Early evening summary
- The Metropolitan police has revealed that it is widening its investigation into Partygate. It said that more than 100 people have now been sent questionnaires about the No 10 parties that are thought to have breached lockdown rules, but that so far no fines have been issued - implying no one has yet voluntarily admitted to having broken the law. (See 4.51pm.)
That’s all from me for today. But our Ukraine coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.
In response to Louise Haigh in the Commons, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said he had not seen the memo that she quoted. (See 5.41pm.) He said he first heard about the P&O Ferries plan at 8.30pm the night before it was announced.
He said the company could face criminal prosecution. He told MPs:
It’s been quite clear that it’s been handled by the company absolutely disastrously, which is why we’ve asked the Insolvency Service to look at the notification requirements and consider if further action is appropriate - especially if, as we’re concerned, the relevant notice periods weren’t given, the relative consultation didn’t take place, and I can inform the house that that would be a matter for criminal prosecution and unlimited fines as well.
For our part we’re reviewing all government contracts with P&O Ferries as a matter of urgency and with DP World and, where possible, we’re looking to use other providers if indeed there are any contracts where the UK government is involved; I believe at this point that they have been historic in nature rather than current.
He also said, if the company is replacing British workers with cheaper foreigners, as unions have said it is, it should giving its vessels British names. He said:
To have a ship called the Pride Of Britain or Pride Of Kent or any other names which seem to attach themselves to this country, without having British workers, I think would be completely wrong, and I’ll be calling on P&O to change the name of the ships. I think it’d be completely inappropriate.
Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who sits on the foreign affairs committee, has just told Sky News that, during the committee’s hearing this afternoon with Sir Philip Barton, the head of the Foreign Office, and Nigel Casey, the special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, he came to the conclusion that Barton and Casey both believe Boris Johnson was the person who decided that the Nowzad animal charity staff should be evacuated from Afghanistan. But Bryant claimed that neither of them were willing to say that, because by doing so they would be calling the prime minister a liar.
Bryant did put this theory to Barton and Casey during the hearing, but they rejected his claim.
In the Commons debate on the sacking of 800 workers by P&O Ferries last week, Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, said that a memo circulating in Whitehall before the sackings were announced showed the government knew what was planned. She said:
We now know the government had the opportunity to stop this before it happened. They knew before the workers themselves what P&O had planned. Because I can inform the house that I’ve come into possession of a memo that was circulated to the transport secretary, his private office and, we are told, 10 Downing Street.
This memo was no vague outline, it was the game plan of P&O and I can reveal to the House it not only makes clear that the government was made aware that 800 seafarers were to be sacked, it explicitly endorses the thuggish fire and rehire tactics that P&O had clearly discussed with the department ahead of Thursday.
There is no indication, nothing in this memo at all that expresses any concern, any opposition, raises any alarm about the sacking of 800 loyal British workers. This is the clearest proof that the government’s first instinct was to do absolutely nothing.
Haigh said the government should take action against the company for breaking e employment law.
Photograph: May James/Reuters
Johnson to meet European council president Charles Michel to discuss Northern Ireland protocol, says No 10
European Council president Charles Michel has agreed to meet with Boris Johnson to discuss issues surrounding the Northern Ireland Protocol, PA Media reports. In a call this afternoon, Johnson told Michel that solutions must be found in order to “protect peace and stability” and “safeguard the Belfast (Good Friday) agreement in all its dimensions”, a Downing Street spokesperson said.
And this is from my colleague Aubrey Allegretti on another disclosure from the foreign affairs committee hearing.
Labour MP and former minister Liam Byrne asks: So it is possible that No 10 did input into the National Security Adviser taking the decision?
— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) March 21, 2022
Barton: "I don't know."
UPDATE: Here is the full quote, from PA Media.
Nigel Casey, the prime minister’s special representative for Afghanistan, said he still does not know who authorised the evacuation of staff from an animal charity from Kabul.
Addressing who authorised the call forward for Nowzad staff for evacuation, he told the Commons foreign affairs committee: “As it turns out there was a very good reason why none of us could remember that, and that’s because we had not been told at the time and we haven’t been since.”
Updated
Back at the foreign affairs committee, Sir Philip Barton, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, is being asked if Josie Stewart, the Foreign Office civil servant who has submitted a memo to the committee accusing him of lying (see 11.36am), will be suspended. He refuses to say, arguing that he cannot comment on disciplinary matters like this. But he claims that procedures are in place that can protect whistleblowers.
Alistair Burt, the former Conservative Middle East minister, has also urged the Commons foreign affairs committee to investigate the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case, my colleague Patrick Wintour reports. Burt says he was in favour of the £400m debt owed to Iran being paid but that, even thought he was in government, he could not find out who was blocking payment.
Ex middle east minister Alistair Burt has written to the foreign affairs select committee asking them to hold an inquiry into why £400m debt to Iran was not paid. Says he repeatedly advocated payment as minister, knowing it was "fundamental" to the release of dual nationals.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) March 21, 2022
Asks what changed that made payment possible now after so many years and admits even in office 2017-2019 he was unable to locate the individual, the department or the country resisting payment. Says "it's time we knew".
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) March 21, 2022
Insists payment was not a ransom, but a debt. Quite extraordinary that the minister that had to defend govt policy on non payment of the debt could not find out the source of blockage. At times it seemed to him as if FS Def Sect and PM wanted to pay, but nothing happened.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) March 21, 2022
Know @TomTugenhadt committee got lot on, but genuine public policy issues arise. It is about where power lies in the modern British state.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) March 21, 2022
This is from Danny Shaw, the former BBC home affairs correspondent, on the significance of the Met statement on Partygate.
Latest on #partygate
— Danny Shaw (@DannyShawNews) March 21, 2022
Most significant is that police are “interviewing key witnesses”.
Questionnaires are not enough to get to the bottom of what happened.
UPDATE: Investigation into alleged Covid breaches in Westminster | Metropolitan Police https://t.co/RodIXdR3Sj
What latest Met statement tells us about state of investigation into Partygate
Here are the main things we have learned about the Met’s Partgate inquiry from the statement issued this afternoon.
- More than 100 people have been sent questionnaires by the police about their alleged involvement in lockdown-busting parties at No 10 or elsewhere in Whitehall. That is the first time the police have given this figure. At first it was reported that around 50 people were going to get questionnaires. This means the Met think potential rule-breaking may have gone further than at first assumed.
- The investigation is widening, the Met says. It says:
As a result of responses [to the questionnaire] so far, further individuals have been identified and questionnaires sent to them. As the investigation continues, we may need to contact more people as further information comes to light.
This means people who may have thought they were at no risk of being accused of breaking lockdown rules are being implicated - because colleagues are naming them. Perhaps it is not surprising that, when accused of committing an offence, people might be saying: ‘I was sure it was fine, because these 20 other people were there too.’
- The police will start interviewing people in person - but as witneses. The questionnaires are equivalent to police interviews, but an in-person interview might be more intimidating. From a No 10 PR point of view, having Boris Johnson being interviewed by an officer taking notes would look worse than just having him reply to a questionnaire. But the Met statement says specifically people will be interviewed “as witnesses”. That implies they will not be interviewed as suspects.
- The Met has implied that this investigation is particularly complicated. It says:
This investigation involves a significant amount of investigative material; the serving of over 100 questionnaires and the need to individually assess every response. The offences under consideration comprise a number of elements and the legislation itself changed between the event dates. We are progressing the investigation as quickly as possible.
- The Met has not yet obtained enough evidence to justify imposing a fixed-penalty notice on anyone, it suggests. It says:
As yet, we have not made any referrals to the ACRO Criminal Records Office for the issuing of fixed penalty notices. However, every questionnaire response is being assessed alongside all available evidence, and should this reach the evidential threshold, then referrals will be made.
This suggests that, of the more than 100 people who have been sent a questionnaire, not one person has written back admitting to haven broken the rules.
It also may imply that the police are having difficulty reaching the “evidential threshold”. When the senior civil servant Sue Gray published her first report on Partygate (or “update” as she called it, in recognition of the fact that she was not able to publish enough information to constitute a proper account), she implied the evidence submitted to the police was relatively damning. She said she had found “extensive substantive factual information” which she had passed to police and that it showed there was a “serious failure” to observe the standards expected of the entire population during lockdown. The police later revealed that they had received more than 300 photographs and 500 pages of documents from her. But, if there have been no fines issued yet, then the “evidential threshold” has not yet been reached. Perhaps that is because the evidence is still be assessed. Or perhaps it is because the “evidential threshold” for a fine is deemed to be higher than generally thought.
Updated
Here is my colleague Rowena Mason’s story about the Met announcement.
And these are from ITV’s Paul Brand on the Met announcement.
BREAKING: The Met Police have issued an update on their partygate investigation, saying they have now begun interviewing people on top of the 100 questionnaires sent out.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) March 21, 2022
In significant escalation of the investigation, Met says "key witnesses" have been questioned by officers.
Met's investigation has now taken two months, but no sign of it concluding anytime soon. Met stresses complexity of cross-referencing questionnaires and says as yet, it has not made any referrals to the ACRO Criminal Records Office for the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) March 21, 2022
Met police say they are now interviewing key witnesses about Partygate
This is from the Mirror’s Pippa Crerar.
BREAKING: The Met Police have issued a statement saying they have now started interviewing "key witnesses" in the Partygate inquiry. This is in addition to 100 questionnaires already sent out.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) March 21, 2022
Updated
At the committee Barton is now addressing claims that he and his colleague, Nigel Casey, the special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, misled the committee with previous answers about this.
Barton says that it has taken the Foreign Office longer than usual to get to the bottom of what happened.
He says the national security adviser told the Foreign Office at one point that Nowzad staff had been approved for evacuation. He says a Foreign Office official later assumed that that meant the order had come from the PM. That was understandable because of the “voices in the media” saying the PM was involved, he says.
UPDATE: Barton told the committee:
Having seen the defence secretary’s statement overnight, FCDO officials sought rapid confirmation from the Cabinet Office, Ministry of Defence and Home Office, that same morning, that Nowzad staff should be called forward for military evacuation.
Later that morning the national security adviser confirmed to a senior FCDO official by telephone that we should proceed to call forward Nowzad staff, that senior official in turn passed that message on by email to the head of the team dealing with Lotr (leave outside the rules) cases.
Their email said following my meeting with Stephen Lovegrove, MoD and Home Office, Stephen has now reverted to ask us to call forward Nowzad staff, the message did not say who had made the decision, only that it was confirmed and we should implement it ..
The head of the team dealing with Lotr cases in turn communicated the decision to his team, we know that in doing so he presented that as a decision made by the prime minister.
This was an assumption he made based on the fact it had come from the national security adviser which was understandable given the many voices in the media at the time claiming that the prime minister had made the decision.
Updated
The foreign affairs committee has just started taking evidence from Sir Philip Barton, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, about the latest claims from a whisteblower about No 10 being involved in the decision to approve the evacuation of the Nowzad animal charity staff from Kabul last summer. (See 11.36am.)
Tom Tugendhat, the committee chair, set the tone with his first question, asking Barton if he felt he had a duty to give full and accurate answers to questions from parliamentarians.
Barton said he did.
Updated
A reader BTL (below the line) has asked what No 10 had to say at the morning lobby briefing about Boris Johnson’s Ukraine/Brexit comparision. (See 9.30am.) They took the Rishi Sunak line. The PM’s spokesperson said:
As the prime minister’s speech made clear, there was not a direct comparison made between fighting in Ukraine.
As the chancellor said, they are not directly analogous. He was making observations about people’s desire for freedom.
It is worth noting that the Ukrainian ambassador was in the audience at the time and gave a standing ovation at the end of the speech, and he tweeted his thanks to the prime minister.
Starmer says all of UK should ban smacking children - like Wales and Scotland
Keir Starmer has called on other areas of the UK to follow Wales in banning the smacking of children.
The Labour government in Wales passed a ban on smacking two years ago, and it has become law today. Speaking during a visit to Stevenage, Starmer said the move was “welcome”. He went on:
What it does is give children the protection that adults already have, and that is the right thing.
I would like to see the rest of the UK step into line here, because I think Welsh Labour have taken a lead here and they’re absolutely right to protect children in the way that they now have.
A similar ban is already in force in Scotland.
Updated
Boris Johnson has reaffirmed his commitment to speeding up the construction of new nuclear power plants in the UK. After his roundtable meeting with nuclear industry leaders, No 10 released a readout of the event saying:
The prime minister made clear the vision for nuclear to be a major part of the UK’s future energy system as a clean, reliable and safe energy source. He set out this government’s commitment to supporting the industry to develop a thriving pipeline of future nuclear projects in the UK in a cost-effective way.
Industry representatives set out the various technologies and projects they are developing, from larger nuclear power plants to small modular reactors, capitalising on both British and international expertise.
The prime minister invited views on how the UK can accelerate rapid progress on securing new nuclear capacity. They discussed the benefits of scaling up investment and removing barriers facing development, agreeing to work together to help projects become operational more quickly and cheaply.
Downing Street also said that Johnson would publish the government’s energy security strategy before the end of this month. Last week Johnson said it would be published this week, but it has been reported that Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, said more time was needed to assess the potential costs of the push for nuclear.
Updated
Updated
Russia responsible for hoax calls to Ben Wallace and Priti Patel, says No 10
The Russian state was responsible for hoax calls to Ben Wallace and Priti Patel, pretending to be the Ukrainian prime minister, Downing Street has said. My colleague Rowena Mason has the story here.
Here is my colleague Aubrey Allegretti’s story about the new allegations about the Nowzad animal charity being prioritised for evacuation from Afghanistan last summer.
An earlier post, at 11.36am, said that a Foreign Office whistleblower has published evidence claiming that officials lied about Boris Johnson’s role in authorising the evacuation of animals from the Nowzad charity from Kabul last summer. In fact, the new evidence refers to Johnson approving the decision to authorise the evacuation of the Nowzad staff, not their animals. I am sorry for the error and have corrected the original post.
This is from Patrick Dunleavy, an emeritus professor of politics, saying that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was right to identify high ministerial turnover (see 2.15pm) as one of the problems bedevilling British politics.
Once, being Foreign Secretary meant something in UK government. But as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s critique of “five in six years” makes clear, not any more. Cycling ministers thru for months only is just exacerbating the decline of UK’s minimal influence https://t.co/btDScbOFHy
— Patrick Dunleavy (@PJDunleavy) March 21, 2022
Zaghari-Ratcliffe suggests ministers should have done more to secure her release
For most of the last six years Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has, thanks to the campaigning efforts of her husband, been a public figure in the UK. Yet almost no one had heard her voice, and everything we knew about her – which was relatively little, in terms of her manner and character – came from what we were told about her by other people. Normally the main point of a press conference is find out what someone has to say but today was probably just as much about learning what Zaghari-Ratcliffe is actually like.
As some of the snap reaction on Twitter shows (see 1.16pm), the answer is clear; she was hugely impressive – dignified, moving, honest. She seemed commendably free of bitterness. And she came across as steely too. She was very firm about not wanting to answer questions that would force her to relive her ordeal, and there was a candid moment when she admitted that she was not willing to thank the government as generously as her husband. (See 12.21pm.) Mostly she avoided being overtly political, but she managed to deliver a clear political rebuke; the government should have done more to free her, she indicated.
Here are the main points.
- Zaghari-Ratcliffe suggested ministers should have done more to secure her release from Iran. Pointing out that there have been five foreign secretaries since she was detained in 2016, she said:
I mean, how many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? Five?
What’s happened now should have happened six years ago.
Her husband, Richard, has thanked Liz Truss, the current foreign secretary, for her work on the case, but Zaghari-Ratcfliffe indicated that she was more sceptical, saying she did not agree with his positive comments about the government. She said:
[The turnover in the number of foreign secretaries has been] unprecedented given the politics of the UK. I love you, Richard, respect whatever you believe, but I was told many, many times that ‘oh, we’re going to get you home’. That never happened.
The foreign secretaries have been, in order: Philip Hammond, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Dominic Raab and Truss.
I believe that the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete as to such time that all of us who are unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with our families.
To begin with Morad [Tahbaz], but also the other dual nationals, members of religious groups, or prisoners of conscience who are ... I mean, we do realise that if I have been in prison for six years there are so many other people we don’t know their names who have been suffering in prison in Iran.
- Tulip Siddiq, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s MP, said she had written to the foreign affairs committee asking for an inquiry into the case. In particular, she said it was important to find out why it took so long for the UK to settle the £400m debt it owed Iran and why it took so long for Zaghari-Ratcliffe to be freed. She also suggested an incident in 2013, when Iranian officials coming to the UK to negotiate the debt repayment were detained, may have led to Zaghari-Ratcliffe being taken as effectively a hostage. (See 2.11pm.)
- Zaghari-Ratcliffe said that, although she felt she had a “black hole” in her heart when she was detained, she was determined not to hold a grudge about her experience. (See 12.29pm.)
- Richard Ratcliffe said that he was now retiring as a campaigner and he asked for his family to be given privacy as they recovered from their ordeal. “We will disappear off and heal a bit,” he said.
Updated
Here is some reaction to the press conference from journalists.
From Sky’s Sarah-Jane Mee
What an impressive press conference #NazaninZaghariRatcliffe composed, strong & articulate even when talking about leaving her daughter at 2 and returning when she is nearly 8.
— Sarah-Jane Mee (@skysarahjane) March 21, 2022
Even jokes to @TulipSiddiq about her husband’s weight gain since his hunger strike @SkyNews @BethRigby
From the ITV broadcaster Julie Etchingham
What incredible grace, poise and clarity from Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe under all these questions - and beautiful smile
— Julie Etchingham (@julie_etch) March 21, 2022
From the Daily Mirror’s Pippa Crerar
It is remarkable to hear Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s voice after all this time.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) March 21, 2022
She demonstrates such composure and grace after an ordeal few could imagine.
She thanks her “amazing” husband Richard and her daughter Gabriella for her patience. pic.twitter.com/0uoekx30Yn
From the broadcaster Matthew Stadlen
Love the way Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has handled this press conference. Totally straightforward, strong, refusing to answer what she doesn't want to answer, and also good-humoured.
— Matthew Stadlen (@MatthewStadlen) March 21, 2022
From the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman
Well, that was one of the more moving things I’ve covered in my time https://t.co/7p2i2PVyQk
— Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) March 21, 2022
And here’s an extract from Hardman’s piece.
It was a moving session and there were moments where Nazanin declined to answer questions, including what it was like to be held in solitary confinement. She had, the room was reminded, endured nearly six years of significant trauma, and was extraordinarily dignified and restrained as she spoke. The Ratcliffe family has said that now this press conference is over, they want privacy while they rebuild their own lives and get to know one another again.
From the Jewish Chronicle’s Stephen Pollard
Astonishing how self-possessed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe comes across. A commanding presence.
— Stephen Pollard (@stephenpollard) March 21, 2022
This is from David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s press conference.
The strength, dignity and courage of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as she speaks publicly for the first time - in Ukrainian colours - is a sight to behold. And she's right. It should never have taken five foreign Secretaries or six years to get her home. pic.twitter.com/eo74UAqgcM
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) March 21, 2022
Tulip Siddiq asks the panel if they have any final comments.
Richard Ratcliffe says he wants to thank again their legal team.
Siddiq ends by asking the media not to bother Richard and Nazanin and Gabriella on their way out, and to respect their privacy.
And that’s it. I’ll post a summary shortly.
Q: Why do you think Liz Truss succeeded when her predecessors failed?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she is not going to answer political questions.
Richard says some of Truss’s predecessors tried hard to get Nazanin out. She got it over the line.
She says she hopes the Foreign Office continues to look after people.
Q: You are now very famous. How do you think you will cope with that?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says their daughter, Gabriella, once told her on the phone she was very famous in the UK. She told Gabriella it was not good to be famous. But Gabriella said it would only last week.
Q: Did you experience kindness from people who guarded you? And how do you feel about your captors?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she is not going to answer that.
Q: Are you worried that paying Iran could put more people at risk of being held hostage in future?
Richard Ratcliffe says this is a dilemma. There is a moral hazard. A debt is not a hostage payment, he says. But he says this will have encouraged the Iranians to think tough tactics work.
“There are no easy answers to this,” he says. He says he hopes it is something the proposed foreign affairs committee inquiry will explore.
Q: [From the Ham & High, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s local paper] Will you stay in London or move out?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she thinks they will stay in London.
Q: Can you tell us more about what you have been doing since you;ve been back?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she still has not been home yet. She is still living out of a suitcase.
She is looking forward to doing the school run.
Q: What do you think should be in the Iran nuclear deal?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she has been a pawn in the hands of the Iranian government. She has followed the progress on this carefully, because her case was linked to it. But she does not think it should have been. That had “nothing to do with me”, she says.
She says the fate of the remaining detainees should not be linked to an international agreement like this.
Q: How is your daughter?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says their daughter, Gabriella, has been “upgrading Mummy”, and paying less attention to her dad. She had not seen her for two and a half years. She says it was lovely to braid and brush her hair.
Q: Would you every go back to Iran?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says they know her opinion about that. It took her six years to get back. She would be “very, very cautious” about returning.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she only accepted that she was coming home when she was on the plane.
Richard says he felt the same way, because they had had “so many false dawns before”.
Q: What can the Foreign Office do to get your dad home?
Roxanne Tahbaz says she does not know what is being negotiated now. They were told her father would be on an indefinite furlough, but that turned out not to be the case. And they were told her mother’s travel ban would be lifted, but that turned out not to be the case either.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says there were two or three times when she thought she was coming home, but was disappointed. Her faith helped her get through it, she says.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she went through a journey to get to know herself much better. She also got to know her faith better.
She says the experience has made the family closer. But they paid a huge price for that, she says.
Q: Would you advise other families in similar circumtances to go public in the way you did?
Richard Ratcliffe says he is still not sure what the best tactics are. He says his family waited a month before they spoke to the media. His advice to families would be to follow their gut instincts.
Q: What was it like being in solitary confinment?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she would rather not discuss that.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she did not know it was mother’s day on Sunday.
Updated
Q: Did you hear about what Boris Johnson said about you when you were detained (his false comment that she was teaching journalism in Iran, which was seen as making her plight worse)?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she did not have proper access to the media when she was in jail, and so she did not follow the political process.
Updated
Nazanin says in jail she had 'black hole' in her heart, but now she won't live rest of her life with grudge
Q: How angry with the government are you about your treatment?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says he “cannot be happier” to be home.
But she says she always felt she had a “black hole in my heart”. She decided to leave that on the plane as she left.
I’m not going to live for the rest of my life with a grudge over the past six years.
Q: What is your message to political prisoners?
Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she is the lucky one. There are “so many other people in prison” whose names are not well know.
Everyone has the right to be free, she says.
Roxanne Tahbaz, the eldest daughter of Morad Tahbaz, says her father has been taken back to prison. He has not been returned to his family. The family are “devastated”, she says. And she says they only found out last week he was being left behind from the media.
Nazanin says freedom will 'never be complete' while others remain detained in Iran
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe thanks her family, and in particular her “wonderful husband”.
She thanks her medical team in Iran, who supported her, and her lawyer in the country, who fought “fearlessly” for her release.
Referring to Morad Tahbaz (see 11.59am), she says freedom will never be complete until all those unjustly detained in Iran are released.
I believe that the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete as to such time that all of us who are unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with our families.
To begin with Morad, but also the other dual nationals, members of religious groups, or prisoners of conscience who are ... I mean, we do realise that if I have been in prison for six years there are so many other people we don’t know their names who have been suffering in prison in Iran.
And she says she is less appreciative of Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, than her husband has been. She says there have been five foreign secretaries since she was first detained. It should not have taken that many to get her out, she says. She says it was going to happen eventually.
She says she has a lot of catching up to do with her family. She appeals for privacy.
And she thanks the media for their work publicising her case.
UPDATE: Here is the PA report from what Zaghari-Ratcliffe said:
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe thanked her “amazing, wonderful” husband Richard for “tirelessly” campaigning for her as she spoke to media for the first time since arriving back in the UK.
She also thanked daughter Gabriella “for being very, very patient with mummy to be coming home”.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe criticised the fact it took five changes of foreign secretary before she was released, adding: “What happened now should have happened six years ago.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe said the journey back home was “tough”.
Referencing her husband thanking the government a few moments earlier, she said: “I do not really agree with him on that level.”
She said she has seen five foreign secretaries over the course of six years, adding: “That is unprecedented given the politics of the UK. I love you Richard, respect whatever you believe, but I was told many, many times that ‘Oh we’re going to get you home’.
“That never happened.”
She said this resulted in her finding it difficult to place trust in them, adding: “I mean, how many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? Five?”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe told reporters: “What’s happened now should have happened six years ago.”
“The meaning of freedom is never going to be complete until all of us unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with their families”
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 21, 2022
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was released from Iran last week, says justice in Iran "does not have any meaning”https://t.co/Tq8KLdbNDB pic.twitter.com/qYdr4bjc2H
Updated
Richard Ratcliffe starts by joking about how people do not need to hear from him because they have heard so much from him over the years.
He thanks people for their support. And he says they are on a process of healing and recovery.
They are taking baby steps as a family, he says.
He says this day marks his retirement as a campaigner.
At the end he gets a round of applause.
(This is highly unusual. Journalists almost never applaud anyone, more or less on principle.)
Siddiq calls for inquiry by foreign affairs committee into why release of Nazanin took so long
Siddiq says questions need to be asked about why it took so long for Nazanin to be released.
She says she has has asked the foreign affairs committee to look review what happened.
She says she is particularly interested in two issues.
First, she says Iranian officials came to the UK in 2013 to negotiate the repayment of the UK debt, but they were arrested at Heathrow and detained. She says Jack Straw, the former Labour foreign secretary, never found out why this was. But he believes it led to the Iranians deciding to take more direct action (detaining hostages) to get the money repaid.
And she says she wants the committee to discover why a deal to repay the debt last year, and secure Nazanin’s release, fell through.
Updated
Tulip Siddiq pays tribute to family who 'never lost hope'
Tulip Siddiq opens the press conference, joking about how she is now known as “Nazanin’s MP”.
She pays tribute to people who campaigned for her release, but she focuses on Zaghari-Ratcliffe family. She says:
Richard is known for his relentless campaigning. Nazanin is known for her immense strength in the face of huge adversity, and little Gabriela, sitting in the front, is known to be a brave soul. It was a family who never lost hope.
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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and husband Richard hold press conference
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is about to the media for the first time since her detention in Iran ended and she flew home to the UK last week. She is holding a press conference with her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and their MP, Tulip Siddiq, at Westminster.
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Morad Tahbaz, the British-US national detained by Iran has gone on hunger strike, his sister has said. PA Media reports:
Tahbaz, 66, a wildlife conservationist who also holds Iranian citizenship, was taken back into custody after originally being allowed out on furlough on the same day last week that charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and retired civil engineer Anoosheh Ashoori were released and then allowed to return to Britain.
His sister, Tahrane Tahbaz, told Today on BBC Radio 4 that he was taken back into prison after just 48 hours.
“He was taken back to prison after 48 hours. He wasn’t really on furlough. It seemed more like a visit than a furlough.
“He didn’t have an ankle bracelet put on him. He was with security and, after 48 hours, he was taken back under security - back to the prison.
“We haven’t heard from him since and we have heard through a relative just a few hours ago that he’s been taken from the prison and he’s been taken to an undisclosed location and that he’s gone on hunger strike.”
Boris Johnson’s cack-handed Ukraine/Brexit comparison at the weekend (see 9.30am) may have cost him an invitation to the EU summit on Thursday that will discuss the war, the Mirror’s Pippa Crerar reports. President Biden is going, but he doesn’t make a habit of disparaging the EU.
I'm told by Govt sources that it's "looking unlikely" that Boris Johnson will be invited to European Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday. Some anger there about what the PM did/ didn't mean by his remarks in Blackpool... https://t.co/cMhGLVZUh4
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) March 21, 2022
Whistleblower claims top Foreign Office civil servant 'lied' to cover up PM's role in ordering animal shelter staff's evacuation from Kabul
A senior Foreign Office civil servant has produced fresh evidence that officials and ministers did not tell the truth about Boris Johnson’s involvement in the decision to authorise the airlift evacuation of staff from an animal charity from Kabul last summer.
The Commons foreign affairs committee has this morning published a seven-page statement from Josie Stewart - who has worked for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) since 2015 including for the British embassy in Kabul - about the government’s decision to allow staff from the Nowzad animal charity to be flown out of the Afghan capital, as part of the operation to rescue Britons and Afghans from the Taliban.
The staff were allowed to leave on a chartered plane, along with dogs and cats from their animal shelter.
Johnson has always denied being involved in this decision, and in previous evidence to the committee Sir Philip Barton, the Foreign Office’s permanent secretary, said he was not aware of evidence suggesting the PM did intervene. After an email came to light suggesting No 10 was involved, Barton apologised for inadvertently misleading the committee.
Barton is giving evidence to the committee again this afternoon, and Stewart’s submission amounts to the strongest evidence yet that the decision to approve the Nowzad airlift came from Johnson.
In her evidence Stewart says:
It was widespread ‘knowledge’ in the FCDO crisis centre that the decision on Nowzad’s Afghan staff came from the prime minister. I saw messages to this effect on Microsoft Teams, I heard it discussed in the crisis centre including by senior civil servants, and I was copied on numerous emails which clearly suggested this and which no one, including Nigel Casey [the PM’s special representative for Afghanistan] acting as ‘Crisis Gold’, challenged. Some of these the committee has seen.
Stewart also claims that Barton - who is her boss - and Casey lied to MPs when they said they did not know of evidence that the PM was involved. She says:
I cannot fathom why either Philip Barton or Nigel Casey would have intentionally lied to the committee, but I believe that they must have done so both in the letter dated 17 January and in the oral testimony given on 25 January. I have tried to imagine but cannot conceive of any way this could have been an honest mistake. Nigel Casey explicitly testified that he had searched his emails and found nothing of relevance, yet when I searched my emails for “PM” and “Nowzad” I found more than one email referencing “the PM’s decision on Nowzad” and with Nigel Casey in copy. So the only possible explanations are that a) Nigel Casey had deleted his emails (which everyone who had worked on the Afghanistan crisis had been ordered by Diptel not to do); b) he did not know how to use the “CTRL-F” function in Outlook, or searched for something other than “PM” and “Nowzad”; c) he found the emails but somehow concluded they were not relevant, despite mentioning ‘the PM’s decision on Nowzad’; or d) he was lying.
For these reasons I do not find Philip Barton’s letter of 27 January 2022, in which he apologised for having given “inadvertently inaccurate answers”, credible. It is possible, although it would be surprising, that neither Philip Barton nor Nigel Casey remembered seeing the emails about supposed PM involvement on the day they were sent. I cannot see how it is possible that they would not have found the extensive evidence of this when asked about it later.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said that Josie Stewart’s evidence related to the decision to allow the evacuation of the Nowzad animals from Kabul. That was wrong. The animals were evacuated, but her evidence only refers to the PM being involved in the decision to approve the evacuation of the animal shelter staff. I am sorry for the error and I have amended the post, and the headline, above.
In her submission Stewart says: “I am not aware of any deliberate decision to prioritise animals over people, and do not believe that this happened intentionally.”
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Over-50s may be offered booster vaccines in autumn, says Javid
And this is what Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said in his morning interviews on coronavirus.
- Javid said a Covid booster programme for the over-50s may be launched in the autumn. He told BBC Breakfast:
It’s possible there will be an autumn booster campaign, probably for those that are 50 and over, but [the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation] haven’t yet made a final recommendation on that.
NHS England has already announced a booster programme for the over-75s and the people who are immunosuppressed, which is starting this week.
- He said there were 11,500 people in hospital in England with Covid, but almost 60% of them had been admitted for another condition. For example, he said, the figures would include people in hospital for a hip operation who just happened to be Covid positive. “Those that are actually there for Covid is a much smaller number and so that does give us a lot of confidence that we are learning to live with Covid,” he said.
- He said the rising number of coronavirus cases was “no particular cause for concern”. He explained:
Our level of concern hasn’t changed and that’s because although case numbers are rising, infections are rising and indeed hospital numbers are rising, they are still way below their peak.
And it’s also important for us when we review this, understand why they are rising and that is primarily due to the increased social mixing we’re seeing after the country’s opened up, but also the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron which we know is on the one hand more infectious but, on the other hand, we know that our vaccines work just as well against this subvariant.
And so taking all that into account, of course we keep the data under review, but there’s no particular cause for concern at this point.
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Javid says it is necessary to be 'realistic' about Ukraine and war could get 'a lot uglier'
Here are some more lines from Sajid Javid’s interviews this morning on Ukraine-related issues.
- Javid, the health secretary, said 9,500 visas had now been issued to Ukrainian refugees wanting to come to the UK through the family programme (which is for people with close relatives in Britain). He said:
We have two programmes in place to do that at this point in time. One is the family reunion programme, where, my understanding is, at the weekend there were 9,500 visas issued and then there’s the hosting a Ukrainian family programme where some 150,000 people have registered their interest.
And it’s important that we continue to help in that way. I expect that we will see hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians arrive here in the UK, and they will get all the support that they need.
- He played down the prospect of an early Russian defeat, saying it was necessary to be “realistic” and that the war could get “a lot uglier”. He said:
[Vladimir Putin] has a lot more soldiers [than the Ukrainians], he has a lot more airpower and things, so I think we have to be realistic about where things are heading at this point in time.
I just really fear that, without finding some way to constrain Russia and Putin at this point, that things are going to get a lot uglier .
- Javid dismissed the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as a “compulsive liar”. He told the Today programme:
The Russians just don’t seem that they can be trusted, and especially President Putin, who we know is a compulsive liar. We know that he has difficulty in separating fiction from fact.
I know from my own experiences as home secretary when we were dealing with the attack on Salisbury with an illegal chemical weapon that the Russians lied all the way through it.
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Javid says Johnson did not compare Brexit to Ukraine war amid claims PM regrets remark
Good morning. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has been fielding questions on the behalf of the government this morning. The war in Ukraine is still dominating the news agenda, the cost of living is set to be the second biggest story of the week, because we’ve got the spring statement on Wednesday, and Javid had to address concerns about the rise in the number of coronavirus cases, but he also found himself fending off questions about Boris Johnson’s Ukraine/Brexit gaffe – a remark so insensitive that it is still at the top of the news two days later.
In his speech to the Tory spring conference on Saturday, Johnson compared the Ukrainians’ fight for freedom to Britons voting for Brexit. “I know that it’s the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time,” he said. “I can give you a couple of famous recent examples. When the British people voted for Brexit, in such large, large numbers, I don’t believe it was because they were remotely hostile to foreigners.”
Yesterday Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, claimed Johnson was not saying the two situations were “directly analagous”. Today Javid went even further, telling Nick Robinson on the Today programme:
[Johnson] was talking about the general desire for people, no matter who they are, where they live, for self determination, and that can be in any setting, in any country. I don’t think at all he was trying to link the specific situation in Ukraine with the UK.
In response, Robinson pointed out that the PM’s speech specifically did link the two situations. He suggested that the fact that two cabinet ministers have now effectively disowned the connection made by Johnson suggests that No 10 accepts it was a mistake.
This is what Matt Dathan is reporting in the Times (paywall). He writes:
Johnson regrets making the comparison, a close source told The Times. “It sounded better written down than it did when spoken,” the insider said.
I’ll post more from the Javid interview shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12pm: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will hold a press conference at Westminster with her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and their MP, Tulip Siddiq.
2.30pm: Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: MPs begin a debate on a Labour motion saying the government should suspend all contracts with DP World, the company that owns P&O Ferries, and pass a law banning fire and rehire tactics.
4pm: Sir Philip Barton, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about Afghanistan.
At some point today Boris Johnson is also hosting a roundtable meeting with leaders from the nuclear power industry to discuss how nuclear power stations can be build more quickly. He has also got a call lined up with Joe Biden, the US president, and their French, German and Italian counterparts to discuss Ukraine.
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