Starmer says Tory ministers have ‘serious questions’ to answer about Afghan data leak
Keir Starmer starts by saying MPs across the house have always supported the UK supporting Afghans who helped the British army.
Yesterday the government set out the failings that Labour inherited.
Starmer says ministers in the last government have “serious questions” to answer.
Yesterday, the defence secretary set out the full extent of the failings that we inherited – a major data breach, a superinjunction, a secret route that has already cost hundreds of millions of pounds.
Ministers who served under the party opposite have serious questions to answer about how this was ever allowed to happen.
He welcomes the fact the defence committee plans to hold an inquiry.
Key events
Badenoch says Darren Jones suggested working people were people with a payslip. Does that mean the self-employed are going to be hit?
Starmer accuses Badenoch off cherry picking.
Badenoch says inflation is up again, the worst in the G7. The budget put up taxes. That is why the economy is contracting.
She asks what a modest income is (after Heidi Alexander said on Sunday people on modest incomes might be protected from tax rises).
Starmer says the government is acting in the interests of working people.
Kemi Badenoch says the head of the OBR said yesterday higher levels of tax would be bad for growth. Does the PM agree?
Starmer says what’s bad for growth is 14 years of Tory government. Labour has achieved the highest growth in the G7, he says.
Starmer says Tory ministers have ‘serious questions’ to answer about Afghan data leak
Keir Starmer starts by saying MPs across the house have always supported the UK supporting Afghans who helped the British army.
Yesterday the government set out the failings that Labour inherited.
Starmer says ministers in the last government have “serious questions” to answer.
Yesterday, the defence secretary set out the full extent of the failings that we inherited – a major data breach, a superinjunction, a secret route that has already cost hundreds of millions of pounds.
Ministers who served under the party opposite have serious questions to answer about how this was ever allowed to happen.
He welcomes the fact the defence committee plans to hold an inquiry.
This is from Jack Parker from Sky News on today’s list of questions to the PM. (See 11.48am.)
Bit of a bloke-fest PMQs – just one woman down to speak (other than Badenoch of course)
But the list is not exclusive. MPs on this list should all get a question, time allowing. But the Speaker can, and does, call other MPs too, not least because he needs to ensure that a question from the government benches is followed by one from the opposition benches, and vice versa.
Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs
Today is the last PMQs before the summer recesss. Here is the list of MPs on the order paper to ask a question.
Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secreary, told the Today programme that, when he orginally applied for an injunction to stop the media reporting the Afghan data leak inquiry, he did not want it it to be a superinjunction. (See 8.09am.) He said he did not know why the court converted it into a superinjunction (meaning the very existence of the injunction could not be reported).
Lewis Goodall from the News Agents podcast, who was one of the journalists targeted by the superinjunction, says this does not tell the whole story. The court proposed a superinjunction – but the lawyer representing the government agreed, he says. He has posted these on Bluesky.
Again politicians have said the super was the court’s decision and Ben Wallace said he didn’t know why it became a super. I can tell him because I was the only journalist in that first hearing when it happened. Yes the govt applied for an injunction and the then judge suggested a super.
The government accepted that- they didn’t need to. But more germanely, the govt kept applying for the super to be maintained. At any point they could have dropped the super element and even maintain the injunction. That was discussed in court. They elected not to do so.
Goodall also says John Healey, the current defence secretary, needs to give a better answer (see 8.55am) of why it took him so long to get the superinjunction lifted.
It is true that by the time Healey comes in and the CoA has ruled the government had to address the basis of their judgment and right to life arguments. That’s clearly what the Rimmer review was for. He deserves credit for finally ending this absurdity.
But there are still questions about why it took so long, why he has closed the resettlement schemes at the moment of maximum danger and how it can be that Rimmer can dismiss the entire basis for the superinjunction hitherto. How did the MoD get it so wrong?
Former Tory chief whip Julian Smith says Cameron treated Brexit referendum as ‘some sort of Eton game’
Julian Smith, a former Tory chief whip, has accused David Cameron of treating the Brexit referendum as “some sort of Eton game”.
He made the comment in an interview looking back at his career with Red Lines, a Radio Ulster podcast.
Smith, who was a backbencher at the time of the referendum but who subsequently became chief whip and Northern Ireland secretary, is not someone known for criticising colleagues in public. In his interview, he says he was initially inspired by Cameron, but felt his handling of the referendum was “unforgiveable”.
He says:
I joined the Conservative party because of David Cameron, because he was dynamic … but looking back on it, it was unforgiveable that this fundamental question was put to the British people when you have a whole range of issues, not least the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
It was put to the British people as if it was some sort of Eton game.
As chief whip under Theresa May, Smith had to deal with the repurcussions of the vote to leave as May tried, and failed, to get a Brexit deal through the Commons.
Ten communities across England will get “innovation squads” as part of £100m government reform programme, the Cabinet Office has announced. Explaining the move, Georgia Gould, Cabinet Office minister, said:
The test, learn and grow programme will bring the centre of government out of Whitehall and into communities, working with those who deliver and use public services to solve problems together, as part of our Plan for Change. We will reform public services from the ground up so people always come first.
Sick pay changes could benefit UK firms by up to £2bn, TUC says
Changes to sick pay to cover part of workers’ salaries from the first day off could end up benefiting British businesses by as much as £2bn, according to analysis commissioned by the UK’s main union body, Jasper Jolly reports.
Healey challenges Reform UK to produce evidence to back its claim Afghans resettled in UK pose risk
John Healey, the defence secretary, has challenged Reform UK to justify its claim that convicted sex offenders have been allowed into the UK under the government’s Afghan resettlement scheme.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, made this claim in a video he posted on social media yesterday. He claimed the threat to women in the UK was “incalculable”. Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, has made similar claims in an article in the Daily Telegraph. The party has a long history of depicting people seeking asylum in the UK as criminal, on the basis of flimsy, contested or non-existent evidence, and in a way that is viewed as racist by critics.
In an interview on Times Radio, Healey said that people who came to the UK under the relocation scheme set up to help people affected by the data leak were vetted before they arrived. Anyone with a record of violent or sexual assault was excluded, he said.
Healey admitted that he could not vouch for what people have done since they arrived. “No doubt some of them have committed some offences and got into trouble. That’s true right across the board,” he said.
Asked specifically about Farage’s claim that Afghan relocation schemes were creating an “incalculable” threat to British women, Healey replied:
If he’s got hard evidence of individuals that pose a risk, he needs to report that information to the police … We run security checks about the backgrounds of those individuals and where they pose those sorts of threats, they’re prevented from coming and denied access to Britain.