Health News at Your Fingertips

Leslie Thomas KC, counsel for the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations (FEMHO), asked Sunak if he accepted that he exacerbated health inequalities by putting minority ethnic workers in a position where they had to work in environments where they were at risk of infection.

Sunak did not accept that. He said the “eat out to help out scheme” protected people’s jobs.

Rajiv Menon KC, who represents charities for children, is asking the questions now. He asks Sunak to accept the government was wrong to initially refuse to back Marcus Rashford’s call for poorer pupils to get free school meals during the holidays.

Sunak says the government did eventually fund the programme.

Q: Did you personally oppose this idea?

Sunak says that even when the pandemic supported ended, permanent programmes were put in place that were more generous than what had gone before.

Q: In his diary, Sir Patrick Vallance recalls someone saying: “Good working people pay for their children to eat and we don’t want freeloaders.”

Sunak says that was not him. And he says he did not hear anyone saying that.

Claire Mitchell KC, on behalf of Scottish Covid bereaved, shows the inquiry an excerpt from a letter from Nicola Sturgeon to the PM sent in September 2020 saying Scotland did not have enough financial autonomy to finance its own health measures.

Sunak repeats the point he made in relation to Wales about how as chancellor he gave the devolved administrations more flexibility.

Gowman shows another extract from Drakeford’s statement, in which he claims that Treasury was acting on behalf of England, not the whole of the UK.

Again, Sunak says he does not accept this. He repeats the point about how allowed devolved adminstrations to get Barnett money earlier than normal. (See 3.45pm.)

Gowman shows an extract from the witness statement from Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister. He said Wales could have implemented its circuit breaker lockdown earlier if it had been guaranteed financial support.

Sunak does not accept this point. He says the UK government set up a special procedure during Covid to allow devolved adminstrations to access Barnett money (their equivalent for money going to England) early.

At the Covid inquiry, Rishi Sunak is now beinq questioned by Nia Gowman, counsel for Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru.

She asks if the Welsh government had the option of opting out of the “eat out to help out” scheme.

Sunak says the Welsh government never asked to opt out of scheme.

Q: Doesn’t that show that they weren’t consulted?

Sunak says it was a matter for Westminster; he says there was no reason to consult the Welsh government about it. But they did not object, he says.

Yousaf accuses Cameron of being ‘petty’ after he threatens withdrawal of Foreign Office support for Scottish ministers

Libby Brooks

Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, has accused the new foreign secretary, David Cameron, of being “really petty and frankly misguided” after he threatened to withdraw Foreign Office support for Scottish ministers in an ongoing row about the SNP government’s international outreach.

Cameron wrote to the Scottish government warning it was a breach of protocol after Yousaf discussed the Gaza conflict and other matters with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, at the Cop28 summit without UK officials.

Yousaf’s response on Monday morning came after briefings that Cameron wanted to take a “harder line” with the Scottish government than his predecessor, James Cleverly, who issued a similar threat after Yousaf met the Icelandic prime minister in August in New York, also without UK diplomats present.

Dismissing the intervention from an “unelected lord”, Yousaf said:

Scotland is the part of the UK, outside of London, that has attracted the most foreign direct investment for eight years in a row. That happens because the Scottish government’s international engagement is valued [and] has impact.

To threaten to curtail that, to stop that international engagement – the international engagement from the elected Scottish government from an unelected lord – I think is misguided and petty.

Yousaf has of course been outspoken in his calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, making often emotional pleas when his own in-laws were trapped under blockade for several weeks. But Cameron’s letter is understood to evidence ongoing disquiet about Yousaf’s position in contrast to current UK government policy.

Back at the Covid inquiry, Hugo Keith KC is now asking Rishi Sunak about claims that the Treasury was seen as the “pro-death” squad.

Sunak says he was not aware of that. And he says that is not a “fair characterisation”.

I do not think it is a fair characterisation on the incredibly hardworking people that I was lucky to be supported by at the Treasury.

Keith said officials in No 10 described the Treasury as the “pro-death squad”, but he did not mention the fact that Boris Johnson himself used the term. At an earlier hearing the inquiry was read an extract from Sir Patrick Vallance’s diary which said:

The PM is on record as saying that he wants tier 3, 1 March; tier 2, 1 April; tier 1, 1 May; and nothing by September, and he ends up by saying the team must bring in ‘the pro-death squad from HMT’.

Mark Francois, the chair of the European Research Group, has suggested the government should pull its Rwanda bill and produce a new version before the second reading vote. (See 2.11pm.) He told GB News:

This bill means that individuals can keep tying the government up in legal knots. That’s why it needs to be redrafted.

The bill, because of the shape of it, because of its style, its legal structure would be quite difficult to amend.

I very much hope that, rather than plough on and damn the torpedoes, the government will listen, exercise common sense, pull the legislation and come back with something that is fit for purpose.

We’ve had two previous legislative attempts at this. The nationalities and borders bill that didn’t quite work, the illegal immigration bill that didn’t quite work.

This really is the last chance so the government would be well advised to get it right.

Keith asks Sunak about a line in the Spectator interview where Sunak said, referring to Sage: “If you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed.”

Sunak says he was referring to the need for policy decisions to be taken by politicians. And he suggests there may be a case for an economic counterpoint to Sage.