Sunak refuses to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation and reinstates fracking ban – live | Politics

Keir Starmer launched an attack on Rishi Sunak at PMQs pointing out the new prime minister lost the initial Tory leadership race to Liz Truss ‘who herself got beaten by a lettuce’.

The government is now spending almost £7 million a day housing asylum seekers in hotels and the cost could continue to rise, MPs heard.
The Commons Home Affairs Committee was told £5.6 million a day was being spent on hotels for people who have arrived in the UK and have submitted a claim, with an additional £1.2 million paid to house Afghan refugees who fled the Taliban takeover while long-term accommodation is sought, PA reports.
The total £6.8 million is over £2 million more than the government said it was spending in February (£4.7 million).
Asked by committee chairwoman Dame Diana Johnson if the cost was likely to go up again, Abi Tierney, director general of the passport office and UK visas and immigration, replied: “Yes.”
MPs also learned the Home Office has only processed 4% of asylum claims by those who crossed the Channel last year and officials admitted the interception rate made by French police of those attempting the journey has fallen.
Concerns were also raised about conditions at the Manston Airport site in Kent, which is meant to be a short-term holding facility to process migrants when they arrive in the UK.
MPs heard the number of people arriving was “outstripping” the capacity of the site and some were being held there for as long as a month, compared with the 24 hours intended.

Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesperson has said that Labour wants the cabinet secretary to offer a substantive response to its letter about Suella Braverman after the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, wrote to Simon Case demanding an investigation “into the extent of this and other possible security breaches”.

He said:

Clearly, if there is content of the inquiry that has to be retained, that is understandable. If there was advice that went to the prime minister that there was a raised eyebrow within the civil service about this appointment, then absolutely that is something that should be in the public domain. It is perfectly possible to do that whilst preserving any operational matters that could be compromised in doing so.

Here’s the clip of the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, confirming that his fiscal statement has been postponed until 17 November.

It was previously scheduled for 31 October but will now be a “full autumn statement” to reflect the ‘most accurate possible economic forecasts’, he said.

And here are some more lines from Downing Street, including that Rishi Sunak will appoint a new independent adviser on ministerial interests.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is seeking to fill a fiscal shortfall of £35bn when he delivers his autumn statement next month, officials have told Bloomberg.

The government has drawn up a menu of 104 options to cut spending as they seek to get the public finances back onto a sustainable track, according to the officials.

Here are some more lines from the Downing Street briefing, from the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot.

Downing Street declined to get into reports that officials were concerned over the reappointment of Suella Braverman as home secretary.

Asked if officials had raised concerns about the matter, a No 10 spokesperson said:

I don’t as standard get into discussing the advice that ministers nor prime ministers receive from their officials, that would not be proper, but certainly I don’t recognise reports as regards the cabinet secretary.

They added that the PM is not committing to the triple-lock on state pensions. The spokesperson said:

That is something that is going to be wrapped up into the fiscal statement, we wouldn’t comment ahead of any fiscal statements or budgets.

But what I can say is he has shown through his record as chancellor is that he will do what’s right and compassionate for the most vulnerable.

The moratorium on fracking has been restored, Downing Street has now confirmed.

The PM’s official spokesperson said Rishi Sunak was committed to the effective ban on fracking set out in the Conservative party’s 2019 general election manifesto.

Labour has called for an investigation into Rishi Sunak’s comments during the summer Tory leadership election on funnelling public money out of “deprived urban areas”.

The shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy has written to her counterpart, Michael Gove, asking for an independent investigation to establish which funding formulas were changed, the New Statesman reports.

Sunak was filmed speaking to Conservative party members in Tunbridge Wells over the summer where he admitted taking money from deprived urban areas in order to give it to other parts of the country.

In her letter, Nandy wrote:

The Conservative government was elected in 2019 on a flagship promise to level up parts of the country that had experienced relative economic decline.

[Sunak’s claim] could not be more serious. The prime minister has admitted that when he was chancellor, he fixed the rules to Funnel taxpayers’ money from ‘deprived’ to more affluent parts of the country. This is the complete opposite of levelling up. The prime minister has no mandate from the electorate to reverse the commitments made in 2019. His admission undermines the trust and confidence of the public and shatters the legitimacy of this government. It is a warning sign that Rishi Sunak is not on the side of working people.

Jake Berry, who yesterday left his role as Conservative party chair ahead of Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle, said Sunak “says one thing and does another”.

Sunak ‘to reinstate ban on fracking’

Rishi Sunak answered questions from the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, at PMQs for the first time.

Here is the exchange in full:

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, gave a blistering speech in the Commons after PMQs, claiming the appointment of home secretary, Suella Braverman, was a matter of the “protection of our national security”.

Braverman appeared to have left the chamber before Labour’s urgent question about her resignation and reappointment.

The home secretary had “run away from basic accountability to this hhouse”, Cooper said. She added:

My questions are about security breaches and the protection of our national security. They are questions to the home secretary who was here just five minutes and who left.

Minister for the Cabinet Office Jeremy Quin answered Cooper’s question instead, saying that the home secretary had made an “error of judgment” and then “recognised her mistake” and “took accountability” for her actions.

Quin said:

The ministerial code allows for a range of sanctions where mistakes have been made. The home secretary recognised her mistake, raised the matter and stepped down. Her resignation was accepted by the then prime minister. Ministerial appointments are a matter solely for the prime minister.

He said it was time to “look to the future” and that the PM had appointed a team of ministers to lead the country through the issues it faced.

Stephen Kinnock (Lab) accuses Sunak of being prepared to “shamelessly swap red boxes for political support”.

He says there are “serious consequences to all this horse trading” and asks whether Sunak sought advice on security concerns about Gavin Williamson “given he was sacked in 2019 for leaking sensitive information related to our national security?”

Sunak says this happened four years ago, when Labour was busy supporting Jeremy Corbyn – who had wanted to “abolish the nuclear deterrent, leave Nato and scrap our armed forces” – and that he will not take any lectures on national security.

Richard Burgon (Lab) says Sunak knows only too well that the super-rich can easily afford to pay more in taxes.

He says a nurse would have to work “over 20,000 years” in order to match Sunak’s vast wealth. He adds:

Rather than announce a new wave of cuts and austerity, wouldn’t it be fairer for the prime minister to introduce wealth taxes on the very richest in our society?

Sunak says the government will always support hard-working nurses, which is why it is introducing bursaries and providing more training and “very strong pay increases”.

He adds that future “difficult decisions” will be approached in a way that is “fair and compassionate”.

Suella Braverman has left the Commons as the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, asks an urgent question on Braverman’s reappointment.

Janet Daby (Lab), who describes the Tory government as “topsy turby”, says her inbox has been full of emails from constituents writing about their wages simply not going far enough, as well as emails about rents, energy prices and mortgages going up.

She says her constituents have been writing to her to demand a general election and asks the PM when there will be an election.

Sunak replies that he has already addressed the subject, but that “inflation is the enemy”. He adds:

It makes everyone poorer, it erodes savings. That’s why it will be a priority of our government to grip and reduce inflation and provide support to those who need it as we do.