Boris Johnson claims publication of Covid inquiry ruling unfairly implies he is holding back documents – UK politics live

Johnson claims publication of Covid inquiry ruling unfairly implies he is holding back documents

Boris Johnson tried to get Lady Hallett, the chair of the Covid inquiry, to delay by 48 hours the announcement of her order to the Cabinet Office for his WhatsApp messages and diaries entries to be disclosed.

The inquiry has published a letter from Johnson to Hallett on its website, alongside a reply to Johnson from the inquiry.

In his letter Johnson complains that the process is unfair towards him. Confirming that he is getting new lawyers to represent him, he says:

You may be aware that I am currently instructing new solicitors to represent me in the inquiry. That process is well underway but is in the hands of the Cabinet Office to agree funding and other practical arrangements. I have no control over the timing of that process. As at today, I am unrepresented and my counsel team have been instructed not to provide me with any advice.

My understanding is that your ruling affects me directly. However, I have never seen the notice, I was not party to nor have seen the Cabinet Office’s representations under s21(4), and I am not allowed to see your ruling before it is published. This is highly prejudicial to me given that I believe your ruling may directly and/or indirectly suggest that I have failed to provide documents to the inquiry. Any such suggestion or implication would be unfair and untrue. The notice was issued before the deadline had passed for me to provide material to the Inquiry. I have always sought to comply with all disclosure requests from the Inquiry and I have already disclosed over 5,000 pages of documents and over 300 pages of emails.

The inquiry has also published on its website the original notice to the Cabinet Office telling it to release the WhatsApp messages and diary material, the reply from the Cabinet Office arguing some material should be excluded, and Hallett’s ruling saying she has rejected the government’s argument and that the material must be disclosed.

Key events

Labour has criticised the way Rishi Sunak handled the claims that Suella Braverman broke the ministerial code. At a post-PMQs briefing, a Labour spokesperson said it would have been better if Sunak had let his ethics adviser investigate, instead of resolving the matter himself. The spokesperson explained:

We seem to have created this weird sort of hybrid situation where there’s a sort of conversation that doesn’t count as an investigation, which I think satisfies nobody in terms of the necessary transparency and openness.

The whole point of having an independent adviser is so that these matters can be looked at thoroughly and these facts can be put in the public domain in a way that isn’t subject to political spin.

Starmer attacks PM on immigration as Labour launches its own plan

Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story about PMQs.

And this is how it starts.

Keir Starmer has accused the government of having “lost control of immigration”, as Labour announced a plan to change the post-Brexit migration system to boost skills and wages.

In a prime minister’s questions a day before new annual net migration statistics are expected to show a record number of arrivals, Starmer said Rishi Sunak had broken the Conservatives’ manifesto promise to reduce immigration.

In an announcement made as Starmer spoke, Labour said it would scrap a rule under which overseas staff brought into the UK to fill vacancies on the shortage occupation list, including health, IT and engineering workers, could be paid up to 20% less than the equivalent domestic wage.

Johnson claims publication of Covid inquiry ruling unfairly implies he is holding back documents

Boris Johnson tried to get Lady Hallett, the chair of the Covid inquiry, to delay by 48 hours the announcement of her order to the Cabinet Office for his WhatsApp messages and diaries entries to be disclosed.

The inquiry has published a letter from Johnson to Hallett on its website, alongside a reply to Johnson from the inquiry.

In his letter Johnson complains that the process is unfair towards him. Confirming that he is getting new lawyers to represent him, he says:

You may be aware that I am currently instructing new solicitors to represent me in the inquiry. That process is well underway but is in the hands of the Cabinet Office to agree funding and other practical arrangements. I have no control over the timing of that process. As at today, I am unrepresented and my counsel team have been instructed not to provide me with any advice.

My understanding is that your ruling affects me directly. However, I have never seen the notice, I was not party to nor have seen the Cabinet Office’s representations under s21(4), and I am not allowed to see your ruling before it is published. This is highly prejudicial to me given that I believe your ruling may directly and/or indirectly suggest that I have failed to provide documents to the inquiry. Any such suggestion or implication would be unfair and untrue. The notice was issued before the deadline had passed for me to provide material to the Inquiry. I have always sought to comply with all disclosure requests from the Inquiry and I have already disclosed over 5,000 pages of documents and over 300 pages of emails.

The inquiry has also published on its website the original notice to the Cabinet Office telling it to release the WhatsApp messages and diary material, the reply from the Cabinet Office arguing some material should be excluded, and Hallett’s ruling saying she has rejected the government’s argument and that the material must be disclosed.

Covid inquiry threatened legal action over Boris Johnson WhatsApp messages

The official public inquiry into the government’s handling of Covid threatened the Cabinet Office with legal action over its refusal to share Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and diaries from during the pandemic without heavy redactions, Pippa Crerar reports.

PMQs – snap verdict

Labour has just announced a new policy on immigration. At first glance, it seems reasonably robust, and, if people knew what it was, it might go some way to addressing the claim – widely believed, and set out again today by Rishi Sunak – that the party does not have any firm policy in this area. Keir Starmer tried to set it out at PMQs. But as a policy announcement, it was a flop, and in that respect today’s PMQs outing for Starmer was a serious lost opportunity.

Under current rules, employers who need to recruit foreign workers, because they cannot find UK staff, can pay them 20% below what is considered the “going rate” for the job if they are on the shortage occupation list. In a speech to the CBI last year Starmer said that he wanted to stop businesses being dependent on foreign labour, and get them to hire British workers instead by improving training and pay. Today he has translated that into firm policy. The 20% wage discount would no longer be allowed, the party says.

It is not an outlandish idea (although employers won’t be happy). The migration advisory committee proposed this in a report in 2021.

Starmer sort of announced this at PMQs. But he did not get round to it until his third question, in the cut and thrust of the exchanges it was hard to evaluate the significance of what he was saying, and given that the worker visa law is relatively complicated, it is not an easy policy to explain in the context of PMQs. The fact that a Tory MP got thrown out for some type of hooligan behaviour did not help either. Starmer said:

The reason they are issuing so many visas is labour and skill shortages. And the reason there are shortages is the low-wage Tory economy. Under his government’s rules, businesses in IT, engineering, healthcare, architecture, welding can pay foreign workers 20% less than British workers for years and years on end. Does he think his policy is encouraging businesses to train people here or hire from abroad?

In his next question, Starmer also suggested that the apprenticeship levy was not working. (Another part of the policy announcement is that Labour would reform this.) Sunak said:

They have lost control of the economy, they have lost control of public services and now they have lost control of immigration. And if he was serious about weaning his government off the immigration lever, he would get serious about wages in Britain and get serious about skills and training.

I will post more on the announcement shortly.

The consequence of Starmer’s failure to properly land what he was announcing was that he let Sunak off the hook. Starmer had quite a good retort when Sunak said Labour favoured an open door policy, and he did make the point that legal migration numbers are going up because the government has allowed labour shortages to continue. But Sunak neutralised these attacks quite easily. He was not particularly comfortable on this territory, and very eager to move on to talking about the IMF and international reading league tables, but any non-partisan observer listening would not have concluded that Starmer won the argument.

How could he have managed it better? First, if you are announcing marginally complicated policy, you need to roll the pitch first, so people know what’s coming. Second, if you want to land an important point, you need to repeat it; Starmer could have told Sunak that Labour would stop employers paying this 20% discount to foreign workers and challenged him, six times, to say whether or not he would do the same. And, third, he could inject some urgency into it all; publish a draft bill, wave it about at the dispatch box, and then tell Sunak that, instead of letting MPs disappear for a half-term recess tomorrow, he should make them stay in the Commons to legislate.

People think Labour does not have many policies, or a clear vision for Britain. In fact, the party has a stack of policy ideas. But few, if any, have lodged in the public’s consciousness. Better salesmanship would address that.

Updated at 08.37 EDT

Boris Johnson is cutting his links with the government lawyers who have been representing him in dealings in relation with the Covid inquiry, Steven Swinford from the Times reports.

Labour tweeted this after Keir Starmer attacked Rishi Sunak over immigration policy at PMQs.

Updated at 07.44 EDT

At PMQs Rishi Sunak said there was going to be an inquiry into claims public money was wrongly spent in the Teesworks project at the Teesside freeport development. (See 12.01pm.) Darren Jones, the Labour chair of the Commons business committee, which has been calling for this, says this is news to him.

Updated at 07.43 EDT

Karl Turner (Lab) asks why the government is spending £250,000 on legal advice for Boris Johnson to address claims he lied to parliament.

Sunak says it has been the practice for many years that ministers should get help with legal costs in relation to matters related to what happened when they were in office.

PMQs has now finished.

David Jones (Con) asks about the Betsi Cadwaladr hospital in north Wales.

Sunak says he is concerned about what has happened at this hospital in Labour-run Wales.

Andrew Bridgen (Ind) asks if the PM agrees that schools should not encourage children to transition.

Sunak says he has been very clear that schools should be sensitive in how they teach these matters. The DfE is reviewing the guidance on this, he says. He says there have been cases of unacceptable responses.

Peter Gibson (Con) asks about an 80-year-old constituent doing a wing-walk this Saturday to raise money for a hospice.

Sunak wishes her well, and wonders whether Gibson will be joining her.

Updated at 07.44 EDT

Kim Johnson (Lab) asks why the government does not support free school meals for all children.

Sunak claims poverty has gone down since 2010. The best support for children is to ensure they don’t grow up in a workless household, he says.

Tom Hunt (Con) says there was film yesterday of the police doing nothing when eco-protesters were blocking roads in London. Does the PM agree that, if they do that, they should immediately be turfed off the road?

Sunak says the government has given the police the power to deal with slow-moving demonstrations. Labour voted against, he says.

Steve Brine (Con) asks about a constituent who died as a result of a food allergy, after being given a chicken burger that had been marinated in buttermilk, even though he had asked about this.

Sunak says he will ensure the constituent’s family get a meeting with a minister to discuss how the law on this could be tightened.

Wendy Chamberlain (Lib Dem) says she worked for the police before becoming an MP. Training is important for compliance. Given that is a problem for ministers, will the PM support her ministerial training bill?

Sunak says there are processes in place for training in government. But he says the government has backed lifelong training.