UK Politics

Boris Johnson will make “a big mistake” if he axes the post of an ethics adviser following Christopher Geidt’s sudden resignation, his former anti-corruption tsar is warning.No 10 has floated not replacing the peer – who quit in protest at being asked for advice on a “deliberate” breach of the ministerial code – despite the outcry over standards in government.But John Penrose, who also quit this month over the prime minister’s response to the Partygate scandal, warned he would pay a price if no-one scrutinises ministers’ behaviour.“That would be potentially quite a big mistake. You can obviously change the role a bit, but you shouldn’t be weakening the role,” he said.Warning Mr Johnson is already “overdrawn on his account” after repeated scandals, Mr Penrose said: “You can’t just pretend it doesn’t matter, that there’s no job to be done.”He said: “They need to show that they’re serious about this”, adding: “The difficulty with issues about honesty and integrity, and so forth, is they don’t go away if you just ignore them.”Mr Penrose also questioned what would happen to Lord Geidt’s outstanding report into the controversy over the financing of the prime minister’s lavish flat refurbishment.He called for it to be completed and published, rather than be left “sitting on the shelf” after the departure of the adviser on ministerial interests.Meanwhile, the small business minister Paul Scully admitted to unanswered questions about Lord Geidt’s resignation – which No 10 claimed was about tariffs, apparently in the steel industry.Mr Scully said he “can’t really reconcile” Lord Geidt stating he had been placed in an “impossible and odious” position with the explanation for his departure. There is widespread scepticism that steel tariffs are a full explanation for the walkout – and bewilderment that the overseer of the ministerial code was asked for his advice in the first place.Lord Geidt is not believed to have been consulted when the government ignored its trade watchdog and extended the tariffs the first time a year ago.He has also not been consulted over far more high-profile issues – the ripping up of the Northern Ireland Protocol and the deportations to Rwanda – alleged to breach international agreements.This week, Lord Geidt hinted he would have investigated Mr Johnson – if he had been allowed to – over whether he breached the code in being fined over the No 10 parties.He told MPs: “It’s reasonable to say that, perhaps a fixed penalty notice and the prime minister paying it, may have constituted not meeting the overarching duty under the ministerial code of complying with the law.”Catherine Haddon, senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank, said Lord Geidt “was ready to walk and they gave him the bullet.” More

The government is not on track to hit its targets for cutting air pollution by the end of the decade, according to the public spending watchdog.Existing policy measures will not be enough to meet most of the government’s air quality targets by 2030, the National Audit Office (NAO) warns in its new report.While air pollution has reduced over the decades, Britain has been in breach of legal limits for the pollutant nitrogen dioxide since 2010.For this reason, the government does not expect to fully meet its goals until after 2030.There are also concerns about the health impacts of fine particles known as particulate matter (PM2.5), with the government expected in the autumn to set a new legal target for reducing its presence in the air.PM2.5 particles are able to travel into the lungs via the respiratory tract, which can cause health problems.Pollution is linked to tens of thousands of early deaths a year in the UK from conditions such as heart disease and stroke. In children, it can cause reduced lung growth, respiratory infections, and aggravated asthma.In its report, the NAO states that people cannot easily find out about air quality in their area. It is calling on the environment department (Defra) to make such information more accessible to the public.It also said that the government is not communicating effectively on the need for solutions such as charging polluting vehicles to drive in areas that have been declared “clean air zones”.Such zones have faced political and public opposition due to the rules and costs imposed on motorists. Some local authorities have raised concerns about a lack of a national campaign which could inform road users about the need for rules that intend to help keep the air clean, the NAO said.The watchdog called for the government to review its approach to engaging the public on clean air zones to ensure there is a good understanding across the country of what they are for, how they differ and how to check if vehicles are compliant and pay charges if necessary.The report says that bringing in measures such as clean air zones can have a positive impact on air quality, with analysis from Bath and North East Somerset suggesting it’s helping to reduce the number of more polluting vehicles and improve air quality.The NAO found that overall a programme to work with local authorities to tackle nitrogen dioxide pollution, which comes from sources such as traffic fumes, has progressed more slowly than expected.Of 64 local authorities across England with potential breaches of nitrogen dioxide limits, 16 are already compliant and 14 have implemented all measures expected to bring pollution within legal limits, but seven have yet to agree on a full plan with the government.Implementing measures is taking longer in many areas than expected, the report warned, and said the pandemic is not the only reason for the delay.Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “Government has made progress with tackling illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide air pollution, but not as fast as expected.“There are also concerns about the health risks from particulate matter, which Government is finding challenging to tackle.“To meet all its 2030 targets for major air pollutants, Government will need to develop robust solutions quickly.“The public need clear information to understand why clean air measures are important and what the measures will mean in their area.“Those living in the worst-affected areas ought to be able to find out when and how their air quality is likely to improve.”In response to the report, Meg Hillier, Labour MP and chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said: “Government is dragging its feet on tackling air quality and it’s people’s health that will suffer.“The clock is ticking for the UK to meet its targets, and time to implement the new policy measures needed is rapidly draining away.”She added: “Proper communication with the public has been sorely lacking. Publishing information that can’t be understood is like serving soup without a spoon – it’s pointless.“Properly engaging with the public on air quality is vital so they can become part of the solution.”A government spokesperson said: “We welcome the findings of the NAO report which rightly highlights the progress made by the Government whilst also recognising the challenges we face.“Air pollution at a national level continues to reduce significantly, with nitrogen oxide levels down by 44 per cent and PM2.5 down 18 per cent since 2010.“We have committed nearly £900m to tackle air pollution and improve public health. We have also setting stretching and ambitious targets on air quality through our world leading Environment Act, with a live public consultation showing our ongoing desire to engage with the public on this crucial issue.”Additional reporting by PA More

Farmers and food producers stand to lose almost £300m from the trade deal with Australia and need government help, a report by MPs says.Boris Johnson vowed to “protect” the sectors when seeking his first post-Brexit agreement – but then overruled other cabinet ministers to strike a deal that effectively removes import tariffs immediately.Trade experts have concluded the agreement hands Australia an export boost six times greater than the UK’s likely gain, estimated to be just 0.08 per cent of GDP by 2035.Now the Commons environment committee has seized on a government admission that the puny benefits will partly come from “a reallocation of resources” towards manufacturing.The estimated losses for agriculture, forestry and fishing (£94m) and semi-processed foods (£225m) – with small gains for other food, drink and tobacco products – add up to an overall deficit of £278m.Robert Goodwill, the committee’s Conservative chair, said ministers must “ensure the sector is no worse off” from the Australia agreement.“The government must commit to helping the food and farming sector win back the £278m worth of lost growth it will experience because of this deal,” he said.He noted a “plan to appoint new trade envoys to push our exports”, adding: “We will be watching the numbers and holding the government to account.”The call comes amid fresh attacks on the government for pushing ahead with implementing the deal before it has been fully scrutinised by a different committee.It was formerly laid before parliament on Wednesday, triggering a 21-day day period – under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (CRaG) process – before it can come into force.Angus MacNeil, chair of the international trade Committee, accused the trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan of breaking an “explicit commitment” made to the Commons.“To so frivolously break this promise sets a dangerous precedent for future agreements and demonstrates how little this government respects parliament,” he said.The environment committee report also echoes criticism by Henry Dimbleby, a food adviser, that the approach to new trade deals risk “exporting cruelty and carbon emissions abroad”.The Independent revealed that meat from cows transported for up to 48 hours without rest – conditions banned in the UK – can now be imported from Australia.It is “unlikely that much food” failing to meet core standards will enter the UK as a result of the Australia agreement, the report says – but that might not hold true in future deals.Ministers should commit to those standards – on deforestation and outlawing chlorine-washed chicken and the use of hormone growth chemicals in meat, for example – ahead of negotiations taking place.“We want our high UK animal welfare and environmental standards baked into every trade deal we do from now on,” Mr Goodwill added. More

Boris Johnson’s government has been accused by of creating a “hostile environment” for peaceful protesters following a fresh attempt to crack down on disruptive demonstrations.MPs and peers on the Joint Committee on Human Rights said new powers outlined in the draft Public Order Bill would have a “chilling effect” on people seeking to exercise their democratic right to protest.The bill was drawn up in response to what ministers say is the unacceptable disruption caused by climate change activists in groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain.However, the committee said they go too far and “risk creating a hostile environment for peaceful protesters” – warning they threaten fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).The proposed moves by ministers include a new offence of “locking on” for protesters who attach themselves to something so they cannot be removed – with a maximum sentence of up to one year prison.However, the joint committee said that it could penalise demonstrators who simply link arms with each other and should be changed.MPs and peers also said measures relating to the obstruction of major transport works covered actions that were not intended to cause significant disruption. They also warned that measures aimed at protecting key national infrastructure covered things that are neither key nor national.The proposed serious disruption prevention orders could prevent people being able to exercise their rights to protest, the joint committee said, and represented a “disproportionate response” to the disruption which may result.It expressed particular concern about the extension of stop and search powers, allowing police to carry out searches without reasonable grounds for suspicion – saying previously such measures had only been used in response to serious violence and terrorism.“This latest raft of measures is likely to have a chilling effect on the right to protest in England and Wales,” the committee said.“While the stated intention behind the bill is to strengthen police powers to tackle dangerous and highly disruptive protest tactics, its measures go beyond this, to the extent that we believe they pose an unacceptable threat to the fundamental right to engage in peaceful protest.”The latest government measures follow on from the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which the committee had previously criticised for threatening the right to protest.Acting committee chair Joanna Cherry said: “The law must strike a careful balance between the right to protest and the prevention of disruption to the wider population.”The SNP MP added: “This requires a nuanced approach, yet in reaction to what it perceives as overly disruptive protests the government has decided to take a blunderbuss to the problem.” More

Boris Johnson’s plans to unilaterally scrap parts of the Brexit deal are “politically driven” and “very damaging” to Britain’s relationship with the European Union, the European Commission vice-president has warned.Maros Sefcovic said the EU was not “here for political point scoring” after Brussels launched fresh legal action against the UK in retaliation to the government’s proposed Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which will effectively rip up key parts of the deal signed by Mr Johnson and the EU in 2019.Mr Sefcovic told Sky News: “I cannot resist the impression that the tabling of the bill is politically driven, but it’s not our role to comment on internal politics in the UK and therefore our doors for the negotiations will always be open.“We are here for the results, not political point scoring … We are in a fixing business, but I am afraid to say what was tabled on Monday is very much nixing.”In the deal, both sides agreed to checks on goods, plant and animal products crossing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in order to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. More

Boris Johnson has triggered outrage in Westminster with plans to abolish the post of Downing Street ethics adviser, after Christopher Geidt quit in protest at being asked to endorse deliberate rule-breaking by the prime minister.Lord Geidt – the second adviser to resign in less than two years during Mr Johnson’s premiership – said he was put in an “impossible and odious” position when asked to advise on a plan to maintain tariffs on Chinese steel in a way which would breach UK obligations under the World Trade Organisation (WTO).But his predecessor in the role, Sir Alex Allan, said after speaking with Lord Geidt that it was clear the steel issue was “the final straw” after a series of run-ins with the prime minister over lockdown-breaching parties and the lavish refurbishment of his Downing Street flat.Meanwhile, the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) issued a stern warning to the PM not to go ahead with plans to replace the high-profile adviser with an anonymous committee of officials to oversee the ministerial code of conduct.Scrapping the adviser’s post – created by Tony Blair in 2006 in response to a recommendation from the sleaze watchdog – would be “a backwards step” which would “risk further damage to public perceptions of standards”, said CSPL chair Lord Evans.In a letter to Lord Geidt, Mr Johnson suggested that the “increasingly public role” of the ethics adviser would be a “burden” on anyone taking up the job. And in the Commons, Cabinet Office minister Michael Ellis suggested that the adviser was “under constant political pressure to attack the prime minister” or be accused of being “a lackey or a patsy”.The PM’s official spokesperson confirmed that Mr Johnson plans to “take time” to consider whether to appoint a replacement for the former private secretary to the Queen, or to find a different way of fulfilling the function of scrutinising ministerial behaviour.Options are understood to include giving the job of conducting investigations into alleged misbehaviour by ministers to a unit of civil servants within the Cabinet Office.But Tory MP Richard Graham – who is not usually among Mr Johnson’s public critics – said that any notion of axing the adviser’s post should be “dropped fairly fast”.“He should go out and find someone credible to replace him as soon as possible,” Mr Graham told The Independent. “It would be a mistake to abolish the post.”Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said Mr Johnson had “debased standards and rigged the rules for far too long”, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “Boris Johnson has no ethics, so not surprising he wants to scrap his ethics adviser.”Ms Rayner said: “The prime minister’s decision to rig the rules and remove all scrutiny rather than backing Labour’s plan to clean up politics shows you how serious he is about tackling the sleaze that is engulfing his administration. He’s unfit for office. Conservative MPs should do the decent thing and show him the door.”The prime minister was blindsided by Lord Geidt’s surprise resignation on Wednesday, which came just two days after the pair had discussed him staying in post to the end of the year, and a day after he fielded questions from a parliamentary committee on why he had not quit over Partygate.In his letter, the adviser said that approving the prime minister’s steel plan would “make a mockery” of the code of conduct, and concluded: “I can have no part in this.”He revealed that he had decided only “by a very small margin” not to quit earlier over Mr Johnson’s refusal to let him investigate potential breaches in the code relating to parties at No 10.“The idea that a prime minister might to any degree be in the business of deliberately breaching his own code is an affront,” wrote Lord Geidt.“A deliberate breach, or even an intention to do so, would be to suspend the provisions of the code to suit a political end.”Sir Alex, who walked out in 2020 after Mr Johnson overruled his finding that Priti Patel had bullied Home Office staff, said he had told his successor he was right to stand up for his principles, but believed that the decision was the result of a “combination of issues”.“I think this was the final straw coming on top of, for example, his concerns about the fact the prime minister hadn’t said anything about the ministerial code in all of his explanations of the Partygate saga,” he told BBC Newscast.Lord Evans, a former head of MI5, said that Downing Street may be concerned that it will be difficult to find someone to fill the sensitive post of adviser to Mr Johnson following two high-profile resignations.But he warned: “Removing this independent voice on standards issues at the heart of government would risk further damage to public perceptions of standards.“At a time of heightened concern about standards in public life, any change to the oversight of ministerial behaviour must be stronger, not weaker, than we have now.”He said it was vital for a new adviser with “sufficient independence and integrity” to be put in place before any reforms are introduced, adding: “Anything less would be a backward step.”It was not immediately clear why Mr Johnson requested Lord Geidt’s advice over whether he should overrule the advice of the independent Trade Remedies Authority over restrictions on steel imports.There is cross-party support for the UK steel industry, which regards the system of quotas and tariffs – introduced in response to Donald Trump’s trade war with China – as essential to protect homegrown jobs and investment.But there is no evidence of Lord Geidt being consulted over other policy proposals which risked breaching international law, such as the bill to override the Northern Ireland Protocol, or of Sir Alex being consulted on the earlier Internal Markets Bill.Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said that parliament was within its rights to reject recommendations from the TRA, set up after Brexit to protect UK companies from unfair trading practices.“I think everyone in this country wants to make sure that we have a competitive steel industry, which is not subject to dumping from other countries,” said Mr Rees-Mogg. “The prime minister is backing British industry, and he’s right to be doing so.”UK Steel director general Gareth Stace said that a failure to renew controls when they expire at the end of this month could do as much as £150m a year damage to the domestic industry.“It is essential that the UK’s steel safeguard is maintained in its entirety,” said Mr Stace. “Failure to do so would risk surges in steel imports resulting in significant damage to UK producers, placing jobs, production, and investment at risk.”Meanwhile, the FDA union for senior civil servants called for a fully independent investigatory process to deal with complaints against ministers, to ensure staff can be confident that allegations of misconduct, bullying or sexual harassment are properly dealt with.General secretary Dave Penman said: “If the prime minister does not intend to replace Lord Geidt, then he must immediately put in place measures that ensure a civil servant can, with confidence, raise a complaint about ministerial misconduct.“Ministers cannot be exempt from the standards that apply to civil servants – and any modern workplace – when it comes to their conduct. This means there must, at all times, be an appropriate enforcement mechanism to regulate their behaviour.” More

The Tory candidate in the Wakefield by-election suggested that voters should trust the Conservatives in the same way people “trust GPs after Harold Shipman”.Nadeem Ahmed, who is standing in next week’s vote, was asked about the damage to the party’s reputation after the West Yorkshire constituency’s previous MP, Imran Ahmad-Khan, was imprisoned for child sexual assault.Ahmad-Khan was forced to stand down last month after he was convicted of having molested a 15-year-old boy in 2008. He has been jailed for 18 months.Mr Ahmed, who is seeking to succeed Ahmad-Khan, was asked in an interview with ITV whether his predecessor’s sexual assault conviction has “tarnished the reputation of the Conservative Party in Wakefield”.He suggested that people would still trust the Tories in the same way that people trust doctors after Shipman – known to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history – was found to be responsible for more than 250 deaths, including those of his patients.Shipman, who had been a GP, died by suicide in Wakefield prison in January 2004.Mr Ahmad told ITV: “The Conservative Party is bigger than one individual. What [Ahmad-Khan] did was wrong. I’m saying that as a parent, as a teacher. Safeguarding is one of the biggest concerns for any teacher in the classroom.“He’s in the right place [prison]. He’s had the right punishment, and the people of Wakefield understand that there are bad apples in every … look at Harold Shipman.“[Shipman] committed suicide in Wakefield prison, but do we trust our doctors? You go to your GP, I go to my GP. We still trust our GPs.”In a separate interview with the Telegraph, Mr Ahmad used the same reasons to justify his view that voters in Wakefield should trust the Conservative Party.The by-election is set to take place on Thursday 23 June, with another in Tiverton and Honiton to take place on the same day.The Tiverton and Honiton seat was vacated by former Tory MP Neil Parish after he admitted to twice watching pornography in the Commons. More