Ed Balls says Starmer should perform "big U-turn" and drop £28bn as size of green jobs plan Keir Starmer should perform a “big U-turn” over the commitment to spend £28bn a year on green investment, Ed Balls has said. Balls, a former shadow chancellor who is married to Yvette Cooper, the current shadow home secretary, said that having that number attached to the green investment plan was a problem for Labour and that a U-turn had to be big enough to get noticed. He made the comment in the latest episiode of his Political Currency podcast, which he hosts with George Osborne, the Tory former chancellor. Balls, who is now a presenter on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, said that Labour has already tried “partial U-turns” on the £28bn-a-year green investment pledge. Labour has said that it would not get spending up to that level until the second half of a parliament, that some of the money will come from investment already committed by the government, and that if borrowing to fund the investment would break the fiscal rules, it would not happen. But this has not stopped the Conservatives repeatedly claiming that Keir Starmer will have to put up taxes to fund the pledge – even though Starmer has explictly said he will not do that. Balls said Labour now needed “a big U-turn” because the partial ones had not worked. He explained: If you’re going to do a U-turn, you’ve got to notice it, you’ve got to see it happen. People need to hear Labour say that their commitment to sound public finances and the fiscal rules comes before spending more money on this agenda. Or they’re going to be open to this attack. If they don’t say something now, they’re going to be asked about this in every interview. So I would say there is going to be a U-turn and that they won’t resile from a green plan, they won’t resile from the idea that that’s a way to grow some jobs, they won’t resile from the idea that you can spend now to strengthen the economy in the long term. But I think they’ll have to come off this £28bn number. They’ll have to say the £28bn number is gone, that it’s ditched or else they can be open to this attack … You need something which looks like a U-turn … They’ve tried partial U-turns. It hasn’t worked. They need a big U-turn. In the same episode Osborne said Rishi Sunak would only make his leadership secure by getting a lead in the opinion polls. He said: The only leadership strategy that works in the Tory party is having a poll lead. The only thing that works as a unifying strategy is the promise that you might win the election. And you can announce any amount of policy, you can make any amount of promises to the Conservative party. If you don’t look like you’re going to win, you’re going to have huge leadership problems. Afternoon summary Ed Balls, a former shadow chancellor, has said that Keir Starmer should perform a “big U-turn” over the commitment to spend £28bn a year on green investment. (See 4.20pm.) Nicola Sturgeon described Boris Johnson as “a fucking clown” as he announced a second Covid lockdown in October 2020, telling her chief of staff: “His utter incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere.” Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, has apologised “unreservedly” to the Covid inquiry, and to people who were bereaved during the pandemic, for the government’s “poor handling” of requests for messages. (See 2.15pm.) The UK would break international law if it ignored emergency orders from the European court of human rights to stop asylum seekers being flown to Rwanda, the head of the court has said. Chris Philp, the policing minister, has admitted that a previous government crackdown on zombie knives contained an obvious loophole. (See 9.24am.) The British Polling Council (BPC) is looking into controversial YouGov polling used by Conservative plotters to call for Rishi Sunak to be ousted. David Cameron breached “proper process” when he appointed Michelle Mone to the House of Lords in 2015, David Mundell, who was the Scotland secretary at the time, has said. More than one in 100 children in England were homeschooled last summer term, with many parents citing lifestyle or “philosophical reasons” for abandoning traditional classrooms. Sunak restates his determination not to let "foreign court" stop deportation flights to Rwanda Rishi Sunak has restated his willingness to defy the European court of human rights if it imposes an injunction to stop a deportation flight taking off to Rwanda. Speaking to broadcasters after the president of the European court of human rights, Síofra O’Leary, said that defying such an injunction would break international law, Sunak repeated a line he has used repeatedly in recent weeks. He said: I’ve been very clear, I won’t let a foreign court stop us from getting flights up and running and establishing that deterrent. The bill that we’ve just passed through the House of Commons has a specific power in it that says ministers will get to make those decisions, I would not have put that power in there if I wasn’t prepared to use it. Sunak’s comments have been welcomed by Conservative MPs, although hardliners want him to go further and to commit to definitely defying ECHR injunctions. They tried to insert a clause to this effect in the Rwanda bill, but the government did not accept it. Earlier No 10 argued that, given the changes made to the policy, the ECHR would not need to issue an injunction in the way it did in 2022. (See 12.48pm.) Ed Balls says Starmer should perform "big U-turn" and drop £28bn as size of green jobs plan Keir Starmer should perform a “big U-turn” over the commitment to spend £28bn a year on green investment, Ed Balls has said. Balls, a former shadow chancellor who is married to Yvette Cooper, the current shadow home secretary, said that having that number attached to the green investment plan was a problem for Labour and that a U-turn had to be big enough to get noticed. He made the comment in the latest episiode of his Political Currency podcast, which he hosts with George Osborne, the Tory former chancellor. Balls, who is now a presenter on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, said that Labour has already tried “partial U-turns” on the £28bn-a-year green investment pledge. Labour has said that it would not get spending up to that level until the second half of a parliament, that some of the money will come from investment already committed by the government, and that if borrowing to fund the investment would break the fiscal rules, it would not happen. But this has not stopped the Conservatives repeatedly claiming that Keir Starmer will have to put up taxes to fund the pledge – even though Starmer has explictly said he will not do that. Balls said Labour now needed “a big U-turn” because the partial ones had not worked. He explained: If you’re going to do a U-turn, you’ve got to notice it, you’ve got to see it happen. People need to hear Labour say that their commitment to sound public finances and the fiscal rules comes before spending more money on this agenda. Or they’re going to be open to this attack. If they don’t say something now, they’re going to be asked about this in every interview. So I would say there is going to be a U-turn and that they won’t resile from a green plan, they won’t resile from the idea that that’s a way to grow some jobs, they won’t resile from the idea that you can spend now to strengthen the economy in the long term. But I think they’ll have to come off this £28bn number. They’ll have to say the £28bn number is gone, that it’s ditched or else they can be open to this attack … You need something which looks like a U-turn … They’ve tried partial U-turns. It hasn’t worked. They need a big U-turn. In the same episode Osborne said Rishi Sunak would only make his leadership secure by getting a lead in the opinion polls. He said: The only leadership strategy that works in the Tory party is having a poll lead. The only thing that works as a unifying strategy is the promise that you might win the election. And you can announce any amount of policy, you can make any amount of promises to the Conservative party. If you don’t look like you’re going to win, you’re going to have huge leadership problems. Humza Yousaf described the Scottish Police Federation as a disgrace in a private message towards the end of the pandemic, the inquiry heard. It was shown an exchange of messages between Yousaf, then health secretary, and John Swinney, then deputy first minister. Referring to the SPF, Yousaf said: They’re a disgrace. Right through this pandemic they have shown an arrogance and retrograde thinking. Chief [constable] was livid last night. Asked why he described the SPF like this, Yousaf said: I was expressing frustration in a private conversation. Sometimes when you are venting to a colleague you use language you regret. Kathryn Samson from Channel 4 News has posted a screenshot of the exchange on X. Yousaf denies seeking "loophole" from health chief to allow him to avoid wearing masks at functions At the Covid inquiry Humza Yousaf was asked about the revelation that he sought guidance from Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, about what the rules said about wearing a mask at an official function. Leitch told him that, as long as he was holding a drink, he did not need a mask. Jamie Dawson KC, counsel for the inquiry, put it to him that if he needed guidance on this, as health secretary, then the rules were too complicated for everyone else. If the cabinet secretary for health and social care felt the need to clarify the rules, what chance do others have in understanding the rules? Yousaf said that it was because of his job that he felt the need to, not just double check or triple check, but quadruple check what the rules were. He had to get them right, he said. As the cabinet secretary for health and social care I didn’t want to just double-check the rules, triple check them, I would quadruple check them if I had to, because the intensity of the public scrutiny that we were under. Dawson asked if he was concerned when Leitch told him that “literally no one” wore a mask when they were standing up and talking at a dinner, even though they should be doing that. Yousaf said that Leitch, by his own admission, had a “casual way of speaking”. He had a tendency to “over-speak”, he said. Q: Leitch was giving you a loophole, wasn’t he? Yousaf did not accept that. He said he was just seeking clarification on how to follow the rules. Adam Hawksbee, deputy director of the centre-right thinktank Onward, has been appointed as the government’s “town tsar”, the government has announced. He will chair a new towns unit “to ensure the voices of UK towns are heard loud and clear across government and that vital regeneration comes to life”. YouGov called on to confirm who commissioned poll on Sunak defeat The British Polling Council (BPC) is looking into controversial YouGov polling used by Conservative plotters to call for Rishi Sunak to be ousted, Eleni Courea reports. Outgoing Welsh FM Mark Drakeford urges UK Labour not to adopt "King Canute" opposition to further devolution The outgoing Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has hit back at UK Labour, urging his Westminster colleagues to avoid adopting a “King Canute” stance on devolution. Drakeford said there were some in London who regard devolution as a “zero-sum game, that anything that is devolved elsewhere is a loss to them”. He was speaking at an event at the Institute for Government, only days after the shadow Welsh secretary, Jo Stevens, rejected the Welsh administrations’s longstanding call for more powers over policing and justice. Stevens said Labour would be focusing on the “things that matter” at the next election, listing “growing the economy, creating new jobs, getting cheaper bills, building an NHS fit for the future and breaking down barriers for opportunities for children and young people across the country”. Drakeford said UK Labour had a “responsibility” to show the “journey has begun” on devolution if they won the election this year, and he said he hoped Keir Starmer would make an “early commitment” to adopting Gordon Brown’s report on the UK’s future, which urged a Labour government to “embark upon the devolution of youth justice and the probation service”. Drakeford went on: There are some colleagues in London who regard this as a zero-sum game, that anything that is devolved elsewhere is a loss to them. All four police and crime commissioners in Wales are firmly in favour of the devolution of policing. So again, even people who are close to the operational end of all this share our view. Drakeford who is due to step down as Welsh Labour leader in March, advised his successor to “be bold” and always “look for those radical changes that are necessary”. Maintenance loans for students in England to rise by just 2.5% next year Next year’s university students in England will be left worse off after the government said it will increase their maintenance loans by just 2.5%, following this year’s rise of 2.8% during a period of high inflation. The Russell Group of leading research universities said the 2.5% rise means that students will miss out on £2,000 worth of support they would have received if the loans had risen in line with inflation since 2021-22. Joanna Burton, the Russell Group’s head of policy, said: Once again, we are disappointed to see that there has been no move to correct the maintenance loan shortfall suffered by students in recent years. Inflation may now be slowing down, but today’s announcement fails to address the deficit that has been created across the last three years. We know that a quarter of students regularly go without food and other necessities due to financial hardship, and it’s vital they are provided with adequate loan provision so they can afford the essentials and focus on their studies. Russell Group universities have spent tens of millions from their existing budgets on additional support measures over the past year, but it’s not feasible for universities to plug the gap in maintenance provision on their own. The hardest hit will be the most disadvantaged students, who are most at risk of dropping out due to financial pressures. Robert Halfon, the minister for skills and higher education, said the 2.5% increase “follows standard procedure to base annual increases in support on forecasted inflation”. Halfon added: Decisions on student finance have had to be taken to ensure the system remains financially sustainable and the costs of higher education are shared fairly between students and taxpayers, not all of whom have benefited from going to university. Yousaf says he did not discuss his production of WhatsApp messages to the inquiry with Nicola Sturgeon. Dawson says, after the Scottish government gave its account in October last year of what messages it had, Yousaf found a phone containing old messages. Yousaf said he knew he had the old phone. He originally thought that the messages on it were not recoverable. But when he logged on using the old phone, he found they were recoverable. Dawson suggests it is now possible for the inquiry to compared the “corporate record” of key decisions taken, and what the Yousaf messages show was actually discussed. Yousaf says the two can be compared. He says key decisions and salient points were recorded by his office. If they weren’t, they were not taken forward. Q: But you were also required to record discussions relating to decisions. Yousaf says he thinks these points should be covered by the “salient points” he said should have been recorded on the corporate record. Q: Should have been recorded on the corporate record, or were recorded on the corporate record? Yousaf says it was always his intention to record those points. Q: You are a heavy user of WhatsApp. Yousaf says he uses it on a daily basis. Q: And you had multiple phones over this period. Yousaf says he had both personal and government devices. Dawson shows the inquiry a document setting out Yousaf’s use of WhatsApp during this period. Dawson says this was the summary given to the Covid inquiry by the Scottish government in October last year. He asks if this is an accurate summary. Yousaf says the situation has developed. Q: How were WhatsApp messages recorded on the “corporate record” if that had to happen? Yousaf said, if a decision was taken on WhatsApp, private office had to be informed so that it could be placed in the system. No decision would be actionable unless it was on the corporate record. Q: And after that WhatsApp messages were deleted. Yousaf said the guidance was that, once messages were on the corporate record, they should be deleted for cyber security reasons. Yousaf apologises for Scottish government"s "poor handling" of Covid inquiry"s requests for WhatsApp messages Yousaf says he wants to apologise to the inquiry, and to people who were bereaved during the pandemic, for the government’s “poor handling” of requests for messages. He says there is a recognition in government that any record of important decisions should be recorded. But, because government had that corporate record, there was a view that that was all that needed to be handed over. He says there has been a gap in terms of what gets recorded. That is why he has ordered an inquiry into the use of unofficial message channels like WhatsApp, he says. (See 1.18pm.) Yousaf plays down claims at Covid inquiry that Sturgeon wanted to limit role of other ministers in decisions Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, and health secretary from 2021 to 2023, is giving evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in Edinburgh now. He has rejected suggestions that cabinet was only a forum where decisions were rubber stamped. But Jamie Dawson KC put it to him that Nicola Sturgeon preferred to take decisons in a small group. He flags up a message Yousaf received, on the day be became health secretary, from Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, saying: There was some FM ‘keep it small’ shenanigans as always. She actually wants none of us. Yousaf said that was Leitch “over-speaking”. Shoplifting up 32% in England and Wales compared with previous year, ONS figures show Labour says crime figures out today, one set published by the Office for National Statistics and another set published by the Home Office, show knife crime and shoplifting getting worse. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: This disturbing further increase in knife crime in the last year shows how badly the Tories are failing on law and order and means that knife crime is now 77% higher than in 2015, with a devastating impact on young people, families and communities. Serious violence is rising with gun crime also increasing, yet the government just isn’t getting a grip. At the same time shoplifting has soared by 32% in the last year alone, as criminals run rife in our town centres, and the number of cases dropped because no suspect was identified has reached record highs. In its report on crime in England and Wales in the year ending September 2023, the ONS says: Police recorded theft has increased by 9% (to 1.8 million offences) compared with the year ending September 2022. This rise was predominantly the result of increases in shoplifting offences. The year ending September 2023 saw a 32% increase in the number of shoplifting offences recorded compared with the previous year, with 402,482 offences compared with 304,459 offences in the year ending September 2022. Humza Yousaf announces inquiry into Scottish government"s use of WhatsApp Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, has announced an externally-led review into the use of WhatsApp and other unofficial technology in the Scottish government. Speaking during first minister’s questions, he told MSPs that Covid inquiry revelations about official communication processes being sidelined had been embarrassing. He said: I do believe that there are challenges in relation to our use of WhatsApp. It has not been frankly the government’s finest hour in relation to handling those requests [for WhatsApp messages] and I put my hands up to that, unlike of course other governments. That’s why I have commissioned officials to deliver an externally-led review – not a government review but an externally-led review – into the use of mobile messaging apps and the use of non-corporate technology in the Scottish government, and that should take particular account of our interaction with statutory public inquiries. When it comes to being transparent, the government handed over 28,000 messages, 19,000 documents. I myself as first minister of the government have handed over my WhatsApp messages. Yousaf will appear at the Covid inquiry this afternoon. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s former first minister, may have communicated with Liz Lloyd, her chief of staff, using a personal mobile phone during Covid, the inquiry has heard. Lloyd told the inquiry this morning that Sturgeon only ever communicated with her using one phone. She said she did not know who had issued it. When it was put to her that, if the inquiry heard that Sturgeon did not have a government phone and only used a personal one, then she must have used that personal one to conduct government business with Lloyd, Lloyd replied: Evidently we had discussions about government business on the phone that she had. Usman Tariq, counsel to the inquiry, went on: As her chief of staff, did you ever advise her that it might be a good idea to use a government-issued phone to conduct government business? Lloyd replied: I don’t know that I did. I am aware that on ministers’ personal phones the government installs a sort of secure app, so I would be less concerned with the device and more concerned with the security. £9.9bn of £13.6bn spent on PPE during Covid written down because it"s unusable or its value has fallen, DHSC reveals Some £9.9bn of the £13.6bn spent on personal protective equipment (PPE) has been written down because it was unusable or its value has crashed since the pandemic, PA Media reports. PA says: The Department of Health and Social Care’s accounts published today said some items were defective or not suitable, while others will not be used before their expiry date. The accountability report by the National Audit Office (NAO) said that the department plans to dispose of “nearly all” of its current PPE stock held in warehouses and containers. Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said the majority of the PPE recorded was of “insignificant value”. He said that “ongoing efforts to detect, prevent and recover fraud must continue, improving public confidence that this drain on the public finances is being tackled effectively and efficiently”. Downing Street defended the losses by stressing the havoc that Covid-19 wreaked. The prime minister’s spokesperson said: “It’s important not to forget the circumstances in which the UK and countries globally found themselves during a pandemic when globally PPE was in extremely short supply. The costs as a result increased significantly and the government took the decision very transparently to do everything possible to secure protective equipment for frontline health and care workers, that was right.” No 10 brushes aside warning from ECHR"s top judge that ignoring Rwanda flight injunction would be unlawful No 10 has brushed aside a warning from the president of the European court of human rights saying it would be against international law for the UK to ignore injunctions blocking flights to Rwanda. At a news conference this morning, Síofra O’Leary, president of the court, said there was a “clear legal obligation” on states to obey injunctions, known as rule 39 orders, from the court. The government’s first attempt to send a deportation flight to Rwanda in 2022 was stopped by an order from the court. The government’s new Rwanda bill, which is still going through parliament, says it is for ministers to decide whether or not to obey any future injunctions in these cases, but Rishi Sunak has angered some of his MPs by not firmly stating that injunctions will definitely be ignored. Instead, he has just said that in some circumstances he would ignore them. At her news conference, O’Leary said: There is a clear legal obligation under the convention for states to comply with rule 39 measures. In a speech proceeding her Q&A, O’Leary said injunctions were only issued “in exceptional circumstances where there is a real and imminent risk of irreparable harm”. She also said the UK “has always complied with rule 39 measures”, except in one very particular case, and has “publicly declared the need for other states to comply with rule 39 indications” – including urging Vladimir Putin’s Russia to abide by a 2021 measure in relation to the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Asked to respond to O’Leary’s comment, the PM’s spokesperson told journalists at the No 10 lobby briefing that the government did not think rule 39 orders would be justified in relation to Rwanda given changes made to the policy. He also restated the PM’s willingness to ignore them. The spokesperson said: I think, firstly, we are confident our legislation is compliant with our international obligations. We’re clear the bill and the treaty address the supreme court’s concerns. There should be no need for Strasburg to intervene to block flights in the way they did in 2022. We’ve also drafted the bill to give ministers the power not to comply with those rulings if necessary. And obviously every case is assessed on its individual facts, but the prime minister has been clear repeatedly that we will not let a foreign court block flights from taking off. The spokesperson also said it was “bizarre” to compare the UK ignoring rule 39 orders to Russia. He said: I think it would be bizarre to draw any comparison between Russia’s cruel treatment of Alexei Navalny, who was a victim of an attempted assassination, and our plan to protect and deter vulnerable migrants from making perilous crossings across the Channel. New ban on zombie-style knives "goes nowhere near far enough", Labour claims The Home Office has now published a news release with details of its ban on zombie-style knives. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the new ban “goes nowhere near far enough and it is also too little, too late”. Speaking on a visit to a police station in Milton Keynes, she said the penalties were not strong enough, and the new ban was not going to take effect until the autumn. She also said it was still too narrow. She told journalists: It doesn’t include ninja swords, it doesn’t include a whole series of dangerous weapons … We need much faster action, at a time when knife crime has gone up by a further 5% this year, 77% increase since 2015. This is an epidemic, we need action. Knife crime offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales rose year-on-year in the latest figures, but have not yet returned to levels seen before the Covid pandemic, PA Media reports. PA says: Some 48,716 offences were recorded in the 12 months to September 2023. This is up 5% from 46,367 in the previous 12 months, but is 5% lower than the 51,228 in the year to March 2020. These figures do not include Devon & Cornwall and Greater Manchester police, due to issues involving the supply of data. There has been a “notable increase” in the number of robberies involving a knife or sharp instrument, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which compiled the figures. These jumped from 16,746 in the year to September 2022 to 20,000 in the year to September 2023, a rise of 19% – though the total is still below pre-pandemic levels. Knife-enabled homicides stood at 240 in the 12 months to September 2023, broadly unchanged on the 241 recorded in the previous year and also lower than pre-pandemic figures.