Rishi Sunak to make statement to MPs about strategy for small boat arrivals – UK politics live | Politics

A rail employees’ union has introduced a recent strike over pay, jobs and circumstances, PA Media experiences. PA says:

Members of the Transport Salaried Staffs Affiliation at CrossCountry will strike on Boxing Day and 27 December.

TSSA is demanding a assure of no obligatory redundancies, no unagreed adjustments to phrases and circumstances, and a pay improve which addresses the rising price of residing.

The union stated it believes the strikes will severely have an effect on companies at CrossCountry, which covers massive swathes of the nation, from Penzance in Cornwall, to the Midlands, Wales, and northern England by means of to Scottish cities as far north as Aberdeen.

The motion replaces a strike at CrossCountry by TSSA on 17 December, which has now been cancelled.

The Conservative MP Adam Afriyie has been made bankrupt after a choose in a specialist courtroom heard how he owed round £1.7m, PA Media experiences. A chapter order was made in opposition to Afriyie, who represents Windsor, at a web-based listening to within the insolvency and corporations courtroom right now by choose Nicholas Briggs.

This story, by my colleagues Heather Stewart and Rowena Mason final 12 months, explains the background to this case.

In its annual report, the migration advisory committee, an official authorities advisory physique, says it’s “bewildered” that the federal government is just not doing extra to sort out the issue of low pay within the care sector. It says care employees must be paid a authorized minimal no less than £1 an hour above the “nationwide residing wage” (at the moment £9.50 an hour). It says:

We accomplished our enquiry into the affect of the ending of freedom of motion on the grownup social care sector in April and submitted the report back to authorities and parliament. We really helpful that care employees proceed to be eligible to use for a well being and care employee visa and made some extra suggestions for adjustments to the immigration system to ease the burden on social care employers and migrants.

Nonetheless, our foremost suggestion was {that a} minimal charge of pay must be established for care employees at a premium to the statutory minimal wage the place care is being supplied with public funds. We instructed that this could initially be set at £1 per hour above the nationwide residing wage however anticipated a extra substantial premium to be wanted to correctly tackle the disaster in social care recruitment and retention.

It’s deeply disappointing that the federal government have nonetheless not responded to our report. We notice that the governments of Scotland and Wales are taking clear motion to handle low pay within the sector and are bewildered by the dearth of urgency exhibited by the Division of Well being and Social Care.

Jonathan Portes, an economics professor and a specialist on immigration, highlights this and different fascinating elements within the report in a great Twitter thread beginning here.

4 Scottish polls in a row present extra assist for independence than for staying in UK

Severin Carrell

One other opinion ballot has put assist for Scottish independence clearly within the lead, with sure outstripping no by 5 factors, within the wake of the supreme courtroom ruling that Holyrood doesn’t have the facility to stage a referendum.

The YouGov poll for the Times places the sure vote at 47% and no at 42%, with “don’t is aware of” or “wouldn’t vote” at 8%. In October, YouGov had put sure at 43% and no at 45%.

As soon as “don’t is aware of” are excluded, the brand new polls interprets right into a six-point lead for sure on 53% with no on 47% this month.

That is the fourth successive ballot placing sure within the lead since final month’s courtroom ruling, and as soon as “don’t is aware of” are excluded, brings assist for independence near the highs final seen in late 2020 when Nicola Sturgeon was main Scotland’s battle in opposition to Covid.

Whereas the none of these polls but present an general sure majority if don’t is aware of or reluctant voters are included, the temper has once more shifted – practically all of the earlier polls since spring 2021 had given a constant result in no.

It reveals that independence stays firmly embedded as an choice for round half of Scotland’s voters. The 4 polls additionally suggest that Labour’s makes an attempt to grab the constitutional initiative with Keir Starmer’s pledge final week to switch the Home of Lords with an elected second chamber for the nations and areas, and empower Holyrood, has didn’t impress voters.

Nonetheless, YouGov’s outcomes convey warnings for Sturgeon: 52% of YouGov’s respondents disliked her declare that the subsequent normal election must be a single-issue de facto referendum on independence. Solely 39% agreed with Sturgeon {that a} majority of votes for the SNP could be a mandate to barter independence. YouGov additionally put SNP assist at 43%, down two factors on October – nicely wanting that golden 50% threshold.

Whereas 51% of voters supported a referendum within the subsequent 5 years, solely 38% supported her referendum goal date of October subsequent 12 months. That discovering has been persistently recorded by pollsters over the previous few years: a modest majority of Scots assist a referendum, simply not now.

About 4 million mortgage debtors are set to see their month-to-month funds leap by the top of the subsequent 12 months as the danger of households defaulting on debt has risen, the Financial institution of England has warned. In a summary of its financial policy committee report, it says:

Pressures on family funds will improve over 2023. In complete round half of owner-occupier mortgages (round 4 million) can be uncovered to charge rises over the subsequent 12 months.

Falling actual incomes, will increase in mortgage prices and better unemployment will place vital strain on family funds.

The share of households with excessive price of residing adjusted mortgage debt-servicing ratios would improve over 2023 to 2.4%, assuming present market pricing of Financial institution charge, however stay decrease than within the world monetary disaster (GFC).

Households are additionally experiencing elevated strain on their means to service different kinds of client debt, similar to bank cards and private loans.

The report says that individuals who have fixed-rate mortgage expiring by the top of 2023 are prone to need to pay round £250 extra monthly after they renew their mortgage on a brand new charge. For a median family, this may imply month-to-month funds rising from £750 to £1,000, it says. It goes on:

That equates to round 17% of their common pre-tax revenue, up from 12% on the finish of June 2022. Some mortgagors even have very low ranges of financial savings, which implies these households will solely have a restricted cushion in opposition to additional shocks to their actual incomes. Throughout the mortgagor inhabitants, these adversely affected by charge rises are usually youthful, have decrease incomes, and are essentially the most leveraged.

In complete, round half of owner-occupier mortgages (round 4 million) can be uncovered to charge rises over the subsequent 12 months. This quantity consists of these on variable charges, and people coming to the top of fixed-rate merchandise throughout this era. Round a 3rd of mortgagors, or 2.7 million households, are anticipated to face will increase in month-to-month repayments of over £100 by end-2023, and round half by end-2025.

Rishi Sunak has been warned by the migration advisory committee to keep away from specializing in decreasing the numbers of individuals coming into the UK amid a nationwide staffing scarcity in key industries, my colleague Rajeev Syal experiences.

Rishi Sunak will give an announcement to MPs right now about tackling unlawful immigration, sources are telling journalists. This would be the announcement previewed within the Occasions. (See 9.28am.)

Listed here are the principle traces from Mick Lynch’s morning interview spherical.

• Lynch, the RMT normal secretary, insisted his union was not against reform of working practices on the rail community. “We’re not opposed to vary, we take care of it all the time,” he informed BBC Breakfast. However he stated there needed to be “negotiated change, not imposition”.

The federal government is ready to take thus far a lack of perhaps 320 million quid in order that they’ll subsidise this dispute, so the inducement is just not with the train-operating corporations to settle this as a result of they’ve been instructed to not settle by the federal government.

The RMT ceaselessly complains that the rail corporations haven’t any incentive to settle the dispute underneath their present financing construction. Ed Conway, Sky’s economics editor, defined this nicely in a Sunday Times column on the weekend.

The RMT union is supposedly negotiating pay and circumstances with the Rail Supply Group, which represents the practice working corporations. It might need made sense to have these two events dealing with one another over the desk a few years in the past, when the franchise operators had a say in these items. Again then, it was as much as them to soak up the price of elevating pay, and any days misplaced to strikes would take a slice out of their income.

Nowadays, nonetheless, the franchise system has been changed with “passenger working contracts”, which is a barely long-winded means of claiming “nationalisation”, since Whitehall finally decides on virtually every thing and takes the monetary hit. “We will’t fart with out permission,” as one senior rail operator put it.

The upshot is that the businesses working the trains have much less incentive to enhance their service, and little punishment when issues go fallacious. They don’t actually undergo when there’s a strike, so why are they doing the negotiation?

We don’t like disrupting the general public and we apologise for the disruption that’s being brought about. I imagine we may have labored in the direction of a settlement a few weeks in the past till that was undermined by the stance that sure individuals have taken.

• He refused to just accept that the results of the poll of RMT members in Community Rail, who yesterday rejected the pay offer by 64%, was disappointing. A earlier majority in opposition to settling was larger. However Lynch stated:

Two-thirds weren’t prepared to just accept it in a really simple democratic vote on a really excessive turnout.

And the corporate Community Rail placed on an enormous effort. They despatched all their managers out into the depots and stations, they made particular movies, they put lots of comms collectively to attempt to get our members to just accept it, and our members have resisted that very strongly.

There’s all the time going to be a constituency of folks that need to settle on the first go, however they’ve additionally proven by means of a strike mandate poll that we had a few weeks in the past, or three or 4 weeks in the past and this newest referendum, that they’re ready to stay behind the dispute to get a settlement that they’ll assist.

We’ve nonetheless obtained loads of time earlier than the Christmas Eve strikes if [Network Rail chief executive] Andrew Haines and the practice working corporations, Huw Merriman the rail minister, and Mark Harper the secretary of state, need to come to me with a set of significant proposals to enhance their provide in order that we are able to get a settlement to the dispute, we’ll come over and see them as quickly as doable.

They’ve already invited me to a set of talks and we’ll attend these to attempt to get a settlement to this dispute. And when our members determine that they need to settle for it, that’s when the dispute can be completed.

• Lynch accused the Immediately presenter, Mishal Husain, of repeating rightwing propaganda when she requested him how a lot his members had been shedding in pay from the strike motion. In response, he informed her:

That is determined by what shifts they had been working, what charge of pay they earn and what number of events they need to exit.

What I do discover annoying although, Mishal, is that you just put these traces which might be immediately taken from the propaganda of the opposite aspect. You by no means present any admiration for the combat that working persons are placing up on this nation for the rebalancing of our society.

You by no means criticise the super-rich for what they’re doing to nurses, what they’re doing to postal employees, and also you by no means appear to take an neutral view on the best way this society is balanced for the time being with the whole lack of distribution of wealth in our society.

You all the time simply appear to punt out something you obtain from the employers and from the federal government, and that’s what I’m listening to immediately by means of the filter of the BBC this morning.

On ITV’s Good Morning Britain Lynch additionally had a spat with the presenter Richard Madeley. He informed Madeley:

We’re not focusing on Christmas, it isn’t Christmas but, Richard, I don’t know when your Christmas begins however mine begins on Christmas Eve.

When Madeley informed him industrial Christmas begins in December, Lynch replied: “Richard, why don’t you simply interview your self?”

This morning Mark Harper, the transport secretary, and Mick Lynch, the RMT normal secretary, have each been giving interviews. Their claims have been nicely rehearsed – it is a dispute that has been working for months, in spite of everything – however because it reaches the purpose the place passengers are going to be inconvenienced greater than ever earlier than, the competitors for public assist turns into extra intense.

In an interview with Occasions Radio, Harper claimed public opinion was turning in opposition to the RMT. Referring to the result of a ballot of its Network Rail members announced yesterday, Harper claimed:

[The RMT] have had a good and cheap provide, which has been accepted by Unite employees at Community Rail, the TSSA are recommending acceptance of that supply, it’s simply the RMT which might be recommending that or not it’s refused. However even with them recommending refusal, virtually 40% of their employees really voted in favour of it. So I feel the tide is popping on public opinion.

However the proof for Harper’s declare is proscribed. Not too long ago YouGov printed polling suggesting a plurarity of voters are opposed to the strikes.

In the summertime a separate Ipsos poll discovered the general public break up 50/50 (or 35% to 35%, to be exact) on whether or not they supported the rail strikes, and the distinction between the 2 units of outcomes may again Harper’s case. However, even on the newest YouGov numbers, assist for the RMT is excessive by historic requirements, and assist for rail employees being allowed to strike has really gone up during the last three years, a YouGov tracker says.

In his interviews this morning Lynch stated his union nonetheless did have public assist.

Good morning. The primary of 4 48-hour nationwide RMT rail strikes, set to paralyse the community of the vacation interval, has began. Given the affect that these strikes can have on non-strike days, and different closures deliberate over Christmas, one estimate says rail services won’t return to normal for a month.

Right here is my colleague Julia Kollewe’s story in regards to the scenario travellers this morning.

And right here is Jasper Jolly’s enterprise weblog, which is overlaying this in additional element.

Cupboard is assembly this morning. Politics is dominated by the strikes, however the Occasions is reporting that Rishi Sunak may announce his latest plan to reduce the number of small boat crossings as early as right now. Of their story Matt Dathan and Stephen Swinford say:

The prime minister is anticipated to announce the primary tranche of his technique to take care of unlawful immigration on Tuesday amid warnings from Tory backbenchers that the celebration will face defeat on the subsequent election if it fails to resolve the problem. The announcement is anticipated to incorporate a fast-track course of for assessing claims from an inventory of “protected” nations similar to Albania.

Sunak is ready to announce that each one asylum claims from nations on a House Workplace “white checklist” can be routinely rejected until the person can present proof that their declare has benefit, proposals that had been first revealed by The Occasions earlier this month.

Authorities sources stated there have been plans to merge the evaluation course of for asylum and trendy slavery claims, as a part of efforts to cease failed asylum seekers “gaming” the system by claiming to be victims of recent slavery on the final minute to keep away from deportation.

Sunak desperately wants one thing that can win his authorities some credit score with the voters, given all the opposite issues he faces, though whether or not this may do the trick stays to be seen. Yvette Cooper, the shadow residence secretary, has already her introduced her personal plans to fast-track asylum purposes from nations like Albania, and that can make it more durable for Sunak to argue the Tories are doing one thing distinctive.

Right here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Rishi Sunak chairs cupboard.

10am: Ofsted publishes its annual report.

11.30am: James Cleverly, the overseas secretary, takes questions within the Commons.

After 12.30pm: MPs debate the remaining levels of the levelling up invoice.

12.45pm: Tom Tugendhat, the safety minister, offers a speech to the Coverage Change thinktank on defending democracy. The annual report from parliament’s intelligence and safety committee can be on account of be printed in some unspecified time in the future right now.

2pm: Wes Streeting, the shadow well being secretary, does a phone-in on LBC.

2.30pm: Grant Shapps, the enterprise secretary, offers proof to the Commons enterprise committee.

Afternoon: Friends vote on a Lib Dem movement that may block rules introducing voter ID for elections.

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

If you wish to appeal to my consideration rapidly, it’s most likely higher to make use of Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you’ll be able to e mail me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.