Front pages here.
EU
Express
Despite leaving the EU, the UK remains a member and sends a delegation to “assembly” sessions four times a year.
Tory MPs have urged Rishi Sunak to pull out of a European “talking shop” that costs the UK £35million a year.
They want to quit the Council of Europe – an organisation that has attacked Government plans to stop migrants arriving illegally in small boats.
Despite leaving the EU, the UK remains a member and sends a delegation to “assembly” sessions four times a year.
Former Armed Forces minister Sir Mike Penning, MP for Hemel Hempstead, said: “I don’t think British tax payers will understand why we’re spending £35million on a European talking shop when there’s so much it could be better spent on here.”
And Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant, a former whip, said: “Winston Churchill said ‘Jaw Jaw is better than War War’, but I do wonder at times how effective a talking shop the Council of Europe is.”
Although not part of the EU, the 46-member Council describes it as its “main institutional partner”. The Council employs 2,200 people and has a budget of £413.6million.
Meetings usually take place in its Strasbourg HQ – known as the Palace of Europe – but May’s session was held in the European Parliament. They typically last for a week and involve 324 representatives, including 18 from the Commons and Lords.
Illegal migrants
BBC News
The cost of detaining and deporting people arriving in the UK in small boats under planned new legislation could hit £6bn over the next two years, internal government projections say.
The Illegal Migration Bill is currently going through Parliament.
The BBC understands the Home Office estimates it will have to spend between £3bn and £6bn on detention facilities, and ongoing accommodation and removals.
It gives ministers the power to remove anyone arriving in the UK illegally.
These migrants would be barred from claiming asylum here.
The government insists it needs to act as record numbers of people are arriving in small boats and the cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels is running at almost £7m a day.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made tackling the issue one of his key priorities – but the bill has encountered opposition from within the Conservative party and has been strongly criticised in the House of Lords, where it is currently being debated.
Ministers have so far not revealed any costs linked to the bill or given any indication of the scale of investment it requires.
But one senior government source described it as one of the main pressures on public spending.
The Treasury is backing the policy, but there is concern among insiders that costs associated with the controversial bill are escalating.
‘The Blob’
Express
The top Tory minister has used a podcast to attack civil servants who have dragged their feet on Brexit over personal views it was a bad policy.
Michael Gove has used a podcast interview to blast civil servants who have a negative “attitude” towards Brexit.
The Levelling Up Secretary, who has now been at the top of Government for 13 years, said partisan feelings within the civil service are slowing ministers down.
He told former Tory spin doctor Andy Coulson: “One of the issues, inescapably, has been the attitude that some people have had towards Brexit.”
“There are some ministers who have been hard-driving, who have worried that across the civil service, there was a sense that Brexit was a big, historic mistake.
“Therefore there hasn’t been the same enthusiasm for some of the changes that are necessary as there might have been for other policy changes.”
Mr Gove also argued that Government rows with Whitehall are not exclusive to the current Conservative party, pointing out that Tony Blair also had difficulties with ‘the blob’.
“Tony Blair once talked about the scars on his back as he was trying to drive through public service reform.
“And it’s naturally going to be the case that people invested in an organisation, and invested in a particular way of doing things, will find it difficult to change. Because even if you admire them, even if you want to get better performance out of them, any argument for reform or change they will sometimes take as an implicit criticism.”
Telegraph
Civil servants have given themselves almost £1.4 million in shopping vouchers as a reward for good performance, the Telegraph can reveal.
An investigation has found that the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (Beis) spent £1,385,035.91 of taxpayer’s money on Love2Shop vouchers between September 2018 and December 31 2022.
The vouchers can be spent at dozens of high street vendors, including American Golf, Champneys, Robert Dyas, Pontins, Shoe Zone and WH Smith.
Senior civil servants at Beis spent the money on more than 350 separate transactions, with the largest individual purchase being almost £29,000 worth of vouchers on Feb 1 2019.
Any purchases more than £500 on the department’s card must be reported for transparency purposes.
Conservative Party
Mail
Rishi Sunak is blocking the release of text messages to the Covid inquiry because it could reveal his plotting to bring down Boris Johnson, allies of the former Prime Minister have claimed.
Amid escalating tensions between Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak, the Boris supporters also suggested that No 10 might be keen to suppress the messages because they contain evidence of lockdown breaches by Mr Sunak or his advisers which could lead to a fresh ‘partygate‘ controversy. Last night, a Sunak loyalist described the claims as being ‘total nonsense’.
The row comes after the Cabinet Office launched a legal challenge to the inquiry’s demand for texts from Mr Johnson and his officials, on the grounds that many of the messages were irrelevant to the investigation.
This prompted Mr Johnson to say that he would himself hand unredacted WhatsApp messages dating back to April 2021 to the inquiry, telling its chair, Baroness Hallett, that he was ‘perfectly content’ to release the messages ‘directly’.
The Johnson allies also say that No 10 should ‘call off the dogs’ by stopping briefings against him – or risk ‘a psychodrama which would hand the Election to Starmer on a plate’.
Baroness Hallett had ordered the Government to share all the unredacted WhatsApp messages between the former PM and 40 Ministers and advisers between January 1, 2020 and February 24, 2022. The Cabinet Office, however, said it was seeking a judicial review of the demand because there were ‘important issues of principle at stake’ – forcing a legal showdown between the Government and the public inquiry it set up.
Sun
RISHI Sunak has been accused of withholding WhatsApp messages from the Covid inquiry as they may reveal a plot to oust Boris Johnson as PM.
Allies of Mr Johnson claim the cache of texts demanded by Baroness Hallett could show the then-Chancellor was agitating to bring him down.
One told the Mail on Sunday: “What is Rishi hiding? Is it plotting against Boris with Dominic Cummings?”
But Mr Sunak’s allies have described the claims as “total nonsense”.
The Cabinet Office is going to court to avoid giving the inquiry material it deems irrelevant.
But sources have suggested a compromise in which inquiry officials view the messages in a “reading room” without taking them away.
Mr Johnson bypassed the Cabinet Office to pass his texts to the inquiry.
Metro
Boris Johnson has been warned he could lose public funding for legal advice if he tries to ‘frustrate or undermine’ the Government‘s position on the Covid-19 inquiry.
Cabinet Office lawyers told him that money would ‘cease to be available’ if he breaks conditions such as releasing evidence without permission, the Sunday Times reported tonight.
Mr Johnson has been at the centre of a growing row as ministers launched a High Court bid to challenge the inquiry’s demand for his unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks.
The former prime minister vowed to send all his messages to the official investigation directly, circumventing the Cabinet Office.
The Sunday Times detailed a letter sent by Cabinet Office lawyers to Mr Johnson last week.
It reads: ‘The funding offer will cease to be available to you if you knowingly seek to frustrate or undermine, either through your own actions or the actions of others, the Government’s position in relation to the inquiry unless there is a clear and irreconcilable conflict of interest on a particular point at issue.’
Guardian
Rishi Sunak is facing a barrage of criticism in the run-up to the official Covid-19 inquiry as a leading scientist attacks his “spectacularly stupid” Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which is believed to have caused a sudden rise in cases of the virus.
The prime minister’s role as chancellor during the pandemic is under increasing scrutiny – as is that of his predecessor at No 10, Boris Johnson – in an escalating Covid blame game at Westminster as Lady Hallett prepares to open her investigation into the government’s pandemic response later this month.
The president of the British Medical Association, Prof Martin McKee, also criticises the “dysfunctional” way in which the government, including the Treasury under Sunak, overlooked scientific advice throughout the pandemic.
Last Thursday the Cabinet Office launched an unprecedented attempt in the high court to avoid handing over Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp message and diaries to the inquiry.
The action is believed to have been driven by a belief that if Johnson’s material were submitted in full, then the Cabinet Office would have to do the same in respect of messages and other information held in the phones and diaries of serving ministers, including Sunak himself.
Express
Rishi Sunak is putting the Tories on an election war footing as he orders his troops to prepare for tax cuts in the autumn.
Treasury officials have been told to draw up a package of giveaways to be announced within months.
The PM believes letting hard-working people keep more of their earning would help ease the cost-of-living struggle faced by millions – and will help keep him in power.
A small team is working on a blueprint which will be unveiled as soon as the economic conditions dictate, the Sunday Express can reveal.
On Saturday night, a government source said: “The Treasury is looking at what it can do in the Autumn Statement.
“Are taxes too high? Yes. I think we will do something provided inflation comes down and the economic uptick continues.
“We have got to earn money to give it back to people.”
Telegraph
Rishi Sunak wants to cut National Insurance or income tax by up to 2p before next year’s general election and head into the campaign “promising to do more”, The Telegraph understands.
Officials have been investigating the impact and likely duration of current levels of inflation, after recent figures proved worse than Mr Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, had expected even several weeks ago.
Senior figures have tentatively concluded that despite the “stickiness” of inflation, the economy is likely to recover sufficiently for Mr Hunt to introduce a cut in April, even if he has to wait until the Budget in March to announce the move.
A senior government source said that the Prime Minister wants to cut income tax, or National Insurance when inflation has receded, on the basis that both would “incentivise work”.
Mail
Rishi Sunak wants to cut taxes by as much as 2p in the pound before next year’s general election, it was claimed last night.
Government officials believe that a slower-than-expected fall in Britain’s high inflation rate would not prevent a tax cut from April.
The Prime Minister previously said he wants to cut taxes but only once the hole in the public finances has been fixed, also pledging to halve inflation this year.
The Telegraph reported that the tax cuts under consideration could be introduced via Britain’s National Insurance social security system or personal income tax.
Mirror
Rishi Sunak and his wife gave $3million to a mega-rich US college while UK schools scrimp and save to afford even the basics.
The “absolutely staggering” donation paid for a computing lab at Claremont McKenna in California, where the PM’s wife Akshata Murty studied economics and French as an undergraduate. Fees are $86,500 a year for tuition and board.
Its hi-tech facility – with top-of-the-range computers and state-of-the-art chairs at £650 a throw – is named the Murty Sunak Quantitative and Computing Lab in the couple’s honour.
Their names appear on a sign outside and on the door. The donation in 2018 came three years after Mr Sunak became MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire.
It was previously reported he and his wife gave more than £100,000 to his old public school, Winchester College.
Labour Party
Mail
Labour was last night accused of declaring ‘class war on Middle Britain’ over shock plans to slash public services in affluent areas.
Party leader Sir Keir Starmer faced claims he was plotting a ‘hard-Left attack’ on the wealthy by diverting resources from rich areas to poorer postcodes – affecting access to GPs, school places and even bin collections.
The radical plans, included among draft proposals for Labour‘s Election manifesto, would extend equality laws covering race, age, gender, disability and sexuality to include ‘the inequality of social class’.
It means public bodies could make spending decisions that penalise middle-class areas to divert funds to poorer neighbourhoods.
Last night, one former Cabinet Minister accused Sir Keir of ‘taking a scythe to success’ in what would amount to ‘an attack on already hard-pressed rural and suburban areas.’
The far-reaching proposal being circulated to party members and trade unions is concealed in dry jargon that pledges to enact ‘the socioeconomic duty under section 1 of the Equality Act’ and ‘conduct equality impact assessments of major announcements’.
Telegraph
Sadiq Khan has opened up a public split with Sir Keir Starmer over the Labour leader’s plan to build housing on the green belt.
The Mayor of London has said he is “committed to protecting” the capital’s green belt and that even “derelict and unsightly” parts of it should be shielded from development.
Last month, Sir Keir said councils should be given the ability to build on certain areas of the green belt as he vowed that a Labour government would be on the side of the “builders not blockers”.
“We need to have that discussion,” he said. “But it cannot be reduced to a simple discussion of will you or will you not build on the green belt. This is why it’s important for local areas to have the power to decide where housing is going to be.”
In a subsequent interview with the BBC, he said: “We would make those tough choices and say to local areas, notwithstanding that it’s green belt, if it’s a car park or similar land which doesn’t affect the beauty of our countryside… then we’ll change the planning rules, we’ll give you the powers to do that.”
However, Mr Khan has defied the Labour leader by indicating that he supported the status quo.
NHS
ITV News
The government is preparing to announce a £1 billion plan to fill vacancies within the NHS, according to reports.
It would include thousands of extra places in medical school and the provision of around 2,000 more GPs, according to the Sunday Times.
The long-term plan for the NHS workforce in England aims to boost the number of doctors, nurses, GPs, midwives and dentists in the health service.
It comes as the NHS in England faces more than 100,000 staff vacancies, while patients often encounter long waiting lists.
According to the proposals, which are yet to be signed off, the government is looking at doubling medical school places for doctors to 15,000 by 2028-29.
It also wants to train 24,000 nurses and midwives by the end of the decade, as well as several thousand more GPs and dentists, the Sunday Times reports.
No 10 has remained tight lipped, saying it wont comment on speculation and that the government’s workforce plan will be brought forward shortly.
However a government source has told ITV News that no specific numbers for timeframes or recruitment have been decided upon yet.
The Labour Party suggested the Treasury is only willing to fund certain elements of the plan, meaning the government isn’t delivering the number of doctors and nurses the NHS truly needs.
AI
Guardian
The creators of artificial intelligence need to abandon their “tech utopian” mindset, according to the terror watchdog, amid fears that the new technology could be used to groom vulnerable individuals.
Jonathan Hall KC, whose role is to review the adequacy of terrorism legislation, said the national security threat from AI was becoming ever more apparent and the technology needed to be designed with the intentions of terrorists firmly in mind.
He said too much AI development focused on the potential positives of the technology while neglecting to consider how terrorists might use it to carry out attacks.
“They need to have some horrible little 15-year-old neo-Nazi in the room with them, working out what they might do. You’ve got to hardwire the defences against what you know people will do with it,” said Hall.
The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation admitted he was increasingly concerned by the scope for artificial intelligence chatbots to persuade vulnerable or neurodivergent individuals to launch terrorist attacks.
Heat pumps
Express
As Brits are forced to consider taking on expensive and unwieldy heat pumps into their homes, a green alternative is already underway that could reduce carbon emissions by 6 million tonnes in just a few years. Conversions to hydrogen boilers could be the more effective way for the Prime Minister to begin making headway towards his net zero goal, experts have claimed – but a recent report warns that the public still needs to be better informed about what a green Britain could look like.
Despite offers of Government vouchers worth up to £5,000 to help install them, uptake of heat pumps has been low for two key reasons, Mark Horsley, CEO of Northern Gas Networks, told Express.co.uk.
He said: “We know we need to get the country to net zero and while heat pumps are a good solution, they are expensive – at around £3,000 to £10,000 each on top of running costs – and can’t fit into everyone’s homes.
“We can’t let people be crushed under the dual weight of a cost-of-living crisis and an expensive push to net zero – we must work together to support alternatives, offering consumers choice and value for money.”
The answer may come in the form of converting Brits’ traditional natural gas boilers so that they can operate on hydrogen.
Bev- I’ve read the lot as usual. Nothing much changes and thankfully no football, no tower block cladding (coming soon), no tramp in green t-shirt with begging bowl, nor anything re an unknown tv presenter. Thanks!
Sorry to say, you don’t have a lot of material to work with.
Biscotte……….who’s Bev, you’ve lost me? Come out Bev, whoever or wherever you are……….
CH- the sivil servace is a tail wagging the dog.
Until a truly ‘British leader’ gets some testicular enhancements, and sacks a load of them, nothing is going to change.
Too big for boots comes to mind.
Rishi Sunak……..well, I totally give up with him. Unelected and unwanted by the majority of us out here who doesn’t seem to understand what ‘conservative’ means and who on the face of it doesn’t seem to understand the concept of democracy and upholding the will of the majority who voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Not only is he paying the French millions of pounds of our money to police their borders to prevent illegal migrants from crossing the English Channel which is patently not working and not embarking upon the obvious solution of leaving the ECHR, but he is quite open to this country being part of the Council of Europe and paying £35 million pounds for the benefit of being part of that worthless club. And he wants this country to be part of a Europe wide defence pact which in time will consign our armed forces taking their orders from foreign Generals. Time is fast approaching for Sunak to start his packing his bags and look for another job, as I am sure the British electorate are heartily sick of his brand of conservatism which belongs in the dustbin of history. I didn’t think anyone could be as bad or worse than Johnson but we are now lumbered with somebody who is.
Your last sentence says it all Colin but I do wonder what scroats are in the wings waiting to replace Sunak. Time for true native Brits in such positions.
Jack………well, lets hope it isn’t Robert Genrick who is about as weak as they come. Quite he feels the need to go on the BBC and allow himself to be interviewed by left leaning Keunnsberg (or whatever her name is) is beyond me. Questioning a government minister about whether it is right four migrants to share a hotel room is an insult to the rest of us who are paying for this utter shambles of a policy. To my way of thinking these migrants should not have got as far as the jetty at Dover let alone being given a hotel room in central London. Even if they are expected to share the room they have been allotted with three other men in the same boat (forgive the unintended pun) it surely must be an infinite improvement upon the makeshift cardboard box they experienced in the camp outside Calais. I want the clueless Sunak who is hopelessly out of his depth to personally take charge of this situation, and and get a backbone to send these illegal migrants back to whence they came. And if this means leaving ECHR and kicking the human rights lawyers into touch, then so be it. What is he waiting for?