Summary
• The Bank of England has raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.25% in response to higher-than-expected UK inflation and signs that Britain’s economy was holding up better than feared. In a fortnight of heightened unease in global financial markets, the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted by a majority of seven to two to increase the base rate for the 11th time in a row.
• Rishi Sunak has saved more than £300,000 in tax thanks to a cut he voted for in 2016, according to an analysis of his tax records. The prime minister has paid just over £1m in tax over the past three years, most of which was accrued on the gains he has made on his US-based investment portfolio. But that figure would have been £308,167 higher had the top rate of capital gains tax (CGT) not been cut by the Conservative government in 2016.
• Keir Starmer has vowed to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, setting out one of Labour’s core missions on crime as “unfinished business in my life’s work to deliver justice”. Starmer, whose speech in Stoke-on-Trent launched the second of his five “missions”, said he wanted to “imagine a society where violence against women is stamped out everywhere”.
• Starmer published his recent tax returns, as he pledged to do so this morning a day after Rishi Sunak became the first prime minister since David Cameron to do so. They show he earned £275,000 in the last two years and paid £118,000 in tax.
• Junior doctors in England will strike for four days between 11 and 15 April, the British Medical Association has said. Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors’ committee, said: “It is with disappointment and great frustration that we must announce this new industrial action.
• The Albanian prime minister has criticised the UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, calling the singling out of migrants from his country a “disgraceful” moment for British politics. Edi Rama, who is in Britain for talks with Rishi Sunak, said Braverman’s comments last year about “Albanian criminals” crossing the Channel in small boats, could themselves be considered a crime.
• Nicola Sturgeon has said being first minister “of the country I love has been a profound honour”. Speaking at her 286th and final FMQs, Sturgeon paid tribute to those who lost their lives to Covid-19 and singled out efforts to distribute money to low income families with children as the policy she was most proud of.
Updated
Starmer publishes tax returns
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has published his recent tax returns, as he pledged to do so this morning a day after Rishi Sunak became the first prime minister since David Cameron to do so.
They show he earned £275,000 in the last two years and paid £118,000 in tax.
Keir Starmer has released his tax returns for 2020/21 & 2021/22
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) March 23, 2023
He earned £275k in the last two years&paid £118k tax pic.twitter.com/xNCUStatMr
Questioned by reporters at a Labour event this morning, Starmer also said that his plans to reverse the chancellor’s lifetime pension allowance (LTA) reforms would not exclude targeting the benefits he received as head of the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Labour leader has been accused of hypocrisy in wanting to block Jeremy Hunt’s plans to relax the tax rules on pensions for the wealthy while he reportedly benefits from a generous “tax-unregistered” scheme from his time as director of public prosecutions (DPP).
But Starmer said he did not want a “tax advantage” from the pension scheme he was involved in before he was elected as an MP, as he committed to putting himself “in the same position as everybody else in this country”.
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Northern Ireland minister: no renegotiating of new Brexit deal
The Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, has told the DUP there can be “no renegotiating” of Rishi Sunak’s new Brexit deal with Brussels, despite the party’s demand for changes.
Following talks with Northern Ireland party leaders, Heaton-Harris confirmed the Windsor framework agreement would be formally adopted by the UK and EU on Friday and would become international law shortly afterwards.
It follows Wednesday’s Commons vote when MPs overwhelmingly backed regulations to implement a key plank of the framework - which covers post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland - by 515 votes to 29.
The DUP, however, opposes the agreement and is refusing to return to power sharing at Stormont unless there are further changes.
Following his meeting with Heaton-Harris at Hillsborough Castle, the Northern Ireland secretary’s official residence, the DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, said it remained no more than a “sticking plaster” solution.
However, Heaton-Harris told reporters that the government was committed to the new arrangements and to making them work with the EU.
“There is no renegotiating of that deal,” he said. “The two sides to those negotiations which have concluded, the UK government and the European Union, are going to make the framework work.”
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English councils spent £480m on ‘inadequate’ care homes
Taxpayers have spent close to half a billion pounds buying beds in the worst care homes in England in the last four years, driving profits for private investors while residents suffer unsafe treatment, a Guardian investigation has revealed.
In what one affected family branded “a robbery of taxpayers’ money” and Labour said was “scandalous”, about £480m is estimated to have been spent on “inadequate” care homes – many rated unsafe and in special measures, meaning they are threatened with closure.
They are often staffed by untrained agency workers ignoring residents’ needs and failing to deliver proper nutrition and medicines in dirty and dangerous properties.
Billions more in public cash has been spent on homes rated “requires improvement”, many operated by chains delivering large returns for overseas shareholders and creditors.
The full story from Robert Booth and Michael Goodier is here
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The Labour party in Leicester has been left reeling after 19 sitting councillors, the majority of them from BAME backgrounds, were deselected by the national committee.
About 40% of Labour’s councillors in the city have been told they cannot stand in May’s election, after Labour figures decided to appoint an NEC board to choose Leicester’s council candidates rather than leave the decision to local members.
A number of deselected councillors have stated they will stand as independent candidates in May’s election, while others are considering defecting to other parties.
Nicola Sturgeon defended her record as first minister of Scotland, in response to repeated challenges by Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, during the last first minister’s questions of her tenure.
She cited helping lift children out of poverty as the achievement she was proudest of. She contrasted it with the approach of the UK government, who she said ‘push children into poverty’.
The SNP leader concluded her final FMQs at Holyrood thanking colleagues, staff, family and the Scottish people
The TV personality Carol Vorderman has said she is “disgusted” at the behaviour of government equalities ministers, whom she accused of ignoring the needs of menopausal women.
Vorderman said she had been blocked by the minister for women Maria Caulfield on Twitter after saying that Caulfield “couldn’t be bothered to turn up” for questions by a select committee examining the menopause.
Vorderman had accused Caulfield of “lying” about providing alternative dates to the women and equalities committee a week earlier. The committee empty-chaired the minister at a session on the menopause on Wednesday after saying she had refused to turn up.
London will not renegotiate any part of its reworked post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland amid calls from the region’s largest unionist party for changes, Britain’s Northern Ireland minister has said.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has said it will not drop a year-long boycott of Northern Ireland’s devolved assembly without “further clarification, re-working and change” to the Windsor Framework agreed by the UK and the EU last month, Reuters reports.
“That deal is done. There is no renegotiating of that deal,” Chris Heaton-Harris told reporters in Belfast after meeting Northern Ireland’s main parties.
“I will always talk to every single member of Northern Irish political parties but the time for negotiation on the Windsor Framework is over.”
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The Scottish Government has also banned TikTok from its mobile phones and other corporate devices following discussions with the UK Government.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “Devices managed by the Scottish Government are configured in line with best practice from the National Cyber Security Centre, which helps us to manage any risk associated with the use of third-party applications.”
TikTok to be banned from UK parliamentary devices
TikTok will be blocked from “all parliamentary devices and the wider parliamentary network”, Parliament has announced, citing the need for cyber security.
The commissions of the House of Commons and House of Lords announced on Thursday they will follow the move taken by the Government on official devices.
A spokesman for Parliament said TikTok “will be blocked from all parliamentary devices and the wider parliamentary network”.
“Cyber security is a top priority for Parliament, however we do not comment on specific details of our cyber or physical security controls, policies or incidents,” the spokesman added.
It follows an announcement last week by Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, who said that following a security review by UK intelligence officials, the app would be banned from the government phones of ministers, advisers and civil servants “with immediate effect”.
A cross-party group of MPs and peers has also asked the information commissioner to investigate whether the Chinese-owned TikTok’s handling of personal information is in breach of UK law.
The moves also come as the chief executive of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, is set to face a grilling from US lawmakers today as the political storm surrounding the China-owned social media platform intensifies with the Biden administration threatening to ban the app entirely in the US.
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Rishi Sunak, then the new MP for Richmond, argued several times during a debate in 2016 that there was important pro-business reasons for a tax cut, without mentioning whether he might benefit from it.
The background is that Britain’s capital gains tax rates were aligned with income tax rates until 1998, when Gordon Brown slashed them as chancellor.
His successor, Alistair Darling, put them back up 10 years later, however, introducing a top rate of 28%. In 2016, the Tory government cut that top rate back down to 20%, arguing it would encourage business investment.
Here is what Sunak said in parliament in 2016:
I am confident that reducing capital gains tax rates – together with a brand new 10% rate for long-term investments in private businesses – will unlock millions in much-needed funding.
From speaking with investors this past week, it is clear that those policies have cut through and generated a fresh wave of enthusiasm for investing in British companies.
A No 10 source said: “The tax return shows that a considerable amount of capital gains tax is being paid.”
Sunak saved £300,000 in tax thanks to cut he supported
Rishi Sunak has saved more than £300,000 in tax thanks to a cut he voted for in 2016, according to an analysis of his tax records.
The prime minister has paid just over £1m in tax over the past three years, most of which was accrued on the gains he has made on his US-based investment portfolio.
But that figure would have been £308,167 higher had the top rate of capital gains tax not been cut by the Conservative government in 2016.
The figures highlight the disparities between Britain’s income tax rates and its relatively low rates of CGT. The prime minister’s overall tax rate for the last three years was 22% – roughly equivalent to what a nurse would pay in income tax.
The full story, from the Guardian’s Kiran Stacey and Jessica Elgot is here :
Loyal savers were being treated as “cash cows” by banks which are slow to pass on higher savings rates, according to a Tory MP who chairs the Treasury Committee.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme, Harriet Baldwin said: “We’ve noticed that since the Bank of England started raising rates, and they are now up to 4.25%, that people who have mortgages on a variable rate, their rate goes up that day.”
“But we’ve also noticed that for savers, the banks have been very slow to raise rates and there are still rates out there for less than 1%.”
Annual council tax bills in England will rise by an average of 5.1% in April, as local authorities warn of cuts to key services due to unprecedented financial pressures.
Government figures released on Thursday show the average bill will be £2,065 in 2023-24, an increase of £99 on the previous year, with 151 of the 153 top-tier councils applying some or all of the maximum 2% precept for social care.
The biggest annual percentage rise will be in London, where bills for an average band D property will increase by 6.2%.
However, the capital’s average bill of £1,789 remains below other areas.
Households in metropolitan areas outside London will see bills rise by 5.1% to an average of £2,059, while largely rural parts of the country will see an increase of 5% to just below £2,140.
Summary
• The Bank of England has raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.25% in response to higher than expected UK inflation and signs that Britain’s economy was holding up better than feared. In a fortnight of heightened unease in global financial markets, the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted by a majority of seven to two to increase the base rate for the 11th time in a row.
• Keir Starmer has vowed to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, setting out one of Labour’s core missions on crime as “unfinished business in my life’s work to deliver justice”. Starmer, whose speech in Stoke-on-Trent launched the second of his five “missions”, said he wanted to “imagine a society where violence against women is stamped out everywhere”.
• Junior doctors in England will strike for four days between 11 and 15 April, the British Medical Association has said. Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors committee, said: “It is with disappointment and great frustration that we must announce this new industrial action.
• The Albanian prime minister has criticised the UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, calling the singling out of migrants from his country a “disgraceful” moment for British politics. Edi Rama, who is in Britain for talks with Rishi Sunak, said Braverman’s comments last year about “Albanian criminals” crossing the Channel in small boats, could themselves be considered a crime.
• Nicola Sturgeon has said being first minister “of the country I love has been a profound honour”. Speaking at her final 286th FMQs, Sturgeon paid tribute to those who lost their lives to Covid-19 and singled out efforts to distribute money to low income families with children as the policy she was most proud of.
Updated
An urgent inquiry is needed into unregulated psychological experts being used in high conflict disputes to diagnose whether one parent has attempted to ‘alienate’ their child from the other, MPs have said.
Opening a debate on family court reform yesterday the MP for Coventry North West, Taiwo Owatemi, said false claims of so-called parental alienation were the “most damning aspect of our family court system”.
There is no one definition of “parental alienation” but the concept is generally understood to mean when a child rejects or is hostile to a parent for no other reason than they have been psychologically manipulated by the other parent.
However, there is growing concern that, too often, false claims of parental alienation are being used as a legal tactic to silence a parent or undermine allegations of domestic abuse.
Owatemi told the debate: “The concept has little to no evidence to support it, but is nonetheless one accepted, resulting in children being placed with an abusive parent.
“Not only are utterly unqualified individuals being allowed to testify as supposed experts in these cases, Cafcass too has overseen the rise in such allegations.”
Updated
The leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) has said the Windsor framework is a “sticking plaster” and that he is looking forward to negotiating with the prime minister and secretary of state.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s party voted against the Stormont brake element of the Windsor framework in the Commons on Wednesday.
“I am not interested in sticking plasters, they don’t work and I’m afraid there is in the Windsor framework an element of the sticking plaster,” Donaldson said.
“It won’t work, it will not deliver the long term stability and prosperity that Northern Ireland.”
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Scottish opposition leaders pay tribute to Sturgeon
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, has followed Sturgeon’s concluding remarks by paying tribute to the precedent-setting political career of “a working class girl from Ayrshire”.
“While the Scottish first minister and I see each other as adversaries more than allies, and probably the final session reiterated that impression, let me add a little balance,” he said.
When Sturgeon leaves office, she will bring to a close a political career that few – if any – can match in its length, added Ross.
She had been a formidable campaigner and no one could deny that Sturgeon has left – “for better or worse” – a mark on her country.
Ross said that he recognised the positive message sent by the fact that a “working class girl from Ayrshire” could reach the heights they dreamed of.
The Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, paid tribute to Sturgeon’s public service over the course of 20 years.
“While we have disagreed about what is best for the people I have never for a moment doubted her love for Scotland,” he said.
Her election as first minister was a sign to women and girls that regardless of their politics, there should be no limit to their ambition.
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Sturgeon: 'treat each other as opponents, not enemies'
Sturgeon’s final comments were addressed to the Scottish people, to whom she said: “Words will never convey the gratitude and the awe I hold in my heart for the opportunity to serve as your first minister.
“It truly has been the privilege of my life time, and with these words presiding officer I draw it to a close,” she said.
Earlier, after thanking the contributions of her political opponents, Sturgeon makes a plea for those around her to “treat each other as opponents, not enemies”.
Updated
Sturgeon says she won’t repeat the reasons why she is stepping down, but adds: “Suffice to say, I know that this is the right time.”
After so many year in politics, it is time for Nicola Sturgeon the politician to make time for Sturgeon the person.
It was also time, she said, to make time for the causes she cared about, mentioning gender equality, young people, climate justice “and always, until the job is done, winning Scottish independence”.
She had made her fair share of mistakes and there were things she had wished she could have done “better and differently” but she pointed to achievements in areas including education, national investment and putting the climate emergency at the heart of all policies.
“As the first woman to hold this office, advancing gender equality has always been close to my heart,” she said.
“No girl has any doubt now that a woman can hold the highest office in the land,” Sturgeon added, with what appeared to be another lump in her throat.
Sturgeon pays tribute to her family and also to her political family, the SNP, which she joined at 16.
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Covid defined my time as Scotland's first minister - Sturgeon
At the conclusion of her 286th and final session of first minister’s questions, Nicola Sturgeon says that she has led Scotland during good times but also through the toughest of its most recent history. Covid in many ways defined her time in power, she told the Scottish parliament
“My thoughts today and always are with those who lost loved ones to Covid, with those who live with long covid, with our young people who lost out on so many of the experiences of growing up and with everyone who endured the trauma of separation and loneliness,” she says.
“Covid shaped all of us. I know that it changed me and many ways defined my time as first minister. Above all it reinforced in me an abiding admiration for the people of this wonderful country.”
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Sturgeon cites tackling child poverty as source of most pride
Helping to lift children out of poverty is the thing that she is most proud of, Nicola Sturgeon has said at her final first minister’s questions.
The SNP leader was speaking after she was teed up by a question from one of her backbench colleagues, who cited a new analysis which found that the lowest income families in Scotland were significantly better off (around £2,000 on average) as a result of the Scottish government’s tax policies.
Sturgeon starts by going on the attack, saying it is “really obvious” how uncomfortable the Conservatives become in the Scottish parliament chamber when the topic of poverty comes up.
She goes on to quote from findings by the Scottish Institute for Fiscal Studies that the Scottish government have made clearly a distributional choice to channel a lot more money towards low income families with children in particular and that has a meaningful impact on incomes.
“If I had to single out the thing I was proudest of it is that – helping lift children out of poverty in marked contrast to the approach of the UK government’s welfare system, where they push children into poverty. That is the difference, that is the contrast,” Sturgeon continues.
Updated
Downing Street has dampened any hopes the Democratic Unionist party might have that talks on Rishi Sunak’s new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland can be reopened.
The prime minister’s spokesperson said: “We’ve said consistently that we think we have an agreement that is right for all parties and all peoples in Northern Ireland.
“We gave significant time to parties to consider it and obviously we stand ready to answer further questions, but equally we do need to provide certainty and start seeing some of the benefits that this framework will bring.”
The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, is due to meet the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič to adopt the Windsor framework in London on Friday.
Sunak yesterday escaped an overly damaging Commons rebellion over his revised plan for post-Brexit Northern Ireland trade, winning a vote on the measure with 22 of his own MPs voting against the deal.
Among the Conservative rebels were Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, another former party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, and the former cabinet ministers Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel and Simon Clarke.
Updated
Bank of England raises interest rate by quarter of percentage point
The Bank of England has raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.25% in response to higher than expected UK inflation.
The Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted to increase the base rate for an 11th consecutive time, judging that higher borrowing costs are still required to tackle inflation despite gathering storm clouds for the economy.
UK rates are now at the highest level since October 2008, just as the global economy was in the grips of the financial crisis.
The development comes after the UK’s annual inflation rate unexpectedly rose in February to 10.4% from 10.1% in January, fuelled by soaring food prices.
Follow related developments in detail on our live blog, anchored by my colleague Graeme Wearden.
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Proceedings in the Scottish parliament have been suspended amid the sound of shouting from the public gallery.
Nicola Sturgeon says she has every confidence her successor will continue to lead Scotland to becoming an independent nation.
The SNP fought three general elections with her as SNP leader and the SNP won every one of them, she says in reply to questions from the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, about her record in governmment.
It’s all quite partisan and the questions and answers are being delivered on both sides with force.
However there was a fleeting moment jus now when Sturgeon appeared to have a lump in her throat as she said that today was also one on which she was thinking of those who had died of Covid-19.
“I will have them in my mind and in my heart for as long as I live,” she said.
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Sturgeon defends record at final first minister's questions
Nicola Sturgeon’s final FMQs have started off in a bad-tempered way with both she and the Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, trading barbs.
While Ross presses her on the controversy around SNP membership figures, which las led to resignations at a high level in her party and threatened to overshadow its leadership race, she replies: “On this my last appearance here, Douglas Ross is not asking me about the NHS, or education or economy or climate justice, but this is the topic he has chosen ... party membership figures.”
Ross also attacks Sturgeon on her past record, singling out Scottish drug deaths – the highest in Europe – as well as the gender recognition bill. The SNP leader had failed Scottish voters due to her “obsession with Scottish independence”.
“She divided our country and failed on every other mission,” he adds.
Sturgeon replies that she does not care for the verdict of Ross on her record.
“Eight election victories in eight years, that is the verdict that matters to me,” she says, listing various Scottish government policies and actions.
They included, in her words: “Closing the attainment gap, leading the way on climate change, abolishing prescription charges, the best performing accident and emergency departments anywhere in the UK, free period products, expanded and doubled childcare.”
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon starts her FMQs by wishing Ramadan mubarak to muslims in Scotland and in her constituency.
She then turns to the first question, from Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross, who presses her on the issue of SNP membership.
Sturgeon refers to her previous statements on this. She has denied that she knew SNP membership dropped more than 30,000 in the past two years. Sturgeon asks Ross how many members the Conservative party has in Scotland.
“Nicola Sturgeon is treating the Scottish public like idiots with this embarrassing defence,” says Ross, who is reprimanded by the speaker.
He presses on “Everyone has accepted that the SNP has lied over these figures.”
The chief executive of the Scottish National party resigned earlier this month with immediate effect as an escalating row over party membership figures engulfs the party’s senior echelons, prompting demands for an overhaul of how it carries out its internal business.
Peter Murrell, who has been chief executive since 2000 and married Nicola Sturgeon in 2010, said he had planned to step down after the leadership contest to replace his wife had concluded, but was doing so now because “my future has become a distraction from the campaign”.
Junior doctors in England to strike April 11 -15
Junior doctors in England will strike for four days between April 11 and 15, the British Medical Association has said.
Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairmen of the BMA junior doctor committee, said: “It is with disappointment and great frustration that we must announce this new industrial action.”
“The government has dragged its feet at every opportunity. It has not presented any credible offer and is refusing to accept that there is any case for pay restoration, describing our central ask as ‘unrealistic’ and ‘unreasonable’.”
“Even yesterday they continued to add new unacceptable preconditions to talks instead of getting on and trying to find a resolution. We therefore have no confidence that without further action these negotiations can be successful.”
Updated
The SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, is preparing to have her final session of first minister’s questions (FMQs) at Holyrood.
She chaired a meeting of the Scottish government’s cabinet earlier for the final time as first minister.
She told those gathered around her that “lots of really important things” had been achieved by them.
Humza Yousaf, who is identified in a poll today as the frontrunner among SNP members (but not the public) to replace Sturgeon, is currently taking questions in his brief as cabinet secretary for health and social care.
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Key event
Keir Starmer has vowed to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, setting out one of Labour’s core missions on crime as “unfinished business in my life’s work to deliver justice”.
Starmer’s speech in Stoke-on-Trent launching the second of his five “missions” said he wanted to “imagine a society where violence against women is stamped out everywhere”.
But he said complacency and austerity had led to plunging confidence in the police, saying “crime becomes decriminalised” when there is no one to follow up reports.
The Labour leader said he would set out four key targets on crime for Labour in government, which were to:
Restore public confidence in the police and criminal justice system to its highest ever level.
Halve knife crime incidents, including with an enhanced police presence outside schools.
Drastically improve statistics for the proportion of crimes solved by the police.
Drive down violence against women and improve conviction rates.
Kate Forbes heads SNP candidates among public – poll
Kate Forbes is viewed more favourably by the general public but Humza Yousaf is most popular among SNP voters, a new poll has suggested as the two vie for the party’s leadership.
With just days left in the contest to succeed Nicola Sturgeon in Bute House, Ipsos Scotland released a survey of 1,023 Scots carried out between March 17 and 21 – 427 of whom voted for the SNP at the last Holyrood election.
According to the poll, Yousaf is the most popular among SNP voters, with a net favourability of 11%, compared to 6% for his rival.
But Forbes can lay claim to the highest net popularity among the general public with -8%, compared with the Scottish health secretary’s -20%.
Former minister Ash Regan polled the worst of the three candidates.
Updated
Starmer was asked at the end about Labour’s position on Scotland’s gender recognition bill, which proposed to introduce a self-declaration system for people who want to change gender.
“If we reflect on what’s happened in Scotland, the lesson I take from that is if you are going to make reforms you have to carry the public with you,” he replied.
“And it’s clear why in Scotland there should be a reset.”
Labour’s UK and Scottish leadership moved in January to defuse conflicts over their approach to Holyrood’s gender recognition bill and Westminster government moves to block it, as individual MSPs call for Westminster colleagues to respect Holyrood’s work on transgender rights reform.
There was one more question and then the event was wrapped up.
You can view the speech here
Updated
There are too many examples where a perpetrator has not faced justice, or has not faced full justice because they have not been named after their arrest, Starmer says, in relation to the question of police naming suspects who have been charged.
He was asked about it by the Guardian’s Jess Elgot amid a focus on proposed changes to the College of Policing’s media relations guidance, which state forces across England and Wales no longer “should” name those charged with crimes including indecent exposure, domestic violence or child sexual abuse, instead advising that individuals “can be named”.
The new guidance says that suspects are named only “where the crime is of a serious nature such as rape or murder” or where an incident has already been reported in the media or on social media sites.
“It’ll be a judgment call. It will be very difficult,” says Starmer, who says he does not agree with a blanket ban. There should be flexibility.
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Starmer is asked by Jess Elgot from the Guardian if he would be confident that someone he loved would get the best possible recourse to justice if they were assaulted in London and it as reported to the police.
Baroness Casey said “no.” Does Starmer agree?
He replies: “Nobody reading the Casey report would be other than concerned about what is illuminated in her report. But I do get asked: would I advise my friends .. to go to the Met Police if something happened.”
“And the answer is ‘yes I would.’ Absolutely. And I think it’s important that I say that. There are very good officers in the Met and I would want my children and friends to go forward and report without any ambiguity at all.”
Are prosecutors willing to take on enough cases and should they try to prosecute more rapists?
The answer is “yes.” He wants to drive up those rates.
Starmer says he wants to see the charge rates go up when it come to violence against women and girls and was shocked at figures.
“If cannot be right that over 98% of rapists are never put before a court. I don’t care what else the government says but that is a shameful record.”
Starmer: Northern Ireland scale change needed with Met police
Keir Starmer has said that “something on the scale of what happened in Northern Ireland” is needed at the Metropolitan Police.
The Labour leader was being asked if there were any circumstances in which he would overhaul the Metropolitan Police.
Starmer said he thinks it was an issue about behaviour change, cultural change and leadership, referring again to his involvement in Northern Ireland.
“Something on the scale of what happened in Northern Ireland is what is needed at the Met,” added Starmer.
In 2001 the RUC was replaced by the PSNI as part of a programme to recruit more Catholics into the police in Northern Ireland. By 2012, catholics comprised 30% of the PSNI.
Updated
Will Labour commit to banning school exclusions?
Starmer says he has been looking at it for a very long time and says that significant indicators of young people ending up in prison include difficulties at primary school and being excluded.
Better support for mental health provision is particularly important, he says.
He’s finally used the “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” by the way.
Would he give the police a pay rise and would he put police on school gates?
Starmer says retention is a very serious issue and why Baroness Casey’s findings are so important. Anything on public sector pay would be fully costed.
But he says one would be “hard pressed” to argue that the examples of horrendous behaviour in the Casey report are anything to do with pay.
Turning to the issue of knife crime and schools, he says “more work” needs to be done around schools, referring to Labour’s policies around putting more officers on the streets and making it hard for young people to purchase knives online.
Starmer to publish tax returns today
Starmer is taking questions now. He is asked if he is going to publish his own tax returns and what he makes of the rate at which Rishi Sunak is taxed.
Now that the prime minister has published his returns, Starmer hopes to publish his tax returns later today and says it will be quite straightforward
“Others” will analyse Sunak’s returns, he adds, declining a chance to criticise the rate.
There’s a section on misogyny, which involves criticism from Starmer of social media companies.
Smart legislation is about making the criminal exploitation of children illegal, “and standing up to the big tech companies.”
“Seriously - how can we ignore the fact a child can go onto the internet and buy a machete as easily as a football?!” he asks.
It’s exactly the same with the social media algorithms that bombard young minds with misogyny. Both are social evils; both an example of where greed comes above good. So my message to the big tech companies is this - the free ride is over.”
“If you make money from the sale of weapons, or the radicalisation of people online, then we will find ways to make you accountable.”
Starmer turns to the issue of confidence in the police. And while he doesn’t actually say “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” this could almost be a New Labour leadership speech from the mid 1990s.
“Visible neighbourhood policing. We need reform to get more police on the beat - fighting the virus that is anti-social behaviour,” he says to applause.
“Fly-tipping, off-road biking in rural communities, drugs… Some people call this low-level - I don’t want to hear those words.”
“If you want to commit vandalism or dump your rubbish on our streets, then you’d better be prepared to clean up your own mess. Because with Labour in power- that is exactly what you will be doing. Cleaner streets are safer streets.”
Starmer turns now to some of the other Labour policies that have already been announced.
They include plans to put specialist domestic abuse workers in the control rooms of every police force responding to 999 calls, supporting victims of abuse and creating a specialist rape unit in every police force.
“In 2014 I spent nine months with Doreen Lawrence taking evidence and testimony from victims. In 2016 I wrote a Private Members Victims Bill that had cross-party support.
The only reason it’s not on the statute book is that we don’t have a government capable of looking this problem in the eye.”
Starmer says policing by consent model is 'hanging by a thread' and says service must change
The horror of what we saw this week with the Metropolitan Police cannot be understated, says Starmer, who adds: “Our policing by consent model - a precious model - is now hanging by a thread.”
Austerity had “a pernicious effect,” he says, telling those around him that the next Labour government will modernise policing.
Starmer recalls his own involve in police reform in Northern Ireland, repeating and expanding on a line he used this week:
“Policing must change: must start thinking of itself as a public service, must stand with communities, not above them, and respect their values.”
Because if we can get Catholics to serve in Northern Ireland, integrate nationalist communities there into policing, then there can be no justification for any special pleading from the Met in London, or any police force.”
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Labour will make Britain’s streets safe, says Starmer, as he reiterates the “four clear, measurable goals” around crime which his party has already set out
“One, as I announced on Tuesday, we will restore confidence in every police force to its highest ever level.
Two - we will halve incidents of knife crime.
Three - we will reverse the collapse in the proportion of crime solved.
And four - by solving more crime, by reducing the number of victims who drop out of the justice system, we will halve the levels of violence against women and girls.”
The Tories don’t understand and are out of touch with modern Britain, says Starmer, in what is an increasingly class-based speech.
“I grew up working class in a small town, I know how important it is to feel safe in your community,” says the Labour leader.
“If you don’t have a big house and garden, the streets are where your kids play, your community is your family, your neighbours - your eyes and ears. You have to feel a sense of trust, of confidence, of security… It’s what gives you roots. “
Keir Starmer calls No 10 pandemic parties 'reprehensible' and accuses Boris Johnson of 'total disrespect for national sacrifice'
Starmer aims his fire at the Tories, saying he found the lockdown parties at Downing Street “reprehensible” and using yesterday’s grilling of Boris Johnson as a way to hit back at Tory opponents’ fondness for using his background as a human rights lawyer as a stick to beat him with.
Recalling his legal background, he says of those he took on: “I prosecuted them all and I’m proud of that. One rule for all.
“That’s why I found the pandemic parties in Downing Street under Boris Johnson so reprehensible. The circus of the last few days - a reminder of his total disrespect for a national sacrifice. That’s why I said I’d resign, if I’d broken those same rules.
“I just couldn’t have looked the British people in the eye and asked for their trust. These values are too important to me. The core of my politics today, so if the Tories want to attack me for being a human rights lawyer, attack the values I’ve stood up for my whole life, I say: fine.”
“That only shows how far they’ve fallen, and how little they understand working people.
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Keir Starmer says this is the launch of Labour’s second “national mission." This is “to make our streets safe and stop criminals getting away without punishment.”
“Nothing is more fundamental than the rule of law,” he says.
Starmer then goes to on to say something which is almost sacrilegious to many in his party – agreeing with Margaret Thatcher.
“Margaret Thatcher called it he first duty of government and she was right about that,” he says, referring to the question of rule of law.
Keir Starmer is about to deliver a major speech on crime, in which will set out Labour priorities, including a pledge to halve levels of violence against woman and girls within 10 years of taking office.
He is also expected will also pledge to halve serious violent crime and raise confidence in the police and criminal justice system following Baroness Casey’s damning report into the Metropolitan Police.
The Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is at the podium first in Stoke-on-Trent, where she has accused the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, of shrugging her shoulders and offering no response.
Starmer has just taken the stage. Cue obligatory mention of an Arsenal away match.
Shad home sec Yvette Cooper speaking first in Stoke today to set out Labour’s ‘mission’ on crime… pic.twitter.com/QEUI52AyB3
— Liz Bates (@wizbates) March 23, 2023
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The mayor of London and a Tory MP have teamed up to fight “climate delayers” who are trying to thwart green policies.
Chris Skidmore, the Tory net zero tsar, and Labour mayor Sadiq Khan today write in the Guardian that they are putting party politics aside to defeat those politicians who are trying to delay climate action.
Skidmore, MP for Kingswood, began locking horns with his colleagues in 2021 after the Guardian exposed links between net zero-sceptic Tory MPs and a climate denying thinktank. After reading the coverage, he decided to set up a net zero support group of MPs and fight to keep climate action on the agenda.
Khan has faced similar issues in London, and says a group of climate deniers and conspiracy theorists has piggybacked on genuine cost of living concerns about expanding the Ulez charges for polluting vehicles to greater London.
Today, they write: “Neither of us are under any illusion that achieving our goals will be easy. The same old naysayers in politics and punditry may have stopped overtly questioning the science of climate change, but they remain hostile to the actual action needed to prevent it destroying our world. They are becoming classic climate delayers.”
Albanian PM attacks 'disgraceful' way migrants from his country singled out by Suella Braverman
The Albanian prime minister Edi Rama has described the way in which migrants from his country have been singled out for political purposes in the UK by Suella Braverman and other ministers as “a very, very disgraceful moment for British politics”.
Rama, who is in Britain for talks with Rishi Sunak, said it is essential that relations between the two countries are not defined by a few “rotten apples”.
“Unfortunately we have seen ourselves and our community being singled out in this country for purposes of politics. It has been a very, very disgraceful moment for British politics,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, as reported by PA Media.
Rama said however that he believes Sunak has set relations on a new path towards co-operating on issues that concern them both. “On the other hand I am very satisfied with your prime minister,” he said.
“We have set up a clear path towards tackling together whatever has to be excluded from our relations and from our world of law and justice but at the same time making sure that some rotten apples do not define the Albanian community here and our relations.”
Rama again hit out over comments by the home secretary Braverman last year about “Albanian criminals” crossing the Channel in small boats.
Ahead of talks in London with Sunak, Rama said giving crime an “ethnic seal” was “itself a crime”.
“I mean what has been spoke out by members of the cabinet, starting with the home secretary and then I mean what exactly has been developing as the singling out of our community which is not something you do in our our civilisation and is something that does not represent Britain at all,” he said.
“This has been a very low point in our relations but there is a will to overcome it.
“We will always refuse to have this mix between some criminals and the Albanians as such because giving to the crime an ethnic seal is itself a crime.”
A tax lawyer, Dan Neidle, has been quizzed on Sky News about the Prime Minister benefiting from capital gains being taxed at a lower rate than income in the UK.
Asked on why Rishi Sunak’s tax return suggested he paid an effective tax rate of 22% across three years, Neidle told Sky News: “It is not because he has done anything clever or because he is avoiding tax.
He said:
It is because in this country we tax employment income at up to 47% but capital gains on investments at only 20%.
That is why his effective rate is so low.
Whether that is a fair result, whether the law should be like that is a very good question.
And weirdly Mr Sunak, who benefits from that low rate, is also the man who has the power to change it.
Keir Starmer to reveal tax returns today or tomorrow
The Huffington Post has an exclusive this morning, showing that Keir Starmer will release his tax returns in the next 24 hours.
The story says:
The move comes after it emerged Rishi Sunak earned nearly £5 million in the last three years.
Starmer said in January that he would also disclose how much he earns and the tax he pays. It is understood he could do so as soon as today, although it may be tomorrow.
Sunak became the first prime minister since David Cameron to release his tax returns.
They showed that he paid HMRC just over £1 million between 2019 and 2022.
Tax returns dating back to Sunak’s time as chancellor show that between 2019/20 and 2021/22, he received £1,006,374 in income, plus £3,760,588 in capital gains - a total of £4,766,962.
On that, he paid income tax and capital gains tax totalling £1,053,060.
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Summary
Good morning,
Today there’s one thing everyone is talking about in Westminster: is this the death knell for Boris Johnson’s political career?
His face this morning is splashed across the newspaper front pages, where he is variously described as “agile”, “defiant” and “rattled”.
Johnson appeared before the privileges committee to defend attending parties as an essential pandemic activity, in the hope that MPs might agree that he did not mislead parliament.
The Times notes that in his Uxbridge constituency, a suspension of “10 days or more would make a byelection … almost inevitable”. Meanwhile the Telegraph’s associate editor writes: “The cults of Boris and Brexit are simultaneously imploding.”
The Tory peer Lord Hayward told Sky News this morning that a byelection “would cause serious problems”, and was something the party “doesn’t want” as it would probably lose the constituency.
A former minister told the Guardian: “Before today, I thought there was a rump of 60-70 supporters in the party who could resurrect Boris. Now I’d put that number at about 25.”
Yet Politico quotes a member of his team as saying: “It went very well for Boris and he and his team are very satisfied with the performance. He was robust, accurate and put his case excellently. He was precise on the detail. We are very confident, given the strength of the evidence.”
The other key topic this morning is the prime minister, Rishi Sunak’s tax documents, which showed that in total he paid just over £1m in UK tax over the course of three years, giving him an effective tax rate of 22%. The Labour deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said that was less than most ordinary working people pay.
On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, was asked whether Labour was committed to equalising capital gains tax with income tax. She said:
I think really the point we’re making is that there has been a pattern here from the Conservatives of, when times are tough for everybody else, actually making it easier for those on the highest incomes rather than saying well, those with the broadest shoulders should not just pay their fair share but should pay more.
That’s not the right approach for people across the country. We want to support people through a cost-of-living crisis and make sure that our economy grows.
While there will be plenty more reaction to Johnson’s appearance today, here’s the schedule in parliament:
House of Commons:
0930 Business and trade questions
1030 Urgent questions/statements
A statement from the business, energy and industrial strategy committee report on a memorandum of understanding on scrutiny of the Investment Security Unit
Backbench business debates on (i) World Down Syndrome Day (ii) Tackling the energy trilemma
An adjournment debate on protection of heritage assets in London
Westminster Hall
1330 Whistleblowing Awareness Week
1500 Support for women in poverty
House of Lords
1100 Oral questions
1140 Strikes (minimum service levels) bill – committee stage (day two)
Thanks for following today – as always, do get in touch if we’ve missed anything.
Updated
Guardian senior reporter Alexandra Topping has been listening in to the morning broadcast rounds. Here’s her report on the appearance of the Tory peer Lord Hayward on Sky News:
The Conservatives risk losing Boris Johnson’s seat if the former prime minister is suspended for recklessly misleading parliament by MPs investigating the Partygate scandal, according to a pollster.
Johnson could face a byelection if he is found to be in contempt of parliament and is suspended for 10 days or more.
Hayward said a byelection in Uxbridge and South Ruislip could “cause serious problems” for the Conservatives.
On Wednesday MPs investigating the Partygate scandal denounced Johnson’s “flimsy” explanations and suggested he had wrongly interpreted Covid guidance. Johnson repeatedly claimed No 10 parties, with alcohol and little social distancing, had been “necessary” for work purposes.
Hayward told Sky News that the Conservatives “did not want” a byelection.
My guess is that if there were a byelection, certainly on current polls, we would lose the constituency and therefore it’s something that is there but we can’t prejudge what the committee will decide.
Asked about Johnson’s popularity with Tory members, Hayward said that his popularity and influence was diminishing “the longer that Rishi Sunak is prime minister”.
Johnson’s appearance in front of Wednesday’s privileges committee session distracted from Sunak’s message of “competence and managerial expertise”.
He added: “Every time this issue comes back, people are reminded of the chaos that there was in the Tory party last year.”
Hayward said a Labour victory at the next election was “becoming less certain”.
The pollster told Sky News the “mood has changed” in the Conservative party after Rishi Sunak’s handling of Brexit and the outcome of the budget.
You could talk to Tory MPs, they were [saying], ‘We’re going to lose, I’m going to lose my seat, it is a disaster.’ Labour were virtually measuring up for the curtains. But the atmosphere has changed. There is a degree of uncertainty.
After saying he had spoken to a Liberal Democrat who had bet on there being no overall majority after the next election, he was asked whether that was a good bet to make.
He replied:
I think it is risky still. The likelihood is that you would expect Labour to win the next election, but I think the prospects of that are becoming less certain.
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