Afternoon summary
George Osborne, the former chancellor, has said he completely rejects claims that austerity weakened the UK’s health and social care capacity before Covid. (See 2.47pm.)
David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has said that Labour will not try to rejoin the single market or the customs union because it needs to be “pragmatic”. In a speech at Best for Britain’s Trade Unlocked conference, he said:
The next Labour government will not rejoin the EU, the single market or customs union.
I know that disappoints some people here today.
But I’ve spent the last 18 months travelling around Europe, meeting counterparts, building relationships, talking to our sister parties.
It’s mistaken to think that after such a messy divorce it is possible to propose marriage again even before two ex-partners have gone on a date.
The next Labour government will be focused on what is pragmatic, turning the page on the era of acrimony that this government has overseen, which has seen trust undermined, cooperation stall and our economy damaged.
But Lammy also said that it was a “fantasy” to think the relationship with the EU was not important. He explained:
Last week the Conservative party press office attacked me for saying that improving our relationship with the EU will be a priority of the next Labour government.
I have no qualms about repeating this.
Reconnecting Britain must start by reconnecting with our European neighbours.
Because the EU are our biggest trading partners.
And our allies as we face war on our continent.
If you do not think Britain’s relationship with Europe is of fundamental importance to our future, you are living in a fantasy.
Nadine Dorries, the Boris Johnson cheerleader and former culture secretary, has suggested that Harriet Harman’s revelation last night that No 10 wanted her to carry on as chair of the privileges committee, despite people claiming that she had posted tweets implying she was biased against Johnson, showed that Downing Street was engaged in some sort of anti-Johnson conspiracy. She posted this on Twitter.
Harmans speech was very revealing and effectively threw No10 under a bus.
— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) June 20, 2023
It implied, that despite the fact that she had already tweeted in advance of the hearings that Johnson was guilty, that she had the full backing of the PM and therefore the Gov to chair the committee. https://t.co/IYV88V6tVN
But Dorries seems to have forgotten when she posted her tweet that it was not Rishi Sunak who was in No 10 when it approved the Harman appointment, but Johnson himself.
Updated
Generation of children have been damaged by experience of lockdown, former chief medical officer tells Covid inquiry
Dame Sally Davies, who was chief medical officer for England between 2010 and 2019, told the Covid inquiry this afternoon that a generation of children had been damaged by Covid, and the experience of lockdown.
Davies, who is now master of a Cambridge college, said that, in planning for a possible pandemic, no thought had been given to the prospect of lockdown, said:
It’s clear that no one thought about lockdown. I still think we should have locked down, although a week earlier. But during that we should have thought do we need to further. The damage I now see to children and students from Covid and the educational impact tells me that education has a terrific amount of work to do.
We have damaged a generation and it is awful as head of a college in Cambridge watching these young people struggle.
I know in preschools they haven’t learned how to socialise and play properly, they haven’t learned how to read at school. We must have plans for them.
Peers inflict two further defeats on government on retained EU law bill as 'ping pong' continues
In the House of Lords peers have just inflicted two further defeats on the government over the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill. It is the third time the bill has been sent from the House of Commons to the Lords, and by this stage of “ping pong” peers are often minded to back down and let the elected house have its way. But at the moment they are digging in.
The government lost on two amendments where peers are insisting on safeguards to the bill, which was originally intended to ensure that all remaining EU regulations would lapse by the end of the year, unless ministers chose to keep or reform then, until Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, significantly watered down what was planned.
One amendment would ensure that any new regulations replacing EU environmental regulations must not “reduce the level of environmental protection arising from the EU retained law to which the provision relates”. It would also ensure that ministers have to take expert advice when drafting replacement regulations.
Lord Krebs, the crossbencher, academic and former president of the British Science Association who proposed the amendment, said he had tried “very hard” to make his amendment acceptable to the government. He said he was “simply trying to ensure that our environmental protections are not weakened”. His amendment was passed by 232 votes to 187 – a majority of 45.
The second amendment would ensure that, if ministers wanted to use secondary legislation under the powers in the bill to change EU law, they would have to consult a joint committee of MPs and peers, and that if that committee ruled the changes were “substantial”, the Commons and the Lords would get to vote on them. This was passed by 241 votes to 181 – a majority of 60.
The Green party peer Jenny Jones posted this on Twitter after the votes.
On the #REUL Bill we've had two votes and won both with big margins, sending the Bill back amended yet again to the Commons. But ... Will the Govt listen on the issues of environmental protection and democratic scrutiny?
— Jenny Jones (@GreenJennyJones) June 20, 2023
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Sturgeon says resigning from SNP would compromise her right to assert she has 'done nothing wrong'
Nicola Sturgeon has implied that she will not resign from the Scottish National party following her arrest by police because doing might suggest she was guilty.
The former first minister hosted a short press conference with reporters at Holyrood this afternoon to again insist she was wholly innocent of any wrongdoing, nine days after being arrested as a suspect by Police Scotland detectives.
Pressed on why she had not resigned the SNP whip at Holyrood or voluntarily suspended her party membership, Sturgeon said she understood that argument – one forcibly put by Michelle Thomson, who was forced to resign the SNP whip in 2015 after being implicated in a mortgage misselling investigation.
But Sturgeon has rejected it. She said:
What that would do, I think, would be to compromise my ability and my right to assert the position that I hold absolutely, which is that I have done nothing wrong.
Thomson and other Sturgeon critics believe the former SNP leader is guilty of hypocrisy: two ministers lost the whip after being accused of personal misconduct; several MPs have lost the whip pending investigations into financial or personal misconduct.
By being arrested as a suspect as part of Police Scotland’s investigation into the SNP’s handling of over £600,000 in donations, she too has been implicated, her critics argue.
Sturgeon said she always put the party’s interests first.
I will always consider, and I consider on an ongoing basis at all times, what’s in the best interest of the SNP – a party I have given my all too, almost my entire life; an organisation that for me is not abstract. It’s made up of my friends, my family, my colleagues.
During a 10-minute question and answer session, Sturgeon also deflected questions on whether her husband, Peter Murrell, the SNP’s former chief executive who was the first to be arrested by police, was innocent of wrongdoing. Sturgeon said:
In a situation like this, I can only speak for myself and I am speaking for myself. There is also a difference between me and my husband. I’m an elected politician. I’m a public servant, and therefore there is an expectation, I think a legitimate expectation on your part, that I make statements and to the best of my ability answer questions; obviously Peter is not in that position.
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Summary of George Osborne's evidence to Covid inquiry
Here are the main points from George Osborne’s evidence to the Covid inquiry this morning.
Osborne said austerity, and getting the public finances under control, made the UK better placed to respond to Covid. (See 10.22am.) He said:
The one thing I’m sure of is there’s no point having a contingency plan you can’t pay for.
And absolutely central to all of this is the ability of your economy and your public finances to flex in a crisis.
He said he completely rejected claims that austerity had weakened the UK’s health and social care capacity before Covid. (See 12.40pm.)
And he rejected claims that austerity meant the poor were affected more by Covid. Asked if he was saying there was no link between austerity and Covid disproportionately affecting the most disadvantaged people, he said:
That’s absolutely my contention.
It is true that pandemics will affect poorer people more severely and that is one of the great tragedies, which is why we tried to alleviate poverty and direct services towards them.
I think everything we did to try and ringfence the NHS budget, to provide stable finances so that they were not further affected by a fiscal crisis, things like universal credit which were introduced, all of these things were done to try and protect the poorest part of the population.
He rejected claims that he did not fund the NHS properly. Asked if funding for health was insufficient when he was chancellor, he replied:
No, I don’t accept that. I mean, what I accept is you could spend more money on the NHS, just like you could spend more money on the court system, more money on the school system, more money on the army.
But you have to make a calculation of balancing the resources each of those services get, and the central calculation, which every household has to make, is what can we actually afford, because what’s the revenue that’s coming in?
He said the Treasury had not planned for an emergency that might require a long lockdown – but he said that, even if it had, he was not sure policies like furlough would have been any better. He said:
You’re absolutely right that there was no planning done by the UK Treasury, or indeed as far as I’m aware, any western treasury for asking the entire population to stay at home for months and months on end, essentially depriving large sectors of the economy like hospitality of all their customers for months and months to come …
So yes, planning could have been done for a furlough scheme in advance. I’m not clear, observing it at that point as just a citizen, I’m not clear that would have made a better furlough scheme than the one we actually as a country saw.
He said other countries had also not planned for lockdown. He said:
You’re right that there was no planning in Britain – or indeed as far as I’m aware in France, Germany, the United States, or anywhere like that. It wasn’t a groupthink unique to this country.
There was no assumption that you would mandate that the population to stay at home for months and months on end so there was no planning for a lockdown.
He said that there were “definitely things that we could have done if this threat of a coronavirus pandemic had been identified in advance”, including stockpiling PPE and respirators in hospitals.
Updated
In the Times today Steven Swinford quotes a source close to Boris Johnson saying the former PM wants a truce with Rishi Sunak. Swinford says:
A source close to Johnson said that he wanted to improve his relationship with Sunak and had all but given up on making a political comeback before the next election.
“He’s moving into a different phase,” the source said. “He wants to de-escalate tensions with the government. He believes that his long-term interests are best served by refraining from agitating. He’s in watching and waiting mode. But all of this is conditional on the Sunak government leaving him alone.”
Iain Martin, the Times columnist and publisher of the Reaction website, says there are claims that the Johnson ceasefire is linked to Sunak not voting for the privileges committee’s report.
PM abstaining on the Privileges Committee report is odd. He's got stuck into Johnson before. Goodness, he brought him down. Why abstain yesterday? Rumour is the govt did a desperate deal for Johnson to shut it, with the Tories being shredded in the polls and election coming...
— Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) June 20, 2023
Updated
Some 97,000 households across much of the UK that had their benefits capped included children, PA Media reports. PA says:
The total number of capped households has increased by 3% in the latest quarter, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics.
This means there were 2,900 more households subject to the benefit cap across England, Scotland and Wales as of February 2023 compared with November 2022 last year.
Around 114,000 households had their benefits capped as of February 2023 and 86% of these included children.
Some 70% of households that had their benefits capped are single-parent families, the DWP said.
Action for Children said the cap – which was introduced in April 2013 and means the amount of benefit a household receives is reduced to ensure claimants do not receive more than the cap limit – “causes immense harm by unjustifiably pushing struggling families deeper into poverty”.
Benefit cap levels have recently gone up, but during the period covered by these figures the cap was £20,000 a year (or £13,400 for single adults with no children) nationally, and £23,000 a year (or £15,410 for single adults with no children) in London.
Hunt rules out mortgage interest tax relief help
At Treasury questions today Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, ruled out providing large-scale assistance to mortgage payers, through tax relief on their mortgage payments. Graeme Wearden has more on this story on his business live blog.
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Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, has said she is “disappointed” by the report from the independent expert panel rejecting her complaint that she was bullied on Twitter by the SNP MP John Nicolson. (See 1.10pm.)
In any workplace other than Parliament where the rule of law, not privilege applies, Nicholson would have been instantly dismissed.
— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) June 20, 2023
I’m disappointed that the Standards Commissioners verdict has been overturned in this way. It seems strange to me that it can be done on the basis of 'new evidence' which I have not seen or been given the opportunity to respond to.
— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) June 20, 2023
Once again, a shadow of doubt cast over Parliamentary process and the conduct of individual MPs.
— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) June 20, 2023
At the Covid inquiry George Osborne was also asked about an Institute for Government report saying austerity had left the public services in a poor state to respond to the pandemic. As my colleague Ben Quinn reports, he did not accept that.
Osborne was asked about this @instituteforgov finding. 'is it a picture you recognise?"
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) June 20, 2023
"The short answer is no. By the time i left office there were more doctors, nurses... and public satisfaction had remained constant.. " pic.twitter.com/ehJvhZWHj3
Osborne has finished giving evidence now. I will post a summary of what he said soon.
Here is John Crace’s take.
George Osborne seems to have identified a new unsung hero of the Covid pandemic. A certain George Osborne
— John Crace (@JohnJCrace) June 20, 2023
Updated
Watchdog rejects Nadine Dorries' complaint about Twitter bullying by SNP MP, partly due to her own tweeting record
The SNP MP John Nicolson has been cleared of bullying and harassing Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, on Twitter.
The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, originally considered Dorries’ complaint about Nicolson, and he concluded that the SNP MP had bullied Dorries when she was culture secretary. Dorries submitted her complaint in October 2022, and it related to tweets sent by Nicolson in November 2021, after Dorries gave evidence to the Commons culture committee, on which Nicolson sits.
In a summary of the key complaints, today’s independent expert panel report says:
They were that over a 24-hour period in November 2021, Mr Nicolson had tweeted, liked or retweeted disparaging material about Nadine Dorries 168 times and that in the course of that time, he had “liked” tweets which described Ms Dorries as “grotesque”, a “vacuous goon”, and as having been “ragdolled” by him during parliamentary exchanges.
The complaint was originally investigated by an investigator appointed under parliament’s independent complaints and grievance scheme. The investigator said Nicolson had not broken bullying rules, but Greenberg disagreed and said Nicolson’s conduct amounted to bullying and harassment.
Greenberg said Nicolson’s tweets amounted to “offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour” and that as a result Dorries was “left feeling vulnerable, upset, undermined, humiliated, denigrated or threatened”.
But Nicolson appealed to the independent expert panel, and in its report today the IEP says what the MP did should not count as bullying and harassment. The IEP said there were three reasons why it thought Greenberg’s ruling was flawed.
1) Greenberg did not enough account of the importance of MPs being able to engage in “legitimate political activity”.
2) Greenberg did not make enough allowance for Dorries’ own record of aggressive tweeting.
3) Greenberg did not take into account when Dorries submitted her complaint.
The IEP pointed out that Dorries only submitted her complaint in 2022, almost a year after Nicolson posted his messages on Twitter, but shortly after the Commons culture committee criticised her for making false claims about Channel 4 faking a reality TV documentary.
And the IEP also said that Dorries’ own Twitter use suggested that she was not quite as shocked by Nicolson’s tweets as she suggested. The IEP said:
The question whether she was genuinely shocked or disturbed is obviously capable of being affected by her own behaviour. If her own use of Twitter might at times be thought aggressive, or even threatening, it would suggest it was less likely that she was affected as she claimed …
Some of the evidence provided to us demonstrates that the complainant herself has used strong language in tweeting, and that she has lodged complaints about others in the past. On one occasion she referred in a tweet to a journalist with whom she has had a sustained difficult relationship as “an apologist for Islamic atrocities”. She then complained about the journalist to his employers. The complaint was dismissed. On another occasion a tabloid journalist was investigating the funding of the complainant’s office and payments to one of her daughters. A press photographer took photographs of the complainant’s (adult) daughter in the street near her home. Subsequently the complainant tweeted that she would “nail [the journalist’s] balls to the floor using [the journalist’s] own front teeth”. She explained this to the investigator by saying the photographer had taken photographs of her “teenage” daughter “inside her house”. The complainant lodged a complaint with the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which was rejected.
Updated
No 10 still refuses to say whether or not Sunak agrees with privileges committee report saying Boris Johnson lied to MPs
On the Today programme this morning Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, said that Rishi Sunak would answer questions about the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson in due course. (See 9.22am.)
As if, as the young people might say. At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson was asked if he would finally say whether or not Sunak agreed with the committee’s report. The spokesperson implied that Sunak is still in Trappist monk mode on this issue. He told reporters:
The prime minister thanks the committee for their thorough work and fully respects the decision of the house on this matter. He has made clear it was rightly a matter for parliament and not for government.
The spokesperson would not say how Sunak would have voted if he had been in the Commons for last night’s vote.
Asked if Sunak thought Boris Johnson did mislead MPs about Partygate, the spokesperson replied:
He respects the decision the house has come to, this follows extensive work by the committee, but beyond that I don’t have anything more to add.
Asked if Sunak thought the matter was now closed, the spokesperson replied: “Yes.”
Osborne says he completely rejects claims austerity weakened UK's health and social care capacity
At the Covid inquiry, Kate Blackwell KC asked George Osborne if he agreed that his austerity policies had left the UK with “a depleted health and social care capacity, and rising inequality”.
Osborne replied:
Most certainly not. I completely reject that.
I would make two points. The first of all, it is not surprising that the biggest economic crash that Britain experienced since the 1930s has an impact on Britain and on poverty and on unemployment, and on people’s life chances. That’s unfortunately what happens when your country experiences such a massive economic shock as we experienced in 2008-9.
What flows from that is a whole set of things. And one of them is seriously impaired public finances which you then have to repair and that is what we set about doing.
I would say if we had not done that, Britain would have been more exposed, not just to future things like the coronavirus pandemic, but indeed to the fiscal crisis which very rapidly followed in countries across Europe, such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Slovenia, all across the continent …
If we had not had a clear plan to put the public finances on a sustainable path, then Britain might have experienced a fiscal crisis, we would not have had the fiscal space to deal with the coronavirus pandemic when it hit seven years later.
And indeed, as Mr Cameron pointed out yesterday, the example in many of those countries that did have those crises was there were real cuts in health services and other public services that went far beyond what the UK experienced. In the case of the NHS, actually budgets went up in real terms.
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Economists paid 'far too little' attention to risk of global pandemic, OBR chief tells Covid inquiry
The committee has just displayed this extract from the witness statement from Richard Hughes, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility. In it, Hughes says economists paid “far too little” attention to the risk of a global pandemic in the decade before Covid.
(I’m sorry I do not have a clearer version. The inquiry has not published this yet.)
Osborne quotes from a witness statement given to the Covid inquiry by Richard Hughes, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Hughes’s statement has not been published, but Osborne quotes him as saying:
In the absence of perfect foresight, fiscal space may be the most valuable risk tool above all.
Osborne says this backs up his argument (see 10.22am) about how improving the state of the public finances put the country in a better position to deal with the pandemic.
Osborne says other countries could not afford a lockdown because they were not as economically strong as the UK.
Osborne says Treasury had not planned for long lockdown - but says furlough scheme would not have been better if it had
George Osborne says it is hard to imagine a crisis like Covid not also turning into a financial or fiscal crisis.
Q: Do you agree that the Treasury had not been planning for external shocks that could affect the economy?
Osborne says the UK had an influenza plan. The Treasury had looked at the impact of that – the hit to GDP, and the impact of people being off work for a week or two.
The Treasury had the capacity to deal with that, he says.
For example, he says it had considered supply chain issues.
But Osborne says no planning had been done for the impact of the entire population being asked to stay at home for months. He says no other country had planned for that either.
If the Treasury had been asked to prepare for a lockdown lasting months, it would have prepared policies like furlough, he says.
In the event, he says it turned out to be relatively easy to put schemes like furlough in place.
Planning could have been done in advance, he says. But he goes on:
I’m not clear that would have made for a better furlough scheme than the one we actually saw.
Kate Blackwell KC is questioning George Osborne on behalf of the inquiry.
She starts by saying this hearing is not about the merits of Osborne’s economic policy. It will only cover austerity in so far as it is relevant to the pandemic, she says.
George Osborne gives evidence to Covid inquiry
George Osborne, chancellor from 2010 until 2016, is giving evidence to the Covid inquiry now.
He starts by saying he wants to express his heartfelt sympathy to all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. He says he hopes the inquiry gets to the heart of what happened.
Letwin tells Covid inquiry that it is 'matter of lasting regret' he did not focus more on pandemic planning
Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, told the Covid inquiry that it was a matter of “lasting regret” to him that he had not focused on the threat from a flu pandemic when he was in charge of resilience.
Yesterday David Cameron told the inquiry that his government has spent too much time preparing for a flu pandemic, and that as a result it had not prepared enough for another type of pandemic, like a coronavirus one.
Letwin said that he was told he did not need to focus personally on flu pandemic planning because officials had already done a lot of work on this. But if he had devoted attention to this, he might have better realised the threat posed by a non-flu pandemic, he said.
My great regret about not having focused on pandemic flu, because I was told it was being well looked after, is not actually about pandemic flu.
But that it might have occurred to me if I had focused on that, that despite all the scientists had concluded, and no doubt they were right, that there was a very tiny probability by comparison with the probability of pandemic flu, of some other catastrophic pathogen …
It might have occurred to me to say ‘well, OK there’s a tiny probability but can we for a tiny amount of money prepare properly to deal with it in advance?
Letwin also said he was not blaming officials for giving him poor advice in this respect.
Actually it is absolutely not an excuse for a minister, alas, because you can always ask the following question, you don’t have to accept the advice.
That is actually what I should’ve done and it’s a matter of lasting regret that I didn’t.
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
High turnover of officials and ministers in government 'disastrous' for emergency planning, Covid inquiry told
Here are some of the main points from Oliver Letwin’s evidence to the Covid inquiry so far.
Letwin, the former Cabinet Office minister, said there should be a senior minister in government with sole responsibility for resilience, including preparing for pandemics. Letwin was responsible for resilience, but he had many other responsibilities too. He told the inquiry:
Actually there really ought to be a minister solely devoted to resilience at a senior level.
Asked if anyone had ever had this role, he replied:
There hasn’t, as far as I’m aware and I think that is an error.
I came to that view very gradually but by the end of my time I was pretty convinced that we ought to have, and had I remained in situ I would’ve tried therefore to move to a model, where somebody took that position.
Letwin also said that having a junior minister doing this job would “achieve nothing” because the resilience minister should be senior and close to the prime minister.
Letwin said the high turnover of ministers and civil servants responsible for resilience was a “disaster for the country”. He said the ministers and officials should receive training for dealing with civil emergencies, and he said there was a need for “a system that keeps both ministers and officials in post long enough so they can use the training”. He said:
I’m pretty certain that the entire structure of the civil service means that you can’t really make progress in a career without going through endless different jobs one after another, which I regard as a disaster for the country, particularly disastrous in the case of things that have very long lead times and where learning from experience is critical.
Updated
Oliver Letwin, who as Cabinet Office minister was responsible for resilience in David Cameron’s government, has been giving evidence to the Covid inquiry. George Osborne is on later.
ITV’s Anushka Asthana has been tweeting on Letwin’s evidence.
Oliver Letwin - who was minister in charge of resilience & so preparing us for crises like Covid- has told inquiry he was doing that alongside policy implementation across govt. Says simply wasn’t enough time abd PMs should appoint Cabinet minister solely in charge of resilience.
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) June 20, 2023
But Letwin suggests preventing crises is not a “policy” decision as such- because he argues there is no disagreement. Everyone agrees we need to minimise crisis. But surely Covid - with simultaneous health and economic challenges- had pretty big ideological divides on approach
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) June 20, 2023
Osborne claims austerity had 'positive' effect on UK's ability to withstand Covid because it meant public finances recovered
George Osborne, the former chancellor, will be giving evidence to the Covid inquiry later this morning. The inquiry is focusing at this stage on how prepared the UK was to deal with a pandemic, and Osborne will be questioned about the impact of austerity.
He has submitted a 38-page witness statement to the inquiry. It has not been published in full yet, but the committee has released one page from it, because it was cited during the hearing yesterday, and in it Osborne claims that that his austerity measures, which he describes as “cutting the deficit”, had a “positive” effect on the country’s ability to withstand Covid. He says:
Reducing the deficit and placing debt as a percentage of GDP on a downward path was also essential to rebuild fiscal space to provide scope to respond to future economic shocks. A responsible approach to repairing the UK’s public finances following the financial crisis was essential. I have no doubt that taking those steps to repair the UK’s public finances in the years following the financial crisis of 2008/09 had a material and positive effect on the UK’s ability to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Recall petition opens for signatures in Margaret Ferrier's Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency
Scotland’s first-ever recall petition for a sitting MP opened this morning following the suspension of Margaret Ferrier from the House of Commons, PA Media reports. PA says:
From 9am, voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West will have the chance to sign a petition to recall their MP from Westminster.
If 10% of the electorate choose to do so – some 8,113 people out of 81,124 – then a by-election will be triggered.
Despite pressure to resign from her seat since breaching coronavirus rules, Ferrier remains the MP, now sitting as an independent.
She urged voters not to sign the petition, saying her constituents are her “top priority”.
Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
Shaun Bailey under pressure to decline peerage after Partygate video
Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons defence committee, has said that Shaun Bailey should consider turning down the peerage he was given in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list because of his attendance at a Partygate event. Ben Quinn has the story here.
Boris Johnson: cabinet minister won’t say if he thinks former PM returning to the Commons is unacceptable
Good morning. MPs voted last night, by 354 votes to 7, to accept the privileges committee report saying that Boris Johnson deliberately misled them about Partygate, but even though he is now out of parliament, and condemned as a liar in a report actively endorsed by more than half of the Commons, he is still having a corrosive impact on Tory politics. That was illustrated this morning when Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, gave an interview to the Today programme.
Stride said that he accepted the conclusions of the privileges committee report, but that he had doubts about the severity of the notional penalty applied (a 90-day suspension, if Johnson had still been an MP – Stride thought this was too harsh), and so that is why he was one of the 225 Conservatives who did not vote. But it was after that, when the Johnson questions kept coming, that Stride started to struggle.
Stride admitted that he did not know what Rishi Sunak thought about the report. Sunak did not vote yesterday, and Stride defended this, saying the PM was busy. He said:
What I do know is I know that he had some long standing engagements yesterday, including with the Swedish prime minister and the Jewish Care event in the evening.
Stride said Sunak did not express a view before the vote, because he did not want to influence MPs on something that was not a goverment matter, and Stride defended this. Stride said he did not know if Sunak thought, as he did, that the proposed punishment was too harsh. But he said he had “no doubt” that Sunak would answers questions on this in due course.
Stride refused to say that he thought it would be unacceptable to return as a Conservative MP. He said he wanted the party to move on:
I think really the caravan has got to move on from Boris Johnson, with respect.
But, when asked if he thought it would be acceptable for Johnson to return, he said:
I can’t read the future. And I don’t think it’s right for me to come on your programme and start speculating on the future.
Asked again if he would find Johnson acceptable as a Tory colleague in the future, he replied:
I’m not going to be drawn in speculating on the future of Boris Johnson.
Stride failed to defend Johnson’s resignation honours list in its entirety, suggesting that it might be right for Shaun Bailey, the former Tory mayoral candidate, to refuse his peerage. Bailey’s peerage is in jeopardy because, just a week after it announced, the Mirror released a video of a Tory “jingle and mingle” party he attended that is being investigated by the police as a potential breach of lockdown rules. It was organised by Bailey’s campaign team. Asked if he agreed that Bailey’s peerage was in question, Stride said he did not want to prejudge the investigation. Asked if Bailey definitely would become a peer, Stride declined to say. Asked if he accepted that the Johnson honours list had not been good for the party, Stride said:
I think its down to Boris Johnson who he put forward.
Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor who hates Johnson, and most of the Conservative party too, is about the last person you would consult for an objective view. But this tweet does give a sense of quite how much difficulty Stride was in dealing with these questions.
I cannot listen to this any more … Mel Stride is meant to be one of the serious ones. This is beyond embarrassing. If anyone is seriously minded to re-elect this bunch of charlatans, give your head a major wobble.
— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) June 20, 2023
In the debate yesterday Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons, suggested Johnson was responsible for the “debasement of our honours system”.
Eventually we will get on to some political news that isn’t about Johnson. Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning; Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.
10am: Oliver Letwin, the former Cabinet Office minister, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry. Later in the morning George Osborne, the former chancellor, will give evidence.
11.30am: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30m: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 3pm: Peers vote on Commons amendments to the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill.
4pm: David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, speaks at Best for Britain’s Trade Unlocked conference.
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a PC or a laptop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line, privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate), or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
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