UK Politics

‘I really don’t know’: MP Thérèse Coffey unaware of when Sue Gray report will be publishedThe wait for Sue Gray’s Partygate findings may continue into next week with Boris Johnson, who has departed London for a visit to North Wales, yet to have been handed the full report.With the prime minister hundreds of miles from parliament, all signs pointed to a further delay to the publication of the Cabinet Office investigation. Officials in Westminster are now said to be believe the document may not become public until next week, due to a process of “legal scrubbing” currently taking place. This ensures that the final report does not unfairly identify junior staff or cut across the separate investigation by Metropolitan Police.It comes as Boris Johnson dismissed new evidence that he ordered the controversial evacuation of dogs and cats from Afghanistan as “total rhubarb”.Internal emails released to the public this week show officials saying the prime minister has “authorised” resources be directed to getting the animals out of the country – a claim he previously denied. Show latest update

1643294715Brexit checks at Dover mean lorry queues ‘only going to get longer’, says unionBrexit controls are behind the huge lorry queues leading up to Dover and delays are “going to get longer”, a union representing drivers has said.Unite said the full customs controls brought in after Brexit is causing significant hold-ups at the port – with each driver taking 10 to 20 minutes to clear checks.Adrian Jones, Unite’s national officer for road transport, told The Independent: “The queues and the delays are only going to get longer as both tourism the commercial trade pick up in the weeks ahead.”Our political correspondent, Adam Forrest, has the full report below: Thomas Kingsley27 January 2022 14:451643293815Sue Gray report must be released ‘in full as soon as Boris Johnson receives it,’ Nicola Sturgeon says The Sue Gray report into lockdown Covid parties must be published “in full” and as soon as Boris Johnson receives it, Nicola Sturgeon has said. Nicola Sturgeon told ITV Border on Thursday: “The report should be published immediately after Boris Johnson receives it and published in full.“The longer he was to sit on it the more suspicion people would have about what he might be doing to it.” However she also said that regardless of the report by Sue Gray, the prime minister “misled parliament”.“But I think it’s really hard to imagine anything she could say that would change what we already know from what’s on the record and that’s that Boris Johnson misled parliament and I think that’s the severity of the position he’s in.”Thomas Kingsley27 January 2022 14:301643292915Watch: Boris Johnson says claim he intervened in Afghan animal airlift is ‘total rhubarb’Boris Johnson says claim he intervened in Afghan animal airlift is ‘total rhubarb’Thomas Kingsley27 January 2022 14:151643292015‘Total rhubarb’: Boris Johnson repeats denial that he ordered Afghan animal airliftAs mentioned in our previous post, Boris Johnson has dismissed new evidence that he ordered the controversial evacuation of dogs and cats from Afghanistan as “total rhubarb”.Internal emails released to the public this week show officials saying the prime minister has “authorised” resources be directed to getting the animals out of the country.The email contradicted Mr Johnson’s previous claims he had ordered the evacuation. He had branded the claims “complete nonsense” and said it would have been wrong for him to have intervened. Our policy correspondent, Jon Stone, has the full story below: Thomas Kingsley27 January 2022 14:001643291115Gray report must be published ‘in full’, senior Tory warns PMSenior Conservative MP Mark Harper has warned Boris Johnson that the Sue Gray report must be published in full. Writing on Twitter in response to a Sky News interview with a man who lost his mother, father and sister to Covid-19, Mr Harper said: “Heartbreaking and so difficult to watch. This happened to families up and down our country. “That’s why Sue Gray’s report matters. The report must be published in full. Any attempt to conceal or suppress crucial details would be wrong.”Thomas Kingsley27 January 2022 13:451643290901Cabinet ministers insist PM wouldn’t have to resign if interviewed by policeCabinet ministers have insisted Boris Johnson will not have to resign if he’s interviewed under caution by police as part of a Met investigation into alleged rule-breaking in No 10.As part of the probe, The Times reported that the prime minister faced the prospect of being interviewed by Scotland Yard, either under caution when individuals are read their rights by officers, or as a witness.Here is the story:Tom Batchelor27 January 2022 13:411643290301Starmer calls for Gray report ‘to be published in full and as soon as possible’Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said the Sue Gray report “needs to be published in full and as soon as possible”.During a visit to Grimsby, he told the PA news agency: “And I mean in full – not redacted, not edited, not a summary, not parts left out. In full.“After what everybody in the country’s been through in the last year or two with the pandemic, huge sacrifices have been made, the least that they’re entitled to is the truth about what the prime minister was up to.”Sir Keir said of Ms Gray’s findings: “The most important thing is that we see the full report as it was delivered to the prime minister so that everybody can see for themselves her (Sue Gray’s) understanding, her establishment of the facts of what actually happened.”Tom Batchelor27 January 2022 13:311643289881PM blames shortage of workers on rising cost of livingThe prime minister has also been commenting on the cost of living crisis.Boris Johnson suggested the shortage of workers in key roles was pushing up the cost of living, without mentioning the impact of Brexit, which has cut off European jobseekers from the UK.He said: “We’re coming out of Covid now, and it’s a fantastic thing, but everybody can see the pressures on our economy, the shortage of skilled workers, particularly in hospitality, in retail, in road haulage.“That’s helping to push up prices, that’s affecting the cost of living, it’s affecting inflation.“Now, what we can do, we’ve got 1.25 million job vacancies in this country, 1.25 million jobs, that aren’t being done. But we’ve also got 1.8 million people who are on welfare. Now, many of them can be helped rapidly into work. That’s why we’re launching the Way to Work scheme today, to help them faster into the jobs that need doing across the UK,“That’s good for the economy, it’s good for business, it helps to hold down inflation and also it’s fantastic for the individuals themselves because the worst thing possible when you’re unemployed is to wait for too long.”He added: “The difficulty is actually this economy is going so well post-Covid that we’re short of hundreds of thousands of pairs of hands to do vital jobs. So the point of Way to Work is to shorten the period when people are off work, shorten the period when people are feeling that sense of, you know, low self-esteem, maybe, because they haven’t got a job, get them into work and help to get the economy moving.”Tom Batchelor27 January 2022 13:241643289461Johnson defends planned NI rise Also speaking during his North Wales visit, Boris Johnson defended the planned rise in National Insurance.He said: “Let me just tell you about that and why it’s so important that we raise the funding to cope with the Covid backlogs, the damage that Covid has done to… particularly to our NHS, and every penny of this goes to tackling our NHS backlogs and fixing social care.“Every penny will go towards fixing the Covid backlogs and also social care, the two things are connected. Don’t forget, if you talk… if you go around hospitals, as I have done a lot in the last 18 months – more – two years, so much of the problem is caused and aggravated, made worse, by the numbers of people that are waiting in hospital that can be discharged, but they can’t be let out of hospital because we can’t find the right package of social care, and it does need to be sorted out.”Asked if the rise would go ahead, he said it was “absolutely vital”, and he added: “I think people do understand. Look, I don’t think there’s a family in this country that hasn’t been affected by the Covid backlogs in one way or the other. I bet you know somebody who’s had their treatment or scan delayed because of what we went through over the last 18 months.“We had to spend over £400 billion keeping the British economy going during the lockdowns, we’ve got now to move forward, we’ve got to fix the Covid backlogs, we’ve got to sort out social care. I think that’s the right thing to do.”Tom Batchelor27 January 2022 13:171643289206Afghan evacuation claims ‘total rhubarb’, says PMBoris Johnson has described claims he authorised evacuating animals out of Kabul over humans as “total rhubarb”.Asked whether he was involved in the decision during a visit to North Wales, the PM said: “No, that is… this whole thing is total rhubarb.“I was very proud of what our armed services did with Op Pitting and it was an amazing thing to to move 15,000 people out of Kabul in the way that we did.“I thought it was also additionally very good that we were able to help those vets who came out as well.“But I can tell you that the military always prioritised human beings and that was quite right.“I think we should be incredibly proud of Op Pitting and what it achieved.”Tom Batchelor27 January 2022 13:13 More

Brexit controls are behind the huge lorry queues leading up to Dover and delays are “going to get longer”, a union representing drivers has said.Unite said the full customs controls brought in after Brexit is causing significant hold-ups at the port – with each driver taking 10 to 20 minutes to clear checks.Adrian Jones, Unite’s national officer for road transport, told The Independent: “The queues and the delays are only going to get longer as both tourism and commercial trade pick up in the weeks ahead.”The union official said the additional time for checks was down to the codes needed for government’s new Goods Vehicle Movement Service (GVMS) system and other export paperwork.“It’s not about drivers having the wrong paperwork – it’s just about the length of time it takes to go through all the paperwork,” Mr Jones added.Driver have been stuck in queues of up to 15km (9 miles) since full customs controls came into force on 1 January. Even longer delays have been experienced at the French port of Calais because of the extra red tape needed for imports from the EU into the UK.The government has denied that post-Brexit customs controls are behind the recent congestion at Dover. Transport minister Baroness Vere told MPs on Wednesday that ferry maintenance was to blame for the build-up of traffic.“[The queues] are actually due to the fact that there are three ships being refitted at the moment,” she said. “Our view is that the delay in Dover is not due to border checks.”However, the Port of Dover’s chief executive Doug Bannister has said customs checks were “indeed” causing delays – though he said the re-fitting of some ferries was adding to the pressure.Asked on Sky News earlier this week if “any” part of the delays was down to Brexit, he said: “Certainly. The introduction of the full customs checks that came in on the 1 January … that additional time to process is indeed as a result of Brexit.”Unite called on the government to try to streamline some of the customs red tape, boost the number of customs agents at ports and expand the facilities for drivers held up in checks. “All these things should have been planned for – it’s unacceptable,” said Mr Jones.The union official said he was not aware of any problems with the GVMS causing short-term problems. “We’re told it’s working as expected. The checks take as long they take. Which is why it would be good for the government to streamline as much as they and proper proper infrastructure in place for drivers.”A government spokesperson said: “It is untrue to suggest that short delays to freight movements at Dover have been caused by new customs processes. The main causes were ship-refitting, which reduces capacity across the short straits, and higher than expected freight volumes.”“The Goods Vehicle Movement System and other customs systems are online and working as planned. Indications since 1 January are that traders and hauliers are adapting very well to the new processes.”One driver told The Independent last week it was taking 15 to 20 minutes for each driver to clear checks at Dover. “It’s entirely Brexit,” said the driver, who has had to push back some of his clients’ deliveries.Truck drivers have reported queueing for up to eight hours trying to get through customs controls at Calais, with some lorries pulled aside because problems with the new paperwork needed to be sorted out.A leading logistics firm told The Independent earlier this month that lorries bringing goods from the EU to the UK had been stuck at the border for four days.Meanwhile, officials from the National Union of Farmers (NFU) have been speaking to peers about the downsides of the post-Brexit UK-Australia trade deal.“It’s not a particularly good deal from our point of view … it doesn’t create many new opportunities for UK farmers,” Nick von Westenholz, director of trade at the NFU, told international agreements committee.“It does completely liberalise access for agricultural goods from Australia into the UK which poses a risk for UK farmers … so there’s limited upside and potentially significant downside.” More

Boris Johnson has again fuelled speculation that he could scrap the National Insurance rise planned for April by refusing to guarantee it will go ahead.The prime minister is coming under intense pressure to ditch or delay the 2.5 per cent hike, split between employees and employers, with reports suggesting many Tory backbenchers are making it a condition of their support in the expected confidence vote on his leadership.Pressure on chancellor Rishi Sunak to scrap the rise heightened after official figures this week showed a £13bn windfall from lower-than-expected borrowing. Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg are understood to be among those urging him to use the additional leeway to ease pressure on households facing a cost-of-living crisis.Downing Street today insisted there was no plan to delay the health and social care levy, which is intended to raise £12bn a year to tackle the Covid backlog in NHS treatments as well bolster funding for the social care system over the long term.But Mr Johnson declined eight times during a broadcast interview on Tuesday to commit to the hike going ahead in April.And he dodged the issue again today during a visit to north Wales, when asked whether he could confirm that the tax rise will go ahead, stressing instead the need to raise money for the NHS.“It is absolutely vital, I hope people understand, that we have to fund the COVID backlogs, we have to fix social care,” said the PM.“Every penny will go to that end. I think people do understand. There hasn’t been a family in this country that hasn’t been affected by the Covid backlogs in one way or the other.“We had to spend over £400bn keeping the British economy going during the lockdowns. We’ve got now to move forward, we’ve got to fix the Covid backlog, we’ve got to sort out social care. I think that’s the right thing to do.” More

Boris Johnson has dismissed new evidence that he ordered the controversial evacuation of dogs and cats from Afghanistan as “total rhubarb”.Internal emails released to the public this week show officials saying the prime minister has “authorised” resources be directed to getting the animals out of the country.The email contradicted Mr Johnson’s previous claims he had ordered the evacuation. He had branded the claims “complete nonsense” and said it would have been wrong for him to have intervened.But despite the new evidence the PM doubled down on Thursday when asked about the episode, telling reporters: “No, that is… this whole thing is total rhubarb.”On a visit to North Wales the prime minister said he was “very proud of what our armed services did with Operation Pitting” and that “it was an amazing thing to move 15,000 people out of Kabul in the way that we did”.Mr Johnson added: “I thought it was also additionally very good that we were able to help those vets who came out as well. But I can tell you that the military always prioritised human beings and that was quite right.”The 173 cats and dogs were being looked after by the charity Nowzad, which was set up by former Royal Marine Pen Farthing. Whistleblowers and MPs criticised the animal airlift on the grounds that it drew on finite capacity at Kabul airport that could have been used to rescue people.Emails provided to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee show that one Foreign Office official told colleagues working on the evacuation on August 25 that “the PM has just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated”.Further evidence of Mr Johnson’s involvement includes a report by Sky News that Trudy Harrison, Mr Johnson’s parliamentary private secretary, contacted a private charter company to secure a plane for the evacuation of the animals and staff.A source at the company was reported as saying Ms Harrison was keen to get press on the plane in order to make the evacuation a good news story. They said she kept talking about “the boss” and that it felt obvious her request came with his backing.Ms Harrison admitted to the broadcaster she told staff of her role working with the prime minister, but insisted he was not involved in any evacuation plans.Mr Farthing’s friend Dom Dyer, who help campaign to get the animals evacuated, also told the BBC on Thursday: “There’s no question that the prime minister was involved, had oversight, had an interest”.Mr Dyer said he been in touch with MP Ms Harrison. He said she “was definitely keeping the prime minister in the loop through the processes we were doing”.Though the charity chartered its own plane and put the animals in the hold, civil servants and MPs with knowledge of the operation on the ground said the capacity constraint at the airport was a limited number of soldiers able to escort people into the airport.In December, whistle-blower Raphael Marshall told MPs that the Foreign Office received “an instruction from the prime minister” to use “considerable capacity” to help Farthing. At the time, Foreign Affairs Select Committee chair Tom Tugendhat, himself a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, also criticised the decision to airlift the dogs and cats.“There’s quite a lot of space on the aeroplanes, they’re coming and going relatively easily,” he had told LBC radio. “The difficulty is getting people into and out of the airport and we’ve just used a lot of troops to get in 200 dogs, meanwhile my interpreter’s family are likely to be killed.” More

The crucial report into Downing Street parties looks unlikely to be published today, after No 10 announced that Boris Johnson has left London for a visit to north Wales.Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson said that the PM had not received any advice from Sue Gray’s investigation team to suggest that the report would not be handed over today.But his decision to leave the capital for a trip to a quarry at Penmaenmawr, near Llandudno, strongly suggests he is not expecting to have to publish the findings and make a statement to MPs on Thursday.It is understood that the final sign-off of the Whitehall mandarin’s eagerly-awaited report has been delayed by Metropolitan Police demands that nothing should be made public which might cut across its separate criminal investigation into alleged breaches of Covid regulations at No 10.Many in Westminster now expect that the report will not surface until Monday at the earliest.Ms Gray will present her report to the PM when it is ready, and Mr Johnson has promised to publish findings within hours, before making a statement to MPs and taking questions.Any indication that Ms Gray has found Mr Johnson responsible for lockdown beaches is likely to prompt a wave of letters of no-confidence from Tory MPs, pushing the total past the threshold of 54 required for a vote on his future.Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson said that the PM’s Welsh visit was intended to promote government policies on jobs and business growth and should not be taken as an indication that he had been informed that the Gray report will not come today.“We haven’t been told anything specific about timing,” said the PM’s spokesperson.“It remains hypothetically feasible for the report to be published today, but it’s important that the business of government continues.”Mr Johnson’s spokesperson said that the prime minister has not yet been interviewed by police for the inquiry announced by Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick on Tuesday.Leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg has said there would be no need for Mr Johnson to resign even if he was interviewed under caution as a suspect in the inquiry. But Downing Street refused to discuss the issue, branding it “hypothetical”.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it would be “unthinkable” for the Gray report not to be published in full.Speaking during a visit to Grimsby, Sir Keir said: “The Sue Gray report needs to be published in full and as soon as possible. And I mean in full – not redacted, not edited, not a summary, not parts left out. In full.“After what everybody in the country’s been through in the last year or two with the pandemic, huge sacrifices have been made, the least that they’re entitled to is the truth about what the prime minister was up to.”No 10 insisted the PM was focused on the “public’s priorities”.Asked how Boris Johson feels ahead of Sue Gray’s report, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “I think you saw the prime minister in the House yesterday talking about what the government is doing, what he is focused on.“That absolutely remains the case and that’s why he is getting out today to Wales to look at what work the government’s doing on things like creating jobs.”Asked if the government had been distracted from policymaking by the partygate saga, the spokesman said: “No, we are getting on with the job, as the prime minister said yesterday.” More

Cabinet ministers have insisted Boris Johnson will not have to resign if he’s interviewed under caution by police as part of a Met investigation into alleged rule-breaking in No 10.The Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg — a prominent defender of the embattled prime minister — claimed it wouldn’t be a “resigning matter”, as pressure builds on Mr Johnson.It follows the explosive decision of the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Cressida Dick, to launch an investigation into “a number” of alleged breaches of the Covid regulations in Downing Street and Whitehall departments.As part of the probe, The Times reported that the prime minister faced the prospect of being interviewed by Scotland Yard, either under caution when individuals are read their rights by officers, or as a witness.Former Labour leader Tony Blair was the last sitting prime minister to be interviewed by police as a witness during the 2007 investigation into cash for honours and was said to have made clear at the time if he was interviewed under caution he would have resigned.Pressed on whether Mr Johnson would have to resign if he was interviewed under caution, Mr Rees-Mogg told Channel 4 News: “No, of course that wouldn’t be a resigning matter, because people are innocent until proved guilty.“And it’s worth bearing in mind that the police themselves have said that the fact they are investigating something doesn’t mean that any any crime has necessarily been committed, that they are investigating because that is what the police do”.Asked the same question in a separate interview, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, who insisted he was “100 per cent” behind the embattled prime minister, told ITV’s Peston programme: “No, I wouldn’t go that far.“I mean I remember the the cash for honours probe very well, I think it lasted about 16 months actually as I remember,” he added.“It lasted a very long time, and there were very serious questions about propriety and ethics and cash for honours, people essential buying their way into the House of Lords, and it was a very thorough investigation”.Their comments came as Mr Rees-Mogg also made an attempt to neutralise the attacks on Mr Johnson over a separate controversy regarding the airlift of animals from Kabul in the summer of 2021 when Afghanistan was seized by the Taliban insurgency.On Wednesday, the prime minister was accused of lying to the public after new evidence emerged suggesting he personally authorised the controversial evacuation of 173 dogs and cats from the country, as people desperately attempted to flee.But in comments that prompted jeers by MPs on Thursday, the Commons leader Mr Rees-Mogg dismissed the row as “fussing about a few animals”, and accused Labour of focussing on “fripperies and trivia”. More

The government could include juice and milk cartons in its planned deposit return recycling scheme, ministers have suggested.Under the policy a small charge is set to be added to the price of drinks, with the money refunded when the bottle or can it is sold in is recycled.Similar schemes already operate in Scotland and many other European countries.But speaking in the Commons on Thursday environment minister Jo Churchill said she would not rule out extending the proposals to cartons – going further than most other countries.Conservative MP Steve Baker, whose constituency hosts the carton manufacturer Tetrapak, said the government should include the packaging as an “extra step”.He urged environment minister Jo Churchill to meet with the manufacturer and “discuss the feasibility of onward processing of cartons, which I believe would make that inclusion a practical possibility”.Responding for the government Ms Churchill said: “We will be announcing more information on the deposit return scheme shortly but I would of course be happy to meet with his constituent for further discussions. I don’t think we should rule anything out but neither am I making any promises.”The government launched a new consultation on the deposit return scheme in March last year, having first consulted on it in 2019. It says the scheme is important for moving towards “a more circular economy, where resources are kept in use for as long as possible and waste is minimised”.Across the UK an estimated 14 billion plastic drinks bottles, 9 billion drinks cans and 5 billion glass bottles are used a year. Ministers say they want the scheme to be in place from “late 2024 at the earliest”, delayed from an original plan for 2023.The government previously said that including cartons in the scheme would have “environmental benefits”, but proposed that they should not be included because of a lack of recycling infrastructure and demand for recycled carton packaging material.Instead is suggested requiring councils to recycle cartons more widely as dry household waste. 73 per cent of consultation respondents backed including cartons in the scheme, however, including the carton industry. The scheme is planned to apply to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as Scotland already has a deposit return scheme. More