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Labour MPs who have failed to speak out against a council boss who broke lockdown rules by throwing a party in Whitehall have been branded “hypocrites”.Kate Josephs, the chief executive of Sheffield City Council, hosted leaving drinks in December 2020 to toast the end of her previous job leading the government’s Covid Taskforce.Calls are now growing for her to resign from her £190,000-a-year post leading the South Yorkshire authority after the duplicity came to light.But residents’ anger has also turned on the city’s Labour MPs and councillors who have almost exclusively refused to comment on Josephs – despite many of them having previously called for Boris Johnson to resign for breaking the same rules.People say their voice is being silenced because their own elected representatives are failing to act on – or even articulate – the widespread outrage in the city.Lord Paul Scriven, a Lib Dem peer who led the city council between 2008 and 2011, said: “I’m bewildered that they have decided silence is a better way to deal with a very serious issues for the city, particularly in light of how vocal Labour has been in calling for resignation of the prime minister.“They are right to call for his resignation but it is baffling that they are not applying the same principles to Kate Josephs.”The Labour-leader of the council, Terry Fox, has said he is to appoint a cross-party committee to investigate “at pace” but both he and his Labour-and-Green cooperative cabinet have stonewalled all further questions.All of the city’s five Labour MPs, meanwhile – including shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh and former shadow Brexit minister Paul Blomfield – have declined to comment.It is understood both they and councillors may have been blindsided by last week’s revelations and still feel Josephs is an asset to the council.But Lord Scriven said: “I was stopped nine times at the station this week. I had to catch a later train because so many people were telling me how angry they were. I’ve had one person write to me to say that, on the day she was sipping champagne, they had to say goodbye to their mother-in-law on an iPad. Sheffield deserves better than that.”He himself called for Josephs to stand down, a stance which appears to have widespread local support: the editor of the city newspaper, The Star, has said the issue has received more letters in five days than any other subject this decade – including Brexit.None of the city’s five MPs – Haigh and Blomfield as well as Gill Furniss, Olivia Blake and Clive Betts – responded to requests for comment.Josephs herself has not commented save for a statement released last Friday in which she apologised. More

Deleting potential evidence of Downing Street parties could be a criminal offence, a watchdog has warned after The Independent revealed claims that staff were advised to “clean up” their phones.Two sources claimed a senior member of staff told them it would be a “good idea” to remove any messages implying they had attended or were even aware of anything that could “look like a party” amid a Cabinet Office investigation into several alleged gatherings.A spokesperson for Downing Street said they did “not recognise” the claims, adding: “Staff were given clear guidance to retain any relevant information. “As set out in the terms of reference, all staff are expected to fully cooperate with the investigation.”The Information Commissioner’s Office said it was an important principle of government transparency and accountability that official records are kept of key actions.“Relevant information that exists in the private correspondence channels of public authorities should be available and included in responses to information requests received,” a spokesperson added.“Erasing, destroying or concealing information within scope of a Freedom of Information request, with the intention of preventing its disclosure is a criminal offence under section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act.”Campaign groups The Citizens and Foxglove sent the government a legal letter over The Independent’s report, amid an ongoing judicial review over its WhatsApp policy.It said any member of the government, or their staff, who followed any instruction to delete WhatsApp messages would have broken the law. Cori Crider, Foxglove director, said: “There’s little point in holding any inquiry if bosses make staff delete key evidence the moment it’s announced. So we’ve written to seek an urgent explanation of what has been lost and to warn Number 10 not to scrap anything else.“Government by WhatsApp threatens our democracy. This gap in the public record has to be plugged – now. That’s why we’re taking the government to court in March.”Personal phones cannot be accessed by Sue Gray’s investigation unless staff volunteer them, and she does not have any legal power to compel evidence from MPs and ministers.Doctor who lost father to Covid not surprised by Boris Johnson’s ‘weak’ apologyThe report is expected to give a factual account of the gatherings and individual conduct, but may stop short of attributing responsibility or alleging breaches of coronavirus law and guidance.Whitehall insiders view Ms Gray’s task as “impossible” under the weight of public expectation, given her lack of legal powers and government push for a “swift result”.Addressing MPs on Wednesday, the prime minister said he would make a statement to parliament after Ms Gray has completed her inquiry and “the full facts have been established”.Minister Michael Ellis previously said the government would publish the findings of the investigation as soon as possible, adding: “It will establish the facts, and if wrongdoing is established requisite disciplinary action will be taken.“As with all internal investigations, if evidence emerges of what was potentially a criminal offence the matter will be referred to the Metropolitan Police.”The terms of reference for the probe state that it will cover alleged gatherings at Downing Street, the Department for Education and any other “credible allegations”.“The primary purpose will be to establish swiftly a general understanding of the nature of the gatherings, including attendance, the setting and the purpose, with reference to adherence to the guidance in place at the time,” the document adds.“If required, the investigations will establish whether individual disciplinary action is warranted.“The work will be undertaken by officials in the Cabinet Office at the direction of the Cabinet Secretary, with support from the Government Legal Department.“The team will have access to all relevant records, and be able to speak to members of staff.”It said that ministers, special advisers and civil servants are “expected to cooperate” and any breaches of the ministerial code would be dealt with “in the normal way”.The Metropolitan Police has not launched a criminal investigation into Downing Street’s May 2020 “bring your own booze” event or a later alleged Christmas party, as it awaits the results of the internal probe.The Independent understands that the force is in close contact with the Cabinet Office and plans to decide on further steps after assessing the outcome.If a criminal investigation is not launched, responsibility for sanctioning any wrongdoing by ministers could sit with the prime minister, while civil servants could be disciplined through normal departmental processes.On Thursday, the Green Party called for the police to take over the investigation and said an internal inquiry was no longer sufficient. Baroness Jones said: “Since Boris Johnson’s admission of an event at 10 Downing Street, this has clearly become a matter for the police, not an internal inquiry to be carried out by a colleague of the people who attended these gatherings. “Ms Gray may be independent-minded but this is not an independent inquiry. Her inquiry is owned by the prime minister and she has to check its publication with him.”A letter sent to Metropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick questioned whether officers guarding Downing Street were aware of the 20 May 2020 event at the time.“The Met Police must now start a formal criminal investigation, gather evidence and speak to witnesses as a matter of urgency,” it added.Scotland Yard has declined to comment on questions over how police guarding the entrance of 10 Downing Street, and close protection officers assigned to high-profile ministers, could have been unaware of the alleged gatherings.There is no formal guidance stating that police officers must report any crime they witness, even if assigned to other duties at the time, but the College of Policing told The Independent: “If an officer recognised the fact a crime had taken place and then deliberately chose unjustifiably not to take any action in relation to this, it could result in disciplinary procedures by breaching the standards of professional behaviour.”The Metropolitan Police said it had received numerous complaints about its response to alleged Downing Street gatherings, and each had been assessed individually. It said no action would be taken on Baroness Jones’ initial complaint, regarding a 18 December 2020 Christmas event, because of the “absence of any corroborating evidence”. More

The Metropolitan Police is facing demands for an explanation of how officers guarding 10 Downing Street could have been unaware of the “bring your own booze” garden gathering.Baroness Jones is to write to the force and the national police watchdog to ask whether officers witnessed the event on 20 May 2020, and if so whether they reported it.“This garden party raises big questions for the Met Police, as their officers must surely have monitored this gathering via their security cameras and been aware of the rules in place at the time,” the Green Party peer told The Independent.“Did [Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary] Martin Reynolds consult with Met Police officers about the Covid restrictions, or inform them of the event? I will ask for this to be included in the follow-up to my previous complaint about police inaction.”Access to Downing Street is controlled by the Met’s parliamentary and diplomatic protection command, while close protection officers are also assigned to Boris Johnson and senior ministers.A spokesperson for the force declined to comment, and said the positioning and role of officers in the prime minister’s residence was a security matter.Baroness Jones lodged a previous complaint in December, which asked how the “extensive police presence at 10 Downing Street” had responded to an alleged Christmas party on 18 December 2020.“If there was an unlawful gathering taking place at 10 Downing Street, then the police must have known,” the complaint said.It called for officials to determine whether officers had “aided and abetted a breach of the law” by allowing access to the social gathering, and to investigate whether there was a “broader culture of police officers excusing unlawful activity by government ministers and their staff”.The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has referred the matter to the Metropolitan Police Directorate of Professional Standards.The watchdog said the complaint was “invalid”, because in order for a complaint to be considered, complainants must have been “adversely affected by the alleged conduct or its effects”.“There was nothing within the referral to indicate [Baroness Jones] was physically present or nearby when officers stationed at Downing Street allegedly failed to enforce Covid rules,” a spokesperson added. “Nor is there a suggestion that [she was] physically present or sufficiently nearby when the effects of the officers’ alleged actions occurred.“Having fully assessed the referral we have decided it is invalid and we have returned it to the Metropolitan Police to handle as it determines would be appropriate.”The IOPC said it had reminded the force of its obligation to refer cases “if evidence were to come to light that anyone serving with the police may have breached standards of professional behaviour or committed a criminal offence, linked to the alleged party”. More

A man was fined £100 for standing in the street the same day Downing Street staff allegedly held a lockdown-breaking garden party.Nuradeem Mohammed, 28, was stopped by police in Ealing Road, London, in the early hours of 20 May 2020 and accused of being in a gathering of more than two people “without reasonable excuse”, the Evening Standard reports.The UK was at that time two months into its first national lockdown and Covid rules meant people were only allowed to meet one other person from outside their household in an outdoor public place while keeping a distance of at least two metres.Mohammed, of Hayes, west London, was convicted of breaching the Health Protection regulations and ordered to pay a £100 fine plus £134 in court costs and fees within a month, according to court documents seen by the Standard.It has now emerged that later the same day, Number 10 staff, including the prime minister himself, attended a gathering in the rose garden of Downing Street despite the strict lockdown restrictions.According to a leaked email, Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary Martin Reynolds invited more than 100 members of staff to the “bring your own booze” event.Boris Johnson on Wednesday finally admitted he had attended the gathering – but insisted he thought it was a “work event”.After days of stonewalling questions, the prime minister told MPs he acknowledged the “rage” of the public “with me and with the government I lead when they think in Downing Street itself the rules are not being properly followed by the people who make the rules”.“And though I cannot anticipate the conclusions of the current inquiry, I have learned enough to know there were things we simply did not get right and I must take responsibility,” he said at prime minister’s questions.The gathering would have taken place just five days after another party, at which the prime minister and his wife Carrie Johnson were pictured having cheese and wine with officials in the garden.The Metropolitan Police said it was “in contact” with the Cabinet Office relating to alleged breaches of the Health Protection Regulations in No 10 on 20 May 2020. More

Covid testing rules are expected to be relaxed to help ease the staffing shortages caused by rising Omicron infections, it has been reported. The changes would allow those who test positive on lateral flow tests to no longer need a follow-up PCR to begin the self-isolation period if they do not have symptoms. The new testing rules could be announced as soon as Wednesday. When asked whether the announcement would be made imminently, health minister Gillian Keegan said: “You may be able to expect some news – I don’t know when.”Ms Keegan told BBC Breakfast on Wednesday morning: “The teams are looking constantly at what makes sense and what works, etc, but I don’t have any official news or updates for you this morning.”She added: “I don’t have any official news on that but I know that the teams are looking at testing and testing regimes.”Ms Keengan explained that there were “many, many more lateral flow tests” and that “they are really accurate when you’ve got a very infectious variant like Omicron.”The Daily Telegraph reported that health officials have drawn up plans to limit PCR tests to people who have symptoms of coronavirus. This would allow those who are asymptomatic – around 40 percent of cases – to return to work more quickly. Under current rules asymptomatic people who test positive on a lateral flow test are asked to order a PCR test to confirm their infection and can only begin their isolation period once they’ve received their positive PCR result. This effectively extends the period of isolation for longer than seven days, especially as some labs are struggling to process PCR tests quickly. Many hospitals have been struggling under increased staff absences and 17 hospitals in Greater Manchester announced yesterday that they would be suspending some non-urgent surgery as 15 percent of staff were off sick. United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust announced on Monday that they were experiencing a “critical incident” over “extreme and unprecedented” staff shortages. In an internal memo shared among staff, the NHS trust said that “the rapid increase in staff absent because of sickness is the largest factor in this deterioration in staffing levels, although reduced bank and agency fill is also a factor”. Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, which runs six hospitals in South Cumbria and North Lancashire, reported that staff sickness had gone up from around 7 per cent to over 10 per cent in the last week or so. Referring to the potential change to testing rules, a UK Health Security Agency spokesperson said: “We keep everything under review and any announcement will be made in the normal way.” More

The controversial Nationality and Borders Bill will make Black and Asian Britons second-class citizens as they face the possibility of having their UK citizenship revoked without notice, a peer has warned.Lord Woolley, an equalities activist, said he would also face being stripped of citizenship under Clause 9 of the bill in this way as his mother was born in the Caribbean.Under the proposed legislation, which is being debated in the House of Lords on Wednesday, those who are eligible for citizenship of another country could be quietly stripped of UK status if it were deemed to be in the “national interest”.“This will further exacerbate the reality that millions of British people, many of African, Caribbean and Asian descent, are second class citizens,” Lord Woolley told The Independent.“I’m a lord of this realm and yet I’d be rendered as such because my mother was born in Barbados.“For those of us born here to foreign parents, our citizenship is precarious; the government has called it a ‘privilege and not a right’ that can be stripped away and in some cases without appeal.”The amendments to the bill that the House of Lords will vote on are yet to be decided, but The Independent understands Labour peers would be minded to back a move to remove the controversial clause.Lord Woolley, who set up the Operation Black Vote organisation, also pointed to similarities with the Windrush scandal. The Home Office has recently come under fire for human rights breaches by numerous Black claimants.“Surely the Windrush scandal has taught us that when you have a tiered citizenship system, you’re not only viewed as less than, but at times of political stress, you can shockingly be treated as such,” he said.“The Lords must show leadership in its response to this bill.” More

Government departments have spent more than £14.2 million on hire cars for staff this year despite a public sector pay freeze, an investigation has revealed.In particular, the Ministry of Defence has come under fire for “wasting” taxpayers money after it was revealed it spent almost £13 million on hire cars for staff in 2021.The next highest figure was from the Department of Transport, which spent more than £1.1 million on hire cars for staff. Other government departments spent up to tens of thousands of pounds.The figures, revealed by a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the PA news agency, showed the MoD spent £12,960,612 on hire cars through the Phoenix II vehicle contract in the current calendar year up to November 30. The figure includes VAT but excludes fuel and other costs, it said.The Phoenix II contract covers all the so-called Top Level Budget areas of the MoD, including Land Forces, Air Command, Defence Equipment and Support, Joint Forces Command, Navy Command, Head Offices and Corporate Services and Defence Infrastructure Organisation.The MoD fleet covered by the Phoenix II contract provides a mixture of leased and rental vehicles including cars, minibuses, coaches, vans and freight transport, as well as specialist vehicles ranging from dog vans to horse ambulances to mountain rescue vehicles.Reacting to the revelation, Unite’s acting national officer for defence staff, Caren Evans, called the figure “excessive” and was representative of how “inefficient the MoD is”.She said: “This is an entirely excessive figure, it demonstrates how hugely inefficient the MoD is and is exceptionally poor value for money for taxpayers.”This revelation of grandiose spending on hired vehicles by the MoD is a kick in teeth for civilian MoD staff who have experienced a pay freeze this year and are now struggling to make ends meet due to the cost of living crisis in the UK.”The money spent on hiring cars could and should have been better spent on giving MoD workers a much-needed pay rise.”In his 2020 spending review, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that firefighters, teachers, police, members of the armed forces, civil servants, and council and government agency staff would have pay rises “paused” to reduce expenditure.Shadow defence secretary John Healey added: “The Defence Department has blown millions of pounds on taxis at the same time as cutting Army numbers and freezing forces’ pay.”There’s so much waste in MoD budgets and ministers have got no grip on the problems. This Tory waste is letting down frontline forces and taxpayers.”The MoD justified its spend on hired vehicles as its staff “have to travel to locations that are not always accessible with public transport,” and said it is “committed to delivering value for money.”A spokesperson for the MoD said: “As a large organisation with out-of-town sites across the UK and bases all over the world, our staff have to travel to locations that are not always accessible with public transport and often a lease/hire car or taxi is the most efficient and cost-effective way to travel.”We are committed to delivering value for money. Our current contract for non-operational vehicles aims to deliver savings of around £152 million over six years.”It added that all travel by MoD civil servants and military personnel must be confirmed as essential and authorised by a manager to ensure the request is valid and represents value for money.The Department for Transport and its Executive Agencies, which include Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), spent more than £1.1 million on hire vehicles between January and October.It spent a total of £1,105,126 in the UK and overseas in this period, with the majority of spend incurred by the DVSA, for driving examiners who may need to switch locations as to where they are carrying out tests at short notice.It said: “Although DVSA is aware of booking patterns and volumes and aims to provide an appropriate number of staff in each location to meet forecasted volumes, there are always going to be cases (on a daily basis) where DVSA needs to move staff from their ‘home’ test centre to an alternative centre to meet increased customer demand and to cover short notice absences.”The Departmental travel policy states that hire cars can be used rather than personal cars if this is more cost effective.”Other departments spent tens of thousands of pounds on hire cars for staff, including the Cabinet Office and the Department for Education, which spent £48,645.80 (excluding VAT) and £22,840 between April and October respectively.The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spent £76,262 from April to October. The department said hire cars were needed by Defra for accessing rural locations for fieldwork.Between January and October, the Department for International Trade spent £36,339 both in the UK and overseas, and the Treasury spent £16,392.42, saying it included additional costs such as petrol, parking, charges for Congestion, Low Emissions Zone (LEZ) and Dartford Bridge.Meanwhile, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said it had not spent any money on private hire cars for its staff this year while the Attorney General’s office spent just £65.50.Additional reporting by Press Association More

Overuse of antibiotics on farm animals could lead to a pandemic “much bigger than Covid,” campaigners have warned.Health experts are calling for a ban on the use of low doses of antibiotics on healthy farm animals, saying the practice was breeding untreatable “superbugs” which could spread to humans.Farmers often give animals a preventative low dose of antibiotics as an insurance policy against disease. But from 28 January, new EU legislation will prohibit all forms of routine antibiotic use in farming, including preventative treatments.The government’s veterinary medicines directorate has begun a consultation about whether the UK should follow suit.Use of antibiotics on farmed animals has decreased significantly over the past few years – a 52 per cent reduction since 2014 – but campaigners say this does not go far enough.They are calling on the government to follow the EU and ban the practice of giving the drugs to healthy farm animals.The UK’s Health Security Agency warned last month that antimicrobial resistance was a “hidden pandemic”, while the World Health Organisation has estimated drug-resistant diseases could killed 10 million people globally each year by 2050 if no action is taken. Doctors are now trying to tackle patients’ overdependence on antibiotics by decreasing their prescription. Although 66 per cent of antibiotics are used by humans, a sizeable percentage – 26 per cent – are used on farm animals.Suzi Shingler, campaign manager for the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, said: “If you imagine a big herd of pigs or chickens that are stressed and overcrowded, the immune suppression they get from this environment is really asking for disease and illness to spread. Instead of making changes to these conditions, it has been for decades cheaper and easier to give them all low levels of antibiotics in their feed and water.”Ms Shingler warned low doses could significantly increase the risk of breeding untreatable bacteria. “Mass dosing creates the perfect breeding ground for the strongest type of bacteria to survive,” she said. “The worst elements will survive the long-term low dosing of antibiotics and it’s like supercharging the normal natural selection process of superbugs.”These bacteria can make their way to humans through waterways, such as during wild swimming, as well as through undercooked meat products and effluent spread on fields.Daniel Zeichner MP, the shadow food, farming and fisheries minister, said that while there has been “some progress to reduce antibiotics in farm animals, we need more ambition and urgency from this government”.He added: “Farmers and the food industry should follow the voluntary code by stopping routinely using antibiotics to promote growth and prevent disease in healthy animals, as the World Health Organisation has long advised.” He also called on the government to ensure that trade deals require “at least the same standards for imported animal products” as British farmers adhere to. SNP MP Lisa Cameron, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Health, said that she was “deeply concerned about the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture” and warned of the “ease with which antimicrobial resistance can develop in humans”. She concluded that recommendations from the Health Select Committee on the issue should be “taken forward urgently”.A 2018 inquiry by the committee warned of “serious concerns” about the use of antibiotics on healthy animals. They warned “attention must be paid to this following the UK’s departure from the EU” and recommended any future trade deals commit to the same standards in antibiotic use as the EU.But Chris Lloyd, secretary general of the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture (Ruma), said the UK has “got a positive story in terms of antibiotic use”. He said that there was a debate to be had about whether the UK followed Europe “because we’ve already done a lot of what the EU is trying to achieve”.Ruma has been working with each of the UK farm animal sectors to raise awareness about the dangers of antimicrobial resistance.Referring to the prospect of a ban, he said: “You can always do more and we continue to work on responsible use but our recent track record is a positive one.“I’m not convinced that a black and white decision is the right one when the realities are often much more complex. Do we need more restrictions in the way antibiotics are used when we’ve done so well in reducing their use already?”Christine Middlemiss, the UK’s chief veterinary officer, said Britain was making “important reductions” in antibiotic use on farm animals. She promised to continue working closely with the industry and added: “It is encouraging to see farmers and vets continuing to work together to tackle antibiotic resistance.” The National Farmers’ Union said its members had cut voluntarily cut antibiotic use by 52 per cent since 2014. Catherine McLaughlin, the NFU’s chief animal health and welfare adviser, added: “We will consult with our members and respond accordingly when the detail of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate consultation comes out.”Research carried out by World Animal Protection (WAP) last year found dangerous antibiotic resistant superbugs in rivers and lakes near factory farms in Spain, the USA, Canada and Thailand.The group collected surface soil and dust particles from waterways upstream and downstream from pig farms in North Carolina, US. Eighty-three out of 90 samples came back positive for antimicrobial resistant genes, a “widespread contamination” that researchers concluded “strongly suggests factory farms are discharging resistance genes into public waterways”.The group will be carrying out similar research in the UK next year.Lindsay Duncan, UK campaign manager at WAP, said the coronavirus pandemic had shown how the issues emerging in one country were not confined there. She said: “If there are one or two bad players that’s still going to cause a problem for the rest of the world.“It’s not just the case of the EU doing the right thing. We all need to be doing this and putting in this legislation. This is going to be the next major pandemic and it’s going to have a really big effect on people.”Ms Duncan said antimicrobial resistance was “actually going to be much bigger than Covid” because the problem could not be solved with vaccines. “We can’t just produce vaccines for bacterial infections. These medicines have allowed us to live the way we do; having amazing life expectancies, heart transplants, major surgeries and recover well from them.”She warned: “If antimicrobial resistance continues growing in the way that it is right now we are going to lose one of our most powerful medications. There is no fix for that, so it has to be addressed now.” More