Markus Andrews

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has been rebuked by the UK’s statistics watchdog over his claims to have reduced public debt.The prime minister said that “debt is falling” in a social media video and told the Commons that “we have indeed reduced debt” at PMQs last month.But the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) Sir Robert Chote has suggested Mr Sunak’s claims, part of his five key pledges, were misleading. He said the average person “would likely have assumed that he was claiming that debt was already falling or that the government’s policy decisions had lowered it at the fiscal events – neither of which is the case”.And in a stern warning, Sir Robert said: “This has clearly been a source of confusion and may have undermined trust in the government’s use of statistics and quantitative analysis in this area.”In a letter to Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney, the stats watchdog chief said No 10 told the UKSA that Mr Sunak’s claims referred to forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).The claims involved looking at the underlying measure of net debt would be falling as a proportion of GDP in the final year of its five-year forecast – meaning 2028-29 at the time of the November autumn statement.This was primarily due to happen because of changes to the OBR’s underlying economic and fiscal projections, even as government decisions on tax and spending pushed debt higher in cash terms.Rishi Sunak told off in letter by stats watchdog chief But Sir Robert said that this is not how the “average person in the street” would interpret Mr Sunak’s statements.“Members of the public cannot be expected to understand the minutiae of public finance statistics and the precise combination of definitional choices that might need to be made for a particular claim to be true,” he wrote.The Office for Statistics Regulation, the UKSA’s regulatory arm, “will work with the prime minister’s office to ensure further statements on debt levels adhere to our guidance on intelligent transparency,” Sir Robert said.Ministers should “ask themselves how someone with an interest but little specialist knowledge is likely to interpret a particular claim and to explain themselves clearly if they choose to depart significantly from that in definitional terms,” he wrote.Reducing debt is one of Mr Sunak’s five pledges, alongside halving inflation, growing the economy, cutting NHS waiting times and stopping small boat crossings.Ms Olney had written to the UK’s official statistics watchdog to raise her concerns about Mr Sunak’s remarks.Following Sir Robert’s reply, the Lib Dem MP said Mr Sunak “knows he has no good story to tell on the UK economy so he has resorted to making one up”.“Instead, he has reached for the Boris Johnson playbook and is undermining trust in politics. This is desperate stuff from a desperate prime minister, and it is right that he has been called out on it.”She added: “Rather than using smoke and mirrors to cover up his own failings, Rishi Sunak needs to come forward with a real strategy to rebuild the economy after the Conservative party crashed it.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has admitted he does not know when he will be able to “stop the boats”, insisting there is no “firm date” on the promise he made.The PM made stopping migrant crossings in the English Channel one of his five key pledges in January, but has so far failed to deliver on it and three other promises.Grilleds by parliament’s powerful liaison committee, Mr Sunak said he does not have “a precise date” for when the crossings will stop. “We will keep going until we do [stop the boats],” he insisted.The Tory leader also refused to tell the senior MPs if any airline had agreed to Rwanda deportation flights, amid reports the government is struggling to find a partner.In an often tense exchanges with the heads of select committee heads on Tuesday, Mr Sunak said he remained “highly confident” he will be able to deport asylum seekers to the east African nation under the scheme.And the Tory leader stressed that the “deterrence” effect of the policy, which would see those arriving across the channel put on one-way flights to Rwanda, will work to cut arrivals.Home affairs committee chairman Diana Johnson grilled Mr Sunak over the plans, saying: “I understand that no airline is willing to actually contract with the government to remove people to Rwanda because of reputational damage. Is that correct?”Home affairs committee chairman Dame Diana Johnson grilled Rishi Sunak over his Rwanda plans Mr Sunak said he would not comment on “commercial conversations”, but stressed he is “highly confident that we can operationalise the [Rwanda] bill in all its aspects”.The PM also refused to provide further details of how much will be spent on the scheme, which has seen zero asylum seekers deported since being unveiled by Boris Johnson last April.Mr Sunak again stressed that details of the government’s deal with Rwanda are “commercially sensitive”, insisting that disclosing the cost yearly to parliament offered “the appropriate level of transparency”.Labour attacked the PM’s inability to say when he would fulfil the stop the boats pledge. Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said: “A year on from making his public pledge, Rishi Sunak has just admitted there is no firm date by which he will meet his target to stop the boats.”Launching a defence of his record on small boat crossings, Mr Sunak said: “We will keep going until we [stop the boats]. This isn’t one of these things when there’s a precise date estimate on it, this is something where before I took this job they had only ever gone up, now they’re down by a third.”Rishi Sunak appearing before the Commons Liaison CommitteeMeanwhile, home secretary James Cleverly said the government will “not be able to rely” on its treaty with Rwanda if key elements of the agreement are not in place. But he told peers that the African country has a “reputational incentive” to make the deal work.Mr Cleverly was unable to tells peers Lords international agreements committee what progress had so far been made on putting practical elements of the treaty, such as appointing international judges to sit in a new asylum appeals court, into practice.“This is a country that is willing to move very, very quickly,” said the home secretary. “But, ultimately, if the elements of the treaty are not in place, then obviously we will not be able to rely on the treaty for the purposes of asylum process.”Mr Cleverly also said the Rwanda policy on its own will not stop small boat crossings. And he insisted that the number of asylum seekers who could come to UK from Rwanda under a reciprocity clause was “single digits”.Mr Sunak was unable to tell MPs say when he would clear the backlog of total asylum claims, which stood at 109,442 cases at the end of November.He pledged to clear the backlog of “legacy” cases made before the end of June 2022 by the end of 2023. By November it had fallen by nearly three quarters to just over 18,000. But the rest of the backlog, applications made on or after the end of June, continues to rise, reaching 91,000 at the end of November.Asked when the overall backlog would be cleared, the PM refused to offer a date, saying: “We haven’t set a target for that publicly but obviously the priority was clearing the initial legacy asylum backlog.”Aside from overseeing a halving in the rate of inflation, the PM ends the year having failed on all the other measures; reducing national debt, cutting NHS waiting lists and growing the economy.Mr Sunak was asked at the committee hearing if he ever lies awake at night worrying about inequality. “No,” the Tory leader replied – before adding: “I want to make sure we reduce economic inequality and spread opportunity around the country.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as David Cameron meets Antonio Tajani in Rome on Tuesday, 19 December, to discuss the crises in Gaza and Ukraine.The UK foreign secretary is also meeting his counterpart to discuss working together to tackle illegal migration.Lord Cameron and Mr Tajani’s news conference is being held after the pair attended the 16th Conference of Italian Ambassadors in the world.It comes after Rishi Sunak used a gathering of Italian conservatives and right-wingers in Rome over the weekend to issue a stark warning of the threat posed by illegal migration to “overwhelm” European states.The UK prime minister met his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni, with whom he has developed a strong partnership, as they announced plans for the UK and Italy to participate in the Rome Process; the leaders committed to “co-fund a project to promote and assist the voluntary return of migrants from Tunisia to their countries of origin”, a statement from Downing Street said. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSchools and colleges in England have been told there is “no general duty” to allow children to change their gender identity.Teachers in England will not be “compelled” to use a preferred pronouns, the government’s long-awaited transgender guidance has said.But Rishi Sunak is facing a backlash from Tory right-wingers angry that it does not ban social transitioning – the process when pupils change their names, pronouns and clothing – in schools.Former Tory PM Liz Truss said it “doesn’t go far enough” and will let trans rights activists “exploit loopholes in the guidance … to pursue their agenda”.Jonathan Gullis MP, former schools minister, said: “This fudge from the government is wholly unacceptable, leaving teachers vulnerable to attacks from those who try to impose their extremist gender ideology onto young minds.”The guidance says schools will be told that there is “no general duty” to allow children to change their gender identity. And schools are under no obligation to provide gender-neutral facilities.The advice also says on the “rare occasions” where a school or college agrees to a change of pronouns, no teacher or pupil should be compelled to use them. It says teachers should still be able to refer to children collectively as “girls” or “boys”.Kemi Badenoch has said single sex areas needed protecting from ‘predators’The advice also says that teachers should consider if a pupil’s request to socially transition has been “influenced by social media” or their “peers”.Schools have also been told to tell parents if a pupil wants to change their gender identity, with some exceptions. Parents “should not be excluded” from decisions taken by a school relating to requests for a child to “socially transition”.The guidance also adds that schools should provide separate toilets for boys and girls aged eight and above – and changing rooms and showers for boys and girls who are aged 11 years or over at the start of the school year.The guidance says all children should use the toilets, showers and changing facilities “designated for their biological sex unless it will cause distress for them to do so”.It adds: “In these instances, schools and colleges should seek to find alternative arrangements, while continuing to ensure spaces are single-sex.”Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, said the guidance would give teachers and school heads “greater confidence” when dealing with an issue “hijacked by activists misrepresenting the law”.The cabinet minister added: “It makes clear that schools do not have to accept a child’s request to socially transition, and that teachers or pupils should not be pressured into using different pronouns.”But a school leaders unions said headteachers will continue to be placed in a difficult position – arguing that the trans guidance leaves many “questions unanswered”.Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “school leaders will continue to be placed in an incredibly difficult position.”The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said it would be reviewing whether the guidance is “clear and deliverable and whether it places extra workload on education staff”.Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, condemned the plan. “The UK government’s draft trans guidance for schools does not put the best interests of children first, and as such is simply not fit for purpose,” said a spokesperson.The trans rights advocates said there was “considerable evidence” that allowing social transition “improves the mental health of trans children and young people”.However, Maya Forstater, executive director of the gender-critical group Sex Matters, largely welcomed the changes. “This guidance, though imperfect, sets the global standard for uprooting trans ideology from schools.”She added: “No other country that has allowed the trans lobby to dictate lessons and school policies has moved so decisively to reverse course.”Former PM Liz Truss says guidance does not go far enough But some on the Tory right are uneasy. Ms Truss said it “does not go far enough” and leaves children “at risk of making irreversible changes and with single-sex spaces not sufficiently protected”.Ms Truss has put forward her own legislation to mean that would mean social transitioning is not recognised by schools or the state in children and puberty blockers and hormone treatment for gender dysphoria would be banned for under-18s.No 10 said the government could still change the guidance. “We will listen carefully to the views of those who work in the sector and beyond,” said Mr Sunak’s official spokesman. “We have taken the time, we believe, to strike the right balance.”Education secretary Gillian Keegan – thought to have pushed for a less hardline stance that Ms Badenoch – claimed the guidance would remove “any confusion about the protections that must be in place for biological sex and single-sex spaces”.She added: “Parents’ views must also be at the heart of all decisions made about their children, and nowhere is that more important than with decisions that can have significant effects on a child’ life for years to come.”Meanwhile, a Tory minister has claimed a police force was wrong to record an allegation of transphobia made against a Conservative MP as a “non-crime hate incident”.Redditch MP Rachel Maclean is challenging the decision made by West Mercia Police after an investigation into her retweet of a post on X, formerly Twitter, which described transgender woman Melissa Poulton as “a man who wears a wig”. More

Rishi Sunak clashed with a Labour MP over his cuts to overseas aid while he was chancellor as Yemen faces the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”The now-prime minister slashed foreign aid from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of gross national income in 2020.In October 2021, Mr Sunak said he expected to restore the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas aid in 2024-25.The UN says Yemen has “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” with “tens of thousands… living in famine-like conditions.”“When it comes to the aid budget, I don’t regret the cuts to the overall aid budget,” Mr Sunak told MPs on Tuesday (19 December). More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as Rishi Sunak is questioned by parliament’s select committee chairs regarding global affairs, economic issues, COP28 and energy concerns.It comes after the prime minister ruled out the prospect of a general election in 2025, telling a gathering of journalists in Downing Street that the UK will go to the polls next year.Under current rules, the latest date an election can be held is January 2025.According to a December 2023 Ipsos poll on UK voting intention, Labour are at 41 per cent and the Conservatives are at 24 per cent.Britain’s top pollster told The Independent that Mr Sunak is heading for a landslide election defeat even if his Rwanda immigration policy gets off the ground.Professor Sir John Curtice said the prime minister faces a “very bleak situation” and could lose as many as 220 of the Conservatives’ current total of 350 MPs. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailCabinet minister Michael Gove has claimed the government will take on council planning departments that “drag their feet” when it comes to the approval of new homes.But the housing secretary was accused of “capitulating” to nimby Tory MPs after he announced moves to let councils reject housebuilding targets in the countryside.Local authorities will no longer have to earmark greenfield land for new homes, under changes revealed by the levelling up secretary on Tuesday.Mr Gove denied caving to pressure by the nimbys – the “not in my back yard” campaigners and MPs – as he vowed to get tough with councils who “delay” housebuilding.The senior Tory said there would be “no excuse” for not dealing with planning applications promptly under reforms aimed at dealing with England’s housing shortage.The government will give local authorities three months to come up with plans to meet the housing need in their area. Those that fail could have developments forced upon their area, and councillors could also be stripped of their powers to delay applications.“There is now no excuse for not having a (housing) plan in place … There is no excuse for the arbitrary refusal of planning permissions. Delay, no. Denial, no,” Mr Gove said.Michael Gove says nimbys ‘often have good reason to just say no’ The government will name and shame local councils by publishing “robust league tables” on their planning system, Mr Gove also announced.But councils will be able to turn down housing development if it would significantly change the character of an area or build on the green belt.Last year, Rishi Sunak and Mr Gove dropped compulsory housing targets to ward off a potential backbench Tory rebellion – choosing instead to make the 300,000 target in England only advisory.Asked if he was a “yimby” – a pro-housing campaigner who says “yes in my back yard” – Mr Gove said: “Yes.” But Mr Gove also defended anti-housing campaigners, saying they “often have good reason to just say no”.Deputy Labour leader and shadow housing secretary Angela Rayner said: “Despite all this tough talk, [Mr Gove] and Rishi Sunak have stripped away every measure that would get shovels in the ground and houses built to appease their backbenchers.”“We simply can’t be expected to believe that the government will take the steps necessary to get the homes built that Britain desperately needs,” Ms Rayner added – attacking the “reckless” decision to abolish local targets.Labour’s leader Angela Rayner says Tory promises cannot be ‘believed’ The Home Builders Federation (HBF) also accused Mr Gove and ministers of a “capitulation” to Tory MPs in the countryside.“No matter how it is packaged, it will result in fewer new homes and represents another victory for NIMBY backbenchers,” said HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley.The levelling up secretary has also set out plans for a major expansion around Cambridge, with around 150,000 new homes. And he set up a major clash with London Mayor Sadiq Khan as he ordered a review of the supply of homes in the capital.Mr Khan got his defence of London’s building record in early, tweeting: “Oh dear … the Tories are desperately trying to distract from their catastrophic housing record.”He said a record number of homes have been built in London, more council homes have been started than since the 1970s – and Labour boroughs are delivering 50 per cent more homes than Tory ones.“I love Sadiq,” said Mr Gove to laughter during his speech. “What I want to do is help him deliver.” But the Tory minister warned that he could “intervene” in London if housing targets continued to be missed.Meanwhile, the HBF pointed out that the number of sites granted planning permission in the past 12- months in England was the lowest quarterly figure recorded since such reports began in 2006.The levelling up department said ministers are “continuing to deliver” on the target of building one million homes over this parliament, between 2019 and January 2025.Officials said numerous measures to help build homes had been introduced, including bringing forward the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, which is designed to speed up the planning system, hold developers to account and encourage more councils to put local plans in place. More

Jeremy Corbyn joined immigration policy protesters outside the Home Office in central London on Monday, 18 December.It came after Rishi Sunak’s Safety of Rwanda Bill passed its second reading last Tuesday, pushing forward the controversial deportation scheme.The prime minister’s new planned legislation would deem Rwanda safe in British law after the original bill was struck down as unlawful by the Supreme Court.MPs approved the Safety of Rwanda Bill at its second reading by 313 votes to 269, majority 44.”Treat [refugees] like human beings and create safe passages,” Mr Corbyn urged. More