Key events
Today the BBC is reporting that Javad Marandi, a businessman whose foreign companies were part of a global money laundering investigation, is a major donor to the Conservative party. Marandi, who strongly denies wrongdoing and who is not subject to criminal sanctions, has been named after losing a legal battle with the BBC to protect his anonymity.
There will be an urgent question on the case at 12.30pm, tabled by the SNP MP Alison Thewliss.
FROM 1230 TODAY
UQ – @alisonthewliss – Asking for a statement on the implications of the National Crime Agency’s investigation into Mr Javad Marandi
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) May 16, 2023
Labour dismisses Sunak’s food security summit as ‘little more than stunt’
Helena Horton
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called on the government to halt rocketing food prices, as Rishi Sunak holds a summit with farmers and producers in Downing Street today.
Analysis by Labour of the government’s statistical dataset of the average price of wholesale home-grown vegetables shows that British-grown tomatoes now cost 67% more than they did at the same time in 2019. In the 19th week of 2019 the average wholesale price for a kilogram of cherry tomatoes cost £1.79; the latest price in May 2023 stands at £3.
The rocketing prices also include a 109% increase for the price of a head of cauliflower, a 95% increase on asparagus, an 82% increase on strawberries and 62% on leeks.
Analysis by the Liberal Democrats has also found that even though the wholesale prices on basic products such as bread-making wheat, fruit and veg have tumbled in recent months, prices for consumers in supermarkets have continued to soar. The party has called for the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate the big supermarket chains and multinational food manufacturers, to increase pressure for lower food prices. Analysis by the Lib Dems also revealed that the cost of a typical weekly shop has soared by £604 a year.
Jim McMahon, the shadow environment secretary, branded the summit a “stunt” and called for the government to provide an annual report on food security. He told the Guardian:
Rishi Sunak’s food summit is little more than a stunt to hide years of inaction from his government.
The Tories’ shambolic handling of food security has resulted in huge vegetable price increases across the country.
Labour is clear, food security is national security. That’s why we held an emergency food security summit in February and have set out that we will support farmers and domestic food production by ensuring that we buy, make and sell more great British food.
Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey added:
No ifs, no buts, supermarkets must cut these basic prices now.
Rishi Sunak needs to grow a spine and stand up for struggling families and pensioners by demanding supermarkets slash prices. They have no excuses, wholesale prices are down, yet food prices are up, with their profits soaring.
No chlorinated chicken or hormone-fed beef in future trade deals, Sunak vows
Rishi Sunak has vowed to take chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef off British tables in future trade deals, promising to put UK farming at the heart of government trade policy, Lisa O’Carroll reports.
England’s nine- and 10-year-olds have taken fourth place in a major international literacy study comparing the reading ability of children of the same age in 43 different countries, up from joint eighth place last time assessments were carried out, Sally Weale and Richard Adams report.
RCN chief Pat Cullen says government rhetoric about migration ‘sickens’ her and more welcoming language needed
Pat Cullen, the Royal College of Nursing general secretary, will use her speech to the RCN conference later to launch a strong attack on the government’s policy on immigration. According to extracts released in advance, she will say:
Diversity is one of our many strengths as a profession. In this hall alone there will be colleagues who completed their education, and perhaps started their careers, in Africa, in Asia, in the Americas.
Whether somebody comes to this country ready to work as a highly skilled nurse; or they arrive as a political refugee from war or persecution; or they simply want a new and prosperous life in the UK, they are beyond welcome.
That should not need saying. But the way this government talks about migration sickens me. Our country deserves a better, more informed and celebratory national conversation. Especially, in this anniversary year of Windrush.
Sunak says current international system for dealing with refugees ‘not working’ ahead of Council of Europe summit
Rishi Sunak has said the current international system for dealing with refugees is not working. In a statement issued before his attendance later today at the Council of Europe summit, he said:
Every single point on each route used by people traffickers to smuggle people across our continent represents another community struggling to deal with the human cost of this barbaric enterprise.
It is very clear that our current international system is not working, and our communities and the world’s most vulnerable people are paying the price.
We need to do more to cooperate across borders and across jurisdictions to end illegal migration and stop the boats.
I am clear that as an active European nation with a proud history helping those in need, the UK will be at the heart of this.
Sunak wants to use the summit to in effect internationalise his “stop the boats” campaigning, seeking agreement on legal changes that would help the government in what it is trying to achieve. In the overnight briefing No 10 does not give much detail as to what he wants to achieve, but it says he will focus on the European court of human rights’s rule 39, that allows it to issue injunctions like the one used last year to stop the first deportations to Rwanda. No 10 says:
We need to ensure we have an international legal system which allows sovereign countries to take the domestic steps necessary to help those most in need. That includes reform to the ECHR’s Rule 39 process to ensure proper transparency, greater accountability and ensuring decisions can be reconsidered.
One potential difficulty is that a government amendment to the illegal migration bill would give ministers the right to ignore rule 39 orders anyway. Some Council of Europe partners may be less keen on changing the rules to help the UK if they think the UK has signalled it does not feel bound by those rules in the first place.
UK schools minister promises to review Sats paper that left pupils ‘in tears’
Nick Gibb, the schools minister, has promised to review a controversial Sats paper, which is said to have left some pupils “in tears”, after teachers and parents expressed widespread concern about the difficulty of the test, Sally Weale reports.
Michael Gove claims Labour’s plan to extend voting rights would ‘downgrade ultimate privilege of British citizenship’
Good morning. Rishi Sunak is off to Iceland later, where he will be attending a rare meeting of leaders from Council of Europe countries (only the fourth of its kind since the Council of Europe was set up after the second world war) and where he will seek to internationalise his government’s “stop the boats” campaign, pushing for changes to the international legal system that might help countries like the UK.
But while Sunak is out of the country, the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference will continue. It is championing a brand of flag, faith and family conservatism that is quite different from the liberal Cameroon conservatism that was dominant in the party at least until Brexit, and quite where Sunak stands on all this is not entirely all clear. (He is a proper social conservative, but he may have qualms about some of the more Trumpian elements of all this, and No 10 strategists do not believe that that oddball culture warmongering is an election winning strategy.)
Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, was once the leading idealogue for Cameroon conservatism, but he is shifted in recent years and this afternoon he is the star turn at the NatCon shindig. Overnight, he has delighted the Daily Mail by launching an attack on the plan being floated by Labour to extend the right to vote to EU nationals and 16- and 17-year-olds. In a letter to Keir Starmer seen by the paper, Gove says:
Why do you think it’s right to downgrade the ultimate privilege of British citizenship – the right to vote in a general election?
What do you say to those who say that your approach is designed to undermine Brexit – and ‘rig’ the voting system for national elections and referendums?
Is it still your view that the ‘age of adulthood in most cases’ is 18, or is this another area where you have changed your approach?
Of course, as levelling up secretary Gove played a major role in the introduction of the Elections Act, which arguably restricted “the ultimate privilege of British citizenship” because it said people could not vote without photo ID. Yesterday Jacob Rees-Mogg told the NatCon conference that this amounted to gerrymandering. With luck, Gove will be asked to respond today.
In an LBC interview yesterday Keir Starmer stressed that the party has not taken a final decision about extending the franchise, but he explained why he could see the case for extending it to EU nationals who have been living in the UK for a long time, and to 16- and 17-year-olds.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet. He is also hosting a Farm to Fork summit on food security at No 10.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Lords protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland committee.
11.45am: Pat Cullen, the Royal College of Nursing general secretary, gives a speech to the RCN conference.
2pm: Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, speaks at the National Conservatism conference in London.
Afternoon: Sunak attends the Council of Europe summit in Iceland.
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