Inquiry into Raab bullying allegations expanded to incorporate grievance referring to his time as Brexit secretary, No 10 says
Downing Road has confirmed that the inquiry into bullying allegations about Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, is being expanded to cowl claims referring to his interval as Brexit secretary, my colleague Pippa Crerar studies.
The inquiry was initially set as much as think about two complaints, referring to his time as justice secretary and international secretary. However on the Downing Road foyer briefing a No 10 spokesperson stated:
I can affirm that the prime minister has now requested the investigator so as to add an extra formal grievance referring to conduct on the Division for Exiting the European Union and to ascertain the details according to the present phrases of reference.
The third formal grievance was obtained by the Cupboard Workplace on 23 November, the spokesperson stated. She confirmed that Rishi Sunak nonetheless has confidence in Raab.
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Felony justice system ‘going backwards, not forwards’, says Starmer
Too many victims of home violence and abuse are being let down by a prison justice system which goes “backwards”, Keir Starmer has stated. PA Media says:
The Labour chief stated the present state of affairs was “heart-breaking” after chatting with a number of girls at a refuge in Birmingham, on Friday, marking White Ribbon Day and the marketing campaign to finish male violence in opposition to girls.
Later, he shared a roundtable dialogue with advocates from the charity Gilgal Birmingham, which is a part of the Ladies’s Assist federation of organisations, offering short-term refuge lodging within the metropolis and assist for ladies and youngsters fleeing home abuse.
Starmer stated survivors, together with those that fall sufferer to coercive and controlling behaviour, too usually confronted “the rocky, onerous, onerous highway” of the prison justice system.
He additionally heard claims that too usually household courts had been enabling abusers, by ordering contact with youngsters of the household, exterior of managed settings – and in not less than two current instances, courts had even talked about the exact location of the charity’s refuge, placing survivors prone to contact from perpetrators.
The Labour chief, who was director of public prosecutions from 2008 till 2013, gave assurances the way in which home abuse victims had been dealt with underneath a future Labour authorities could be modified, calling it a “private mission”.
He added: “My sense with the prison justice system is we’re going backwards, not forwards – it’s heart-breaking.”
Altia Walters, Gilgal’s chief govt, stated: “Undoubtedly. Prefer it’s at a standstill. [Criminal] courts nonetheless don’t perceive what victims are going via and [family courts] proceed the abuse, by permitting the perpetrator to proceed their management via permitting entry to the kids.”
Levelling up minister Dehenna Davison to face down as MP
The levelling up minister Dehenna Davison, seen as one of many rising stars of the Conservative occasion, has introduced that she is standing down on the subsequent election.
Davison was 26 when she was elected in 2019, successful Bishop Auckland in Nation Durham, a seat that had been held by Labour because the Nineteen Thirties. She received with a majority of 8,000. Introduced up in a working-class household, with an curiosity in legislation and order prompted by the dying of her father following an assault when she was 13, she was one of many extra outstanding “pink wall” Tories introduced into parliament underneath Boris Johnson. She grew to become a minister underneath Liz Truss.
Davison has instructed the Northern Echo:
For my complete grownup life, I’ve devoted the overwhelming majority of my time to politics, and to assist make folks’s lives higher.
However, to be frank, it has meant I haven’t had something like a standard life for a 20-something.
I’ll all the time be humbled to have had the chance to function a member of parliament. However now the time feels proper for me to commit extra of my consideration to life exterior politics, primarily to my household and serving to assist them as they’ve helped assist me.
That’s why I received’t be standing within the subsequent normal election.
Here’s a query from a reader beneath the road.
Steve Barclay says, underneath the federal government’s provide, a newly certified nurse will earn greater than £31,000 on common. (See 9.14am.) Supersair22 is correct to say that, with the pay rise, the essential wage for a newly certified nurse will probably be £27,055. However, in response to the Deparment of Well being, Barclay is assuming typical extra time and unsocial hours funds on high of that, which is why he says a typical nurse would find yourself getting greater than £31,000 a yr.
Bus strikes deliberate for London in December
Nearly 3,000 bus drivers in London are urgent forward with a collection of strikes subsequent month which threaten to disrupt journey within the busy run-up to Christmas, PA Media studies. PA says:
Unite stated 2,000 of its members employed by Metroline and 950 at Abellio will take seven days of motion between December 1-17 in disputes over pay.
Unite stated a number of the Metroline drivers had been paid simply over 13 an hour and had been struggling to maintain their heads above water through the cost-of-living disaster.
The union stated the corporate’s newest provide of a ten% pay improve and 9% on again pay was rejected by the workforce, because it amounted to an actual phrases pay reduce due to the speed of inflation.
The Metroline employees, who’re based mostly throughout north and west London, will probably be putting on December 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 15 and 16.
The primary three days of the economic motion will probably be co-ordinated with Abellio bus drivers in south and west London, who’ve a separate industrial dispute over pay.
Sir Gary Streeter has turn into the newest Conservative MP to announce they won’t stand on the subsequent normal election. Streeter represents South West Devon and has been an MP for 30 years.
Conservative MPs have been requested to inform CCHQ by 5 December whether or not or not they intend to face once more on the subsequent election and, with the occasion’s electoral prospects wanting grim, it’s thought as many as 50 could stand down.
My colleagues Jessica Elgot, Pippa Crerar and Peter Walker have a protracted article right here describing the temper on the Tory backbenches.
Folks typically ask what Liz Truss is as much as for the time being. Nicely, at present, in response to her Twitter feed, she has been campaigning for a brand new hospital for her constituents.
Jo Johnson, the previous Tory universities minister, instructed the World at One which stopping international college students from attending non-elite universities (see 11.35am and 12.43pm) could be a mistake. He defined:
Should you begin going for a shorthand and saying: ‘OK, we are going to say worldwide college students will go to Russell Group universities’ … you then could be gravely disadvantaging establishments in different elements of the nation.
For instance: Wolverhampton, Plymouth, Hull, the place there aren’t Russell Group establishments. [They] who received’t profit from a stream of scholars who high up institutional earnings, allow them to offer high-cost programs that they’ll’t ship with the £9,250 they get for home charges, and supply actually precious useful resource for these establishments to do main analysis.
So when you needed to design a coverage that was going to thwart our ambitions to turn into a science superpower, that was going to set again our ambitions to degree up the nation, that is mainly it.
Sebastian Payne’s guide about Boris Johnson (see 1.15pm) is a story account of his downfall, not an evaluation of his premiership, and so it doesn’t discover in full the extent to which Johnson was most likely probably the most disreputable PM of the trendy period. However one other guide, The Bonfire of the Decencies: Repairing and Restoring the British Structure, by the historians Andrew Blick and Peter Hennessy, does cowl this totally.
“The expertise of the Johnson premiership demonstrated a fragility on the very coronary heart of our unsystematic system, for the prime protector of the norms and procedures that animate the decencies and probity of public and political life turned out to be a unsuitable ‘un, who repeatedly resisted the applying of these necessities to himself,” Blick and Hennessy write.
It’s a brief guide, which doesn’t have the verve of Hennessy’s narrative histories (it reads extra like a choose committee report), however in case you are within the codes and guidelines that represent the moral plumbing of the structure, and the way they had been trashed by Johnson, then that is the guide for you. It’s also a restore guide (Blick and Hennessy suggest a number of reforms, together with for instance codifying the principles on what ought to occur if a PM desires to name a snap election to keep away from a confidence vote – see 1.15pm), though after all the simpler answer could be for the governing occasion to not elect a unsuitable ‘un as chief within the first place.
Starmer says Tory occasion now too divided to control nation correctly
Keir Starmer has additionally accused the Tories of blocking important improvement.
He was referring to the revolt by Conservatives who need the federal government to abolish necessary housebuilding targets (the place the federal government is on the pro-development facet) and the dispute about onshore windfarms (the place the federal government is on the anti-development facet). Each rows confirmed the Tories couldn’t govern within the pursuits of the nation as a result of they had been divided, he stated. He defined:
What we’ve seen, notably in the previous couple of days, is division and argument within the Conservative occasion about planning, whether or not it’s onshore wind farms – that are very important for our power safety, bringing our costs down – or whether or not it’s properties, that are very important.
That quarrelling, these arguments, aren’t simply inside Conservative occasion points, they have an effect.
It means we received’t get cheaper, safe power as rapidly as we must always.
They’re killing off the dream of dwelling possession, as a result of they’ll’t agree amongst themselves.
Their whole occasion are a divided occasion and they don’t seem to be actually any longer in a position to present that they’ll govern the nation.
Starmer criticises Barclay for not assembly Royal Faculty of Nursing in bid to keep away from strike
Keir Starmer has additionally been chatting with broadcasters concerning the nurses’ strike. Listed here are the factors he has been making.
The nurses have been pushed to this by the federal government. That’s a badge of disgrace for the federal government. They’ve by no means taken strike motion earlier than. And for sufferers that is going to be devastating information. Nurses don’t wish to go on strike.
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He criticised the well being secretary, Steve Barclay, for not holding talks with the RCN, accusing the federal government of giving up on governing. He stated:
Now it appears the well being secretary shouldn’t be even ready to get across the desk to proceed negotiations to keep away from the strike. [See 2.13pm.]
Frankly, if the federal government is that bored with governing, then they need to get out of the way in which and permit a unique authorities to come back in and take care of the underlying questions, like the dearth of staffing – we wish to practice up 15,000 new employees to come back in. The cavalry is coming underneath a Labour authorities. We wouldn’t sit on our palms, as this authorities is doing.
It’s about pay however additionally it is about staffing as a result of, discuss to anyone within the NHS – my spouse works within the NHS – and they’ll inform you that they’re underneath a lot pressure relating to staffing.
That’s why our plan to make use of cash, by eliminating the non-dom standing and utilizing that to coach up 15,000 new medical doctors, is an important a part of the dialogue.
However as far the pay is anxious, what we might do is get across the desk and resolve the problem. You’ll by no means have a Labour well being secretary saying ‘I’m not going to get across the desk and proceed discussions’.
The proof is there. When Labour had been in energy we didn’t have strikes of nurses, and really, we had honest pay for nurses.
In his clip for broadcasters, Rishi Sunak stated the nurses had been asking for a pay rise of 19%.
However this morning Steve Barclay, the well being secretary, stated the nurses had been asking for 17.6%.
UPDATE: The Royal Faculty of Nursing says it’s asking for a pay rise of its members of inflation (on the RPI measure) plus 5%. In September RPI inflation was at 12.6%, and an additional 5 share factors would take that to 17.6%
Sunak says pay rise being demanded by nurses ‘clearly unaffordable’
Rishi Sunak has stated that, while he has “huge respect” for nurses, the pay rise they’re demanding is “clearly unaffordable”.
The federal government says the Royal Faculty of Nursing is demanding a pay improve that might in impact by value 19%, costing £10bn. The RCN has stated it doesn’t recognise that determine as the price of what it’s proposing.
In a clip to broadcasters, Sunak stated:
I’ve huge respect and gratitude to our nurses as everybody does for the unbelievable job they do. And I do know issues are troublesome proper now for everybody due to what’s occurring with inflation.
And that’s why our plans that we outlined final week will get a grip of inflation and produce it down. That’s actually essential.
And within the meantime, what the unions are asking for, I believe, is a 19% pay rise. And I believe most individuals watching will recognise that that’s clearly unaffordable, and that’s why I’m happy that the well being secretary is sitting down, speaking to the union, and hopefully we are able to discover a method via this.
In reality, in his most up-to-date public feedback on this, Steve Barclay, the well being secretary, simply stated that he was keen to fulfill the RCN – not {that a} assembly was going forward. He instructed broadcasters at lunchtime:
My door is open. I’m very eager to proceed to interact with the RCN management to have a look at the opposite points which are impacting, however it is necessary we additionally respect the unbiased pay overview physique’s findings and I’ve agreed to implement these in full.
However Barclay did meet Pat Cullen, the RCN normal secretary, earlier this month.
Enterprise organisations and different professional our bodies condemn authorities plans to abolish retained EU legal guidelines
Lisa O’Carroll
Dozens of organisations starting from the Nationwide Belief to TheCityUK and medical and engineering our bodies have slated the federal government’s plans to axe as much as 4,000 EU legal guidelines with out due parliamentary course of, it has emerged.
The Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medication warned that elimination of EU legislation in relation to medical radiation utilized in X-rays and most cancers remedy is “probably very harmful”.
The retained EU legislation (revocation and reform) invoice committee has at present revealed proof submitted by 92 organisations together with letters from Fb proprietor Meta and the unbiased assessor, the regulatory coverage committee, which has stated the invoice is “not match for goal”.
TheCityUK has criticised the failure to provide a 90-day session course of to enterprise. It stated:
It’s regular good apply, in implementing or revising laws, to seek the advice of stakeholders (certainly that is generally highlighted as one of many sights of the UK authorized system.)
The British Chambers of Commerce voiced related considerations that there was no session on the potential influence on enterprise, with a survey of its members displaying 30% weren’t even conscious of REUL.
The Welsh Senedd stated it could be “insupportable” to sundown laws made by the devolved authorities, whereas the Nationwide Belief stated it welcomed a overview of EU legislation however the REUL was not a “credible path to reaching optimistic change”.
10 issues we have realized from Sebastian Payne’s guide concerning the downfall of Boris Johnson
In his Telegraph story concerning the Boris Johnson/Liz Truss alliance on onshore windfarms (see 11.03am), Daniel Martin says that Truss and Johnson briefly mentioned him being international secretary in her authorities earlier than she grew to become prime minister. As Martin says, that is among the revelations in The Fall of Boris Johnson, a brand new guide concerning the occasions main as much as Johnson’s resignation by the Monetary Instances journalist, Sebastian Payne. It’s out this week and, though the explanations for Johnson’s resignation are nicely understood, Payne turns it right into a gripping story, with copious, insider element that has not been reported earlier than. I loved it rather a lot. Listed here are 10 issues I learnt from it.
1) The institution drew up a plan to cease Boris Johnson calling a snap election as a method of seeing off a management problem. Payne says that as Johnson was clinging on to energy, within the interval shortly earlier than he introduced his resignation, his inside circle did think about the snap election choice. However Payne says officers at Buckingham Palace and in Downing Road had a plan to guard the Queen from being put within the place the place she must determine whether or not or to not grant Johnson’s request for an election that was wholly pointless and completely about his private survival. A “magic circle” of Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee, Simon Case, the cupboard secretary, and Sir Edward Younger, the Queen’s personal secretary, agreed they’d cease Johnson being allowed to request a dissolution, Payne says:
As Johnson’s grip on energy grew to become extra precarious, one senior Whitehall insider stated of the second: “If there was an effort to name an election, Tory MPs would have anticipated Brady to speak to the palace that we might be holding a vote of confidence within the very close to future and that it’d make sense for Her Majesty to be unavailable for a day.” One other senior official confirmed it could be politely communicated to Downing Road that Her Majesty “couldn’t come to the telephone” had Johnson requested a name with the intention of dissolving parliament.
2) Johnson’s inside circle additionally thought-about taking the 1922 Committee to court docket to cease it altering the principles to permit a second management problem inside 12 months, Payne studies. However this concept was dominated out on the idea of authorized opinion saying the Conservative occasion shouldn’t be liable for how the 1922 Committee operates.
3) Johnson managed to win spherical a number of the cupboard ministers who went to see him in Downing Road on the evening of Wednesday 6 July to induce him to give up. Johnson did announce his resignation the next day, and so it has been assumed that the interventions from Nadhim Zahawi, Michelle Donelan, Equipment Malthouse and Brandon Lewis helped to push him out. However Payne says Johnson managed to show them spherical. Zahawi started by telling Johnson he ought to go, however ended their assembly discussing a future joint speech on the financial system. Donelan went in saying she would resign, however was persuaded to not. (She did resign the next morning.) Malthouse was additionally briefly received spherical, Payne studies. And Lewis arrived as a critic, however left considering that he was going to be promoted to be chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster (changing Zahawi, how was made chancellor on the Tuesday).
4) However Johnson lastly realised it could be unimaginable to remain round 10.30pm that evening, after Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, refused a promotion to exchange Michael Gove as levelling up secretary. “At this second, Johnson lastly reasied it was over,” Payne studies.
5) Johnson instructed his inside circle that he needed to give up becaue it could be unfair on Britain to provide it a “D-list authorities”. Payne studies:
When [Simon] Clarke refused to take levelling up secretary, different names had been mooted within the examine, together with one shut Johnson ally who had served him loyally as a minister a number of occasions. After listening to the title of the minister being severely prompt, Johnson instructed the room, ‘It’s not honest on the nation to provide them a D-list authorities.’
Sadly, Payne has not been in a position to set up whether or not or this was Johnson’s method of conceding that his earlier administrations had been simply C-list.
6) Johnson’s inside circle additionally took recommendation on what number of ministers they really wanted to run a functioning authorities at round this level, Payne studies. He quotes a senior official saying: ‘We may have most likely fudged it, it’s not like some onerous and quick factor. You probably have an lawyer normal, you’re okay, mainly.’ Apparently in 1834 the Duke of Wellington ran the federal government roughly single-handedly for a month.
7) No 10 officers knew their Partygate conduct was questionable from the very begin, though they had been insisting that Covid guidelines had been adopted. Payne says that when the Every day Mirror approached No 10 final yr earlier than operating its first Partygate story, Dan Rosenfield, the then chief of employees, requested senior folks within the press workplace what had truly occurred. Payne goes on:
The sentiment of their dialogue was that some issues had gone on and that ‘with hindsight, it’s not one thing we must always have carried out’ however nobody argued restrictions weren’t noticed. The aides then went to see Johnson, who wanted no second invitation to get right into a scrap with the left-leaning paper and take a agency line.
No 10 responded to the Mirror story by saying: “Covid guidelines have been adopted always.” It then caught to this line, even when it grew to become clear it was unfaithful. Payne says it was Jack Doyle, the communications director, who instructed Johnson and Rosenfield that he thought all Covid guidelines had been adopted within the press workplace. However Payne additionally suggests Johnon was at fault for taking this assurance at face worth.
8) Johnson agreed the plan to get Tory MPs to shelve the advice for Owen Paterson to be suspended from the Commons for breaking the principles on paid lobbying with out even studying the requirements committee report into what truly occurred, Payne reveals. Doyle and Rosenfield needed to insist that he did learn the report. However at that time Johnson was dedicated to the plan to attempt to save Paterson.
9) No 10 thought it got here “very shut” to shedding the assist of Chris Whitty within the run as much as Christmas 2021, Payne says. At that time Whitty, the chief medical officer, was pushing for tighter Covid restriction, however Johnson was underneath stress from Tory MPs to withstand. On the time it was clear from what was stated in public that ministers and scientists weren’t absolutely in settlement, however Whitty by no means formally disowned authorities coverage.
10) Boris Johnson wasn’t “Large Canine”. Within the months earlier than he resigned, it was reported that his allies had been operating Operation Large Canine to safe his management. Key figures on this unofficial whipping operation had been Nigel Adams, the Cupboard Workplace minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, the chief whip, and Grant Shapps, the transport secretary. On the time it was assumed that “Large Canine” referred to Johnnson, however Payne says it was an ironic nickname for Adams himself (who’s on the brief facet). Based on different studies, Adams will quickly turn into Lord Large Canine.
Downing Road performs down report claiming international college students may very well be banned from non-elite universities
Richard Adams
Downing Road has performed down studies that the federal government may ban international college students from attending non-elite universities.
Requested concerning the story in at present’s Instances (see 11.35am), Downing Road insisted that the federal government backed the college sector. But it surely did affirm that ministers are whether or not too many low-quality levels are being awarded, and whether or not the principles on what number of dependents international college students can deliver with them needs to be modified.
On the foyer briefing a No 10 spokesperson instructed journalists:
After all we assist our universities. They’re a number of the highest on this planet. And naturally will all the time act in the perfect curiosity of the UK.
We’re wanting on the concern of scholar dependants and and the standard of levels and we’re doing that following the figures launched yesterday.
The spokesperson stated she couldn’t “pre-empt” any coverage and she or he declined to outline what constitutes a “low-quality” diploma.
Earlier, in response to the Instances’s story, Vivienne Stern, the chief govt of Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, stated banning international college students from non-elite universities could be “an act of financial self-harm”. She stated:
Chopping worldwide scholar numbers would run immediately counter to the federal government’s technique to rebuild the financial system – given the large monetary contribution they make to each a part of the nation.
Worldwide college students make a web optimistic contribution of not less than £26bn per yr to the UK financial system and are the supply of just about 70% of our schooling export earnings. They maintain jobs in cities and cities up and down the nation. Additionally they deliver huge advantages to school campuses. The monetary contribution they make has been important, given the long run decline in funding for educating UK undergraduate college students, and balancing the books on analysis.
Limiting worldwide college students could be an act of financial self-harm that might injury many elements of the nation the federal government goals to make extra affluent.