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Priti Patel has said she wants to force boats carrying asylum seekers back to France to “save lives”.The home secretary insisted that planned operations by the Border Force in the English Channel would not risk lives and cause people to drown.During an evidence session held by the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee, she said there had been “extensive work” on legal and practical issues around push-backs.Labour peer Baroness Chakrabarti, the former director of Liberty, said many people found the plans “shocking” and asked if the government had considered that it might be violating human rights and maritime law.“You’ve got to be really careful not to [affect] some people who are genuine refugees, and frankly not to drown people, whether they’re genuine refugees or not,” she added.Ms Patel said the government would “never do anything to put the safety of people’s lives at risk”.“We don’t want to see people dying at sea and I’m very vocal about this, but at the same time I’m unapologetic about our determination as a government to stop the people trafficking and putting people in boats,” she added.“We’re not here to threaten lives, we’re here to save lives and make sure that people’s lives are not put at risk.”Ms Patel said several people had already drowned in the Channel, including a migrant who was reported to have fallen off a dinghy off the coast of Essex on Tuesday.The home secretary told the committee that a legal framework had been created for push-backs and operational decisions would be made by Border Force, adding: “None of this is illegal.”Ms Patel said that decisions on push-backs would take the weather and conditions into account, and would be done “in a safe way”.“Our policy is based around saving lives and stopping people from drowning,” she added.Asylum seekers face violent pushbacks in Aegean SeaThe home secretary was speaking days after a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) official said push-backs in the English Channel would “unavoidably” put lives at risk and may not work as a deterrent.Speaking to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 20 October, the UNHCR’s UK representative Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor said: “There is an obligation to both save lives at sea and not endanger lives at sea, which would almost unavoidably happen if there were attempts at turning back dinghies which are overcrowded with people.”She warned that refugees forced back to France could “fall through the cracks” and be barred from its asylum seeker, adding: “There is a real risk that the right to seek asylum is eliminated by the fact that no country will take responsibility.”Asked if push-backs would meet the government’s stated aims of deterring Channel crossings and tackle people smuggling, Ms Pagliuchi-Lor replied: “Frankly I don’t think so, we have to see but I really do not think this is going to have a significant impact.”She questioned how many boats could effectively be pushed back when crossings are happening along a “very long stretch of coast”, and urged the UK to focus on effective processing and replacing returns agreements with EU countries that were lost in Brexit.A Home Office impact assessment of the Nationality and Borders Bill, which contains the government’s plans for the Channel and wider asylum changes, said focusing on small boats could encourage “riskier means of entering the UK”.Responding to government claims that its plans will deter dangerous sea crossings, the document said “evidence supporting the effectiveness of this approach is limited”.The government has changed its Immigration Rules to mean that it can declare asylum applications from people who have travelled through EU member states on their way to Britain “inadmissible”.But the UK lost access to an EU-wide returns agreement allowing asylum seekers to be transferred back to countries including France, Italy and Spain, in Brexit.The home secretary admitted that only two returns agreements had been struck by Wednesday, with India and Albania, and several EU countries have told The Independent that bilateral negotiations are not underway.She confirmed that the government was threatening visa sanctions against “countries that do not cooperate” on accepting returnees.Ms Patel said the government would support asylum seekers arriving in the “right and proper way”, on regular routes and with documentation.But the former Labour home secretary Lord Blunkett pointed out that persecuted people may not have passports, visas or formal permission to leave the country they are fleeing.“I get the impression that if you are properly documented and you have been able to come legally you will not be granted asylum because you are clearly not at risk, whereas if you are at risk and escaped without documentation, you will be inadmissible,” he added. More

Ministers will not make a decision on Covid-19 restrictions for two weeks until the impact of half-term on infections can be seen, The Independent understands.The measures under consideration include restricting household mixing indoors this winter, as data modelling suggests that working from home and mandatory mask wearing might not be enough to avoid an increase in hospital admissions.The UK reported 263 deaths on Tuesday, a higher number than any day since 3 March at the tail end of the second wave, when 315 were reported. It comes amid an increasing clamour from experts and politicians to impose measures, including social distancing, as soon as possible. Labour has leant its backing to imposing plan-B measures and called on the government to enact it without “dither and delay”. “We think we should follow the science – if the scientists are saying work from home and masks, we should do that,” Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves said on Sunday.Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), also speaking on Sunday, said that the government must not be “complacent” about the rising rate of hospitalisations and deaths. Meanwhile, mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called on people to “urgently reconsider” mask wearing. However, measures, such as mandatory mask wearing and working from home – which fall under the government’s plan B, are unlikely to be enough on their own, according to sources familiar with modelling the impact of Covid restrictions. This means the government may be forced to go further, if the rollout of booster jabs is not fast enough to combat the waning of previous vaccine doses, particularly among the over-50s. Delays to imposing some restrictions also mean that more moderate measures will be less effective at containing the virus, according to the previously mentioned Whitehall sources.Speaking at a vaccination centre last Friday, prime minister Boris Johnson said that the government keeps “all measures under constant review”, but he added that “the numbers that we’re seeing at the moment are fully in line with what we expected in the autumn and winter plan”. The prime minister said: “I’ve got to tell you at the moment that we see absolutely nothing to indicate that that is on the cards at all.”The fresh details about which measures are under consideration follow warnings from Professor Lucy Chappell, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care, at a parliamentary committee on Tuesday. The adviser said that further measures beyond plan B had been “proposed” but these had not been “extensively worked up”. She confirmed these had been referred to as a plan C.Prof Chappell also told MPs that there is “no single metric” that would lead to plan B being enacted, as MPs expressed their frustration at the lack of information on the decision-making process in the days ahead.The Independent understands these measures which go beyond plan B include limits on mixing in pubs, cafes and restaurants, and in homes. This is because the impact of asking those who can to work from home has been dramatically reduced as the workforce has stuck with home working several days a week even after restrictions were lifted.This change in behaviour means the limitations of plan B, such as working from home, have become more acute than when it was originally devised. And while some workers have cut down on their days in the office, they are content to travel to socialise in crowded indoor settings.There will be “a bit of a crunch moment” in the two weeks after half-term concludes to see whether the infection rate climbs sharply and feeds through into considerable numbers over-50s without boosters being hospitalised. Over-50s are more likely to have medical complications and waning protection from vaccines because of when they were jabbed.It is this reluctance to go to the office but eagerness to go to the pub that means that the power of a work from home request is “weaker compared to older modelling, and it wasn’t that strong before”, one Whitehall source said.Other data, including footfall figures gathered by Google show that while the population is concerned about infection rates, people are not moderating behaviour in the same way as during previous periods of higher infections.Previously, as infections have risen and ahead of the government imposition of restrictions, people had already moderated their behaviour and started to be more cautious. Now, the vaccine roll out and a “dulling effect” means that people are less concerned about mixing with others. “This is forcing a binary if there is a sharp increase in hospitalisations, and if there is a slow roll out of booster vaccines in the coming weeks,” a source familiar with government Covid planning said. “It’s Freedom Day or it’s Plan C, with significant restrictions on mixing in indoor settings,” they said. “There would need to be a vaccine passport system ready now, with far greater uptake, for it to have a decent impact. It’s too late for that.”Adaptations to allow for home-working mean that the economic fallout from this restriction would be far lower than previously assumed, too. The Politico website reported that a Treasury impact assessment of five months of plan B measures could cost as much as £18bn. Economists told The Independent that it was hard to judge what restrictions would mean for future growth, but that companies have adapted to greater home working.“Each time the impediment on economic activity from lockdown appears to reduce,” said Kallum Pickering, senior economist at Berenberg bank. “I don’t think we can really speculate what kind of policies might be needed because these situations can move very fast as we’ve learned, but I am quite confident that if we did have renewed restrictions, the [economic] impact would be temporary.“There’s no reason to think the economy wouldn’t bounce back,” he added.There was little reason to think that plan B on its own would be “devastating or transformational”, said James Smith, research director at the Resolution Foundation, a think tank. However, greater measures would likely force the government to reinstate previous tranches of economic support, such as furlough.“Being clear about at what points [in terms of hospitalisations] the government would start implementing plan B or even C, would be really helpful.”A government spokesperson said: “We knew the coming months would be challenging – this is exactly why we set out our Covid plan for autumn and winter.“We are monitoring all the data closely, and the prime minister has been clear that it does not yet show that plan B is necessary. But it is ready should we need to act to avoid a rise in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS.“Our focus remains on our booster campaign, vaccinating 12-15 year olds, and encouraging those who haven’t yet come forward to have their jab.” More

Britain’s spy agencies have struck a deal with Amazon that would see the company’s cloud computing host classified material, it has been reported. The agreement aims to improve the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) in espionage, according to the Financial Times. The deal was reportedly spearheaded by GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence, cyber and security agency.The high-security cloud system is also planned to be used by M15, M16 and government departments taking part in joint operations, according to the Financial Times. Data will reportedly be held in the UK as part of the deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon.com Inc’s cloud service arm. Ciaran Martin, the former head of the National Cyber Security Centre, told the newspaper the deal would allow spy agencies “to get information from huge amounts of data in minutes, rather than in weeks and months”. But privacy campaigners raised concerns over the agreement, with Gus Hosein from Privacy International calling it “another worrying public-private partnership”. In February, GCHQ said it had fully embraced artificial intelligence to uncover patterns in vast amounts of global data to counter hostile disinformation and snare child abusers.GCHQ has been using basic forms of AI such as translation technology for years but is now stepping up its use, partly in response to the use of AI by hostile states and partly due to the data explosion that makes it effective.In a report on AI, the head of GCHQ said the agency believes AI capabilities “will be at the heart of our future ability to protect the UK”. “They will enable analysts to manage the ever-increasing volume and complexity of data, improving the quality and speed of their decision-making,” Sir Jeremy Fleming wrote. “Keeping the UK’s citizens safe and prosperous in a digital age will increasingly depend on the success of these systems.”Amazon and MI5 have been approached for comment. Additional reporting by Reuters More

Poorer households have been found to pay as much as 50 per cent more on their energy bills than those with more money, according to data analysed by the Labour Party.The figures show Britain’s poorest 10 per cent of households pay on average £756 a year per person for electricity, gas and other fuels. This is compared with an average of £504 per person in the richest households, as well as a national average of £530.It was also revealed that those living in poverty pay a significantly higher proportion of their household budget on energy bills, with the poorest households spending around seven times as much of their funds on energy as the richest households, and three-and-a-half times the national average.After the figures were published on Sunday night, Wes Streeting, shadow child poverty secretary, accused the government of “leaving working families to pay the price for the chaos in our energy sector”.“Boris Johnson ought to be getting a grip on the cost-of-living crisis, but instead he’s making it worse with his jobs tax and the £1,000-a-year cut to Universal Credit,” he said.Talking up the party’s proposals to curb the effects of the UK’s energy crisis on its poorest people, Mr Streeting said Labour were demanding ministers “urgently cut VAT on domestic energy bills for six months, to help people through this winter”. He also said his party’s plan to “insulate millions of homes would ease the pressure on households, making bills cheaper and homes warmer”. The news comes after weeks-long criticism of the government and the energy sector for failing to do more to tackle rising gas prices after the energy price cap rose by more than £100 earlier this month. As of 1 October, the cap on what energy companies could charge households for their monthly consumption rose by £139 for people on default tariffs and £153 for people on pre-payment meters. As a result, millions face higher monthly bills.Keith Anderson, the chief executive of Scottish Power, said on Thursday the market faced months of tumult that could shrink the market all the way back to just five or six companies unless the cap, set by Ofgem, was reviewed.Without government and regulatory intervention, he told the Financial Times Britain is “in danger of just sleepwalking into an absolute massacre”.The Liberal Democrats have called for a windfall tax on gas producers profiting from record-high prices to help support struggling households and businesses through the winter.Party officials said wholesale gas prices had risen from 56p/therm during the first half of the year to 150p/therm, and are now reaching 300p/therm. Before that, natural gas prices had never reached 100p/therm, they added.Serica Energy, a North Sea gas company responsible for 5 per cent of the UK supply, had already stated it expects “significant returns” due to the increase, the Lib Dems said.Sir Ed Davey, leader of the party and a former energy secretary, condemned “fossil fuel companies [for] raking it in hand over fist through this gas crisis”. “The least they can do is pay a little more in tax to help struggling families get through the winter,” he said, adding: “If Rishi Sunak is serious about tackling both the climate emergency and the cost-of-living crisis, he would introduce this one-off tax.”The so-called windfall tax would look to raise funding to insulate people’s homes, slash energy bills and protect skilled jobs.Asked about the new data from Labour, a government spokesperson said in a statement: “Protecting consumers is our top priority which is why our energy price cap will remain in place. We are also supporting vulnerable and low-income households further through initiatives such as the £500m Household Support Fund, Warm Home Discount, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments.“Domestic fuels such as gas and electricity are already subject to the reduced rate of 5 per cent of VAT.”Additional reporting by agencies More

More than 40 celebrities have written to Boris Johnson calling for a kinder, fairer and more effective asylum system while his government seeks to impose new “anti-refugee” immigration laws.Actors Olivia Colman, Joanna Lumley and Stephen Fry are among the famous arts and media personalities to have signed an open letter calling on the Prime Minister to “think again” on the Nationality and Borders Bill that is making its way through Parliament.The letter, organised by the coalition of campaign groups Together With Refugees, calls on Mr Johnson to do more to help refugees.They said: “We are refugees, descendants of refugees and supporters of refugees. For some of us, if we were living in Afghanistan right now, our lives could be in danger, and we would have to become refugees.“We are proud the UK is offering protection to those Afghan refugees able to get onto an official scheme. People up and down the country are doing incredible things to make them welcome as they start their new lives.“But many others have been left behind in grave danger. They will have to escape any way they can – by foot, boat or hiding in the back of a lorry. But proposed new laws would mean our country turning away people like them who are in desperate need of safety.“As a nation we must – and can – do more. That’s why we are backing Together With Refugees’ call for a kinder, fairer and more effective system for refugees in the UK.“Now is not the time to turn them away. Now is the time to offer our hand in kindness and protection. We urge you to think again.”Signatories also include fellow actors Fiona Shaw, Simon Callow, Imelda Staunton, Zoe Wanamaker and Thandiwe Newton, the band Kaiser Chiefs, TV personalities Robert Rinder and Gok Wan, as well as comedians Romesh Ranganathan, Frankie Boyle and Shaparak “Shappi” Khorsandi.Ms Khorsandi said: “I had to flee from Iran with my family when I was a child when my father’s life was in danger, just because he is a popular humorist who opposed those in power.“It’s horrendous to think of the many more people all over the world, including Afghanistan, living in fear for their lives just because of who they are or what they say.“I can’t imagine what would have happened if my family hadn’t been welcomed here in the UK.“We must not turn our back on those who have struggled to reach our shores in need of safety. The Prime Minister must oppose this anti-refugee Bill.”Mr Rinder said: “In 1945 my grandfather arrived in the UK as a child refugee from the hell of the Holocaust.“We can help provide sanctuary to those in danger now who have overcome terrible struggles to find their way to safety and freedom. This is what our country is at its very best. We must not turn our backs.”Protests, demonstrations and other events have been taking place this week in several parts of the UK against home secretary Priti Patel’s proposed laws, which campaigners have dubbed the “anti-refugee Bill”.Ms Patel has defended the Bill by saying it would create a “firm but fair” asylum system to allow a post-Brexit Britain to “take full control of its borders”.She also said the proposed laws would “break the business model” of people-smuggling gangs after record numbers of migrants have crossed the English Channel in small boats.On Wednesday, Lord Alfred Dubs told a crowd at a large pro-refugee rally in Parliament Square that he hoped the Bill will be defeated by the House of Lords in the later stages.Lord 
Dubs, who was one of the 669 children saved from Nazi-occupied Prague in then-Czechoslovakia, said the Bill “make criminal of the refugees seeking safety” if they knowingly arrive in the UK without permission and the right paperwork.This means that the Bill – currently at the committee stage in the House of Commons – could, for the first time, allow an “illegal” entry into the UK to impact an asylum case and the subsequent immigration status of a person if their claim is successful.It would also give the government extended rights to deport migrants who did not arrive in the UK with the necessary documents. More

The ongoing supply crisis has been causing problems in the UK, which has faced lorry driver, petrol and food shortages in recent months. But what is really behind it? And just how bad is it?Economist Julian Jessop, a former chief economist at the Institute of Economic Affairs, tackles your questions:Q: If the unique UK supply chain issues aren’t due to Brexit. Not due to the hostile environment towards “foreigners”. Not due to the ongoing raging epidemic in the UK. Not due to the obnoxious ineptitude of your current regime.Then what can it possibly be?Old DaneA: With the exception of the recent panic at the pumps (which was uniquely British), the UK is not the outlier that many assume. Supply problems and labour shortages are global: the US is being hit just as hard as the UK, partly because both the US and UK have seen a relatively strong recovery this year and are therefore running into capacity constraints sooner. This is not to deny that Brexit is a big issue in some sectors (e.g. shortages of agricultural workers). But they are other non-Brexit UK-specific factors too (e.g. impact of new tax rules for agency drivers).Q: Since using the ‘B word’ is forbidden by the Tories as by Labour there has to be another reason why our shortages lead to empty shelves here at home and not in the EU.So I’m trying some things here, could it be that our rules and legislation are simple to hard on professions? Do HGV drivers really need all that training? How often does an HGV driver for example has drive through narrow streets? Butchery is another example. Are we all not able to cut meat at home why have special rules for those in the business?BradA: Sorry but I don’t accept that food shortages and empty shelves are widespread in the UK. Retailers are reporting only patchy disruption, with alternative almost always available. The recent problems at the pump are an exception, but this was driven by panic buying which turned a minor hiccup into a genuine crisis.Rest of EuropeQ: Would being a member of the single market have avoided the current supply crisis?SturlusonA: Not avoided completely – these are global problems – but perhaps reduced. The end of free movement of labour from the EU after leaving the SM has definitely contributed to the labour shortages in some sectors. Nonetheless, this could still have been handled better with a more flexible post-Brexit visa system (the UK govt is at least now doing something about this).Q: Let me put it this way (I live in Italy): I have not personally seen, read of in the press, seen on TV, heard from friends or acquaintances of any shortages of any kind in shops and supermarkets. Not now, not during lockdown. LhctsA: I live in the UK and have yet to see any food shortages or empty shelves, but doubtless I’m biased! Retailers themselves are only reporting patchy disruption, with alternatives almost always available. Worth noting too that UK food price inflation remains relatively low.Lorry drivers shortagesQ: Surely, restoring the DVLA to a functioning unit is the highest priority and yet a settlement was agreed between unions and management but it was overruled by the minister, Grant Shapps, and then there was silence.Four thousand new licenses are sitting on a DVLA desk(s) and so 4,000 trained HGV drivers actually in the UK cannot ply their new chosen trade.I wonder why the government prefers to import foreign drivers rather than expedite new UK trained HGV drivers? This appears to be perverse behaviour.Mr BishiA: You’re right that allowing in more EU drivers can only be short-term fix, especially as there are shortages of drivers in the EU too. But I personally still think it was right to extend more visas to help deal with a short-term problem. And even more important in sectors like agriculture, where the UK is heavily dependent on EU workers (and this isn’t going to change overnight).Interest ratesQ: When, and how much by, do you think interest rates will rise? And what might happen as a result? ThanksForthavenA: If I were setting rates I would already have raised them! GDP and employment are now back at or close to pre-Covid levels, and inflation is heading further above target, and yet rates are still at an emergency low of just 0.1 per cent. I suspect though that the Bank will only move slowly, perhaps to 0.25 per cent by the end of this year and back to the pre-Covid level of 0.75 per cent later in 2022. These would still be exceptionally low levels and rates would only be going up because both activity and inflation are stronger than expected – context is important. More

Southeastern’s train service has become the latest rail franchise to be taken over by the UK government after being brought back under direct public control following an investigation into the franchise holder’s finances.Govia – a joint venture between Go-Ahead Group and Keolis which had owned the line since 2006 – was stripped of the service last month after it failed to declare more than £25m of taxpayer funding.The Department for Transport (DfT) will now run the Southeastern network under the Operator of Last Resort (OLR) scheme.The network, which is one of the busiest in the UK, stretches across southeast England and includes London, Kent, East Sussex and the High Speed 1 line.However, the change is unlikely to lead to any immediate changes for passengers as the trains, timetables and fares will remain the same and staff will stay in place.“Whoever runs Southeastern, passengers will want a reliable service which delivers on their key priorities: a punctual, reliable, clean train, with enough room to sit and stand, and value for money fares,” Anthony Smith, chief executive of passenger watchdog Transport Focus, said.The OLR scheme has previously been used to take over two other franchises, with the London North Eastern Railway launching in 2018 and Northern Trains launching in March 2020.Cat Hobbs, director of the public ownership campaign group We Own It, said that the takeover of Southeastern showed that it was “time to bring the whole rail network into public hands”.“Again and again, privatisation is failing our railway and franchises are being brought into public ownership one by one,” Ms Hobbs said.“Profit-driven companies won’t put passengers or the public first – especially as the railway is a natural monopoly where we don’t have a choice between companies.”Earlier this year, transport secretary Grant Shapps said that an investigation by DfT had found that Govia failed to declare more than £25m of historic taxpayer funding that should have been returned.Mr Shapps warned that the government would not accept “anything less” than “absolute transparency with taxpayer support” for rail franchises.Go-Ahead Group’s chief financial officer Elodie Brian also resigned following the announcement that Southeastern was to be taken over.Further investigations are being conducted and the government is considering options for more action, including financial penalties. More

Relatives of Sir David Amess expressed bewilderment and shock at his killing as hundreds of well-wishers lit candles and left tributes at the scene of the attack in Southend, Essex, on Saturday. Two cousins laid flowers outside the church where he was stabbed multiple times during a meeting with constituents.“Can’t believe this has actually happened,” read an attached card. “RIP David. Thinking of your lovely family. We will always love you. Cousins Moira and Pat.”Paramedics tried to save the Conservative MP’s life for more than an hour on the floor of Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea. The suspect, a 25-year-old man who made no attempt to flee, was arrested on suspicion of murder. More