Home secretary Suella Braverman faces selection vote for parliamentary seat – live | Politics

The government’s pay offer to teachers in England is in tatters after a third union announced today that its members had overwhelmingly rejected it.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said 90% of its members voted to reject the Department for Education’s offer, which included a £1,000 one-off payment for this year and an average 4.5% pay rise from September.

Nearly two-thirds of the NAHT’s 34,000 members in England took part in the consultation, with most saying the offer was “unaffordable” for school budgets. A total of 78% said they would also vote for strike action if a ballot was held.

The result follows similar responses by National Education Union (NEU) members, where 98% rejected the offer, and the Association of School and College Leaders, with 87% voting to reject.

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has said there will be no further negotiations for the time being, despite the NEU scheduling five further school strike days for next term.

Paul Whiteman, the NAHT’s general secretary, said the union executive would meet this month to discuss balloting on industrial action. An earlier ballot failed to reach the legal threshold of 50% of members voting required to authorise strikes.

Whiteman said: “What school leaders are saying is that they are prepared to take action because they can’t find any more solutions, they’re completely out of solutions to make their budget go any further. They can’t recruit people who don’t want to come into the profession because there’s not enough money in it and it’s too much work.

“And if they say that loud and clear, to the extent that they are going to take tangible action, then the government really has to listen.”

Lisa O’Carroll

The “final piece of the Brexit jigsaw”, required physical checks on imports of chilled and fresh from the EU member states, is to be put in place at the end of January, the government has announced.

It follows four delays to the physical checks that were due to be put in place for plant and animal produce ranging from salad to leather and wood when Brexit came into force on 1 January 2021.

The import controls were repeatedly put back amid fears of lack of infrastructure at ports such as Dover or knowhow among EU suppliers.

A new Target Operating Model will apply to imports from all countries, not just EU states, under the government proposals and will guard against disease threats ranging from African swine fever to Xylella fastidiosa, a dangerous bacteria threatening hundreds of species of plants in the UK after its identification as the cause of the death of olive trees in Italy.

The government is putting the plans out to consultation for six weeks but the proposals to highly digitise the process have been welcomed by trade groups.

William Bain, the head of trade and policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “This in a way is the final part of the Brexit jigsaw being put into place. Outbound controls have been in place from day one but have been repeatedly deferred in inbound trade.”

The government proposals will see the digital and physical checks introduced from later this year and it is hoped they will be fully operational by 2027.

Bain added: “Providing certainty for business is crucial and the focus must now be on delivering to the timescales set out. This will need a concerted effort to get the physical and digital infrastructure in place.”

The burden will fall on EU suppliers as UK exporters to the EU have been obliged to provide full health certification, safety and security paperwork and customers declarations for the past two years.

The former Brexit minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who delayed the controls again one year ago, was criticised by the National Farmers’ Union last year for giving EU produce a competitive advantage over UK rivals who had to be Brexit compliant from day one.

Lady Neville-Rolfe, a minister of state at the Cabinet Office, said: “The publication of our draft Border Target Operating Model is a huge step forward for the safety, security and efficiency of our borders. Our proposals strike a balance between giving consumers and businesses confidence while reducing the costs and friction for businesses, which in turn will help to grow the economy.”

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, will face her Tory colleague Flick Drummond at a selection meeting on Wednesday night, as she aims to secure a seat for the next election.

Braverman’s current seat of Fareham is being wound up and included in a new constituency of Fareham and Waterlooville.

Drummond represents Meon Valley, also in Hampshire, which is being scrapped under the new parliamentary boundaries.

A result is expected on Wednesday night.

The newly elected first minister and Scottish National party leader, Humza Yousaf, has spoken for the first time since the party’s former chief executive Peter Murrell was arrested.

Speaking to the media he repeated the party’s broader statement about being unable to comment on a live police matter, and that the SNP had been fully cooperative.

He said the development was “clearly … not great”. He had earlier told the BBC that it was “challenging and it’s difficult [news]”. The first minister has also said to Sky News it is a difficult day for the SNP.

“The sooner we can get to the conclusion of this police investigation the better. Really it is up to the police to, of course, investigate in due course, in the best way they see fit and appropriate,” he added.

Yousaf said he had had no involvement in party finances and wanted to bring “new leadership” as the recently elected first minister.

In response to a question about when he was made aware of Murrell’s arrest, he said: “This morning, after the event. I think that’s really important for me to stress.

“So, of course I am following it, as much as anybody else is. But as I keep saying, the party will fully cooperate. As has already been reported for example, we know that police are at party headquarters and they will not be impeded in any way, shape or form in terms of their investigation.”

President Joe Biden will visit Northern Ireland and the Republic from 11 April to 14 April to “mark the tremendous progress since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement 25 years ago”, the White House has confirmed.

In a statement, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said: “President Joseph R Biden, Jr will travel to the United Kingdom and Ireland from April 11-14.

“President Biden will first travel to Belfast, Northern Ireland, from April 11-12 to mark the tremendous progress since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement 25 years ago and to underscore the readiness of the United States to support Northern Ireland’s vast economic potential to the benefit of all communities.”

He will then make a return visit to the Republic of Ireland on 12 April. He previously visited as vice-president in 2016.

The taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has said that it will be a “privilege” to host Biden.

The US statement continued: “The president will then travel to Ireland from April 12-14.

“He will discuss our close cooperation on the full range of shared global challenges.

“He will also hold various engagements, including in Dublin, County Louth and County Mayo, where he will deliver an address to celebrate the deep, historic ties that link our countries and people.”

The Scottish National party has released a statement which repeats that it will be reviewing its governance procedures, a decision made on Saturday before Peter Murrell’s arrest.

It said: “Clearly it would not be appropriate to comment on any live police investigation but the SNP have been co-operating fully with this investigation and will continue to do so.

“At its meeting on Saturday, the governing body of the SNP, the NEC, agreed to a review of governance and transparency – that will be taken forward in the coming weeks.”

Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, Jackie Baillie, has said it is “deeply concerning and the investigation must be allowed to proceed without interference”.

“We need Humza Yousaf and Nicola Sturgeon to urgently state what they knew and when,” she said.

Severin Carrell

Peter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, has been arrested by Scottish police in an investigation into the Scottish National party’s fundraising and finances.

Police Scotland said a 58-year-old man had been “arrested as a suspect” on Wednesday and added that its officers were carrying out searches at a number of addresses linked to the investigation.

The investigation was launched after complaints about the SNP’s handling of £600,000 in donations raised by the party ostensibly to campaign for and hold a second independence referendum.

It is alleged the money instead was used to help with the party’s day-to-day running costs.

Jamie Grierson

Rishi Sunak and his immigration minister have been scolded by the UK statistics watchdog for using inaccurate figures to back up spurious claims about asylum seekers.

In a statement to the House of Commons in December, the prime minister claimed that the asylum backlog – 132,000 cases at the time – was half the size of the backlog left by the departing Labour government in 2010. This implied the backlog in 2010 would have been about 260,000.

In the same month, the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, and the safeguarding minister, Sarah Dines, told MPs that 450,000 and 500,000 legacy cases had been left by the Labour government.

However, the UK Statistics Authority found the statements “do not reflect the position shown by the Home Office’s statistics”.

Sir Robert Chote, the UKSA chairman, said the asylum backlog in 2010 was 19,000, meaning the number of outstanding claims had in fact risen almost ninefold to 166,000.

Police Scotland have arrested former SNP chief executive and the husband of the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Murrell, in connection with an investigation into the funding and finances of the Scottish National party.

The 58-year-old is in custody and being questioned by Police Scotland, the nationwide force for Scotland, PA Media reports.

Officers are carrying out searches at a number of addresses, a spokesperson added.

Murrell became chief executive of the SNP in 2000, and stood down in March in a row over inflated party membership figures. He and Sturgeon married in 2010.

Elswhere today, Rishi Sunak is expected to confirm the mooring of a ship in Portland, Dorset, to house asylum seekers.

The move has been touted for weeks as part of the latest group of measures for Sunak as he attempts to stop people arriving in small boats from northern France, an issue that has risen to prominence in the Conservative party in the last 18 months.

Last night the Telegraph reported that councils where the barges are to be based will be paid £3,500 per migrant to cover the cost of extra services.

The boat is expected to be the Bibby Stockholm, which houses 500 people and has previously been used to accommodate asylum seekers in the Netherlands about 20 years ago.

Tory backbencher Richard Drax, who represents South Dorset where the ship will be moored, has said the plan is “totally and utterly out of the question”, and would exacerbate existing problems “tenfold”.

Meanwhile, Labour will continue to bang the crime and antisocial behaviour drum ahead of May’s local elections. Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed will visit fly-tipping hotspots in Brighton later today, which is exactly the sort of getaway everyone wants to do a few days before the Easter weekend.

Speaking of a jolly boys outing, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey is off to Hull and back, where he will speak about the need for more energy support for businesses amid fears that rising costs will send a number of firms under.

I’m sitting in for Andrew Sparrow this week, and you can get in touch with any comments or tips, either by emailing [email protected] or my DMs are open on Twitter where you can find me @HarryTaylr.