manchester United and England star has been added to the course by exam board AQA, writes Joe Middleton:Jane Dalton22 September 2021 13:32 More

Thousands of pensioners are owed £8,900 after being underpaid due to repeated human errors, complex rules and outdated IT systems, a spending watchdog has ruled.The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates it underpaid 134,000 pensioners and that most of those are likely to have been women, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.The extent of the underpayment is not likely to become clear until DWP has completed a further review of all the cases. But for those it can trace currently they will be paid on average £8,900, with the total being paid back topping £1billion.Meg Hillier, chair of the Committee of Public Accounts said: “Many pensioners – most of whom are likely to be women – have been short-changed by thousands of pounds which they are still yet to receive many years later.“Although it is positive that DWP is now working to put this right, this is not the first widespread error we have seen in DWP in recent years. Correcting these errors comes at great cost to the taxpayer.“DWP must provide urgent redress to those affected and take real action to prevent similar errors in future.”An estimated £339 million will go to pensioners who should have benefited from their spouse’s or civil partner’s national insurance (NI) record; £568 million to widows and widowers who should have inherited more state pension entitlement from their deceased partner; and £146 million to pensioners who should have had an increase in their pension at their 80th birthday.The DWP started exploring the “potential for error” from April 2020 and confirmed that there was a significant issue in August 2020.Errors happened because state pension rules are complex, IT systems are outdated and unautomated, and the administration of claims requires a high degree of manual review and understanding by case workers, the NAO said.“This makes some level of error in the processing of state pension claims almost inevitable,” it added.Caseworkers often failed to set and later action manual IT system prompts on pensioners’ files to review payments at a later date, such as for when people reached state pension age or their 80th birthday, it said.Frontline staff found instructions difficult to use and lacked training on complex cases, according to the findings.The Department does not have a means of reviewing individual complaints or errors, such as how many people are complaining about the same issues, to assess whether the errors have a systemic cause.Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “The impact of the underpayment of state pension on those pensioners affected is significant.“It is vital that the Department for Work and Pensions corrects past underpayments and implements changes to prevent similar problems in future.”A DWP spokesperson said: “We are fully committed to ensuring the historical errors that have been made by successive governments are corrected, and as this report acknowledges, we’re dedicating significant resource to doing so. Anyone impacted will be contacted by us to ensure they receive all that they are owed.“Since we became aware of this issue, we have introduced new quality control processes and improved training to help ensure this does not happen again.”Additional reporting by PA More

Boris Johnson has said he was caught by surprise by the scale of US president Joe Biden’s new commitment to a climate finance fund for developing countries.Speaking during his visit to Washington, Mr Johnson said he could now upgrade his “six out of 10” assessment of the chances of success at the COP26 climate emergency summit he is hosting in Glasgow in November.The prime minister was delighted by Mr Biden’s announcement at the United Nations on Tuesday that he would double the USA’s $5.6bn annual contribution to helping poorer nations develop low-carbon energy sources and adapt to rising temperatures.The move left Mr Johnson $15bn short of hitting the fund’s $100bn-a-year (£73bn) target by the time of the crucial COP summit, when he hopes to build on the Paris Accord of 2015 with emission-cutting commitments which could hold global warming to 1.5 degrees above industrial levels.But it raised UK hopes that Mr Biden’s action will shame other world leaders into following suit and getting the funding pledge – first agreed at Copenhagen in 2009 and due to be met by 2020 – over the line.Mr Johnson told reporters in Washington: “Yesterday the president came through with something that really exceeded our expectations.“I said on the plane out that we had a six in 10 chance of success on that.“Maybe I undercooked it. They really surprised us all on the upside.” More

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner launched an offensive on the newly installed justice secretary, appearing to accuse Dominic Raab of not knowing enough about how much minimum wage workers earn.The pair stood in for their respective bosses Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer at the usual Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) slot, with the former currently in Washington, DC attempting to keep the UK’s much-discussed “special relationship” with the US viable.In a heated back-and-forth that predominantly focused on issues such as the PM’s attempts to secure a trade deal with the US, and incoming energy bill hikes, Ms Rayner went after her Tory counterpart over the cuts facing working people.Circling back to Mr Raab’s infamous family vacation to Greece – which he was on at the time Kabul fell to the Taliban – Ms Rayner asked if the Cabinet minister could tell MPs “how many days a worker on the minimum wage would have to work, this year, in order to afford a night at a luxury hotel – say in Crete”.After some jeers and laughs from both sides of the Commons, including a smirk from Mr Raab himself, he responded by saying past Labour governments had caused “the economy to nosedive, unemployment to soar and taxes to go through the roof”. His failure to answer Ms Rayner’s question, which she quickly pointed out to her colleagues, follows criticism of the Tories for ministers’ failure to understand the true impact and cost of cuts to services such as Universal Credit (UC) and hikes to the National Insurance tax. Therese Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, was accused last week of getting her figures wrong after suggesting that people set to lose £20 a week from their UC could work an extra two hours to make up for it. The Resolution Foundation think-tank later said the true figure was in fact somewhere between nine and 10 hours. Standing to reply, Ms Rayner said: “[Mr Raab] speaks of the economy, but he doesn’t even know how much his own holiday costs – so let me tell him.“A worker on the minimum wage would need to work an extra 50 days to pay for a single night at his favourite resort.”She added the cost would likely be “even more if the sea was open”, referring to Mr Raab’s claim at the time his holiday made the headlines that he was not on the beach when Kabul became occupied because “the sea was closed”. “The very same week that the government is cutting Universal Credit, working people face soaring energy bills,” Ms Rayner said, before telling the deputy PM that the Conservatives were forcing “working people … to choose whether to feed their kids or heat their homes”. Ms Rayner, who is also the party’s shadow secretary of state, posted a series of tweets following her exchange with Mr Raab.In them, she accused the Conservatives of being a party that “doesn’t care about working people and is taking £1,100 out of the pockets of a worker as their energy bills soar”.Journalists, political commentators and social media users alike celebrated Ms Rayner’s victory at the Commons session, with many taking to Twitter to say she “thrashed” Mr Raab and some suggesting she was “so much better” at doing so than Sir Keir. More