Evening summary
It’s nearly 5pm in Westminster. Here is a summary of the day’s main news stories:
The work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, has conceded that Brexit delivered a blow to investment decisions in the UK. He told the BBC’s The World At One programme: “I think if you have a situation where you create frictions between yourself and your major trading partners, I think you have to accept that that will have an impact.”
Stride’s concession over Brexit came after Paul Drechsler, the chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce UK, said Labour was now winning the argument on business. Drechsler, who was a skills adviser to former Tory prime minister David Cameron, blamed Brexit and the chaos afterwards for reducing the willingness of firms to invest in Britain.
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, finds himself under pressure today to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and label China a “threat” as part of the government’s integrated review of global security. In October, Liz Truss formally designated China “the most serious long-term threat to our values and way of life”. With concerns mounting over the UK’s capability to deal with suspected Chinese spy balloons, Sunak is being urged by his backbench MPs to be just as hawkish when it comes to his own review, which is due to take place on 7 March.
A former British ambassador to the US and national security adviser has questioned whether the UK has a “watertight capability” to deal with suspected Chinese spy balloons. Asked if Sunak is right to suggest the UK has a “watertight rapid response to intercept these kind of things”, Kim Darroch told Times Radio he is not totally confident this is the case.
Negotiations over the Northern Ireland protocol are in the crucial final phase with a potential deal as early as next week, according to UK government sources. Sunak is expected to spend the latter half of the parliamentary recess this week looking at the shape of the deal, with calls pencilled in with EU leaders. However, UK sources stressed talks were at a delicate phase and there was no guarantee of a final agreement.
More than 70,000 staff at 150 universities have gone on strike today, in the first of three successive days of industrial action this week. The University and College Union confirmed that it is reballoting members, to enable strike action to continue throughout the rest of the academic year, in line with legislation which requires that industrial action mandates are renewed every six months. Meanwhile, talks which began yesterday will continue with employers, who are represented by the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) via the Acas conciliation service.
Civil servants who are members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) are striking this week, as figures revealed the UK recorded the highest number of working days lost to strike action for more than a decade in December. PCS members are also on strike this week at the Department for Work and Pensions, DVLA and the Animal and Plant Health Agency. They will also be joined by striking Border Force staff in Dover, Calais, Coquelles and Dunkirk on Friday.
Millions of households face further cost of living pressures after research suggested three-quarters of councils will hike tax by 5% from April. The County Councils Network (CCN) has found 84 councils out of 114 who provide social care and have published their 2023-24 budget proposals plan to raise council tax by the maximum permitted which is 4.99%. The Labour vice-chair of CCN and leader of Cheshire East council, Sam Corcoran, said local authorities had “little choice” but to propose increasing council tax.
The UK’s unemployment rate has remained unchanged despite Britain’s economy flatlining as a wave of people returned to work, official figures show. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of UK unemployment was 3.7% in the three months to December, the same rate that was recorded in the three months to November. However, it had edged higher than the previous calendar quarter, with the unemployment rate standing at 3.6% in the three months to September, PA Media reported.
Liz Truss oversaw a major jump in spending on government credit cards at the Foreign Office when she took over, a Guardian analysis shows, with spending on restaurants, bars, leisure activities and hotels all rising sharply during her time in office. An analysis of data collated by the Labour party shows officials spent far more on procurement cards under the former prime minister than they had under her predecessor, Dominic Raab.
A request for a “modest” delay to the start of the first public hearing in the UK Covid-19 inquiry has been made. Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry, said that “literally thousands of manual redactions” were having to be made to submitted government policy documents and emails related to the UK’s preparedness and resilience for a pandemic, with those documents then resent to the relevant parties for review.
No new pay offer has yet been made to Scotland’s teachers in a bid to end strike action, union leaders have said. Andrea Bradley, the general secretary of the EIS teaching union, said that they did “not have a piece of paper with numbers on it”. The Scottish education secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville, said on Monday that she hoped a “new, fair and affordable offer” could be put to teaching unions “within the next few days”.
Six people were arrested after climate activists blocked a major bridge in central London in a protest calling for investment in plant-based food. Members of Animal Rebellion, an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, staged the Valentine’s Day protest on Westminster Bridge just after 10am on Tuesday to urge the government to sever ties with animal farming, PA Media reported.
The government has hailed a “landmark” deal by Airbus and Rolls-Royce to supply new aircraft to Air India in an agreement expected to create and support hundreds of jobs in the UK. The airline has reportedly agreed to buy 250 planes from the European aviation giant, with a significant proportion of the manufacturing process expected to take place in the UK, PA Media reported.
Campaigners are to make a high court challenge to the government’s plan to reduce raw sewage discharges into rivers and seas, arguing it does not go far enough. The case, to be taken by the Good Law Project, will put the storm overflow scheme under detailed scrutiny. It will argue that the plan will lead to raw sewage being discharged into waterways for decades to come and does not protect the majority of coastal areas designated as ecologically sensitive.
Campaigners in east London have said the mayor of Tower Hamlets is engaged in a “culture war” against low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) as he consults for a second time in a year on the future of traffic reduction schemes. The controversy in the borough – where Lutfur Rahman, promised in his manifesto to remove LTNs – came as neighbouring councils Hackney and Islington strengthened their commitment to the schemes.
The veteran broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby has said Richard Sharp should quit as BBC chair for the good of the corporation over the criticism he has received after it was revealed he helped Boris Johnson to secure an £800,000 loan. Speaking on Newsnight, Dimbleby said the row was causing “a great deal of damage” for the BBC.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics live blog for today. I’ll be back tomorrow morning but for now, have a pleasant evening.
Updated
Six people were arrested after climate activists blocked a major bridge in central London in a protest calling for investment in plant-based food.
Members of Animal Rebellion, an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, staged the Valentine’s Day protest on Westminster Bridge just after 10am on Tuesday to urge the government to sever ties with animal farming, PA Media reported.
The protesters set up a candlelit dinner table on the road, with one dressed as the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and another as a representative of the animal-farming and fishing industries.
Several protesters were moved off the road by members of the public, who appeared frustrated at the disruption.
The Metropolitan police said five protesters were arrested for obstruction of the highway while a sixth person was arrested for allegedly assaulting a protester.
All six were taken to a west London police station.
Updated
Campaigners are to make a high court challenge to the government’s plan to reduce raw sewage discharges into rivers and seas, arguing it does not go far enough.
The case, to be taken by the Good Law Project, will put the storm overflow scheme under detailed scrutiny. It will argue that the plan will lead to raw sewage being discharged into waterways for decades to come and does not protect the majority of coastal areas designated as ecologically sensitive.
After growing pressure from the Guardian and other media, campaigners and some politicians, the government produced the storm overflow plan to force water companies to invest in stopping raw sewage discharges.
But the scheme gives water companies a deadline of 2035 to reduce the amount of sewage flowing into bathing water and areas of ecological importance, and until 2050 to stop dumping sewage elsewhere.
After it was heavily criticised as too weak, the scheme will be challenged in court after the campaigners were granted permission to seek a judicial review.
The veteran broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby has said Richard Sharp should quit as BBC chair for the good of the corporation over the criticism he has received after it was revealed he helped Boris Johnson to secure an £800,000 loan.
Speaking on Newsnight, Dimbleby said the row was causing “a great deal of damage” for the BBC.
Mel Stride’s concession over Brexit (see 14.02) came after Paul Drechsler, the chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce UK, said Labour is now winning the argument on business.
Drechsler, who was a skills adviser to former Tory prime minister David Cameron, blamed Brexit and the chaos afterwards for reducing the willingness of firms to invest in Britain.
He said:
If there’s one thing you could depend on in the UK for centuries it was adherence to the rule of law but over the past small number of years we’ve prorogued parliament, we’ve rejected international treaties we’ve just signed.
We’ve talked about our judges as enemies of the people and now we’re about to bin thousands of EU laws without having any alternative for business to rely on.
It’s self-evident that the trend lying up to 2016 has shifted significantly over the past six years.
He said businesses were “struggling” to employ the people with the right skills for jobs. “That’s an obstacle to economic growth of our own making,” he added.
He also said that Sunak’s Conservatives were “incredibly fragmented, incredibly divided and do not have a brilliant narrative to attract investment”.
Updated
'Friction' with EU due to Brexit has had impact on UK economy, Tory minister admits
The work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, has conceded that Brexit delivered a blow to investment decisions in the UK.
He told the BBC’s The World At One programme:
I think if you have a situation where you create frictions between yourself and your major trading partners, I think you have to accept that that will have an impact.
Stride, who voted remain in the 2016 referendum, conceded it was “taking a bit of time” to benefit from the business opportunities of Brexit, but added:
They are coming through, you can see them coming through.
We’ve moved on now and I accept that and I cannot argue now that there are not major opportunities, what we need to do now is get out there and capitalise on them and that’s what we’re determined to do.
Updated
Campaigners in east London have said the mayor of Tower Hamlets is engaged in a “culture war” against low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) as he consults for a second time in a year on the future of traffic reduction schemes.
The controversy in the borough – where Lutfur Rahman, promised in his manifesto to remove LTNs – came as neighbouring councils Hackney and Islington strengthened their commitment to the schemes.
A consultation has just closed on whether to remove restrictions on traffic in parts of Bethnal Green and another, on restrictions in Brick Lane, closes this weekend.
Jane Harris from the campaign group Save Our Safer Streets, said the mayor was ignoring the result of previous consultations, including those carried out as recently as last year.
She said: “We answered a consultation on these areas last year and the result showed a majority of respondents want the safer streets schemes to stay in place. He promised in his manifesto to be a listening mayor – so why does he need to be told twice?”
She added: “He is supposed to be everybody’s mayor but we feel he is going to war – that this is a culture war. It does not have to be this divisive, we have had constructive conversations with residents who question the scheme.”
You can read more of Harriet Grant’s report here:
Civil servants who are members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) are striking this week, as figures revealed the UK recorded the highest number of working days lost to strike action for more than a decade in December.
PCS members are also on strike this week at the Department for Work and Pensions, DVLA and the Animal and Plant Health Agency.
They will also be joined by striking border force staff in Dover, Calais, Coquelles and Dunkirk on Friday.
Speaking from the picket line at the British Museum on Tuesday, Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, said: “This is a world class institution that shows some of the greatest artefacts known to humanity, yet they treat their own staff appallingly.
“People working here some of them are on the minimum wage, people are claiming benefits because they are so poor. That cannot be allowed to stand.
“British museum workers need a proper pay raise, so do all public sector workers, and we are determined to fight until we get it.”
Lunchtime summary
As we approach 1pm in London, here is a brief round-up of the day’s stories so far:
Prime minister Rishi Sunak finds himself under pressure today to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and label China a “threat” as part of the government’s integrated review of global security. In October, Liz Truss formally designated China “the most serious long-term threat to our values and way of life”. With concerns mounting over the UK’s capability to deal with suspected Chinese spy balloons, Sunak is being urged by his backbench MPs to be just as hawkish when it comes to his own review, which is due to take place on 7 March.
A former British ambassador to the US and national security adviser has questioned whether the UK has a “watertight capability” to deal with suspected Chinese spy balloons. Asked if Sunak is right to suggest the UK has a “watertight rapid response to intercept these kind of things”, Kim Darroch told Times Radio he is not totally confident this is the case.
Negotiations over the Northern Ireland protocol are in the crucial final phase with a potential deal as early as next week, according to UK government sources. Sunak is expected to spend the latter half of the parliamentary recess this week looking at the shape of the deal, with calls pencilled in with EU leaders. However, UK sources stressed talks were at a delicate phase and there was no guarantee of a final agreement.
More than 70,000 staff at 150 universities have gone on strike today, in the first of three successive days of industrial action this week. The University and College Union confirmed that it is reballoting members, to enable strike action to continue throughout the rest of the academic year, in line with legislation which requires that industrial action mandates are renewed every six months. Meanwhile, talks which began yesterday will continue with employers, who are represented by the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) via the Acas conciliation service.
Millions of households face further cost of living pressures after research suggested three-quarters of councils will hike tax by 5% from April. The County Councils Network (CCN) has found 84 councils out of 114 who provide social care and have published their 2023-24 budget proposals plan to raise council tax by the maximum permitted which is 4.99%. The Labour vice-chair of CCN and leader of Cheshire East council, Sam Corcoran, said local authorities had “little choice” but to propose increasing council tax.
The UK’s unemployment rate has remained unchanged despite Britain’s economy flatlining as a wave of people returned to work, official figures show. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of UK unemployment was 3.7% in the three months to December, the same rate that was recorded in the three months to November. However, it had edged higher than the previous calendar quarter, with the unemployment rate standing at 3.6% in the three months to September, PA Media reported.
Liz Truss oversaw a major jump in spending on government credit cards at the Foreign Office when she took over, a Guardian analysis shows, with spending on restaurants, bars, leisure activities and hotels all rising sharply during her time in office. An analysis of data collated by the Labour party shows officials spent far more on procurement cards under the former prime minister than they had under her predecessor, Dominic Raab.
A request for a “modest” delay to the start of the first public hearing in the UK Covid-19 inquiry has been made. Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry, said that “literally thousands of manual redactions” were having to be made to submitted government policy documents and emails related to the UK’s preparedness and resilience for a pandemic, with those documents then resent to the relevant parties for review.
No new pay offer has yet been made to Scotland’s teachers in a bid to end strike action, union leaders have said. Andrea Bradley, the general secretary of the EIS teaching union, said that they did “not have a piece of paper with numbers on it”. Scottish education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said on Monday that she hoped a “new, fair and affordable offer” could be put to teaching unions “within the next few days”.
The government has hailed a “landmark” deal by Airbus and Rolls-Royce to supply new aircraft to Air India in an agreement expected to create and support hundreds of jobs in the UK. The airline has reportedly agreed to buy 250 planes from the European aviation giant, with a significant proportion of the manufacturing process expected to take place in the UK, PA Media reported.
My colleague Tobi Thomas will be covering the UK politics live blog for the next hour.
The government has hailed a “landmark” deal by Airbus and Rolls-Royce to supply new aircraft to Air India in an agreement expected to create and support hundreds of jobs in the UK.
The airline has reportedly agreed to buy 250 planes from the European aviation giant, with a significant proportion of the manufacturing process expected to take place in the UK, PA Media reported.
The Department for Business and Trade said the wings, designed in Filton near Bristol, will be assembled in Broughton in north Wales, bringing 450 new manufacturing jobs and £100m in additional investment to the region.
The wide-bodied Airbus A350 aircraft, which reportedly account for 40 of the aircraft in the new order, are powered by Rolls-Royce XWB engines assembled and tested in Derby.
In a statement, prime minister Rishi Sunak said:
This landmark deal between Air India, Airbus and Rolls-Royce demonstrates that the sky’s the limit for the UK’s thriving aerospace sector.
The UK is already a top investment destination, and by building trade ties with growing economic powers like India we will ensure UK businesses remain at the forefront of global growth and innovation.
The Guardian’s deputy political editor Jessica Elgot believes it is unlikely that Rishi Sunak will label China a “strategic threat”, after increased pressure to do so by his backbench MPs.
Here is her take on the prime minister’s options and what he is likely to say and do next on the issue.
On China, it seems to me pretty unlikely the IR will recategorise as "strategic threat" even though Sunak used the Lord Mayor's Banquet speech to declare the golden era over. At G20, officials were keen to stress using "threat" would make UK an outlier among Western allies.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) February 14, 2023
In Bali last November, Sunak specifically engaged on this question calling China a “systemic challenge to our values and interests” and "undoubtedly the biggest state-based threat to our economic security."
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) February 14, 2023
But Sunak also was at pains to stress he was not interested in changing the language to something that was not " highly aligned with our allies" and made the link to US national security strategy language.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) February 14, 2023
A request for a “modest” delay to the start of the first public hearing in the UK Covid-19 inquiry has been made.
Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry, said that “literally thousands of manual redactions” were having to be made to submitted government policy documents and emails related to the UK’s preparedness and resilience for a pandemic, with those documents then resent to the relevant parties for review.
Because the “process of review and disclosure has slowed down considerably”, Keith said he was asking for a delay – from May to June – for the start of module one, PA Media reported.
He told the inquiry’s chair, Lady Hallett, during a virtual preliminary hearing on Tuesday:
As I cannot guarantee that, as was provisionally hoped to be the case, that the core participants will receive almost all the disclosure to which they are entitled by mid-March, I must invite you to consider putting back the provisional start date of May to early June.
In the general scheme of your inquiry, this is a fairly modest adjournment application.
But it will allow, if you grant it, a proper opportunity for the core participants to get on top of the materials and, as a necessary part of that process, time to get the documents to them.”
He said any decision to push back the start of module one would have a knock-on impact on the start date for later modules but “not necessarily on the overall length of your inquiry”.
Updated
The UK’s unemployment rate has remained unchanged despite Britain’s economy flatlining as a wave of people returned to work, official figures show.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of UK unemployment was 3.7% in the three months to December, the same rate that was recorded in the three months to November.
However, it had edged higher than the previous calendar quarter, with the unemployment rate standing at 3.6% in the three months to September, PA Media reported
The data showed that regular pay growth was 6.7% in the three months, the strongest growth rate seen outside the pandemic, the ONS said.
It suggests that wage pressure is continuing to grow for employers who are meeting demands to raise pay as living costs soar. Nevertheless, wages continued to be outstripped by rising prices.
Once consumer prices index (CPI) inflation is taken into account, regular pay fell by 3.6% in the three-month period, compared with the previous year.
That decline is smaller than the record fall of 4.1% seen over the three months to June, but still remains among the largest falls in real pay since comparable records began in 2001, the ONS said.
No new pay offer has yet been made to Scotland’s teachers in a bid to end strike action, union leaders have said.
Andrea Bradley, the general secretary of the EIS teaching union, said that they did “not have a piece of paper with numbers on it”.
Scottish education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said on Monday that she hoped a “new, fair and affordable offer” could be put to teaching unions “within the next few days”.
However, Bradley insisted there would need to be “significant movement” on the pay rise that has already been offered for teachers to consider halting their action, PA Media reported.
The EIS is stepping up its campaign for a 10% pay rise for teachers next week, with targeted strike action, which will see staff stop work in first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Glasgow Southside constituency as well as the Perthshire North area represented by deputy first minister John Swinney.
Updated
Liz Truss oversaw a major jump in spending on government credit cards at the Foreign Office when she took over, a Guardian analysis shows, with spending on restaurants, bars, leisure activities and hotels all rising sharply during her time in office.
An analysis of data collated by the Labour party shows officials spent far more on procurement cards under the former prime minister than they had under her predecessor, Dominic Raab.
Truss is already under pressure to explain a number of items of spending which she approved, including meals at high-end restaurants, large social functions and the use of Heathrow’s VIP suite. The Guardian analysis suggests that she oversaw a broader culture of high spending when she was in one of the most powerful jobs in government.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said:
Liz Truss’s track record of disrespect for taxpayers’ money and reckless spending should have rung warning sirens, but instead the Conservative party elected her as leader.
The data comes from a database of more than 65,000 individual items of spending which Labour has collated through publicly available information.
The party said over the weekend that the cards, which allow officials to pay quickly and easily for items worth up to £20,000, had led to a “catalogue of waste”, and promised to set up a new regulator to monitor their use.
No 10 on Monday defended the use of the cards, saying they helped cut transaction costs and therefore government waste.
A Downing Street spokesperson said:
Everyone who spends taxpayers’ money is aware that they are doing just that. As a government we are very responsible in how we use these cards, but it’s important to understand that they are there to serve a purpose and the [National Audit Office] estimates that using these cards typically saves about 35% in transaction costs.
Updated
More than 70,000 staff at 150 universities have gone on strike today, in the first of three successive days of industrial action this week.
The University and College Union confirmed that it is reballoting members, to enable strike action to continue throughout the rest of the academic year, in line with legislation which requires that industrial action mandates are renewed every six months.
Meanwhile, talks which began yesterday will continue with employers, who are represented by the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) via the Acas conciliation service.
University staff have already taken six days of strike action this academic year in their dispute over pay, pensions, job security and working conditions. After this week, if there is no breakthrough, staff are set to walk out for a further 10 days.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said:
University staff are preparing once again to vote yes in an industrial action ballot which could see the rest of the academic year impacted by strikes. That we have ended up in this place is entirely the fault of university bosses who refuse to use the sector’s over £40bn reserves to meet staff demands.
Staff are striking because they are sick of being denied a decent pay rise, secure employment, and proper pensions. And students are standing with us because they know that staff working conditions are their learning conditions.
Our union is determined to reach a negotiated settlement which allows staff to get back to work and students to continue their studies uninterrupted. But that can only happen if vice-chancellors come out of hiding and use a fraction of the sector’s vast wealth to make serious, well-rounded offers to staff.
Raj Jethwa, UCEA’s chief executive, said:
It is disappointing that UCU has confirmed it will reballot on the day that these Acas talks have started.
It is saddening if even a single student is impacted by the 18 days of strike action that UCU has already asked its member to take, and we hope that these Acas talks will help to resolve this dispute.
On Wednesday, teaching unions are due to meet education secretary Gillian Keegan for talks to avert further planned strike action in schools in February and March.
Updated
Deal on Northern Ireland protocol could be struck next week, sources say
Negotiations over the Northern Ireland protocol are in the crucial final phase with a potential deal as early as next week, according to UK government sources.
Rishi Sunak is expected to spend the latter half of the parliamentary recess this week looking at the shape of the deal, with calls pencilled in with EU leaders. However, UK sources stressed talks were at a delicate phase and there was no guarantee of a final agreement.
Any deal would mean the UK agreeing to drop the Northern Ireland protocol bill, the use of which would unilaterally override the current agreement and prompt legal action from Brussels. The bill is in the House of Lords but its progress has been frozen.
The announcement of any deal will depend on time to square off any concerns from EU member states and most crucially parties in Northern Ireland, including the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), which is blocking the formation of a power-sharing government at Stormont.
Millions of households face further cost of living pressures after research suggested three-quarters of councils will hike tax by 5% from April.
The County Councils Network (CCN) has found 84 councils out of 114 who provide social care and have published their 2023-24 budget proposals plan to raise council tax by the maximum permitted which is 4.99%.
The Labour vice-chair of CCN and leader of Cheshire East council, Sam Corcoran, said local authorities had “little choice” but to propose increasing council tax. He said:
With inflation reaching levels not seen for over 40 years and with demand-led pressures for care services showing no sign of abating, local authority leaders are setting their budgets in the most difficult circumstances in decades.
We all recognise the cost of living crisis is impacting on every household in the country and disproportionally on low incomes, but we have little choice but to propose council tax rises again next year, with many local authorities reluctantly opting for maximum rises.
With councils facing multimillion funding deficits next year, the alternative to council tax rises would be drastic cuts to frontline services at a time when people at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis need us to be there for them. With the financial situation for councils looking extremely tough for the next few years, we will be calling on the chancellor for further help in the March budget.
Despite widespread concerns over the cost of living crisis, about 75% of the largest authorities have opted so far for the full 4.99% rise, with all but one of the remainder increasing council tax by at least 2%.
Three councils facing major financial difficulties after going effectively bankrupt have been given special dispensation by ministers to increase council tax bills beyond the 4.99% limit. Croydon’s bill will go up by 15%, while Thurrock and Slough councils will each raise bills by 10%.
Updated
A former British ambassador to the US and national security adviser has questioned whether the UK has a “watertight capability” to deal with suspected Chinese spy balloons.
Asked if Rishi Sunak is right to suggest the UK has a “watertight rapid response to intercept these kind of things”, Kim Darroch told Times Radio he is not totally confident this is the case.
He said:
I’m not, to be honest, but I wouldn’t want listeners to get very worried about that.
I’m not because I think we have underinvested in defence for the last couple of decades – one might argue ever since the end of the cold war – and we don’t have all the kit and equipment that we really need and there are gaps around in the technology our armed forces have.
So, we will have some capability; whether we have a watertight capability as the prime minister says, I’m not so sure.
But we have enough capability, I think, that people can certainly sleep easy in their beds about.
He added:
It’s still, I think, unless we discover something new, it’s still well-known technology and it’s still basically surveillance, still basically spying, and the reality is an awful lot of that goes on everywhere.
Updated
Sunak facing backbench MP pressure to declare China a 'threat'
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak finds himself under pressure today to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and label China a “threat” as part of the government’s integrated review of global security. In October, Liz Truss formally designated China “the most serious long-term threat to our values and way of life”.
With concerns mounting over the UK’s capability to deal with suspected Chinese spy balloons, Sunak is being urged by his backbench MPs to be just as hawkish when it comes to his own review, which is due to take place on 7 March.
In November, Sunak signalled the end of the “golden era” of relations between Britain and China, using his first major foreign policy speech to warn of the creeping authoritarianism of Xi Jinping’s regime. But he is under pressure to go further this time around.
It comes as Tory grandee Iain Duncan Smith accused the Chinese governor of Xinjiang of murder as he joined Uyghur activists protesting against his reported visit to Britain.
Demonstrators gathered outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on Monday after it emerged that Erkin Tuniyaz, the chair of the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, could meet UK officials, a scenario Duncan Smith branded “unacceptable”.
Tuniyaz was expected to come to the UK this week, according to the reports, with some speculating he has already arrived.
The Commons is currently in recess. I’m Tom Ambrose, covering the blog for Andrew Sparrow this week, and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news and stories from Westminster throughout the day.
Updated
