Kemi Badenoch criticises Michael Sheen over comment about Port Talbot steel plant – UK politics live

There will be one urgent question in the Commons today, followed by three statements. Here is the running order, with rough timings.

3.30pm: A Treasury minister responds to an urgent question from Rachel Reeves on the state of the economy, and the news it has gone into recession.

Around 4.15pm: Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, makes a statement on the Post Office. (Earlier there were suggestions that Kevin Hollinrake, the postal services minister, would do this instead. But Badenoch apparently was keen to defend her actions herself.)

Around 5.15pm: Leo Docherty, the Foreign Office minister, makes a statement on the death of Alexei Navalny.

Around 6.15pm: Chris Philp, the policing minister, makes a statement on antisemitism.

No 10 has declined to repeat Kemi Badenoch’s claim that the former chair of the Post Office gave an interview “full of lies” about the conversation she had when she sacked him.

At the morning lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson would not adopt the language used by Badenoch in a post on X yesterday and instead claimed that Badenoch believes that the account of what she said given by Henry Staunton is a “misrepresentation”.

It also emerged that Badenoch herself is not expected to be in the Commons herself this afternoon defending her conduct in this matter. Instead Kevin Hollinrake, the postal services minister, is expected to address MPs.

Yesterday Badenoch said that Staunton’s interview with the Sunday Times about the conversation they had when she sacked him recently was “full of lies”. Asked if No 10 agreed that Staunton was a liar, the spokesperson said:

Obviously this referred to a conversation that she had with Henry Staunton, and you’ll have seen her words on this; she’s very clear that the interview that he gave was a misrepresentation of her conversation with him and the reasons for his dismissal.

And the government has being clear, and will refute the allegations [that it wanted to slow down compensation to victims]. The government has taken action to speed up the compensation to victims, and we’ve consistently encouraged postmasters to come forward with their claims. Any suggestions otherwise [are] not correct.

The spokesperson also refused to say whether No 10 has seen the record kept by officials of the call between Badenoch and Staunton, or whether those notes will be published.

The spokesperson said the letter sent to Staunton by the business department showed that the government did not want the Post Office to slow down the payment of compensation to post office operators. When it was put to him that the letter also showed Staunton was expected to control costs (see 9.21am), the spokesperson did not accept that this meant the government was not committed to paying compensation promptly.

Asked if he could categorically say that no one from government asked Staunton to stall compensation payments, the spokesperson said the government had sped up compensation to victims and any suggestions otherwise were not correct.

Ofcom has announced that it has launched an investigation into whether the GB News People’s Forum event with Rishi Sunak last week broke impartiality rules. It says:

We have received around 500 complaints about the programme which aired on GB News on 12 February 2024.

We are investigating under Rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code which provide additional due impartiality requirements for programmes dealing with matters of major political controversy and major matters relating to current public policy. Specifically, Rules 5.11 and 5.12 require that an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in such programmes, or in clearly linked and timely programmes.

The show has been criticised because Sunak was not subject to the sort of comeback and challenge during the Q&A that he would get from a similar event staged by an established broadcaster like the BBC or Sky News. In his sketch, John Crace wrote: “Nearly every Conservative MP has their own show on GB News, so it was only a matter of time before it was Rishi Sunak’s turn.”

GB News has been found to have broken Ofcom rules at least five times, and other complaints are outstanding, but that has not stopped commentators arguing that the regulator should be doing a lot more to ensure it maintains conventional impartiality standards. Jane Martinson made this case last week.

Never one to turn down the chance for a good political fight, Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, hasn’t just gone to war this week with the former chair of the Post Office. (See 9.21am.) She has also used an article in the Daily Mail to condemn the actor Michael Sheen over a comment he made about the steel plant in Port Talbot. She said:

Promoting his new drama The Way, Michael Sheen has said that ‘the people of Port Talbot have been let down’ regarding redundancies at its steel plant.

But he is wrong. Port Talbot is iconic to British industry and that’s why the government is investing so much to ensure we keep its steelworks for the next century at a time when the market says we should abandon it.

The first episode of The Way goes out on BBC One tonight and it’s a drama about a workers’ uprising in response to the closure of a steel plant in south Wales. The BBC insists its fictional, and not about the Tata factory in Port Talbot. Sheen is a supporter of leftwing causes, but the quote Badenoch refers to is from a Times interview about the drama in which Sheen was not even directly criticising the government.

The Mail has run the article alongside a news story quoting the Tory MP Lee Anderson, and another unnamed Conservative, claiming the drama is evidence of the BBC being biased against the government.

Xan Brooks wrote a piece about the thriller, written by James Graham, for the Guardian earlier this month.

Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, has announced plans intended to give councils in England new powers to restrict the spread of Airbnb-type short-term lets.

In a news release explaining the moves, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities says:

Under the reforms councils will be given greater power to control short-term lets by making them subject to the planning process. This will support local people in areas where high numbers of short-term lets are preventing them from finding housing they can afford to buy or to rent.

These changes are part of a long-term plan to prevent a “hollowing out” of communities, address anti-social behaviour and ensure local people can continue to live in the place they call home.

Meanwhile, a new mandatory national register will give local authorities the information they need about short-term lets in their area. This will help councils understand the extent of short-term lets in their area, the effects on their communities, and underpin compliance with key health and safety regulations …

The proposed planning changes would see a new planning ‘use class’ created for short-term lets not used as a sole or main home. Existing dedicated short-term lets will automatically be reclassified into the new use class and will not require a planning application.

In another interview this morning Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, described the situation for Labour voters in the Rochdale byelection as “appalling”. The constituency will elect a new MP next week, but now that Labour has withdrawn support from its candidate, Azhar Ali, voters can’t choose someone who will be able to take the whip as a Labour MP. Streeting said:

I’m not going to pretend that this has been Labour’s finest hour. We’ve got people going to the polls in Rochdale who don’t have a good Labour candidate to vote for. I’m really sorry that’s the case – I think it’s an appalling position to be in.

But what I wouldn’t want is for Labour to stand by someone who’s peddled antisemitic conspiracy theories, and that’s why Keir’s taken this unprecedented action.

UPDATE: Streeting also said, if he lived in Rochdale, he would probably refuse to vote for any candidate and spoil his ballot paper.

David Neal, the UK’s chief inspector of borders and immigration, has said it is “scandalous” that his watchdog role could be left vacant while the Rwanda scheme is introduced, Kevin Rawlinson reports.

In an interview with the Today programme, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, also said that Labour would not be “pushed around the by the SNP” in setting out its policy on Gaza.

Asked if Labour would be voting for the SNP motion on Wednesday, Streeting at first said the party would wait until the final wording was out. When it was pointed out to him that the SNP has already published the text of its motion, Streeting said he did not think it had been tabled in the Commons yet.

He implied Labour might table an amendment to the motion, saying: “We will put our own position out.” And he went on:

We were not going to be pushed around by the SNP. Where I think we would like to get to is a position where the United Kingdom and the international community speak with one voice.

The SNP is calling for an immediate ceasefire, while Labour is still arguing that a ceasefire should be sustainable too. Setting out the party’s position at the Scottish Labour conference yesterday, Keir Starmer said:

I have just returned from the Munich security conference, where every conversation I had came back to the situation in Israel and Gaza and the question of what we can do practically to deliver what we all want to see – a return of all the hostages taken on 7 October, an end to the killing of innocent Palestinians, a huge scaling-up of humanitarian relief and an end to the fighting.

Not just for now, not just for a pause, but permanently. A ceasefire that lasts. That is what must happen now. The fighting must stop now.

Here is the text of the SNP motion for debate on Wednesday.

That this house calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel; notes with shock and distress that the death toll has now risen beyond 28,000, the vast majority of whom were women and children; further notes that there are currently 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah, 610,000 of whom are children; also notes that they have nowhere else to go; condemns any military assault on what is now the largest refugee camp in the world; further calls for the immediate release of all hostages taken by Hamas and an end to the collective punishment of the Palestinian people; and recognises that the only way to stop the slaughter of innocent civilians is to press for a ceasefire now.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, has said that Israel has “gone too far” in Gaza and that its military offensive goes “beyond reasonable self-defence”.

In an interview with Sky News this morning, ahead of a Commons debate on Wednesday where Labour must decide whether or not to vote for an SNP motion calling for “an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, Streeting said:

We want to see a ceasefire, of course we do. And we have been increasingly concerned, as the wider international community has been, with the disproportionate loss of civilian life in Gaza.

Israel has a responsibility to get its hostages back, every country in the world has a right to defend itself.

But I think what we have seen are actions that go beyond reasonable self-defence and also call into question whether Israel has broken international law.

The ICJ [International Court of Justice] are now investigating and we take all of that seriously.

Asked whether he thought Israel had “gone too fast”, Streeting replied:

I think, objectively, yes, Israel has gone too far. And we have seen that with a disproportionate loss of innocent civilian life.

Good morning. Yesterday Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, accused the former Post Office chair, Henry Staunton, of giving an interview “full of lies” about the conversation they had when she sacked him recently. Josh Halliday has the story here, and here is one of the tweets from a thread that Badenoch posted on Twitter.

My call with Staunton was with officials. They took a complete record. He has given an interview full of lies about our conversation during his dismissal. The details will emerge soon enough as I won’t let the matter rest here, but will be discussing with govt lawyers. (3/5)

Badenoch said she would be making a further statement today.

The row is partly, but not entirely, about what was said in that Badenoch/Staunton conversation where he was sacked. Staunton told the Sunday Times that he had not even met Badenoch, that he learned he was going to lose his job from a Sky News journalist shortly before she called, and that in the conversation she referred to the Post Office Horizon scandal, telling him: “Well, someone’s got to take the rap for this.” Badenoch said yesterday that officials were listening in on the call and that they took a complete record.

The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, was doing the morning interview round for the government and she suggested that Badenoch should release the record of the conversation to prove her claims about Staunton telling lies. Asked on the Today programme if Badenoch would releasing those notes, she replied:

I’m sure they will make a statement or release something. My understanding is that the government made clear in the appointment letter that focusing on and prioritising the compensation for sub-postmasters was a key aspect of the job.

The presenter, Mishal Husain, asked again if notes of the call would be released. Keegan said she had not spoken to Badenoch directly about this, but she said that she was sure officials did keep a record of what was said. Asked again if Badenoch would provide evidence to back up her claims, Keegan said:

I haven’t spoken to her, but I’m sure she will back it up.

The most serious claim made by Staunton in his Sunday Times interview was not about what Badenoch said when she sacked him, but what he said about another conversation, with an unnamed senior official in the business department. Staunton said he was told “to stall on spend on compensation [for victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal] and on the replacement of Horizon, and to limp, in quotation marks – I did a file note on it – limp into the election”.

In her Today interview, Keegan said this claim was “at odds” with what Staunton was told in his appointment letter, released by the department last night.

Keegan said the letter “basically says you’re to prioritise the sub-postmasters and their fair compensation”.

But in fact the letter, sent by Sarah Munby, who at the time was permanent secretary at the department, does not quite say that. It says “resolving historical litigation issues” should be a priority. But it also implies an even more important priority is effective financial management, including “effective management of legal costs”.

The letter does not disprove Staunton’s claim about being told to “stall” on compensation payments. Staunton told the Sunday Times this was just a money issue, and arguably his claim is consistent with what the letter says about the need to control costs.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, gives a speech on Scotland’s green future.

10.30am: Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, holds a press conference on how the Welsh government is looking to strengthen international relationships.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: A Foreign Office minister is expected to give a statement on the death of Alexei Navalny, and Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, is expected to give a statement on claims made by the former Post Office chair.

Afternoon: Peers resume the committee stage debate for the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

4pm: Tim Davie, the BBC director general, gives evidence to the Commons public accounts committee.

Afternoon: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, is expected to arrive in the Falkland Islands.

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