Markus Andrews

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as Jeremy Hunt is questioned on the spring Budget on Wednesday, 13 March, after the Conservatives’ fiscal announcement last week.The chancellor’s appearance before the Treasury Committee comes after his economic proposals cleared their first Commons hurdle amid warnings that they lack a “bombshell” announcement to turn around the Tories’ election prospects.Mr Hunt used last week’s Budget to announce pre-election giveaways, including a 2p cut in national insurance for employees and the self-employed from April and a cut to the top rate of capital gains tax on property sales.MPs approved a series of Budget resolutions, which relate to specific proposals for taxation, on Tuesday evening.A Finance Bill will be considered at a later date to give them permanent legal effect.Conservative MP Richard Drax said on the final day of the Budget debate: “When I heard the Chancellor speak about the importance of lower taxes and allowing people to keep more of their hard-earned money I was expecting a bombshell of an announcement during his speech.”For example, abolishing inheritance tax, lowering income tax – which I would’ve personally chosen myself, not national insurance – lowering corporation tax to encourage growth, simplifying the tax system, less state, less regulation, reforming business rates, curbing many of these bloated quangos if not scrapping them altogether, and returning control to elected ministers.” More

Sir Keir Starmer took a swipe at Rishi Sunak in PMQs today (13 March), saying he cannot trick people into believing in the “completely unfunded £46bn” Labour said plans to abolish national insurance contributions would cost.The opposition leader continued by saying that “shaking the Tory magic money tree” will not bring the promise into existence.Punctuating his jab at the government’s new plan to cut taxes in the spring Budget introduced last week, Sir Keir asked the prime minister how the money will be found: “So it’s either cutting pensions or the NHS, or he will have to raise other taxes or borrowing. Which is it prime minister?” More

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emailsSign up to our free breaking news emailsWatch as Rishi Sunak faced Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday, 13 March.The week’s PMQs touched on a Tory donor’s alleged racist remarks against Diane Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving black MP.The Guardian reported Frank Hester, chief executive of The Pheonix Partnership (TPP), made his comments during a company meeting in 2019, where he said: “It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like… you just want to hate all black women because she’s there.“And I don’t hate all black women at all, but I think she should be shot.“(The executive) and Diane Abbott need to be shot.”TPP said Mr Hester “accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbot” but claims his criticism “had nothing to do with her gender or colour of skin.”The healthcare software firm also claimed that Mr Hester phoned Ms Abbott twice in an effort to apologise personally.In a statement released to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ms Abbott said: “It is frightening.”Sir Keir has given his support to Ms Abbott and urged the Conservatives to return the £10m donation Mr Hester gave to the party last year.Speaking to ITV’s Lorraine on Tuesday, Sir Keir said: “I’m sorry, this apology this morning that pretends what was said was not racist or was not anything to do with the fact she is a woman… I don’t buy that, I’m afraid.”After declining to label the comments as racist, a spokesperson for Mr Sunak then said: “The comments allegedly made by Frank Hester were racist and wrong.”He has now rightly apologised for the offence caused and where remorse is shown it should be accepted.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe government is under pressure to return a 10 million pound donation from business executive Frank Hester after racist comments aimed at Diane Abbott were unearthed this week.Hester, chief executive of healthcare software firm The Phoenix Partnership, reportedly said in a 2019 company meeting that Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving Black legislator, “should be shot” and made him “want to hate all Black women”.The Conservative Party’s biggest donor, Hester’s company has been paid more than 400 million pounds ($510 million) by the National Health Service and other government bodies since 2016.After the comments were published by The Guardian newspaper, Hester acknowledged that he’d been “rude about Diane Abbott” but denied being racist.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak initially criticized Hester’s comments as “unacceptable,” but it took almost 24 hours for him to call the remarks racist.Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake told broadcasters on Wednesday that the party would not give back the money, telling Sky News that “clearly” the comments were racist, but that it was right to keep the donation because Hester “is not a racist, and he has apologized for what he said.”But Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of England’s West Midlands region, told BBC radio that if it were up to him, “I would think about the company I kept and I would give that money back.”As Britain’s political parties are trying to build up funds for election campaigns later this year, should the Tories return the sum donated by Hester?Share your thoughts by adding it in the comments and we’ll highlight the most insightful ones as they come in.All you have to do is sign up and register your details – then you can then take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking ‘log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here.Join the conversation with other Independent readers below or by clicking here. More

Rishi Sunak said he would not return a £15,000 donation from Frank Hester that funded a helicopter trip as a row over the Tory donor’s alleged comments about Diane Abbott continued.At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday (13 March), the prime minister said: “No… I am pleased [Mr Hester] is supporting a party that represents one of the most diverse governments in this country’s history.”Mr Hester, who donated £10m to the Tories last year, allegedly made comments about the MP including that she made him “want to hate all Black women”.A statement from Mr Hester’s firm said he “accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott… but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin.” More

Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis said he does not want the foreign aid budget “to exist at all” after it was revealed £3.2 billion has been allocated to the Home Office to house migrants in hotels.Appearing on BBC Politics Live today (13 March), Mr Gullis and Labour MP Sarah Champion joined the panel to discuss whether migrants should be paid to go to Rwanda.Ms Champion said: “I can announce £3.2 billion of UK foreign aid has been allocated to the Home office, for hotels for the next financial year.”Mr Gullis replied: “I don’t want the foreign aid budget to exist at all.” More

Rishi Sunak claimed Sir Keir Starmer “let antisemitism run rife’ in the Labour Party during a heated Prime Minister’s Questions today (13 March).Discussing alleged racist comments made about Labour MP Diane Abbott by top Tory donor Frank Hester, Sir Keir asked Mr Sunak: “What does the Prime Minister think it was about the hundreds of millions of pounds of NHS contracts given to Frank Hester by his Government that first attracted him to giving £10 million to the Tory Party in the first place?”Mr Sunak said he was “absolutely not going to take any lectures” from Sir Keir who he said “chose to serve a leader who let antisemitism run rife in his Labour Party”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMajor Tory donor Frank Hester has been under fire since comments that he allegedly made about Diane Abbott.He is accused of saying in 2019 that Britain’s longest-serving black MP made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.Mr Hester has not denied making the remarks, but claimed they had “nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.The Independent revealed Diane Abbott reported the Conservative Party’s biggest ever donor to the police.The MP filed a complaint with the Metropolitan Police’s parliamentary liaison and investigations team after Frank Hester, who donated £10m to the Tories last year, allegedly made a series of incendiary comments about her, including that she made him “want to hate all Black women”.In a statement issued on Tuesday morning, Ms Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving Black MP, had described the reported comments as “worrying”.“It is frightening. I live in Hackney, I don’t drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places, more than most MPs,” she said.“I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talking like this is worrying.”But who is the businessman embroiled in the racism row?What is Frank Hester’s background?The 58-year-old grew up in Armley in the west of Leeds, West Yorkshire. His parents, from Ireland, started a plastering business. It was his mother’s payroll work that inspired him to start writing software to speed up the process.Mr Hester trained as a priest before studying computer science at university and working as a software engineer in the financial sector.How did Frank Hester make his fortune?He founded The Phoenix Partnership (TPP) in 1997 in an effort “to improve efficiency and standards in the UK healthcare system” and “remove the administrative burden” from his GP wife, according to its website.The Yorkshire-based health tech company’s core product SystmOne allows digital medical records to be shared and is today used in more than 2,600 GP practices and a third of acute mental health trusts, as well as in China, the Middle East and the Caribbean.TPP is worth £1 billion after winning more than £400 million of NHS and prison contracts in the last eight years, according to the Guardian, which broke the story about Mr Hester’s comments about Ms Abbott.Then-Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott addresses anti-Brexit supporters in London, Saturday, October 19, 2019It was the subject of controversy in 2018 when an error by the company, used by the NHS, led to confidential health data of 150,000 patients being shared.During the pandemic, TPP was reported to have won a six-figure Government contract to supply data on vaccine uptake levels at GP practices in England.The service has proved to be very profitable, with TPP recording an £80 million turnover and profit before tax of £40 million in the year to March 2023, according to Companies House documents.Mr Hester, its sole director, netted a salary of £510,000.He appeared at number 321 on the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, with the newspaper estimating his wealth at £415 million.Mr Hester wrote on LinkedIn that TPP takes “care of all of our staff” with “bacon sandwiches for breakfast and a free bar early evening at the local pub” on Fridays.In 2015, the businessman was made a member of the Order of the British Empire for his services to healthcare.What about his donations to the Conservative Party?Mr Hester donated £10 million to the Tories last year, according to Electoral Commission records.He individually donated £5 million to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s party in May and gave another £5 million via TPP in November. Prime Minster Rishi Sunak departs 10 Downing Street to go to the House of Commons for his weekly PMQS Mr Sunak also accepted a personal gift of nearly £16,000 for a helicopter ride last December.In an interview with the Telegraph last month, Mr Hester said he spent much of his adult life voting for the Green Party or spoiling his ballot before turning to the Tories.The entrepreneur has been invited on several government trade missions in the past, including visiting India with then-prime minister David Cameron in 2013.He told the Telegraph the he became more supportive of the Tories on the trade trip, but that it was Mr Sunak’s engagement with artificial intelligence that convinced him to hand over cash.“I’ve had some quite long conversations with Rishi about AI,” he told the paper.The donations came as the Conservative Party continues to languish in the polls ahead of a general election expected later this year.Mr Hester has posted on LinkedIn about meeting Boris Johnson at the 2020 Commonwealth heads of government meeting and attending Mr Sunak’s AI discussion with tech billionaire Elon Musk last year.What happed in the past week?Before this week, Mr Hester kept a fairly low public profile for a leader of such a major company.But on Monday he was cast into the spotlight by a report about racist comments he allegedly made in 2019.The Guardian reported that, during a meeting at his Leeds company headquarters, he discussed Ms Abbott after criticising an executive at another organisation.He reportedly said: “It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like … you just want to hate all black women because she’s there.“And I don’t hate all black women at all, but I think she should be shot.“(The executive) and Diane Abbott need to be shot.”The fallout intensified on Tuesday night when the newspaper reported that he referred to “no room for the Indians” during a crowded meeting, and suggested they “climb on the roof, like on the roof of the train there”.What was his response?Mr Hester admitted making “rude” comments about Ms Abbott, but claimed they had “nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.In a statement released through his firm, Mr Hester said he had tried to call Ms Abbott on Monday to “apologise directly for the hurt he has caused her”.“He wishes to make it clear that he regards racism as a poison which has no place in public life.”Responding to the Guardian’s second story on X, formerly Twitter, he did not deny making the comments, but pointed out he also said “I abhor racism”.What was the wider reaction to the revelations?Mr Hester’s alleged comments were widely condemned, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats branding them racist and calling for the Tories to return his donations.After ministers and Downing Street refused to describe Mr Hester’s comments as racist for most of Tuesday, the Prime Minister’s spokesman finally labelled them as such in the evening.There is no sign Mr Sunak’s party is moving to hand back the cash Mr Hester has donated.Ms Abbott herself said the reported comments were “frightening” and “alarming” given that two MPs – Jo Cox and Sir David Amess – have been murdered in recent years. Police are understood to have been contacted. More