Sunak’s Rwanda treaty to face first test in House of Lords – UK politics live | Politics

There is continued chatter about potential spring tax cuts ahead of the election later in the year, but as my colleague Graeme Wearden reports, Britain may well have slipped into recession at the end of last year.

Martin Beck, chief economic adviser to the EY ITEM Club said this morning “there’s a good chance” the economy may have shrunk slightly in the final three months of 2023.

That would mean two negative quarters in a row – after the 0.1% fall in GDP in July-September – meaning a technical recession.

Beck told Radio 4’s Today Programme “We know that GDP shrunk in the third quarter and looking at the high frequency numbers for Q4, there’s a good chance that it may have shrunk slightly again.”

The official GDP data for the October-December quarter are due on 15 February.

Beck points out “it doesn’t make a massive amount of difference to the person on the street” if the economy shrank by 0.1% or grew by 0.1%, but headlines declaring the UK in recession would not be good news for the government, as the Conservatives try to plot a tricky path to another election win.

Read more here: ‘Good chance’ UK may have fallen into technical recession – business live

The Post Office Horizon IT scandal has placed into sharper focus the number of bodies that can bring prosecutions, and the TV Licensing authority is one of them. Possibly not for much longer, if the words of the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, this morning carry any weight.

She said it was not appropriate for the BBC to have “criminal tools in its armoury” to prosecute people for not paying their TV licence fee.

Asked about a series of cases brought against people by TV licensing, PA Media reports Frazer told Times Radio: “I don’t think it’s appropriate for the BBC to have criminal tools in its armoury in relation to prosecutions.”

She said she would look at the prosecutions in an upcoming review.

During the morning media round the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, said she believed the BBC had “on occasion” been biased.

She told Sky News that “evidence” suggested there was a “perception amongst audiences” that there was some bias at the BBC.

Frazer said: “There are only perceptions and perceptions are important. What’s important about the BBC is that it’s funded by the public, so the perception of audiences of the public are important.”

She added: “I think that on occasions it has been biased,” citing its reporting of a hospital attack in Gaza.

The first test of Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda immigration policy in the House of Lords will come on Monday afternoon with a debate on a motion seeking to delay it.

Monday’s debate will centre on a report by the Lords international agreements committee recommending parliament should not ratify the Rwanda treaty until ministers can show the country is safe.

The government agreed the legally binding treaty with Kigali in December, saying it addressed concerns raised by the supreme court about the possibility of asylum seekers deported to Rwanda then being transferred to a country where they could be at risk.

But the committee said promised safeguards in the agreement are “incomplete” and must be implemented before it can be endorsed.

The treaty underpins the government’s safety of rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill which compels judges to regard Rwanda as safe.

The motion in front of the Lords today is:

This House resolves, in accordance with section 20 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, that His Majesty’s Government should not ratify the UK-Rwanda Agreement on an Asylum Partnership until the protections it provides have been fully implemented, since parliament is being asked to make a judgement, based on the agreement, about whether Rwanda is safe.

The bill is likely to receive its second reading in the Commons by the end of January, with a third reading possible around the middle of March.

Good morning. Rishi Sunak’s immigration policy faces its next hurdle today as the House of Lords debates a motion seeking to delay the proposed new UK-Rwanda treaty. Sunak, who was appointed prime minister by Conservative MPs, and is yet to face an election as party leader, has made much of the fact that the Lords are unelected and are opposing a policy which he claims has broad public support. Voters appear to think differently, with a YouGov survey earlier this month suggesting a narrow majority is in favour of scrapping the plan altogether.

Here are the headlines

In Westminster the Commons is sitting this afternoon, with oral questions on levelling up and then a debate on the second reading of the offshore petroleum licensing bill. The Lords, as mentioned, will be debating the proposed UK-Rwanda treaty. In Wales the Senedd has committee meetings. The Scottish parliament is not sitting.

It is Martin Belam with you today. I will try to dip into the comments if I get the chance, but if you want to draw my attention to anything – especially if you spot an error or typo – it is best to email me at [email protected].