“Allies of Suella Braverman fear she is the victim of a smear campaign amid an increasingly acrimonious battle over her efforts to crack down on net migration. The Home Secretary has been accused of asking civil servants to help organise a private driving awareness course as she sought to avoid incurring points on her licence after being caught speeding. She is expected to face questions in the House of Commons about the matter on Monday. It is understood the Prime Minister will consult Sir Laurie Magnus, his ethics adviser, as Labour claims Mrs Braverman may have breached the Ministerial Code. On Sunday, Rishi Sunak refused to back the Home Secretary when asked for his opinion…although Downing Street later insisted that he had full confidence in her.” – The Daily Telegraph
>Today:
“The Home Office has accused the UN of hypocrisy over its Rwanda deportation plan in a fresh row between the Britain and the UN’S refugee agency. The UNHCR operates a refugee resettlement scheme that temporarily houses refugees in Gashora in eastern Rwanda. It has also played a key role in the court case appealing against the UK government’s policy to relocate Channel migrants to Rwanda, arguing that the African country is unsafe for asylum seekers. A Home Office source said: “It seems somewhat hypocritical for the UNHCR to be attacking our Rwanda scheme for pandering to populist tendencies and claiming it’s unworkable while at the same time relocating asylum seekers to the country.”… The UNHCR was a supporting party to the appeal against the Rwanda policy…” – The Times
“Rishi Sunak branded China the “biggest challenge of our age” as he praised the unity of the G7 over the issue of global security. The Prime Minister said Beijing was “increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad”. And he warned that China was the only country with the power and the will to reshape the world order. His comments came at the end of the G7 summit in Hiroshima. The seven countries issued a strongly worded communique, calling on China to “play by international rules”. And they urged Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, to step in to persuade Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, to withdraw from Ukraine… It comes after Mr Sunak stopped short of designating China a “threat” when the UK’s integrated review on foreign and defence policy was updated…” – The Daily Telegraph
“Patients will be encouraged to use the NHS app to choose treatment in private hospitals as the prime minister sets out plans to cut waiting lists. Dozens of private diagnostic centres will also offer checks for cancer and other conditions in efforts to use private companies to boost NHS capacity… The NHS waiting list for routine treatments has reached…7.33 million and is predicted to keep rising…Both main parties are relying on increased use of private hospitals to boost NHS-funded care and bring down waiting times. There is an emerging cross-party consensus that this will happen only if patients are given choice about where they are treated. The prime minister believes that offering patients more choice and better data on their local hospital’s performance will drive up standards…” – The Times
“The Government’s pledge to ensure that serious criminals must face their victims in court has been thrown into doubt after Rishi Sunak refused to commit to passing a new law before the next election. The Ministry of Justice has said it will create a new requirement for certain criminals, including murders, to attend their sentencing hearings in person. In a number of high-profile cases he perpetrator has refused to turn up for sentencing, denying the victims’ families the chance to deliver a statement to their face detailing the effects the crime has had. The issue drew prominence in April when the killer of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, who was shot in her Liverpool home, refused to show up to his sentencing hearing.” – The I
>Today:
“Rishi Sunak has promised a renewed campaign against immigration, saying he is “crystal clear” that numbers must come down. Most foreign students face being banned from bringing family members to Britain as the prime minister prepares to finalise a package as soon as this week. The Treasury, however, is thought to have killed plans to limit visas to lower-earning workers and restrict the time students can stay in the UK. Official figures due on Thursday are expected to show net migration breaking another record, perhaps more than a quarter of a million. Conservative MPs want immigration to come down quickly. In a sign of the pressure on Sunak from the right of the party, Priti Patel accused him of a “sticking plaster” approach.” – The Times
>Yesterday:
“No government was ever elected promising to increase immigration to Britain in the numbers we have seen in the last 25 years. It is not just that there was no mandate for this unpopular and irreversible change, it is that every government elected since 2010 has won power promising the opposite… The reason the last published statistics showed net migration was, in the year to June last year, an incredible and unprecedented 504,000, and the reason why this week’s updated statistics will likely be even higher, is that government policy has been designed to increase immigration – deliberately and radically… From where we are today, it will be difficult to fix. We have, after all, constructed an economy and state that seem equally addicted to immigration.” – The Daily Telegraph
“The Environment Secretary Therese Coffey has said she is ‘pretty fed up’ with water companies and that it was right for the sector to have apologised for not tackling sewage spills quickly enough. Water firms in England last week announced a £10 billion plan to reduce the number of sewage discharges into rivers and seas, with over 300,000 instances last year alone, while also apologising for the pollution. But Ms Coffey appeared to accept that bill-payers will have to pick up ‘a lot’ of the cost of improving infrastructure designed to prevent sewage entering seas and waterways. She added that fines that private companies are ordered could see bill-payers reimbursed, and that penalties would be paid by the private companies.” – The Daily Mail
>Yesterday:
“MPs and campaigners have accused the government of giving online ticket touts a “free pass” after it rejected advice from the consumer watchdog to ban the bulk buying of seats at popular music and sports events. The Department for Business and Trade has ignored recommendations by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to tighten laws to protect concert and matchgoers. Last week Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for enterprise and markets, wrote to the watchdog to say the government did not believe the changes were “justified by the degree of harm” touts caused. In August 2021, after an investigation, the watchdog published recommendations to help protect consumers from ticket touts.” – The Times
“Sir Keir Starmer’s flagship missions for government are “a terrible way to campaign” and are failing to cut through with the public, sources close to the Labour leader have told The Times. Before the third of Starmer’s five speeches on his vision for Britain, senior Labour officials have privately conceded that his five national missions have yet to capture the imagination of voters. The pledges – unveiled to considerable fanfare in January – have also proven divisive internally, with shadow cabinet ministers criticising them as a distraction from the party’s messaging on the economy and cost of living. Having already delivered speeches on the first two of the missions…Starmer will set out his vision for “an NHS fit for the future” in a speech in Essex on Monday.” – The Times
“Nationalist party Sinn Féin gained a “tsunami” of votes to clinch a better than expected victory in council elections in Northern Ireland, which were widely seen as a verdict on the region’s post-Brexit stalemate. After the count finished early on Sunday morning, Sinn Féin had secured control of six of the 11 councils, cementing its place as the region’s largest party. It beat projections to take 144 of the 462 council seats, an increase of 39 on the last elections in 2019. The Democratic Unionist party, which had controlled six councils previously, was beaten into second place, repeating the historic reverse of last year’s elections to the Stormont regional assembly. The Alliance party, which identifies as neither unionist nor nationalist in the deeply divided region, secured third place…” – The Financial Times