Markus Andrews

Michael Gove compares Brexit problems to turbulence on takeoff of an airplaneSir Keir told reporters on Thursday that the EU had “made a mistake” by threatening to trigger Article 16 but warned calm is needed to restore the relationship.”We need that meeting to work because families and businesses in Northern Ireland are suffering under the current arrangements,” he said.It came as a survey showed that half of British exporters to the EU were reporting difficulties with Brexit red tape and border disruption one month on from the end of the transition period.The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said companies cited concerns about increased administration, costs, delays, and confusion about which rules to follow when asked how they were coping with the new system.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayShow latest update
1613055128Coal mine sends ‘mixed message’ on UK climate plans, minister admitsA Cabinet minister has admitted that the UK is sending out a “mixed message” by giving the go-ahead to a new coal mine at the same time as asking other countries to commit to reducing carbon emissions.Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told the Institute for Government think-tank that the arguments were “finely balanced” but noted that he still supported the proposal. Our political editor, Andrew Woodcock, has the full story below:Conrad Duncan11 February 2021 14:521613053974Jeremy Hunt thanks NHS after breaking arm on morning runFormer health secretary Jeremy Hunt has thanked the NHS for its “wonderful care” after he broke his arm on a run this morning.Mr Hunt told MPs that he “unfortunately slipped over” and broke his arm earlier in the day, forcing him to wear a sling when he spoke virtually in the Commons on Thursday.Our reporter, Zoe Tidman, has the full story below:Conrad Duncan11 February 2021 14:321613053246No 10 blames EU for London trading declineDowning Street has blamed the EU after Amsterdam surpassed London as Europe’s leading share trading hub last month following the end of the Brexit transition period.EU-based financial firms have been banned from trading in London because the bloc has not recognised UK regulations on exchanges as equivalent to its own, prompting €6.5bn (£5.7bn) of daily transactions to move from the UK on 1 January.“The UK exchanges remain some of the biggest and deepest in the world and we continue, as we have done, to believe in open, global markets and firms’ ability to choose where to trade,” Boris Johnson’s spokesperson told a Westminster briefing.“Despite the fact that we have supplied all of the necessary paperwork and are one of the world’s most pre-eminent financial centres with a strong regulatory system, the EU still haven’t granted us full equivalence.”They added: “This has meant that a number of EU shares that were previously traded on UK venues have moved to the EU venues on advice of the European regulator.“But our position is fragmentation of share trading across financial centres is in no-one’s interests, so we remain open to discussions with the EU about this.”Conrad Duncan11 February 2021 14:201613052110Stormont committee to investigate removal of customs officials from Northern Ireland portsA Stormont committee is to investigate the decision to withdraw staff conducting post-Brexit port checks in Northern Ireland.The Department of Agriculture temporarily suspended physical scrutiny of animal-based food produce arriving at Larne and Belfast ports recently.It followed concerns for the safety of staff following the discovery of threatening graffiti.Members of the Agriculture Committee voted by a majority on Thursday in favour of an inquiry into the department’s decision.Matt Mathers11 February 2021 14:011613050226Find ‘creative solutions’ to Irish Sea border problems, says Alliance Party leader Alliance Party leader Naomi Long has called for “creative solutions” to the problems surrounding Northern Ireland’s sea border.Since the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol at the end of the Brexit transition period, there has been some disruption to trade due to new customs checks at Belfast and Larne ports.Ms Long said it was important not to “just bemoan the problems”, in a veiled swipe at the Democratic Unionist Party, which has called on the UK government to scrap the protocol entirely.Matt Mathers11 February 2021 13:301613048338Senior Tory speaks out against government’s cladding fundSenior Tory MP David Davis has spoken out against the government’s fund to fix dangerous cladding, warning that more work is needed to address the “state’s failure”.Earlier this week, ministers were accused of “betrayal” over the £3.5bn package which would leave huge numbers of residents to pay the bills for making their homes safe.“I cannot understand why government is not funding remedial work to fix cladding on properties under 18m in height,” Mr Davis said.“This limit seems rather arbitrary. It is the state’s failure and it should therefore meet the costs to fix the issues.”Conrad Duncan11 February 2021 12:581613047701UK performers could move overseas over visa-free travel row, MP suggestsUK performers could move overseas if visa-free travel with the EU is not secured, ministers have been warned.Post-Brexit travel rules that came into force at the beginning of the year do not guarantee visa-free travel for UK musicians in the EU.Speaking in the Commons, the SNP’s Angela Crawley said: “Now, whether it’s Elton John, Ronan Keating, Brian Cox, [there is] an all-star line-up of some of our biggest exports, emphasising the importance of touring for musicians at all stages of their careers.“How does the minister feel about the prospect of making acts decide that they need to base themselves abroad as our parochial laws don’t allow the movement needed to compete on the global stage?”In response, Cabinet Office minister Penny Mordaunt said: “It is not our parochial laws. During the negotiations, the EU tabled text regarding paid activities which can be conducted without a visa. These proposals would not have addressed our sector’s concerns.“It didn’t deal with work permits at all and it would not have allowed support staff to tour with artists.”She added: “The only way we’re going to get movement on this is to get the EU to agree to our very reasonable proposals.”Conrad Duncan11 February 2021 12:481613046503A new poll below from YouGov shows the Conservatives with a 5-point lead over Labour this week:Conrad Duncan11 February 2021 12:281613045624Starmer says Rishi Sunak must do more to protect City post-BrexitLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer has warned that the chancellor Rishi Sunak must do more to protect the City following Brexit.“Our financial markets are hugely important. I was very worried when I saw the Brexit deal that there was almost no provision for financial services,” Sir Keir told reporters at Heathrow.“So what I want is to see progress here. The chancellor said that he would look after the City of London on financial services, he needs to make good on that promise because we absolutely need to protect our financial services.”Conrad Duncan11 February 2021 12:131613044666Our business reporter, Ben Chapman, has more details below on the news that Amsterdam has surpassed London as Europe’s leading share trading hub:Conrad Duncan11 February 2021 11:57 More

Coronavirus transmission rates are still “incredibly high” and must fall significantly before lockdown restrictions are lifted, a government scientific adviser has warned.The director of the Wellcome Trust, Sir Jeremy Farrar, suggested that cases must be brought down to the “single thousands” and urged against setting arbitrary dates for easing measures.“We’ve got to learn the lessons of history,” he stressed. “2020 — we will remember it. We remember the lockdowns, we remember frankly easing too quickly and going back into lockdowns again in the future.”However, Downing Street later refused to commit to a case rate below 10,000 being the trigger for the easing of lockdown restrictions.Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said only that the prime minister would “look at all the data in the round” when drawing up the roadmap for recovery which he has promised to unveil in the week of 22 February.Sir Jeremy, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said: “We should aim that this is the last lockdown at this level in the UK. But that can only be true if transmission is very, very much lower than it is today. “It’s still incredibly high in the UK, if transmission was at this level and we were not in lockdown, we’d be going into lockdown. There are 750,000 people today in the UK infected.”Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayWhile he said Britain deserves “great credit” for the rollout of vaccines — some 13 million people have received a first jab — he warned on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Transmission is incredibly high still and we’ve got to get it lower. “We’ve got to get in my view into the single thousands before we can possibly think about lifting the restrictions.”Pressed on Sir Jeremy’s comments, Matt Hancock outlined there were still over 10,000 new positive cases of the virus each day and pressure on the health service was still significant with 26,000 people in hospitals with Covid.The health secretary said because the number is gradually coming down “there’s a good news sense the pressure is lessening and it is, but it’s still very significant”.After a series of announcements from government ministers strengthening quarantine measures, Sir Jeremy added that border controls can only work if transmission “is very low, if they are very comprehensive and you’re willing to put them in place for a very long time”“They buy you time, but they don’t reduce transmission when your transmission is already very high.”As Mr Johnson prepares to set out the government’s “roadmap” for easing restrictions in just under a fortnight, he went on: “Ministers have been really clear on this in February 2021. It’s not sensible to set a date by which you are going to lift restrictions.“Those restrictions can be lifted, and they will be lifted but only when the data allows that to be true. Setting a date now arbitrarily for some date in March or April frankly doesn’t make any sense because, I appreciate businesses have to plan, but the data has to drive us and I’m afraid in 2020 we lifted restrictions too quickly.”Sir Jeremy said that new variants emerging across the world must be “taken incredibly seriously”, adding: “These are a warning that viruses will evolve, they will change, and if we allow transmission to keep going as high as it is at the moment in the UK and around the world then more of these new variants will occur and the risk is yes, the evade and escape the treatments of the vaccines that we have available today. “But that’s not inevitable. If we drive down transmission in this country, if we vaccinate as many people as we possibly can and critically around the world then we will reduce the number of viruses circulating the world and the number of variants can trouble us in the future will be much less.” More

Matt Hancock has denied claims the government has sowed confusion over whether people can expect a summer holiday in 2021.The health secretary – who has already booked his own break in Cornwall – said on Thursday that it was too still early to say if people could get away, urging the public to be “patient”. Last month Mr Hancock predicted a “great British summer” and talked about his own plan to visit Cornwall. But on Wednesday transport secretary Grant Shapps warned: “People shouldn’t be booking holidays right now, not domestically or internationally.”Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether he agreed with Mr Shapps, the health secretary said: “I’m saying exactly the same as every other minister is saying, which is there is uncertainty, and that means we cannot make categorical assurances.”Denying any inconsistency, Mr Hancock added: “I know that people are yearning to have a direct answer, because people look forward to summer holidays so much. But unfortunately there is that uncertainty. We are going to have to be patient.”Labour has urged the government to stop sending out “mixed messages” on summer holidays, while Sir Charles Walker – vice chair of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers – accused the government of “sowing confusion”among a “stressed-out population”. Asked about his previous claims about the “great British summer” ahead, Mr Hancock told LBC: “I absolutely hope for a great British summer and I’m working incredibly hard to try to make sure that can happen.”Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayHe again claimed he fellow ministers “have all been saying exactly the same thing”. The minister also said he still “hoped” to get away to Cornwall. “I booked a place months ago, and of course I hope to [go], but there is this uncertainty.”“Even before we get to whether we’re going on holiday or where we’re going on holiday, how soon we can see and hug our loved ones is important,” Mr Hancock said.Boris Johnson, speaking at the latest Downing Street press conference, said on Wednesday: “I am afraid it is just too early for people to be certain about what we’ll be able to do this summer.” Earlier in February, however, Mr Johnson had said he was “optimistic” about the prospect of summer holidays, so long as the vaccination programme goes well.Noel Josephides, chairman of tour operator Sunvil, said MrJohnson and his ministers have “never been completely accurate” during the pandemic. “We don’t believe that once people are vaccinated they are going to worry about travelling abroad,” he told LBC.“And it’s on that basis that we are going ahead [with our plans]. And if, in fact, the government waits until everybody is vaccinated then by that time there won’t be a travel industry.” More

Around 10,000 travellers from higher-risk countries will avoid hotel quarantine every day because of “gaping holes” in the system, Labour has claimed.Keir Starmer stepped up his criticism of the government for rejecting a crackdown on all arrivals, with an analysis of places where the new variants of Covid-19 are circulating – but which are not on the ‘red list’.Those passengers will not be required to pay £1,750 to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days under the rules starting on Monday, although they must isolate in their homes.Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has argued the number of people currently travelling to the UK from the 33 red list countries “probably comes to less than 1,000 a day”.But Labour said 98 flights land in England’s largest airports every day from countries where the new South Africa and Brazil Covid-19 variants have been found, but which are not on that list.They include Austria, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States of America.Estimating the 98 flights amounted to 10,200 people a day, Sir Keir said: “The government’s failure to secure our borders risks jeopardising the fight against Covid-19.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekday“All the effort being put into the vaccine rollout across Britain could be undermined by a vaccine-resistant strain entering the country.”The government is leaving gaping holes in our defences against Covid variants, with the vast majority of arrivals from Monday set to avoid hotel quarantine.”Boris Johnson was urged to “come clean on the numbers of people arriving from different countries by publishing daily arrivals data”.The call comes after Cambridge professor Ravi Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), backed a blanket quarantining policy.“We learned from the early days of this pandemic that having red listed countries wasn’t helpful because the spread was far more extensive than we realised,” he told Times Radio.“And so the better option probably would be to remove the red list countries and just have the same regulations for all incoming visitors, rather like other countries have done.”But Mr Shapps defended the targeted approach, alongside the draconian threat of a 10-year prison sentence for travellers who lie about having been in a high-risk country.“It is serious if people put others in danger by deliberately misleading and saying that you weren’t in Brazil or South Africa, or one of the red list countries,” he told BBC Breakfast.“What we’re talking about now are the mutations, the variants, and that is a different matter, because we don’t want to be in a situation where we later on discover that there’s a problem with vaccines.” More

Labour has called on the government to extend free school meals during half-term, warning “time is running out” to prevent children going hungry.Angela Rayner, the party’s deputy leader, urged ministers to “do the right thing” and continue free school meal support available during term-time in the February break. The government has said a general pandemic support fund, set up last year to help low-income families over winter, will provide support to children on free school meals during half-term instead.“Time is running out and ministers must do the right thing today to make sure that no child goes hungry on Monday when the half term holidays start,” Ms Rayner said.  “It is rank hypocrisy for the prime minister to condemn the disgraceful food parcels that hungry children have been given a few weeks ago only to now leave those very same children without free school meals during the school holidays.”She added: “The government’s own guidance is clear – relying on the Covid Winter Support Grant will not guarantee that every child who is eligible for free school meals will be fed during half term.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekday“On the government’s own terms ministers are leaving our children at risk of going hungry on Monday.”Schools have been told to keep up support for children on free school meals while they are at home during England’s lockdown, which can be through lunch parcels, vouchers and using the government’s national voucher scheme.Last month, the government told schools they “do not need to provide lunch parcels or vouchers” over half-term. This phrase was no longer included in guidance, when updated in early February.“Support should be provided each week for benefits-related free school meal pupils at home during the national lockdown and school opening restrictions, from the week beginning 4 January to the week beginning 8 February. It will restart again for the week beginning 22 February”, the current guidance says.The £170m fund was set up in early December and aims to support those most in need across England with costs of food, energy, water bills and other essentials. The fund goes to county councils and unitary authorities, who then distribute it to vulnerable families with children and other vulnerable households, particularly affected by the pandemic.When the government said this would replace term-time free school meals schemes during half-term, one leading union said ministers should “hang their heads in shame”. “Suggesting that local councils will be able to recreate a brand new system of supplying Free School Meals for the week of half term using the Covid Winter Grant Scheme is an unnecessary logistical nightmare, and the confusion and chaos this could cause will put millions of children at risk,” Kevin Courtney, the union’s joint general secretary, said.”The anguish, not to mention hunger, this decision could cause is immeasurable.”Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “The government’s constantly changing, badly thought out and last-minute schemes to help with holiday hunger during the Covid crisis is leaving families and children anxious that they literally don’t know where their next meal is coming from.”He added: The government must urgently clarify for families how they will be helped during the upcoming half term holiday so they can be assured that they will not go hungry.”Will Quince, a minister at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), said the department has contacted all local authorities receiving money from the Covid Winter Grant Scheme. “All of them will, with the scheme’s support, ensure children are warm and well fed over the February half-term, as they did over Christmas,” he tweeted on Wednesday.Vicky Ford, the minister for children and families said: “With the support of our £170m Covid Winter Grant Scheme, every council in England will be keeping vulnerable children warm and well-fed during the February half term.“Children on free school meals will be supported this half term with food, vouchers or cash backed by government funding and delivered through local authorities whilst schools are shut.”She added: “It’s wrong to suggest support will not be there – it has been widely welcomed by councils and charities.” More

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has admitted the UK prepared for the wrong pandemic during his tenure by believing the next biggest threat would come from flu.In an interview with The BMJ, Mr Hunt, who was health secretary from 2012 to 2018, acknowledged decisions he made while in office could have hampered the UK’s response to the pandemic.Asked about mistakes in handling the coronavirus, he said: “We’ve really been on the back foot from the start on test and trace, and in some ways it dates back to the period when I was health secretary.”In 2015, the Cabinet Office published a national risk register of civil emergencies, which rated the chances of a flu pandemic higher than that of an emerging infectious disease. It rated the probability of a flu pandemic as high, but stated: “The likelihood of a new disease spreading to the UK is low.” In October the following year, the government carried out Exercise Cygnus, which involved 950 officials from central and local government, the NHS, prisons and local emergency response planners.The aim was to test plans for a future “worst-case-scenario” flu pandemic affecting up to half of the population, causing up to 400,000 excess deaths.Mr Hunt, who now chairs the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, said: “We did exhaustive pandemic preparations; we were lauded by Johns Hopkins University as being the second-best-prepared country in the world.“But we were sadly also part of a groupthink that said that the primary way that you respond to a pandemic is the flu pandemic playbook (with a focus on areas like vaccination and boosting hospital capacity), rather than the methods that you would use for Sars and Mers (surveillance and containment, community testing, contact tracing and isolation, and stockpiling personal protective equipment, and ventilators).”That thinking was not unique to the UK, he said, and was shared in the US and across Europe.“But it’s why there is this stark difference in the effectiveness of our responses compared with countries in East Asia.”Last year a memo revealed that a recommendation for all frontline NHS staff to be given protective equipment during a flu epidemic was rejected as too costly in 2017.Mr Hunt said the decision to centralise testing in May helped create a structure quickly but “one of the big lessons of the future is to have localised contact tracing capability”.He called for a long-term plan for recruiting and training doctors, nurses and other staff but suggested work could have been done earlier in his tenure.“I was very proud to push through very large increases [in recruitment] in 2016,” Mr Hunt said. “But the truth is that not a single doctor has yetentered the workforce as a result of those changes.”He added: “We should be asking ourselves, ‘What do we need to do now to turn this into a ‘1948 moment’ [when the NHS was founded] and give the workforce the confidence that there is a long-term strategic plan in place that will ultimately deal with the rota gaps, the pressures and the shortages?’”The MP also said the biggest mistakes in the social care sector during the pandemic were over discharging Covid-positive patients into care homes”.He added: “We have a lot to learn from countries like Germany that said that care homes were not allowed to take Covid-positive patients unless they were able to quarantine them for two weeks, and they were very strict about that.“That may be the single reason why their death rate has been so much lower.”Dame Donna Kinnair, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, agreed the UK needed a long-term plan to deal with the chronic shortage of nursing staff. “Successive secretaries of state have ducked this issue but the pandemic means the fragility of the nursing workforce is now aninescapable reality,” she said.Additional reporting by PA More

The EU has rejected the UK government’s calls to redraw the Brexit deal’s Northern Ireland protocol, as a senior European Commission official said it was the only way to protect the Good Friday Agreement.A letter from the European Commission’s vice-president, Marcos Sefcovic, inflamed tensions on the eve of his meeting with Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove on Thursday in London, where they are due to discuss the problems faced in Northern Ireland as a result of the new trading arrangements.Mr Sefcovic expressed concerns over “teething problems” over the implementation of the protocol in the letter to Mr Gove on Wednesday, but added that it was now “our mutually agreed legal obligation”.The EU briefly triggered Article 16 during a row over Covid-19 vaccines, before quickly withdrawing. Unionists in Northern Ireland have since called for it to be ditched.The protocol was designed to prevent a hard border with Ireland but has resulted in additional checks for goods crossing from Great Britain into Northern Ireland, which led to empty supermarket shelves and disruption at the border last month.Article 16 overrides part of the protocol which prevents a hard border on the island of Ireland, and was intended as an emergency measure only.Unionists regard the new checks as a border in the Irish Sea separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayNorthern Ireland’s first minister Arlene Foster urged Mr Gove and Boris Johnson to “act on” their unionist beliefs, adding that “it is important that they realise that part of the United Kingdom is being treated differently”.She told ITV’s Peston: “And actually if you look at the protocol it talks about respecting the fact that the sovereign territory of the United Kingdom as one, it also talks about respecting the internal market of the United Kingdom.”I don’t believe that the European Union is doing either of those things and so I believe it is up to our Government to challenge them on that and the fact that they are separating out Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.”Mrs Foster described the issues with the protocol as “fundamental” and said: “You can’t even get a pot plant from Great Britain into Northern Ireland at the moment which is absolutely incredible.”Mr Sefcovic’s letter was criticised by UUP leader Steve Aiken, who said it “reeks of arrogance and intransigence”.He said the letter will to the opposite of “protecting the Belfast Agreement and defusing tensions”.But Mr Sefcovic made it clear in his letter that the commission regards the protocol as the only way forward.”The protocol is the solution agreed by the UK and the EU to these challenges: it is the only way to protect the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement, preserving peace and stability and avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland,” he wrote.”It is designed to ensure clarity and predictability for people and businesses, while minimising the disruption inevitably caused by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. It is a balanced outcome after years of difficult negotiations and is now our mutually agreed legal obligation.”I therefore agree that our shared objective is to work tirelessly in order to make the protocol work. It requires full and faithful implementation by both parties.”The Union’s commitment to the objectives of the protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, as a cornerstone of both the Withdrawal Agreement and the relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom, is unwavering.”He also used the letter to set out concerns over the implementation of the protocol, writing that Border Control posts (BCPs) are not yet fully operational and official controls not performed in compliance with the Withdrawal Agreement protocol and EU rules.Mr Sefcovic said the UK has “not yet fulfilled its obligation” to provide real-time access to all its IT systems, in particular access to key customs IT systems.However, he wrote that he is convinced these are “teething problems, for which we should be able to find swift solutions”.A UK government spokesperson said: “It is disappointing that the Commission has failed to acknowledge the shock and anger felt right across the community in Northern Ireland from its decision to trigger Article 16, and the need to take urgent steps to restore confidence as a result.”The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will underline the need for such action and political leadership in this regard when meeting with Vice-President Sefcovic in London tomorrow.” More

It was the kind of simple, cheery shot that promised to be a social media hit: a dog frolicking and playing fetch in a snow-speckled garden in central London.But a photograph of the prime minister’s pet Dilyn has sparked controversy over value to the taxpayer, concerns over Downing Street data – and peculiar insinuation from a No 10 spokesman that a cabinet position may have been filled by a pet.The photographs of the two-year-old Jack Russell cross, as well as one image of Larry the cat, a lay over from David Cameron’s time as PM, were uploaded to the No 10 Flickr account after being taken by a publicly funded photographer on Monday.They snaps prompted accusations that the PM’s team is using “vanity photographers” to document the goings on at Downing Street – and questions over why pets fell into the remit of historic moments worthy of capturing for posterity at taxpaper expense.The government confirmed two civil servants and a special adviser on staff take pictures of both the PM and other government ministers as they work in the corridors of power.Previous pictures of the the prime minister with Dilyn at Chequers, which were released earlier this year, were taken by Andrew Parsons – a party political special adviser who works part-time but earns the full-time equivalent of £100,000-£104,999.More pictures of the dog were taken by Pippa Fowles, a Ministry of Defence photographer seconded to No 10.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayA third photographer was recruited recently after being advertised with a salary of up to £60,635-a-year.Asked why taxpayer funded staff were required to take pictures of the prime ministerial pets, a Downing Street spokesperson said photographers “document the work of not just the prime minister but the whole of the Cabinet”.Pressed on what work the animals did for the government, the spokesman said: “I point you back to what I have already said.”The government has not previously made any announcements to suggest Larry, who carries the title of Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, or Dilyn, who is a dog, are considered full cabinet ministers.A Labour source said: “The government has made such a dog’s dinner of issues from the border response to kids’ education, Dilyn would be a marked improvement and probably waste less taxpayers’ cash.”While salaries of the photographers caused a headache for No 10, the images themselves that prompted a breach in Downing Street’s security – with one displaying the phone number of the prime minister’s fiancé, Carrie Symonds.The photograph, taken by Ms Fowles, has since been taken down, but the number remained active following the breach, according to the PA news agency.A third photographer, recruited recently after being advertised with a salary of up to £60,635-a-year, has been tasked with taking images across government.Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said: “The public will be rightly questioning why there is apparently no limit on the money that can be found to pay for a coterie of vanity photographers for the prime minister.”Asked why press photographers could not do the job, the Downing Street spokesman said: “It is obviously important that we record the activity of the government and… we make these pictures available for editorial use.“You are aware that we allow for other photographers to accompany ministers and prime ministers on visits also.” More