Markus Andrews

A coalition of MPs, including Labour’s John McDonnell, unions, and environmental campaigners are demanding the government ensure a shorter working week is discussed at the UN climate summit hosted by the UK.In a letter to Alok Sharma, who was appointed earlier this year by Boris Johnson as Cop 26 president, the signatories urge consideration of the “benefits that a shorter working week could offer in the race to limit the worst effects of climate change”.It comes as the government prepares to host the crucial climate conference in November, with world leaders being asked to come forward with “ambitious 2030 emissions reductions targets” that align with UK’s legally binding target of net zero by the middle of the century.The letter highlights a recent report by Platform London – commissioned by the 4 Day Week campaign – which suggested last month the introduction of a four-day working week with no loss of pay would aid efforts in reducing Britain’s carbon footprint, with a possible reduction of 127 million tonnes per year by 2025.“This would represent a reduction of 21.3 per cent, more than the entire carbon footprint of Switzerland, and is also equivalent to taking 27 million cars off the road – effectively the entire UK private car fleet,” the coalition of campaigners wrote.Alongside Mr McDonnell – Labour’s former shadow chancellor – the letter has also been signed by the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader Kirsten Oswald, the Green MP Caroline Lucas, left-wing Labour MPs Clive Lewis and Zarah Sultana, and Plaid MP Ben Lake.Other names include Len McCluskey, the general secretary of one of the country’s biggest unions, Unite, Dave Ward, the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), and the general secretary the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union Mark Serwotka.“The evidence consistently shows that a reduction in working hours correlates with decreased energy and household consumption, reductions in carbon-intensive commuting, and enables people to engage in more environmentally sustainable behaviours,” they argued.“We noted and agree with your recent comments that Cop26 marks ‘our last hope’ of preventing climate breakdown and ‘our best chance of building a brighter future’. With such huge consequences at stake, it is crucial that all possible options for bringing emissions down to safe levels are considered.“As the Platform London report concludes, there is significant potential for reduced working time to help combat the climate crisis, and so we ask you to confirm that you will include a discussion at Cop26 about the potential benefits of a shorter working week and the impact this could have on reducing the UK’s carbon footprint.”The concept of a shorter working week has gained momentum in recent years, with Labour pledging at the last election to reduce average full-time weekly working hours to 32 across across the economy. A poll for The Independent found last year that nearly two-thirds of the public and more than half of Conservative voters believed the government should explore the introduction of such a policy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.And earlier in 2021 it also emerged that Spain’s left-wing government was setting up a limited pilot of a four-day working week, with €50m (£43.1m) financial aid to be provided to companies that cut the working week to 32 hours with no loss of pay.Joe Ryle, a campaigner with the 4 Day Week Campaign group, said: “If the government is serious about tackling climate change, then a shorter working week has got to be on the table at Cop26. The evidence increasingly shows that a shorter working week would be beneficial for workers and employers and for the environment.”“To save the climate, the time has come for a four-day working week with no loss of pay,” he added.Mr Sharma’s office has been contacted for comment by The Independent. More

The High Court has ruled the government’s award of a coronavirus contract to a market research company whose bosses were friends of government adviser Dominic Cummings was unlawful.Anti-corruption campaign The Good Law Project won its case against Michael Gove’s Cabinet Office over the payment of more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money to Public First at the outset of the coronavirus crisis in March 2020.The ruling comes after the same group won a case against health secretary Matt Hancock in February over his failure to observe transparency requirements over the spending of “vast sums of public money” on pandemic procurement in the early months of the Covid-19 outbreak.It represents a further blow to Boris Johnson over allegations that he presided over a “chumocracy” in which contracts running into billions of pounds were awarded without competitive tender to companies and individuals with links to the Conservative Party.Labour demanded an investigation into what deputy leader Angela Rayner said was a “clear case of the Ministerial Code being breached” by Mr Gove.In a letter to Mr Johnson, Ms Rayner called for the money paid to Public First to be recouped and protested that the government had spent more than the value of the contract on legal fees “in an effort to cover up the government breaking the law”.Lawyers representing the Good Law Project said Mr Cummings – then serving as the prime minister’s senior adviser – wanted focus group and communications support services work to be given to the company.Ministers and Mr Cummings – who left Downing Street last November after a power struggle with Mr Johnson’s wife Carrie – rejected the claim.After considering rival arguments in a virtual hearing in February, Mrs Justice O’Farrell today issued her ruling: “The claimant is entitled to a declaration that the decision of 5 June 2020 to award the contract to Public First gave rise to apparent bias and was unlawful.”The court found that the failure to consider any other research agency “would lead a fair-minded and informed observer to conclude that there was a real possibility, or a real danger, that the decision maker was biased”.Rachel Wolf, who owns and runs Public First with her husband, James Frayne, had previously worked as an adviser to Johnson, Cummings and Gove, and co-wrote the Tory manifesto for the 2019 general election.Following today’s ruling, the director of the Good Law Project, barrister Jolyon Maugham, said: “Government has claimed there was no favouritism in the awarding of contracts. But the High Court has held an informed observer would conclude otherwise.”He added: “This is not government for the public good – it is government for the good of friends of the Conservative Party.“We just don’t understand how the prime minister can run a cabinet that acts without proper regard for the law or value for public money.”But a Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “We welcome the court’s ruling that we were entitled to award the contract on grounds of extreme urgency in response to an unprecedented global pandemic.“The judge recognised the very complex circumstances at the height of the pandemic and that failure to provide effective communications would have put public health at risk.“The judgment makes clear that there was no suggestion of actual bias and that the decision to award the contract was not due to any personal or professional connections.“Procedural issues raised in this judgment have already been addressed through the implementation of the independent Boardman review of procurement processes.” A spokesperson for Public First said: “We’re deeply proud of the work we did in the early stages of the pandemic, which helped save lives.“The judge rejected most of the Good Law Project’s claims, not finding actual bias in the awarding of this work, nor any problems with the pace or scale of the award.“Rather, the judge found that weak internal processes gave rise to the appearance of bias. The judge made no criticism whatsoever of Public First anywhere in the judgment.”During February’s hearing, lawyers representing the Good Law Project told Mrs Justice O’Farrell that a “fair-minded” and “informed” observer would conclude there was a “real possibility of bias” in the award of the contract without a normal competitive tendering process.But lawyers representing the Cabinet Office told the judge that during a national emergency Mr Cummings “recommended a firm he knew could get the job done”, but did not make the decision on the award of the contract. They said Mr Gove did not have any involvement in the decision or influence it in any way.In a written statement to the court, Mr Cummings said he “obviously” did not ask for Public First to be brought in because they were friends, insisting he would “never do such a thing”.Barrister Jason Coppel QC, representing the Good Law Project, argued that it was not necessary to bypass normal tendering processes for focus group work assessing public opinion on the pandemic.Public First was a “small research agency” whose directors and owners Wolf and Frayne had “long-standing personal relationships” with Mr Cummings and Mr Gove, he said.And he told the court: “The fair-minded and informed observer would conclude that there was a real possibility of bias: it was Mr Cummings who decided, without giving any consideration to alternative providers, that work valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money should be given to his friends.”The judge was told how a civil servant had sent an email to a colleague in March 2020, saying “this agency” was “the one who are” Mr Cummings’ “mates” and “spending much money on doing all our ridiculous groups”.The civil servant said, in a witness statement, that the email had been “in part a joke” for her colleague’s benefit. 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The government made policing during the coronavirus pandemic “even harder” with rapidly changing and unclear laws, police leaders have said.The chair of the Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers across England and Wales, said they had been put in an “extraordinary” position.“For the past 15 months we have been required to police in a way that none of us ever expected to when we joined the job,” John Apter told the body’s annual conference on Wednesday.“We knew it was never going to be easy. But our job was made even harder by the ever changing rules and regulations.”Addressing Priti Patel, Mr Apter said officers had been going out on patrol “literally hours after the new regulations were introduced”.He added: “They had often received no detailed briefing because the laws had only just been passed, which meant they were often going out on patrol with no specific detail about what the change meant for policing. “There was no discussion about how to deal with the new laws or the new guidance and let’s be honest home secretary, the rules were not always crystal clear.”Mr Apter said mistakes had been made as a result of the way laws were introduced, and that police had unfairly become the focus of blame.Martin Hewitt, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, told the conference that he had expressed “frustration” at the speed of changes and differences between areas of the UK.“At the beginning it was very hard,” he added. “I’ve expressed that frustration a number of times about the last-minute nature of us understanding what the regulations were going to be.”He said police leaders had created a model, meaning officers had to explain the law to people suspected of breaking Covid legislation and encourage them to follow it voluntarily, before moving to fines and arrests.Coronavirus in numbersHowever, a Crown Prosecution Service review has found that at least a third of coronavirus prosecutions have been wrongful, and legal campaigners are calling for the more than 115,000 fines so far issued in England and Wales to be checked.The home secretary said police officers should not have been “vilified” for trying to “do the right thing” in the early stages of the pandemic.Ms Patel said the government had worked with police leaders and kept them informed but admitted: “You’re never going to get it all right in one go.”“It’s never going to be perfect but the guidance we put out and the changes we brought in through legislation were not always popular but we know they helped to save lives,” she added.“We worked with policing when it came to guidance and the advice that was put out. Look at the way the public responded. We had some spiky moments but by and large the public complied, the public understood.”Rank-and-file police officers were not told of the first national lockdown before it was announced by Boris Johnson on 23 March 2020.The prime minister told the public that if they did not follow unprecedented rules, “the police will have the powers to enforce them”, but laws underpinning restrictions did not come into force for days and have since changed more than 70 times in England alone.A previous survey by the Police Federation, which represents more than 130,000 officers in England and Wales, found that only one in 10 thought that Covid-19 laws were “clear”.Police representatives had expressed concerns to the government about the “tiers” laws that changed from area to area, and “limits on capacity” for enforcing aspects such as the wearing of face coverings in supermarkets.In April 2020, reports issued by two parliamentary committees also warned that gaps between guidance issued by the government and the law were creating confusion among the police and public.Government guidance has been stricter than the law for most of the pandemic, for example saying that people must only make “essential” journeys or exercise outside once a day, when the Health Protection Regulations did not impose those limits.Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, told the Police Federation conference that the government could not “legislate for all public behaviour”.He said the government had tried to ensure police officers were “as clear as they possibly could be”. More

Boris Johnson today dismissed calls from Tory backbenchers including Theresa May for the government to meet its own promises on international aid as “lefty propaganda”.Challenged in the House of Commons over the decision to slash aid spending from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of GDP, Mr Johnson made clear he will defy Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s demand for MPs to be given a binding vote on the issue.But he suggested that the question had been settled by voters at recent elections – despite the Conservative manifesto for the 2019 general election promising to stick by the 0.7 per cent target enshrined in law by David Cameron.The PM’s refusal to comply with the Speaker’s demand is likely to trigger new attempts by Tory rebels to force a binding vote onto the parliamentary timetable – or even to press ahead with a challenge in the courts. Mr Johnson suffered a humiliating assault on his record on aid just days before hosting world leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall, when Ms May joined a string of senior Tories on Tuesday to demand a reverse in the £4bn cut, which the former PM told parliament would have a “devastating” impact on the world’s poorest and damage Britain’s interests.He dodged almost certain defeat after a vote was ruled out on technical grounds, but in a stern rebuke Sir Lindsay insisted he must show the House of Commons “due respect” by giving MPs a chance to pass judgement on the cut.And the Speaker warned that if the PM resisted, he would look sympathetically on any attempt to force a vote, telling MPs: “I do not want it to drag on. If not, we will then look to find other ways in which we can move forward.”At prime minister’s questions in the Commons, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said the cut would leave Mr Johnson isolated at the G7, among leaders including Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel who are maintaining or increasing aid spending during the pandemic.“The prime minister will walk into the G7 summit as the only leader cutting development aid to the world’s poorest,” said Mr Blackford. “At the very moment when global leadership is needed more than ever, this Tory government is walking away from millions still struggling from the Covid pandemic and a poverty pandemic.“The prime minister has been hiding on this issue for months. This is a government on the run from their own moral and legal responsibilities, and on the run from their own backbenchers.“But the Prime Minister can’t hide from this issue any longer. And he can’t run from democracy in this House. Will he stand up today and commit to a straight vote in this House on his inhumane cuts, as demanded by the speaker?”Mr Johnson responded: “The people of this country were given a vote on this and many other matters very recently, and I think they adjudicated very firmly in favour of the balance the government is striking.”Lindsay Hoyle calls on government on Monday to give MPs chance to take ‘effective decision’ on aid cuts The PM said that despite the cut, the government was still spending £10bn a year on aid, which he said was more than under Labour leaders like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who he accused of spending taxpayers’ cash on “Brazilian dancers in Hackney to raise consciousness of global poverty”.“We are in very difficult financial times, but you shouldn’t shouldn’t believe the lefty propaganda that you hear,” he said. “All they want to do is run this country down.”Mr Blackford retorted: “I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the previous prime minister (Ms May) being called a lefty propagandist.“The simple fact of the matter is that every single party, every single member of this House, stood on a manifesto commitment to 0.7 per cent.“The prime minister has reneged on that, and the Speaker has indicated that the government should allow a vote.“Why can’t the prime minister get this? In a pandemic, no-one is safe until everyone is safe. Now is the time to support each other, not to walk away from those in need. People are dying, and they need our help.“The prime minister has the nerve to brag about the government’s support for the vulnerable, when at the very same time he is slashing £4.5 billion from the world’s poorest.“In the week of the G7, what kind of world leader washes his hands of responsibility by cutting water and hygiene projects by more than 80 per cent in the middle of a pandemic?” More

Boris Johnson has weighed in on the “culture wars” battle over the removal of a portrait of the Queen from an Oxford students’ common room by sending out a message that he “supports” education secretary Gavin Williamson’s criticism of the decision.The president of Oxford University’s Magdalen College has defended students’ right to “free speech and political debate” and said that college staff have received threatening messages as Mr Williamson branded the portrait’s removal “absurd”.But the prime minister signalled his backing for the comment, with a 10 Downing Street spokesman telling reporters: “You have the education secretary’s words, which the prime minister supports.”Members of the Middle Common Room at Magdalen College voted for the change by a majority, saying the monarch represented “recent colonial history” and could make some feel unwelcome.Mr Williamson tweeted that the monarch has “worked tirelessly to promote British values of tolerance, inclusivity and respect around the world”.She was a symbol of “what is best about the UK”, he said, as he condemned the decision.“Oxford University students removing a picture of the Queen is simply absurd,” wrote Mr Williamson.“She is the head of state and a symbol of what is best about the UK.”As the furore over the picture escalated, barrister Dinah Rose, who was appointed president of Magdalen College last year, tweeted an appeal for an end to abuse of staff over the decision.“If you are one of the people currently sending obscene and threatening messages to the college staff, you might consider pausing, and asking yourself whether that is really the best way to show your respect for the Queen,” wrote Ms Rose.“Or whether she’d be more likely to support the traditions of free debate and democratic decision-making that we are keeping alive at Magdalen.”Ms Rose said she would have voted to keep the picture, but added: “I will back to the hilt their right to debate and decide this issue. Protecting free speech in universities has never been more important.“The MCR bought a print of the Queen in 2013 to decorate their own common room, and voted to take it down a few years later. Are we really so fragile now that we’re policing student votes about decor?”And she added: “Being a student is about more than studying. It’s about exploring and debating ideas. It’s sometimes about provoking the older generation.“Looks like that isn’t so hard to do these days.”Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick called the row “student union politics”, but he said he is “proud” to have a portrait of the Queen in his office.He told BBC Breakfast on Wednesday: “I’m a huge fan and supporter of Her Majesty the Queen, I think we are incredibly lucky to live in a country with a head of state of her stature.“I wouldn’t want anyone to disrespect her out of ignorance in this way, but I don’t think that we should waste too much time on student union politics.”Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham told Nick Ferrari on LBC: “These kind of gestures are getting a bit out of hand.“We should always respect the Queen, but particularly now, given things that have happened in the last few months.“Let’s get a sense of proportion and a bit of respect. People can air their views but those kind of gestures are divisive actually – they just divide people, and I don’t think they achieve much, to be honest.”On its website, Magdalen College Middle Common Room describes itself as “one of the biggest graduate communities of the traditional Oxford Colleges”.It states: “Our graduates come from many different countries throughout the world, and have diverse interests, academic and otherwise.“The MCR forms an integral part of the Magdalen graduate experience – not only do we organise social and cultural events for students so that we can make the utmost out of our time in Oxford, but we also provide a network of support for graduate life in representing the concerns of students to the College.” More

Boris Johnson is falsely claiming not to have realised the damage his Brexit deal would inflict on Northern Ireland, a senior Tory says.Gavin Barwell, Theresa May’s chief of staff, said the prime minister had “perfectly well understood” the impact of trade checks in the Irish Sea – and the EU would not believe the claim now that it was “underestimated”.“He and David Frost [the chief negotiator] are intelligent people,” Lord Barwell said, ahead of crisis talks with the EU.“I find it inconceivable that they didn’t understand what they were signing up to. They would have been advised very clearly by the civil service about that.”The attack came after Lord Frost backtracked on past claims that the Northern Ireland Protocol – which introduced a customs border on imports from Great Britain – had been “a great deal”.Instead, he said: “We underestimated the effect of the protocol on goods movements to Northern Ireland, with some suppliers in Great Britain simply not sending their products because of the time-consuming paperwork required.”The issue has come to a head with so-called “sausage wars” over a looming ban on the sale of chilled meats to Northern Ireland from 1 July – which the UK signed up to.But Lord Barwell warned the government: “I don’t think the EU is ever going to think that is credible.“They know the quality of the civil servants involved in that work, and they know that British ministers would have been advised in detail on the implications of what they were signing up to.“So I don’t I don’t think anyone who’s involved in the process is going to find it credible that the government signed up to something and didn’t understand what the consequences of that were.”The UK is facing the threat of a trade war with it biggest market unless it stops backsliding on implementing the Protocol, as the EU sees it.Nathalie Loiseau, the former French European affairs minister and now an MEP, warned it has the power to impose tariffs and quotas on British exports, unless there is full compliance.However, the UK appears to be considering unilaterally extending a six-month grace period on the chilled meats ban, which the environment secretary branded “bonkers”.Lord Frost has been meeting Maroš Šefčovič, the EU commission vice-president, both about the Protocol controversy and to discuss the Christmas Brexit trade agreement.Mr Šefčovič warned that the EU would act “swiftly, firmly and resolutely to ensure that the UK abides by its international law obligations”.But Lord Frost hit back, saying: “Further threats of legal action and trade retaliation from the EU won’t make life any easier for the shopper in Strabane who can’t buy their favourite product.“Nor will it benefit the small business in Ballymena struggling to source produce from their supplier in Birmingham.” More

Britain’s long history of Euroscepticism has seen a whole series of food-related rows with Brussels over everything from bendy bananas to crisp flavour regulations. The latest bust-up revolves around sausages.Boris Johnson’s government is accusing Brussels of adopting a “purist” approach to meat regulations enshrined in the Brexit withdrawal deal – warnings that the import of sausages from Great Britain to Northern Ireland could be blocked entirely.The rows comes ahead of a looming “grace period” deadline in a temporary agreement, which has allowed Northern Irish supermarkets to continue importing chilled meats – including those all-important sausages.Why so much fuss over sausages?Mr Johnson’s government has threatened to act unilaterally to ignore legally-required checks on chilled meats such as sausages and mince moving from GB to NI when the current “grace period” expires at the end of June.EU food safety rules mean that only frozen meat can be imported into its single market. And under the Northern Ireland Protocol, those food safety rules are imposed on good moving across the Irish Sea.EU Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic has made clear Brussel would act “swiftly, firmly and resolutely” if the UK tried to backtrack on agreements made under the Brexit withdrawal deal.Mr Sefcovic has raised the prospect of a trade war – with the EU imposing tariffs and quotas on British exports – if the UK failed to meet any of the international obligations enshrined in the protocol.Why are ministers getting so angry about sausages?Environment secretary George Eustice has described the row as “bonkers” on Tuesday – claiming he had “no idea” why the EU imposed “idiosyncratic” rules on the movement chilled meat.“I suspect it links to some kind of perception that they can’t really trust any country other than an EU country to make sausages,” Mr Eustice said.Fellow cabinet minister Robert Jenrick said on Wednesday that the UK was only asking the EU to show some “common sense” over some of the protocol arrangements.“We’re asking them to show some common sense and enable something as simple as some chilled meats like a sausage to travel from Great Britain to Northern Ireland,” the communities secretary told Sky News.Mr Jenrick added: “I hope that we can sort that out because there are also things even more important than sausages at stake here, for example medicines.” More

There are few things more intrinsically funny than a sausage, and the very mention of a banger can defuse even the most fraught of political arguments. When the sausage becomes a symbol and cause of political dispute, as now with the UK-EU “sausage war”, it tends to raise a smile. Indeed, many years ago the satirical Whitehall sitcom Yes, Minister had a whole episode devoted to the imposition of a new EU directive that would have meant that the British sausage was to compulsorily be renamed the “Emulsified High-Fat Offal Tube”, with hilarious consequences. Jolly as all that may be, the “sausage war” is merely the latest symptom that Brexit isn’t working. As with so many of these arguments, it arises from the rushed UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement of October 2019, and in particular the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol. As was clear at the time, in order to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland was left behind in the EU Single Market and Customs Union, as well as being inside the UK internal market – a complicated arrangement. It meant a trade “border” between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. More