You can find the usual round up of the front pages here.

Brexit

Telegraph
Jeremy Hunt has been accused of undermining Brexit by agreeing to international corporation tax rules as he faces a fresh backbench rebellion ahead of the Budget.
A group of prominent Conservative MPs, led by former prime minister Liz Truss and ex-Cabinet minister Priti Patel, have warned the Chancellor not to “rush ahead and surrender sovereign tax rights”.
It is the latest sign of Tory unrest ahead of the Budget, with Mr Hunt continuing to come under intense pressure to abandon his rise in corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent.
But on Saturday Mr Hunt brushed aside criticism as he sought to defend his approach. He told the Telegraph that the Government was “taking any steps we can afford to make it easier for businesses to invest”.
In a letter to the Chancellor, the MPs are urging him to pull out of an international agreement that corporation tax should never be reduced below 15 per cent.
They point out that there was little point withdrawing from the EU if the Government was going to ratify the agreement, brokered last year by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
“As a party elected to ensure Britain ‘Takes Back Control’ from the EU, it is remarkable that we should be asked to rush ahead and surrender sovereign tax rights under the OECD initiative, especially while so many questions about the measure remain unaddressed,” they say.
“We are united in our belief that we risk doing damage to the UK’s economic competitiveness by pressing ahead with the current implementation timeline.”

Small boats

Guardian
Rishi Sunak’s plan to reduce small boat crossings will effectively reverse a ban on child detention implemented under David Cameron and open the door to an expansion of the practice, the Observer understands.
With a potential Tory rebellion already brewing over the proposals, it has emerged that the Illegal Migration bill will allow the detention of families with children and even allows the deportation of unaccompanied children if it is deemed to be safe in their country of origin.
The former home secretary Priti Patel is considering a potentially explosive intervention in the Commons on Monday over the bill. Patel, herself regarded as on the right and a hardliner on immigration while in charge at the Home Office, is one of several Tory MPs who are known to have serious concerns and are seeking reassurances or changes to the bill this weekend.
Several senior Tories are particularly worried about changes to the way children will be treated when arriving in the UK, and the way in which the new bill comes close to breaching international law. One former minister told the Observer the changes to rules on children “make me sick just to mention” and would have to be modified.
“God knows what happens around safeguarding, and access to medical treatment,” the former minister said. “Could [children] be removed from the country without parental or family consent? The mind boggles. I think these concerns will start to come out in the coming days and weeks.”

Independent
Rishi Sunak’s plan to deport small boat migrants will see thousands of modern slavery victims “abandoned” as the gangs abusing them go free, a former watchdog has warned.
The Illegal Migration Bill would disqualify trafficking victims who arrive in the UK illegally from receiving support and allow them to be deported while officials are still investigating their claims.
More than 6,000 people have been flagged to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for modern slavery victims since 2018, including 2,700 in 2022 alone. Home Office officials found that 85 per cent had “reasonable grounds” to be accepted as a victim of human trafficking, slavery, servitude or forced labour.
Dame Sara Thornton, the former Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, told The Independent that denying modern slavery victims protection on the basis of how they arrived in Britain “is not compatible with the European Convention Against Trafficking nor the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR)”.
“It shows no understanding of the horror of human trafficking and abandons extremely vulnerable victims of serious crime,” she added.
The number of people arriving on small boats to the UK rose by 60 per cent between 2021 and 2022, to 46,000. The government has tried twice in the past four years to solve the problem, while thousands of arrivals are having to be accommodated in hotels at huge expense. The new bill and a deal with France to stop small boats from leaving French shores is the latest bid to curb the growing numbers.

Mirror
Migrants waiting to cross the Channel to Britain today thanked Gary Lineker for opposing Rishi Sunak ‘s immigration bill.
And Ahmad Harris, 17, one of an estimated 1,200 migrants camped in squalid conditions on the French coast, compared the BBC ’s move to silence him to the tactics of the Taliban.
Ahmad, who fled Kabul six months ago and has family in the UK, told us: “Gary Lineker is a good man and a hero to us for speaking.
“The BBC are not good trying to shut him up. Freedom to speak is needed. It sounds like life in Afghanistan where there is no freedom of speech.”
Ali Malekzay, also 17, from Nangarhar, Afghanistan, added: “When I get to England I’d like to hug him.”
PM Rishi Sunak pledged to “detain and swiftly remove” all Channel migrants “within weeks” in his announcement earlier this week.
He also agreed to give £500million to France in a bid to stop the crossings.
But Ahmad said: “We’ll carry on to England. We have to. What else are we supposed to do?

Telegraph
Rishi Sunak’s small boats Bill could be watered down by peers and centrist Conservative MPs concerned over its modern slavery provisions, The Telegraph has been told.
The Prime Minister is also facing possible rebellion from backbenchers with more liberal views on immigration if he fails to set out details on providing additional “safe and legal routes”.
Last week, the Government unveiled a new Illegal Migration Bill which will place a duty on Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, to remove migrants who have arrived illegally while narrowing the range of challenges that can suspend deportation.
The bill, which is receiving its second reading in the House of Commons on Monday, is aimed at halting the flow of small boats crossing the Channel.
While Mr Sunak has come under pressure from the Right of his party to adopt a hard line against the boats, he is likely to experience pushback to some of his plans from the House of Lords and more centrist Conservative MPs.
A senior Tory told The Telegraph that the Government faces a range of amendments from this wing of the party, with the ministers potentially needing to win around about 30 MPs – a figure which could call Mr Sunak’s majority into question.
“The flashpoints are going to be on modern slavery – whether or not there will be concerns about this legislation in effect overriding modern-day slavery law,” they said.
The MP said there might also be an “attempt to further allow asylum seekers to work”.
“I could see a number of amendments potentially being put down on this,” they said.
The Bill promises “safe and legal routes” for asylum seekers, with Parliament setting an annual cap on the number of refugees allowed into the UK.

Observer
The government’s new asylum and migration law “amounts to cruelty without purpose” and is “immoral and inept”, the Archbishop of York has said in a powerful intervention over plans unveiled last week.
Stephen Cottrell’s condemnation came as a coalition of more than 350 charities, businesses, unions and legal groups condemned Rishi Sunak’s “cruel and unworkable” plans to detain and immediately deport those coming to the UK in small boats.
Cottrell, England’s second most senior cleric, told the Observer: “The proposals of the Illegal Migration Bill … are clearly unworkable, but will restrict access to support for many legitimate refugees and victims of modern slavery, without even the dignity of having their case heard.”
The government has promised to end the passage of small boats carrying refugees across the Channel, saying all adults will be detained for 28 days and asylum claims will be deemed “inadmissible” whatever the individual’s circumstances. They will be removed either to their own country or a “safe third country”, such as Rwanda, if that is not possible.
Cottrell said: “Nobody wants to see people risking their lives in the dangerous channel crossings but I urge the government to consider alternatives that do not unfairly penalise some of the world’s most vulnerable and which better reflect the UK’s history of compassion and moral leadership.”
The right approach to the challenge of people fleeing war and persecution was to provide safe routes, he said.

Doctors’ strike

Mail
Junior doctors will be able to work part time if strikes lead to a large pay rise, a union ringleader told colleagues.
A lot of juniors are ‘quite comfortably’ off, Dr Emma Runswick, deputy chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), also admitted in online chats with medics.
Her comments come as up to 40,000 junior doctors across England – who already earn £57,000 a year on average – are due to walk out for three days starting tomorrow.
Should they win their demand of a whopping 35 per cent rise, it would take the pay of a typical junior soaring past £75,000 – well over twice the average UK pay packet.
In a worrying first, even junior doctors working in A&Es will be taking part in the strike, potentially leaving emergency departments critically undermanned.
Publicly, the BMA claims emergency care this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be ‘no different to any other day’ – while it has rubbished claims that strikes cost lives. Privately though, some of its key leaders have conceded patients may come to harm. Last night, the union issued a stinging letter rejecting a late offer of talks by Health Secretary Steve Barclay.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt responded with an olive branch, telling The Mail on Sunday: ‘The Government is willing to talk.’
The BMA argues the strike is necessary as junior doctors’ pay has dropped 35 per cent in real terms since 2008 – a figure disputed by Ministers. It wants ‘full pay restoration’ to 2008 levels.
But in a remarkable online conversation Dr Runswick, 27, admitted one of the reasons for the huge demand was ‘it will enable some [junior doctors] to go less than full time instead of leaving’ the NHS.
She also told a doctors’ money podcast last summer: ‘Quite a lot of us are still quite comfortable.’
Should the BMA achieve its aims, even freshly-graduated ‘Foundation Year 1’ doctors would be on £50,000, up from £36,500.

ITV News
Junior doctors in the British Medical Association (BMA) have refused to call off next week’s three-day strike.
They were responding to Health Secretary Steve Barclay’s invitation to enter formal pay talks, made on the condition that junior doctors cancel all planned strike action.
Co-chairs of the BMA’s junior doctors’ committee, Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, wrote: “We remain open to entering talks with Government anytime and anywhere to bring this dispute to a swift resolution and restore the pay that junior doctors have lost.
“We would encourage you to reconsider the preconditions that are currently preventing talks from taking place.
“As you have known for more than two weeks, our strikes will commence on Monday. And you also know, until we have a credible offer, we are not in a position to call them off.”
Earlier Steve Barclay said he had proposed negotiations “on the same basis other health unions accepted”, after planned industrial action by tens of thousands of key workers was suspended when the Government agreed to discuss pay for this year.
Unions representing ambulance workers, physiotherapists, nurses and midwives have been in talks with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) since Tuesday.
But the discussions have not involved junior doctors in the British Medical Association (BMA), who are still due to walk out for 72 hours on Monday.

Weight loss jab

Observer
The drug giant behind weight loss injections newly approved for NHS use spent millions in just three years on an “orchestrated PR campaign” to boost its UK influence.
As part of its strategy, Novo Nordisk paid £21.7m to health organisations and professionals who in some cases went on to praise the treatment without always making clear their links to the firm, an Observer investigation has found.
Among the vocal champions of the Wegovy jabs was a clinical expert who gave evidence to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) and others who publicly praised the so-called “skinny jabs” as a “gamechanger”.
The revelations come as the Danish drug giant is investigated by the UK’s pharmaceutical watchdog after it was found to have breached the industry code seven times in relation to a “disguised promotional campaign” of another of its weight loss drugs via online webinars for healthcare professionals.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said it had ordered an audit of the firm’s practices and company culture to establish whether the breaches were a one-off or part of a wider web of compliance failures.
The 3,500-plus payments from Novo Nordisk in 2019-21 include donations, event sponsorship, grants and other fees to prominent obesity charities, NHS trusts, royal colleges, GP practices, healthcare education providers, and universities. They are in addition to £28m spent by Novo Nordisk on research and development in the UK in the same period. Novo also helped fund a group of MPs that lobbies on obesity strategy.

Euthanasia

Express
Leading legal experts have sounded the alarm bell about the dangers of legalising assisted dying or euthanasia in the UK.
Lord Carlile, the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, warns in a major report that the risk of abuse of euthanasia by rogue doctors is “real and horrific”.
The report describes lack of access to end of life care in the UK as “indefensible” but warns that introducing “physician-assisted suicide” could have serious consequences.
Lord Carlile says his years as a criminal barrister and his decade spent on the General Medical Council has left him “regrettably in no doubt that there are some professionals who would abuse a law permitting euthanasia.”
Writing in a foreword to the Policy Exchange report, he said: “The risk is small, but the possibility is real and horrific.”
The KC is also concerned that in Oregon, Canada and the Netherlands there have been “troubling examples” of the deaths of people who “were not suffering from clearly terminal illnesses”.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption also warns that if the law is changed other categories of people could be given help to die.
“What is the justification for allowing medically assisted suicide but limiting it to those believed to be close to death or in intolerable pain, actual or prospective?” he writes. “There are so many other reasons why one might want to end one’s life. Once the moral barrier has been crossed, what is the logical stopping point?”

Woke handbook

Mail
Parents have been told to stop telling their daughters they ‘look pretty’ or calling them ‘princess’ or ‘a tomboy’ by one of Britain’s largest nursery school groups.
The woke handbook – sent to parents whose children attend Bright Horizons nurseries across the UK – also cautions mums and dads against praising good behaviour, and takes pains to define girls as ‘children who identify as female’.
Urging parents to ‘reflect’ on how they raise their daughters, the advice says: ‘It is so easy to fall into a pattern of praising a girl’s appearance (“You look so pretty!”), labelling her behaviour as “good”, or congratulating her when she does something perfectly.’
Mothers and fathers are also warned against ‘falling into the trap of calling an opinionated girl “bossy” with a tone of disdain’ and told to avoid using ‘gendered’ terms.
The guide, which was emailed to parents, adds: ‘Become aware of gender stereotypes presented in the media your family consumes.
‘Fill your home with books, toys, and decor that do not conform to specific gender roles (eg, buy books about female construction workers and encourage girls to engage in maths and science activities).
‘Try to eliminate gender-based references to your child, such as “princess” or “tomboy” or phrases such as, “Young ladies don’t behave that way.”’
A mother of a child at a nursery in Kent accused Bright Horizons –which runs more than 300 community and workplace nurseries in Britain – of having a Left-wing ‘campaigning agenda’.
She said: ‘Bright Horizons is dictating to parents their own political views on how to raise their children. They obviously have very Left-wing views in terms of gender politics and think they are entitled to tell parents how to address their daughters and what to teach them about their bodies.’

Armageddon alarm

Mail
The UK is set to test a frightening ‘Armageddon alarm’ within weeks which will see thousands of people’s phones flash and set off alarms.
Millions will hear an alarm sound from their phone and will receive warning text messages as part of the government’s new emergency alert system trial.
The system is designed to warn people if there is a ‘danger to life’ nearby, with the imminent testing to focus on flooding and extreme weather conditions.
The phone owner will then be given details of the emergency along with advice on what to do and how to seek help.
Labour has been pushing for the system for more than a decade and ministers have been promising to introduce it since 2013.
Cabinet Office minister Kit Malthouse revealed at the time that the new scheme would allow the government to ‘warn people much more comprehensively’ about imminent danger such as floods, storms, wildfires or terror attacks.
The National Resilience Framework published by the government in December then said the system would be launched in ‘early 2023’. But up until now here have only been local tests in Reading.
Labour’s Shadow Paymaster General Fleur Anderson said the trial was ‘long overdue’ and the government has been ‘haphazard in preparing for emergencies’.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email