Afternoon summary Rishi Sunak will appoint an independent investigator to examine claims of alleged bullying against Dominic Raab, after the deputy prime minister requested an inquiry into two formal complaints that have been made against him. Sunak has played down the prospect of any US trade deal in the near future, just days after suggesting he was in no rush to complete a deal with India before he had re-examined the package. Sunak has said the government has been working “incredibly hard” to make sure the decisions in the autumn statement tomorrow are based on fairness and compassion. He made the comment at a press conference in Bali, before he left for home at the end of the G20 summit. See 9.28am for a full summary of what he said. Sunak has promised he will publish his tax return and hopes to do so by Christmas once he receives the formal advice from the Cabinet Office. While teachers are now being balloted on strike action over pay, the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, is downplaying expectations for next year’s pay review. In a letter to the School Teachers Review Body (STRB), the independent panel that makes recommendations on teachers’ pay, Keegan said the 2023 award for England will have to consider the effect on school budgets and the government’s efforts to curb inflation. Keegan told the STRB: In the current economic context, it is particularly important that you have regard to the government’s inflation target when forming recommendations. I know that schools are facing higher and sometimes unpredictable costs, and that these costs affect individual schools differently. I write to ask the STRB to carefully evaluate the [Department for Education’s] evidence on what it considers a fair pay award for teachers, while recognising the impact pay rises will have on schools’ overall budgets. Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the comments “suggests that the government has no intention of providing any additional funding” to fund any pay rises next year. Barton said: When will the government understand that we cannot go on like this? Schools simply cannot afford the cost of unfunded pay awards and they will be driven further into the red unless the government provides the necessary funding. To be clear, teachers fully deserve and need a significant pay increase following years of real-terms pay erosion, but it is absolute madness to expect schools to meet these costs out of diminishing budgets and this will inevitably lead to more cuts in educational provision. It"s now "undeniable" that Brexit holding back UK trade, Bank of England expert tells MPs At the Commons Treasury committee Swati Dhingra, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said it was now “undeniable” that Brexit is holding back UK trade. She said: It’s undeniable now that we’re seeing a much bigger slowdown in trade in the UK compared to the rest of the world. The simple way of thinking about what Brexit has done to the economy is that in the period after the referendum there was the biggest depreciation that any of the world’s four major economies have seen overnight. That contributed to increasing prices and reduced wages - and I’m not talking simply through real wages, but also through nominal wages - we think that number is about 2.6% below the trend that real wages otherwise would have been on. As my colleague Richard Partington reports, Dhingra also said that food prices were 6% higher than they otherwise would have been because of Brexit. There is more on Dhingra’s evidence on the business live blog. Mini-budget damaged UK"s reputation internationally, Bank of England governor tells MPs Liz Truss’s mini-budget damaged the UK’s reputation abroad, Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, has told MPs. Giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee, Bailey said: We have damaged our reputation internationally because of what happened. I was in Washington... at the IMF (International Monetary Fund) annual meetings, which is one of the biggest events of the year internationally. People were saying: ‘We didn’t think the UK would do this’. It will take longer to rebuild that reputation than it will be to correct the gilt curve, so we have to tread carefully. He said the UK’s reputation “has taken a knock”. Ben Broadbent, a member of the Bank’s monetary policy committee, said most of the negative influence of the mini-budget on exchange rates had now gone, because almost all the mini-budget measures have been reversed. He said: Markets will always pay attention to policymakers, the events at the end of September are a pretty stark illustration of that. But as far as we can tell, as things stand most of it is gone. My colleague Graeme Wearden has more on Bailey’s evidence on his business live blog. Labour says inquiry into Raab bullying claims should be "genuinely independent", not "Tory whitewash" Labour has demanded assurances that the person who conducts the inquiry into the bullying allegations against Dominic Raab will be genuinely independent. In response to the post-PMQs lobby briefing, where No 10 said Rishi Sunak would appoint an investigator because the new permanent ethics adviser would not be in place (see 1.26pm and 1.49pm), Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said: Just an hour after the deputy prime minister told the Commons the appointment of an independent adviser was well under way, the prime minister must now explain why a new ethics watchdog will not be in place to investigate his deputy’s misconduct. And he needs to provide assurances that the findings will be transparent and acted upon. Rishi Sunak promised it would be one of his first acts as prime minister, but it has been five months since Lord Geidt resigned, leaving a gaping hole in scrutiny at the heart of government. A genuinely independent investigation into Dominic Raab is needed to uphold the ministerial code and shed light on these serious bullying allegations. The public will not wear another Tory whitewash. Gove says significantly more than 10% of rented homes below standard, as he tells landlords everyone deserves decent home Michael Gove, the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, told MPs that everyone in the country deserved to live in a home that was “decent, safe and secure”. He made the comment as he gave a Commons statement giving the government’s response to the inquest finding that two-year-old Awaab Ishak died as a direct result of prolonged exposure to mould in his social housing flat. Here are the main points from Gove’s statement. Gove accused the landlord, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), of a “terrible dereliction of duty”. He said: Awaab’s father first articulated his concerns in 2017. Others, including health professionals, also raised the alarm. But the landlord failed to take any kind of meaningful action. Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s repeated failure to heed Awaab’s family’s pleas to remove the mould in their damp-ridden property was a terrible dereliction of duty. Worse still, the apparent attempts by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing to attribute the existence of mould to the actions of Awaab’s parents was beyond insensitive and deeply unprofessional. Gove said the regulator of social housing would be considering whether RBH systematically failed to meet standards required. He said it was important for landlords to know that everyone was entitled to a decent home. He said: Let me be perfectly clear, since some landlords apparently still need to hear this from this house: every single person in this country, irrespective of where they’re from, what they do, or how much they earn, deserves to live in a home that is decent, safe and secure. He said significantly more than 10% of rented homes were below standard. In response to a question from John Redwood (Con), he said “a significant proportion of social housing homes are below standard – we think significantly more than 10%”. And in the private sector the proportion of homes below standard was “even higher”, he said. He praised the “excellent public service journalism” by the Manchester Evening News, which has shown that that other tenants living in homes managed by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing had similar complaints. He paid tribute to Awaab’s family for their “tireless fight for justice” and said: “They deserved better and their son deserved better.” He said the government would be doing more to promote the housing ombudsman service. He said: We have already run the nationwide ‘make things right’ campaign to ensure that more social residents know how they can make complaints. But we are now planning, and I think it is necessary, another targeted multi-year campaign so that everyone living in the social housing sector knows their rights, and knows how to sound the alarm when their landlord is failing to make the grade, and knows how to seek redress without delay. He said the government would be taking further steps to strengthen the regulation of social housing with its social housing (regulation) bill. The bill recently had its second reading in the Commons. Nadine Dorries to publish book about downfall of Boris Johnson Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary and one of Boris Johnson’s most loyal supporters, is due to publish a book next year with the title The Political Assassination of Boris Johnson, David Bond reports in the Evening Standard. Dorries said: Events lately have been stranger than fiction. And I will be drawing on that rich source material. It’s a political whodunnit. As Bond reports, there is speculation that, in fact, it won’t be a whodunnit at all, and that it will be a hatchet job on Sunak, who is blamed by the Johnsonites for bringing down the former PM. But Bond also says Dorries is playing down suggestions that her book will be anti-Sunak. Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, is currently giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee. My colleague Graeme Wearden is covering the hearing on his business live blog. Asylum seekers being housed in wider range of places than in past, immigration minister tells MPs Asylum seekers are being housed in a much wider range of places than in the past, Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, has told MPs. Responding to a Commons urgent question on immigration earlier, Jenrick said the government was now housing people in smaller towns, and rural areas, as well as in cities. He was responding to a question from the Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, Jonathan Gullis, who complained that hotels in Stoke were being “dumped on” with migrants. Jenrick replied: We are also attempting to procure accommodation in a much broader range of local authorities than has been seen in the past. Historically, the issue was centred on cities including Stoke-on-Trent. We are now seeking to procure accommodation more broadly in smaller cities, towns, and indeed in some cases in rural areas. That does mean I am afraid that as long as numbers are so high that more parts of the country experience this issue, but it does ensure greater fairness as to how, as a country, we tackle it. The UQ was tabled by Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, who said that there were just four convictions per month for smuggling-related offences. “The level of convictions is pitiful,” she said. Jenrick also faced many complaints from Tory MPs who were either saying that the number of small boat crossings was much too high, or who were unhappy about asylum seekers being housed in their constituencies, particularly without consultation. In the Commons James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, is making a statement on what is being described as the “missile incident in Poland”. He said that, although the full facts were still being established, Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato general secretary, has already said that the incident was “likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks”. Echoing what Rishi Sunak said earlier (see 8.26am and 9.28am), Cleverly also said that, regardless of where the missile that hit Poland came from, missiles were only flying through the skies of Europe because of Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the No 10 spokesperson said that Rishi Sunak wanted to appoint a new ethics adviser (or independent adviser on ministers’ interests, to use the formal title) “as quickly as possible”. The post has been vacant since Lord Geidt resigned in June. But the new ethics adviser won’t be the person doing the Dominic Raab investigation. For that, No 10 is appointing someone else to carry out an inquiry. (See 1.26pm.) Commenting on this appointment, the No 10 spokesperson said: An independent investigator will be appointed by the prime minister to establish the facts and to provide their findings to him. This will be a prime ministerial appointment, they will report into him. No 10 would not say when the person would be in post, or when the inquiry would conclude. Asked how the process could be considered independent with an investigator hand-picked by the PM, the spokesperson said: “It will be a suitably qualified, independent person to investigate the complaints.” Asked whether Sunak would accept the findings, the spokesperson replied: The prime minister remains the ultimate arbiter of the [ministerial] code and the determination of any code issues arising from the findings will be a matter for the prime minister. No 10 says independent investigator to be appointed to examine Raab allegations Downing Street says it will appoint an “independent” investigator to examine the complaints about Dominic Raab, a No 10 spokesperson said at the post-PMQs lobby briefing. My colleague Pippa Crerar has the details. Downing Street is appointing an independent investigator because No 10 does not have an ethics adviser (see 11.13am) in post. It says it is seeking to appoint one soon, but Rishi Sunak clearly decided he could not afford to wait until the appointment gets made.