Tory rebel Robert Jenrick says he is prepared to vote against Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill
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Rishi Sunak is preparing for a showdown with the House of Lords, pleading with peers to back his Rwanda plan after it passed the Commons, suggesting it is what voters want.
The prime minister described the bill as a “national priority” and urged the upper chamber to “do the right thing”.
“There is now only one question,” he said. “Will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected House? Or will they get on board and do the right thing?”
Mr Sunak went on the attack against Labour, saying Keir Starmer’s party had no plan to tackle migrant Channel crossings.
He also could not guarantee that flights to Rwanda would take off before the next election, expected in the spring or autumn.
But a prominent member of the Lords warned that the Rwanda Bill represented “a step towards totalitarianism”.
Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said many peers feared the integrity of the British legal system was “under attack” from Tory infighting.
Chancellor hints at lowering taxes in budget
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt says he wants to cut taxes in the next budget, in what commentators believe is an effort to win back votes amid the Conservatives’ dire opinion poll ratings.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Hunt said: “In terms of the direction of travel we look around the world and we note that the economies growing faster than us in North America and Asia tend to have lower taxes, and I believe fundamentally that low-tax economies are more dynamic, more competitive and generate more money for public services like the NHS.
“That’s the direction of travel we would like to go in but it is too early to say what we are going to do.”
Reminder: Brexit will leave UK £300bn worse off, say economists
In case you missed it: Brexit is set to leave Britain’s economy £311bn worse off by the middle of the next decade, a damning new report by top economists has found:
Reader questions answered as Tory popularity plummets
The Independent’s chief political commenator John Rentoul has been answering reader questions:
Scots leader defends invitation to Turkish president
Scotland’s First Minister has defended inviting the Turkish president to visit, saying both countries are “on a journey” regarding human rights.
Humza Yousaf briefly met Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai last year – drawing the ire of the Foreign Office due to a UK official not being present.
Minutes of the meeting given to the Herald under freedom of information legislation show the First Minister “invited RTE to visit Scotland during a future visit to the UK”.
The meeting drew criticism from within the First Minister’s own party, with SNP councillor Roza Salih saying she “did not expect this from a FM that says he respects human rights” over Turkey’s treatment of Kurds.
Mr Yousaf said: “I said the next time he’s in the United Kingdom, he should come up to Scotland.
“Turkey is a Nato ally; why would we not wish to have a Nato ally here?”
Loan charge victims need full investigation, say MPs
A fair resolution and “full independent investigation” is required into the loan charge fiasco to avoid “another Horizon scandal”, according to MPs.
The controversial tax-avoidance clampdown has affected an estimated 60,000 people and been linked to 10 suicides, the Commons was told.
DUP MP Sammy Wilson said there are “frightening parallels” between the loan charge and the Horizon IT scandal, which led to more than 700 Post Office branch managers being convicted.
Mr Wilson and other MPs tabled a parliamentary motion on the loan charge that warned many people are facing “unaffordable demands”, there is the “risk of further suicides” and that a review conducted by Lord Morse was “limited and not genuinely independent” of the Treasury and HMRC.
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HS2 ‘intimidated landowners over compensation claims after contact with MP’
HS2 has been accused of intimidating landowners who raised compensation cases against the high speed rail company with their Tory MP:
Home Office loses track of nearly 6,000 asylum-seekers
Almost 6,000 asylum-seekers whose claims have been withdrawn have gone missing in the UK, ministers have admitted:
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2024-01-19 06:47:13Z
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