Markus Andrews

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch as Rishi Sunak holds a question-and-answer session in northern England, the latest stop on a tour around the country to talk to voters before an election expected later this year.The prime minister has vowed to “continue to confront the difficult challenges” as parliament returns for 2024.A Downing Street source said Mr Sunak was determined to “not take the easy way out” in a year that is likely to see a general election.MPs returned to Westminster following their Christmas break on Monday 8 January.Mr Sunak said last week that it is his “working assumption” the UK will “have a general election in the second half of this year”.The stance opens the door for him to call a potential autumn general election.Over the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer said he suspected the prime minister was “putting vanity before country” by wanting to mark two years in power — an anniversary that falls on 25 October — before sending the country to the polls. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has been forced to defend his flagship Rwanda plan after leaked documents suggested he harboured significant doubts about the controversial scheme – and argued for it to be scaled back. The prime minister said it had been his job when chancellor to scrutinise “every proposal” that involved spending taxpayers’ money.He insisted that it would be “wrong” to infer from that that he did not back the policy to deport asylum seekers.But the prime minister repeatedly said he had not read the documents, leaked to the BBC, which have led to accusations he has been “conning” the public over the plan.Mr Sunak was unsure the plan would achieve its ultimate goal, to deter channel crossings in small boats, a month before it was unveiled by then prime minister Boris Johnson, according to the papers.He was also concerned about the cost of sending asylum seekers to the African country and wanted to limit the numbers.Labour have accused Mr Sunak of trying to con the public and called on the government to publish the papers. The row comes as the Tory leader faces a crunch battle with his own party to get new emergency legislation through the Commons, after the Supreme Court ruled his Rwanda plan unlawful.Losing the vote could place the future of the scheme and even Mr Sunak’s leadership in peril. MPs on the right of the party have warned Mr Sunak he faces electoral “oblivion” unless flights to Rwanda get airborne. His former immigration minister Robert Jenrick has also threatened to lead a parliamentary revolt to try to toughen the bill, warning if the PM did not strengthen the new laws then he would lay amendments next week to ensure they were “sufficiently robust”.Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Mr Sunak said: “My job (was) to ask probing questions of every proposal that crossed my desk as chancellor.“Whether you have doubts about it or not, you shouldn’t come to it with a preconceived notion that everything is fine when you are spending taxpayers’ money, of course you shouldn’t.“You should always ask probing questions, you should always approach things from a position of scepticism to ensure that you get value for money for taxpayers. That is the job of the chancellor and the Treasury when things crossed their desk.“But to infer from that that I don’t believe in the scheme or the principle of deterrence is wrong. I was doing my job to get good value for money for taxpayers.“I went through that process, funded the scheme with the prime minister and, as prime minister myself, I have made sure that we have a similar deterrent working with Albania, and I have made the point that it is because Albania is working that we should have confidence that the Rwanda scheme will work too.”Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Mr Sunak had become the latest senior Conservative to indicate they “don’t believe the (Rwanda) plans will work”.Home secretary James Cleverly has not denied that he privately described the policy as “bat****”, before he was moved to the Home Office. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe government is examining ways to speed up the appeals process for wrongly convicted Post Office branch managers after what has been described as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history. Moves could include exonerating all those involved or removing the Post Office’s ability to investigate or prosecute suspecter officers, Rishi Sunak has confirmed. Mr Sunak told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that ministers should look at “every which way we can” to help those embroiled in the scandal. MPs are expected to tackle ministers over the issue when parliament re-opens after the Christmas holidays on Monday. There has been widespread public outcry after ITV aired a drama, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, based on the scandal.Asked if there could be exonerations or the government could remove the Post Office’s ability to investigate and prosecute, the prime minister said: “The justice secretary (Alex Chalk) is looking at the things that you’ve described, it wouldn’t be right to pre-empt that process, obviously there’s legal complexity in all of those things but he is looking at exactly those areas.”He added: “Everyone has been shocked by watching what they have done over the past few days and beyond and it is an appalling miscarriage of justice.“Obviously it’s something that happened in the Nineties but actually seeing it and hearing about it again just shows what an appalling miscarriage of justice it is for everyone affected and it’s important that those people now get the justice they deserve, and that’s what the compensation schemes are about.“The government has paid out about £150m to thousands of people already. Of course, we want to get the money to the people as quickly as possible, that’s why there are interim payments of up to, I think, £600,000 that can be made. There are three different schemes available and for anyone affected they should come forward.”The Post Office was actually prosecuting people caught up in the scandal as recently as 2015.Former Tory minister John Redwood said: “The Post Office scandal shows the dangers of a nationalised industry having special powers to abuse and prosecute its staff.”Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon accounting software made it appear as though money was missing from outlets, and branch managers were forced to pay back thousands of pounds.Hundreds of people were convicted based on the computer faults and many are yet to have their convictions quashed. Scotland Yard said on Friday night that officers were “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”, for example “monies recovered from subpostmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions”.The police had already been looking into potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice.Kevan Jones, the Labour MP for North Durham, who sits on the Horizon compensation advisory board, told the Sunday Times: “It is quite clear from the evidence presented to the public inquiry and in court, that the victims of this scandal should have their convictions quashed and their good names restored.”His constituent, Tom Brown, a former subpostmaster in Newcastle upon Tyne, was wrongly accused of stealing £85,000 in 2008. He lost his home and was made bankrupt.Former subpostmaster Lee Castleton, who was pursued through the courts and went bankrupt, said “more pressure” was needed to ensure victims get help.He told the BBC: “It has been very difficult to push our cause. We are just people from your village shop or your local post office. It is really hard to draw up support and it has been very difficult to get people to believe.”He added: “I would like people to contact their MP and put pressure on people to help us. The group has always needed help. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that support makes this work. It is very lonely being the only one, as the Post Office would constantly tell each of the victims.“Now we are together in this and we just need to keep walking forward no matter what the punches are, no matter how hard the war gets. We just need to keep pushing.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailKeir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of allowing “vanity” to delay the date of the general election as the battle for the keys to Downing Street becomes increasingly personal. The Labour leader hit out at the prime minister, saying he suspected he wanted to stay in No 10 until later this year to hit a milestone of two years in office. Mr Sunak’s decision this week to announce an election was likely only in the second half of 2024 was putting “vanity before country”, he added.He also rounded on Conservative attacks over his plans to borrow £28 billion to invest in green policies, saying “bring it on”, and accused the Tory leader of floating future tax cuts because he was out of ideas. For his part Mr Sunak used an interview with the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme to repeatedly focus on Sir Keir, even suggesting questions the Labour leader should be asked when he makes an appearance on the same show next week. He said tax cuts paid for by cutting the benefits bill were about “fairness” because Britain’s welfare system was “not working”, after the numbers signed off sick from work tripled in 10 years. Ministers would bring about reforms that meant “everybody who can work does work”, he said, adding that he was looking to control public spending “across the board”.Sir Keir said talk of pre-election tax cuts was the Prime Minister acting “in his own self-interest” and was the “wrong way to govern”.”He has run out of ideas,” he said: “They are desperately thrashing around and trying to find the dividing lines to go into the election.”It is not part of a strategy for growing the economy, it is simply picking tax cuts that the Prime Minister thinks might create a dividing line going into the election.”That is the wrong way to govern.” He added: ““If he had a plan, he would set the date and he should set the date because at the moment it is very hard to see how him continuing in Government improves the lives of anybody in the country, so there is drift.“I can’t help feeling that all he really wants to do is to get two years clocked up of his own premiership, and that means he is putting vanity before country.”He said that the tax burden on working people was too high, however, but declined to set out which taxes he would like to see reduced.He also said he was “absolutely up” for a fight on Labour’s pledge to deliver clean power by 2030.”But look, it is absolutely clear to me that the Tories are trying to weaponise this issue, the £28 billion etcetera. This is a fight I want to have…so if they want that fight, bring it on.”He also said he was kept up at night worrying about the impact of his job on his family and said he wants to “desperately try to protect” his two teenage children. He added: “The only thing that keeps me up at night, the only thing that worries me is our children, because they’re 13 and 15, that’s difficult ages.”It will impact them, we don’t name them in public, we don’t do photographs with them, they go to the local school and I just desperately try to protect them in that way, but I know it’s going to be harder and I do worry about that.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has been warned that falling mortgage rates will not boost his electoral hopes as 1.3million households face higher payments before the general election.The PM had hoped a better economic outlook and falling rates would provide a boost in time for an autumn election, saying “2024 is going to be a better year”.But House of Commons research, commissioned by the Lib Dems and seen by The Independent, reveals 1.3 million fixed-rate mortgage deals will expire before Britons go to the polls for an election expected in October.And, after the PM was accused of “bottling” a May contest, the figures showed an additional 600,000 families will face mortgage hikes before the election.Economists, mortgage brokers and pollsters have now warned the PM that voters heading to the polls will decide based on “how they feel in their pockets, not what the stats say about the economy”.And they have said that while it is positive mortgage rates are falling, voters can only expect to be made “slightly less poor than they would have”.The prime minister has been warned falling mortgage rates will not boost the Tories’ chances at a general election At the beginning of 2022, an average two-year fixed-rate mortgage carried 2.38 per cent interest.At the beginning of this year, that had risen to 5.93 per cent, meaning monthly repayments would be £395 higher, according to data from Moneyfacts.While that is £116 less than the payments homeowners would have faced when mortgage rates spiked after Liz Truss’s mini-budget, it could still add close to £5,000 to a household’s annual bills.For the same household renewing a five-year deal, they would still face a £291 monthly increase.Pollster Luke Tryl, UK director at More in Common, told The Independent the “key point” is that the public decide their vote on how they feel, not “what the stats say about the economy, inflation or interest rates”.“The reality for most people isn’t that they’ll be paying less, but instead they still be paying more and seeing a bigger part of their pay package going on mortgage and other interest payments,” he said.Mr Tryl added: “Saying to people ‘but you could have been paying even more’ isn’t a very compelling electoral argument.”And the Liberal Democrats, who commissioned the House of Commons research, said it showed more households face “mortgage misery” the longer Mr Sunak waits to call an election. The Institute of Fiscal Studies said that while those re-mortgaging now will get a better deal than a few weeks ago, “they will still face a sharp hike in costs when rolling off a fixed rate”.Senior research economist David Sturrock told The Independent: “That’s because the interest rates they face are still well above those two to five years ago.”He said monthly repayments based on interest rates of 5 per cent would be £119 less than at 6 per cent, but still £221 more than the 3 per cent interest rates typically seen two years ago.Simon Pittaway, Senior Economist at the Resolution Foundation, told The Independent that mortgage rates spiked during Trussonomics under Mr Sunak’s predecessor. They peaked last year amid a slew of Bank of England interest rate hikes.And Mr Pittaway said that while mortgage rates falling is good news, “households having to re-mortgage this year should be under no illusions that they’ll be getting a cheaper deal”.The New Economics Foundation think tank said households renewing fixed-term mortgages this year will still face “far higher” bills than they would have been paying.“Although mortgage rates are falling slightly, they are still much higher than they were for many years prior to the disastrous Truss mini-budget just over two years ago,” he said.Mr Sunak ruled out a spring vote and raised the prospect of a lengthy and bitter campaign on Thursday when he confirmed it was his “working assumption” that he would call the election in the second half of the year.Conservative polling guru Robert Hayward told The Independent that the PM was “wise” to wait in the hope of an economic revival.The Tory peer thinks the “general perception” of the Tories could improve because of the slightly rosier outlook for first-time buyers. “The longer you can put between the Truss period and the election the better for the government,” Lord Hayward said.The Tories would need a major rebound to catch Labour in the polls, with Sir Keir’s party commanding a 19-point lead. It is the biggest lead a year out from an election for any party since Sir Tony Blair’s landslide 1997 win.And mortgage broker Lewis Shaw, of Shaw Financial Services, told The Independent: “The notion that the electorate will celebrate with glee at being made slightly less poor than they would have is for the birds.“That’s akin to only getting whipped twice a day rather than the normal three. The current government has directly and consciously contributed to the crisis millions of households are facing and the crisis millions are already in.”Labour piled on the pressure over rising mortgage bills Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Sarah Olney warned the longer Mr Sunak waits to call an election, the more families will face “mortgage misery”. “People are seeing their monthly mortgage payments go up by hundreds of pounds a month, while the government is bogged down in endless chaos and infighting,” she said.Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones MP, said: “Interest rates beginning to fall is good news but the 197,000 homeowners coming off fixed rate mortgages this month alone will still experience huge hikes in their monthly payments, which are typically set to increase by £240.”Darryl Dhoffer of The Mortgage Expert said: “The Tories are trying to paint falling rates as a victory lap, but for many mortgage holders, it’s more like a sucker punch disguised as a glove tap.“My clients who locked in at historically low rates three years ago are now staring at a doubling of their monthly payments. Falling rates won’t help them dodge that uppercut.”Craig Fish, managing director of the brokerage Lodestone, told The Independent: “People are now, or soon will be, paying more than ever for their mortgages and daily expenses, leaving a bitter taste that only a change in government seems likely to remedy.”A Treasury spokesman said: “Interest rates are high across the developed world as economies work to tackle high inflation and the UK is no different. But now inflation has halved, the economy is turning a corner – starting with tax cuts for 27 million people this month, saving the average earner £450 a year.“We are also supporting households worth £3,700 between 2022 and 2025 and our Mortgage Charter can make it easier for people to manage monthly repayments and gives extra protections against repossessions.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe UK is to launch a £300 million drive to push Vladimir Putin further out of the global energy market though an investment in high-tech nuclear fuel. Ministers will vow to end what they say is Russia’s reign as the only commercial producer of a type of enriched uranium needed for the next generation of reactors. It comes as the world prepares for the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine next month. The UK has warned Russia that if casualties continue at their current rate it will have lost over half a million personnel in the conflict by the end of 2024.The war also triggered a shock in the world’s energy markets leading the government to rethink Britain’s energy security.Energy secretary Claire Coutinho said ministers would not allow Putin to “hold us to ransom on nuclear fuel. “Britain gave the world its first operational nuclear power plant, and now we will be the first nation in Europe outside of Russia to produce advanced nuclear fuel,” she said. “This will be critical for energy security at home and abroad and builds on Britain’s historic competitive advantages.” The government says the plans will help build new supplies of affordable and clean domestic power. It will involve a £300 million investment in high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU).The programme will provide jobs and investment in the north west of England, as part of plans to deliver quarter of the UK’s electricity needs through nuclear power by 2050. Another £10 million will be used to develop the skills and sites needed to produce other advanced nuclear fuels in the UK.Ministers argue the move will help mean the transition to ‘net zero’ does not mean higher prices for consumers. The UK has agreed with other G7 nuclear partners to reduce global dependence on Russian fuel. On Saturday the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that the average daily number of Russian casualties in Ukraine rose by almost 300 during the course of last year. “If the numbers continue at the current rate over the next year, Russia will have lost over half a million personnel in Ukraine,” it added. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has warned he will curb benefits and government spending to help fund tax cuts.In a new interview, the prime minister said his priority was cutting taxes, but that would result in “difficult decisions” having to be made on public spending, without going into specifics. His comments came after he revealed earlier this week he was aiming for an election in the second half of this year, having ruled out going to the polls in 2025. Rishi Sunak has said he will cut benefits and government spending to fund tax cutsThe prime minister told The Sunday Telegraph: “When I say that I want to keep cutting taxes, that’s what we’re going to deliver. We’re going to do that responsibly. That requires difficult decisions on public spending. It requires difficult decisions to control welfare. Those, I believe, are the right things to do for our country. “I want to control public spending, I want to control welfare, which we’re doing and because we’re doing that, and because we’re being disciplined with borrowing and our debt, we’re going to be in a position to cut taxes.“I want to keep cutting people’s taxes. There’s no way we can do that unless we restrain the growth in the public sector and government spending.”Sir Kier Starmer is currently on course to win power, commanding an 18-point leadThe Tories used last year’s autumn statement to unveil a two per cent cut to National Insurance in a bid to boost the party’s fortunes, which chancellor Jeremy Hunt said will save the average worker £450 a year. The cut came into effect from Saturday but changes to other taxes, including the freezing of tax thresholds under Mr Sunak as chancellor, mean the tax burden facing households is still rising.The Resolution Foundation has said anybody earning under £26,000 will be worse off, with the tax cut benefiting those earning £50,000 a year the most. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said a worker earning the average salary of £35,000 would be £440 worse off by 2028 and overall, the tax burden is still on course to be the highest since the Second World War.Mr Sunak is reportedly considering scrapping inheritance tax in the March Budget, as he scrambles to appeal to voters ahead of next year’s general election. Opinion polls have for two years consistently given Labour a double-digit lead over the Conservatives, who have churned through three prime ministers in 18 months amid a stuttering economy and frequent scandals. More