UK Politics

Tens of thousands of Britain’s poorest families stand to miss out on a huge boost to their incomes next year in Rishi Sunak’s £15 billion package to ease the cost of living crisis thanks to the benefits cap.Benefits payments are set to soar by as much as 10 per cent from April, the chancellor has confirmed, but more than 120,000 households will lose out unless ministers raise the cap on how much they can receive from the state.Experts warned that unless the government acts more families, many of whom have children under five, will hit the ceiling on payments. Carl Emmerson, the deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank, said that if ministers planned to make benefits more generous, to keep up with spiralling inflation, “the benefit cap should almost certainly increase to reflect that”. More

Boris Johnson is in “yellow card territory” after the publication of the long awaited Sue Gray report into the Partygate scandal, a government minister has said.The comments from John Glen come amid a drip-feed of no confidence letters being submitted in the prime minister’s leadership, with one former Tory cabinet minister warning that discontent was spreading in the party.Last night, Conservative MP Bob Neill became the latest to call on Mr Johnson to resign, insisting the report by the senior civil servant Ms Gray had uncovered “wholly unacceptable” behaviour in No 10 and undermined trust. More

Schools do not have to accommodate transgender pupils by addressing them by their prefered pronouns or allowing them to use gender-appropriate toilets, the attorney general has said.In an interview with The Times, cabinet minister Suella Braverman said that schools are under no legal obligation to allow transgender children to wear their prefered school uniform. She also criticised schools for their “unquestioning approach” to gender reassignment, saying they should take a “much firmer line” when it came to making provisions for transgender students. Ms Braverman also hailed Harry Potter author J K Rowling as her “heroine”, calling her “very brave, very courageous.”Ms Braverman told The Times that, because under-18s can’t legally change gender, schools are entitled to continue to treat transgender children by the gender of their birth. “A male child who says in a school that they are a trans girl, that they want to be female, is legally still a boy or a male. And schools have a right to treat them as such under the law. They don’t have to say OK, we’re going to let you change your pronoun or let you wear a skirt or call yourself a girl’s name,” she said. Ms Braverman said that same should apply to nonbinary children. She also said that girls’ toilets are protected spaces under the equalities act and schools should not allow transchildren to use them. Currently only people who are 18 or over can apply for a gender recognition certificate, which legally recognises your change of gender. The applicant also has to have lived as a transwoman or man for at least two years before applying. More

Rishi Sunak should scrap an estimated £200m “loophole” that allows wealthy owners of second homes to receive multiple energy rebates, the shadow chancellor has said.In an interview with The Independent, Rachel Reeves claimed the system’s design was a result of the chancellor’s support package being “cobbled together at the last minute” and amid damaging Partygate headlines.After the extraordinary U-turn to impose a windfall tax, Ms Reeves also hit out at the inclusion of a tax relief measure for energy companies investing further in fossil fuel extraction – describing it as a “get out of jail card”.The remarks come after ministers bowed to pressure and unveiled a multibillion-pound package aimed at alleviating the cost of living crisis, ditching a £200 loan scheme in favour of a universal £400 rebate on energy bills.But questions have been raised after it emerged individuals who own more than one home will receive multiple payments – one for each property.Labour’s own analysis shows there are just short of half a million second homes (499,763) in England, Wales, and Scotland combined that could be in line for extra support.If all of these properties were to receive a second £400 payment, Ms Reeves said the party’s estimate was that “£200m of money [announced] yesterday will go to people with multiple properties”.She said: “First of all this is borrowing, so all this money the government are borrowing, £10m, that all has to be paid back by future generations, so you could have just not had that in the package. It seems to me this money should be better targeted at those people who need it.“I think the point is, the government were forced into this U-turn, they decided they didn’t need to do anything until the very last minute, and as a result you’ve got a plan that is not as well-thought-through if I would have been designing it and has got these loopholes in it.”Asked whether the government should scrap this element of support, the shadow chancellor told The Independent: “Yeah. You shouldn’t design a system that sees people who are fortunate enough to own multiple properties get multiple payments.“This is about trying to help people, families that are struggling will bills, not putting more money into the pockets of the wealthiest.”Defending the plans on Friday, Mr Sunak said those with second homes receiving multiple grants of £400 will only account for a small proportion of payments across the country. More

Former minister Sir Bob Neill has become the 12th Conservative MP to submit a letter of no confidence in Boris Johnson’s leadership, declaring that he did not find the prime minister’s explanations over lockdown-breaching parties “credible”. The Bromley and Chislehurst MP said that this week’s Partygate report by senior civil servant Sue Gray had uncovered “wholly unacceptable” behaviour within 10 Downing Street which had undermined trust in government.And he said: “Trust is the most important commodity in politics, but these events have undermined trust in not just the office of the prime minister, but in the political process itself. To rebuild that trust and move on, a change in leadership is required.”Within an hour Alicia Kearns, the MP for Melton, rumoured to be a key member of the ‘pork pie’ plot against the prime minister over partygate earlier this year, also said she did not have confidence in the prime minister.She hit out at the “shameful lengths” she said some would pursue to preserve Mr Johnson’s premiership and attacked his call for the public to move on.“To say we just need to ‘move on’ is to treat with contempt and disregard the sacrifices of the people of Rutland and Melton, and our entire country.”The chair of the backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady must call a vote on Mr Johnson’s leadership if he receives 54 no-confidence letters, with the PM then needing the support of half his MPs – some 180 votes – to hold onto his job.The latest interventions came hot on the heels of the resignation of Eastleigh MP Paul Holmes as ministerial aide in the Home Office.Mr Holmes, who was the first member of the government to quit since Wednesday’s publication of the full Gray report, said that “a toxic culture seemed to have permeated No 10.” But he did not make clear whether he wanted Mr Johnson to go or had written a letter to Sir Graham.Another four MPs – Julian Sturdy, John Baron, David Simmonds and Stephen Hammond – have called for the PM’s resignation since the report’s publication, while another, Guildford’s Angela Richardson, has said that she would resign if she faced similar criticism.Sir Bob, a barrister who currently chairs the Commons justice committee, said: “We cannot have one rule for those working in government and a different one for everyone else. Those of us who set the rules have a particular responsibility to stick to them ourselves.“Sue Gray’s report has highlighted a pattern of wholly unacceptable behaviour, spread over a number of months, by some working in 10 Downing Street, including breaking rules that caused real pain and hardship for many, and which the government, and we as parliamentarians, were telling others to live by.“I have listened carefully to the explanations the prime minister has given, in parliament and elsewhere, and, regrettably, do not find his assertions to be credible. “That is why, with a heavy heart, I submitted a letter of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady on Wednesday afternoon.“Trust is the most important commodity in politics, but these events have undermined trust in not just the office of the Prime Minister, but in the political process itself. To rebuild that trust and move on, a change in leadership is required.” More