Working for Dominic Raab led some officials to have mental health crises, says union leader – UK politics live | Politics

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has issued an announcement backing the Financial institution of England’s choice to raise interest rates by 0.5 proportion factors, to 4%. He stated this is able to assist the federal government obtain its intention of halving inflation this 12 months. He stated:

Inflation is a stealth tax that’s the greatest menace to dwelling requirements in a technology, so we help the Financial institution’s motion immediately so we reach halving inflation this 12 months.

We’ll play our half by ensuring authorities selections are in lockstep with the Financial institution’s strategy, together with by resisting the urge proper now to fund extra spending or tax cuts by way of borrowing, which is able to solely add gas to the inflation hearth and extend the ache for everybody.

My colleague Graeme Wearden has extra on his enterprise reside weblog.

The Occasions has commissioned polling to mark Rishi Sunak’s 100 days in office, and, if something, it is going to make even gloomier studying for Downing Road than the Guardian write-through. (See 11.41pm.) The Occasions stories:

Seven in ten (72 per cent) consider he won’t be prime minister after the following election, whereas simply 27 per cent assume he has achieved effectively to date. Nonetheless, the YouGov polling additionally discovered that by a margin of 14 factors voters assume Sunak has been a greater prime minister than Johnson.

Right here is the Occasions graphic exhibiting whether or not voters assume Sunak is doing effectively or badly on 5 key points.

Nearly two thirds of individuals assume Sunak is a greater prime minister than Liz Truss, the ballot suggests. However solely a 3rd consider that he’s higher than Boris Johnson. (By the point he left workplace, Johnson was mired in scandal, and his scores have been dire, and if a majority of individuals assume Sunak isn’t any higher, then he’s in actual bother. However maybe individuals responding to this query are considering of the Johnson premiership in its totality, and giving him credit score for issues just like the vaccine programme.)

To mark the actual fact he has now reached 100 days in workplace, Rishi Sunak has written an article for the Solar about his priorities. It’s largely about his five promises, and Sunak says the laws he has promised to cease individuals claiming asylum within the UK if they’ve arrived within the nation illegally can be printed “within the coming weeks”.

He describes it because the “cease the boats” invoice (which is able to virtually actually not be its official identify – the Commons clerks insist on payments having impartial titles). Sunak says:

Within the coming weeks, our new cease the boats invoice will change the regulation to ship a message loud and clear.

If you happen to come right here illegally, you’ll be detained and eliminated.

In December Sunak stated the invoice could be printed “early” within the new 12 months, however this text implies it’s not imminent. There may be some evidence that ministers are nonetheless divided over how far it ought to go in permitting the UK to disregard the obligations it has to asylum seekers below exisiting worldwide regulation.

Ofgem, the vitality regulator, has launched an investigation into British Gasoline after a Occasions investigation revealed that brokers engaged on its behalf ignored prospects’ vulnerabilities, my colleague Alex Lawson stories.

NHS England has printed some new efficiency figures this morning. They present some proof that pressures on hospitals are easing very barely. PA Media has the small print

A complete of 18% of ambulance sufferers waited a minimum of half-hour final week to be handed to A&E groups, down from 20% the earlier week.

The determine hit a document 44% within the week to 1 January.

about 6% of sufferers waited greater than an hour final week to be handed over to A&E groups – once more, the bottom to date this winter, and down week on week from 7%.

• Practically 14,000 hospital beds in England final week have been stuffed with individuals who have been match to depart, near current document ranges, PA says. It stories:

A mean of 13,983 beds have been taken up with medically match sufferers within the seven days to 29 January, up from 13,566 the earlier week and simply wanting the all-time excessive of 14,069 within the week to eight January.

At this level final 12 months the quantity stood at 12,257.

The proportion of sufferers prepared to depart hospital final week however who remained of their beds stood at 59%.

That is down from a document 63% within the week to 1 January.

A mean of 1,291 sufferers with flu have been in hospital beds every day final week, down 37% from 2,034 within the week to 22 January, in accordance with NHS England knowledge.

It’s the fourth week in a row the variety of flu sufferers in hospital has dropped, down 76% from a peak of 5,441 within the week to 1 January.

Because the headline on our in a single day story about Dominic Raab places it slightly effectively, the justice secretary and deputy prime ministers stays “in peril” due to the inquiry into allegations he bullied officers.

Within the papers immediately there may be proof that Raab, or his allies, are preventing again.

In a story in the Daily Mail Jason Grove says that a minimum of two senior officers giving proof to the bullying inquiry have spoken in defence of Raab. And Grove stories:

A former colleague stated: ‘There’s a clear try by a gaggle of politically motivated mandarins to get him – it seems to be like a coordinated try by quite a lot of senior civil servants.

‘In a single case it seems to be like revenge as the person was successfully pressured out by the federal government.’

A number of of Mr Raab’s former workers yesterday stated that they had not witnessed unreasonable conduct.

One stated he was ‘demanding, generally troublesome and a bit curt – however not a bully’.

And Matt Dathan and Chris Smyth in the Times report that “Raab has declared he has by no means sworn or shouted in a gathering after it was claimed he roared ‘bullshit’ in response to a senior official’s briefing he disagreed with”. They quote a spokeperson for Raab saying:

The deputy prime minister has by no means sworn or shouted in a gathering. He units targets throughout the division to focus relentlessly on supply in the best way that the British individuals would count on.

In response to the Day by day Mail report, Dave Penman, the final secretary of the FDA, the union representing senior civil servants, rejected claims that the complaints in opposition to Raab have been politically motivated. He informed Sky Information:

That’s extraordinary and it couldn’t be farther from the reality. Are we actually seeing two dozen civil servants in three totally different authorities departments over a interval of 4 years have gotten collectively in some huge conspiracy? That simply doesn’t sound credible.

Penman stated he knew that some individuals who labored for Raab had suffered psychological well being crises. He stated:

I’ve spoken to people who find themselves civil servants working, and have labored, for Dominic Raab, who’ve suffered psychological well being crises, have misplaced their careers basically as a result of they’ve needed to transfer and alter jobs.

Referring to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s declare that folks ought to not be too “snowflakey” about these allegations, Penman stated:

This kind of behaviour destroys lives. I imply it’s not nearly careers, individuals’s lives and their psychological well being are in danger when they’re topic to systematic bullying, and to belittle it in that method is totally outrageous from a former chief of the home and cupboard minister.

Penman additionally repeated his name for Raab to be suspended till the inquiry concludes, and he stated Rishi Sunak ought to “come clear” and reveal whether or not he was informally warned about Raab’s conduct earlier than he appointed him to his cupboard.

Raab has repeatedly denied bullying workers and insisted that he “behaved professionally always”.

The failure of successive Conservative governments to recognise the adverse influence of public spending cuts on the wider economy has meant Britain missed out on £400bn of development since 2010, in accordance with a report by the TUC. My colleague Phillip Inman has the story right here.

Here’s a assertion from Chris O’Shea, the chief govt of Centrica, which owns British Gasoline, on the Occasions report a couple of contractor working for the corporate forcing weak prospects to maneuver to prepayment meters, together with by breaking in to properties to execute a court docket warrant (See 9.17am.)

The allegations round our third-party contractor Arvato are unacceptable and we instantly suspended their warrant exercise.

Having just lately reviewed our inside processes to help our prepayment prospects, in addition to creating a brand new £10m fund to help these prepayment prospects who need assistance essentially the most, I’m extraordinarily disillusioned that this has occurred.

Because of this, on Wednesday morning, we took an additional choice to droop all our prepayment warrant exercise a minimum of till the tip of the winter.

Extra broadly, there are clearly important challenges round affordability and sadly, we don’t see that altering any time quickly.

We have to strike a stability between managing spiralling dangerous debt and being conscious that there are those that refuse to pay and people who can not pay. We predict authorities, business and the regulator want to come back collectively to agree a long-term plan to handle this and finally create an vitality market that’s sustainable.

Good morning. There are two huge tales involving vitality firms out this morning. Each of them have essential political ramifications, and Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary for local weather change and internet zero, has been talking out forcefully on each points. As for the federal government – it has been slightly quieter.

First, Shell has introduced its earnings for the ultimate quarter of 2022, $9.81bn, taking its earnings for the entire 12 months to virtually $40bn (£32.2bn). My colleague Alex Lawson has the story right here.

In response, Miliband stated this confirmed why the windfall tax on vitality firms must be elevated. He stated:

Because the British individuals face an vitality value hike of 40% in April, the federal government is letting the fossil gas firms making bumper earnings off the hook with their refusal to implement a correct windfall tax.

Labour would cease the vitality value cap going up in April, as a result of it’s only proper that the businesses making sudden windfall earnings from the proceeds of struggle pay their justifiable share.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, introduced an extension to the windfall tax within the autumn assertion, however as my colleage Nils Pratley argued on the time, it could have gone a lot further. And the BBC has a superb account of among the loopholes in it here.

Second, the Occasions has this morning splashed on the findings of a powerful investigation revealing that “British Gasoline routinely sends debt collectors to interrupt into prospects’ properties and force-fit pay-as-you-go meters, even when they’re recognized to have excessive vulnerabilities”. It says:

An undercover reporter labored for Arvato, an organization utilized by British Gasoline to pursue money owed, amid rocketing vitality costs and extra prospects falling behind with their payments.

The reporter accompanied debt brokers in below-freezing situations as they labored with a locksmith to interrupt into the house of a single father of three younger kids and change it to a prepayment meter. If households with these gasoline meters can not afford to high up, their heating is reduce off.

On one other event brokers have been despatched by British Gasoline with a court docket warrant to force-fit a meter on the house of a younger mom with a four-week-old child. Her payments have risen sevenfold through the cost of living crisis.

In line with job notes seen by The Occasions, different British Gasoline prospects who’ve had prepayment meters fitted by power in current weeks embody a girl in her fifties described as “extreme psychological well being bipolar”, a girl who “suffers with mobility issues and is partially sighted” and a mom whose “daughter is disabled and has a hoist and [an] electrical wheelchair”.

On the At the moment programme this morning Chris O’Shea, the chief govt of Centrica, British Gasoline’s guardian firm, stated he was appalled by the paper’s revelations. “There may be nothing that I can say that may specific the horror I had once I heard this. It’s fully unacceptable,” he stated.

O’Shea stated the contractor utilized by British Gasoline had allow them to down, and he stated the pressured introduction of prepayment meters had been suspended, a minimum of till the tip of the winter.

Labour has been calling for a moratorium on prospects being pressured on to pre-payment meters and this morning Miliband – who tabled an urgent question on this topic only last week – informed the At the moment programme this morning it was “shameful” that this was occurring. He stated:

It’s shameful that we’re in Britain in 2023 and that is occurring.

That’s the reason for weeks now now we have been calling for a moratorium, a ban, on the pressured set up of prepayment meters, not simply to British Gasoline, however proper throughout the board, as a result of it is a system that stinks and is in disrepute.

There’s no correct definition of vulnerability. There’s no correct checks on when these prepayment meters are being pressured into individuals’s properties. There’s no correct system for when this so-called final resort occurs. It is a system that’s in determined want of reform.

Persons are being put by way of appalling hardship and appalling circumstances and the federal government should act, as I’ve been urging for weeks now, to cease this apply occurring proper throughout the board.

Final month Grant Shapps, the enterprise secretary, stated he was asking energy companies to voluntarily stop forcing customers to use prepayment meters. He informed the Occasions he was “horrified” by its revelations.

Right here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Eire secretary, is anticipated to make an announcement to MPs about whether or not there can be a public inquiry into the Omagh bombing.

11.30am: Downing Road holds a foyer briefing.

11.30am: The Welsh authorities holds a briefing forward of the strikes deliberate for 7 February.

12pm: The Financial institution of England broadcasts its choice on rates of interest. My colleague Graeme Wearden can be masking this on his business live blog.

12pm: Nicola Sturgeon takes first minister’s questions within the Scottish parliament.

Afternoon: James Cleverly, the overseas secretary, and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, maintain a press convention after talks with their Australian counterparts.

I’ll attempt to monitor the feedback beneath the road (BTL) however it’s not possible to learn all of them. In case you have a direct query, do embody “Andrew” in it someplace and I’m extra prone to discover it. I do attempt to reply questions, and if they’re of common curiosity I’ll put up the query and reply above the road (ATL), though I can’t promise to do that for everybody.

If you wish to entice my consideration shortly, it’s in all probability higher to make use of Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you may e-mail me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com