Sunak to face Starmer in first PMQs after Tories suffer huge defeat in English local elections – UK politics live | Politics

PMQs is starting shortly.

Here is the lists of MPs down to ask a question.

Vernon Coaker, a shadow home affairs minister, is now speaking for Labour.

He starts by confirming that Labour will not vote for the Paddick amendment, that would vote down the bill tonight. He explains:

We understand why the amendment has been put and we know it sounds attractive. But if we did [vote down the bill], all that would happen is the government would use the Parliament Act [which would allow it to pass the bill despite the Lords voting it down].

Coaker said, if that happened, the Lords would lose the option of being able to amend the bill. He said Labour would be proposing amendments, and urging the government to “think again”.

He also insisted opposition peers would not be “intimidated” by constitutional arguments from Suella Braverman, the home secretary, and Alex Chalk, the justice secretary “into giving the bill an easy ride”. Peers would not rush the bill through the Lords, he said.

Paddick says the bill will undermine the Human Rights Act.

And yet at the same time the UK is asking Russia and other states to obey international law.

Paddick says, when he studied moral philosophy at university, a key moral test for an action was, what would happen if everyone did it. He asks what what would happen if all countries adopted this approach to asylum seekers.

He ends by saying: “This bill is a low point in the history of this government.”

In the House of Lords peers are just starting to debate the second reading of the illegal migration bill.

Simon Murray, aka Lord Murray of Blidworth, is opening the debate. He is a lawyer who was made a Home Office minister, and a peer, when Liz Truss was PM.

You can watch the debate here.

Murray is just setting out what the bill would do in relatively neutral terms. He has not said anything new or unusual yet.

The next speaker, according to the speakers’s list, is Lord Paddick, the Lib Dem peer who has tabled an amendment that would kill the bill.

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, is fifth on the list. That means he may be up before PMQs.

Number of families in England living in temporary accommodation passes 100,000 for first time in 18 years

Robert Booth

The number of families living in temporary homes in England has broken the 100,000 mark for the first time in 18 years, government figures have revealed.

It means some 127,000 children are living in uncertain housing such as bed and breakfasts and hostels, often a long way from their original home.

The number of families in temporary housing is now more than double the amount in 2010 and 2011.

In the last year nearly 20,000 families went to councils after being served a no-fault eviction notice by their landlord and were judged to be owed a homelessness duty.

John Glenton, executive director of Riverside Care and Support, a provider of accommodation for people affected by homelessness, said the figures were “very worrying”. He said:

We now face a perfect storm of factors driving more people into homelessness while giving us fewer good options to help them when they do. These factors include soaring private rents (above the benefit cap), private landlords leaving the sector, a national shortage of affordable housing, and a backlog of court cases after Covid-relating housing support was removed. At the same time, we have a cost-of-living crisis which is reducing real-term incomes and putting further strain on relationships.

The figures come as there has been a fresh delay to plans by Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, to ban no-fault evictions. The renters reform bill, which is expected to deliver the change, is now due to be tabled in parliament in the next couple of weeks.

Andrew Bridgen, the MP expelled from the Conservative party after comparing the results of the Covid vaccination programme to the impact of the Holocaust, has jointed the rightwing Reclaim party.

At a news conference announcing his move, the North West Leicestershire MP said:

There is a huge chasm now between our parliament and what goes on in Westminster and the people.

He also said he was joining the party set up by the actor Laurence Fox because “they respect free speech as the basis for every aspect of our democracy and our society”.

Fox told the same event that his party would not put up 650 candidates at the next election, but that it would target “problematic” MPs.

The government is introducing legislation to allow longer lorries on the roads. In its news release, the Department for Transport says this will help to grow the economy because it will “boost productivity, slash road emissions and support supply chains”. The DfT says:

These new lorries will move the same volume of goods, but will use 8% fewer journeys than current trailers. This will generate an expected £1.4bn in economic benefits and take one standard-size trailer off the road for every 12 trips.

As part of efforts to grow the economy and cut emissions, government is changing regulations to allow longer trailers on GB roads, which it estimates will save 70,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.

These longer trailers, known as longer semi-trailers (LST) measure up to 2.05 metres longer than a standard semi-trailer and can be towed by a lorry.

The move follows an 11-year trial to ensure LSTs are used safely on roads, and operators will be encouraged to put extra safety checks and training in place. The trial demonstrated that LSTs were involved in around 61% fewer personal injury collisions than conventional lorries.

An open letter has been published this morning, signed by representatives from 174 human rights organisations, civil society groups and charities, calling for the illegal migration bill to be shelved. Organised by Liberty, it says the bill is “effectively a ban on asylum”.

The full text of the letter, and the names of all 174 signatories, are here. And here is an extract.

The bill is effectively a ban on asylum, extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom. It will put people seeking safety and a better life at risk of irreversible harm, with life and death consequences.

This bill attacks the very core of human rights, which is the fundamental belief that we all have human rights regardless of who we are or where we are from. Instead, it separates people into categories of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ of human rights. In stripping the most basic rights from people seeking safety and a better life, the bill dismantles human rights protections for all of us.

The bill deliberately and unacceptably excludes an entire category of people from the protections guaranteed under our domestic laws and international obligations.

It will almost certainly breach multiple international conventions and agreements, including the UN refugee convention, the European convention on human rights (ECHR), and the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings (ECAT).

The government has acknowledged that it cannot guarantee the bill will be compatible with the ECHR, a legally binding instrument. The convention represents the rights and values that we hold dear, including the right to life, protection from slavery and torture, and the right to liberty, which are all threatened by this bill.

In recent PMQs Rishi Sunak has been using “culture war” issues against Keir Starmer, for example saying two weeks ago that Starmer’s record on women is “questionable at best”. Labour used to act paralysed in the face of these attacks (it was as if they were not entirely sure what to say), but now they are a bit more confident responding, in part because they have concluded this line of attack is a sign of weakness.

Starmer made this point to his shadow cabinet yesterday. In a briefing issued in advance, Labour said he thinks “the Tories have made a big strategic blunder in believing that ‘woke’ issues are more salient to voters than the cost of living and the NHS”. Starmer told his team:

The NHS trumps ‘woke’ every day of the week.

Yesterday Sunak responded in an interview with Jason Groves from the Daily Mail that has been published this morning. Sunak “vowed to stand up for the quiet majority against ‘woke’ attempts to downgrade women’s rights and British history”, Groves reported in his intro. And he quoted Sunak saying:

I don’t think these are niche issues that should be avoided. I think they are issues that people would expect their prime minister and their politicians to have a view on and to address and that’s what I’m doing …

When it comes to the issue of women’s rights, I do think that it’s important… making sure that we protect women’s safety and women’s rights is important, whilst also of course, having compassion and tolerance and understanding for those who are questioning their gender.

The problem with Sunak’s response, though, is that Starmer was not saying that ‘woke’ issues don’t matter; he was just saying that issues like the cost of living, and the NHS, matter to voters a lot more. This is what polling shows too, and in his interview Sunak did not really challenge that.

Labour chooses candidate for expected byelection in Rutherglen and Hamilton West

Severin Carrell

A Labour activist who quit the party over its stance on Brexit four years ago but then rejoined has been selected as Scottish Labour’s candidate for the expected byelection in Margaret Ferrier’s seat of Rutherglen and Hamilton West.

Michael Shanks, 35, a modern studies teacher who lives in the constituency, was chosen by branch members last night from a shortlist of candidates chosen by a Scottish Labour selection panel.

Shanks previously stood for Westminster in Glasgow North West in the 2017 general election, and worked at the Scottish parliament as a party aide.

The selection process sparked complaints from the local party after several well-liked local candidates were not chosen. The Scottish executive has exercised very tight control over Westminster selections, leading to sporadic complaints from the pro-Corbyn left.

Buoyed by last week’s English council results, Scottish Labour is optimistic it can capitalise on the Scottish National party’s multiple crises and Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation. Recent polls show Labour only a few points behind the SNP on both Westminster and Holyrood elections.

Shanks said:

The people of this area have been failed by an out of touch SNP MP and have been left without a voice at Westminster. My campaign will champion the people here – so that together we can deliver the change this community badly needs.

MPs are waiting for the Commons standards committee to hear Ferrier’s appeal against its decision to suspend her for 30 days after she was convicted of unlawfully travelling with Covid in 2020. An MP’s suspension for 10 days or more triggers a recall petition.

Labour has already been campaigning hard in Rutherglen, to build up momentum behind the recall petition.

The arrest of anti-monarchy protesters at the coronation and intimidatory Home Office warnings to campaigners before the event are to be scrutinised by the Commons home affairs committee, its chair, Diana Johnson, has said. Matthew Weaver has the story here.

Good morning. Rishi Sunak will take prime minister’s questions for the first time today since his party suffered huge losses in the local elections. Normally, when a governing party faces defeat on a scale like this, there is some form of public backlash from MPs against the leadership. But this time backbenchers have been largely keeping quiet, and the most outspoken Tory critical of Sunak has been David Campbell Bannerman, a former Conservative MEP who used to be in Ukip. (If Sunak were in real trouble, no one would even know what Campbell Bannerman thought, because journalists would be quoting much more prominent figures instead.) At PMQs we will see whether support for Sunak is holding, or whether some of his MPs are starting to speak out.

As PMQs is taking place, peers will be debating the second reading of the illegal migration bill. Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, is among those expected to condemn it. Lord Paddick, the Lib Dem peer, has tabled an amendment saying the bill should not get a second reading because, among other reasons, it “undermines the rule of law by failing to meet the United Kingdom’s international law commitments”. But in the Lords peers almost never vote against a bill at second reading, Labour is not backing the Paddick amendment, and the legislation will go through to its next stages.

But ministers are still nervous about what happens when peers debate amendments. In an article in the Times Suella Braverman, the home secretary, and Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, remind peers that the bill has already passed the elected house. They say it is the “clear desire” of the public for immigration to be brought under control. And in an admission that does not reflect well on the party that has been in government for 13 years, they say illegal immigration is “out of control”. They write

It is entirely right that the Lords should scrutinise this important piece of legislation – that is the purpose of parliament’s second chamber. At the same time, it must be balanced against the clear desire of the British people to control immigration. This was a government manifesto commitment in 2019, with a pledge to take back control of our borders.

And yet illegal migration is out of control. It is also intolerably unfair: on taxpayers, on would-be immigrants who do the right thing and play by the rules, on people who see accommodation and public services put under unbearable pressure, and on those sold a dangerous lie by wicked people smugglers.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11am: Peers begin debating the second reading of the illegal migration bill. Here is the list of the 87 peers who are down to speak. The list showing the order in which they’re speaking will be available here later this morning.

12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

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