Starmer calls Tory claim UK would accept 100,000 EU migrants per year under Labour ‘embarrassing nonsense’– UK politics live | Politics

Rory Stewart, the former Tory cabinet minister and co-host of the hit podcast The Rest is Politics with Alastair Campbell, has praised Keir Starmer’s small boats policy as “brave and principled”.

@Keir_Starmer new ideas on asylum seem brave and principled. He is taking a political risk but it will mean a workable asylum policy and far fewer dangerous boat crossings. It is logical, moral, good for Britain – and far better than the current government policy. Well done Keir

Stewart was commenting on a tweet from Nick Timothy, the former co-chief of staff to Theresa May who is now a Conservative election candidate. In his tweet on Labour’s policy, Timothy said:

Starmer’s solution to the Channel crossings? To agree quotas of migrants already in safe EU countries.

We didn’t accept asylum quotas even when we were in the EU.

This is a surrender – and a recipe for yet more immigration.

Figures showing backlog of cases in crown courts at record levels ‘very alarming’, says Law Society

Haroon Siddique

The backlog of cases in crown courts reached a record figure of 64,105 in July, up from 59,361. After the focus on prison funding and staffing cuts in the wake of the escape of Daniel Khalife last week, the backlog figures, published today, bring renewed focus on the criminal justice system.

Lubna Shuja, Law Society of England and Wales president said:

The terrible backlogs in our criminal courts continue to spiral out of control. Outstanding cases in the crown court have risen by more than 4,000 in a year and the magistrates’ court backlog by more than 15,000 in the same period.

The fact that the backlogs continue to get worse, not better, is very alarming. Even the government’s own unambitious target of reducing the crown court backlog to 53,000 by March 2025 now looks like wishful thinking.

The figures demonstrate another year of failure in tackling the backlogs. Efforts to tackle crime and keep communities safe will fail if these backlogs aren’t addressed.

In the run up to the general election, Labour is seeking to highlight the criminal justice system as another area it claims that the Conservatives are falling short in, alongside lengthy NHS waiting lists and problems with school buildings.

The government has previously blamed Covid and the barristers’ strike for the backlog but those arguments become increasingly difficult to maintain given that coronavirus restrictions were lifted last year and the strike ended in October.

The government has indicated it could expand the list of ID people can use to vote, after a damning Electoral Commission report about the rollout of the new rules, but has said this is unlikely to cover documents used by younger people, such as 18-plus travel passes. Peter Walker has the story.

Peter has sent me a further line on this story, which is based on what Rachel Maclean, a minister in the Department for Levelling Up, was saying in response to an urgent question. Peter says:

One other detail of the UQ on voter ID was that Rachel Maclean, the minister speaking for the government, said several times that the Electoral Commission had specifically recommended mandatory photo ID to vote.

This appears to be incorrect. When pilot schemes were done using various types of ID, the commission found that while photo documents gave the greatest security, others like polling cards also made some difference, and it didn’t make a recommendation.

There is a sense that the commission was, in fact, somewhat caught out by the decision of ministers to not just go for photo-only ID, but to also make the list of acceptable documents so limited.

Rishi Sunak has said that it will be “very hard” for him to keep his promise to cut hospital waiting lists while strikes in the NHS continue.

In January, as one of his five priorities, Sunak said: “NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly.” He suggested he wanted to achieve the overall target by the time of the general election, although he also said he wanted to eliminate 18-month waits by spring 2023 (a target he narrowly missed) and 12-month waits by spring 2024.

Figures out today show the NHS waiting list in England has hit a new record high, with nearly 7.7 million people – about one in seven – waiting for treatment.

Asked about the figures, Sunak told the BBC:

Obviously that is challenging, with industrial action, there’s no two ways about it. We were making very good progress before industrial action.

Asked if he would miss his goal, he replied:

With industrial action it is very hard to continue to meet these targets.

But he also claimed the government was “making very good progress despite industrial action”.

Downing Street has refused to say the government remains committed to extending the HS2 high-speed rail line to Manchester.

The PM’s spokesperson declined to make the commitment when asked about a report in the Independent saying Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, discussed cancelling the Birmingham to Manchester leg of the project at a meeting earlier this week.

The Independent has seen a briefing document prepared for the meeting saying that, although £2.3bn has already been spent on HS2 phase two, scrapping it could save up to £34bn.

Construction for phase one, from London to Birmingham, is already well under way.

Asked about the Independent report, the PM’s spokesperson told journalists:

I can’t comment on speculation around a leaked document. It is obviously standard process for departments to discuss the phasing of major projects like HS2 … but the work is already under way.

Asked if Rishi Sunak remained committed to the line going to Manchester, the spokesperson replied:

We are committed to HS2, to the project. I can’t comment on the speculation that’s a result of a photograph. We are as you know looking at the rephasing of the work in the best interests of passengers and taxpayers.

The government has accepted that “further investment” is needed to protect the UK from the threat posed by China. It made the admission in its formal response to a lengthy report from parliament’s intelligence and security committee, which suggested the government did not have an effective response to the “whole-of-state” Chinese effort to spy on the UK an interfere in its affairs.

The government says:

The government does … recognise that further investment in capabilities will be needed to ensure the government is equipped with the tools, expertise and knowledge to respond to the systemic challenge that China poses to the United Kingdom’s security, prosperity, and values. IR2023 [the update to the integrated review of defence and security] took the first steps towards this, doubling funding for a government-wide programme, including further investing in Mandarin language training and deepening diplomatic, and wider, expertise. We will continue building expertise across the system to better address the long-term challenge that China poses.

In a written ministerial statement about the response, Rishi Sunak says:

I am particularly conscious that many of the issues detailed in the committee’s report, and wider concerns about foreign interference, highlight the necessity for a robust approach to any and all state threat activity. It remains an absolute priority for the government to take all necessary steps to protect the United Kingdom from any foreign state activity which seeks to undermine our national security, prosperity and democratic values. I am clear-eyed about that challenge and will call out unacceptable behaviour directly just as I did last weekend with Premier Li at the G20 Summit in New Delhi.

We recognise that the report identifies areas where we can do better and welcome these insights and recommendations as we further develop our approach.

The SNP says Suella Braverman should apologise for the “appalling language” it says she used in a tweet this morning about asylum seekers. (See 12.23pm.) Chris Stephens MP, the party’s justice and immigration spokesperson, said:

The home secretary’s appalling language warrants an urgent apology. It is truly abhorrent that she thinks it is acceptable to refer to refugees and asylum seekers with such disdain.

Such language makes a mockery of ‘compassionate Conservatism’ and in years gone by would have been met with calls for the home secretary’s resignation. Now though, it seems Suella Braveman can break the ministerial code and have her colleagues admit she’s unfit for office, and still keep her role in the cabinet.

And Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, said Braverman’s language was “woeful” in a post on X (formerly Twitter). He also said it showed how “pathetically insular” the UK had become under the Tories.

Just woeful.

The data tells us that migration is good for this country & is needed to help with our labour shortages. Migrants also contribute to our culture, academia, public service, and in many other ways.

What a pathetically insular country the UK has become.

Downing Street has said the government would never agree a returns agreement with the EU for asylum seekers that involved the UK having to take in a quota of migrants.

In August the government said: “We remain open to working with the EU to take forward negotiations on a UK-EU returns deal, as part of our international efforts to tackle illegal migration and to crack down on these exploitative gangs.” And Keir Starmer has confirmed today that Labour wants a returns agreement.

Starmer has not ruled out this involving the UK taking a proportion of asylum seekers coming to Europe. But this morning No 10 said any government deal would not include this. The PM’s spokesperson told journalists:

We have set out that migration across Europe is a is a shared problem and it involves work with our European partners.

The discussions we’ve had with the EU, and the basis for our discussions, have been on sending migrants back on the basis they travelled through a safe country.

But the government has never and would never be open to a burden-sharing agreement where we take a quota.

But the spokesperson did not rule out the possibility of the UK agreeing to pay money to the EU in return for a returns agreement. Asked about this option, he said:

There are discussions ongoing, so I’m not going to get into whether or not we would or would not fund any further cooperation.

Here are more lines from what Keir Starmer has been saying in interviews this morning about the new (or newish – see 9.50am) Labour approach to tackling small boats.

It’s embarrassing that the government is pumping out this nonsense. I can only assume it’s because they’ve got nothing sensible to say on the issue.

What I’m discussing today is a security agreement, sharing of information, operationalising the way that we can smash these gangs.

I think anybody would say that’s common sense, we need to do it, get on with it. But I’m afraid this is now typical from a government that’s completely lost control of the situation.

• He refused to discuss how many asylum seekers a Labour government might be willing to accept as part of a returns agreement with the EU. His priority was to stop people crossing the Channel in small boats in the first place, he said.

The question of whether people can then be returned only applies if people are still getting across the channel and what I want to do is to stop this trade, stop this vile business in the first place.

Asked if creating more safe and legal routes for asylum seekers would lead to higher immigration, Starmer replied:

Under Labour, we get in control of this situation.

At the moment we’ve got the appalling situation where we are not deciding, as a country, who’s coming to the UK, the gangs are deciding. That is fundamentally wrong.

And here is Suella Braverman, the home secretary, also responding to Labour’s plan for tackling small boats. She is making the same point as Rishi Sunak (see 12.18pm), only in more inflammatory language.

Finally we see Sir Keir Starmer’s migration plan.

He’ll let Brussels decide who comes to the UK.

He’ll agree to make Britain the dumping ground for many of the millions of illegal migrants that Europe doesn’t want.

And none of this will stop the boats.