UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMPs charged taxpayers almost £300,000 for energy bills and other utilities at their second homes over the past year, a new analysis by The Independent has found.Campaigners said the record-high figure shows that Britain’s politicians are “insulated” from the cost of living crisis, since so much of their energy costs are covered by the public purse, while millions struggle to pay.Tory ministers Suella Braverman, James Cleverly, Alex Chalk, Victoria Prentis, Alister Jack and James Heappey are among senior figures who claim gas and electricity costs at their second homes.MPs’ claims for gas, electricity and water amounted to £292,000 in 2022-23, according to an analysis of data from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA).It marks a significant increase on last year’s bill for MPs’ utilities, which totalled £253,000 – a reflection of the spike in gas and electricity prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February.MPs have claimed more than £1m to pay utility bills at their second homes in the past four yearsRuth London, founder of the Fuel Poverty Action campaign group, said the expenses figures showed that MPs “live in a different world from most of the people they are paid to represent”.The campaigner added: “As more and more people find energy bills unpayable, this difference only grows greater. Claims that the pressure is easing do not help when in reality it’s only getting worse.”Politicians with seats outside London are allowed to put utility costs at one of their homes on expenses – whether it is in London or in their constituency.The Independent’s analysis shows that MPs have claimed more than £1m to pay utility bills at their second homes in the past four years.Ms Braverman has claimed more than any other current minister over the four-year period. The home secretary has charged the taxpayer £10,280 for gas and electricity costs since 2019-2020.Suella Braverman is among highest spenders on taxpayer-funded fuel bills Records also show that the foreign secretary Mr Cleverly has put more than £6,550 of his energy bills on expenses since 2019-2020, while justice secretary Alex Chalk has charged £3,735 for utilities at his second home.Ms Truss – the former PM who blocked a windfall tax on the energy giants saying she didn’t “believe” in it – put £3,220-worth of energy bills at her Norfolk constituency home on expenses during the period.Ex-health secretary Matt Hancock has been one of the highest spenders on utilities since 2019 – racking up taxpayer-funded fuel and water bills of £9,380 at his constituency home.Labour frontbenchers Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband, Liz Kendall, Louise Haigh, Hilary Benn, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Pat McFadden are among the senior party figures who put in similar claims.Labour party deputy leader Angela Rayner claims for gas and electricity Ms Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, has claimed more than £4,000 for utilities at her London home in the past four years. Mr Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, has charged just over £2,600 to the taxpayer in the period.Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, commented: “While MPs are insulated from the pain of the energy bills crisis, their constituents have been paying twice what they were a couple of years ago for their electricity and gas.”He called on MPs to help “reform Britain’s broken energy system” – urging them back moves to ease utility bill debt and improve energy efficiency of rented properties.John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Although energy prices are coming down, MPs are still being insulated from persistently high costs that taxpayers are having to bear the brunt of.”The campaign group boss called on the parliamentary authorities to “consider whether these expense rules are too generous” on second homes.While water bills have remained steady, MPs’ gas and electricity costs have jumped over the past year. Energy bills charged to the taxpayers rose from £195,000 in 2021-22 to £241,000 in the past year.The Independent has contacted the MPs mentioned in this piece for comment. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailTherese Coffey has blamed the stress of being a minister for a brain abscess which almost killed her.The former deputy prime minister revealed she was diagnosed with a rare brain abscess in 2018, having suffered from pain in her head for several days, before spending a month in hospital.Ms Coffey, who has also served as health secretary and environment secretary, said her sister Clare raised the alarm after she began hallucinating and slurring her words – prompting her to seek treatment.In an interview with the Sunday Times, Ms Coffey blamed the brain abscess on the stress of her role at the time as a junior environment minister.She said: “I just overdid it and burned the candle at both ends.“Michael Gove had come in as environment secretary and had really upped the pace and was really pushing on a variety of issues, and we were working very long hours trying to get stuff done and really trying to make a difference.“I came close to dying, and I think looking back that if my sister hadn’t phoned St Thomas’s [hospital] and they hadn’t done that scan, I probably would have been dead in a matter of days.”Ms Coffey described how Clare, who works in her parliamentary office, had “never known me the way I was” and phoned the hospital to raise concerns.A scan was performed at St Thomas’ Hospital, near parliament, and the abscess was discovered.The hospital then phoned her home and said “somebody needs to get here quickly”, Ms Coffey added. She said: “So my mum, who must have been in her eighties by then, came up and we did the flashing blues and twos down to King’s College hospital and I was operated on that night.”Ms Coffey said: “I woke up the next morning, and the thing I was most distressed about was that I had lost my eyebrows. They had just gone. I think it was just the stress of it all.”Ms Coffey resigned as a minister last month ahead of Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle and now tries to “live in the moment” after giving up the pressure of her role on the front bench.Ms Coffey said: “I do value life more now than ever. I came close to dying, and I think looking back that if my sister hadn’t phoned St Thomas’ Hospital and they hadn’t done that scan, I probably would have been dead in a matter of days.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA Tory MP is pushing for parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal titles, leaving them as simply “Mr and Mrs Sussex”, as the fallout over the royal race row continues.Bob Seely is proposing the “nuclear option” of denying the couple their standing in the Royal Family amid damaging claims made in a palace exposé, relating to the Sussexes bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview in 2021.The Isle of Wight MP wants to adapt laws originally passed in the First World War to deny enemy German nobles their British titles.His Bill would force MPs to consider turning Harry and Meghan into Mr and Mrs Sussex as pressure mounts on the couple over revelations in the new book Endgame, by royal author Omid Scobie.A Dutch translation of Mr Scobie’s book identified King Charles and the Princess of Wales as the two senior royals who allegedly raised “concerns” about the skin colour of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son.The apparent “translation error” meant the Dutch versions were dramatically pulled from shelves and pulped at the eleventh hour, but not before the names began circulating on social media.Piers Morgan used his TalkTV show on Thursday night to give the names to the British audience, claiming those in the country “who actually pay for the royal family are entitled to know, too”.And Buckingham Palace is understood to be “considering all options” including legal action but is yet to respond.Mr Seely said attempting to smear the Royal Family using race was “poisonously insidious” and insisted he had to act.Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said: “Of all the damaging insults to throw, ‘racism’ is the most poisonously insidious, guaranteed to leave a whiff of stigma and impossible to prove when false. It is the catch-all slur of the modern era.“The allegations jar with so much of what we know about the Royals and this country.“The late Queen and King Charles have done extraordinary work over decades reaching out to everyone in the country, including ethnic minorities and those from Commonwealth nations.”He went on to say it “is time they dropped their titles – or were made to – and lived by their own talents”.“The sooner the Duke and Duchess become just Mr and Mrs Sussex, the better for us all,” Mr Seely said.The senior Tory is applying for his Titles Deprivation 1917 Amendment Bill to be listed on the Commons’ Order Paper next week, The Mail on Sunday reported. It would resurrect the wartime powers by removing references to “enemies” and “present war”. He is believed to have cleared the wording with Parliament’s Table Office, which oversees draft legislation. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA furious row has erupted over small boat channel crossings as the figures this year are set to hit the second highest on record.Despite Rishi Sunak’s January pledge to “stop the boats”, 28,453 migrants have crossed the channel in small boats this year, compared with a total of 28,526 in 2021.And after a busy weekend in the channel, when the Home Office figures are updated the total number of crossings this year is set to top 2021’s total.It will mean small boat crossings are at the second highest level on record, after they surged to 45,755 in 2022.The Independent understands it has been a particularly busy day in the channel, with all four Border Force catamarans out on escort and collection duties at the same time.Labour slammed what they described as the “Tory asylum chaos”, accusing Mr Sunak of “breaking a promise to the British people”.Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Rishi Sunak claimed he would stop the small boats this year but instead this weekend’s figures are set to make it the second highest year of crossings on record, the Tory asylum chaos is continuing and he has broken another promise he made to the British people.”But a source close to home secretary James Cleverly hit back, saying Labour would fail to tackle small boat crossings because “deep down they find the whole subject distasteful”.The source added: “Labour’s problem on small boats is their big idea is to claim they’ll do  things we’ve already been doing for some time and we’re doing more of it. Small boat crossings are down by a third and people smuggling gangs are already being successfully targeted by security and intelligence arrangements between the UK and a range of European countries.“None of which Labour had a hand in. Meanwhile, what Labour  are shy about saying is they would willingly hand over control of immigration to the EU because deep down they find the whole subject distasteful.”A Downing Street source pointed to figures showing small boat crossings are down compared with last year, while other European countries struggle with soaring numbers. Labour has promised to strike a deal with Europol to tackle the smuggling gangs behind small boat crossings.Ms Cooper said: “It’s time [The Conservatives] stopped wasting time and taxpayers money on the failing Rwanda scheme and instead adopted Labour’s plan to stop the criminal smuggler gangs with a new elite cross-border police force unit to work with Europol in a new security and intelligence sharing arrangement.”Mr Sunak’s flagship Rwanda deportation policy is on the rocks after the Supreme Court ruled it unlawful last month. He is preparing to unveil a new treaty with the African nation to address judges’ concerns about the plan, while passing a law to deem Rwanda “safe” in British law.But, having promised to unveil the bill “within days” after his original plan was struck down, it has now been more than two weeks and the bill has not been published. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailForeigner inmates could serve shorter sentences than British prisoners under a scheme to ease the crisis of overcrowded prisons, it has been claimed. Non-UK citizens will reportedly be eligible for removal from prisons in the UK and deportation to their home countries up to a year and a half earlier than a British prisoner on the same sentence would be.The changes, reported by The Daily Telegraph, would mean that if a British man and a Polish man are both sentenced for the same crime, the Polish man could be released and sent back to Poland up to 18 months earlier than the British man.He would not then have to serve prison time in Poland, but would be banned from coming back to the UK.The apparent plans have been criticised by a leading committee in the House of Lords and one of Britain’s top judges who said they risk “reducing the deterrents” for foreign criminals to offend in the UK. .Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice and a member of the committee, told The Telegraph: “The policy could be seen as reducing the punishment of overseas criminals in order to ensure that UK citizens can continue to be sent to prison.“In addition, the policy risks reducing the deterrents for overseas citizens to commit crime, potentially undermining confidence in the criminal justice system.”The committee also criticised the government’s failure to estimate how many foreign nationals would be released early and how many prison spaces would be freed up.Prisoners were previously eligible for early release for up to a year, and the Ministry of Justice believes extending this to 18 months will affect an additional 300 prisoners.Among those identified for return is Koci Selamaj, the murderer of schoolteacher Sabina Nessa, who was jailed for a minimum of 36 yearsThe Independent has repeatedly highlighted the overcrowding crisis facing Britain’s prisons, with inmates crammed into cells for up to 23 hours a day.In a recent report, this paper revealed that criminals may be freed from jail early or spared prison sentences as the system reaches breaking point.Justice secretary Alex Chalk also pledged at the Tory conference in October to send criminals overseas in a desperate bid to ease the overcrowding crisis.But the government’s own assessment of the idea showed it will cost at least £200million and won’t happen until 2026.Commenting on his deportation plans, Mr Chalk told said: “It’s right that foreign criminals are punished, but it cannot be right that some are sat in prison costing taxpayers £47,000 a year when they could be deported.“Instead of letting foreign nationals take up space in our prisons at vast expense to the law-abiding public, we will take action to get them out of the country and stop them from ever returning.”Other plans being considered include sentences under 12-months being carried out in the community instead of prison and an 18-day early release scheme. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSir Keir Starmer has promised not to lecture to people about how to cut their carbon carbon footprints as individual action “will not in itself solve this problem”.The Labour leader said he is “not in the business of telling people what they should and shouldn’t be doing with their individual lives”.And he said instead that Britain under Labour will “make a massive transition” away from fossil fuels and invest in wind, solar and nuclear power.“Of course, we can all do individual things in our lives, but I don’t think it’s right to say that that in itself will solve this problem,” Sir Keir told BBC News.Pressed on what he does to cut his own carbon footprint, the Labour leader said he does not eat meat.Speaking from the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Sir Keir said: “I’m not trying to enforce on other people what they should or should not do. This is not about a government saying to individuals ‘you can do this, you can’t do that’.“It’s about the government saying it’s our responsibility to take the big decisions about this transition.”Sir Keir was also pressed on Labour’s promised £28billion Green Prosperity Plan after reports suggested the party was “unlikely” to meet the pledge.The BBC last week said the plan could be scaled back again as Labour instead focuses on meeting the party’s fiscal rules.Labour had originally promised in 2021 to invest £28 billion-a-year until 2030 in green projects if it came to power. But in June shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the figure would instead be a target to work towards in the second half of a first parliament.The BBC said that a senior source in Sir Keir Starmer’s office suggested the £28 billion figure may not be reached at all due to the current state of the public finances.A Labour party spokesman denied the reports and on Saturday Sir Keir said he is “absolutely determined” to fulfil the promise.Sir Keir insisted that one of his missions in government will be for Britain to use one hundred percent clean power by 2030, “which will require investment”.He added: “That £28billion will be ramped up, probably in the second half of the parliament.“I say ramped up because there’ll be money coming from the start, but the money is towards a purpose and outcome.“And the outcome that we’re driving at here is the transition so that for years and years to come, millions of people up and down the country will have cheaper bills, because we can’t go on like this.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak is considering taking a hard-line approach on Rwanda to secure deportation flights before the next election, it has been reported.The prime minister is reportedly leaning towards ensuring his new treaty with the African nation is exempt from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) without withdrawing from the convention altogether.The approach is favoured by immigration minister Robert Jenrick, a flag-bearer for the Tory right now that Suella Braverman has been sacked as home secretary.Mr Jenrick met the PM on Wednesday to finalise a solution which will get planes to Rwanda in the air after the deportation scheme was struck down in the Supreme Court.Disapplying the ECHR has been dubbed the “full-fat” option, backed by Ms Braverman and the New Conservative group of more than 30 right-wing Tory MPs.Mr Sunak is “leaning towards” the option, according to the Daily Telegraph, but is some way from agreeing to it.He is also considering a so-called semi-skimmed option which would only disapply the UK’s Human Rights Act for asylum seekers. A No10 source said: “Nothing is decided, everything is still on the table.”Mr Sunak has said the Government is “finalising” legislation to push through the “vital” Rwanda asylum plan and that his “patience is worn thin” by delays.The prime minister met Rwandan president Paul Kagame on the sidelines of the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai, although Downing Street said it was a “brush-by” that lasted no more than 10 minutes.Mr Sunak declined to say how much more money he would spend to get the scheme off the ground, but stressed he is eager to “finish the job” after the plan to send some asylum seekers on a one-way trip to the African nation was ruled unlawful.His plan to save the policy involves signing a new treaty with Kigali and the introduction of emergency legislation allowing Parliament to deem the scheme safe, but this has been delayed.But senior British diplomats are said to have privately told the Foreign Office that the Rwandan government’s commitment to the scheme cannot be taken for granted.The Independent understands that the Rwandan government believes its own laws are robust enough to make the treaty work – and are uneasy about the idea of any infringement upon their sovereignty.A Rwandan government source said the country was still “committed” to the agreement and were working with the UK to formalise elements of the memorandum of understanding signed in 2022 within a new treaty.No 10 had said in the hours after the 15 November Supreme Court defeat of its Rwanda scheme that the treaty would be laid before Parliament in the “coming days” so deportation flights could take off “as soon as possible”.It has since been more than two weeks, with a bill expected before Christmas and potentially as early as next week. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailBoris Johnson is expected to apologise for “unquestionably” making mistakes in his handling of the pandemic during his appearance before the Covid Inquiry.But the former prime minister will argue that his controversial decisions ended up saving “tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives”.Mr Johnson will be grilled next Wednesday and Thursday over the government’s decision-making during the pandemic in two marathon evidence sessions.He faces a mammoth task to salvage his reputation, however, with the inquiry over the last two months having heard:The former PM, who has since quit as an MP, will argue that without restrictions in place a considerable number of individuals would have experienced “miserable and unnecessary deaths”, some of them occurring in hospital car parks and corridors, with the healthcare system overwhelmed by the virus.And he will tout his vaccine programme and argue that the country emerged from the final lockdown before other economies.The probe so far has painted a damning picture of Mr Johnson’s Downing Street team, with clandestine WhatsApp messages exposing the internal turmoil and discord behind the scenes.His senior aide Dominic Cummings has emerged as a vocal adversary of Mr Johnson following their contentious parting. Mr Cummings described the former prime minister as the “trolley”, referring to his habit of changing his mind more often.The former prime minister is expected to counter accusations of him constantly changing his mind by underscoring the substantial volume of briefings he received, the rapid evolution of advice, and the enormity of the decisions he was compelled to make, those who helped prepare him for his appearance told the BBC.But it is understood that his statement barely mentions Mr Cummings.Mr Johnson will also argue that Britain’s obesity problem made tackling coronavirus more difficult, The Daily Telegraph reported. “ As a nation, we are fatter, less fit, there’s lots of factors in our public health that are just facts which made the UK very different from other comparable democracies,” a source close to the former PM said. And Mr Johnson will extraordinarily clash with Sir Patrick Vallance and Sir Chris Whitty, claiming the controversial Eat Out to Help Out scheme was “properly discussed” with the scientists, The Times reported. Both the former chief scientific adviser and Prof Whitty, who is the chief medical officer, have said they were blind-sided by the scheme. The paper added that the ex-PM will claim it is misleading to take his WhatsApp messages out of context, where “dark humour is lost or morphs into mockery”.He will also defend the use of his colourful language during his tenure and taking more provocative positions in private. He will argue that the strategy helped him get the best work out of his advisors and it would not have been correct for a prime minister to sit in silence when being briefed by experts.“Ministers can argue for their briefs, as they should. So a health secretary will argue for public health. A chancellor will argue for the economy,” a source said.“But there is only one person in the British system of government that has to arbitrate between the competing arguments and ultimately come to a decision, having made a call on the trade-offs.”The person said: “There is only one guy in this country who can tell you what it is like to be prime minister in a pandemic. And one day there will be another one.”Mr Johnson is poised to support the embattled former health secretary, Matt Hancock, despite criticisms from numerous inquiry witnesses who singled him out, crediting him for doing a “good job in very difficult circumstances”.Mr Hancock has said in his written statement to the inquiry that “the then prime minister has apologised to me for appointing his chief adviser and for the damage he did to the response to Covid-19”.Mr Johnson’s statement to the inquiry, which is said to be 200 pages long, has been already submitted.Mr Johnson will be the only figure at the inquiry next week and is scheduled to sit from 10am to 4.30pm on Wednesday and Thursday. More