Summary
Thanks for following the blog today. Andrew will be back with a special byelections result blog later when the polls close.
In the meantime here is a summary of the day’s events
- People have been going to the polls to cast their votes in the Stoke-on-Trent Central and Copeland byelections. Bad weather in Copeland and a Tory resurgence in Stoke threaten Labour’s chances of retaining the two seats it has held for decades.
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Net migration to Britain fell by 49,000 last year, according to official figures that include the three months after the Brexit vote. The drop to 273,000 is the first substantial decrease in the politically sensitive figure for more than four years.
- Guantanamo Bay detainees face losing compensation cash if they have breached legal agreements with the government, a minister has said. Security minister Ben Wallace spoke in the Commons, after an outcry over claims that Jamal al-Harith, a former detainee reportedly killed in an Islamic State suicide bomb attack in Iraq, received £1m compensation from the UK government. His family claim the figure is wide of the mark.
- Michael Gove has admitted it was a mistake for him to enter the race to become prime minister. In a wide-ranging interview with the Christian Today website, the former cabinet minister also said he had not spoken to David Cameron since the Brexit referendum and refused to say whether Rupert Murdoch sat in on his interview with Donald Trump.
Graphs from betting exchange Smarkets show how the odds on tonights byelections have moved. In Stoke, it currently gives Labour a 68% chance of winning, with Ukip rated at 28% and the Tories at 5%. Ukip has tailed off significantly recently, coinciding with the adverse publicity suffered by Paul Nuttall in relation to Hillsborough.
In Copeland, the implied probabilities make less cheery reading for Labour. It is given a 30% chance of retaining the seat, while the Conservatives are rated at 70%
A Labour MP has called for Theresa May to appear before parliament to explain government efforts to tackle child poverty after one of her ministers confirmed that the organisation charged with replacing the child poverty unit has no formal role in addressing the issue.
Dan Jarvis, whose previous parliamentary questions on the issue prompted ministers to say that the civil service’s once high-profile child poverty unit had been disbanded, warned that May was failing to deliver on her promises over the subject.
He was speaking after Lord Henley, a junior minister in the Department for Work and Pension (DWP), wrote to a fellow peer to confirm that the Social Mobility Commission, charged with taking over the work of the child poverty unit, no longer had any remit in that area.
Jarvis said Henley’s letter was “further evidence of the Conservatives’ complete failure to tackle child poverty”.
He said: “The prime minister must now report to parliament on the work underway to put that right.”
There were 3.9 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2014-15, according to DWP figures quoted by the Child Poverty Action Group, amounting to 28% of all children in the UK.
A DWP spokeswoman said: “Tackling child poverty and disadvantage is an absolute priority for this government, and the Social Mobility Commission plays an important role in monitoring these issues.
“We are working across government to tackle the root causes of poverty and disadvantage – and will set out our plans in our social justice green paper, which will be published in due course.”
In an interview with House magazine, the justice secretary, Liz Truss, has defended her silence in the face of the vilification of the judges who presided over the case concerning who has the right to trigger article 50 (NB This post appeared earlier but was taken down as it was mistakenly posted before the 3pm embargo).
She said:
“I think the judges of the Supreme Court are people of integrity and impartiality. I meet with them regularly to discuss all kinds of issues and that is very important in my role as Lord Chancellor.
“I also believe we live in a free society and free democracy and we have a free press. It is very important that politicians don’t get into the business of policing headlines and saying what is acceptable or not acceptable to print.”
Over on our Storm Doris live blog, my colleague Matthew Weaver has details of politicians’ efforts to get to Stoke.
V helpful @VirginTrains guard on 1020 from Euston, still travelling towards Stoke, v delayed by #stormdoris. Thanks for updates & info
— Kate Green (@KateGreenSU) February 23, 2017
Had turbulent flight back from Geneva. Landed at @EMA_Airport 45 minutes ago, but #stormdoris too windy to get a ladder up to the plane!
— Toby Perkins MP (@tobyperkinsmp) February 23, 2017
Those already in Copeland/Stoke are not letting the elements stop them:
Clouds coming down, it's wet + windy with #stormdoris but it's all good for #TrudyHarrison in #keswick as part of #CopelandByElection pic.twitter.com/jjKEcvibPh
— Guy Opperman MP (@GuyOpperman) February 23, 2017
#Copeland voters will find it is worth battling #StormDoris to go and vote for Trudy @Conservatives today pic.twitter.com/xlKZ7dqbQg
— Harriett Baldwin (@HBaldwinMP) February 23, 2017
Well not even #StormDoris will stop us GOTV in #StokeCentral. On the #LabourDoorStep for @gareth_snell with @ameliarout & @stokey4labour. pic.twitter.com/s7dLitpY83
— Cllr Mike Stubbs (@CllrStubbsNUL) February 23, 2017
The latest Politics Weekly podcast features an extended discussion from a Guardian Live event in London on whether economists should share the blame for populism.
Among those joining the Guardian’s political editor, Heather Stewart, are Ann Pettifor, an economist and director of Prime – Policy Research in Macroeconomics, Rachel Reeves, Labour MP for Leeds West and a former Bank of England economist and Andrew Lilico, executive director of the consultancy Europe Economics and one of those rare beasts: an economist who backed Brexit.
The UK transport minister John Hayes has been ridiculed after wrongly asserting in the Commons on Thursday that two major Scottish bridges, the Forth and Tay road bridges, had to be closed down after the Scottish government abolished tolls nearly 10 years ago.
In response to a question from Scottish National party MP Margaret Ferrier on the continued use of bridge tolls in England and Wales, Hayes told MPs:
Well, my goodness, Mr Speaker. What bare-faced cheek from the SNP. They did indeed cancel the tolls and they closed, the crossings closed as a result, because they didn’t have enough money to pay for them.
Quite the opposite in fact. A third bridge is being built over the Forth because the existing road bridge, opened in 1964 and still taking tens of thousands of cars a day, is so congested and elderly. It and the Tay road bridge do close, but only in high winds.
Ferrier tweeted:
The Transport Minister should consider a career in fantasy fiction. Commuters in Scotland are much better off than south of the border. pic.twitter.com/zHjB7K4IDi
— Margaret Ferrier MP (@MargaretFerrier) February 23, 2017
Peter Grant, the Scottish National party MP for Glenrothes & Central Fife, whose constituents regularly use both toll-free bridges, tweeted:
I've suggested that next time UK cabinet goes on tour they come to Fife to show the transport minister what an open bridge looks like.
— Peter Grant MP (@PeterGrantMP) February 23, 2017
Michael Gove may have cosied up to Donald Trump for that infamous interview but he’s been a bit braver with the benefit of time and distance.
In an interview with Christian Today, he doubted whether the US president would quit early, describing him as “narcissistic” and “egotistical” although he added: “Knowing that he might lose [the next election], he might find some means of quitting while he thinks he is ahead.”
He also condemned the travel ban introduced by Trump as wrong.
Speaking of being “narcissistic” or “egotistical”, Gove also said that he was wrong to stand against Boris Johnson in the Conservative leadership contest.
However, he said he has spoken to Johnson since but not to David Cameron:
I’ve spoken to Boris. Again, um, David – the opportunity hasn’t arisen, and my view is that...what’s the right thing to say? Yes, I think David was a great prime minister, I think he achieved a great deal. I think he has every right to feel that [pause] the way in which things turned out in the end...give him the right to feel, well, you know, I didn’t necessarily...get the recognition or the appreciation that everything I have put into this job necessarily deserves, so my view is that I entirely respect his right to...have left parliament, devote himself to other causes outside parliament, and...make judgments himself about how he spends his time and who he talks to and I don’t make any criticism.
Good afternoon, this is Haroon Siddique taking over from Andy, who is heading up to Stoke for the Guardian’s byelections blog.
The weather is not making things any easier for Labour.
Storm Doris hitting #StokeonTrentCentral hard. Drenched and leaflets like Papier mache. Great team working hard for #Labour4Stoke
— MegHillierMP (@Meg_HillierMP) February 23, 2017
Today vote @UKLabour in #stokebyelection. If we let extremism in #stormdoris will be a breeze in comparison to the havoc that will follow
— Carolyn Harris MP (@carolynharris24) February 23, 2017
Theresa May and her Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull have compared notes on their contacts with US President Donald Trump since his inauguration last month, the Press Association reports.
The two prime ministers spoke by phone on Thursday morning in a “substantial” conversation which also covered their hopes for a trade deal following Brexit, co-operation in the fight against Islamic State (Isis) and relations with Iran, said Downing Street.
Reports earlier this month suggested that Turnbull’s first phone call with the US president was a stormy affair, with Trump supposedly criticising a deal to take migrants from Australia as “the worst ever” and ending the conversation abruptly.
But Downing Street said the Australian PM was “very positive” about his contact with Trump in his conversation with May, while both agreed that her trip to Washington as the first foreign leader to visit the new president in January had been “positive”.
At the Number 10 lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman described the immigration figures as “encouraging” but insisted the government was not complacent about the downward move in immigration numbers. He told reporters:
If you look at the figures in the round, clearly we have seen a fall in net migration, which obviously we welcome, but we are not complacent about this. We are very clear there is more work to be done to bring net migration down to the target of tens of thousands.
As the Press Association reports, asked whether the rise in departures of migrants from EU8 (Eastern European) countries was a signal that Britain was seen as a less welcoming place after the Brexit vote, the spokesman replied: “There is no evidence of that.”
And asked whether the increase in numbers of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants might reflect efforts by individuals to establish residence in the UK before it leaves the EU, the spokesman said: “I wouldn’t read anything into one set of figures.”
Labour’s Chris Bryant says Theresa May and Ken Clarke agreed to pay £1m to someone who committed a terrorism act. He does not understand why Wallace cannot answer questions on this. Harith is dead, he says, so confidentiality should not apply. And the Bill of Rights means anything Wallace says in parliament cannot be challenged in the courts.
Wallace says the government has to obey the law.
And that’s it. The urgent question is over.
Labour’s Kevin Brennan says Harith must have been subject to an exit check after he left the country. What happened then?
Wallace says he cannot comment on individual cases. But the intelligence and security committee is free to look into this, he says.
Labour’s Ben Bradshaw says it is not good enough for Wallace to hide behind intelligence as a reason for not answering basic questions. What assessment has he made of the impact of the disastrous decision to get rid of control orders?
Wallace says Bradshaw forgets the fact that control orders were being challenged in the courts. They had to be replaced, he says.
Labour’s Diana Johnson asks Wallace why he did not answer Yvette Cooper’s question about whether anyone is on a Tpim (terrorism prevention and investigation measure).
Wallace says the numbers are published every year. The latest figures said that six people were covered by a Tpim.
Labour’s Kevan Jones asks if Theresa May, as home secretary, approved these confidentiality payments.
Wallace says he will write to Jones about this. He was PPS to Ken Clarke, the justice secretary, at the time, but he says he is not certain that it was Clarke’s decision. But the whole government stands behind that decision, he says.
David Nuttall, a Conservative, asks Wallace to confirm that the new law allowing evidence in these cases to be heard in “closed material” proceedings has saved the taxpayer millions of pounds.
Wallace says the legislation is having the effect intended.
Alex Salmond, the SNP MP and former Scottish first minister, asks for the date of the confidentiality clause that Wallace was citing. Or is that too confidential?
Wallace says there was a legally-binding confidentiality agreement in November 2010. It puts an obligation on this government, not on former home secretaries.
Labour’s Anna Turley says the public will be “bewildered” by the lack of information Wallace is providing. Is Wallace confident that suspects are being monitored properly? How can people like Harith leave the country? It looks as if the government has funded people going to Syria.
Wallace says it is a regrettable fact that the government cannot talk about its intelligence successes. Every day action is being taken to stop people travelling to Syria.
Wallace says, when he was an opposition MP, Labour often tried to cut corners on intelligence. He singles out the Labour proposal to allow 90 days pre-charge detention for particular criticism.
Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative, says he welcomes the decision taken by David Blunkett when he was home secretary in relation to Harith. He says that if the decision to pay compensation enabled the government to hold back sensitive intelligence, then that was the right thing to do.
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem MP, asks if the government supports President Obama’s policy on Guantanamo Bay (trying to close it) or President Trump’s (filling it up with “bad dudes”).
Wallace says he knows from his time in the army that torture does not work.
Sir Julian Brazier, the Conservative MP, says some MPs bitterly opposed the 2013 legislation allowing the government to contest compensation claims by letting the courts hear intelligence evidence in private.
The Conservative Andrew Murrison says it has been reported that about £20m was paid out to people like Harith. Is the government sure none of that went to fund terrorism?
Wallace says the government has recently changed the law to make it easier for money being used to fund terrorism to be tracked.
Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, says there will be public concern about this case. Wallace has refused to answer even the simplest questions.
Was there any payment to Harith?
Was money paid to stop him making embarrassing revelations about the security services?
How was Harith able to leave the country?
Will the government refer this to the intelligence and security committee?
Wallace says the ISC now has the power to investigate this case. If it chooses to do so, the government will of course cooperate.
He says Abbott is asking him to disclose intelligence operations against an individual. He will not do that, and previous government did not either.
He says he cannot reveal details of the compensation paid because to do so would be in breach of the government’s legally-binding obligations.
Victoria Prentis, a Conservative, says she used to be a government lawyer. Colleagues worked on cases like this. She asks what the government has done to reduce the chances of these cases happening.
Wallace reports some of the points he made earlier.
He also says the government will put protecting its citizens first, and will act in according with the principle of self-defence.
Wallace is replying to Cooper.
He says, unlike former home secretaries, the government is bound by the terms of the settlement which means it cannot comment on the claims.
He says it has been reported that “outrageous” sums of money were handed over.
He says the coalition government changed the law to bring the intelligence services within the law.
And the government also changed the law to enable the government to challenge claims like this, by allowing the courts to hear security evidence in private.
He says it was the coalition government that took these steps to minimise the risks of cases like this happening again.
Yvette Cooper says if the reports about Jamal al-Harith launching a suicide attack are true, he was a deeply dangerous man.
She says people understand why some information cannot be disclosed for intelligence reasons.
But Wallace has given too little information.
Can Wallace confirm that Harith received a compensation payment.
Was he being monitored? Was he subject to a control order? And is anyone subject to a Tpim at the moment?
Was any attempt made to recover any payments that were made?
Is the government reviewing this case?
Will the government present a report to the intelligence and security committee?
Yvette Cooper is asking her urgent question now.
Ben Wallace, the Home Office minister, is replying.
He says the government discourages British nationals from travelling to conflict zone.
It is the longstanding policy of the government not to comment on intelligence matters. The monitoring of suspects is an intelligence matter.
He says it is also the government’s policy not to comment on compensation payments.
In the last parliament Ken Clarke, the then justice secretary, said that a settlement had been reached with some of the Guantanamo Bay detainees. But he did not give details, and the confidentiality terms imposed meant he could not do so.
Urgent question on Jamal al-Harith
Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs committee, is about to ask an urgent question about Jamal al-Harith.
Here is our latest story on this.
Here is Alan Travis’s story about the immigration figures.
Here is my colleague John Harris’s Anywhere but Westminster video about Stoke. Stoke Central had the lowest turnout in Britain at the 2015 election, and John asks why.
The Press Association says, at 273,000 in the year to September, net migration was at its lowest figure for more than two years.
The immigration figures have just come out. The ONS has tweeted these.
Net long-term international migration was estimated to be +273,000 in YE Sept 2016 https://t.co/4GmIwvobe9 pic.twitter.com/6ANAQQpR8D
— ONS (@ONS) February 23, 2017
Net migration year ending Sept 2016: +165,000 EU citizens, +164,000 non-EU citizens and -56,000 British citizens https://t.co/4GmIwvobe9 pic.twitter.com/3LllHuIwSx
— ONS (@ONS) February 23, 2017
180,000 EU citizens arrived for work YE Sept 2016; of these 113,000 had a definite job to go to https://t.co/4GmIwvobe9 pic.twitter.com/lSSwqa0KgA
— ONS (@ONS) February 23, 2017
There will be an urgent question at 10.30am on Jamal al-Harith.
UQ at 10.30 to @YvetteCooperMP to ask @AmberRudd_MP for Statement on the case of Jamal Al-Harith.
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) February 23, 2017
It’s byelection day, and in Stoke-on-Trent Central and Copeland polls have already been open for two hours for anyone hardy enough to be willing to defy Storm Doris.
These are both seats that have been held by Labour for decades and, although the party’s majority in both places in 2015 was not enormous (in Stoke 5,179, or 16.7%; in Copeland 2,564, or 6.5%) in normal circumstances Labour would expect to hold both easily, and we would be in for a boring night.
But the relative weakness of Labour has made their opponents competitive in both seats. In Stoke Ukip have mounted a fierce challenge, fielding their new leader Paul Nuttall as the candidate, but this is a high-risk strategy which means that if the party loses commentators will start to doubt whether Nuttall’s plan to move the party on by taking votes from Labour in the north can ever be achieved.
And in Copeland the Conservatives have been fighting so hard that they are seen as having a realistic chance of becoming the first governing party to take a seat from the opposition in a byelection since Mithcham and Morden in 1982.
Here is our byelection preview story.
And here is how it starts.
Bad weather in Copeland and a resurgent Conservative campaign in Stoke will make it a challenge for Labour to win both of Thursday’s byelections, local campaign leaders for the party have said.
In an attempt to dampen expectations of a clean sweep, the Stoke campaign chief, Jack Dromey, said the race there was a “three-way marginal” where the Labour candidate, Gareth Snell, was under threat from the Conservatives’ Jack Brereton as well as Ukip’s Paul Nuttall. “The Labour campaign has been hard-fought and there is significant progress,” said Dromey, a Birmingham MP. “But it is a tough, tough, tough marginal.”
Dromey said the result would be a “defining moment” in the British political landscape, though turnout in the seat has been historically one of the lowest in the country. “It is a defining moment, it is Ukip breaking through in Labour’s heartland or it is the turning of the tide on Ukip,” he said.
There will be some coverage of events on the ground on the blog here today but there are some limits on what we can say under electoral law.
And these apply to anyone posting comments too. While polls remain open, and if you are entitled to vote in the by-election, please refrain from disclosing your voting choices. Any comment declaring how you cast your vote will be removed by moderators owing to restrictions on polls and reporting, set out in article 66A of the Representation of the People Act 1983. Once all polling stations have closed this restriction will be lifted. Thank you for your cooperation.
Tonight I will be in Stoke at the count, writing a blog covering both byelection results.
In the meantime, it looks relatively quiet today. Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Tony Hall, director general of the BBC, gives evidence to a Scottish parliament committee about the BBC’s plans for Scotland.
9.15am: Justine Greening, the education secretary, gives a speech at a conference on female genital mutilation.
9.30am: The Office for National Statistics publishes the latest immigration figures.
3pm: Theresa May meets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates at Number 10.
At some point today the ministry of justice is also publishing its prisons and courts bill.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
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