UK Politics

Boris Johnson has been told by the parliamentary commissioner for standards he will be spared an investigation into his controversial No 10 flat refurbishment.According to Downing Street, Kathryn Stone, who oversees the code of conduct and rules for MPs, told the prime minister she will not launch a fresh inquiry in a letter at the end of last week.It is believed that she agrees with No 10’s view that the declaration of the funding arrangements for the refurbishment fall under the ministerial code – and not Mr Johnson’s declarations to parliament.“I understand that she has confirmed they won’t be looking into that,” the prime minister’s spokesman told reporters on Monday.It comes just days after Mr Johnson was criticised by his own ethics adviser, Christopher Geidt, for failing to check for missing WhatsApp messages crucial to his investigation — leading to an apology from the prime minister.Last month, Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, urged Ms Stone to investigate the prime minister of the failure to declare donations to pay for the luxury flat refurbishment following evidence from a separate probe by the Electoral Commission.“Revelations in the Electoral Commission’s report call into question the conduct of the prime minister in relation to the ministerial code,” she said in December.“It is clear that the prime minister misled the public, along with the independent adviser, when he told Lord Geidt during his investigation that he was unaware of the Lord Brownlow donations until February 2021.”Ms Stone’s office declined to comment when approached by The Independent.However, Mr Johnson also faced fresh sleaze allegations last week after the WhatsApp messages also appeared to show him expressing support for a project proposed by Lord Brunlow — the Tory donor who funded the luxury flat redecorations before Mr Johnson paid the sums.The prime minister told Lord Brownlow he was “on the great exhibition plan” in a message in which he described his Downing Street rooms as “a bit of a tip”.Two months later, the donor joined a meeting with the culture secretary “to discuss plans for Great Exhibition 2.0” – a showcase of British innovation later renamed “Festival UK” – a government document revealed. More

Michael Gove missed a BBC interview slot on Monday morning after getting stuck in a lift at New Broadcasting House.The cabinet minister had been due to appear on the broadcaster’s Today programme at 8.10am but was noticeably absent in the airwaves.Explaining the situation, Today programme presenter Nick Robinson said: “We were hoping to talk to Michael Gove. You might have been hoping to hear from Michael Gove at this time. He’d very kindly come into the building, so we didn’t have to deal with one of those awkward line failures. “Mr Gove is stuck in the Broadcasting House lift. I wish I could say this is a joke it is not a joke. It is not very funny for Mr Gove and a security men who have been stuck there for some time.”Mr Robinson said Mr Gove was “keeping cheerful” and had “even offered at one stage to talk to us on the phone” from the elevator.He added that he hoped the communities secretary could be released from the lift so that we could “hear from him a little bit later in the programme”. The presenter joked that W1A, a series which parodies the internal workings of the BBC, was clearly “not a satirical programme”.The Cabinet minister eventually appeared on the programme at around 8.30am, with Mr Robinson offering him “apologies on behalf of the BBC”.Mr Gove replied: “After more than half an hour in the lift you successfully ‘levelled me up’, so I’m delighted to be here. I completely understand, these sorts of things happen. If you and I together given ammunition for Armando Ianuuchi for the next episode of W1A, then fine.”When he was informed that a new hashtag #freemichaelgove had been coined on social media, Mr Gove added: “I suspect there are probably rather more people who are hoping I’ll be incarcerated for longer, but still.” More

The government should focus help for soaring energy bills on “those in the most difficult circumstances”, Michael Gove has said.The communities secretary appeared to downplay the prospect of a general VAT cut on bills on Monday and instead suggested support should be more narrowly targeted.Labour has said the sales tax should be cut on energy bills to reduce the amount households pay.Gas prices have been surging because of a combination for factors, including a rebound in supply after the pandemic and disruption to supply. As a result heating bills are expected to be significantly higher this winter and into the new year.Asked about the prospect of cutting VAT, Mr Gove said it was important to “look at a range of options” and claimed support was already in place.But he added: “I think we should always seek to cut taxes where we can but also it’s important when we are providing support for people that we also target it most on those who need it most.”Asked if therefore cutting VAT on energy bills was something he would approve, Mr Gove told Sky News: “Well, you know, in my view, the more we can cut taxes the better, but at this point, I think that the prudent and the responsible thing to do is to recognise that we need to take a balanced approach and a balanced approach means that when we can support, we provide support most for those in the most difficult circumstances.”Chancellor Rishi Sunak has imposed strict spending limits on himself and has therefore moved to raise taxes and restrict spending on some services.But Labour says a £6.6 windfall tax on North Sea oil and natural gas producers could fund the VAT cut.The tax cut would reduce bill by £200, while the plan would also include further targeted support for low earners and pensioners of £400. Boris Johnson and other Brexiteers previously support a VAT cut on energy bills during the EU referendum campaign, arguing that leaving the EU’s VAT regime would allow the government to make the change.Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told Ski News on Sunday: “The Prime Minister was the biggest advocate for cutting VAT on gas and electricity bills during the European referendum. But now when cutting those bills would make more difference than ever, the Prime Minister says no.” More

A lorry-drivers’ union has accused the government of playing “Russian roulette” with road safety after it emerged that no records are being kept of foreign trucks invited in to beat the HGV shortage.Unite said ministers “panicked” last October in the face of empty supermarket shelves resulting from the shortage of drivers caused by the combined impact of Covid, Brexit and under-recruitment of homegrown staff.A relaxation of “cabotage” rules allowed non-UK drivers to work unlimited hours and make unrestricted numbers of deliveries within a 14-day period.But the Department for Transport (DFT) has now admitted that it is not monitoring how many foreign lorries are entering the UK or whether they are leaving within the two-week deadline.In response to a freedom of information request from Unite for details of the number of companies taking advantage of the cabotage policy, which countries the trucks come from, and how many over-stay, the DFT said only: “There is no mechanism or register available from which cabotage data could be derived as it will be commercial data held by operators based outside the UK.”The only information available on cabotage rates was compiled by the EU’s Eurostat statistical office – despite the UK having left the EU nearly two years ago – and the most up-to-date figures date back to 2019, the union was told.Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the government’s approach had created “an accident waiting to happen”, as foreign drivers are required to work exhausting long hours and sleep in their cabs for extended periods.“This is sheer incompetence by the government, which is playing Russian roulette with British road users,” said Ms Graham. “It introduced this knee-jerk reaction to the lorry driver crisis last year. Now they tell us they don’t know how many foreign lorry drivers have come, how many hours they work when they are here and if they go home after the 14-day working period.“It’s literally an accident waiting to happen, based on the illegal super-exploitation of these drivers.“Unite is dedicated to protecting the jobs, pay and conditions of its members. If it receives any evidence that a failure to abide by the UK’s employment laws, road safety rules or driving regulations is impacting on the jobs and conditions of our lorry-driver members, then we will take action to stop that.”Unite said that the failure to keep records of foreign trucks meant that abuses of the scheme can only be detected by on-the-spot inspections.But earlier freedom of information requests last month revealed a 39 per cent decline in the number of these checks on lorries since 2016/17.The union’s road haulage officer Adrian Jones said that, on average, a truck will drive the equivalent of three and a half times round the world before facing an inspection.“Not only is the government clueless about how many foreign lorries are currently on UK roads, but the only on-the-spot inspections to ensure these vehicles are roadworthy and driving regulations are being observed are as rare as hens’ teeth,” said Mr Jones.“Rather than allowing foreign lorries unlimited access to the UK to tackle driver shortages, the government should be tackling the root causes of the driver crisis – low pay, long hours and the lack of decent parking and welfare facilities for drivers.”A DFT spokesperson said: “The temporary, additional cabotage rules are one of 32 measures taken which are working to alleviate the effects of the global lorry driver shortage in the UK.“The department is monitoring the overall uptake of the additional cabotage rules and early indications are that they have been successful in assisting the resilience of supply chains, including providing key connections to ports.” More

Peers are expected to vote this week to make misogyny a hate crime, as the House of Lords considers a string of amendments to improve protection for women in Priti Patel’s controversial policing bill.With Labour backing, Tory peer and former victims commissioner Baroness Newlove is set to defy opposition from Boris Johnson in her bid to make sex or gender a protected characteristic alongside race, religion, trans identity, sexual orientation and disability when judging whether a crime was motivated by hate.Meanwhile, Labour will push for votes to outlaw “sex for rent” and toughen up action on stalking and the “spiking” of women with incapacitating drugs by injection or the adulteration of drinks.At present, landlords accused of demanding sex from tenants can be tried under Sexual Offences Act charges of causing, inciting or controlling prostitution for gain.But Labour’s justice spokesperson in the Lords, Fred Ponsonby, told The Independent this effectively brands the victim a prostitute, discouraging women from reporting the crime to police.He is seeking to create a specific new crime of requiring or accepting sexual relations as a condition of accommodation, removing stigma from victims.Lady Newlove has said she was “disappointed and dismayed” by Mr Johnson’s rejection last year of calls for misogyny to be made a hate crime and says she is confident the move will gain cross-party backing from peers.Her campaign, backed by women’s rights groups including the Fawcett Society, was dealt a blow in December when a Law Commission review concluded that the move would not solve the “real problem” of hostility or prejudice directed against women because of their sex or gender.Fawcett Society chief executive Jemima Olchawski said it was vital for the Lords to now ensure that anti-women attacks are recognised as hate crimes. “If you’re a victim of a crime motivated by hatred of your race, religion or disability, the law will recognise it – but not if you’re victimised because you’re a woman,” Ms Olchawski told The Independent. “This amendment is an opportunity to change that. “From Muslim women having their headscarves snatched to women facing horrendous abuse online, making misogyny a hate crime is vital if we are to get serious about tackling the extent and prevalence of violence against women.“The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is currently undergoing intensive scrutiny in the Lords after completing its passage through the Commons last July.The government last week accepted amendments to outlaw the photographing of breastfeeding mothers. Further measures relating to protections for women will be debated on Monday and Wednesday before the Lords next week considers the bill’s controversial proposals to clamp down on protests.Amendments tabled by Labour and likely to be forced to a vote also include a requirement for an urgent review of the laws and police action around “spiking”. The party is also backing proposals to require awareness training on the issue of stalking for criminal justice professionals.Lord Ponsonby told The Independent: “Concerns about violence against women and girls and preventing particularly heinous crimes run through many of the amendments we’re pursuing or backing this week – relating, as they do, to sex for rent, spiking and misogyny.“Labour wants to help the police not only convict offenders but to tailor their databases to ensure better targeting of limited resources.”Lord Ponsonby added: “Landlords who seek sex for rent are explicit in their demands, and the current laws need urgently updating to tackle those who prey on the young and vulnerable.“At present, a victim may have to be identified as a prostitute to get a successful conviction – something that clearly discourages people from going to the police. Our amendment, if accepted by ministers, would help clamp down on these predators.”The Home Office said ministers are still considering the Law Commission’s recommendation that they should create a new offence of public sexual harassment, rather than adding sex and gender to hate crime laws.And it said that Ms Patel had already asked the National Police Chiefs’ Council to conduct an urgent review of the extent and scale of spiking.On stalking, it said that good training was already provided to staff by criminal justice agencies and it was not considered appropriate for ministers to mandate the training programmes of independent organisations.A Home Office spokesperson added: “The safety of women and girls is paramount and we will always place victims’ voices at the heart of our decisions.“Our PCSC Bill will deliver systemic transformation and change in the way that violence and crimes against women and girls are handled. It will crack down on perpetrators, stop them evading justice, and protect victims.“In addition to the PCSC Bill, we are working in tandem to implement our Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, published this summer, which focuses on increased support for survivors. Any amendments to the Bill will be debated in the usual way.” More

Labour would spend £600m from a proposed North Sea windfall tax on measures to protect businesses hit by the current spike in energy prices, the party has announced.Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves announced on Sunday the proposed £1.2bn one-off levy on oil and gas producers would help fund assistance for households, who face an estimated £600 hike in bills in April.She said the package would save most households £200 and protect the poorest almost entirely from the expected financial hit when the price cap on gas and electricity bills is reviewed.Now the party’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has said that a proposed £600m contingency fund would be used to support struggling firms, including energy-intensive businesses. New analysis from the party suggests that more than 800,000 companies – nearly a quarter of the total – report being affected by rising gas prices.Labour will force a vote in the Commons on Tuesday calling on the government to scrap business rates, reduce firms’ debt burden and create a contingency fund to get them through the current crisis.Energy sector analysts expect regulator Ofgem’s price cap review to raise the average annual bill for household energy from £1,277 to around £1,865, adding to a cost-of-living crisis caused by 5 per cent inflation and a looming hike in national insurance contributions.Ms Reeves accused the Conservative government of a “decade of dither, delay and poor planning” on energy, pointing to a failure to develop nuclear and renewable alternatives or to insulate homes, and inadequate regulation which she blamed for dozens of power companies going bust.Under the Labour plans, there would be a 12-month holiday from VAT on domestic energy bills, saving 28.5 million households an average £89 at a cost of £2.5bn to the Treasury.Labour would spend an additional £3.5bn a year on the warm homes discount, increasing the one-off annual payment from £140 to £400 and extending eligibility to around 9.3 million households – one-third of the British total.All working families with children claiming universal credit, as well as 220,000 pensioners with some savings, would be brought into the scheme, which currently goes only to the least well-off.And Labour would provide loans to energy companies to cover the £2.6bn cost of taking on customers from failed suppliers, which would otherwise be charged to bill-payers at an estimated £94 per customer.The total £6.6bn bill for the package would be covered by a one-off £1.2bn windfall tax on North Sea companies which have reaped unexpected profits from the recent surge in energy prices, as well as by allocating additional VAT payments of £3.1bn and oil and gas tax receipts of £2.3bn.Ms Reeves said: There is a global gas price crisis, but 10 years of the Conservatives’ failed energy policy, and dither and delay has created a price crisis that’s being felt by everyone.”While the plans announced on Sunday would give families security and target extra support at those most in need, Britain needs “more than a short-term fix” to mend a broken energy system, she said.“Labour’s plan to keep energy bills lower in future would see us accelerate home-grown renewables and new nuclear, retrofit 19 million homes to save households an average of £400 a year on their bills, and reform our broken energy system to stop energy companies playing fast and loose with the rules,” said Ms Reeves.“The Tories have been asleep at the wheel, with hard-working people paying the price. Labour has a plan to fix this.”Mr Reynolds added: “Soaring energy bills, a wave of cancellations and crippling inflation have left British firms unnecessarily on the brink. The government has been asleep at the wheel, with British firms, especially those energy-intensive businesses, paying the price.“The Conservatives’ ambivalence towards British business is simply unacceptable. Viable firms risk going to the wall because of government failures over the last decade.”The Labour move follows an earlier Liberal Democrat call for a Robin Hood tax on North Sea companies to alleviate fuel poverty.Party leader Sir Ed Davey released figures showing 130,000 people in fuel poverty in cabinet members’ constituencies, including some of the Blue Wall Tory seats which Lib Dems are targeting following their victories in Chesham & Amersham and North Shropshire.These included 7,896 fuel poor households (17 per cent of the total) in foreign secretary Liz Truss’s South West Norfolk constituency, 5,392 in Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip and 2,590 in deputy prime minister Dominic Raab’s Esher & Walton.“Cabinet ministers are turning a blind eye to families in their own backyard struggling with soaring heating bills,” said Sir Ed.“There is a growing revolt in the Conservative heartlands against Boris Johnson’s government, and their failure to help people with the cost of living crisis is only making it worse.“We need an urgent package of support now to help people cope with the cost of living crisis. That should include Liberal Democrat calls for a Robin Hood tax on oil and gas firms seeing record profits, raising enough cash to give over 7 million households £300 off their heating bills this year.” More

An influential Conservative MP has warned Boris Johnson that he faces a challenge to his leadership unless he scraps all remaining coronavirus restrictions at the end of this month and vows they will not return.Former chief whip Mark Harper, the chair of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group of Tory backbenchers, warned that “prime ministers are on a performance-related contract” and that MPs are asking themselves whether Mr Johnson is the best-placed leader to help them retain their seats at the next election.He told the Financial Times that the prime minister would be in trouble after May’s local elections unless he has shown that he can change his approach.Mr Harper said it was time to accept that Covid-19 will become endemic in the UK and to focus on treatments, the vaccination of hesitant people and the creation of special wards in hospitals, while ruling out any further controls on social and economic life.“At some point you’ve got to say, whatever happens, whatever variants turn up, we’re not going to respond by shutting down parts of the country,” he told the FT. “That’s not a sustainable position.”Mr Harper – who stood against Johnson for the leadership in 2019 – said that if the PM attempts to extend Plan B restrictions beyond the scheduled review date of 26 January, he will face a rebellion larger than the one seen in December when 99 Tories opposed Covid passes.“The problem is he sort of wants to agree with us, then he says he wants to keep restrictions in reserve or won’t rule them out,” Harper said. “That’s becoming an unsustainable position.“If I was running a hospitality business I would be very nervous about investing, growing my business, taking any risks because I literally have no idea about what’s going to happen.”If Tories do badly in the May elections and continue to trail Labour in the polls, Conservative MPs will ask themselves which potential leader is best able to help them keep their seats, said Mr Harper.And he added: “Conservative MPs have asked themselves that question in the past and decided they need to do something about it. Prime ministers are on a performance-related contract.” More

Scientists are warning that it is too early for the country to start “living with Covid”, after cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi suggested that the UK could lead the world in moving from a pandemic to endemic phase of the disease.The former vaccines minister said he would like to see isolation after a positive test reduced from seven to five days to help tackle staffing shortages in the NHS, schools and other critical services.But he denied that the government is imminently planning to end the provision of free Covid testing except for people with symptoms and those in high-risk settings such as care homes.There was widespread alarm at a Sunday Times report that free tests could be scaled back within weeks in order to rein in a bill which has already topped £6bn.And while Mr Zahawi said that this was “absolutely not where we are at”, he made clear that the government is preparing for a new stage in its Covid response, where the virus will be treated as part of the normal range of ongoing health problems rather than a national emergency.“I hope we will be one of the first major economies to demonstrate to the world how you transition from pandemic to endemic and then deal with this for however long it remains – whether that’s five, six, seven or 10 years,” he told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday.Mr Zahawi said the authorities must be “careful” about changing rules about staying at home after a positive test and said he would respect the outcome of the UK Health Security Agency’s current review on whether to move to five-day isolation.But he added: “Of course it would help for that to happen as soon as possible.“It would certainly help mitigate some of the pressures on schools and our critical workforce and others.”Meanwhile, the former head of the government’s vaccine taskforce, Dr Clive Dix, said the UK should stop mass inoculation campaigns after the current booster drive and concentrate on a “more targeted approach for the vulnerable”.“It’s pointless to keep giving more and more vaccine to people who are not going to get very ill,” said Dr Dix. “We should just let them get ill and let them deal with that.“Stop measuring case numbers and getting fixated by stopping those numbers. We’re not going to stop those numbers.”Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon warned that ditching free lateral flow tests would be an “utterly wrong-headed” move, while Labour said it would be “the wrong decision at the wrong time”.And the CBI said that moving away from free testing now would make “no economic sense” because of its importance in keeping the country open for business.Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “Now is not the time to throw in the towel in the fight against Covid. The government must guarantee free lateral flow tests for as long as they are asking people to self-isolate.”Meanwhile, scientists voiced concern that the government appeared to be signalling that it was ready to move the UK towards “living with Covid”.University College London professor Christina Pagel said: “A virus isn’t endemic just because a government minister says it is and just because people want it to be.“Learning to live with Covid would actually involve some learning. For instance, creating safer environments through mass investment in clean air. Pretending Covid is not a problem is not the same thing.”Prof Pagel said that the “minimal public health response” to the Omicron variant adopted by the government in England “seems set to doom us to massive surges once or twice a year”.“If that continues we’ll keep picking off the vulnerable, keep stressing a weakening NHS, [and] create more chronic illness and mass disruption through people off sick every time, with a lower quality of life for all of us,” she added.GP Dr Helen Salisbury, a member of the Independent Sage group of scientists and medics, said: “People are talking about Covid ‘becoming endemic’ as if this is a good thing.“TB and smallpox were once endemic in the UK – it doesn’t mean mild, it just means widespread.“Other countries aren’t throwing in the towel – why has our government given up trying to protect us?”And Oxford University professor of primary care Trisha Greenhalgh said: “Stop testing, play it down, normalise the deaths, deny the long-term consequences, learn to live with it, mock the scientists… I’m trying to imagine what would’ve happened if we’d taken the same approach to a previous fast-spreading infectious disease, such as smallpox, polio, TB or HIV.”Latest figures from the UK Health Security Agency showed that since last Monday, more than 1.2 million people have tested positive for the virus – a 6.6 per cent increase on the previous week.On Thursday, there were 18,454 people in hospital with coronavirus, up from 14,126 a week before. Just under five per cent of patients required mechanical ventilation to help them breathe.A further 97 deaths and 141,472 new infections were reported on Sunday. More