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Hancock should have declared affair, says Jacob Rees-MoggBoris Johnson is still facing questions over Matt Hancock’s conduct in office following the former health secretary’s decision to step down last week over his office affair.Downing Street has admitted that Mr Hancock and his deputy, health minister Lord Bethell, did use private emails for government work, despite previously suggesting that the two ministers had not done so.Meanwhile, Lord Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, said the rules for hiring non-executive directors to government departments needed to be changed in light of the “sorry saga” with Mr Hancock.Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg has said Mr Hancock should have declared his intimate relationship with non-executive director Gina Coladangelo, who had “scrutiny” powers at his department.Show latest update

1624949571Hello and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of UK politics today.Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 07:521624950105Questions remain over Hancock’s conduct as health secretarySerious questions remain unanswered over Matt Hancock’s conduct as health secretary after the former minister stepped down over an office affair last week.Following a turbulent few days, it is still unclear how CCTV footage of the affair leaked and whether the appointment of Mr Hancock’s aide Gina Coladangelo was conducted correctly.Our reporter, Jon Stone, has more details below:Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 08:011624950940Labour calls for changes to oversight appointments after Hancock affairLabour has called for changes to the system for picking non-executive directors (NEDs) for government departments amid concerns about how Gina Coladangelo, the aide caught in an office affair with Matt Hancock, was given her role.NEDs are supposed to provide independent scrutiny for departments but some ministers have been accused of using the positions to award Tory donors, peers and MPs.Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner warned that the system was currently “unfit for purpose” and needed to be overhauled.“Non-executive directors of Whitehall departments are supposed to hold ministers to account,” Ms Rayner said.“The behaviour of the Conservatives has proved beyond all doubt that the rules and regulations that are supposed to prevent conflicts of interest and close the revolving door between Whitehall and business are unfit for purpose and need a radical overhaul.”She added on Tuesday morning that problems with the system did not begin and end with Ms Coladangelo’s appointment.Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 08:151624951465Government appointments system needs to change, former civil service head saysThe way that non-executive directors are appointed to government departments needs to change following Matt Hancock’s resignation as health secretary, the former head of the civil service has said.Lord Bob Kerslake told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that ministers should be able to hire NEDs but the process needed to be more transparent and regulated.“The problem really with the current model is about really the appointment process, how it is overseen and indeed clarity about what that role is supposed to be and I’m afraid changes are going to be needed in light of this sorry saga,” Lord Kerslake said.He added: “I think the secretary of state should appoint, as they do for permanent secretaries because actually this is their board, they chair it, and they need to have people on there that they think will help them do their role.“But the process by which that happens needs to be properly open, fair and transparent, not just the minister waking up one morning and saying ‘I would like to have X on my board’.”Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 08:241624952978SNP Westminster leader suggests Johnson is out of touch with public on Hancock affairThe SNP’s Westminster leader has suggested that Boris Johnson is out of touch with the British public after the prime minister chose not to sack Matt Hancock over his office affair last week.Ian Blackford told Sky News that the incident with the former health secretary bore similarities to Dominic Cummings’ breaking of lockdown restrictions during the first wave of the pandemic.The SNP MP suggested that he was shocked at how the prime minister refused to force the minister out of office despite the “public anger” at his behaviour.“I think really a lot of this is about the judgement of the prime minister, not realising the scale of the anger that is there but also suggesting that Matt Hancock could come back into government at some point,” Mr Blackford said.“This is a prime minister who really doesn’t seem to understand how the public feel about these matters.”You can find his comments in full below:Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 08:491624953547There are a number of written ministerial statements set to be made in the House of Commons today, including:Cabinet Office minister Julia Lopez answering an urgent question on the government’s use of emergency Covid contracts.A transport minister responding to an urgent question on plans for international travel this summer.Immigration minister Kevin Foster answering an urgent question on the implementation of the post-Brexit EU Settlement SchemeConrad Duncan29 June 2021 08:591624954334Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has urged the new health secretary Sajid Javid to step down from his role as an advisor to JP Morgan to “avoid any perception of a conflict of interest” as he becomes the minister in charge of the NHS:Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 09:121624954762Hancock’s actions may not lead to more Covid rule breaking, scientific adviser saysA government scientific adviser has suggested that former health secretary Matt Hancock’s decision to break Covid rules is not likely on its own to make people disobey the restrictions.When asked if Mr Hancock’s actions would lead to more people ignoring regulations, Professor Robert West told BBC Radio 4’s Today show: “I think that, in and of itself, that is already being priced in because people don’t really trust politicians.“The risk is if that seeds a wider norm around other people. So I think it’s really up to everyone else, who people do trust – public health officials, the NHS, other public figures – not to go down that route and not to get drawn into that kind of double-speak, as it were.”Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 09:191624955478Labour MP concerned by ‘very troubling’ reports of activists attacked in Batley and SpenLabour MP Yvette Cooper has said that it is “very troubling” to hear about party activists being attacked in Batley and Spen ahead of the constituency’s by-election this week.Ms Cooper told BBC Radio 4’s Today show that it was “particularly distressing” to see such behaviour in the constituency where MP Jo Cox was murdered in 2016.“This is very troubling, there seems to be a temperature in this campaign that we have not seen in previous by-elections, certainly in West Yorkshire more widely,” she said.“Obviously it’s particularly distressing for it to happen in a constituency where we lost Jo Cox five years ago to a far-right extremist and where also Kim Leadbeater, Jo’s sister, is brave and strong in standing to be the MP and I think for this to happen there obviously makes it much harder.“I don’t think that this represents the people of Batley and Spen and we have had lots of warm conversations on the doorstep as well.”Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 09:311624955744Our reporter, Peter Stubley, has more details below on the hostile atmosphere in Batley and Spen seen earlier this week:Conrad Duncan29 June 2021 09:35 More

People in Northern Ireland are “highly exercised” and “evenly split” over the Brexit Protocol, an opinion poll has indicated.The Protocol, which introduces fresh checks on goods arriving into the region from Great Britain following the UK’s departure from the EU, sharply divides opinions at Stormont, with unionists strongly opposed to it.Loyalists have been holding demonstrations against the Protocol across Northern Ireland in recent months while a number of legal challenges have been lodged against it.A new opinion poll conducted by LucidTalk for a team of researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, has found that a majority of people in Northern Ireland have concerns about the current impact of the Protocol.However it also finds that recent protests and political debate since April have “not led to any significant growth in the proportion of voters objecting to it”, suggesting that positions on the Protocol are “already quite well entrenched”.The majority of the 1,500 respondents (67%) said they believe that Northern Ireland does need “particular arrangements” for managing the impact of Brexit, but they are divided on the Protocol itself.When asked whether the Protocol is appropriate for Northern Ireland, 47% agree that it is, but 47% disagree.Meanwhile, 43% think that the Protocol is, on balance, good for Northern Ireland, whereas 48% think that it isn’t, and 56% agree that the Protocol provides Northern Ireland with a unique set of post-Brexit economic opportunities.The research also finds that more people are concerned about the cost of certain products (69%) than the choice of products for consumers (61%) or the existence of checks and controls on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain (58%).A majority of respondents (57%) say that they would like to see the UK agreeing to regulatory alignment with the EU to address this.Only a minority (38%) said that they would like to see such checks and controls moved from ports and airports in Northern Ireland to the Irish land border.Looking ahead to the next Assembly elections, due to take place next May, three-quarters of respondents say that a candidate’s position on the Protocol will be relevant when choosing how to cast their vote.Co-investigator on the project, Professor Katy Hayward, from Queen’s University Belfast, said people are highly exercised by the Protocol, both for and against – and in equal proportions.”The political tensions are compounded by the low levels of trust in the political parties when it comes to the Protocol, and by the fact that the Protocol is likely to feature heavily in the next Assembly election,” she said.The findings showed that the DUP is distrusted by eight out of 10 voters, while Sinn Fein, is distrusted by six out of 10 respondents. Alliance, the SDLP and the UUP are distrusted by around four in 10 respondents.Principal investigator of the project, Professor David Phinnemore, from Queen’s University Belfast, said new questions were asked in the survey, the second of two conducted.”The plurality of respondents believe a greater role should be given to Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement’s north-south and east-west bodies vis-a-vis the Protocol,” he said.”And over two-thirds agreed that the UK’s Lord Frost and European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic should regularly give evidence to a committee in the NI Assembly about their work overseeing the Protocol.”In that sense, Sefcovic’s appearance in Stormont on Monday is a step in the right direction.” More

The burning of coal to generate electricity will be consigned to history in October 2024 – one year earlier than originally planned – the government is promising.Ministers hope the move will persuade other nations to also call time on coal power at the autumn Cop26 summit – billed as the last chance for the world to prevent a climate emergency.Its contribution to the UK’s power mix has already plunged from around 40 per cent less than a decade ago to just 1.8 per cent last year, with more than a third now coming from wind.The new commitment, signalled by Boris Johnson earlier this year, means the outlawing of unabated coal power, without the technology to capture and bury the carbon dioxide emissions produced.But it applies to electricity generation only, not including other uses of coal such as in the steel industry.There was uproar earlier this year when the government cleared the way for a new coking coal mine, for use in steel production, in Cumbria – before pulling back, after the criticism. The government has also been rapped by its independent climate advisers for having no viable plan to achieve the commitment of “net zero” emissions by 2050.Nevertheless, Alok Sharma, the Cop26 president, said: “The next decade will be make, or break, for our planet and the most powerful way we can make a difference is to end our reliance on coal.“Ahead of Cop26, I hope the UK’s decisive step towards a cleaner, greener future sends a clear signal to friends around the world that clean power is the way forward.“The impact of this step will be far greater if we can bring the world with us, and so our desire to support a clean and just energy transition is central to my discussions on the road to Cop26.”There are just three operational coal power plants in the UK, since the units at Drax in north Yorkshire were mothballed in March, and all are already expected to close by October 2024.It will mean the end of the era that dates back to the world’s first coal power plant, on Holborn Viaduct in London, which opened in 1882.The announcement comes during criticism of the looming approval of a new North Sea oil and gas project, off the coast of the Shetland Islands, expected to extract 150 million barrels of oil.That amount would be equivalent to operating 16 coal-fired power stations for a year – while setting up and powering the oil rig will emit more than three million tonnes of carbon over the project’s lifetime.The project will not be covered by the government’s commitment to assess whether new developments are “compatible with the UK’s climate change objectives” – because it was licensed for exploration in 2001 and 2004. More

The EU will reportedly force the UK to agree to “conditions” as both sides edge towards a truce averting a so-called “sausage war” with a temporary extension to defer a ban on shipments of chilled meat.An eleventh-hour agreement will come just hours ahead of the expiration of the grace period on 1 July, which would have prevented shipments of the products from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.The prohibition of chilled meats, including mince and sausages, is one element of the contentious Northern Ireland Protocol, which erects economic trade barriers in the Irish Sea.Upon signing the Brexit agreement in December, Boris Johnson’s government and the EU agreed the six month grace period, which was due to expire on Wednesday.The new three month extension, however, is widely expected to be signed tomorrow and will enable the shipments of meat products to continue from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.The prime minister’s official spokesperson said on Tuesday that No 10 expected a deal to avoid a ban on the shipments of sausages and other chilled meats would be reached “soon” on terms “acceptable to the UK”.According to the Irish broadcaster RTE, the agreement will coincide with a unilateral declaration signing up to a number of conditions, including a commitment for the UK to continue aligning with EU food safety and animal health rules for another three months.Mr Johnson’s government had previously threatened to unilaterally extend the grace period in a move which would have triggered swift retaliation from the EU for a breach of the Brexit agreement — leading to suggestions of a so-called “sausage war”.The expected time-limited truce follows comments from the European Commission Vice President, Maros Sefcovic, that a deal could be reached by Wednesday — the last possible date a solution could be found.Speaking on Monday, Mr Sefcovic said the extra three months would enable negotiators from both the UK and the EU to find a more long-term solution. He said he was confident an extension would be granted “that will address both sides’ needs and concern”, adding an “obvious” way to remove new checks and restrictions on a longer-term basis would be for the UK agree on an animal and plant standards deal that would see London align with Brussels.Giving evidence virtually to a special sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Executive Office committee, Mr Sefcovic said the EU was prepared to accommodate flexibilities to reduce the number of checks in the Irish Sea to the “absolute minimum possible”.However, the UK had to reciprocate by demonstrating a commitment to the “full and faithful” implementation of the Protocol, he said.“We are willing to consider taking bold steps if the UK government demonstrates a clear and concrete commitment to implementing the protocol in full,” he said. More

Both Boris Johnson and Prince George watched England’s victory over Germany in suits, while Rishi Sunak shared a photo of himself putting on a three lions shirt.The prime minister tweeted a picture of himself cheering on the team with his wife Carrie Symonds as they watched on TV.Mr Johnson later posted another image that showed him celebrating as Harry Kane scored to put England 2-0 up in the Euro 2020 quarter-final qualifier.“We’re all behind you – bring it home!” he tweeted, apparently from a different location than his earlier post.Joining the prime minister in formal attire for the game was seven-year-old Prince George, who in the stands at Wembley alongside his parents, Prince William and Kate Middleton, wearing a navy blue suit and striped tie.However, the chancellor shared a photo of himself appearing to put on an England shirt. The photo, which showed Mr Sunak’s face covered by the shirt as he pulled it over his head, was met with some confusion on social media.“Are you stuck?” one userasked, while another replied: “You’re wearing a shirt and tie under a football top?”Other politicians also tweeted about the football, with Priti Patel, the home secretary, sharing a GIF of an England flag with a roaring lion after full-time.Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, posted a photo of himself holding an England shirt next to his German counterpart, who was holding his own national team’s shirt. More

The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford has called for an independent investigation into the UK government’s use of Covid polling – accusing ministers of misusing public money for “political purposes”.Last week, The Herald newspaper reported last that a £560,000 Covid research contract with a public affairs firm Public First had been extended to cover research on “attitudes to the UK union”.In heated scenes in the Commons, Mr Blackford accused a minister of lying, and also claimed the truth and the UK government were “distant strangers”.Cabinet Office minister Julia Lopez denied the government had used the pandemic polling for political purposes – before Mr Blackford could be heard to shout: “That’s a lie! That’s a lie!”The SNP MP was told off by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle after Mr Blackford said Boris Johnson had been sacked twice “for lying”.Asking an urgent question on the government’s use of emergency Covid contracts, Mr Blackford said: “No matter how hard they might try to sweep this under the carpet this scandal isn’t going away.”Mr Blackford said he had written to the UK cabinet secretary, urging him to launch an independent investigation into “this blatant misuse of public money for political purposes”.The SNP’s Westminster chief added: “If the UK government has nothing to hide, will the minster join me in supporting this investigation by the cabinet secretary and will she co-operate with it?“The truth and this government are distant strangers, and that comes as no surprise when we remember the prime minister’s been sacked not once but twice for lying.”The SNP MP’s remarks about Mr Johnson led to an intervention from the Speaker, who asked Mr Blackford to withdraw his remarks. “I’m sure you would like to think about the language,” said Sir Lindsay.Cabinet minister Michael Gove has previously denied allegations of a misuse of public funds on opinion polling. “We don’t use taxpayer funds for party political polling,” he said on visit to Scotland on Monday.Mr Gove’s deputy Ms Lopez told MPs on Tuesday that the polling exercise had merely been used to monitor “the impact of Covid in areas across the UK”.She added: “This contract did not relate to constitutional campaigning, and any suggestion the government carries out party political research is entirely false.”The minister was also challenged by Plaid Cymru on the contract given to Public First. Liz Saville Roberts, Westminster leader of Plaid Cymru, said: “Let’s call this out for what it is – a gross misuse of public money.”Ms Lopez replied: “We do not use public money for political campaign purposes.” More

The government is facing growing questions over security after it emerged the private mobile telephone number of the foreign secretary has been available online for more than a decade.Labour called for an official investigation after Dominic Raab’s number was discovered following a search on Google.It comes just weeks after it emerged that Boris Johnson’s mobile number was also online and as Tory MPs demand answers about how CCTV footage of the former health secretary, Matt Hancock, in his Whitehall office appeared on the front page of a tabloid newspaper last week. Mr Raab was briefly in charge of the country last year, when he stepped into the role while the prime minister was in hospital with Covid-19.His phone number appears to have been online since before he was elected an MP in 2010. He was appointed foreign secretary in 2019, but also served as Brexit secretary for a time in Theresa May’s cabinet. It is understood his phone number, and other personal details have now been removed from the website.The information is potentially embarrassing for the foreign secretary, who has warned of the cybersecurity threat posed by foreign states.Former national security adviser Peter Ricketts told The Guardian the breach showed more attention must be paid to online security.“The wide availability of Mr Raab’s personal phone number must increase the risk that other states, or even criminal gangs, have been able to eavesdrop on his calls,” he said. “It also means that anyone who happens to have had his phone number … is able to lobby the foreign secretary, bypassing the official channels which everyone else has to use. Anyone taking on a role as sensitive as this should in their own interests pay as much attention to online as to physical security.”Labour called for an investigation.Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said: “This is a staggering lapse in security from a foreign secretary who, only last month, was lecturing Nato allies about the cybersecurity threat posed by authoritarian regimes.“It is typical of the government’s approach that when it comes to national security and defending democracy they say one thing but do another. This should be the subject of an investigation. Both the prime minister and foreign secretary have failed to protect their own phones. How can we be assured they aren’t as careless with sensitive intelligence and diplomatic cables too?”Mr Johnson has also faced recent criticism for the amount of government business conducted via WhatsApp. A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “Private information was wrongly retained online, before the foreign secretary’s appointment. Once we were made aware, we had it removed immediately. Most of it was out of date, and no security was compromised.” More

A new watchdog to enforce environmental laws after Brexit must be “totally independent” from government in order to hold ministers and public bodies to account, parliament has heard.The creation of the new Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), which will replace the European Commission’s oversight, has been mired by controversy after the government said it will be part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).The organisation is being set up as part of the delayed Environment Bill, which will introduce wide-ranging environmental reforms in the UK and replace many EU laws and structures.The government has insisted the OEP will be independent, but experts have said it will have its board decided by Defra ministers, its budget set by the government, and the extent of its oversight also set by government.As the Environment Bill is scrutinised at its committee stage in the House of Lords, peers have subjected the OEP’s placement in Defra to a barrage of criticism.Speaking in parliament, independent crossbencher Lord Cameron of Dillington said: “The OEP will be at the centre of our country’s new environmental future post-Brexit.“We all have great hopes and expectations for it – some, I suspect, possibly too high. But within all our ambitions to secure a cleaner, more sustainable and more biodiverse future, I cannot stress how important it is that we get the OEP right – and at the moment it looks as though it will be a mere tool of the very body it should be overseeing.”He added: “My main point is that the OEP must not only always be independent of Defra, but it must be seen to be independent of Defra, and at the moment it is neither. I find that very worrying.”Leading Oxford University scientist and former chairman of the Food Standards Agency, Lord Krebs, shared these concerns.He said: “The government promised us a strong and independent OEP and… many of us feel that we have been short-changed.”Independent crossbencher Lord Hope of Craighead, a former deputy president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, stressed the need for the new body to be fully independent of the government, just as the European Commission has been.He said: “The independence of the Office for Environmental Protection is crucial if it is to have public confidence.”Tory former Commons deputy speaker Lord Framlingham said: “I speak to support the view that the Office of Environmental Protection must not only have teeth but must be totally independent from all strands of government.“Independence is, in a way, self-explanatory and a good thing in itself, but it is even more important to spell out that it must be independent of government when the judgments it will have to make may well be on cases in which a government department is involved.”Labour former environment minister Lord Whitty said: “We want a truly independent body on the environment to face up to the immense challenge of climate change and biodiversity diminution. This is not it.”Sharing his concerns about the OEP, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oates said: “It has no strong enforcement powers, its members will be appointed, and its budget set, by the government.“It will be subject to the guidance from the Secretary of State on enforcement – the Secretary of State who should be subject to that enforcement – and its effectiveness will be undermined by the constraints placed on judicial enforcement.”Labour frontbencher Lady Jones of Whitchurch said: “Without guaranteed independence, the threat of political interference will always hang over the OEP and the organisation.”Responding, environment minister Lord Goldsmith of Richmond defended the arrangements as set out in the bill.He said: “I reiterate our commitment to delivering an independent body to hold government and other bodies to account.“The OEP will be established as a non-departmental public body, and we believe that this is the best model to achieve a balance of independence, value for money and accountability.”He added: “The bill grants the Secretary of State no power to interfere in the OEP’s decision-making on specific or individual cases. The Secretary of State cannot tell the OEP what to do in a way that undermines its discretion and obligation to reach its own decisions.”The Lords’ warnings come after expert lawyers said the structure of the OEP could fundamentally undermine the rule of law and lead to worse protections for the environment than previously.Additional reporting by PA. More