Health News at Your Fingertips

• James Cleverly, the home secretary, has refused to assure Tory MPs that the government’s new legislation on the Rwanda deportation policy will allow the European convention on human rights to be ignored. (See 3.20pm.)

Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, has said growth potential for the economy is lower than it has been for most of his working life (he joined the Bank in the mid 1980s). In an interview with the Chronicle in Newcastle, he said:

It does concern me that the supply side of the economy has slowed. It does concern me a lot. If you look at what I call the potential growth rates of the economy, there’s no doubt it’s lower than it has been in much of my working life.

Downing Street does not accept this analysis. At this afternoon’s lobby briefing for journalists, asked about what Bailey said, the PM’s spokesperson said the economy would continue “outperforming expectations”. He said:

I think you heard from both the prime minister and the chancellor on the UK’s economic outlook.

We do believe that we have turned a corner, particularly given the success in halving inflation. And you saw an autumn statement which was designed to boost the UK economy with new policies like full expensing, which was long called-for by businesses and we are confident that as a result we will keep outperforming expectations.

In the Commons Alex Cunningham, the Labour MP for Stockton North, is asking a point of order about James Cleverly’s heckle directed at him last week during PMQs. He says Cleverly’s explanation, that he was calling Cunningham a “shit” MP, not Stockton a “shit-hole”, was untrue.

Dame Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, objects to Cunningham saying that Cleverly said something that was not true.

Cunningham says finding alternative wording will be a “challenge”, but he says Cleverly may have inadvertenly misled people.

Laing says Cleverly is in the chamber, and she invites him to respond via his own point of order.

Cleverly rises, and says he did not make derogatory remarks about Stockton. He says he did not, would not and would never say something like that. He says he did make a derogatory remark about Cunningham and has apologised for that.

In response to heckling claiming that what he is saying is not true, he asks: “What are you saying, sir?” (He knows that the rules of debate do not allow MPs to call each other liars.)

Cunningham rises again. He says he does not need an apology for an insult against him “because it didn’t happen”. And he says Cleverly has not even apologised directly to him, or to the people of his constituency. He says Cleverly has just apologised for using unparliamentary language.

Laing says it is up to Cunningham whether he accepts the apology or not. But she required an apology for unparliamentary language, she says.

UPDATE: Cleverly said:

I know what I said. I rejected the accusation that I criticised his constituency.

My criticism, which I made from a sedentary position, about the honourable gentleman used inappropriate language for which I apologise.

But I will not accept that my criticism was of his constituency because it was not.

In his evidence this afternoon Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, also referred to a minute from the government’s Covid-O committee, which was responsible for Covid operational matters. Burnham summarised it as proposing a “punishment beating for Greater Manchester”. He quoted a passage from the minute saying:

Lancashire should have a lighter set of measures imposed than Greater Manchester since they had shown a greater willingness to co-operate. Tougher measures should be imposed on Greater Manchester that day.

Burnham went on:

Because we stood up for people in our city region who would otherwise have really struggled had they gone into that lockdown without the funds to help them, because we took that stand they decided to make an example of us.

It’s unbelievable for me now to look at evidence saying they knew it didn’t work, they knew tier 3 didn’t work.

They knew that, but they were still going to impose it on us without enough financial support.

As PA Media reports, the tier system was introduced in October 2020 and imposed different restrictions on English regions in an effort to contain the spread of Covid-19. The system was, however, unable to stem infections and a month-long national lockdown was introduced in November 2020, followed by a stricter tier system in December.

Burnham had argued that those unable to work because of regional restrictions should receive 80% of their salary under the furlough scheme, rather than the 67% suggested by the government, PA says.

Burnham also told the inquiry that he thought it was “disgraceful” that the same Covid-O minutes described his own behaviour during his row with Westminster over the policy as “appalling”. Burnham said:

I have seen that minute, the Covid-O minute, and frankly it’s nothing short of disgraceful, the points that were made in that minute.

It wasn’t me that was behaving appallingly, it was the people in that room that were behaving appallingly because they were about to impose a policy on Greater Manchester which they knew didn’t work.

And that’s something that I’ve only now realised looking at other people’s statements to this inquiry, and it makes me angry on behalf of the people of Greater Manchester that they sat in that room and they imposed a policy that they had been advised by Sage and others would not work.

Matt Hancock knew tier 3 restrictions would not work when he imposed them on Greater Manchester, the Covid inquiry heard this afternoon.

This came out during Andy Burnham’s evidence, when the Greater Manchester mayor quoted from the written statement to the inquiry given by Hancock, the former health secretary. Burnham said:

[Hancock] says in his evidence about tier 3: ‘I was in despair that we had announced a policy that we knew would not work.’

In the Commons James Cleverly, the home secretary, also said he thought the police had got more robust in policing pro-Palestinian demonstrations and that that was welcome.

In response to a question from Sir Desmond Swayne (Con), who asked what was being done to reassure Jewish people that they were safe in the UK, Cleverly replied:

I have made it very, very clear to the police forces of the UK that when a minority group in this country tells us they are living in fear that we must take action.

I’m pleased that the policing response this weekend was more robust than in previous weekends. The police are clearly listening to the conversations we are having with them and I commend them for doing so.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, held a breakfast meeting this morning with 35 of the global business leaders and investors attending the government’s global investment summit. According to a press notice sent out by Labour, some of those present welcomed the party’s focus on growth. Labour said:

Several attendees expressed their relief that economic growth has returned to the centre of the public debate and noted Labour’s role in bringing about that change, driven by the launch of its number one mission for government, to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7.

In addressing the question of what was needed for the UK to be a more attractive destination for investment, the global business leaders and investors talked about the need for stability and certainty, the need for planning reform to speed up the delivery of infrastructure projects, the need for a less bureaucratic approach from Whitehall with clear political direction on priorities and the need to ensure access to talent with the skills businesses in the UK need.

Several attendees also praised the engagement and welcomed Labour undertaking these conversations in opposition to ensure we were as prepared as possible.

At the Covid inquiry Steve Rotheram, the mayor of Liverpool city region, is giving evidence now. He is being questioned by Joanne Cecil, counsel for the inquiry.

Rotheram says in the first wave he was routinely given no advance warning by the UK government ahead of restrictions being introduced.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, would not reveal the cost of the government’s appeal to the supreme court over its Rwanda policy in the Commons.

In response to a question from the SNP’s Steven Bonnar on what the legal costs were, Cleverly replied:

The funding of the Home Office will be reported in the usual and the appropriate way. I don’t have the figures to hand, but I will make sure the house will be updated of the costs.

In the Commons Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, says Cleverly has made a series of errors in his first two weeks in post. She says he said the number of asylum seekers in hotels is down. But figures out four days ago showed them at a record high, at 56,000, she says.

Cleverly says he has only been in the job for 14 days. He cannot solve all the problems immediately, he says (missing the point Cooper was making about a false claim).

Cooper describes Cleverly as Colonel Calamity. Given his enthusiasm for profanities, she asks him to accept that he is “up a certain kind of creek without a paddle”.

Cleverly says he admires Cooper, but she has failed to ask a sensible question. He says this shows Labour has nothing to say on immigration.

Sir Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, told Cleverly in the Commons that it was his “profound conviction” that, to be effective, the Rwanda legislation would have to allow the disapplication of parts of the European convention on human rights.

Cleverly told Clarke he was making an “incredibly important point”, but he said he did not want to prejudge what would be in the bill. He said he wanted to do everything he could stop to break the business model used by people smugglers.

Earlier he also refused to give two other Tory MPs the firm assurance they wanted on the ECHR. (See 3.14pm.)