Mordaunt fails to praise Sunak amid leadership speculation

Thank you for joining me for today’s politics live blog. 

I will be back tomorrow morning. 

Jeremy Hunt is facing a backlash from senior Tories over his plans to copy the European Union by introducing a Brexit carbon border tax.

The Chancellor will press ahead with proposals to create a new green levy on swathes of goods being imported into Britain.

Extra duties will be applied to products such as steel, glass and ceramics if they come from countries with lower environmental standards.

A group of economists have estimated that the plan will knock 1.5 per cent off GDP per capita over a five-year period, costing £600 per person.

You can read the full story here. 

Nigel Farage branded the Government “useless” over its efforts to curb illegal migration. 

The former leader of the Brexit Party said he had been “saying since 2020 that we should declare a migration emergency” and it has now “become a national security emergency”. 

He made the comments on Twitter this afternoon after it emerged that small boat Channel crossings had hit a new 2024 daily high yesterday. 

Provisional figures from the Home Office, published this morning, showed an estimated 514 people made the crossing, taking the cumulative number of arrivals by small boats in 2024 to 4,043 (see the post below at 11.45). 

The new daily high came as the passage of the Government’s Rwanda Bill through Parliament stalled after peers made more changes to it, with MPs not due to debate it again until April 15. 

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, claimed Rishi Sunak was pursuing “gimmicks” instead of getting a “proper grip” on small boat Channel crossings. 

Responding to the news that more than 500 people made the crossing yesterday, Ms Cooper said: “More people crossed the Channel in a single day yesterday than the Tories plan to send to Rwanda in a year - yet their Rwanda scheme will cost the taxpayer a staggering half a billion pounds. 

“It shows Rishi Sunak’s entire approach is just about gimmicks and headlines instead of getting a proper grip.

“Over 500 people arrived in small boats yesterday alone, yet ministers have admitted they will only be sending a few hundred people to Rwanda. The Tories have let criminal gangs take hold along the Channel undermining our border security and putting lives at risk.”

James Cleverly accused Labour of trying to stop the Government’s Rwanda plan. 

The Home Secretary tweeted this afternoon: “Labour are trying to block our plan to stop the boats. They vote against all our immigration measures. 

“They’re trying to block the Rwanda legislation. They have no plan and they’re trying to stop me deploying mine.”

Andrew Bailey has hinted at interest rate cuts in the coming months as the Bank of England voted to keep borrowing costs unchanged for the fifth time in a row. 

In the strongest signal yet that the Bank is preparing to reduce the cost of borrowing, the Governor of the Bank of England said recent data showed that inflation was “moving in the right direction” as policymakers voted 8-1 to keep rates on hold at 5.25pc.

You can read the full story here. 

The Prime Minister has full confidence in the Bank of England’s Governor following the decision to leave interest rates unchanged.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Interest rates are rightly a decision for the independent Bank of England.

“As I said earlier, with inflation dropping to 3.4 per cent, real wages rising, mortgage rates starting to fall, there’s clear signs that the economy has turned a corner after the shocks of the last few years.”

Asked whether the Prime Minister had confidence in the governor, he replied: “Completely.”

Penny Mordaunt failed to praise Rishi Sunak when challenged to confirm her support for the Prime Minister today amid speculation about a plot to oust him. 

The Commons Leader was warned by Labour that anything less than a “gushing homage” to Mr Sunak “might be misinterpreted”, as rumours swirl about a plan to install her as his replacement.

Lucy Powell, the shadow Commons leader, used this morning’s business statement to urge Ms Mordaunt to address the “elephant in the room”, adding: “I’ve heard her before in these sessions giving a rather fulsome, sometimes slightly over the top personal tribute to the Prime Minister. 

“Given that so many are losing faith, I thought she might want to take this opportunity today to give us another gushing homage. Anything less might be misinterpreted.”

Ms Mordaunt responded: “Mr Speaker, I have briefly emerged from under the hairdryer, put down my Take A Break magazine, managed not only to find my way to the chamber this morning, but also remember on which side of it I am supposed to be sitting. To be present and correct for Business Questions, quite a feat if media reports are to be believed.”

She praised the Government’s economic record, adding: “It is confirmation that the plan is working when on Thursdays the Opposition focuses not on these facts in the real world but on the Westminster rumour vortex.”

But she did not take the opportunity to pay tribute to Mr Sunak directly.

Downing Street said the delay to the passage of the Rwanda Bill will not impact its aim of deportation flights starting this spring. 

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We are still working to get flights off as soon as possible and our spring timelines remain the same as before.” 

Downing Street has defended the decision not to expedite the passage of its “emergency” Rwanda Bill through Parliament after Penny Mordaunt announced MPs will not debate it again until the middle of April. 

The House of Commons will rise for its Easter recess on Tuesday next week and there had been calls for the Government to bring the Bill back before the break after the House of Lords made fresh changes to it last night. 

But MPs will not consider the amendments made by peers until their first day back on April 15, as the Bill’s journey to the statute book is further delayed.  

Mr Sunak announced the Bill in November last year and described it at the time as “emergency legislation”. 

No 10 said at lunchtime today that it wanted to introduce the legislation “as soon as we possibly can” and it was “frustrating” that the Bill did not clear the Lords last night. 

On the delay to April 15, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Parliament continues to consider important business before recess, not least the Investigatory Powers Act which will allow our security agencies to tackle evolving threats including terrorism, state threats and serious crime. 

“As the Leader of the House has already set out, the Rwanda Bill will return straight after recess.”

The Conservative Party’s candidate to be mayor of Greater Manchester has defected to Reform UK. 

Richard Tice welcomed Dan Barker to his party this morning. 

The Reform leader tweeted: “Another senior Tory defects to [Reform]. Their Manchester Mayoral candidate…. Welcome Dan!”

A Reform spokesman said: “Reform is delighted that Dan Barker has joined us. He is an excellent candidate and will be a great representative for Reform and Manchester. He knows that today, if you believe in the future of this city, and this country, then Reform is to the future, as the Tories are to the past.”

An estimated 514 people are believed to have crossed the English Channel on small boats yesterday, the highest number on a single day so far this year, according to provisional figures from the Home Office.

The cumulative number of arrivals by small boats in 2024 now stands at a provisional total of 4,043.

This is 10 per cent higher than the total at this point last year, which was 3,683, and 25 per cent higher than the total at this stage in 2022, which was 3,229.

There were 10 boats detected yesterday, which suggests an average of around 51 people per boat.

There were 29,437 arrivals across the whole of 2023, down 36 per cent on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.

Penny Mordaunt blamed Labour for the delay to the passage of the Rwanda Bill. 

Responding to Lucy Powell in the House of Commons this morning, the Commons Leader said: “I do wish to clarify that I have no wish to blame their lordships for the delay of this Bill. Let me be very clear, I wish to blame Labour lords for this delay. 

“For all Labour’s talk on being tough on borders they have voted against our plans to do that 111 times and they have voted 98 times against our measures to stop the boats.”

Lucy Powell said the delay to the passage of the Rwanda Bill is the Government’s fault and “no one else’s” after it was announced the legislation will not return to the House of Commons until April 15. 

The shadow Commons leader asked Penny Mordaunt during the business statement this morning: “Why, if it is such an emergency, has she yet again delayed programming this legislation?”  

Ms Powell said that she was sure the Government would “want to blame the Lords but it is her timetable and it keeps getting stretched”. 

She added: “The truth is if they were ready to implement this scheme we would see the Bill back here next week. This is their timetable, it is their delay, no one else’s.”

Lucy Powell claimed voters are “sick to death of Tory chaos” as she claimed Rishi Sunak had “bottled” calling a general election on May 2. 

The shadow Commons leader said: “He may hope going later increases his chances but he has quickly found out he has made things worse. 

“He has been buffeted by events, not in control of them, more division, more chatter, authority ebbing away day after day, the many resets not working.

“The public is just sick to death of Tory chaos.”

The Rwanda Bill will not return to the House of Commons until the middle of April, Penny Mordaunt announced this morning. 

The Commons is due to rise for the Easter recess on Tuesday March 26 and the Rwanda Bill will be discussed by MPs on the first day back from their break on Monday April 15. 

The Commons Leader made the announcement during this morning’s business statement in the chamber. 

It means the passage of the flagship Bill will be delayed, making it more difficult for the Government to deliver on its aim of deportation flights taking off this spring. 

Thousands of women may have been affected by the Department for Work and Pensions’ failure to adequately inform them that the state pension age had changed, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has said.

Rebecca Hilsenrath, the ombudsman’s chief executive, said: “The UK’s national ombudsman has made a finding of failings by DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] in this case and has ruled that the women affected are owed compensation.”

You can follow all of the latest developments on this story on our separate Waspi live blog here. 

Sir Keir Starmer said he talks to Sir Tony Blair “a lot” to draw on his experience of preparing for power in 1997.

The Labour leader told Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine he spoke to both Sir Tony and Gordon Brown about their experiences of moving from opposition into government.

The Labour leader said: “I talk to Tony a lot about the period just before ’97, because obviously I’m very interested in talking to people who have won elections and taken a party from opposition into government.

“In the Labour Party we’ve only done that three times. We did it in 1945 with [Clement] Attlee, we did in 1964 with [Harold] Wilson and we did it in ’97 with Tony Blair. So talking to Tony and Gordon about that has been really helpful.

“It’s been not so much about specific policies, but about the pace, the preparedness of getting an opposition ready for government if we are privileged enough to be voted in to serve.”

Britain’s approach to mental health is in danger of having “gone too far” and “normal anxieties of life” are being labelled as an illness, the Work and Pensions Secretary has warned.

Speaking as he unveiled plans to make 150,000 people signed off work with “mild” conditions look for a job, Mel Stride said that the benefits bill was being pushed up by the problem.

In an interview with The Telegraph, he suggested an increased public focus on talking about mental health had led to people effectively self-diagnosing conditions.

You can read the full story here. 

The Conservative Party is now just four points ahead of Reform UK, according to a new YouGov poll, after the Tories sank to a level of support last seen during the final days of Liz Truss’s premiership. 

The survey, conducted between March 19-20, put the Tories on 19 per cent of the vote and Reform on 15 per cent. 

The Tories were down by one point and Reform up by one point when compared to the company’s previous poll conducted between March 12-13. 

YouGov said the Tory vote share had fallen to the same level as the Conservatives recorded “at their lowest ebb” just before Ms Truss quit at the end of October 2022. 

Labour was unchanged on 44 per cent of the vote in the latest survey. 

The long-delayed Rwanda plan is a “microcosm of a much broader problem of the erosion of democracy”, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg argued. 

The former Cabinet minister told GB News: “All sources of resistance to the Rwanda plan are unelected. This policy has become a microcosm of a much broader problem of the erosion of democracy.”

Sir Jacob called for the passage of the Rwanda Bill through parliament to be expedited and for the Easter recess next week to be cancelled. 

He said: “I’d like the Chief Whip to change Commons business so that we send these proposals back to the House of Lords [today], and that we sit, if necessary, through Easter until the House of Lords backs down.”

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg accused the House of Lords of challenging democracy by blocking the passage of the Rwanda Bill. 

The former business secretary told GB News: “The Lords, by insisting on their amendments which have been decisively rejected by the House of Commons, challenge democracy and cause delay.

“The Rwanda plan’s debut flight was meant to take off nearly two years ago in June 2022. It has been obstructed by the bien pensants, those who think they know better than the democratic will of an elected government.”

Nigel Farage said he believed that it will be “all but impossible” for Rwanda migrant deportation flights to take off even if the Government does get its flagship legislation onto the statute book. 

The former leader of the Brexit Party said he believed that the UK’s membership of “overseas conventions and treaties” will result in the judiciary stopping the flights from ever going ahead. 

He told GB News: “Even when, and I say when, because ultimately the House of Commons can overrule the House of Lords, even when the Rwanda Bill becomes the Rwanda Act, I still don’t think we’re going to see flights going to Rwanda.

“And I say that because the judiciary, the legal system are signatory to overseas conventions and treaties [which] is going to make it, I think, legally all but impossible.”

His comments came after the Government suffered seven defeats on the Bill in the House of Lords last night as peers dug in and refused to pass the legislation unamended. 

Dame Andrea Leadsom hit out at the “briefing and counter-briefing” within the Tory Party but denied that the Conservatives are “massively divided” amid speculation of a potential challenge to Rishi Sunak’s leadership. 

The health minister said: “I certainly don’t like the briefing and counter-briefing [but] the Prime Minister is getting on with the programme of government”.

On LBC radio she said: “You’re trying to assert that everything’s riven. I’m just trying to explain to you, as I walk around Parliament, as I attend 1922 Committees, as I go into the Members’ Tea Room, into the lobby, I do not see a party that’s massively divided.

“There are one or two people who are trying to cause that division but what the Government is doing is trying to get on with the programme.”

Rishi Sunak should not call a general election just because there is pressure from the public, a minister said this morning.

Dame Andrea Leadsom said the Prime Minister should resist making a decision on a date for the election “just because there is a particular mood or a particular situation”.

She told Sky News: “We have periodic general elections, and the Prime Minister has set out quite clearly an autumn timeframe. You don’t call a general election just because there is a particular mood or a particular situation, that very, very rarely happens.”

Her comments came after polling revealed that Conservative voters only narrowly back Mr Sunak to lead the party into the next general election.

Jeremy Hunt hinted earlier this week that the next election could be held in October, after Mr Sunak ruled out a vote on May 2 when local elections are taking place.