UK Politics

Senior Conservative MP Mark Harper has warned Boris Johnson that partygate “hasn’t gone away” – saying the prime minister would still be “judged” in the weeks ahead.Tory MPs have gone quiet over Covid gatherings during the Ukraine crisis, with some former rebels even withdrawing letters of no confidence in the prime minister.However, the former Tory chief whip said serious questions would still be asked when the Metropolitan Police probe concludes and the full Sue Gray report comes out.“I’ve been very clear on the issues around how Downing Street have dealt with the so-called partygate,” Mr Harper told Sky News. “The prime minister wants us to judge him on the facts.”The Tory MP said: “I’ll wait for the conclusion of the Metropolitan Police criminal investigation, which is ongoing, and the full Sue Gray report when she completes that and that’s published, but that’s a judgment, I think, for another day.”The senior backbencher added: “So, partygate hasn’t gone away but it’s not for today, it’s for a day in the future when the Met’s finished its inquiry and the Sue Gray report is published.”It comes as Scotland Yard detectives begin interviewing key witnesses in the Partygate scandal which rocked Mr Johnson’s premiership – seven weeks on from start of the investigation.The Met police announced on Monday an expansion of the investigation, revealing that over 100 questionnaires have now been sent out to No 10 and Whitehall staff asking them about gatherings.The Independent understands that Mr Johnson, who returned his questionnaire to police last month, has not been called for an interview.Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross and backbench MP Andrew Bridgen are among the ex-rebels to have withdrawn letters of no confidence in the prime minister due to the seriousness of the Ukraine crisis.And cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg recently waved away concerns over parties in No 10 during lockdown as “fluff” and “fundamentally trivial”.Meanwhile, Mr Harper has defended a hike in national insurance as a way to put money into the NHS and social care ahead of chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spring statement.“If you’re going to say you’re against the national insurance rise taking place either this year or in the future, you’ve got to say whether you’re prepared to not put that money into the health service or social care, or come up with some other way to pay for it.”Mr Sunak is expected to cut fuel duty and it has been suggested that he could also raise the income threshold at which people begin to pay national insurance.The Financial Times reported on Tuesday evening that forecasts in the statement will show the deficit is better than expected this year, to the tune of £20bn.Despite calls from Tory MPs to use the “fiscal headroom” on more support, the newspaper said Mr Sunak is planning to set aside a large part of this windfall cash – rather than investing the full sum in driving down the cost of living.Andy Street, the influential Tory mayor of the West Midlands, said that he hopes chancellor Rishi Sunak will consider increasing the threshold for income tax and National Insurance.Mr Street also told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he wanted a signal from the chancellor of more help with energy bills set to rise in April and again in October.“I would hope that he will actually say for October, when the next price cap comes, there will be a further move and I hope it will be targeted, particularly through the Warm Homes Discount.” More

P&O Ferries’ chief executive has insisted his company did not commit any offence in firing nearly 800 workers without notice, as it set out a compensation package of £36.5m.Peter Hebblethwaite said all vessels involved were registered outside the UK and the relevant authorities in each case had been properly notified.The ferry boss also said the firm was “painfully aware” of the distress caused to workers and their families on being sacked without warning – but said the move was taken as a “last resort”.In a letter to business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng dated March 22, Mr Hebblethwaite said notification had been made to the relevant authorities on 17 March, and that no offence had been committed regarding notifying the minister.The government said it was “reviewing” the company’s explanations and was considering if legal action is required.P&O Ferries has announced it is offering a total of just over £36m in compensation to sacked staff, with 40 employees in line for payments of more than £100,000.It said payouts would be linked to the period of service, and in some cases exceed £170,000. No worker set to receive less than £15,000, the company said.However, unions said the firm was trying to “buy its way out of a legal predicament” with the payouts – saying it was “fake” redundancy package. More

Voters overwhelmingly support a windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas companies to support families with unprecedented hikes in energy bills, according to a new poll for The Independent.And the Savanta ComRes survey also found majority support – including among Conservative voters – for Rishi Sunak to scrap next month’s 1.25 percentage point rise in national insurance contributions (NICs), cut fuel duty, and introduce a £10-an-hour minimum wage.The findings put increased pressure on the chancellor to deliver help in today’s mini-Budget for households facing what Money Saving Expert’s Martin Lewis has described as a “fiscal punch in the face” from soaring prices.An average £700 hike in annual domestic gas and electricity bills due to take effect in April is now expected to be followed by a further £600-£1,000 increase in the autumn as a result of the war in Ukraine.And environment secretary George Eustice warned of food price increases of up to 8 per cent this summer, as Ukraine’s massive agricultural exports are wiped out by the war.A House of Commons Treasury Committee report today warns that UK consumers cannot be insulated from the impact of sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and calls on Mr Sunak to use all his fiscal firepower to protect those on the lowest incomes.The chancellor had been planning a low-key spring statement, in what Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer branded a “cynical” bid to build a war chest for tax-cutting sweeteners ahead of the 2024 general election.But The Independent has learnt that he ordered a last-minute rewrite as the scale of the financial tsunami facing families became clear. Last night he pledged to “stand by” families in the challenging times ahead, and said he would set out further measures to help with the cost of living.Official data shows the chancellor has £26bn of “wriggle room” because of higher-than-expected tax receipts, though few analysts expect him to deploy all of his arsenal today.But Treasury Committee chair Mel Stride said: “The chancellor should use this additional fiscal firepower to bring forward support for those on the lowest incomes.”The committee heard evidence that the war in Ukraine could force forecourt prices in Britain as high as £2.40 a litre for petrol and £3 for diesel this summer, while domestic energy costs could double over the course of the year.Mr Stride, a Conservative former Treasury minister, said: “The war will have economic consequences here at home, and while these are worth bearing to support Ukraine in their fight for freedom, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the government will need to support those who are hit hardest by price rises.”Expectations are high at Westminster that Mr Sunak will slice 5p a litre off fuel duty, after he said on Sunday that prices at the pumps should not be “prohibitively expensive”. Labour has said it would not oppose the cut – which would follow an 11-year freeze on taxes on petrol and diesel – but said it failed to meet the scale of the crisis, saving little more than £2 on the cost of filling a car.Other options include raising the threshold for NICs from its current level of £9,600 – which would lift some low-income workers out of the tax, but benefit the wealthy equally – or increasing benefits to put money directly into the pockets of the poorest.But the chancellor is not expected to U-turn on next month’s NICs hike, which will raise £12bn from 27 million workers in a drive to fund the NHS and social care, at an annual cost of £318 for an employee on £30,000 and £505 for someone on a salary of £50,000.Today’s survey of 2,203 voters by Savanta ComRes showed that an overwhelming 76 per cent back a windfall tax on North Sea gas and oil companies, which have scooped bumper profits this year as prices soar as a result of sanctions on Russia.Labour and the Liberal Democrats have demanded a one-off tax on the energy giants to cut as much as £600 a year off household bills, but Boris Johnson has rejected the idea, insisting it would just mean reduced investment and higher prices as the cost would be passed on to customers.Today’s poll suggests the prime minister is out of step with his own supporters, with 81 per cent of Tory voters backing a windfall tax.A majority of Tories (74 per cent) also backed a rise in the minimum wage to £10 an hour, from its current level of £8.91 for over-23s. The rise – a key demand of unions to help cushion the blow of rising prices for low-income workers – was backed by 76 per cent overall, with just 6 per cent opposing it.Some 73 per cent said Mr Sunak should cut fuel levies, against just 7 per cent saying they should not be reduced. And 59 per cent backed the reversal of the planned hike in NICs, compared to 16 per cent who said it should go ahead.Labour said that the impact of the forthcoming increase in prices and taxes combined with cuts to welfare benefits would equate to a month’s pay for lower-paid workers.Sir Keir said: “I’m afraid this is cynical from the chancellor and cynical from the prime minister.“What the chancellor is doing is introducing a tax that doesn’t need to be introduced, and that is really going to hurt people, but he isn’t doing that for good economic reasons, he’s doing it so that just before the election he can cut taxes and claim to be a tax-cutting government.”Delivering his spring statement on Wednesday, Mr Sunak is expected to say it offers the prospect of a “stronger, more secure economy for the United Kingdom”. And he will say that this economic strength will allow the UK to continue in its “unwavering” support for Ukraine.“When I talk about security, yes, I mean responding to the war in Ukraine,” he will say.“But I also mean the security of a faster-growing economy, the security of more resilient public finances, and security for working families as we help with the cost of living.”But Labour Treasury spokesperson Pat McFadden said the record of 12 years of Tory-led governments showed “far slower” growth than under the previous Blair and Brown administrations.“The chancellor may say he ‘believes’ in low taxes – but the hard facts show that Sunak has hit households and business with 15 tax rises in two years in post,” said Mr McFadden.“If the Tories had matched Labour’s record on growth in government, businesses would have grown faster and people would have had higher incomes, boosting the public finances.“It is because the Conservatives are the party of low growth that they are now the party of high tax.”Savanta ComRes questioned 2,033 UK adults on 19 and 20 March More

Priti Patel’s new Nationality and Borders Bill will make the UK “one of the most anti-refugee countries in the world”, a leading international charity has said. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which employs over 35,000 personnel across 70 countries, branded Commons votes on Tuesday night “shameful” after the Tory MPs ripped out amendments proposed by the House of Lords.Just four Conservative MPs ultimately voted against the government despite reports of a brewing rebellion over the home secretary’s most extreme policies.The votes come as three million people flee the Russian invasion of Ukraine – joining others seeking sanctuary from authoritarian regimes and war zones across the world. Opposition MPs warned that the bill could criminalise Ukrainians fleeing war and branded the new laws a “traffickers charter”.On Tuesday evening Tory MPs reinserted clauses that will allow the government to send refugees offshore and detain them indefinitely – a policy which aid groups say has caused “terrible suffering” when tried by Australia. Following the votes the bill will also give the government new powers to punish refugees for how they arrive in the UK. Proposals by peers to give people a safe route to join families in the UK were also ripped out by the Conservatives. “It’s shameful that the government has rejected these moderate, sensible changes, which would have removed some of the cruellest elements of the Nationality and Borders Bill,” Sophie McCann, MSF’s UK advocacy officer, said.“In its current form, the bill will enshrine the UK as one of the most anti-refugee countries in the world, at a time when the devastating impact of war and conflict is absolutely evident.”The charity says there is still time to drop the plans and is urging ministers to reconsider the plans, which it says will criminalise people seeking safety.“The government cannot be serious about this bill – it is unworkable, exorbitantly expensive, and inhumane, targeting some of the most vulnerable people in the world,” Ms McCann said. “There is nothing ‘fair’ about criminalising, detaining, pushing back and imprisoning refugees in offshore detention centres simply because of how they arrive in the UK. “Closing off routes to the UK will only push people into the hands of criminal gangs and into more dangerous methods of attempting the journey.”The UK has in recent weeks faced international criticism for its response to the millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion – and is practically the only European country not to implement an open door policy.Pauline Chetcuti, head of policy at the charity Oxfam, said the bill “flagrantly undermines our obligations under international law”. “The Ukrainian conflict painfully illustrates how innocent civilians everywhere have no choice but to flee conflict, persecution and violence. We need an asylum system that is based on the principle of protection, not punishment,” she said.“This bill flagrantly undermines our obligations under international law to give all those who seek sanctuary a fair hearing. Amendments introduced by the House of Lords that would have rejected the worst elements of this bill – including removing the clauses that punish refugees based on how they arrive to the UK and removing offshore processing – have unfortunately been voted down in the House of Commons today, leaving some of the most harmful parts in place.“The UK government needs to urgently provide adequate, safe routes for people fleeing violence and bloodshed in Ukraine, Yemen or elsewhere.”Home Office minister Tom Pursglove defended the bill in the Commons on Tuesday, telling MPs: “There can be no doubt about the strength of feeling on these important issues. There could also be no doubt that as a House we stand united in our desire to support vulnerable people in accordance with our long-standing tradition of welcoming those in need of protection. “We, perhaps, just disagree on how that is best achieved. But it’s frustrating, I have to say that often criticism is made, but that isn’t matched with a credible alternative.”But Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “At a time when British people have made clear we must help Ukraine, this is truly shameful. Our country is better than this.” More

MPs have failed in a bid to halt Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers abroad for processing, even as ministers abandoned the most likely location.A small group of Conservative rebels joined Opposition parties in trying to defeat the controversial move – but the government won the vote easily, with a majority of 70.Earlier, the Home Office ruled out “offshoring” refugees on Ascension Island, in the South Atlantic – after a feasibility study – and were unable to name any other possible site for a processing centre.One senior Conservative claimed that failing to implement the government’s promised crackdown on asylum seekers crossing the Channel would have a “catastrophic effect on race relations”.The power for the home secretary to deprive people of British citizenship if “in the public interest” was also reinstated, after a series of defeats in the Lords on the Nationality and Borders Bill.The Tory rebels are also poised to fail in an attempt to force the government to resettle at least 10,000 refugees in the UK every year, to cut those making the perilous Channel crossing.And a clause to criminalise and potentially jail asylum seekers arriving by unauthorised routes – including from Ukraine – will also be reinstated. A minister said the power would only be used in “egregious cases”.Ascension Island was seen as the most likely location to send asylum seekers to make applications, because – as a British overseas territory – no foreign government has to be involved.In the Commons, Labour called the idea “unhinged” and “economically illiterate because it costs an eye-watering amount of taxpayers’ money”.Andrew Mitchell, a former Tory Cabinet minister, has warned it would involve building a “British Guantanamo Bay” and cost £2m per asylum seeker – more than putting them up in The Ritz hotel.But Tom Pursglove, a Home Office minister, said: “Just to be very clear for the benefit of the House, the suggestion around the Ascension Island is untrue.”Mr Mitchell seized on the admission, telling The Independent: “The government has quite rightly now ruled out Ascension Island for offshoring.“Offshoring is absurdly expensive and frankly the taxpayer would be less out of pocket if we accommodated all adults in the Ritz on three meals a day and sent those under 18 to school at Eton.”Bella Sankey, director of Detention Action, said: “With this vote, Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have taken a wrecking ball to the home that we once offered to refugees.”Just three Conservative MPs – Mr Mitchell, ex-Brexit secretary David Davis and Simon Hoare, chair of the Northern Ireland Committee – voted against the offshoring plan.Edward Leigh, a veteran Tory MP, urged the government to “hold the line” against the criticism, because of the “overwhelming number of people who want to come here”.“If we don’t, it would have a catastrophic effect on race relations, because people would be angry about it,” he told the Commons.“They would think ‘why did I vote Brexit when I can’t even control my own borders? What is the government doing?’.” More

The UK will urge Nato allies at a key summit to step up supplies of weapons to Ukraine, as fears grow that the stalled Russian army is set for a prolonged war of attrition relying on indiscriminate shelling of civilians.Western officials believe that Russian advances have effectively stopped because of the unexpectedly strong resistance, but that the Ukrainians are unable to reverse inroads into their territory.There is no evidence that Ukrainian forces are running out of weaponry or ammunition, but supply plans drawn up in anticipation of swift Russian victory are now having to be rethought as the war threatens to grind on indefinitely.Prime minister Boris Johnson will tell Western allies at Thursday’s summit that they should not set a “red line” which would trigger additional supplies of defensive arms to Ukraine, such as the deployment of chemical or biological weapons by Vladimir Putin.While use of unconventional weapons would represent an escalation of the conflict, Western officials said that Russia is already escalating the war by its indiscriminate use of artillery and air assaults on built-up areas.”What the UK will be saying later in the week is that there is an immediate imperative to support the Ukrainians now and that the Russian tactics using indiscriminate fire into civilian centres is inherently escalatory,” said one official.“We shouldn’t consider that we’re in a stable position and that any escalation, whether chemical or biological weapon, is a step up. It would be a change, but we are already escalating and the Ukrainians need support now.“So we will be speaking to our international partners to encourage them to increase the flow of weapons to the Ukrainians – those weapons being entirely defensive in nature, but enabling them to not only just stop at short range, but also to improve their ability to to resist.“The use of chemical and biological weapons is a very important international taboo which we must maintain. But we mustn’t get in a position where we only consider that we could go further if they are used.“Every day that passes with indiscriminate shelling into civilian populations continues to make the current situation worse and might very well deserve a further response.”Western officials were unable to confirm Kyiv’s claims that Russian forces are within a few days of running out of essential supplies like food and fuel.But they believe it is no longer possible for Putin to achieve his initial war aims of a swift takeover of Ukraine’s major cities and the installation of a puppet regime in Kyiv. Estimates of up to 10,000 Russian deaths – and as many as three or four times as many injuries – are believed to be “reasonable”, imposing a “significant drain” on Moscow’s ability to press forward its attack.“The Russian advance has been stopped but the Ukrainians don’t have the capability to reverse it and roll it back,” said one official. “So it has ground, not quite to a halt but to very, very slow progress. But we’re not seeing yet any sign of Russian retreats or Ukrainian counterattacks.”But the Russian president is showing no sign yet of reversing his invasion, instead switching to siege tactics of encircling and bombarding civilian centres, such as the port of Mariupol, which has seen savage attacks on residential areas, hospitals and civic buildings.The use of hi-tech hypersonic weapons has been “showy”, but is unlikely to materially change the progress of the campaign, Western officials believe. It is “not likely but plausible” that a frustrated Putin could resort to chemical or biological weapons.Western analysts believe that the most likely scenario now is a lengthy war of attrition, with Putin attempting to grind down Ukrainian resistance with massive and indiscriminate firepower, rather than tone down the “maximalist” ambitions which he initially intended to achieve by the swift capture of Kyiv.Western officials believe this requires Ukraine’s allies to step up the flow of materiel to the country’s defenders, changing plans which initially envisaged a move to insurgent warfare against Russian occupiers following a successful invasion.“The thing we should be focused on – and we are focused on – is first of all ensuring that Ukrainians continue to have the means to defend themselves,” said one official.“This is not the position that we expected to find ourselves in at this point in the conflict and their needs for support are greater and different to what we originally anticipated.”He added: “We are speaking to the Ukrainians constantly about the requirements for weapons. They are obviously expending a lot of ordnance and this is more than we anticipated, because we expected that by this stage, we might be supporting an insurgency on a more limited scale.“We are trying to step up the flow of weapons that they need to meet that new requirement, and there are constant shortages, but I’ve seen I have seen no evidence that they are running out or that we would let them.”The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page. More

No phone messages sent by Boris Johnson before April 2021 are available for scrutiny because of a previous security breach, the government has admitted.It emerged as part of a court hearing during which campaign groups claimed there were “many instances” of government decisions made over phone messaging services being unlawfully deleted.All the Citizens and the Good Law Project have alleged that ministers are breaching the law by failing to follow policies by deleting messages and using private accounts for government business.On Tuesday, the High Court heard that Mr Johnson was among the ministers to have used personal WhatsApp accounts as a tool to communicate “critical decisions”.But Sarah Harrison – chief operating officer for the Cabinet Office – said Mr Johnson’s historic messages were not recoverable because of a security breach last spring.In a witness statement, Ms Harrison said: “In April 2021, in light of a well-publicised security breach, the prime minister implemented security advice relating to a mobile device. The effect was that historic messages were no longer available to search and the phone is not active.”It marks the first time that the government has admitted that none of the messages sent prior to the change of phone are available to be looked at.The prime minister was forced to change his mobile number in April last year after his longstanding number was found to have been in the public domain for 15 years.In January, Mr Johnson blamed a new mobile phone number for his failure to provide his own ethics advisor with WhatsApp messages crucial to the investigation into his lavish Downing Street flat refurbishment.Lawyers acting on behalf of the government told the High Court on Tuesday that ministers and officials need to communicate quickly with each other in the wake of the pandemic and thus use instant messaging platforms.However, Ben Jaffey QC, representing All the Citizens, said the messages could serve as a “public record for future societies” and that deletion does not adhere to “meaningful and parliamentary democracy”, allowing for proper scrutiny.He said in written submission that there had been “many instances” where messages concerning government business “were never copied or transferred to any government system for archiving or records purposes, or were only copied / transferred when there was a need to retrieve the message for some particular purpose”.The campaign groups claimed that a Cabinet Office policy, requiring the use of automatic deletion of instant messages, falls foul of the Public Records Act 1958.From November 2020, Mr Johnson was being sent “confidential information” via WhatsApp to his personal device, court documents argue.A witness statement from Sarah Harrison, chief operating officer for the Cabinet Office, stated that private devices are used by government officials on a “daily basis”.Another witness statement from William Vineall, of the Department of Health and Social Care, detailed that the prime minister, former health secretary Matt Hancock and other senior officials used personal WhatsApp accounts and email to discuss government business.Another said education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has previously used automatic deletion WhatsApp on his personal phone for government communication.Mr Jaffey went on to say that at least one of the six top civil servants had used an automatic deletion function. All the Citizens’ lawyer also argued the actions of ministers and civil servants did not comply with their own policies.He said: “The concern is the material is not being properly considered and is at risk of being deleted and lost entirely, and therefore meets the test of falling foul of their own policies.”Mr Jaffey added: “The public has the right to see historically important public records, many of which centre around important policy relating to the pandemic. We say that these messages should have been archived and kept for future reference.”The government’s lawyers in written submission argued that “there is no principle” of common law stopping ministers or officials communicating in a way “they consider appropriate”.They continued: “There is nothing intrinsically novel or distinct about the use of private email accounts, instant messaging and private devices.”It was added: “The claims advanced are detached from the reality of current working practices. The modern working age is defined by instant and fast-paced communications.”“This has only been enhanced by the pandemic … Ministers and officials need to engage speedily and effectively with others.”The government lawyers went on to criticise the “unreality” of the claims being made, saying they “insulate” ministers and officials from the modern world.The prime minister’s official spokesperson later said they were “limited” in what they could say due an ongoing legal case brought by the Good Law Project and “security issues” around the PM’s phone.Asked whether the messages not being available had serious implications for transparency, they said: “Again, when it comes to the correspondence that takes place over phones and messaging and WhatsApps, the rules state that the relevant information is passed onto private office in the normal way. That’s the action the prime minister takes.They added: “Ministers would have communications via a variety of means.“The salient points of that information as relates to government business need to be passed on to private office, that does not necessarily mean that every single message needs to be noted down and passed on. But what’s important is there is a record of any salient points passed on through private office.”Quizzed on who decides on the saliency of those messages, they said: “Well, I mean, obviously, it will be for ministers to use their judgment in conjunction with their officials.”In their separate claim against Mr Johnson, the Good Law Project is expected to argue over the use of non-government communication channels.The claims are due to be heard over three days before Lord Justice Singh and Mr Justice Johnson, with a decision expected at a later date.The hearing continues.Additional reporting by Press Association More