Sunak says Goldsmith resigned after refusing to apologise for unacceptable attack on privileges committee
Downing Street has published Rishi Sunak’s response to Zac Goldsmith’s resignation letter. In it, Sunak starts by saying that Goldsmith’s attack on the privileges committee was “incompatible” with his position as a minister. He says:
You were asked to apologise for your comments about the privileges committee as we felt they were incompatible with your position as a minister of the crown. You have decided to take a different course.
In the rest of the letter Sunak commends Goldsmith for his work as a minister, and defends the government’s environmental record.
Sunak’s comment implies he thinks Goldsmith put loyalty to Boris Johnson, who was being investigated by the privileges committee, ahead of loyalty to him.
But that “we felt” is curious. Who is the “we”? It should be a decision for the PM personally.
Key events
Sunak is now taking questions.
Q: [From Hugh Pym, the BBC’s health editor] Why did it take so long to produce this?
Sunak says it was important to get this right. It will set the NHS up for decades to come.
There are three strands to the plan – train, retain and reform. (See 11.16am.) Record sums are going into the NHS, but the money needs to be spent properly.
He says it was also important to listen and engage with people. The government has been talking to 60-odd organisation, and 100-odd experts.
Powis says people in the NHS are “up for it”. They want change. It will be challenging, he says. And it is “entirely doable”, he says.
Q: What is your reaction to Lord Goldsmith’s resignation?
Sunak says Goldsmith was asked to apologise for his comments about the privileges committee. Goldsmith took a different course. Sunak says he accepts that, he says.
This does not go beyond what he says in his letter responding to Goldsmith, that was published as the press conference started. (See 12.08pm.)
Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, is speaking at the press conference now.
He says this is a landmark day for the NHS.
From ITV’s Anushka Asthana
At press conference – the NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard points out this is the first long term workforce plan since the NHS was created.
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) June 30, 2023
She says international recruitment has been hugely important for the NHS and those workers will always have a place but this plan is very focused on home grown training…
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) June 30, 2023
Rishi Sunak opened his press conference by saying the NHS was fundamental to his family. His father was a GP, and his mother was a pharmacist.
“I believe in the NHS because it’s fundamental to my family”
PM Rishi Sunak outlines the NHS’s workforce plan, saying the “burden of illness is changing” which will put “pressure on an overstretched workforce”Live updates: https://t.co/e5TK9SwZiu pic.twitter.com/9DRceX40OC
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) June 30, 2023
Sunak says Goldsmith resigned after refusing to apologise for unacceptable attack on privileges committee
Downing Street has published Rishi Sunak’s response to Zac Goldsmith’s resignation letter. In it, Sunak starts by saying that Goldsmith’s attack on the privileges committee was “incompatible” with his position as a minister. He says:
You were asked to apologise for your comments about the privileges committee as we felt they were incompatible with your position as a minister of the crown. You have decided to take a different course.
In the rest of the letter Sunak commends Goldsmith for his work as a minister, and defends the government’s environmental record.
Sunak’s comment implies he thinks Goldsmith put loyalty to Boris Johnson, who was being investigated by the privileges committee, ahead of loyalty to him.
But that “we felt” is curious. Who is the “we”? It should be a decision for the PM personally.
From Lawrence Dunhill from the Health Service Journal
Rishi Sunak to hold press conference on NHS long-term workforce plan
Rishi Sunak is about to hold is press conference in Downing Street on the long-term workforce plan for the NHS published this morning.
He will be joined by Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, and Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England.
Andrea Leadsom says Goldsmith is ‘flat wrong’ in claiming Sunak does not care about environment
Dame Andrea Leadsom, the former cabinet minister, has criticised Zac Goldsmith for his resignation in an interview with Times Radio. Adopting what sounded like a Sunak loyalist position, she made a series of points.
It’s much easier to protest than it is to govern … It’s much easier to throw your toys out the pram and become a protester than it is to actually be inside the tent finding solutions …
It’s all very well to sort of throw stones at someone else. But actually somebody, and that does fall to government, has to pick up the pieces and decide actually what to do. And it’s much better if people are constructively engaged rather than just, you know, having a tantrum.
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She said she was not persuaded by Goldsmith’s claim that the shelving of the kept animals bill was grounds for resignation. She said the government has said it will legislate for the measures that were in the bill in other ways (through secondary legislation, or via other government bills). She said:
I would have thought that a minister with Zac’s experience would understand that in order to bring in kept animals legislation, you do not have to have a bill called, kept animals bill. And so I just find that extraordinary. I don’t know why on earth he’s doing that.
That is just flat wrong, you know, the prime minister is passionate about both the environment, and really importantly, the net zero transition and the opportunity for jobs and growth right across the UK. So I completely disagree with him.
Yesterday a reader asked whether Zac Goldsmith, and the two other peers accused by the Commons privileges committee of undermining its Boris Johnson inquiry, could face sanctions in the House of Lords for a contempt of parliament relating to the House of Commons.
The answer is complicated because, according to a parliamentary official briefed on this, there is no such thing as contempt of parliament. You are either in contempt of the House of Commons, or in contempt of the House of Lords.
Erskine May, the bible of parliamentary procedure, says if there is a privileges complaint against a member of one house relating to the privileges of the other house, “the appropriate course of action is to examine the facts and deal with the matter according to the procedures of the house to which the Member or staff member belongs”.
MPs will debate the privileges committee report on Monday week. If the Commons were to apply sanctions to the MPs accused of undermining the Johnson inquiry, the Lords would be under pressure to do something similar to Goldsmith and Lords Cruddas and Greenhalgh (the other peers named in the report), but at the moment no one is proposing sanctions against the MPs.
Steve Barclay claims it’s ‘laughable’ for Labour to say government’s NHS workforce plan inspired by theirs
In interviews this morning about the NHS’s long-term workforce plan, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, argued that it was essentially a lift of the plan that Labour announced at its conference last autumn. He told Times Radio:
To be fair to the government, it looks like they’re about to adopt our plan, and that’s important because having had an understaffed NHS for more than a decade, and knowing how long it takes to train new doctors, new nurses, new midwives, it’s really important that we get our skates on as a country. And if the government have swallowed their pride and adopted our plan, why wouldn’t I welcome that?
But Steve Barclay, the health secretary, said Streeting did not appreciate to what extent reform was a feature of the plan. He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
Just to pick up Wes’s point, the idea that it is their plan is laughable. Their plan doesn’t touch on any of the reform.
One of the key things we are setting out today is how we deliver workforce training in different ways, offering many more apprenticeships which, I think, for many people they want the offer of apprenticeships, they want to be able to develop their career within the NHS, so we’re opening up new roles.
It is twice the number, 50,000 additional roles a year compared with the 23,000 he set out.
Rishi Sunak has been visiting Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge this morning. As he left, he refused to answer questions about Zac Goldsmith’s resignation.
