Dominic Raab bullying claims: Sunak wants situation resolved ‘swiftly’ but will read report ‘carefully’, No 10 says – live

No 10 says PM wants Raab situation resolved ‘as swiftly as possible’, but report will be read ‘carefully’

Back to Dominic Raab, and at the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said Rishi Sunak continued to have “full confidence” in Raab while he considers the report’s findings.

Asked about this, the spokesperson said:

[The PM] does have full confidence in the [deputy] prime minister – that still stands. Obviously he is carefully considering the findings of the report.

Asked when the findings of the Raab inquiry would be published, the spokesperson replied:

Obviously, we’ve always wanted this to be done as swiftly as possible. I think the public would understand that it’s right to carefully consider this.

Key events

Bar Council says government amendments to illegal migration bill would undermine rule of law

The Bar Council, which represents barristers, has joined the Law Society in saying the amendments to the illegal migration bill proposed by the government (see 9.35am) would undermine the rule of law.

Nick Vineall KC, chair of the Bar Council, said in a statement:

Legislating to allow the UK government to ignore the rulings of a court undermines the rule of law, which is the foundation upon which domestic and international justice systems are built.

How can a government expect citizens to respect judicial rulings if it is willing to ignore them itself?

The Bar Council echoes the concerns raised by the former lord chief justice Lord Thomas. (See 9.35am.) This would be bad law, sets a dangerous precedent, and risks serious damage to the UK’s international reputation. We urge the government to reconsider this move.

Almost three-quarters of voters (72%) think Dominic Raab should resign if he is found to have bullied civil servants, according to Savanta, a polling firm, citing research it carried out a few weeks ago. And it says only 15% of them think he should not resign if he is found to have bullied officials.

King should pay for his coronation himself, Labour MP suggests

In the Commons today the Labour MP Richard Burgon suggested the king himself, and not the taxpayer, should pay for the coronation.

Referring to today’s Guardian revelations about the king’s wealth, Burgon said:

A new poll shows that 51% of people think the coronation should not be publicly funded, just 32% think it should.

Given the report today that the king has a reported personal fortune of £1.8bn, and given the monarch already benefits from not paying inheritance tax, it’s easy to see why so many people are not happy with this.

So could we have a debate about the levels of public money being spent on the coronation, especially given the incredibly difficult economic situation that so many people are in?

Burgon was speaking during the questions on next week’s Commons business. In response, Penny Mordaunt said she was not surprised the leftwing Burgon raised this point. She went on:

It does afford me the opportunity to say that I am very grateful that this nation has a monarchy. We benefit hugely from it – even in times of tremendous turmoil that we saw last year, they provided stability.

I’d urge [Burgon] to go read the tributes that were paid to her late majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. I think her son will be a similarly great monarch and that is something to celebrate.

The government has not said how much the coronation next month will cost the taxpayer. The late Queen’s coronation in 1953 cost £912,000 – the equivalent of £20.5m today.

This is from Sky’s Sam Coates, on the Dominic Raab report.

New DWP research shows benefits cap ‘only results in making poor families poorer’, says charity

Research published by the Department for Work and Pensions today into the impact of the benefits cap shows that it “only results in making poor families poorer”, a charity said today.

The benefits cap was introduced by the coalition government in 2013 to put a limit on how much a working-age household could receive in benefits. Originally set at £26,000 a year for couples and lone parents, in late 2016 it was cut to £23,000 in London, and £20,000 in the rest of Britain.

Now it is set at £25,323 for couples in London and £22,020 elsewhere.

Today the DWP has published on its website two reports into the policy, a dataset and a research summary.

Commenting on the findings, Carl Emmerson, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, said the research showed that only about 5% of capped households had an adult move into paid work as a direct result of the benefit cap. He went on:

The benefit cap increases incentives to move into paid work, to move home or to move onto a disability benefit that exempts a household from the cap.

The DWP study published today shows that each of those responses have occurred. In particular, around five in 100 capped households had an adult move into paid work as a direct result of the benefit cap, with this impact being bigger among those who are capped by a bigger amount, and those with pre-school children.

But about 90% of capped households do not respond in any of these ways – and presumably were having to find other ways to manage with a lower income. Indeed an accompanying study also published by DWP today suggests that common impacts include reduced spending, falling into arrears on bills, and borrowing from friends or family.

In November 2022, on average, affected households lost £50 of benefit income per week due to the cap and a small number saw very large reductions; almost 1,000 households saw their monthly universal credit award reduced by more than £1,000.

Imran Hussain, director of policy and campaigns at the charity Action for Children, said the research showed the benefit cap “only results in making poor families poorer and makes it harder for them to escape the misery of hardship”.

Law Society says government’s proposed amendment to illegal migration bill would ‘damage UK’s standing in world’

The Law Society has said that, if the UK were to ignore injunctions from the European court of human rights, as new amendments to the illegal migration bill would allow (see 9.35am), that would be “a serious breach of international law”.

Commenting on the proposed amendments, Richard Atkinson, deputy vice-president of the Law Society, said:

If the UK were to refuse to comply with a European court of human rights ruling this would entail a clear and serious breach of international law.

The rule of law means governments respect and follow domestic and international law and disputes are ruled on by independent courts.

This amendment would undermine the global rules-based order, set a dangerous precedent within the international community and damage the UK’s standing in the world.

For all these reasons the Law Society would be unequivocally opposed to such an amendment.

Updated at 09.14 EDT

No 10 says the report into the Dominic Raab bullying allegations will be published in the form it was received by Rishi Sunak, the BBC’s Ione Wells reports. We will find out how Sunak will repond – ie, whether or not he will sack Raab – at the same time.

A reader has been in touch to argue that the post at 10.27am might be unfair to Suella Braverman. They say that there is a difference between group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE) and grooming, and that as a result a Home Office report saying group-based CSE offenders were mostly white does not necessarily disprove Braverman’s claim about grooming gangs being mostly British-Pakistani.

This is true up to a point. Street grooming is considered a category of group-based CSE.

But the Home Office report into group-based CSE quoted in the earlier post also includes data on street grooming which undermines what Braverman said. It says:

CEOP (2011) undertook a data collection with police forces, children’s services and specialist providers from the voluntary sector, looking at those allegedly involved in ‘street grooming’ and CSE. Data was returned on approximately 2,300 possible offenders, but approximately 1,100 were excluded from analysis due to a lack of basic information. In the remaining 1,200 cases, ethnicity data was unknown for 38% of them. Where data was available 30% of offenders were white, while 28% were Asian. Due to the amount of missing data, both basic offender information and ethnicity specifically, these figures should be treated with caution.

Here is the 2011 report from CEOP (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre) quoted in the paragraph above. The data specifically covers “localised grooming”.

Updated at 09.56 EDT

Irish PM says he hopes UK negotiates closer relationship with EU one day, though rejoining ‘remote prospect’

Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach (Irish PM), has said that he hopes that the UK one day negotiates a closer relationship with the EU.

He described the prospect of the UK rejoining as “a remote prospect”. But, in comments suggesting he would like to see the UK back in the single market, he told a Bloomberg New Economy Gateway Europe event in Dublin:

One thing I would still hope for in the future, and it’s not impossible in my view, is that a future British government – maybe not the next one, maybe not the one after that – will seek a closer relationship with the European Union again.

That might not be rejoining, I think that’s a remote prospect, but it might involve a revision of the trade cooperation agreement to have a closer relationship, and that’s something that the door will always be open to.

Leo Varadkar Photograph: Mark Marlow/EPA

Updated at 08.56 EDT

Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, has taken questions from journalists in a brief huddle after FMQs. Here are the main points.

Humza Yousaf talking to journalists after FMQs. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Updated at 08.57 EDT

A protester being removed from the public gallery during FMQs at Holyrood today. Climate activists have been regularly disrupting FMQs for weeks now. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA