Health News at Your Fingertips

Turning back to the backlog of asylum applications (see 10.38am), PA Media says data published last week showed the backlog of asylum applications – rather than individuals – stood at 122,585 as of 29 October this year, down 12% from a record 138,782 at the end of February.

The “legacy” backlog of asylum applications (defined as applications submitted before June 2022, when the Nationality and Borders Act came into force) stood at 33,253 as of 29 October, down nearly a half (47%) from 62,157 on 30 July.

To meet Rishi Sunak’s target of clearing the legacy backlog by the end of the year, around 16,630 applications would need to be cleared per month before 31 December.

Some 12,620 were cleared between 24 September and 29 October, and 9,604 cleared between 27 August and 24 September, figures showed.

Dominic Raab, who was foreign secretary at the start of Covid and who stood in for Boris Johnson after he was hospitalised, has been giving evidence to the Covid inquiry this afternoon.

He said he did not accept the claim made by Sajid Javid (see 3.25pm) and others that Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s chief adviser, was really running the government in early 2020. Asked if he agreed with this view, he replied:

No, I don’t … I just don’t accept the characterisation that there was some sort of puppet regime.

Raab also claimed the best decisions were made with the information available at the time. He said:

When I look back, I am very conscious that we made the best decisions, with the science as fluid as it was, at that point in time, and I think that’s the best you can, in good faith, do.

Nottingham city council has issued a section 114 notice, in effect declaring itself bankrupt, as experts warn an increasing number of councils are “reaching breaking point”, Jessica Murray reports.

Starmer to attend Cop28 summit, and expected to stay for longer than Sunak

Aletha Adu

Keir Starmer will attend the Cop28 UN summit in Dubai and stay for talks longer than the prime minister has made time for, as he hopes to “bang the drum for Britain”.

Starmer is keen to demonstrate just how important his party deems the climate crisis is, and use the opportunity to “fight for British investment and jobs”.

The opposition leader is expected to stay in Dubai for crunch talks with world leaders, days longer than the prime minister, to showcase the types of projects he’d hope to get investment for if Labour wins the next election.

Starmer’s attendance at the environmental summit may impress many, given it is the first time an opposition leader has attended a Cop UN summit, especially a year before an expected election, for at least a decade. Ed Miliband did not attend Cop20 in Peru, a year before he stepped down as party leader. Jeremy Corbyn didn’t attend Cop25.

A spokesperson for the Labour leader said:

He aims to fight for Britain to bring jobs and investment which will cut bills, make us energy independent and tackle the climate crisis.”

The transition to net zero is a vital opportunity for the country in terms of jobs, growth and the opportunity that it provides. We believe there are great opportunities for this country in terms of being able to reduce bills, and provide energy security for the country with the drive for renewables.

Q: Will you put up fuel duty next year? Your plans assume it will go up, but if it gets frozen again, as usually happens, then you have lost half of your fiscal headroom.

Hunt says this will be announced next year.

Q: Isn’t it a mistake to make plans on the basis of tax rises that will never happen?

Hunt insists that the freeze in the fuel duty rise is a temporary measure, not a permanent one.

Q: What is going to happen about the HS2 station at Euston? Sir John Armitt, chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, says your plans to get the private sector to fund some of it won’t work.

Hunt says he thinks the project will attract private sector finance.

Q: This is the worst parliament on record for growth in real household income, isn’t it?

Hunt says this parliament has had a once-in-a-century pandemic and an energy shock. The government will be judged by how it responded, he says.

Q: The Bank of England says there is a 50% chance of recession next year.

Last year they were saying we were facing a long recession, Hunt says.

At the Treasury committee Angela Eagle (Lab) says she is concerned about the gap between rhetoric and reality in the autumn statement.

Q: Taxes are up, not down, aren’t they?

Jeremy Hunt says the Resolution Foundation described the tax cuts as the biggest since the 1980s.

Q: The tax cuts are based on implausible spending plans, aren’t they?

Hunt does not accept that.

He says the tax cuts are designed to promote growth.

Q: The OBR has downgraded future growth for the next three years, quite substantially. Why are you cutting public investment?

Hunt says the OBR is not in line with other forecasters on those projections.

Sajid Javid, the former chancellor and former health secretary, has finished his evidence to the Covid inquiry. Here are the key points from what he said.

• Javid said that, when he was chancellor, he felt Dominic Cumming was prime minister “in all but name”. He told the inquiry:

I resigned in February 2020 before the pandemic in large measure because of the actions of Mr Dominic Cummings, who was in post at the time.

I would say during my time as chancellor I considered he sought to act as the prime minister in all but name and he tried to make all key decisions within No 10 – not the prime minister.

I felt that the elected prime minister was not in charge of what was happening in his name and was largely content with Mr Cummings running the government.

Javid also said that at this point it was not unusual for him to get a request from No 10 that turned out to be inspired by what Cummings wanted, not be something Johnson wanted.

Broadly, I think it was a widespread feeling amongst a lot of the political advisers working in number 10, many ministers, that the number 10 operation collectively was quite dysfunctional.

Asked how Johnson’s government compared with previous ones he had served under, he said:

Certainly, I think the the extent of dysfunctionality was something I had not experienced before in any government.

• Javid, as health secretary, was excluded from key meetings at No 10 when the Omicron variant was on the rise, the inquiry heard. The inquiry was shown an excerpt from Sir Patrick Vallance’s diary from December 2021. Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser at the time, said:

Health Secretary not invited to the meeting yesterday – quite extraordinary – Frost and Cx (chancellor) but no SoS (secretary of state) DHSC (Department of Health and social Care) – WTF.

• Johnson referred to people reluctant to return to the office in 2021 as “malingering” and “work-shy”, the inquiry heard. In a diary extract from July 2021, Vallance said:

PM meeting – cases up, hospital admissions up. PM looks downbeat and talks of grim predictions. Saj [Sajid Javid] says ‘we are going to have to learn to live with it’, ‘and die with it’, PM says.

Cx [then chancellor Rishi Sunak] pushes very hard for faster opening up and fuller opening up. Getting rid of all restrictions. Repeats his mantra ‘we either believe in the Vx (vaccine) or we don’t’. I pointed out we would be facing a lockdown now if it was not for the Vx.

PM says what will we do if we make masks voluntary. What will ministers say they will do ‘sometimes I will, sometimes I won’t wear one’. ‘Are we going to encourage people to wear masks? Are we going to continue with this bollocks?’

He says he wants everyone back at work ‘we can’t have the bollocks of consulting with employees and trade unions. They need to come back to work. All the malingering work shy people’. Says how much of CS [civil service] is back ‘how would you be able to tell’ he says. Saj argues for caution.

Basically it is PM and Cx against a more cautious [Michael] Gove and Saj. PM in a bad mood. End by joking ‘please record that you have overcome my natural caution and bullied me into opening up’. The whole meeting was political posturing. CS people worried. CMO and I made risks very clear.

At the Treasury committee, Drew Hendry (SNP) says Hunt’s plans imply a cut in capital investment.

Hunt says there was a big increase in capital spending in previous years. He says he has protected spending in cash terms, but not in real terms.

Baldwin says she and Hunt both rebelled over the decision of the Boris Johnson government to cut aid spending from 0.7% of national income.

Hunt says he is committed to returning aid spending to the 0.7% figure when it is possible.

Baldwin says the autumn statement figures imply that will not happen in the next five years. Hunt confirms that is the case. He says:

I don’t believe it is possible to budget for that [going back up to 0.7%] in the figures, no.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the autumn statement.

Harriett Baldwin, the Conservative chair of the committee, starts the questioning.

She says the Office for Budget Responsibility said yesterday that Hunt’s fiscal rules are the loosest of any set of fiscal rules the Treasury has had since the OBR was set up.

Hunt accepts that, but he says the OBR also said that he faced the tightest set of public finances.

Baldwin puts to Hunt that his fiscal rules are “mañana” ones – because they assume debt falling, but always in the future.

Hunt does not accept that. He says the plan is for debt to fall.