Mick Lynch says assembly with transport secretary ‘optimistic’, however RMT no nearer to calling off rail strikes
Mick Lynch, the RMT normal secretary, has been talking to the media after his assembly with Mark Harper, the transport secretary.
He mentioned that it was a “optimistic assembly” and that Harper mentioned he would set out in writing what steps is likely to be taken in direction of a decision of the dispute behind the rail strikes.
He mentioned one difficulty was that it has not been clear what scope the Rail Supply Group needed to negotiate. Harper mentioned he would make clear that, he mentioned.
Lynch mentioned he hoped that may result in a brand new negotiating mandate.
However requested if he was nearer to calling off the dispute, Lynch mentioned that was not the case. He mentioned they might not be nearer to an finish of the dispute till an inexpensive supply was on the desk.
That is from the Mirror’s Ashley Cowburn.
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Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Eire secretary, has introduced that he has set a price range for Northern Eire for 2022-23. No price range was set earlier this 12 months, as a result of the power-sharing govt was not working due to the DUP boycott over the Northern Eire protocol, and Heaton-Harris mentioned the ministers who had been in workplace from Might to October 2022 “left Northern Eire’s public funds with a black gap of some £660m”.
He has set out particulars of the price range in a written ministerial assertion, and he says laws shall be handed to provide it authorized pressure.
Commenting on right now’s immigration figures, Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a thinktank specializing in race, identification and immigration points, mentioned:
Regardless of these exceptionally excessive numbers, inflated by new arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong, our analysis finds public assist for immigration as excessive because it’s ever been.
Neither Rishi Sunak nor Keir Starmer plans to make vital cuts to immigration due to the social and financial advantages it brings to Britain.
So political leaders ought to now be setting out a imaginative and prescient for a way we make this work effectively for all of us within the UK, specializing in integration, citizenship and coaching up the UK workforce to fill expertise gaps.
Making obscure guarantees to scale back numbers, with none plan or coverage to make it occur, will solely injury public belief.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow house secretary, claims the rise in web migration to a document determine is partly defined by the federal government’s failure to deal with the talents scarcity. In a touch upon the figures, she mentioned:
While there are distinctive circumstances behind right now’s figures together with the assist the UK has rightly given to Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan, in addition they present severe issues with Conservative mismanagement of the immigration and asylum methods the place they’ve utterly did not get a grip.
Regardless of their guarantees to cease harmful Channel crossings, they’ve did not deal with the felony gangs, and asylum choice making has collapsed – with solely 2% of people that arrived in small boats during the last 12 months having had their instances determined. Work visas have additionally considerably elevated because of main expertise shortages within the UK – but the Conservatives should not taking any severe motion to deal with expertise shortages right here at house.
The Northern Eire minister, Steve Baker, is proposing reopening the Brexit commerce settlement David Frost struck with the EU as a method of fixing the issues attributable to the Northern Eire protocol, my colleague Lisa O’Carroll reviews.
Harper says there may be ‘deal to be carried out’ to finish rail dispute
The Division for Transport has now despatched out a information launch with an announcement from Mark Harper about his assembly with Mick Lynch, the RMT normal secretary. It largely echoes what he informed the BBC (see 2.32pm), but it surely features a line saying he thinks “there’s a deal to be carried out”. He says:
Now we have frequent floor – we each need the dispute to finish and we each desire a thriving railway which delivers for passengers and employees alike. To attain this although, we have to work collectively, throughout all the trade to make sure our railway trade thrives.
There’s a deal to be carried out, and I consider we are going to get there – I wish to facilitate the RMT and the employers to succeed in an settlement and finish the dispute for the good thing about the travelling public.
Sadly there’s a typo within the DfT’s press launch.
Transport secretary Mark Harper says assembly with RMT’s Mick Lynch ‘productive’
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, has mentioned his assembly with Mick Lynch, the RMT normal secretary, was productive. In a clip for broadcasters, he adopted a consensual tone, stressing the “shared” targets of either side, however didn’t supply commitments on substance. He mentioned:
[Lynch] and I each agreed that this was a productive assembly. It was the primary one which that we’ve had. I feel it struck the appropriate tone.
I feel there was a shared settlement within the assembly. We each wish to have a thriving railway that’s sustainable for the long run, that serves passengers, that serves the nation and in addition offers good, well-paid jobs for the people who he represents. I feel there’s quite a lot of shared settlement there.
However we have to have the 2 sides, the commerce unions and the employers, sit down, agree on the element, in order that we are able to carry this dispute to an finish. I feel that’s the place we each have a shared curiosity.
77% asylum software success fee exhibits Braverman peddling ‘lies’ about financial migrants, says SNP
The SNP says right now’s asylum figures (see 12.49pm) present that Suella Braverman, the house secretary, has been peddling “harmful lies” about asylum seekers. In an announcement, Stuart McDonald, the occasion’s house affairs spokesperson, mentioned:
These newest figures should function a wake-up name for the Dwelling Workplace to ditch its hostile method and the peddling of harmful lies about these fleeing battle and hardship.
The house secretary’s claims over ‘financial migrants’ have been completely uncovered with the official ONS stats revealing that simply over three-quarters (77%) of the preliminary selections on asylum functions within the 12 months ending September 2022 had been ‘grants of refugee standing, humanitarian safety or various types of depart’. Appeals towards refusals are additionally traditionally excessive, at 52%.
Nonetheless, the backlog of instances additionally jumped but once more to almost 120,000 instances, with rising numbers having to attend months and years ready for a choice, not allowed to work, and on poverty assist ranges.
Helena Horton
Right now the Guardian reported on statistics from Surfers Towards Sewage, which discovered water firms are routinely spilling human waste into rivers and seashores when it isn’t even raining.
They’re solely supposed to take action throughout “distinctive climate situations”.
The Liberal Democrat MP Richard Foord has raised the report in parliament, highlighting how his son turned sick after swimming in a river in Devon.
Lynch says he hopes Harper will finish ‘surreal’ state of affairs the place none of rail our bodies authorised to barter finish to strike
Here’s a full abstract of what Mick Lynch, the RMT normal secretary, mentioned when he spoke to journalists after his assembly with Mark Harper, the transport secretary.
I might say it was a optimistic assembly within the sense that we’ve removed the bellicose nonsense that we used to have from Grant Shapps and his cohort, in his period, and we are actually beginning to get a dialogue.
If we name off the strikes, we’ll by no means get a settlement. We did that two weeks in the past. We’ve modified our dates in response to public opinion. When the Queen handed, after we had the poppy day, we’ve carried out different issues. Now we have not had a strike for seven weeks, and nothing has occurred. So anybody that’s been concerned in industrial relations is aware of that there has received to leverage and strain on the desk from either side. That may create the compromises and the resolutions that we’re all in search of.
If I take these [strike] actions off with none end result, my members received’t forgive me for doing that. And we all know that the strain shall be off all of the events.
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He mentioned he needed Harper to provide the rail trade a contemporary mandate to barter an finish to the dispute. He mentioned that though the RMT has been in talks with the Rail Supply Group, which represents rail firms, it didn’t appear to have correct authority to barter. The person firms had been additionally saying they might not negotiate both, he mentioned. He mentioned he requested Harper to make clear who had authority to barter, and to arrange a liaison group involving ministers. He went on:
[Harper] has received a obligation for industrial relations, and the duty to set their mandate, ie what they’ll say, what they’ll supply, and what they’ll negotiate on at that desk. So I’m hoping he’s going to try this, hopefully right now … He must make clear in writing the place he stands and the place the trade stands when they’re transacting with us in these discussions.
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He claimed the present negotiating state of affairs was “surreal” as a result of the employers didn’t have a mandate to barter a decision. He mentioned the Rail Supply Group had informed the RMT it was not capable of have interaction in collective bargaining. And the person rail firms mentioned they might not have interaction in collective bargaining both, he mentioned. He went on:
So it is a utterly unusual and surreal state of affairs. I’m answerable for my union, and I stand in entrance of you and take no matter you wish to throw at me. No one from the employers is ready to face in entrance of me and take the duty for settling this dispute. That’s what we want. We want any person of authority, which has to start out with the secretary of state and the rail minister, who I wish to work with positively, to take duty for settling this dispute.
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He mentioned Harper had denied that the Division for Transport was the “blockage” stopping an answer to the dispute. Lynch mentioned somebody gave the impression to be blocking an answer, however he mentioned it was not clearly precisely who it was.
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He mentioned he had urged Harper to hurry up negotiations. The talks have been working for six months already, he mentioned. “And we now have had not one doc put throughout the desk. That has to vary,” he mentioned.
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He mentioned jobs, and phrases and situations, had been extra necessary to his members than pay ranges. He mentioned:
My members are telling me you’ve received to safe me my job, and also you’ve received to get me a set of phrases and situations which might be acceptable, after which we are able to speak about what we’re getting paid. In case you haven’t received a job, you don’t get a pay rise anyway.
They made revenue all through Covid and so they made revenue all through these disputes, the place they’ve been indemnified for day by day of strike motion. This lot within the Division of Transport have been paying all their prices whereas all the companies in London and throughout this nation have been struggling losses, whereas the prepare operators have had all of their income protected by this authorities.
Mick Lynch says assembly with transport secretary ‘optimistic’, however RMT no nearer to calling off rail strikes
Mick Lynch, the RMT normal secretary, has been talking to the media after his assembly with Mark Harper, the transport secretary.
He mentioned that it was a “optimistic assembly” and that Harper mentioned he would set out in writing what steps is likely to be taken in direction of a decision of the dispute behind the rail strikes.
He mentioned one difficulty was that it has not been clear what scope the Rail Supply Group needed to negotiate. Harper mentioned he would make clear that, he mentioned.
Lynch mentioned he hoped that may result in a brand new negotiating mandate.
However requested if he was nearer to calling off the dispute, Lynch mentioned that was not the case. He mentioned they might not be nearer to an finish of the dispute till an inexpensive supply was on the desk.
That is from the Mirror’s Ashley Cowburn.
Colin Yeo, an immigration lawyer, has posted an fascinating thread on Twitter concerning the newest immigration and asylum statistics out right now. It begins right here.
He factors out that there was an enormous rise within the variety of asylum seekers ready to have their functions thought of.
And he says profitable functions, and profitable appeals, are at traditionally excessive ranges.
On the Downing Road foyer briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson largely refused to remark the BBC Newsnight report that former non-public secretaries who’ve labored with Dominic Raab are making ready to submit complaints about his conduct. The PM’s spokesperson mentioned:
The investigation is ongoing, I don’t intend to supply a working commentary on what’s an impartial and – rightly – confidential course of.
However the spokesperson confirmed that Rishi Sunak nonetheless had confidence in Raab. And he did tackle one side of the Newsnight report, saying that in some circumstances ministers can use a private e mail account for presidency enterprise. The spokesperson mentioned:
Ministers are in a position to make use of varied types of communication. So long as they take heed of that steerage, there may be not a binary restriction on use of non-public e mail addresses.