Closing summary
We’re wrapping up this live blog now. Here’s a summary of the day’s main events:
- Labour demanded an investigation into the prime minister’s luxury holiday in Marbella. Angela Rayner said Boris Johnson’s stay, funded by the family of a friend he made a peer and handed a government job, was not declared properly.
- Downing Street insisted there was no irregularity in the way the gift was declared. The prime minister’s spokesman said it was not recorded on the register of members’ interests because it was a gift from a government minister and, therefore, was to be properly declared on the register of ministerial interests.
- The rows over the Northern Ireland protocol and fishing rights rumbled on. There was little progress in talks between the Brexit minister and the EU Commission’s vice-president, though the two agreed to meet again in London.
If you’d like to follow more of our live news coverage, my colleague Oliver Holmes is running our Cop26 live blog:
Schools in England should not encourage pupils to take part in climate protests or join campaigns, according to a draft strategy paper on sustainability and climate change published by the Department for Education.
The document was published after Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, said students concerned by climate change should consider careers in science and technology, and warned they risked incurring fines if they skipped classes to join protests.
The route to Paterson’s resignation on Thursday afternoon was marked out more than two years ago, when in 2019 the Guardian exposed his lobbying on behalf of two companies from whom he has received at least £500,000 in payments, Felicity Lawrence, David Pegg and Rob Evans write.
Documents released following freedom of information requests revealed the MP had repeatedly demanded access to ministers and regulators on behalf of his paying clients. This raised the question of whether he had broken parliamentary rules that prohibit MPs from undertaking paid advocacy– rules that have existed in various forms since the 17th century.
The Guardian evidence led the parliamentary standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, to start her own investigation. That resulted in last week’s damning report from the cross-party Commons committee on standards. It concluded Paterson’s 14 approaches to ministers and public officials were an “egregious” case and that he had brought parliament in to disrepute.
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Downing Street has declined to rule out the possibility Paterson could receive a peerage after his decision to step down as a Conservative MP amid a lobbying scandal.
Boris Johnson’s spokesperson also did not deny reports that some Tory MPs had been warned they could lose future funding for their constituencies if they did not support a Commons vote to halt punishment for Paterson and rip up the anti-sleaze rules he broke.
Paterson, a former Northern Ireland and environment secretary, announced on Thursday he would quit the Commons. It came hours after Johnson withdrew his support for moves to shield Paterson from punishment for lobbying on behalf of two companies who paid him more than £100,000 a year between them.
MPs had been due on Wednesday to vote on Paterson’s 30-day Commons suspension for what the standards committee called an “egregious case” of breaching lobbying rules. But instead Downing Street backed an amendment suspending the punishment and creating a new standards body with a built-in Tory majority.
Lord Caine, a Conservative peer who served as an adviser to six secretaries of state, has been appointed a parliamentary undersecretary of state at the Northern Ireland Office, Downing Street has said.
Caine has worked on Tory policy on Northern Ireland during his career and told the Yorkshire Post in 2019 his involvement in drafting David Cameron’s apology for Bloody Sunday was one of the highlights of his career.
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New Conservative MPs, especially in “red wall” seats, have shed sweat and tears this week after being strong-armed into trying to save a veteran colleague from suspension by ripping up anti-sleaze rules before the government was forced into a screeching U-turn.
Some from the 2019 intake privately confessed their fury at being told by Downing Street and Tory whips to put their necks on the line for Owen Paterson, who they believed had broken Commons rules and would not recognise them in the corridor.
The move has left a small but potentially permanent scar on their relationship with the top of the party, new MPs said, with trust in No 10’s ability to avoid more errors further diminished.
One Tory elected in a red wall seat in 2019 said he thought the government “wouldn’t have gone to this trouble for others and it’s more a case of having friends in high places”.
An edifying week in the government of Britain, a country run by the third prize in a competition to build Winston Churchill out of marshmallows. Yup, this man is our sorry lot: this pool-float Targaryen, this gurning English Krankie cousin, this former child star still squeezing himself into his little suit for coins. The sole bright spot for Boris Johnson is that furious Tory MPs are currently only comparing him to the nursery rhyme Duke of York. Still, give it time.
On, then, to the unforced blunderrhoea of the Owen Paterson affair and its fallout. The sheer full-spectrum shitshow of it makes sense when you understand two things: the Carl von Clownewitzes behind the government’s shameful “strategy” for sweeping aside a vital democratic check on corruption; and the fact that for Johnson, none of it was to do with Owen Paterson. The departing MP for North Shropshire was simply useful for the prime minister’s personal goals – until he wasn’t.
Šefčovič is similarly downbeat about progress made during today’s talks – and places the ball in the UK’s court.
Maroš Šefčovič after meeting David Frost.
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) November 5, 2021
EU has made a "big move" on Northern Ireland protocol "but until today we have seen no move at all from the UK side. I find this disappointing and once again I urge the UK government to engage with us sincerely".
The former Conservative MP Owen Paterson has said he will be stepping away from his consultancy work following his resignation from the Commons.
Thank you to the many people who have sent their kind wishes to me and my family this week. At this difficult time, I will be stepping aside from my current consultancy work to focus on my family and suicide prevention.
— Owen Paterson (@OwenPaterson) November 5, 2021
There has been no breakthrough in talks between the UK and the EU on the Northern Ireland protocol or on fishing rights, Downing Street says, but the Brexit minister has agreed to a further meeting next week. No 10 has said:
Lord Frost met with EU Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič in Brussels today.
Lord Frost set out the UK’s assessment of the negotiations on the protocol. He underlined that progress had been limited and that the EU’s proposals did not currently deal effectively with the fundamental difficulties in the way the protocol was operating. He added that, in the UK view, these gaps could still be bridged through further intensive discussions. He underlined that the UK’s preference was still to find a consensual solution that protected the Belfast (Good Friday) agreement and the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland.
There was also a short discussion of fisheries policy. Lord Frost reiterated that the UK had licensed 98% of EU vessels seeking to fish in UK waters, representing almost 1,700 vessels, in line with its obligations under the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA). He repeated that vessels must provide the necessary evidence of historic fishing activity required by the TCA in order to receive a licence.
Lord Frost and Vice-President Šefčovič will meet again in London next week and official-level discussions will continue during the week.
Labour demands investigation over PM's free luxury holiday
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has called on the parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to investigate the prime minister’s holiday in Marbella. Her letter reads:
In the list of ministers’ interests published today, the member of parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip in his capacity as the prime minister declared that in October 2021 he stayed ‘in a holiday home in southern Spain which was provided free of charge by the Goldsmiths’. The prime minister did not declare the value of this gift, but it is reasonable to assume that the value was a significant amount given media outlets have reported that this villa is rented out at a fee of £25,000 per week.
However, he has not declared this gift in the register of members’ interests. This appears to be a breach of the House code of conduct and the rules relating to the conduct of members regarding the declaration and registration of interests and gifts.
You will of course be aware that the last time the member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip enjoyed a free luxury holiday your subsequent report found that ‘Mr Johnson was required under the House’s rules to register the holiday accommodation he received’ and the Committee for Standards agreed with the conclusion, stating that ‘Mr Johnson was required to register the holiday accommodation he received in the register of members’ interests … Mr Johnson was required by the guide to the rules, which has the authority of the House, to register the accommodation’.
It is also worth noting that Lord Goldsmith was given a peerage and a ministerial job by Mr Johnson. The public could understandably draw the conclusion in this case that the prime minister is dishing out cushy jobs to his friends who pay for his luxury holidays.
Given the member of parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip has a long history of breaching the rules in relation to parliamentary standards and other integrity and anti-corruption measures, it is my assumption that he will be eager to ensure that he fulfils his obligations under the rules of the House of Commons in this case.
We cannot have a situation where Boris Johnson behaves like it’s one rule for him and another for everyone else. I would be grateful for your guidance on whether this is a breach of the rules, and whether you will investigate the member of parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Nine in 10 organisations supporting vulnerable families have reported a rise in children seeking help with mental health issues, a survey by a House of Lords committee has found.
Services are experiencing more demand from families needing support due to domestic violence, and worsening parental addiction and mental health problems, according to research by the House of Lords Public Services Committee.
The committee surveyed councils, charities and organisations supporting vulnerable families, receiving responses from 187 services across England.
It found that nine in 10 reported more children coming forward for mental health support since March 2020, while 86% said the mental health issues of children already receiving help had worsened.
Some 64% of the services reported a rise in families requesting help due to domestic violence. Two thirds of the services said the families they were already supporting were facing more severe domestic violence.
Half reported an increase in the severity of parental addiction issues among families already receiving support. The committee’s chairwoman Baroness Armstrong said:
The results of our survey show just how much the pandemic has taken its toll and added to the pressures facing thousands of children and families, and the frontline staff working hard to keep them safe.
We know too that there has been a significant and worrying increase in the number of vulnerable children who are invisible to public services and not receiving any help at all since the beginning of the pandemic.
The committee is due to publish a report following its inquiry into the role of public services in addressing child vulnerability.
Downing Street has said it is a matter for the commissioner whether or not she opens an investigation into the initial funding of the prime minister’s flat refurbishments.
Asked whether No 10 would condemn any pressure put on the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone from MPs over the potential investigation, a spokesman for the prime minister said:
That’s entirely a matter for the commissioner. Obviously, we wouldn’t want to see that happening. Our focus, as we’ve been discussing, is on the appeals process and making sure we have a process in place that is similar to other walks of life.
Expanding, Johnson’s spokesman insisted the prime minister had abided by the transparency requirements laid down by both the ministerial code and the code of conduct for MPs.
Given the hospitality was provided by another minister, it’s right that the PM made this declaration in his ministerial capacity to ensure sufficient transparency.
I also point out that this was a family holiday at the home of longstanding family friends and is unconnected with a PM’s parliamentary and political activities.
The PM has written to the House of Commons registrar to set out that this holiday has been declared under the ministerial code, because the arrangement is with another minister.
The spokesman did not clarify when asked whether the register had replied to Johnson’s letter, but added: “As I say, ministerial code declarations fall outside the remit of the House of Commons registrar and Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.”
Asked why the holiday did not need to be declared on the register of members’ interests, Johnson’s spokesman told reporters:
The ministerial code declarations fall outside the remit of the House of Commons register. And, as I say, in line with transparency requirements the PM has declared this arrangement in his ministerial capacity.
Boris Johnson's Marbella holiday declared correctly, Downing Street claims
Boris Johnson’s holiday in Marbella was declared in the correct way, Downing Street has claimed. A spokesman for the prime minister said:
Earlier this year, the prime minister received hospitality from a longstanding friend who provided use of their holiday home. The prime minister’s met the transparency requirements in relation to this, he declared this arrangement in his ministerial capacity, given this was hospitality provided by another minister.
Johnson has come under scrutiny after admitting receiving a free holiday at a luxurious Spanish villa linked to Zac Goldsmith, the former MP whom he handed a peerage and a job.
The spokesman said Johnson’s ministerial standards adviser Lord Geidt had scrutinised the declaration as part of the process. He declined to answer when asked how much the holiday was worth.
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Lord Frost has declined to say how long the negotiations would continue.
I’m not going to give any timescales or any hypotheticals, we are trying to reach agreement and we’re working very hard and we’re going to carry on trying.
The Brexit minister has previously said he expects the issues around the protocol to be settled “one way or another” this autumn. The UK also wants an end to the European court of justice’s oversight role; something that Brussels has said is impossible.
The European Commission’s executive vice-president Frans Timmermans told ITV’s Peston that Brussels was “bending over backwards” to reach an agreement with the UK.
Brexit minister threatens EU with formal dispute over Northern Ireland protocol
A significant gap remains between the UK and the EU, the Brexit minister has said, as he prepares to meet one of Brussels’ top officials.
Lord Frost’s meeting with the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič comes as the UK and the bloc are still at loggerheads over the future of the Northern Ireland protocol, while a diplomatic row has erupted with France over fishing rights. Speaking to reporters ahead of the meeting, Frost said:
The gap between us is still quite significant but let’s see where we can get to.
To avoid a hard border with Ireland, the protocol effectively keeps Northern Ireland inside the EU’s single market for goods, resulting in some checks for products crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain, which left the single market. Frost said he would not immediately trigger article 16, which would allow parts of the deal to be suspended.
We’re not going to trigger article 16 today, but Article 16 is very much on the table and has been since July. If we can reach an agreement on the protocol that provides a sustainable solution, then that’s the best way forward.
He has previously claimed the conditions for using the mechanism have been met because of the difficulties being caused. Senior EU figures are hopeful that the use of article 16 of the protocol can be avoided.
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A women’s charity has joined calls for an inquiry into the decades of offending by murderer David Fuller.
The Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) said the charity had been working with Nevres Kemal, the mother of Azra Kemal, whose body was sexually assaulted in a mortuary by hospital electrician Fuller, to set up an internship programme in her daughter’s memory.
The charity said in a statement: “Azra was an inspiring and much-loved young woman and we are incredibly grateful that her mother chose CWJ to help memorialise her daughter’s life. The internship project had been commenced before Nevres received the horrifying further news of her daughter’s desecration.”
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At least 853 people crossed the English Channel to the UK on small boats in a single day on Wednesday – a new record for the current crisis. The Home Office confirmed UK authorities had to rescue or intercept this number of people from 25 incidents.
The arrival tally eclipses the previous daily record of 828 set in August and is the highest number of crossings ever recorded in one day in the current crisis, according to data compiled by the PA news agency.
It comes after French authorities said two people died this week while attempting the journey and several more were feared to have been lost at sea last week.
More than 21,000 people have made the crossing to the UK so far this year, analysis by PA shows. This is more than double the total for the whole of 2020. In 2019, home secretary Priti Patel promised to make migrant crossings an “infrequent phenomenon” by spring 2020 and then pledged in August last year to “make this route unviable”.
During this time, the government has agreed to pay France millions of pounds to increase security on its northern coast. Campaigners and aid charities have repeatedly called on ministers to overhaul the asylum system in light of the soaring numbers.
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Greg Clark, MP for Tunbridge Wells, said he had attended the trial of hospital electrician David Fuller at Maidstone Crown Court on Monday.
He described the murders of Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in his constituency as “profoundly shocking even decades on” and something which people in the area are still grieving.
Clark told the PA news agency: “This week has been a huge shock because it was only on Monday that these offences, the abuse of bodies in the mortuaries, came to light, so it is only four days since this was made known.
“Everyone in the area is grieving, still, the murder of these two young women who were brutally and appallingly killed.
“I was in the public gallery on Monday when the prosecution laid out the case, and even decades on, it’s still profoundly shocking what happened to those two young women.
“But then to add to that what has been revealed about the depravity of the abuse and the scale of it - over 100 bodies desecrated - has shocked and appalled everyone in the area.”
My colleague Matthew Weaver has written the full story on Zahawi’s morning round, where the minister admitted errors were made over the Paterson affair:
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Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has admitted he had not read the detail of a standards report into Tory MP Owen Paterson but said he takes “collective responsibility” for the government having “conflated” his case with the desire for wider reforms.
Paterson, who had represented North Shropshire since 1997, resigned on Thursday after a 24-hour debacle where he was saved from potential suspension by Tory colleagues after being found to have breached lobbying rules, only to face a fresh vote when the government made a U-turn following allegations of sleaze.
The government had backed an amendment put down by the former Leader of the Commons, Dame Andrea Leadsom, which would have prevented Paterson’s immediate suspension by launching a review of the entire disciplinary system.
The controversial plan was backed by almost 250 Tory MPs on Wednesday, although there was a sizable rebellion and by Thursday morning the government was forced into an embarrassing U-turn, blaming a lack of cross-party support.
But Zahawi admitted on Friday that he had not read the detail of the report into Paterson’s conduct, despite voting for the amendment which saved him from suspension on Wednesday.
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Labour has confirmed it will put up a candidate in the North Shropshire byelection – the seat about to be vacated by the disgraced former Conservative cabinet minister Owen Paterson.
There had been suggestions that opposition parties could band together to support an “anti-sleaze” candidate, after Paterson stepped aside following a botched attempt by Boris Johnson to protect him from punishment for paid lobbying.
An alleged terrorist accused of fatally stabbing Sir David Amess will enter pleas in December. Ali Harbi Ali, 25, is charged with murdering the Conservative MP for Southend West during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex on 15 October.
He is also charged with preparing acts of terrorism between 1 May, 2019 and 28 September this year. According to a draft indictment, Ali engaged in reconnaissance of locations of targets to attack including addresses associated with MPs and Houses of Parliament.
He also allegedly made in internet research relating to targets to attack. On Friday, Ali appeared at the Old Bailey for a preliminary hearing by videolink from Belmarsh prison. Wearing a pale blue jumper, Ali spoke only to confirm his name. Judge Justice Sweeney set a preparatory and plea hearing for 21 December.
A provisional trial date has already been identified for 7 March next year. Following the brief hearing, the defendant was remanded into custody. Ali is accused of travelling by train from his home in Kentish Town, north London, to attend Sir David’s surgery at Belfairs Methodist Church.
During the meeting, he allegedly produced a large knife from his pocket and repeatedly stabbed Sir David. The veteran MP was pronounced dead at the scene at 1.10pm.
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Former Conservative MP Owen Paterson has officially resigned from parliament, the Treasury has confirmed.
In a statement, it said: “The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed the Rt Hon Owen William Paterson to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.”
There is no official process for an MP to stand down from the Commons and the parliament website says that “unless they die or are expelled they must become disqualified if they wish to retire before the end of a parliament”.
However they can be made ineligible to be an MP under the law by taking one of two offices of profit under the Crown – Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, or Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
The unpaid roles have no responsibilities and the Manor of Northstead, a former medieval estate in North Yorkshire, has been redeveloped and forms part of Scarborough. However, the process allows MPs to resign within the law.
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The education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, has been challenged over his previous earnings outside parliament.
On Times Radio, it was put to Zahawi that, between 2015 and 2017, he was working for Gulf Keystone Petroleum, at one point earning almost £30,000 a month.
But he said: “My attentions were always focused on my constituents, any outside interest I had had nothing to do with my parliamentary duties.”
He added: “As I’ve said to you, and I absolutely agree with the prime minister that any form of paid lobbying is wrong. There should be no crossover between an outside interest and what you do for your constituents and parliament, and I always put my constituents first.”
But he defended the ability of MPs to have jobs outside parliament and said: “There are MPs who are doctors, there are MPs who are lawyers, there are MPs that are engineers. Should MPs have that ability and that enrichment of parliament, of understanding the economy or the legal system or the education system or the healthcare system?
“I think, in my view, that’s a healthy parliament. How we do this is up to parliament to decide on a cross-party basis.”
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MPs in areas where hospital electrician David Fuller carried out sex attacks on corpses in mortuaries are calling for a public inquiry, according to Greg Clark, the Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells.
Clark told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that an NHS investigation is “not sufficient”.
“There’s never been a case in Britain in which the number and the scale of the abuse of dead bodies have been revealed in this way and it raises such important questions as to the security of mortuaries for every hospital in the country,” he said.
“I do think it’s now necessary, as well as obviously seeing Fuller go to jail for what I hope will be the rest of his life, that we move on to ask serious questions as to how this could have happened and we establish that it can never happen again.”
Clark said that he, along with neighbouring MPs, has written to the health secretary and home secretary to ask that an inquiry be set up “without delay”.
Fuller admitted murdering and then sexually assaulting two women decades before carrying out dozens of attacks in mortuaries.
The fallout from the Owen Paterson row has continued after Boris Johnson’s U-turn that saw veteran Tory MP Owen Paterson resign from parliament after Downing Street ditched a bid to shield him from lobbying claims.
The education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said the government cannot be complacent in the face of perceptions of sleaze.
Asked on LBC about opinion polling following the Owen Paterson row, Nadhim Zahawi said: “I take from it that we can’t be complacent, that it was right to come back to parliament and say we made a mistake.
“I think actually people, listeners, participants in polls, will understand that it is only human when you know you’ve made a mistake to come back and say we made a mistake and we’re going to correct it.
“And that we want a fairer system of appeals. They know that because it’s right in other walks of life and other sectors of the economy.
“So I think it’s the right thing to do, and of course, the really important poll would be the general election.”
Sir David Lidington, former leader of the House of Commons, said the Owen Paterson row has damaged politicians’ reputations. “Clearly there was a pretty appalling set of misjudgments involved,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“The reputation of the House of Commons as an institution and MPs of all parties will have been damaged by the events of the last 24 hours.”
The former Conservative MP also said the affair has “weakened the government”, making it harder for Boris Johnson to win support from backbench MPs on potentially unpopular measures in the future.
“If you ask your troops to march through the lobby on something like this and which they don’t think is right and then you U-turn on it, it’s going to be more difficult next time around,” he said.
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Morning and welcome to the politics live blog, bringing you the latest news. Please get in touch if you have any questions, comments or news tips to help as I work today.
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Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
