The Times - UK (2022-05-25)

2 2GM Wednesday May 25 2022 | the times

News

DAB RADIO l ONLINE l SMART SPEAKER l APP

To day’s highlights

7.20am 10am

12pm

2.25pm

8.30pm

George Eustice, environment secretary Matt Chorley live in Westminster as Sue Gray publishes her long-awaited report on Downing Street lockdown parties PMQs Unpacked with Patrick Maguire, Times Red Box editor Dr Sam Power, corruption expert, on details to look for in the Gray report The author Damien Lewis, right, on his story of the exotic dancer-turned-spy who changed the Second World War

MPs are to be banned from taking second jobs that involve advising companies on political strategy or parliamentary procedure in a crackdown after the Owen Paterson scandal. MPs will also be barred from promot- ing any company or organisation from which they have received hospitality or paid employment during their parliamentary work. The proposals will not limit MPs’ outside earnings, so long as that income is unrelated to their work as an MP. This would allow a member such as Sir Geoffrey Cox to continue as a barrister. The former Tory attorney-general earned more than £950,000 from his legal work last year. The changes are included in a report by the Commons standards committee published today, which is to be adopted by MPs before the end of summer. It comes after the outcry over the disclosure that Paterson, the former Tory Northern Ireland and environment secretary, lobbied ministers on behalf of two companies for which he was employed as a consultant.

MPs face new rules on second

jobs after Paterson scandal

Oliver Wright Policy Editor Under the proposals the rules will be changed to include an explicit and outright ban on MPs providing paid parliamentary advice, consultancy or strategy services. Previously MPs were banned only from lobbying. At the same time they will be barred from participating in parliamentary proceedings or approaching ministers, other MPs or officials if it could confer a “material benefit” on someone paying them or giving them hospitality. Previously MPs were allowed to “participate” in a meeting or debate but not “initiate” it. The change was intro- duced after Paterson claimed he had not “initiated” the contacts with ministers but merely participated in them. A committee source said: “This makes the rules much more straight- forward and sets very clear standards by which MPs are expected to abide. “Basically, if you have been paid by someone or received hospitality, you should not be doing anything in your day job that could be seen to materially benefit that person or company.” The changes will also toughen up parliamentary disclosure rules for ministers. Previously those who ac-

cepted hospitality connected to their roles did not have to disclose it on the parliamentary register of members’ interests. This will change, and all MPs will be required to declare it on the register. In a concession to MPs the committee agreed that any member found to have breached the new rules would be entitled to appeal and have their case heard by an independent panel led by a former High Court judge. This was a key demand in the Pater- son case and at first led the government to try to overturn the standards committee’s ruling on his behaviour. Chris Bryant, the committee chair- man, urged MPs to read the report in full and to back the recommendations when they come to the Commons for a final decision. “The last year has shown that the public cares passionately about standards in parliament,” he said. “These proposals, if accepted, will not only improve checks and balances on MPs and shine a light on any wrong- doing but will also provide new clarity and support to MPs to avoid inadver- tent breaches of the rules.”

Ministers have accused government lawyers of a “computer says no” attitude and demanded that they get behind controversial policies. Suella Braverman, the attorney- general, has told government legal ad- visers that ministers were willing to take the risk of legal challenges to force through tough action on issues such as cross-Channel migration, and lawyers needed to be “more attuned” to this desire. Cabinet ministers have become increasingly frustrated by legal challenges to policies from those they con- sider to be left-wing activist lawyers. A plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is facing the first of what are expected to

be several legal challenges, arguing that it breaches human rights law. The Queen’s Speech also set out plans to introduce a British Bill of Rights to “restore the balance of power” between ministers and the courts by curbing judicial reviews and stopping legal blocks on the deportation of foreign criminals. Downing Street said that at yesterday’s cabinet meeting Braverman updated ministers on a review of the government legal department. “She said overall performance was high; however, there were instances where advice was too risk-averse or took a ‘computer says no’ approach to dealing with challenging policy areas,” No 10 said. “Following the review the govern-

ment legal department has received revised guidance to ensure they are more attuned to the government’s desire to tackle difficult and long- standing issues.” Boris Johnson’s spokesman said Braverman had not given specific examples but argued that “a number of departments had received advice that on review was deemed to be more risk-averse than was needed and that perhaps didn’t reflect the risk appetite that ministers had”. Braverman recently told Johnson his plan for a bill that would override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol would be legal, despite Labour claims that it would break international law. She argued changes to the protocol were justified to protect peace and the opera- tion of the Good Friday agreement.

Government lawyers are ‘too risk averse’

Chris Smyth Whitehall Editor

the events at No 10. However, allies said he was “impatient” to announce measures to address the cost of living. A source said the package must balance prioritising help for the poorest with offering “some help” to everybody. The main measures are likely to be increases to existing schemes, such as the warm home discount and winter fuel payments, which are targeted at pensioners and those on low incomes. Downing Street and the Treasury are still at odds over whether to scrap the 5 per cent VAT rate on energy bills for all households. No 10 favours a VAT cut, arguing that it is easily understood by voters and could be presented as a Brexit dividend, as such cuts were impossible when Britain was in the EU. The Treasury has warned that VAT cuts are poorly targeted and would cut average bills by only £140 a year. Although Sunak and Johnson now agree on the principles of a windfall tax it is unlikely to include electricity gen- erators, who have also made big profits. Petrol prices rose to a record high yesterday at 163.5p per litre, and the average cost of a litre of diesel was 172.4p. Jonathan Brearley, the chief execu- tive of Ofgem, told MPs that the new price cap had been made necessary by worsening conditions in the global gas

market after Russia invaded Ukraine. The Resolution Foundation think tank said that after the rise almost ten million households would spend at least a tenth of their money on energy. Jonny Marshall, an economist at the foundation, said: “The benefits system

is clearly the best route to support those worst affected in the short term, be that via an early uprating or lump sum payments to help poorer households get through the difficult winter ahead.” Energy scheme delays cost £600, page 12 Energy shares hit, Business, page 35

© TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED, 2022. Published in print and all other derivative formats by Times Newspapers Ltd, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7782 5000. Printed by: Newsprinters (Broxbourne) Ltd, Great Cambridge Rd, Waltham Cross, EN8 8DY; Newsprinters (Knowsley) Ltd, Kitling Rd, Prescot, Merseyside, L34 9HN; Newsprinters (Eurocentral) Ltd, Byramsmuir Road, Holytown, Motherwell, ML1 1NP; Associated Printing (Carn) Ltd, Morton 2 Esky Drive, Carn Industial Estate, Portadown, BT63 5YY; KP Services, La Rue Martel, La Rue des Pres Trading Estate, St Saviour, Jersey, JE2 7QR. For permission to copy articles or headlines for internal information purposes contact Newspaper Licensing Agency at PO Box 101, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1WX, tel 01892 525274, e-mail [email protected]. For all other reproduction and licensing inquiries contact Licensing Department, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7711 7888, e-mail [email protected]

A breezy day with variable cloud,
sunny spells and showers or longer
periods of rain. Full forecast, page 56

THE WEATHER

26

24

29

10

16 16 15

15

13

11

TODAY’S EDITION

COMMENT 27 LETTERS 30 LEADING ARTICLES 31

WORLD 32 BUSINESS 35 REGISTER 51

SPORT 57 CROSSWORD 68 TV & RADIO TIMES

FOLLOW US thetimes timesandsundaytimes thetimes

OFFER

Save up to 33% with a subscription to

The Times and The Sunday Times THETIMES.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBE

Civil servants

vote to strike

Civil servants have
voted to back national
strike action that
would hit airports,
ports, courts and other
key infrastructure.
Britain’s largest civil
service union voted in
favour after taking
issue with a 2 per cent
pay offer and a plan to
cut 91,000 jobs. Page 4

Explain No 10 fines, Met told The mayor of London has demanded that the Metropolitan Police explain its decisions over the No 10 parties scandal. Sadiq Khan invoked a policing protocol that compels the Met to give him information about why Boris Johnson avoided fines. Page 11

Gene-edited food unlabelled Shoppers will be unable to identify gene-edited food under government plans to accelerate the development of crops and livestock with modified DNA and remove the requirement for the foods to be labelled as such. Page 14

Wimbledon ban row deepens Wimbledon is looking into possible legal action against the men’s and women’s tennis tours as the row intensifies over the removal of world ranking points from the event over its ban this year on Russian and Belarusian competitors. Page 68

China ‘shoots

to kill’ Uighurs

The UN’s top human
rights representative
has been urged to
investigate claims
emerging from leaked
documents that China
operated a shoot-to-
kill policy for Uighur
Muslim prisoners who
tried to escape from its
brutal “re-education”
camps. Page 32

Glencore to pay $1.5bn fines Glencore will pay fines of $1.5 billion after admitting to a string of bribery offences around the world, and to manipulating fuel markets in America. Bribery was “built into the corporate culture” at Glencore, the US authorities said yesterday. Page 35

COMMENT

Ask an MP if they would encourage their child to

follow in their footsteps and they look appalled ALICE THOMSON, PAGE 29

Q&A

What is the price cap? It limits the amount that energy companies can charge customers. Until last year people could find deals well below the price cap, which was designed to protect people who did not shop around. It is now, in effect, the benchmark for what every customer pays.

What is the level of the price cap and by how much is it increasing? For a typical household using both gas and electricity it is £1,971 a year, having risen from

£1,277 last month. Ofgem, the regulator, expects it to hit about £2,800 in October. Many customers have had much higher increases in their bills because they were paying well below the cap before the energy crisis began.

What is the government doing to help so far? Rishi Sunak announced this year that all domestic electricity customers would get £200 off their energy bills in October, but there was a catch. The plan was to recover this discount from people’s bills in £40 instalments over the next five years.

Many households will also receive a £ rebate from their council tax bills.

What more will they do? Sunak is likely to announce further measures, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. He is expected to concentrate on help for the poorest households such as increasing winter fuel payments and the warm homes discount. The government may also try to reduce the price rises at source, by removing VAT on energy bills. This would help to curb the inflationary effect of the price rises.

continued from page 1 Help for poor households

Banca do Antfer Telegram: https://t.me/bancadoantfer Issuhub: https://issuhub.com/user/book/ Issuhub: https://issuhub.com/user/book/

The Times - UK (2022-05-25)

Get our desktop app

Company

Features

Documentation

Resources