Johnson says UK trying to overcome rules stopping aid money going to British territories hit by Irma
Here are the main points from the Johnson/Tillerson press conference.
- Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, said the government was actively investigating how the aid budget can be used to help British territories devasted by Hurricane Irma. He was responding to a question about whether he accepted the current assessment, which is that the £13bn aid budget cannot be used because the territories are too rich to qualify for help under under official international aid criteria. Johnson said:
Anybody who has seen the effects of the hurricane, it’s absolutely catastrophic - I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s destruction which you see in images from the first world war.
And I think anybody with an ounce of compassion would want to see spending by our government in getting those people back on their feet and indeed on getting those British - and I stress British - overseas territories helped in the long term.
And of course we are looking now across Whitehall at ways in which we can make sure that our aid budget can be used in that way, and I know that Priti Patel [the international development secretary], all my colleagues, are looking at how we can do that. That is absolutely natural and we are on that right now.
- He said the Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi should use her “moral capital” to stop the massacre of Rohingya Muslims and to ensure that they are allowed to return to Myanmar in safety. Asked if regretted praising her recently in the light of her inaction over this, he said that 370,000 Rohingya had fled the country in desperation. He went on:
Let’s be clear. [Aung San Suu Kyi] led Burma [Myanmar] after a period of decades of repression by a military junta. And I yield to no one in my admiration of what she stood for, and the way she fought for democracy. I think many people around the world share that admiration.
I think it is now vital for her to use that moral capital and that authority to make the point about the suffering of the people of Rakhine. Nobody wants to see a return to military rule in Burma. Nobody wants to see a return of the generals. But it is also vital that the civilian government, and that is [Aung San Suu Kyi], for whom, as I say, I have a great deal of admiration, but it is vital for her now to make clear that this is an abomination and that those people will be allowed back to Burma and that preparation is being made and that the abuse of their human rights and the killings will stop.
- Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, said America thought Iran was in breach of its obligations under the nuclear deal (the JCPOA - joint comprehensive plan of action). The Trump administration was still reviewing its Iran policy, he said, and had not come to a conclusion. But he went on:
But I think it is worth noting, as the administration continues its review of the JCPOA, President Trump has made it clear to those of us who are developing this policy that we must take into account the totality of Iranian threats, not just Iran’s nuclear capability. That is one piece of our posture towards Iran.
And if one revists the preface to the JCPOA, that preface reads that the participants “anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security”. That was one of the expectations of the JCPOA.
And in our view Iran is clearly in default of these expectations of the JCPOA, through their actions to prop up the Assad regime, to engage in malicious activities in the region, including cyber activity, aggressively developing ballistic missiles. And all of this is in defiance of UN security resolution 2231, thereby threatening, not ensuring, threatening the security of those in the region, as well as the United States itself.
So we have to consider the totality of Iran’s activities and not let our view be defined solely by the nuclear agreement.
- He said Brexit presented “unique challenges to the British people”. (See 4.55pm.)
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
The press conference is over.
Here is a clip from Tillerson’s opening remarks.
Secretary Tillerson comments on #HurricaneIrma, the strong US-#UK friendship, #DPRK, #Syria & #Libya during remarks with FS @BorisJohnson. pic.twitter.com/KC2AI3qKN7
— Department of State (@StateDept) September 14, 2017
Johnson says the North Korean crisis shows the value of arrangements like the JCPOA in relation to Iran.
It is important that Iran sees there are economic benefits from the JCPOA.
The British want to “keep it alive”, he says. He says that is a point he has been making to the Americans.
Tillerson says the US views the UN security council resolution on North Korea as a “small step”. It had hoped for a stronger resolution, he says.
Johnson says there was a wide measure of support for the US/UK position. The Chinese have done more than some people expected. But there is scope for them to do far, far more, especially in relation to Chinese oil exports to North Korea.
Q: What is your policy on Iran?
Tillerson says US policy towards Iran is being reviewed. No policy has been set yet, he says.
But he says President Trump has stressed they must take into account the totality of Iranian threats, not just the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme.
He says Iran is in default of expectations because of the destabilising influence it is exercising in the region.
On Myanmar, he says the US appreciates the difficult position Aung San Suu Kyi is in.
He says the US needs to support her against the military.
Updated
Q: Should the government be able to use its aid budget to help people in the Caribbean?
Johnson says the destruction by Hurricane Irma was awe-inspiring.
He says he wants to see those British overseas territories helped. He stresses the word British. He says in Whitehall Priti Patel and others are looking at how the aid budget can be used to help?
Q: When do you think elections can be held in Libya?
Johnson says next year sounds about right. But the political framework has to be in place.
There is wide support for elections in Libya, he says.
Q: Do you regret saying Aung San Suu Kyi was one of the world’s most inspiring leaders?
Johnson says what is happening to the Rohingya is a tragedy.
He says Aung San Suu Kyi led Myanmar out of decades of oppression.
He says she should use her moral capital and authority to make the point about the suffering of the Rohingya.
No one wants to see a return to military rule, he says.
He says the killings must stop.
Updated
Brexit presents 'unique challenges to British people', says US secretary of state
Rex Tillerson is speaking now. He says the new US ambassador, Woody Johnson, arrived in London 18 days ago. It is a bit confusing having a Secretary Johnson and Ambassador Johnson, he says. But it means that, on any day, a Johnson will be to blame for something, he jokes.
He says Brexit presents “unique challenges to the British people”. But it has a steadfast ally in the US.
Boris Johnson's press conference with Rex Tillerson
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is now holding a press conference with Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state.
#DPRK #NorthKorea is also on the agenda during the Secretary's meetings today with @BorisJohnson and @francediplo pic.twitter.com/B4JFqr3sIx
— Department of State (@StateDept) September 14, 2017
Johnson starts by running through the topics the two men discussed, including Hurricane Irma, North Korea and Libya.
This seems to be what everyone in Westminster wants to read - the prime minister’s Florence speech on Brexit. It’s a tweet from Political Pictures, an account belonging to a photographer who covers Downing Street.
Unfortunately, about the only thing it tells us is that the speech, in current form, is long - almost 5,000 words.
If anyone interested in what May is going to say in Florence read on just snapped leaving No10 !! pic.twitter.com/UuOoEWQFel
— Political Pictures (@PoliticalPics) September 14, 2017
Scottish government confirms it hopes to achieve 'consensus' on possible tax increases
The Scottish government has confirmed that it hopes to get a “consensus” in the Scottish parliament on possible tax increases. Derek Mackay, the Scottish government finance secretary, used the term in a letter sent to opposition parties in the Scottish parliament about the review of tax options the Scottish government is conducting.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, unveiled the plan when she announced her programme for government earlier this month. She said she wanted the other parties to contribute ideas to a paper on tax options to be published before the draft 2018/19 budget comes out in November and she hinted the exercise would result in taxes going up to fund better public services.
In his letter, Mackay says he hopes some sort of agreement will emerge.
This is the start of a cross-party discussion around how we continue to fund high quality public services across Scotland, and I want to ensure that proposals from all parties are represented ...
The paper will set out the current distribution of income tax liabilities in Scotland, analyse a variety of policy options, explain the interaction between tax policy and the fiscal framework, consider the trade-offs involved in making any proposed changes, any interactions with HMRC and the DWP and provide international comparisons.
It is the Scottish government’s intention that the paper will inform discussions on taxation ahead of this year’s budget and may enable a consensus position to emerge.
The Scottish parliament’s power to vary tax rates was initially somewhat constrained. It got new powers under the Scotland Act 2016, but the SNP government has been reluctant to diverge much from tax policy for the rest of the UK. Tax policy only started to differ in April this year, when the Scottish government froze the higher-rate income tax threshold while it was being uprated elsewhere. This resulted in Scottish higher-rate tax payers paying up to £180 a year more.
But in the Scottish elections in 2016 Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats both proposed increasing income tax by 1p.
The SNP seems to be hoping that if some of the opposition parties in the parliament unite around a consensus tax plan, that might minimise any electoral penalty for getting taxpayers to pay more.
Here is the statement that Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, has issued about the new school funding formula announced by the government this afternoon. Rayner said:
Today’s announcement on the national funding formula follows years of pressure from the Labour party as well as schools, teachers and parents across the country, forcing the government to abandon millions of pounds in outright cuts to schools.
However, it does not go nearly far enough to meet the Tories’ own election promises and is far less than Labour pledged in our manifesto. For many pupils and schools, funding will fall in real terms between now and 2020, which comes on top of a £2.7bn in real term cuts since 2015.
There is no new money for education at all, and this funding for schools is coming from other cuts to education budgets. Only months ago, ministers guaranteed that the healthy pupils fund would be protected – now it is being cut by over 75%, and the Education Secretary can’t even tell us where else the axe will fall.
The next Labour government will give our schools the resources they need, reversing funding cuts and increasing the schools budget in real terms, as we build a national education service that allows every child to fulfil their potential.
Alex Salmond, the former Scottish first minister, is going to host his own Sunday afternoon radio show on LBC, the channel has announced. It will start this weekend and go out every Sunday from 3pm to 6pm. LBC said Salmond had “already proven himself as a popular broadcaster and re-joins LBC, the home of political debate, following the success of The Alex Salmond Phone-in which aired during Iain Dale’s show in 2016.”
It is not just in professions like nursing, teaching and the police where the public sector pay squeeze is creating problems, MPs were told this morning. In evidence to the Commons justice committee, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the lord chief justice, said the pay squeeze was causing problems for the judiciary too.
Referring to judicial pay, pensions, and terms and conditions, Thomas said: “There is no doubt there is a problem.”
Asked what risk there would be to the quality of the judiciary if action was not taken in these areas, he replied:
There is a really serious risk. We are short of High Court judges. At the High Court bench we still have a serious, serious recruitment problem.
One thing we can’t do is compromise on quality. And I think the [senior salaries review body], I’m pretty certain, fully understands the problem, and I hope will be able to find a solution to address it.
But there is a serious problem at the level of the High Court.
It is clear that the administrative court is being slightly affected by a shortage of High Court judges.
Officials from HM Revenue and Customs were giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee this morning. They told MPs that a crude estimate suggested they might need between 3,000 and 5,000 more staff after Brexit.
Jim Harra, HMRC’s director general of customer strategy, said the organisation would have to deal with an additional 130,000 new companies after Brexit that import and export within the EU but do not currently come into contact with British customs. He told MPs:
It is based on a crude extrapolation. If your customs declarations are multiplied five fold, if you multiplied your resources five fold, what would that come out at. It would come out at an extra three to 5,000 people.
Do we believe that is what we really need? No, I don’t think we do, because we know that even if the number of declarations grow a large number of those will be made by existing international traders whose compliance we already manage.
On the other hand there are probably about 130,000 new businesses that will be dealing with customs for the first time and there is a big challenge in reaching them, supporting them and getting them to be able to comply with their obligations on a transitional basis as well as on an ongoing basis.
Lunchtime summary
- John Bercow, the Commons speaker, has issue a public warning to the Conservatives, saying it would be “very worrying” if, as has been reported, they start routinely ignoring the results of Commons votes staged by Labour. (See 1.32pm.)
- Justine Greening, the education secretary, has published details of a new school funding formula for England. She claimed the new national funding formula (NFF) amountd to “the biggest improvement to the school funding system for decades” and that it would ensure “that for the first time funding is based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country”. The proposals were condemned by the National Education Union, the new union formed by the merger of the ATL and the NUT. Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, said:
Justine Greening has failed schools, pupils and parents in her announcement today. The government has been promising ‘fairer funding’ for years but has instead been cutting schools’ funding per pupil in real terms. This has resulted in larger class sizes, a reduced curriculum, fewer teachers, resources and materials. This clearly is detrimental to children and young people’s education.
- Ministers have been accused of “tinkering with the technicalities” in a bid to fix the UK’s housing crisis after they unveiled new plans to assess demand. As the Press Association reports, the communities Secretary Sajid Javid said the plans would provide a “proper understanding” of exactly how many homes are needed and where they should be built. In a Commons statement he added the existing system is an “opaque mishmash” of figures, telling MPs the government has developed an “honest, open, consistent” approach to assessing housing need. But the approach drew criticism from Labour, with shadow housing secretary John Healey telling the Commons: “The country has a housing crisis and ministers are tinkering with the technicalities of the planning system.”
- The Commons Brexit committee has announced that its first inquiry of this parliament will be into the progress of the Brexit negotiations. Hilary Benn, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said:
The Brexit negotiations are the most complex our country has ever faced. They are dealing with fundamental questions about the future of our economy and our country. What will our trading relationship with the EU be? Will we still have access to the single market and the skills and labour we need for economic growth? To what extent will we still co-operate on policing, security and the fight against terrorism and on science, research and the safety of new medicines? Our first inquiry in this new parliament will scrutinise the progress of these negotiations and the position of the UK government and our negotiating partners in the EU.
- Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England, has said the Brexit talks are not going “in the way we might hope”. (See 9.03am.)
Asked by Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick if he would be disappointed if Tory MPs routinely stop voting in opposition days debates, Bercow says it would be a matter of concern if that were to happen.
But he repeats his point about Andrea Leadsom denying this in the Commons earlier. (See 1.32pm.) He says, as a matter of courtesy, he wants t hear what the government has to say before commenting further.
Bercow condemns what Osborne reportedly said about wanting May 'chopped up in bags' in his freezer
Bercow says MPs should treat each other with respect.
Referring to what George Osborne reportedly said about Theresa May, he says the comments reported in today’s papers were “quite extraordinary”.
Bercow says he would like to have a “yellow card” system that would enable him to throw out rowdy MPs during PMQs.
He says when he became speaker he hoped he would be able to improve behaviour at PMQs.
He says the speaker could suspend a sitting. But that would be written up as the speaker losing control of the chamber.
He says behaviour will only improve if one of two things happen. First, the whips offices could order their MPs to stop catcalling. That has not happened. That must be because the whips want MPs to create a wall of noise, he says.
Second, giving the speaker the power to remove people would make a difference, he says.
He says that when he became speaker he decided to chair the session when the youth parliament came to the Commons. A veteran MP complained to him, saying they would behave badly. Bercow says he told the MP they would behave better than MPs. And they did.
Bercow says House of Lords should be halved in size
Bercow says it is “frankly, patently absurd” that the House of Lords is significantly larger than the House of Commons.
The Commons is the elected chamber, he says. There is a good case for having a second chamber that can ask the Commons to think again.
But should it consist of 800 plus members? Absolutely not. It could most definitely be halved in size and I think most fair-minded people would say that it should be.
There are 650 MPs, and currently 798 members of the House of Lords.
Bercow has taken a swipe at the Daily Mail. This is what he said about his support for LGBT causes.
It is not an accident, as you know, that I have in my coat of arms the rainbow symbol, the equality symbol, and the pink triangle. I’m a straight ally of the LGBT cause and I’m not embarrassed about that. The fact that it upset the Daily Mail is obviously an additional gain.
Bercow says he would like to see PMQs last an hour
Bercow says it would be “a good thing” if PMQs were to last an hour.
- Bercow says he would like to see PMQs last an hour.
He says he asked David Cameron about returning to having PMQs twice a week. Cameron had been opposed to Tony Blair twice-weekly PMQs with weekly PMQs in 1997, Bercow says. But he says Cameron told him that he was opposed to returning to having it twice a week. That was because he would have to devote two days to PMQs planning.
He says he does allow PMQs to over-run. Partly that is because he is giving “extra time” to allow for the fact the PM uses the occasion to make announcements.
He says, to his credit, Cameron rarely complained about Bercow letting PMQs over-run.
And Theresa May has never complained about it, he says.
Bercow issues warning to Tories, saying it would be ‘very worrying’ if they ignore Commons votes
Asked about the Tory decision not to vote in yesterday’s opposition day debates, Bercow says he cannot recall a recent example of this happening.
He says opposition day debates can be effective even without votes.
As for the Tory proposals, he says Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, told MPs this morning not to believe everything they have read about the government’s plans. (See 11.59am and 12.42pm.)
He says it might be best for him to talk to the government about this issue, rather than discuss it further in public.
Motions can produce orders or resolutions or sometimes both, he says. An order is something that allows the Commons to direct for something to happen. But lots of votes in parliament are expression of opinion, and not necessarily binding, he says.
We are in difficult terrain, he says. He should be cautious commenting on this, he says. But he goes on:
Parliamentary votes do matter and I think it would be a very worrying development if they were to be treated lightly or disregarded.
- Bercow issued a warning to the Tories, saying it would be ‘very worrying’ if they ignore Commons votes. He said he did not want to comment directly on reports that the Tory MPs will be told not to vote in opposition day debates in future. He said Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, had told MPs not to believe these reports, and he said he would be taking this up with the government in private. But he also said that, if the government were to routinely ignore how the Commons votes on opposition day motions, that would be “very worrying”.
Asked if referendums are compatible with parliamentary democracy, Bercow says they are not incompatible. It helps if the rationale for a referendum is clear.
He says he thinks he is on the record as saying, at some point in the past, that there was a case for an EU referendum. At the time all the main parties backed EU membership. But a substantial number of voters were not in favour.
He says he will leave it to others to judge whether that was the reason for the referendum, or whether it to was held for party political management reasons, to stop one party being crowded out by another. He says the former provide a good reason for a referendum; holding one for the latter reason would be less reasonable, he says.
- Bercow suggests David Cameron may have called the EU referendum for party political reasons, to protect the Conservatives from the Ukip challenge.
He says generally he does not favour referendums.
And he defends David Cameron’s decision to stand down afterwards. Cameron was decisive, he says.
Bercow says he had three objectives when he became speaker; to increase scrutiny and backbench representation; to modernise the Commons and make it more family friendly; and to serve as an ambassador for parliament.
John Bercow, the Commons speaker, is taking part at an event at the Institute for Government. He is being interviewed by Bronwen Maddox, the IfG’s director.
You can watch a live stream here.
Leadsom dismisses opposition day debates as 'political point scoring'
Andrea Leadsom faced more questions about the Tories’ proposed new “no show” approach to voting in opposition day debates. (See 11.59am.) In response to question from a Conservative, she said that while the government would always engage in debates, “we won’t always take part in the political point scoring that was the objective of [Labour’s] particular subjects yesterday.” That prompted the Labour MP Diana Johnson to say she did not know how Leadsom could give that answer with “a straight face” given that some think political point scoring is the whole point of a debate in the House of Commons.
Then the Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft asked if it was true, as HuffPost UK’s Paul Waugh said in a tweet yesterday, that Tory MPs have been told not to vote in future opposition day debates.
V signif. Tory sources say their MPs will not be expected to vote on ANY Opp Day debates for rest of Parliament. https://t.co/gKWknBwUdF
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) September 13, 2017
Leadsom replied:
Well, I certainly think we should consider changing standing orders to suggest to honourable members that they don’t take their facts from Twitter. The honourable lady’s information is from Twitter. So it is by definition not government policy and not therefore to be relied upon.
Leadsom’s argument that, if it’s on Twitter it can’t be government policy, is a bit odd because only this morning she used her own Twitter feed to make a government announcement.
The business for the week commencing 9 October will be: pic.twitter.com/Lb65CyTzjZ
— Leader's Office (@CommonsLeader) September 14, 2017
She also regularly uses her MP’s twitter feed to post images and videos defending the Conservative party’s record.
In the light of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comments about food banks, ScottishPanda has posted BTL links to two briefing papers that challenge his claim that more people are using food banks because they are getting more publicity.
This is from a Trussell Trust briefing on 11 food bank myths.
9) Foodbank figures have only increased because more and more foodbanks are opening
This is not wholly true. The rate of new foodbanks opening has dropped significantly within the past year, and now stands at roughly two a month, but numbers helped have continued to increase: in 2014/15 the total numbers of foodbanks launched rose by five percent, whilst numbers of people helped by foodbanks rose by 19%.
And this is from a House of Commons briefing paper on food banks and food poverty from 2014.
A variety of factors may have contributed to the growth in food bank usage. High global food prices have made food proportionately less affordable for low-income households in the UK whilst the recession saw unemployment increase significantly and earnings stagnate or decline. A number of significant changes to the benefits system have also been made including: the abolition of the Social Fund and the introduction of local welfare provision, the reassessment of incapacity benefit claimants, measures to control Housing Benefit expenditure and the introduction of a new benefits “conditionality and sanctions” regime. Many speculate that such welfare reforms are having the biggest impact on the growth of food banks but the Government maintains that there is “no robust evidence” to link the two.
Since September 2011, Jobcentre Plus has “signposted” people to food banks, but the Government does not officially track food bank usage. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs commissioned research in March 2013 to review evidence on the UK’s food provision and access. The resultant report (February 2014) highlighted that there is limited information on UK food aid provision and the reasons for it.
Tories accused of operating like 'dysfunctional tinpot dictatorship' after downgrading opposition day debates
Yesterday, after the Conservatives decided to abstain in two votes on Labour motions because they knew that without DUP support they would lose, Tory sources let it be known that they intended to use this tactic in future opposition day debates. Tory MPs will be encouraged not to take part in any votes, effectively rendering any divisions pointless.
Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, is taking business questions now and opposition MPs have been complaining bitterly about what this means for the House of Commons. Valerie Vaz, the shadow leader of the Commons, said the Tory approach was “jaw dropping”. She said that, after the Labour motions yesterday rejecting the recent tuition fee increase and calling for NHS staff to get a pay rise were passed unanimously, students and nurses had a legitimate expectation that these things would happen. Commenting on the new Tory strategy, she said: “It makes parliament look ridiculous”.
Pete Wishart, the SNP parliamentary business spokesman, was even more critical. He accused the Tories of behaving like “a dysfunctional tinpot dictatorship”. He told MPs:
Mr Speaker, this has been an absolute stinker of a week for the democratic arrangements of this House. First the repeal bill with the grotesque Henry VIII powers. Then the manipulation of standing committees of this House to the government’s favour. And now the degrading of opposition day debates to little more than adjournment debates.
This government is behaving little better than a dysfunctional tinpot dictatorship, and it is doing it so ineptly they’ll probably end up oppressing themselves. This is a government that singularly fails to accepts its minority status and delusionally asserts that it has a majority even when their £1bn friend desert them.
Leadsom brushed aside the criticism. She said the government took the issues raised in the opposition debates yesterday “incredibly seriously”. And she said the government intended to continue fully engaging with opposition day debates.
(That may be partly true. There was never any suggestion that the Tories would not put up ministers and MPs to speak in the debates. The plan is just to stop these debates concluding with meaningful votes.)
Rees-Mogg says existence of food banks is 'uplifting'
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative backbencher and, according to at least one survey, Tory members’ preferred next party leader, took part in an LBC phone-in earlier. He was on characteristic form. Here are the main points.
- Rees-Mogg said the existence of food banks was “uplifting” because it showed how charitable people were. Asked about the huge increase in food banks in recent years, he said:
To have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow-citizens I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are.
Inevitably, the state can’t do everything, so I think that there is good within food banks.
The real reason for the rise in numbers is that people know that they are there and Labour deliberately didn’t tell them.
- He said that George Osborne was becoming like Edward Heath, a figure consumed by “bitterness and bile”. It was sad to witness, he said. Asked about the revelation that Osborne has reportedly told colleagues at the Evening Standard that he willl not rest until Theresa May was “chopped up in bags in my freezer”, Rees-Mogg said:
The sadness of George Osborne is that he is a formidably able man. He served with distinction as chancellor of the exchequer, and he has decided since leaving parliament to emulate a rather less successful Edward Heath. I think this type of bitterness and bile ends up making the person who has that bitterness and bile feel resentful and sad, and it has no effect on broader politics. His firepower diminishes with every bitter outburst. And for so able a man that is something we should be sad about, rather than particularly condemn.
- Rees-Mogg said the UK could leave the EU without having to pay anything.
If we leave under article 50 without a deal, under UK, EU and international law, we owe no money at all. Not a brass farthing. And there was an excellent House of Lords report in March this year that went through the whole legal situation with great clarity, and nobody has disputed it.
- He said that “no one serious” thought he was a credible candidate for the Conservative leadership. He also said that he had “no wish” to become party leader, and that he was fully supporting Theresa May.
- He dismissed the prospect of May offering him a cabinet job. Asked about this, he replied: “That’s not going to happen.” He also said that when the idea was put to May in a recent interview, “she laughed for the longest amount of time she has laughed since the general election.”
- He said he supported the actions of the parents whose child has been going to a primary school on the Isle of Wight dressed sometimes as a boy and sometimes as a girl.
As it happens, I think that is a choice for the parents, and the school should be as accommodating as possible.
Asked if he would be bothered if this happened at his children’s school, he replied:
I doubt I would notice, to be perfectly honest ... But if I’m just dropping the children off at school - I don’t do the school run often, it’s normally done by my wife or nanny - it wouldn’t bother me. It’s a matter for the boy’s parents or the girl’s parents.
- He said he would be happy to eat chlorine-washed chicken. He had been to the US many times and eaten chlorine-washed chicken there. And he had looked into a New Zealand report into this issue which concluded there had been no negative health effects from chlorine-washed chicken for consumers. He went on:
The US is the most litigious society in the world. If chlorine-washed chicken was dangerous, there would have been $1bn lawsuits going on. US regulations are very high. And I quite like the idea of germs on chickens being killed. I think that’s broadly a good idea.
Khan asks London broadcasters to provide regular air quality bulletins
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is asking broadcasters in the capital to provide regular information about air quality in their reports. Bus countdown signs already provide alerts when there are high levels of pollution in the air, but Khan wants to do more to raise awareness of the problems. In a statement he said:
London’s filthy air poses a significant threat to our health including harming the development of children’s lungs, and I’m committed to tackling this issue so Londoners can breathe the clean air they deserve.
Broadcasters are already doing excellent work covering the threat to public health posed by the capital’s filthy air and I’m asking them to go even further and help empower Londoners to reduce their exposure to harmful pollution. They can do this by providing regular daily air quality information as part of their weather broadcasts.
I hope that the growing number of weather apps that many Londoners now use will also follow suit and provide air quality information.
Labour MP accuses new BBC Today editor and Nick Robinson of "destroying" the programme
The Labour MP Barry Sheerman has accused the new Today programme editor, Sarah Sands, of “destroying” the programme. Speaking during culture questions in the Commons, he also took at swipe at Nick Robinson, the former BBC political editor who is now one of the programme’s presenters. Sheerman said:
Mr Speaker, I love the BBC, even when Sarah Sands, the new editor of the Today programme, and Nick Robinson seem to be destroying that programme at the moment.
But Matt Hancock, the culture minister, leapt to their defence. He replied:
As for the Today programme, I thought that Nick Robinson’s broadcasts from Silicon Valley yesterday were superb. It was all about the interesting changes that are going on in the world and in the economy through AI and digital. And I thought it was another excellent direction for the BBC [to be going in.]
(As a devoted Today programme listener, I find Sheerman’s verdict a bit harsh. Since Sands took over as editor, the programme is certainly featuring a lot more arts, culture and lifestyle, and probably less politics, which does not always suit me but might make the programme more appealing to others. For example, one of those Sands-style interviews generated the line yesterday that the original Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was black. And, in my book, Robinson is one of the most forensic and interesting interviewers on the BBC.)
Updated
Two alternative business views of Brexit were heard on the Today programme this morning.
Sir James Dyson, the inventor who backed the Leave campaign, said that not enough progress had been made on Brexit talks but said Britain had put forward “positive suggestions” that had “not been reciprocated” by the EU.
He said he thought the UK would end up leaving the EU without a deal. But Brexit still offered an opportunity, he said.
I suspect that we will have to leave without a deal and we will trade under WTO regulations, which frankly, are going to hurt the Europeans more than the British.
Business is about uncertainty and I think uncertainty is an opportunity and the opportunity here is that the rest of the world is growing at a far greater rate than Europe.
But Sir Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, said Brexit had hit business confidence. He said:
We should be under no illusions, Brexit is having an effect on the economy, no question.
The main effects are sterling and confidence.
Uncertainty is one of the consequences of this. Businesses never like uncertainty because it makes it hard to plan for the future.
I think we need to do justice to that uncertainty and there needs to be a serious parliamentary debate to figure out what kind of Brexit we are going to have in the best interests of the country and the economy.
Brexit talks are not going 'in the way we might hope', says former Bank of England chief
Yesterday Downing Street released an online video arguing that planning for Brexit was going well.
Confused about #Brexit? pic.twitter.com/jgsmvp9Qkx
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) September 13, 2017
But Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England, isn’t convinced. In an interview on BBC’s Newsnight last night, he argued that the Brexit talks were not going well and that the government should be doing more to show that it could cope if the UK has to leave the EU without a deal. He told the programme:
If you’re going to enter a negotiation, it’s actually very important to make sure that the other side of the table knows that you have a fallback position that you’re capable of delivering. That requires you to make clear publicly what the fallback position is.
We’ve been waiting for over a year now and I must say that I’m not terribly impressed by how much of that fallback position has actually been stated, been implemented, and whether it’s actually being managed properly within the civil service and the government.
I don’t think this is a statement about the potential impact of Brexit but I don’t think that the negotiations are going in the way that we might hope.
And I think that you need a separate team who are responsible for ensuring that if the negotiations do break down in some way, and we cannot control that, that depends on the other side. We have no influence over that.
Then what we are capable of doing is saying, well if you don’t want an agreement then we are capable of leaving and trading with you, for example under World Trade Organisation terms. It’s not our first preference but we can do it, and we need a team of people who are capable of delivering that.
Many leading economists and business figures are critical of Brexit. But King’s comments are significant not just because he used to head the Bank of England, but because he is unusual among establishment economists in being well relatively pro-Brexit. He has not revealed how he voted in the referendum, but before it took place he suggested he could vote leave. And after the vote he said, although Brexit would create “great political difficulties”, it also offered “many opportunities”.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Jacob Rees-Mogg, the backbencher and Tory grassroots favourite, takes part in an LBC phone-in.
9.45am: G4S gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about abuse claims at Brook House immigration removal centre.
10.30am: The Grenfell Tower public inquiry opens with a statement from the chairman, Sir Martin Moore Bick.
10.45am: Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the lord chief justice, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.
Around 11.30am: MPs begin a debate on the intimidation of candidates during the election.
12pm: Prof Carl Baudenbacher, chairman of the European Free Trade Association court, gives a briefing at Chatham House.
1pm: John Bercow, the Commons speaker, speaks at an Institute for Government event.
2.40pm: The committee on standards in public life takes evidence as part of its inquiry into the intimidation of election candidates. Some witnesses will give evidence on security issues in private, and then, at 3.30pm, Sir Patrick McLoughlin, the Conservative party chairman, Cat Smith, the shadow minister for voter engagement, and Lady Brinton, the Lib Dem president, give evidence in public.
4.45pm: Boris Johnson holds a press conference with the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard’s Playbook. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.
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