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Rabu, 08 Mei 2024

John Swinney sworn in as Scotland's first minister - BBC.com

SNP leader John Swinney has been sworn in as the seventh first minister of Scotland.

He was confirmed in the role during a brief, formal ceremony at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

Mr Swinney takes office 25 years after he was first elected to the Scottish Parliament.

The first minister is now expected to appoint his cabinet, in a series of meetings at his official residence, Bute House.

His appointments will be confirmed in parliament on Thursday.

After the ceremony, Mr Swinney, 60, told reporters it was an "enormous privilege", but said it had been a "very abrupt" change for his family.

"It's an extraordinary opportunity to change lives for the better and I intend to use every moment that is available to me to do so," he said.

John Swinney said the appointment was an "enormous privilege"

He vowed his minority SNP administration government would seek to work collaboratively across parliament, with a particular focus on eradicating the "curse" of child poverty.

Last week he promised a senior role to the former finance secretary Kate Forbes, who declined to challenge him for the leadership of the SNP.

The ceremony to install Mr Swinney as first minister was overseen by Scotland's senior judge, Lord Carloway.

The Perthshire North MSP swore the oath of office, declared his allegiance to the King and was confirmed as keeper of the Scottish Seal.

He confirmed his appointment by putting pen to parchment on a table in the well of the court, Scotland's supreme body for civil law since 1532.

John Swinney and wife Elizabeth Quigley — John Swinney and his wife Elizabeth Quigley outside Bute House after he won the nomination to become first minister

Mr Swinney won the nomination for first minister in a parliamentary vote on Tuesday.

He was backed by all 63 SNP MSPs and Alba's sole Holyrood representative, Ash Regan.

Seven Green MSPs abstained, guaranteeing Mr Swinney the required majority.

Following a tumultuous two weeks for the SNP, Mr Swinney became party leader on Monday.

A contest was narrowly avoided, with a rival candidate - veteran SNP activist Graeme McCormick - withdrawing his bid at the 11th hour.

This paved the way for Humza Yousaf to formally resign as first minister on Tuesday - a move prompted by his tearing up of the power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens.

He had been in post for just over a year, having taken over the role from Nicola Sturgeon.

Mr Swinney has 16 years' cabinet experience and led the SNP between 2000 and 2004.

He will take office in the week the Scottish Parliament marks 25 years since devolution.

Previously, he said he would not be an "interim leader" or a "caretaker" and that he intended to see out a full term.

He has said he will seek to govern on a "moderate centre left" platform, and will be open to working with any other political party in the parliament to pass legislation.

This was reflected in his speech to MSPs on Tuesday in which he struck a conciliatory note, praising the achievements of other major parties in the devolved parliament.

He pledged to be the "first minister for everyone in Scotland", adding: "I am here to serve you, I will give everything I have to build the best future for our country."

The economy, the NHS and other public services, and "a drive to lift children out of poverty" are his priorities for government.

While Ms Forbes is expected to make a return to cabinet but it is unclear where other ministerial roles will be allocated.

Kate Forbes decided not to run for SNP leader, and backed John Swinney

It is also not clear which roles Mr Swinney will keep, though The Times previously reported he intended to have a "slimmed-down" government.

Having confirmed he has no intention of resurrecting a deal with the Greens, Mr Swinney will attempt to pass a budget and other key bills with a minority administration of 63 MSPs.

Until recently Mr Swinney's career on the frontbenches looked to be over.

He stepped down from the cabinet in 2023 after 16 years in key roles under both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

Following the collapse of the Bute House Agreement, and Mr Yousaf's resignation, Mr Swinney was publicly urged to stand for first minister by senior party members - which he said he accepted out of a "profound sense of duty".

The SNP leader said the decision had been made with his family, expressing "eternal gratitude" to his wife Elizabeth Quigley, who has multiple sclerosis and relies on him for support.

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2024-05-08 09:52:06Z
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Robert Jenrick follows Braverman in criticising PM after local election results – UK politics live - The Guardian

Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister (and potential future leadership candidate), has been giving interviews this morning to promote his new report on immigration. (See 9.42am.) In an interview with LBC, he said the Conservative party needed to show more “honesty” about its mistakes if it wanted to win back voters. He explained:

What I’ve tried to set out are a series of policies that could be implemented before the general election, such as what I’m saying today on legal migration, which would convince some of those Conservative voters – who are essentially on strike – to come back and support the party at the general election.

And also to persuade some of those voters who are considering voting Reform that we do care about the issues that they do, which are principally immigration, but also on crime, on extremism and on lower taxes.

And if we can do that, I think we can persuade more of those former Conservative voters to come back and to support us.

But that will require honesty, it requires levelling with the public about the mistakes of the past and using every last minute we have in office before the general election to actually deliver positive change for the public.

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John Swinney taking the oath when he was sworn in as First Minister of Scotland and Keeper of the Scottish Seal at the court of session this morning.

Swinney with the Seals of Scotland (he is now officially keeper of them, whatever that means) at the court of session.

What I’ve tried to set out are a series of policies that could be implemented before the general election, such as what I’m saying today on legal migration, which would convince some of those Conservative voters – who are essentially on strike – to come back and support the party at the general election.

And also to persuade some of those voters who are considering voting Reform that we do care about the issues that they do, which are principally immigration, but also on crime, on extremism and on lower taxes.

And if we can do that, I think we can persuade more of those former Conservative voters to come back and to support us.

But that will require honesty, it requires levelling with the public about the mistakes of the past and using every last minute we have in office before the general election to actually deliver positive change for the public.

John Swinney has been sworn in as Scotland’s new first minister at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, PA Media reports. PA says:

Scotland’s most senior judge, the Lord President Lord Carloway, presided over the ceremony.

The Perthshire North MSP made his statutory declarations and was granted his official title of First Minister and Keeper of the Scottish Seal.

Swinney’s family, including his wife Elizabeth, thirteen-year-old son Matthew and brother David, accompanied him to court.

An early release scheme for prisoners in England and Wales is being extended, with some inmates now set to be released up to 70 days early, the Times has revealed.

In his story, Matt Dathan reports:

An email sent to probation and prison staff, obtained by The Times, said measures introduced less than two months ago had failed to ease pressure in men’s prisons in England and Wales.

It said that a scheme that allows prisoners to be set free before their release date will be extended from 35 days to 70 days from May 23.

In the email, labelled “operationally critical,” officials accept that the changes will “create additional work for many people at a time when we know we have our own resource challenges”.

The new policy has not yet been formally announced, and Dathan says Rishi Sunak is under pressure from Tory rightwingers to cancel the early release programme. Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary, told the Times that ministers should be open about what was happening. She said:

The Tories have once again used a cloak of secrecy to hide their early release of violent criminals. It’s completely unacceptable and the public has a right to know the truth.

After 14 years of Conservative chaos and the utter mismanagement of the prison estate, the government cannot keep extending the early release of prisoners without facing public scrutiny.

John Swinney said it was a “big surprise” becoming Scotland’s first minister as he arrived at the court of session to be sworn in, the BBC’s David Wallace Lockhart reports.

John Swinney has arrived at the court of session and will shortly be sworn in as first minister.
He said it’s an “enormous privilege” to be in this position, though it’s all come as a “big surprise”

A Green party councillor at the centre of an antisemitism row has apologised “for the upset caused” by his remarks but hit back at “Islamophobic” attacks against him, Eleni Courea reports.

Good morning. We’re a few days on from the local elections, and the party has got a new leader. But that’s the SNP, not the Conservative party, where the much-anticipated, post-locals leadership challenge aimed at Rishi Sunak never materialised. Today he will take PMQs for the first time since the plotters called off the dogs, and accepted that Sunak will lead the party into the next election.

But that does not mean the feuding has stopped, and this morning Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, is launching a bid to push Sunak to the right on immigration policy. He has written a report with Neil O’Brien, another former minister, and Karl Williams, research director at the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank, with more than 30 recommendations that would slam the brakes on mass immigration into the UK. Jenrick is clearly gearing up to run for the leadership after the general election and, as Sam Blewett argues in his London Playbook briefing for Politico, today’s intervention “has the whiff of something planned a while back by the rebel faction”, when it was assumed that this week Sunak would be facing a no confidence vote.

The proposals in Jenrick’s report include: raising the salary threshold for people getting health and social care visas, limiting the number of health and social care visas issued to 30,000 a year (last year 146,000 were issued), abolishing graduate visas for students, setting an annual cap on the number of visas issued a year, and recommitting to reducing net migration to below 100,000 a year.

In an article for the Daily Telegraph, Jenrick says Sunak could implement many of his recommendations before the election. He says the PM should make this a priority, “instead of banning smoking or regulating London’s pedicabs”, to see off the threat from Reform UK. He says:

Instead of banning smoking or regulating London’s pedicabs, the government could use the time left in the parliamentary session to deliver the post-Brexit immigration system voters were promised. We shouldn’t wait to save conservative policies for our manifesto when we are 20 points behind in the polls in an election year – that would be government by posturing and an abdication of duty. The Government has a solid majority and could deliver these today.

The local election results reaffirmed two clear trends, obvious to those of us who spend time on the doorsteps listening to voters. First, Conservative voters feel badly let down and are struggling to find reasons to back us. Second, we are haemorrhaging support to the Reform Party. This is primarily because of mass migration and the allied and growing problem of extremism, although clearly other factors are also at play.

In the precious time we have left before the election, reducing net migration to the 10,000s and delivering the highly-selective immigration system we call for in our report would be the single biggest thing the Government could do to win over these wavering voters.

It would be surprising if none of this comes up at PMQs.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: John Swinney is sworn in in Edinburgh as Scotland’s new first minister. Later in the day he will appoint his cabinet.

9.30am: Former ministers Robert Jenrick and Neil O’Brien launch their report, Taking Back Control, calling for tighter immigration controls at an event organised by the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank, which is publishing the paper.

11am: More in Commons holds a briefing with its assessment of the local elections.

Noon: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

2pm: Sunak is hosting a meeting at No 10 for Tory MPs to discuss the results of the local elections.

If you want to contact me, do use the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.

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Passport e-gates back online after outage causes delays at UK airports - BBC

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By Michael Race & Katy Austin

BBC News

A "nationwide issue" which caused huge delays at passport e-gates has been resolved, the Home Office has said.

Major UK airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Edinburgh all confirmed a Border Force problem was causing delays with arrivals late on Tuesday.

Pictures and videos on social media showed long queues.

One passenger told the BBC he spent longer queuing for passport control than he did on his flight from Lisbon.

E-gates are automated gates that use facial recognition to check a person's identity and allow them to enter the country without talking to a Border Force officer.

There are more than 270 of them in place at 15 air and rail ports in the UK, according to the government's website, which also says they are supposed to "enable quicker travel into the UK".

Due to the outage, staff were left manually processing passengers instead.

Affected airports included London Stansted, Birmingham, Bristol, and Newcastle.

The Home Office, which oversees Border Force, said in a statement early on Wednesday: "eGates at UK airports came back online shortly after midnight."

A spokesperson for the Home Office said the problems were caused by a "system network issue" and were first reported around 19:50BST, meaning the issues persisted for more than four hours.

They added that "at no point was border security compromised, and there is no indication of malicious cyber activity".

They extended apologies to "travellers caught up in disruption" and thanked "partners, including airlines for their co-operation and support" during the outage.

However, the problem did not appear to not just be affecting the e-gates themselves, as Belfast International Airport, which does not have them, said the Border Force "systems" had been impacted.

By Wednesday morning, most flights at airports across the UK were shown to be departing and arriving on time.

Gatwick Airport, South Terminal arrivals

Steven Brownrigg, who arrived on a flight into Manchester Airport, told the BBC there were "several flights in quick succession, which meant a lot of passengers" queueing for passport control.

"I was in the queue for around 90 minutes. Priority was given to families with small children and vulnerable passengers, and staff were handing out bottled water to everyone," he said.

"Generally, most were frustrated but accepted the situation, but a few people were unhappy and questioned staff."

'Totally blank'

A passenger at Heathrow described border officials rushing to manually process passport holders.

"All the e-gates were totally blank and there was just a lot of chaotic scenes," said Sam Morter, 32, who was returning after a holiday in Sri Lanka.

He said he made it through the airport after about 90 minutes.

Samira, who had arrived from Spain, said people were distressed and "everyone was arguing", while Julian, who had flown in from Lisbon, said: "I've spent longer in the terminal than I did in the air."

Dennis Marsh was among the first people affected, and said he saw the e-gates go from green to red.

"It wasn't just e-gates mind you. All manual checking procedures failed too," he said.

"We were given water and were so lucky being right at the front.

"We waited about 40 minutes, so not too bad but thousands were arriving behind us."

Manchester Airport said any excess charges for people who are late to leave car parks as a result of the problems would also be waived.

Tuesday is not the first time the UK's automated e-gates have stopped working. Airports were also impacted by an IT issue in May 2023.

Separately, in August last year, around 2,000 flights at airports across the UK were cancelled when the National Air Traffic Services system for automatically processing flight plans failed, leaving passengers stranded.

Additional reporting by Nicky Schiller

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He pledged to be the "first minister for everyone in Scotland", adding: "I am here to serve you, I will give everything I have to build the best future for our country."

The economy, the NHS and other public services, and "a drive to lift children out of poverty" are his priorities for government.

While Ms Forbes is expected to make a return to cabinet but it is unclear where other ministerial roles will be allocated.

It is also not clear which roles Mr Swinney will keep, though The Times previously reported he intended to have a "slimmed-down" government.

Having confirmed he has no intention of resurrecting a deal with the Greens, Mr Swinney will attempt to pass a budget and other key bills with a minority administration of 63 MSPs.

Until recently Mr Swinney's career on the frontbenches looked to be over.

He stepped down from the cabinet in 2023 after 16 years in key roles under both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

The SNP leader said the decision had been made with his family, expressing "eternal gratitude" to his wife Elizabeth Quigley, who has multiple sclerosis and relies on him for support.

To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.

By Michael Race & Katy Austin

BBC News

A "nationwide issue" which caused huge delays at passport e-gates has been resolved, the Home Office has said.

Airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle and Manchester all confirmed a Border Force problem was causing delays with arrivals late on Tuesday.

Pictures and videos on social media showed long queues.

One passenger told the BBC he spent longer queuing for passport control than he did on his flight from Lisbon.

E-gates are automated gates that use facial recognition to check a person's identity and allow them to enter the country without talking to a Border Force officer.

There are more than 270 of them in place at 15 air and rail ports in the UK, according to the government's website, which also says they are supposed to "enable quicker travel into the UK".

Due to their outage, staff were left manually processing passengers instead.