Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at the first PMQs of 2018
Theresa May will meet finance leaders in Downing Street on Thursday as part of efforts to keep the business community updated about the Brexit process, No 10 said. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, and Robin Walker, the Brexit minister, will also be at the meeting with “various CEOs” and “European chiefs of financial institutions who have a presence in the UK”, the prime minister’s spokesman said.
The National Audit Office has announced that it will investigate the government’s decision to spend up to £39bn on payments to the EU as part of the withdrawal agreement. It made the announcement in response to a request for an investigation of this kind from Nicky Morgan, the chair of the Commons Treasury committee. (See 11.35am.)
In response to Morgan’s letter Sir Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said:
I can confirm that we intend to report on the main elements of the financial settlement with the EU. We are already in discussions with HM Treasury aimed at planning our work. I expect our report to be published in late March.
On the subject of the Virgin Trains’ Daily Mail ban (see 1.44pm), Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has piled in. He posted this on Twitter.
Absurd ban on Daily Mail by Virgin! Pompous, censorious and wrong #virginontheridiculous
Here is a Telegraph article with details of the case Jeremy Corbyn raised at PMQs about Virgin Care being paid compensation after it failed to win an NHS contract. (See 12.21pm.) And here is an extract.
Virgin Care Services started High Court proceedings against NHS England, Surrey County Council and the CCGs in November last year, after its bid failed.
It said there were “serious flaws in the procurement process” which had left it “so concerned” that it had launched the proceedings.
And at the Labour press huddle after PMQs Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman revealed that, if any Virgin Trains passengers want the ban on buying a copy of the Daily Mail lifted, they should back Labour’s plans for nationalisation. This is from PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield.
Jeremy Corbyn spokesman says a Labour government would overturn Virgin’s ban on the Daily Mail: “There would be no bans on a publicly-owned railway.”
A government source confirmed that the Tories’ approach to this afternoon’s Labour-led debates on the health service winter crisis and the East Coast rail franchise will be to ask MPs to abstain.
“We will be abstaining on both the motions – people are not being whipped to turn up”, the source said, after PMQs.
Here is the main Press Association story about the exchanges between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.
Theresa May has accused Jeremy Corbyn of giving the impression that the NHS is failing everybody amid claims she was “too weak” to sack the health secretary.
The prime minister reiterated her apology to patients affected by winter pressures, including to the thousands who have seen their operations cancelled, as she defended the preparations.
This is what political commentators and journalists are saying about PMQs.
There is more praise for Corbyn than May, but generally the hacks are underwhelmed.
#pmqs summarises the political challenges facing the NHS. Neither Labour nor the Tories willing to engage at all with policy issues –
reverting instead to petty point scoring. And it’s patients that will suffer as a result.
This is the appalling level of debate:
Corbyn: Tories aren’t spending enough on NHS
May: But Wales
Corbyn: Tories want to privatise NHS
May: But Tony Blair
Corbyn: Tories only care about the rich
May: But we saved the economy
Corbyn: We love the NHS
May: But we love the NHS more
#PMQs review: May’s botched reshuffle weakened her against Corbyn. https://t.co/A1Zl9yUYyr
My snap verdict on #PMQs: A sorry performance by Theresa May hands Corbyn victory
https://t.co/nmrziZzEzl http://pic.twitter.com/xP0ThtFNbR
So another #PMQs in which the two leaders chuck statistics at each other. But NHS the right issue for Labour; JC quick on his feet.
This is a deeply tedious PMQs about a deeply serious issue.
All those hopes 2018 may be slightly different – gone in 18 mins of PMQs
Exchanges btw May and Corbyn aren’t telling us much so far
The Speaker has got to stop these long speeches. It is meant to be Prime Minister’s QUESTIONS. It is 12.23pm and we still have not got past the May/Corbyn exchanges.
This is from the Daily Mirror’s Dan Bloom.
Source close to Angela Rayner says Tory whips were aware that she was away because of “pairing” (where a Tory stands out of a vote to match a Labour MP who is unwell and vice versa). A bit embarrassing for May.
As usual, I missed the questions from Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, because I was writing the snap verdict. So here they are.
Blackford asked May to accept that clause 11 of the EU withdrawal bill, which would limit the Scottish parliament’s right to legislate on devolution-related areas using powers being repatriated from Brussels, must be changed. He said:
Does the prime minister agree with her colleague that we must amend clause 11, which is nothing more than a power grab from Scotland?
We continue to amend clause 11, we are looking to work with the devolved administrations to ensure we put the right frameworks in place so when we come to put any amendments forward it is in the best interests of all concerned.
The Tories always promise Scotland everything and deliver nothing. The prime minister has one more chance – will she assure the House that these amendments will be tabled next week, as promised?
[The SNP] say they want clause 11 amended and we are doing exactly that. [David Lidington] is intensifying his discussions with the Scottish government and the assembly in Wales.
Richard Drax, a Conservative, asks about the work of a lifeboat in Dorset who were called out over Christmas and averted a disaster.
May says she is happy to praise volunteers in the RNLI.
Labour’s Siobhain McDonagh asks about a foster parent in her constituency evicted by a landlord who refused to do a repair. Now the council won’t let her foster because her accommodation is not good enough. How does that make sense?
May says that does not appear to make sense. She says she hopes the local council will look at this again.
Simon Clarke, a Conservative, asks if government funds can be used to help workers affected by a closure in his constituency.
May says the DWP’s rapid response service will step in to help. The business department is looking at this too, she says.
Labour’s Fiona Onasanya says May said once not getting things done made her depressed. She says she wrote to May last year about a constituent kept waiting 18 months for a driving licence. But May has not replied.
May says she will reply.
PMQs – Snap verdict: In the light of the winter crisis, and the cancellation last week of 50,000-odd operations to free up beds and staff for A&E patients, health was an open goal for Corbyn this week and he was solid and convincing, quite comfortably getting the upper hand. But it wasn’t quite the clear walkover that some Labour MPs may have expected, and May was reasonably resilient. That is because both leaders had a point; it is perfectly possible for NHS planning to be better than ever, and yet hospitals still be stretched to an extent that leaves some patients suffering an appalling service. Corbyn put the case against May well, but his best question was probably his first, where he managed to use May’s answer at the last PMQs of 2017 against her. (A good example of how a lacklustre PMQs performance, which was how I judged Corbyn’s at the end of December, can nevertheless set a boobytrap for the future.) The payment to Virgin Care in Surrey sounded as if it was worth developing at greater length, and Corbyn could have probed May more aggressively about the relatively meaninglessness of May’s social care name change at the Department of Health. May was better than in some of the other NHS-focused PMQs because it sounded as if she was engaging with what Corbyn said, not just reading out statistics, and she got the balance about right between apologising and defending her record. You could tell that she felt reasonably confident because she did not resort to banging on about Wales until question four. Her reference to Angela Rayner being absent backfired when she was told Rayner was ill, but May had the sense to apologise fully and quickly, which allowed her to recover her stride quite well.
Corbyn says tax cuts are being paid for by longer NHS waits. Hunt said when he met May to ask to keep his job that he would not abandon the ship. Isn’t that an admission the ship is sinking?
May says more people are being treated in the NHS. But you can only have a strong NHS with a strong economy. She says Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, who is not here …
Corbyn says May’s government has cut funding for Wales. May is responsible for the NHS in England. Giving Hunt a new job title will not affect the fact that £6bn has been cut from social care budgets. And NHS money is being siphoned off to private health companies. This is happening in Surrey, Hunt’s constituency, where money was paid to Virgin Care because it did not win a contract.
May says the government has given more money to Wales. It is the Labour government in Wales that has deprioritised health. And which government started bringing the private sector into health?
Corbyn quotes from Vicky. Her 82-year-old mother spent three hours on a trolley, having waited an hour to get to hospital. This is not an isolated case. Does May really believe the NHS is better prepared than ever?
May says nobody wants to hear of people experiencing things like this. We must learn from these incidents. She says this case will be looked at. But week in, week out, Corbyn is implying the NHS is failing everyone. She says 2.9m more people are going to A&E. Some 2m more operations are taking place every year. The NHS has been identified as the number one health system in the world.
Jeremy Corbyn starts by wishing everyone a happy new year too.
He says before Christmas he asked about the 12,000 people waiting in ambulances. She said the NHS was better prepared than ever before. So what will she say to the 17,000 people kept waiting in the week before Christmas. Is it “nothing is perfect” (as she said on the Marr Show on Sunday.)
James Cleverly, the new Tory deputy chair, asks May to passionately embrace the vision she set out last year, improving life chances and leaving the country in a better place.
May says Cleverly never got the kiss from her he once asked for. (Apparently he said kiss about May in a snog/marry/avoid quizz.)
Here is that snog offer @JamesCleverly made to the Prime Minister back in October 2016 for @JPonpolitics 5live Sunday morning programme #PMQs https://t.co/fQTeOfZZa0
Labour’s Mike Amesbury says at least 1.4m households have been victims of unfair practices in the leasehold market. It is a scandal, he says. What will the government do to help?
May says the government is looking to see what it can do to ensure that people are not subject to unfair practices.
Theresa May starts by wishing all MPs and staff a happy new year.
This is from the Sun’s Steve Hawkes.
Can’t remember Chamber being this empty before PMQs
Six of the women promoted by T.May are lined up at the bar of the House (ie by the doors to the Chamber – it’s not a pub bar).
This is from my colleague Dan Sabbagh, who has just started a new job covering politics at Westminster.
Watching PMQs from the gallery for the first time. However noisy it appears on television, it is far noisier here
Those set to quiz Theresa May at #PMQs shortly are… http://pic.twitter.com/wkKGyABGiR
PMQs is starting very soon.
For an interesting take on the state of the nation as 2018 begins, this Britain Thinks report (pdf) is worth reading. It is based on the findings of focus groups and a poll.
Nicky Morgan, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons Treasury committee, has written to the National Audit Office asking it to investigate whether paying the EU a “Brexit bill” of up to £39bn is reasonable.
Here is the text of her letter, addressed to the NAO chief Sir Amyas Morse.
Various wide-ranging sums for the UK’s withdrawal payment to the EU have been bandied about. Last month, the prime minister told parliament that the so-called Brexit divorce bill will be £35-39bn.
Parliament must be able to scrutinise the reasonableness of this bill. Accordingly, I have written to Sir Amyas to request that the NAO examines the withdrawal payment, including the assumptions and methodologies used.
Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, told BBC Radio 5 Live this morning that she plans to publish details of the new procedures for dealing with harassment and bullying complaints involving MPs before the end of this month. In an interview with Emma Barnett she said she wanted to ensure the report had “some serious teeth” and that offenders could end up being suspended from the Commons and forced to fight a recall byelection if they want to remain an MP.
Dismissing the suggestion that the report would not impose proper sanctions, Leadsom said:
It will absolutely not just be an apology. As ever, with something like this, you want to focus on informal resolution, you want to focus on prevention, you want to focus on changing the culture. However there will be real sanctions at the end of this process.
If it’s a member of parliament, then it would be a referral to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, and ultimately to the Commons committee for standards, which has the ability to suspend members of parliament.
We had quite a short conversation, and she asked me to continue doing the job. She told me there was some important work that I was doing, and that she would like me to stay in the role, and I was delighted to do that.
On Sky’s All Out Politics, the Labour pro-European Chuka Umunna said that his party would eventually have to decide whether to vote for or against the final Brexit withdrawal deal expected to be agreed by the end of the year. He said if it involved leaving the single market and the customs union, he could not back it.
If we are not in the single market and the customs union, I would not be able to support any deal.
Labour is likely to announce by the spring that it wants to stay indefinitely in a modified version of the European customs union.
Senior Labour figures, including MPs for Brexit-supporting areas, said the move was intended to mark a significant break from the government’s policy.
The new Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley makes her first ever visit to the region this morning. She is meeting staff and students at Belfast Metropolitan College in the city’s Titanic Quarter.
The 47-year-old has replaced outgoing James Brokenshire who has stood down from the post as he faces lung surgery. Ahead of her trip to Belfast, the DUP North Antrim MP Ian Paisley claimed she has a “strong unionist outlook.”
Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, told the Today programme this morning that he was not bothered about the fact that he was wrongly named as the new Conservative chairman by a party Twitter account very briefly on Monday morning, as the reshuffle was taking place. He said there was always “endless speculation” with reshuffles.
I think over the last two weeks I’ve been going to be sacked, I’ve been going to become deputy prime minister, I’ve been going to become party chairman; actually I’m the transport secretary who’s always wanted to be transport secretary, who’s very happy doing it.
Nothing’s changed. Lots of media speculation and a mistaken tweet and that happens quite often these days.
No, not in the slightest. I’m doing a job I really enjoy doing, I want to make a difference, I believe we are making a difference.
The prime minister has only got one husband rather than six and I don’t think she’s got quite the same build as Henry VIII.
During the EU referendum campaign one argument constantly used by leave campaigners was that Brussels would have to offer the UK a good free trade deal because German car manufacturers, who export a lot to Britain, would insist on one and Angela Merkel would give in to their demands. So far there is little evidence that the “BMW factor” is having quite the effect Vote Leave expected, but the government has not given up and today Philip Hammond, the chancellor, and David Davis, the Brexit secretary, are both in Germany speaking to business figures and making the case that a wide-ranging free trade deal will be in Germany’s own interests.
My colleagues Lisa O’Carroll and Philip Oltermann have written an overnight preview story.
Related: Davis and Hammond make plea to Germany in pursuit of Brexit deal
The economic partnership should cover the length and breadth of our economies including the service industries — and financial services.
Because the 2008 Global Financial Crisis proved how fundamental financial services are to the real economy, and how easily contagion can spread from one economy to another without global and regional safeguards in place.
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