Charity writes to Home Office threatening legal action over "unlawfully detained" migrants at Manston Lawyers on behalf of charity Detention Action are threatening legal action against Suella Braverman, the home secretary, over conditions at the Manston migrant holding centre in Kent, PA Media reports. The charity said an urgent pre-action letter, sent to the Home Office earlier this week, represents the first action taken against the home secretary for the unlawful treatment of people held at the facility and is regarding a woman held there. The letter, sent by Duncan Lewis solicitors which is representing Detention Action and the claimant, said the woman, from a non-European country, “was unlawfully detained by the home secretary at the Manston facility in egregiously defective conditions”. The complaint also includes “serious threats to the safety of children”, the charity said. Concerns raised by the woman and the charity about the site near Ramsgate include: The routine prolongation of detention beyond statutory time limits; failure to adhere to essential safeguarding measures for children; women and children sleeping alongside adult men to whom they are unrelated; inadequate or non-existent access to legal advice for those detained; and exposure to infectious diseases due to overcrowding and poor sanitation. Detention Action’s deputy director, James Wilson, added: We have taken this action out of serious concern for the welfare of thousands of people, including children, still being detained at Manston for periods far beyond legal limits. We are calling on the home secretary to declare that anyone held at Manston for more than 24 hours is being detained unlawfully. We are also asking that the home secretary allow access to the facility for organisations qualified to provide support in immigration detention settings. Afternoon summary The Bank of England has increased the cost of borrowing by 0.75 percentage points to 3%, despite predicting that higher interest rates would push the economy into the longest recession since the 1930s. Lawyers on behalf of charity Detention Action are threatening legal action against Suella Braverman, the home secretary, over conditions at the Manston migrant holding centre in Kent. (See 4.35pm.) The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is under pressure from campaigners, unions and his own MPs to set out plans for “wealth taxes” on the richest in society in order to support public services and help the poorest through the cost of living crisis. The UK has agreed to open negotiations with Mauritius over the future handover of the Chagos Islands, in a major reversal of policy after years of resistance and legal defeats in international courts. Ministers may order a public inquiry into mental health care and patient deaths across England because of the number of scandals that are emerging involving poor treatment. The BBC has found that an episode of its newspaper review programme broadcast on the night Boris Johnson pulled out of the most recent Conservative leadership contest failed to meet its editorial standards on impartiality. The Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen faces suspension from the House of Commons and has been asked to apologise after a cross-party committee found that he repeatedly breached rules on paid lobbying and declaring interests. The foreign ministry in Paraguay has issued a statement through Twitter saying the Daily Express story claiming it is negotiating a Rwanda-style deal with the UK to take asylum seekers (see 12.30pm) is not true. Jeremy Hunt is considering increasing taxes on dividends, the Financial Times reports. In a move that it says could raise several billion pounds, it says Hunt has “asked officials to look at raising the dividend taxation rate as well as cutting the tax-free allowance for dividends”. The FT says no decision about whether to go ahead with this has been taken. Charity writes to Home Office threatening legal action over "unlawfully detained" migrants at Manston Lawyers on behalf of charity Detention Action are threatening legal action against Suella Braverman, the home secretary, over conditions at the Manston migrant holding centre in Kent, PA Media reports. The charity said an urgent pre-action letter, sent to the Home Office earlier this week, represents the first action taken against the home secretary for the unlawful treatment of people held at the facility and is regarding a woman held there. The letter, sent by Duncan Lewis solicitors which is representing Detention Action and the claimant, said the woman, from a non-European country, “was unlawfully detained by the home secretary at the Manston facility in egregiously defective conditions”. The complaint also includes “serious threats to the safety of children”, the charity said. Concerns raised by the woman and the charity about the site near Ramsgate include: The routine prolongation of detention beyond statutory time limits; failure to adhere to essential safeguarding measures for children; women and children sleeping alongside adult men to whom they are unrelated; inadequate or non-existent access to legal advice for those detained; and exposure to infectious diseases due to overcrowding and poor sanitation. Detention Action’s deputy director, James Wilson, added: We have taken this action out of serious concern for the welfare of thousands of people, including children, still being detained at Manston for periods far beyond legal limits. We are calling on the home secretary to declare that anyone held at Manston for more than 24 hours is being detained unlawfully. We are also asking that the home secretary allow access to the facility for organisations qualified to provide support in immigration detention settings. Sturgeon says she will attend Cop27 climate summit to show Scotland will "do its part" to deliver Glasgow climate pact Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has said she is “determined” the country will play its part in responding to the climate emergency ahead of the Cop27 summit. As PA Media reports, Sturgeon will attend the UN talks, which begin in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Sunday. Speaking at first minister’s questions in Edinburgh, she said: If the world is to deliver on the Glasgow climate pact, all nations need to continue to increase that ambition and take credible action to reach net zero emissions. Over the next few days, I will attend Cop27 to do what I can to further collaboration between Scotland and other countries to build upon the agreements that were made in Glasgow and to continue Scotland’s leadership, not least on the issue of loss and damage. Although we are not yet a member state of the UN or party to the Paris agreement, Scotland will do its part by sharing our own experiences of delivering net zero targets at home as part of a just transition, and also by helping to amplify the voices of those most impacted by climate change but also very often excluded from the debate. UK to open talks with Mauritius with view to reaching deal over future of Chagos Islands, Cleverly says Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn really is living in Rishi Sunak’s head after all. (See 3.10pm.) Corbyn has for years been campaigning on behalf of the Chagossians, the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands who were expelled from their homes in the British Indian Ocean Territory in the late 1960s and early 70s so that the US could build and operate a military base at Diego Garcia. They have been demanding the right to return ever since. Today, in a Commons written statement, James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, says the UK and Mauritius, which claims the islands as part of its territory, are going to open talks with a view to resolving “all outstanding issues”, including the fate of the Chagossians, by early next year. Cleverly says the talks are happening following a conversation between Liz Truss and the Pravind Jugnauth, the prime minister of Mauritius, at the United Nations general assembly when Truss was PM. He says: Through negotiations, taking into account relevant legal proceedings, it is our intention to secure an agreement on the basis of international law to resolve all outstanding issues, including those relating to the former inhabitants of the Chagos archipelago. This will allow the UK and Mauritius, as close Commonwealth partners, to work even more closely together to tackle the regional and global security challenges that face us all. He also says both parties have agreed that any deal must ensure the “continued effective operation” of the military base at Diego Garcia, “which plays a vital role in regional and global security”. Suella Braverman travelled by helicopter from Dover to the Manston migrant processing centre, about 20 miles away, the Telegraph’s Jack Maidment reports. Matt Hancock will be paid about £400,000 to appear in I’m a Celebrity, Andy Halls reports in the Sun: A source said: ‘Matt’s pay deal with I’m A Celebrity is around £400,000 which is one of the largest ever show fees to have been paid out. ‘ITV were keen for viewers to think the deal was worth around £150,000 but in reality it’s over double that. “They asked him to be on the show three times in a matter of weeks and the money definitely helped seal the deal.’ Hancock has said he will give some of his fee to a hospice in his constituency, and some to dyslexia charities. He has also said he will declare what he gets paid in the register of members’ interests. Corbyn criticises Sunak for giving MPs "wholly inaccurate" account of Labour"s 2019 manifesto Jeremy Corbyn has criticised Rishi Sunak for giving MPs a false account of his views, and the contents of Labour’s 2019 manifesto. Speaking in the Commons, Corbyn also joked that he was living “rent-free” in the prime minister’s head, based on what Sunak said at PMQs yesterday. During his exchanges with Keir Starmer yesterday, Sunak said Starmer said in 2019 that Corbyn, the then Labour leader, would make a great prime minister. Sunak went on: Let us remember that national security agenda: abolishing our armed forces, scrapping the nuclear deterrent, withdrawing from Nato, voting against every single anti-terror law we tried, and befriending Hamas and Hezbollah. There was nothing in Labour’s 2019 manifesto that even remotely matched any of those five propositions, although most of them wholly or loosely matched positions taken by Corbyn at some point in his career before he became Labour leader. Raising a point of order, Corbyn said Sunak gave him no advance warning of what he was going to say yesterday. He went on: He gave a wholly inaccurate representation of the 2019 election manifesto, which he must have been fully well aware of because he took part in many debates concerning the content of that manifesto during the election campaign. Corbyn asked Nigel Evans, the deputy speaker, how he could get Sunak to correct the record. He went on: If I’m going to live rent-free in his head at least he could accurately reflect what I think and what I say rather than inventions made up by him or his office. Evans said he was sure Corbyn’s remarks would be passed on to the PM. But Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, said Starmer’s support for Corbyn was likely to be raised every week. She also claimed Labour’s 2019 manifesto “would have weakened this country and dismantled Nato”. That was misleading, too. The 2019 Labour manifesto mentioned Nato just once, saying: We will maintain our commitment to Nato and our close relationship with our European partners, and we will use our influence at the United Nations to support peace and security worldwide. Corbyn is currently suspended from the parliamentary Labour party because Starmer wants him to apologise for comments he made that purportedly minimised the significance of the antisemitism problem in the party under his leadership.