Afternoon summary
A Labour government would focus on ending poverty just as strongly as Tony Blair’s 1997 administration, Keir Starmer has said, as he set out the last of five self-declared missions, this one based around education and opportunity. There is a summary of his speech at 2pm and a summary of his Q&A at 12.40pm.
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The punishment proposed for Chris Pincher is very light compared with what might happen to another professional in a similar case, lawyers are pointing out. This is from Harvey Knight, a partner and crisis management specialist at the law firm Withers.
If Mr Pincher had been a banker, he would have been treated far more harshly especially in such a well-publicised case. As soon as the incident was publicised, his regulator would be calling the bank, inquiring had he been suspended yet. There would then be an expectation that he would be disciplined within a short timeframe and summarily dismissed. His subsequent regulatory reference would be expected to ensure that he was in effect excluded from any further participation in regulated UK financial services and he may also have to face a regulatory investigation which could lead to him being formally publicly censured and banned by his regulator as well as having to pay a fine out of his gross income. So there is a profound disconnect between the standards and integrity expected of MPs and other UK workers and how, respectively, they are treated.
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Covid inquiry says Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages and other material must now be handed over by Monday
The Cabinet Office has now been told it must hand over the unredacted WhatsApp messages and other material from Boris Johnson to the Covid inquiry by Monday. A spokesperson for the inquiry said:
Baroness Hallett [the inquiry chair] is pleased the court has upheld her section 21 notice.
Following the court’s judgment, the inquiry has varied its order to require the disclosure of materials by 4pm on Monday July 10.
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Labour has described the high court ruling in the Covid inquiry case as a “humiliating defeat” for Rishi Sunak. In a statement, Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, said:
While the rest of the country battles the cost-of-living crisis, Rishi Sunak has been wasting time and taxpayers’ money on doomed legal battles to withhold evidence from the Covid inquiry.
After this latest humiliating defeat, the prime minister must accept the ruling and comply with the inquiry’s requests for evidence in full.
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Government response to high court ruling in Covid inquiry case in full
Here is the full statement from the government in response to the high court judgment in the Covid inquiry case. A spokesperson said:
The inquiry is an important step to learn lessons from the pandemic and the government is cooperating in the spirit of candour and transparency.
As this judgment acknowledges, our judicial review application was valid as it raised issues over the application of the Inquiries Act 2005 that have now been clarified. The court’s judgment is a sensible resolution and will mean that the inquiry chair is able to see the information she may deem relevant, but we can work together to have an arrangement that respects the privacy of individuals and ensures completely irrelevant information is returned and not retained.
We will comply fully with this judgment and will now work with the inquiry team on the practical arrangements.
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SNP criticises Starmer for refusing to commit to getting rid of two-child benefit cap
The SNP has criticised Keir Starmer for refusing to commit to getting rid of the two-child benefit cap. (See 11.31am.) Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, said:
Sir Keir Starmer’s failure to commit to abolishing the cruel and callous two-child benefit cap will have shocked voters right across these isles, leaving many wondering what the Labour party actually stand for.
It is incumbent on both Sir Keir and Anas Sarwar [the Scottish Labour leader] to confirm that a future Labour UK government would scrap this callous and cruel policy on day one.Failure to do so will confirm that Labour aren’t offering real change – they are only offering to copy disgraceful Tory policies.
Save the Children also said Labour should commit to getting rid of the two-child benefit cap. Becca Lyon, the head of child poverty at the charity, said:
We welcome Labour’s ambition to break down barriers for children. Tackling child poverty must be a key part of this.
We agree that a child’s background shouldn’t define them. Labour is right to recognise how important a child’s earliest years are in shaping their future, and that the role of early years education and childcare is fundamental to this.
We now need to see a clear commitment to a cross-departmental child poverty strategy – including scrapping the unfair two child limit - to give all children and young people the hope and opportunity they deserve.
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Government says it will 'comply fully' with high court ruling saying it must give Covid inquiry all documents it wants
The government has said it will “comply fully” with the high court judgment on handing over Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages, notebooks and diaries to the UK Covid inquiry, PA Media reports.
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Why high court decided Covid inquiry does have right to see WhatsApp messages considered 'irrelevant' by Cabinet Office
Public inquiries set up under the Inquiries Act, like the Covid inquiry, have the right to demand to see relevant documents. The government accepts that, but it challenged the inquiry’s demand to see some material, including WhatsApp messages, from Boris Johnson and others, on the grounds that it was not reasonable for it to see information “unambiguously irrelevant” to the inquiry.
Here is an extract from the judgment explaining why the high court ruled against the Cabinet Office. Essentially, it says that under the law it is for the inquiry to decide what is relevant.
In our judgment the fact that the section 21 notice [the notice from the inquiry to the Cabinet Office saying what material it wants to see] will yield some irrelevant documents does not invalidate the notice or mean that the section 21(2)(b) cannot be lawfully exercised. This is for a number of reasons. First the authorities referred to above show that inquiries are to be given a latitude, not provided to parties in civil proceedings, to enable them to “fish” for documents, meaning to make informed but speculative requests for documents relevant to lines of inquiry, or documents which lead to new lines of inquiry. Such an exercise is bound to lead to the inclusion of some irrelevant material. This fact does not answer the question but suggests that the approach contended for by the Cabinet Office needs to be carefully examined.
Secondly the fact that a request for documents in civil proceedings for disclosure may yield some irrelevant documents does not invalidate the request, it simply means that the irrelevant documents may be redacted. It was common ground that the analogy with civil proceedings could only be a loose one, because there were different rules applying for civil proceedings and civil proceedings pursue a different aim to public inquiries, but it would be surprising if a valid request in civil proceedings made under the former rules of the supreme court (“relating to any matter in question in the action”) might yield irrelevant documents and still be lawful, but such a request by an inquiry acting under a statutory power permitting requests for documents (“that relates to a matter in question at the inquiry”) would be unlawful.
Thirdly the scheme of the Inquiries Act recognises that irrelevant documents might be obtained by a section 21 notice. This is why there is a provision in section 21(4) enabling a party required to produce documents to make an application to the chair of the Inquiry saying that “it is not reasonable in all the circumstances to require him to comply”. One of the grounds that a recipient of such a notice might rely on is that although the document was lawfully requested as part of a class of documents under section 21, the document caught by the request does not, as a matter of fact, relate to a matter in question at the inquiry. In this sense the statutory and factual limitation on the power exercised under section 21(2)(b) is preserved.
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Here is the text of the judgment in the case of the government’s appeal against the Covid inquiry’s demand to see unredacted WhatsApp messages from Boris Johnson and others which the Cabinet Office said were wholly irrelevant to the inquiry.
Cabinet Office loses legal challenge against Covid inquiry's demand to see Boris Johnson's unredacted WhatsApp
The Cabinet Office has lost its legal challenge over the UK Covid-19 inquiry chair’s request for Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages, notebooks and diaries, PA Media reports.
Penny Mordaunt calls for early review of how watchdog investigates sexual misconduct allegations against MPs
Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, has called for a review of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS), the parliamentary watchdog responsible for investigating complaints of sexual misconduct and bullying by MPs.
Speaking in the Commons, and responding to concerns about the predatory culture at Westminster featured in a Newsnight report on Tuesday night, she said:
The only way we will improve the situation here is to recognise that we are not just one organisation but a community of many, and that processes and volume of standards bodies, 13 separate entities and counting, does not improve behaviour.
Only cultural change will do that. And the key to that is to deepen our understanding of the duty of care we have towards each other.
We are custodians of the trust and authority of this place and I have set out my intention, with external advice, to conclude my own assessment of where we need to focus in this place.
These findings I will make available to the [House of Commons Commission] and to [Labour] and the standards committee.
I held a private session with the standards committee this week to tell them of my concerns and suggested solutions and I have also told them and the speaker that I think that the ICGS review needs to be brought forward.
Earlier this week the independent expert panel, which considers complaints submitted via the ICGS, said a complaint about David Warburton submitted more than a year ago would have to be reinvestigated because the original inquiry was flawed.
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Keir Starmer's education and opportunity speech - summary and analysis
The full text of Keir Starmer’s speech this morning is online here. It was well written, bold on ambition, at times moving, but thin on implementation. Here are the key points.
Starmer said he wanted to get rid of the “class ceiling” that holds working class people back. He explained it like this:
There’s also something more pernicious here, a pervasive idea, a barrier in our collective mind that narrows our ambitions for working class children and says – sometimes with subtlety, sometimes to your face – this isn’t for you.
Some people call it the “class ceiling” – and that’s a good name for it. Yes, economic insecurity, structural and racial injustice are part of it, of course they are, but it’s also about a fundamental lack of respect, a snobbery that too often extends into adulthood, raising its ugly head when it comes to inequalities at work. In pay, promotions, and opportunities.
Starmer made this argument as part of a wider argument about wanting to extend opportunity. He cited his own story – coming from a working-class family, and going on to run the Crown Prosecution Service – as an example of what should be possible, and he implied that there was more equality of opportunity in the 1970s. As a broad objective, this is something to which every prime minister, Tory and Labour, has been committed, at least since the 1950s. But Starmer sounded more committed to the idea than some of them have been, and he personalised it with the story (which he has told before) about how his father felt he was the victim of class prejudice.
Take my dad. He was a tool-maker – and a good one – highly skilled, proud of his work. But back in the 1980s, the Tories made it quite clear people like him were not valued and that actually, they didn’t see the point of our country making things, that his skills were not part of their future. This hurt him.
Whenever anyone asked that old question “what do you do for a living” – I could see him visibly pull away. He felt looked down upon, disrespected. It chipped away at his esteem.
He criticised the last Labour government for failing to raise the esteem of vocational education, and said he wanted to do better. He said:
[The last Labour government] expanded higher education, fundamentally raised school standards, gave millions of working-class children – children of all backgrounds – the tools to thrive in a new knowledge economy.
But honestly? We didn’t tackle this, didn’t eradicate the snobbery that looks down on vocational education, didn’t drain the well of disrespect that this creates, and that cost us.
Again, this sounds familiar. Politicians from all parties have been promising to raise the status of vocational education for years. One of the many who failed was Gavin Williamson, who in his period as education secretary set the ambitious goal of overtaking Germany “in the opportunities we offer to those studying technical routes by 2029”.
Starmer cited three policies that might increase the status of vocational training. They were: Labour’s commitment to a national skills plan, its goal to have “the best quality post-19 training”, and its plan for a new growth and skills levy, improving on the apprenticeship levy.
But Starmer argued that the education system was failing more academic pupils too. He said:
Honestly – we’ve just got to get this into our heads. It isn’t the case that the status quo only fails children outside the academic route. Without modernising education, we’re also failing the children who do go down that route, preparing them all for a world that is receding into the past.
He said that he wanted schools to teach a “curriculum fit for the digital age”. In his Q&A he made it clear that Labour would take time developing this. (See 12.40pm.) But he said that he wanted this to include more emphasis on speaking skills (“oracy” – see 8.49am), and digital skills taught through the entire curriculum, not as a stand-alone subject.
He implied that he needed to learn to open up more. When he was arguing for more emphasis on “oracy”, mostly he sounded like a barrister defending the importance of the thing he’s best at. But he also made a more personal argument for talking more. He said:
[Talking is] not just a skill for learning, it’s also a skill for life. Not just for the workplace, also for working out who you are – for overcoming shyness or disaffection, anxiety or doubt – or even just for opening up more to our friends and family.
We don’t do enough of that as a society, and I’m as guilty as anyone, but wouldn’t that be something precious for our children to aim for? I think so.
He said Labour would get rid of single-word Ofsted assessments, as part of its plan to reform the body. Instead of a “one word judgment”, Ofsted should produce “a whole dashboard”, he said.
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Cleverly urged to drop planned China visit over threats to UK-based pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong
James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, has been urged to drop any plans to visit China in response to threats against UK-based Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, PA Media reports. PA says:
A senior Conservative backbencher called on ministers to demonstrate that “frankly tough words need to be followed by tough actions” as MPs across the house raised concerns during a Commons urgent question about the UK government’s reaction.
Authorities in the former British territory have issued arrest warrants for Finn Lau and Christopher Mung, as well as six other activists who have fled to Britain, the US, Canada and Australia for alleged breaches of the national security law imposed by Beijing.
Hong Kong’s leader, John Lee, has said they will be pursued for life, with one million Hong Kong dollars (£100,500) being offered for information leading to any of their arrests.
Foreign Office minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan reiterated the UK will “not tolerate any attempts by the Chinese authorities to intimidate” people, adding: “We call on Beijing to remove the national security law and for China and the Hong Kong authorities to end the targeting of those who stand up for freedom and democracy.”
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran, asking the UQ, said the government’s words “ring rather hollow” as she said: “We need more than just condemnation, we need action and most urgently this means ensuring that these individuals are safe.”
Moran stressed it is “illegal to bounty hunt in the UK” and called on the government to prosecute those who do it, before adding: “Will the government reconsider the foreign secretary’s planned visit to Beijing in light of this blatant escalation by China of transnational repression?”
Trevelyan said she could not comment on operational and security matters related to the pro-democracy activists, noting “discussions are ongoing”.
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Summary of Starmer's Q&A
Here are the main points from Keir Starmer’s Q&A after his speech.
Starmer rejected claims that he had performed a U-turn on Labour’s green prosperity plan. The accusation was made after Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, recently said that Labour would not start the £28bn-a-year investment programme immediately, but ramp up spending to that level over the course of a parliament. When it was put to him this was a U-turn, Starmer replied:
There’s no U-turn at all. We haven’t backed down, we’ve doubled down.
When I set out as my fourth mission clean power by 2030, that’s that’s doubling down on it, particularly on the £28bn, which is a huge amount to invest for the future.
Most people look at that mission and say ‘if we could achieve that ambition, that is the route to lower bills, to energy security …, to the next generation of skills and jobs that are so vital, and of course, what we need to do in order to meet our net zero obligations.
He said that his government would be “laser focused” on reducing poverty, just as the last Labour government was. He was responding to a question from my colleague Peter Walker who pointed out that reducing poverty is not one of his headline five missions. (See 11.12am.)
He said that getting rid of the two-child benefit cap is not curently Labour policy. (See 11.31am.)
He suggested making free school meals universal for primary school pupils might not be the best use of resources. Asked why he was not in favour, when the Labour government in Wales is implementing the policy, he replied:
We are constrained by the economics and we are constrained also by this question of whether that is the best targeting of the resources that we’ve got.
We’ve gone down the route of breakfast clubs, but other councils and Wales have gone down a different route.
It’s a debate we should welcome as an ongoing debate about what’s the best way here to move forward.
He said under Labour the government would negotiate with the teaching unions “every day” until strikes were resolved. Asked what he would do differently on the strikes from the government, he replied:
If I had the privilege to be prime minister, if Bridget Phillipson was the education secretary of state, I would ask her and tell her and require her to get in and negotiate every day of the week until it was resolved.
The government is sitting it out. Children not being able to school is damaging, everybody knows that. Teachers know it.
Nobody wants this industrial action, we have to resolve it, the government’s got a report, a recommendation. It is sitting on it, doing nothing.
And in the meantime it is not having the negotiations.
So get in the room, negotiate and sort this out and get our schools back working.
He said he wanted to establish a national consensus on curriculum reform, implying that he would not be producing firm plans before the election. Asked why he did not publish plans now, for implementation after an election victory, he replied:
We are determined to do this review and change our curriculum.
We need to do that in a thoughtful way, in a way that brings the country with us.
This isn’t the sort of thing that you should do for two or three years and then change back.
It has got to be part of a national debate and consensus about where we go next.
I think the case for change is compelling, I’ve set out the principles that we would want to underpin the review, but I do think it is best that that review is done in government when we’ve got the ability to bring everybody together behind what will be a really important change in our education system.
He said the Labour candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Danny Beales, was right to raise concerns about the extension of the Ulez low emissions zone to outer London. The Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is implementing the policy, which is deeply unpopular with some drivers living in outer London, and which has become an issue in the Uxbridge byelection. Asked if he supported what Beales was saying, Starmer replied:
Danny Beales is … rightly raising concern on behalf of what he hopes will be his constiuents in relation to Ulez because we all understand the impact it has financially.
I think it is important when we have this discussion to properly recognise the context. There is a legal requirement to deal with air pollution. So it is not just a political choice that is made in the abstract. That is why the first Ulez was introduced by a Tory mayor … Danny Beales is right to say what he has said in sticking up for what he hopes will be his constituents.
Here is the clip (for readers how can access video material on Twitter).
Labour’s @Keir_Starmer says the Labour candidate in Uxbridge @DannyBeales is “right” to be “sticking up for” constituents after Mr Beales said it was not the right time for ULEZ expansion. Questioned at education speech, Sir Keir added that ULEZ was first introduced by Tory mayor pic.twitter.com/YG61h6gOqQ
— Susana Mendonça (@susana_mendonca) July 6, 2023
Starmer suggested the government was using the debate about guidance for schools on trans issues for “political point scoring”. (See 11.17am.)
No 10 indicates it will face down peers over illegal migration bill and seek to reverse most or all of 20 Lords defeats
After yesterday’s debate, the government has now suffered 20 defeats in the House of Lords over the illegal migration bill. Collectively, the votes (some of them are described in detail here, and here) have gutted the bill, and reduced it to a pale shadow of the authoritarian legislation drafted by the Home Office and passed by MPs.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson indicated that the government would seek to reverse most or all of those defeats when the bill returns to the Commons. He said precise details of what Lords amendments the government would seek to overturn would not be announced until Tuesday, when the bill is back in the Commons. (On some issues, the government could decide to compromise.) But he indicated that the overall approach would be to face down the Lords.
The spokesperson said:
We recognise that the Lords will scrutinise this bill, as they do all of them.
But for our part, we continue to believe that this bill is the right and appropriate way to stop the boats.
What we are seeking to do is deter vulnerable people from being induced to make dangerous crossings which is costing lives. This evil exploitation by criminal gangs must stop and we think the measures in this bill are appropriate.
When it was put to him that the Lords had not just revised the bill, but rewritten it entirely, he replied:
We have recognised that we would face a challenge from all sides, and I think that has been borne out. But we are not deterred by this.
The government continues to believe that this is a problem that the public want us to urgently fix and we continue to use all the tools at our disposal to do so.
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Chris Pincher says he will 'reflect' on standards committee report, avoiding saying whether or not he will resign as MP
Chris Pincher has issued a fresh apology in light of the report out today saying he should be suspended for eight weeks for groping two men in the Carlton Club. (See 9.15am.)
There are calls for him to resign from parliament. (See 9.19am.) In the statement he says he wants to “reflect” on the report, but he does not indicate whether or not he will try to stay on until the next election. He says:
I apologise sincerely again for my behaviour at the Carlton Club last year, as I did the day I resigned from the government.
I resigned as deputy chief whip and have already said that I will not seek re-election.
I have sought professional medical help, which is ongoing and has been beneficial to me, for which I am grateful. I am truly grateful for the kindness that I have received from my constituents, family and friends.
I only saw the report at 8am this morning so I want to read it carefully and reflect on it properly. I do not intend to comment further at this time.
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Labour has now published the 22-page document giving details of its opportunity “mission”, the subject of Keir Starmer’s speech. It’s here.
During the Q&A Keir Starmer was asked if Labour would scrap the two-child benefit cap, which restricts some benefit payments to the first two children. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary, recently described it as “heinous”.
Starmer said getting rid of the cap was not party policy, “and if it changes, I’ll let you know”.
Starmer says, if Labour takes power, it will inherit an economy that is badly damaged. It won’t be like 1997, he says.
That means Labour will not be able to do everything it wants, he says.
And that’s it. The Q&A is over.
Q: You have said that you will use the revenue from cutting tax breaks for private schools for various policies. Does it add up?
Starmer says the policy would raise more than £1bn. He says the policy proposals have been properly costed.
Q: How can people trust you given your U-turn on the green investment pledge?
Starmer does not accept there has been a U-turn on that. The party is doubling down on it, he says.
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Starmer says he wants Just Stop Oil to stop their protest. He repeats the language he used in his Times Radio article earlier about their arrogance. (See 10.34am.)
Starmer suggests government is using debate about guidance for schools on trans pupils for 'political point scoring'
Q: Do you think schools need to have single-sex toilets? And do you think schools should tell parents if their children want to change gender?
Starmer says there is a need for guidance on this. The government has promised this, but it has not appeared yet. He urges them to release it, so people can look at it. And he says they should put the protection of children at its heart, not “political point scoring”.
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Q: Why don’t you back free school meals for all primary schools?
Starmer says there is a debate to be had. He says his view is that there are better ways of spending money. He says the party is committed to extending breakfast clubs.
Starmer claims his government would be 'laser focused' on reducing poverty, just like last Labour government
Q: Poverty, and child poverty, does not seem to have got much of a mention in your five missions. What would Labour do about that?
Starmer says, just as the last Labour government was “laser focused” on reducing poverty, his government would be too.
He says getting rid of poverty is the foundation on which the missions sit.
The resolve to tackle it would be just as strong as under the last Labour government, he says.
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Q: Public services are falling behind. You say there is no money for big investment. But when would there be money?
Starmer says Labour has to grow the economy, in every part of the UK. That is why having the fastest growth in the G7 is one mission. Other missions “ladder up” to that, he says.
But he says some of his reforms are not about money. There are reforms you can do without extra investment.
Q: You say you want to change the national curriculum. Why not say what you would do now?
Starmer says he wants to change the curriculum “in a thoughtful way”, which takes the country with it.
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Labour would negotiate with teaching unions 'every day' until strikes resolved, says Starmer
Starmer is now taking questions.
Q: Tomorrow there will be another day of disruption in schools. Why should we think you would be better at sorting out the strikes than the government?
Starmer says, if he were PM, he would order Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, to negotiate “every day of the week until this was resolved”.
Back to the Starmer speech, and he has just spoken about the importance of tackling “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. He acknowledged that Michael Gove said this when he was education secretary. He was right to do so, Starmer says.
In fact, the US president George W Bush used the phrase well before Gove.
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An organisation called Green New Deal Rising has put out a statement saying its activists were the ones who disrupted Keir Starmer’s speech earlier. It describes itself as a movement of 16- to 35-year-olds “who are making headlines for disrupting politicians to protest the climate and economic crisis and demand a green new deal”.
The press notice includes this comment from Dieudonné Bila, a student who was one of the protesters:
I disrupted Keir Starmer’s speech because I desperately want to see a future government committed to protecting people here and all over the world from the climate crisis. We won’t stand by and allow private companies to continue making billions as heating becomes unaffordable, or be silent in the face of extreme heat, flooding and droughts.
If Keir Starmer wants the support of young people like us he needs to set out a bold vision for the future that gets to the root causes of the problems we are facing. That means public ownership, wealth taxes for the 1%, permanent and progressive windfall taxes for polluters, green jobs for everyone and a national nature service in the first 100 days of a new government.
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Starmer is speaking about speaking skills – a line from the speech previewed in his article in the Times. (See 8.49am.)
He says Labour will use money raised by removing tax breaks for private schools to invest in early language intervention in primary schools.
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Starmer says Rishi Sunak has given up on educational reform. But Labour will modernise education, he says.
He says that he will introduce “a curriculum fit for the digital age”, that he will “fight for training to be respected as much as university education”, and that he will “drag our education system into the future and shatter that glass ceiling”.
Starmer says last Labour government failed to eradicate 'snobbery that looks down on vocational education'
Starmer resumes his speech, and says insecurity places barriers that stop people getting on.
He says the last Labour government had the best record on education, without question.
But it did not eradicate “the snobbery that looks down on vocational education”, he says. And he says that cost the country.
He says there are two questions to ask of the education system. Are we keeping pace with others? And are we prepared to tackled the toxic divides that create a class ceiling.
Starmer heckled by climate protesters
Starmer is now being heckled by someone complaining about his lack of commitment to a green new deal.
He says he has already given a speech on this. He offers to speak to the protesters later.
The protesters keep shouting, but they are being escorted out.
UPDATE: PA Media reports:
Keir Starmer asked two protesters holding a banner saying “Green New Deal now” to “let me finish” as they interrupted his speech.
The Labour leader told the pair he would “speak to you after” as they accused of him of U-turning on his £28bn green prosperity plan, before being led off stage by security.
FURTHER UPDATE: Jim Pickard from the Financial Times says that, when one of the protesters asks Starmer which side he was on, Starmer replied: “We are on the side of economic growth.”
one protester: "which side are the Labour party on?"
— Jim Pickard 🐋 (@PickardJE) July 6, 2023
Starmer replies: "we are on the side of economic growth"
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Starmer says 'wherever there are obstacles to opportunity, Labour will tear them down'
Keir Starmer is delivering his speech now.
He says extending opportunity is personal for him.
Recalling his upbringing, he says he feels privileged and proud to go from a working class upbringing to leading the Crown Prosecution Service.
He says in the 1970s, when he was growing up, there was a sense that enterprise and hard work would be rewarded.
This is more than a British value; it is the story we tell to our children – work hard, and you can achieve anything.
But do we still believe it? he asks.
He says this is an “unwritten contract” we should be able to trust. He goes on:
I promise you this, wherever there are obstacles to opportunity, wherever there are the barriers to hope, my Labour government will tear them down.
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Starmer claims Just Stop Oil are 'riddled with arrogance' and says he can't wait for their protests to stop
Keir Starmer will shortly deliver his speech on education, and Labour’s mission to extend opportunity. In an interview earlier, on Times Radio, he delivered what is probably his fiercest attack yet on Just Stop Oil. Asked about their protest tactics, he said:
I can’t wait for them to stop their antics, frankly. You know, they’re interrupting iconic sporting events that are part of our history, tradition and massively looked forward to across the nation. I absolutely condemn the way they go about their tactics.
And I have to say it’s riddled with an arrogance that only they have the sort of right to force their argument on other people in this way.
The best, the single best way to ensure our economy thrives in the future, and that we have clean, affordable energy is actually the election of a Labour government and the mission I set out on clean energy by 2030.
But Just Stop Oil, as I say, the arrogance of what they do, the interruption of events which mean a lot to the nation. I can’t wait for them to stop.
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What Pincher did, and the impact it had
The Commons standards committee report contains details of the evidence given by the men who were groped by Chris Pincher in the Carlton Club. They are not named.
Here is an extract of the evidence from the main complainant, who worked as an employee in the House of Lords at the time.
After I removed his hand from my neck, Mr Pincher briefly moved a short distance away; [ … ] Mr Pincher then returned after a few minutes and, from behind, touched one of my buttocks with his hand. I was facing slightly away from him and felt someone caress or grope my buttock. I turned in shock to see Mr Pincher stood there. I did not know how to react, I just moved away from Mr Pincher to stand in a different part of the bar because I was so shocked at what had just happened …
I found the incidents with Mr Pincher to be traumatic and the incidents continue to significantly affect my sleep whenever I have to recount Mr Pincher’s behaviour.
The inquiry also heard from a civil servant groped by Pincher on the same evening. Describing what happened, this man said “[Pincher] then kind of touches my backside, before moving his hands around, and then he kind of grabbed me at the front of my groin”. And he said this about the impact of the incident:
The incident with Mr Pincher has significantly impacted me. I have become increasingly anxious as a result of the incident, and I am now taking medication to manage my anxiety. I am also fearful about whether this incident will impact my job and future career plans. After the incident, I stopped exercising, which has resulted in my gaining a lot of weight. I have also been subject to rumours about the incident and speculation about my involvement.
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The Liberal Democrats are challenging Rishi Sunak to actually vote for the suspension of Chris Pincher. In a reference to Sunak missing the votes on suspending Owen Paterson and notionally suspending Boris Johnson (he had quit the Commons already by the time his suspension was proposed), which came up in a testy exchange at the privileges committee on Tuesday, Wendy Chamberlain, the Lib Dem chief whip, said:
Chris Pincher adds his name to the long list of disgraced former Conservatives caught up in sleaze and scandal.
After missing so many vital votes in parliament, Rishi Sunak must finally show some backbone and confirm he will vote to suspend Chris Pincher.
In fact, there almost certainly won’t be a vote on suspending Pincher; the motion recommending his suspension will probably get approved on the nod, as motions on standards committee recommendations normally are.
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Why Pincher argued groping incident was not breach of code of conduct for MPs
Chris Pincher has accepted that he behaved wrongly at the Carlton Club last summer and has apologised. But, in his evidence to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, who investigated the groping allegations, he did not accept that he had broken the code of conduct for MPs. (See 9.15am.)
As the report from the standards committee explains, Pincher argued that he was not in the club in his capacity as an MP. The report says:
Mr Pincher denies, however, that his conduct breached paragraph 17 of the 2019 code of conduct for members. Firstly, Mr Pincher maintains that he was speaking at the Carlton Club event in his capacity as a former minister, rather than as a member of parliament. Mr Pincher also told the commissioner, but did not repeat in his evidence to us, that he returned to the Carlton Club later in the evening only in his personal capacity (with the implication that his conduct therefore falls outside the scope of the code).
Secondly, Mr Pincher accepts that his conduct has damaged his own reputation and that of the government. He denies, however, that it has caused significant damage to the reputation of the house, or of its members generally.
But the standards committee rejected this argument. It says in its report:
We reassert that the code does ‘not seek to regulate what members do in their purely private and personal lives’ but Mr Pincher’s participation in the Conservative Friends of Cyprus event was undoubtedly part of his public life. He had been invited to speak as a member of the government and as a former minister in the Foreign Office. He re-entered the Carlton Club in the hope that he could re-join this same event, or at least interact with the attendees, including other members of parliament, parliamentary staff and civil servants. He attended the Carlton Club on the second occasion in that same public – not private and personal – capacity. His conduct therefore falls within the scope of the code.
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How Boris Johnson dismissed interview question about whether he should have handled Pincher affair differently
The Commons standards privileges committee takes Chris Pincher’s conduct at the Carlton Club last summer a lot more seriously than Boris Johnson did. At the time No 10 falsely claimed that Johnson was not aware of previous allegations about Pincher when he appointed him as deputy chief whip. His lack of honesty over this, and his attempt to downplay the seriousness of the offence, was the final straw from many Conservative MPs and within days Johnson was announcing his resignation.
Johnson does not seem to have changed his view. The journalist Julia Macfarlane asked him in a recent interview if he regretted how he handled this affair and, as she told the News Agents podcast yesterday, he just pretended to fall asleep in response.
There is a clip here (although you may need a Twitter account to view it). It shows Johnson rolling his eyes derisively when the question was put to him, and then making a snoring noise.
What is Boris Johnson’s reaction to the Chris Pincher affair a year on?
— The News Agents (@TheNewsAgents) July 5, 2023
A snore.@juliamacfarlane talks exclusively to The News Agents about her interview with the former PM.@GlobalPlayer@maitlis | @lewis_goodall | @onedecisionpod pic.twitter.com/sPWBTGz8Zi
This is what Macfarlane told the podcast about what the clip shows.
That’s when I said, ‘For example, should you have behaved differently when your colleagues told you they were uneasy about how the whole Chris Pincher affair was going down?’ As I was asking that, he sort of leant back a little. He sort of rolled his eyes and looked over at Richard [Dearlove], who was the other man in the interview, and then he started to snore when I brought up that story, which is about sexual assault allegations.
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Labour says Chris Pincher should resign as MP
Labour says Chris Pincher should resign as an MP. In a statement following the release of the standards committee’s report, Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, said:
Chris Pincher’s actions are shocking. But what’s even worse, is the way the Conservative party protected him, even promoting him despite a previous investigation into his conduct.
Chris Pincher should now do the decent thing and resign as an MP. The people of Tamworth and the surrounding villages deserve more from their parliamentary representative.
Chris Pincher should be suspended from Commons for 8 weeks over 'grave' sexual misconduct, report says
Chris Pincher, the former Tory deputy chief whip, should be suspended from the Commons for eight weeks, the Commons standards committee has said in a report this morning.
This would allow a petition to be arranged for a recall byelection in his Tamworth constituency, where he had a majority of 19,634 over Labour at the last election.
The standards committee investigated a complaint that Pincher groped two men in the Carlton Club last summer when he was drunk. It concluded that this was a breach of the provision in the code of conduct for MPs saying they should not do anything that would cause “significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its members generally”.
This is what the report says about Pincher’s conduct.
Firstly, we agree that Mr Pincher’s conduct caused significant damage to the reputation of the government and to the prime minister who appointed him. But this was also an egregious case of sexual misconduct in the presence of several other MPs, two of whom thought the events represented so significant a breach of acceptable behaviour that they raised the matter immediately with the chief whip and provided witness statements. It is therefore self-evident that Mr Pincher’s conduct, which led to extensive public commentary in the media regarding the reputation and integrity of all MPs, had a significant negative impact on the reputation of the whole House.
Secondly, Mr Pincher’s conduct was deeply inappropriate and had a significant impact on the individuals involved. Witness 3 states that “the incident has significantly impacted me. I have become increasingly anxious as a result of the incident”. Witness 2 also stated “I could see the person touched by Mr Pincher was frozen and I think he was shocked by what happened”.
A third aspect of Mr Pincher’s conduct is especially grave, however. Sexual misconduct of this nature, by a serving senior member of the house in such a situation, also involves an abuse of power. Mr Pincher was the government deputy chief whip at the time and therefore in a position of significant power and authority. We note that witness 3 states that he was “fearful” about whether the incident would affect his “job and future career plans”. This point was also made by witness 1 who stated, “I was conscious that this was an unusual situation as although there was a clear right and wrong, there was also a hierarchy in place, and I knew that Mr Pincher was well connected”. Whether Mr Pincher intended to abuse that position of power is immaterial. Objectively, he did.
Fourthly, the [parliamentary commissioner for standards] states that Mr Pincher’s conduct would cause damage to the reputation of members generally, because it “risks advancing a misplaced public perception that members of parliament do not have to abide by normal standards of behaviour and can commit acts of misconduct with impunity”. We agree.
Mr Pincher’s conduct was completely inappropriate, profoundly damaging to the individuals concerned, and represented an abuse of power. We therefore agree with the commissioner that Mr Pincher’s conduct on 29 and 30 June 2022 breached paragraph 17 of the 2019 code.
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Starmer says schools would put more focus on teaching 'speaking skills' under Labour
Good morning. Keir Starmer has been giving speeches fleshing out the details of the five missions for Labour he announced in February, and today he is talking about the fifth and final one – “to break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage, for every child”. As he explains in an article in the Sun, he wants to break down the “class ceiling” which he says holds back people who were not born privileged. He says:
This is personal to me.
There was nothing about my working-class upbringing that suggested I would end up as the country’s most senior prosecutor or the leader of the Labour party.
My parents – Mum a nurse, Dad a toolmaker – instilled in me the belief that hard work and imagination would be rewarded in Britain.
That, even in tough times, things would get better.
As a country, we badly need to restore the sense that a better future lies ahead of us.
Here is Peter Walker’s preview of the speech.
Starmer’s team had a busy writing day yesterday because he, or they, have also written an article for the Times saying that, as part of his plans to reform education, he wants to put more emphasis on teaching pupils to speak and argue. He explains:
Talk is the currency of politics. It is our way of negotiating, deliberating, persuading and coming to decisions. Talk is also the currency of learning – how we develop and shape our ideas, deepen our thinking, explore subject matter and share our thoughts and feelings.
That’s why I want speaking skills, sometimes called “oracy”, to play an important part in Labour’s plans for a reformed school curriculum.
Employers have told me that speaking skills are as important as reading and writing. The ability to speak well and express yourself should be something every child is entitled to and should master.
But the curriculum doesn’t allow us to provide this. This is shortsighted. An inability to articulate your thoughts fluently is a key barrier to getting on and thriving in life …
Oracy is a skill that can and must be taught. Yes, it’s in part about good public speaking and debating skills, but in reality, it is about much more: how to teach young people to make a cogent argument and choose language with discernment; how to read an audience and forge meaningful social connections; how to use our expressions and body language to convey meaning.
The Times: Speaking lessons for all pupils #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/MkE2fIRDJ4
— George Mann (@sgfmann) July 5, 2023
It is often said that Labour and the Conservatives are broadly similar in terms of policies. But in education we now have at least one clear dividing line: under Rishi Sunak, pupils will get more maths, under Starmer, they will get more debating.
Starmer has been giving interviews this morning. I will post details from them shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: The Common standards committee is expected to publish a report about the Tory MP Chris Pincher.
10.25am: Keir Starmer gives a speech on Labour’s fifth mission, “to break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage, for every child”.
After 10.30am: Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons, announces next week’s Commons business to MPs. She is expected to give details of how the government will respond to the defeats in the Lords on the illegal migration bill.
2.30pm: The high court gives its judgment on the government’s legal challenge against the Covid inquiry’s demand to see unredacted WhatsApp messages that the government says are irrelevant to coronavirus.
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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