Good evening! The latest edition of The Worst of Westminster is here as we look at Rishi Sunak turning down Scotland's drug decriminalisation plan and Starmer flip-flopping over the two-child benefit cap. Get the newsletter in your inbox for free here.
Sunak rejects drugs policy reform
The Scottish Government said personal use of drugs should be decriminalised and treated as a heath issue as it urged Westminster to implement the policy.
But the Prime Minister, unsurprisingly perhaps, has no plans to change his “tough stance” on drugs, Downing Street said shortly after a paper was released by the Scottish Government on drug law reform.
Asked whether Sunak was likely to grant a request to change drug legislation, his official spokesman said: “No. Whilst I haven’t seen those reports I think I’m confident enough to say that there are no plans to alter our tough stance on drugs.”
Scottish Drugs Policy Minister Elena Whitham said personal use of drugs should be decriminalised by the UK Government or Holyrood should be given the powers to do it.
Former police officers have welcomed the move saying decriminalisation will save lives and make communities safer.
Meanwhile, SNP policy chief Toni Giugliano said the Tory war on drugs had failed and the UK Government was living in denial.
He said: “Poverty, childhood adversity, violence and unaddressed trauma lie at the heart of Scotland's drug problem, but you won't hear the Tories talk about the root causes because for years their policies propagated that inequality.”
To probe or not to probe?
The UK Government seems to be in a bit of a muddle as to whether or not it is investigating its Scottish counterpart’s expenditure on independence.
Labour peer George Foulkes has made public an email from the UK’s top law officer for Scotland, Advocate General Keith Stewart, which seems to explicitly say there is a probe ongoing.
But confusingly, sources in the Scotland Office - which handles Stewart’s communications - are categorically denying to multiple news outlets that any such investigation exists.
The department’s official line is that it is “up to the Scottish Government how it spends its record block grant in devolved areas”.
It all started after Foulkes told the upper chamber on Thursday that the “Advocate General for Scotland has agreed, at my request, to instruct his officials to investigate ultra-vires expenditure by the Scottish Government. That is a great step forward.”
The probe, if indeed one is taking place, would be looking at how the Scottish Government is spending money in reserved areas, specifically the constitution. We’ll be following this as the picture hopefully becomes less murky …
Starmer U-turns on benefit cap
Oh yes, he’s up to his old tricks again is Keir Starmer, as he appeared to U-turn on scrapping the two-child benefit cap to the disgust of his own politician north of the Border.
Starmer said back in 2020 on Twitter that Labour would get rid of the two-child benefit cap introduced by George Osborne in 2017, which restricts benefits support families can get to the first two children.
The measure attracted huge controversy over the so-called “rape clause”, which forced women to reveal pregnancies arising from non-consensual sex to qualify for some benefit.
But the Labour leader said on Friday that it was not Labour’s policy to get rid of it, despite his shadow secretary of state hinting last month the party would ditch the “heinous” rule.
Labour MSP Monica Lennon immediately criticised Starmer saying: “I know colleagues are scared of deselection, being exiled to backbenches, or not winning selections but if we don’t speak out then who will?”
How many more times can the Labour leader go back on his word before more colleagues turn on him?
AOB
- Tory minister Johnny Mercer has not exactly been a popular character this week. Not only was he told off on Question Time by Fiona Bruce for making a number of false statements – including that the Labour Party was funded by climate group Just Stop Oil – but he also said using a food bank was a choice. “These are personal decisions around how people are budgeting every month,” he told Sky News.
- Former Tory MP Chris Pincher has been suspended for eight weeks over groping claims which means the Tories can add another possible by-election to a growing list. Pincher's conduct “was completely inappropriate, profoundly damaging to the individuals concerned, and represented an abuse of power”, an inquiry by Parliament’s standards watchdog found.
- And minted Sajid Javid, not satisfied with his £86k salary, said people earning £30,000 a year may not have the “skills that Parliament needs” as he called for MPs to earn more.
