Minister says government considering plan to quash all unsafe Post Office convictions – UK politics live

Police chiefs believe “senior political figures” are subjecting them to improper pressure or interference, the official policing inspectorate today says.

The finding will be seen as a direct reference to the former home secretary Suella Braverman and comes after the government and senior officers clashed over the policing of protests.

Braverman had asked Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services to examine alleged political bias in policing. Today the inspectorate released an update via a letter to the current home secretary James Cleverly.

In November government wanted a pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day in central London to be stopped, but police insisted there were no powers to do so.

Police in the United Kingdom are supposed to be operationally independent from interference from politicians.

In a letter released today, Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary wrote:

One of the most consistent themes in the evidence we have obtained so far is the extent to which senior national political figures directly or indirectly influence, or attempt to influence, police operations.

Senior police leaders told us that when this takes place in public, it makes it harder to maintain an appearance of impartiality. Most senior officers told us that they experience what they believe to be improper pressure or interference from significant political figures, whether through direct contact or through the media. Many cited this commission and the associated correspondence as one example of this …

Recent events concerning the policing of protests have highlighted the need for greater understanding as to what is meant by the term ‘operational independence’.

The inquiry was ordered last year in a letter to the inspectorate in September 2023 Setting out her reasons, Braverman said:

I am concerned that public displays of allegiance with political causes opens some forces up to accusations of virtue-signalling, and that related activity by others (such as staff networks), is having a negative effect on community confidence.

That effect may be felt by either distracting policing from its core role of preventing and detecting crime and bringing offenders to justice or by giving the impression that policing is distracted from that role. The essential function of the police is to uphold the law. I am concerned that resources which might otherwise have been allocated to dealing with thefts, robberies and assaults are giving way to other activities. Further, that when officers adopt or participate in political or social campaigns, for example, by taking the knee, they risk losing the support of the public. This is not common sense policing.

Braverman was sacked as home secretary in Novermber, just after the pro-Palestinian march went ahead with far right elements clashing with police. Braverman had publicly claimed just before the march that police appeared to treat the rightwing demonstrators more harshly than those associated with progressive causes, a claim largely derided.

The letter from Cooke says the full report will be finished this year, and not as hoped by December 2023.

There are two byelections coming up in Tory seats, in Wellinborough, where Peter Bone had a majority of 18,540 in 2019, and in Kingswood, where Chris Skidmore’s majority was 11,220. According to Politico, the government is expected to move the writs for both byelections tomorrow, with Thursday 15 February earmarked as the date for both of them.

Yesterday Labour selected as its candidate Damian Egan. The Kingswood consituency is disappearing at the next election because of the boundary review, and Egan is also lined up as Labour’s candidate for Bristol North East, which takes in large chunk of the Kingswood seat, at the general election. LabourList has a profile of Egan here.

The Commons authorities have announced that there will be an urgent question on “compensation and outstanding matters relating to the Post Office Horizon scandal” at around 12.30pm, just after PMQs. The UQ has been tabled by the Conservative MP David Davis.

This helps to explain why, in his interview with the Today programme this morning, Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for postal services, was not able to confirm that he would be attending the meeting of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board due to take place at 1.30pm. Hollinrake told the programme that he was not sure what parliamentary duties he would have in the afternoon that might stop him going.

This morning the Daily Telegraph has splashed on a story claiming that one of the key engineers who designed the flawed Horizon IT system that led to sub-post office operators being wrongly convicted is saying he won’t give evidence to the inquiry into the scandal unless he gets immunity.

Asked about the story in an interview this morning, Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for postal services, said:

That’s absolutely the wrong approach for that person to take if those reports are true. The statutory inquiry does have the power to make sure that witnesses do give evidece, but clearly our crime agencies and police definitely have that power.

The estimated cost of building HS2 between London and Birmingham has soared to as much as £66.6bn, HS2 Ltd executive chairman Sir Jon Thompson said.

As PA Media reports, Thompson told the Commons transport committee this morning that the estimated cost for phase 1 is between £49bn and £56.6bn at 2019 prices, but adjusting the range for current prices involves “adding somewhere between £8bn and £10bn”. He went on:

It is the government’s longstanding policy that infrastructure estimates are only updated at spending review points, that’s my understanding of it.

So that’s why we’re still working to 2019 prices and the whole conversation about 2019, which is to be frank with you an administrative burden of some significance in the organisation.

Here is the Commons paper with the latest amendments tabled to the Rwanda bill. Dan Bloom has been taking a look for Politico’s London Playbook. He says:

Some 35 right-wingers so far are behind an amendment by Tory veteran Bill Cash (amendment number 10) to put “notwithstanding” clauses back in the bill — letting it defy international law.

They’re also backing a flood of amendments by ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick, including to … block most “suspensive claims” by migrants against their removal (19-22) … disapply the Human Rights Act to the new bill and last year’s Illegal Migration Act (11-18) … and make it the “default” that “rule 39” orders from the European court of human rights are not binding (23-25).

Rishi Sunak is braced for a Commons showdown over his Rwanda plan after being warned by Tory MPs that the proposal will not work unless it is significantly beefed up, PA Media reports. PA says:

As the right wing of the Conservative party gears up for a parliamentary battle, the prime minister was warned by the former immigration minister Robert Jenrick that the plan “simply doesn’t work” in its current form.

Dozens of rightwing Conservatives are backing amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill aimed at effectively ignoring international law and to severely limit individual migrants’ ability to resist being put on a flight to Kigali.

Jenrick refused to say whether he would vote for the legislation if it were not rewritten.

“This is the third piece of legislation in three years. It’s three strikes or you’re out, we’ve got to get this right,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today this morning.

The measures Jenrick and his allies are pushing would end what he called the “merry-go-round of individual claims whereby illegal migrants claim every possible defence in order to frustrate their removal to Rwanda” and would prevent flights being grounded by emergency injunctions from the European court of human rights.

The government’s bill and a treaty with Rwanda are intended to make the scheme legally watertight following a supreme court ruling against the plan.

But Jenrick said: “[The] government’s reported legal advice is that the bill has a 50% chance at best of getting a single flight off to Rwanda before the general election. When the stakes are so high for the country I don’t think that’s acceptable. We need to make sure it’s much more rigorous than that.”

Jenrick said the amendments aimed at toughening up the Rwanda bill were in line with international law, one of the tests set by Sunak for any changes as the Kigali government has warned the deal could fall apart if the UK breaks international conventions.

Former home secretary Suella Braverman, who backs the changes put forward by Jenrick and Sir Bill Cash, said: “To not adopt these amendments, and introduce another failing bill, will be a betrayal of the British people.”

Writing in the Daily Mail, she said: “As drafted, this bill will not stop the boats. The government’s own lawyers have also reportedly advised that the scheme, as currently laid out, is fundamentally flawed. They rightly conclude that it will be bogged down with individual legal challenges from migrants.”

Ministers decided to prioritise driving over active travel because of worries among ministers about “15-minute cities”, documents seen by the Guardian show. They indicate that a significant shift in transport policy was guided at least in part by conspiracy theories. Peter Walker has the story here.

Good morning. Kevin Hollinrake, a minister in the department for business, has been doing a morning interview round this morning. Normally when a junior minister does the morning interview round they end up being asked topics about which they know not much more than you or me, but today the interviews were a bit more illuminating than normal. Hollinrake is minister for postal services, and so he is well briefed on the story of the day, but he is also an MP who was taking an interest in the Post Office Horizon scandal even before he joined the government.

Rishi Sunak is taking PMQs at noon and, after Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, told MPs yesterday that an announcement about a possible move to quash all the unsafe Post Office convictions in one go might be coming soon, there is intense speculation that Sunak will unveil the news in the chamber. Prime ministers always like to be identified with “good” government announcements, and having a “story” like this up your sleeve is a very useful defence mechanism at PMQs. In his interviews Hollinrake did not confirm that the announcement would come today, but he said it was “very, very close”.

He also claimed that this was not soley a response to the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which propelled this long-running scandal to the very top of the news agenda. In an interview on the Today programme, when Justin Webb put it to him that the government was previously not interested in a blanket move quashing all these unsafe convictions, and that “the only thing that has changed is the ITV drama”, Hollinrake replied:

Not true. We’ve been looking at this for some time. The advisory board we work closely with is very engaged in this. We’ve been dissatisfied with a number of people have come forward trying to overturn those convictions. So this has been something we’ve been deliberating for some time.

Hollinrake was referring to the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. This is due to meet today at 1.30pm, and that may be one factor that prevents a PMQs announcement, because the government will want to have its approval for whatever it announces.

In his Today interview Hollinrake said he welcomed the decision by Paula Vennells, the former Post Office boss, to hand back her CBE. But he could not explain why she was given the award in 2019, when a great deal was already known about the unsafe conditions. Hollinrake said giving her the CBE in the first place “was a mistake”.

Vennells is now under pressure to give back the bonuses she received for her work as head of the Post Office. The Daily Mail has splashed on this idea approvingly.

Hollinrake did not support calls for Vennells to have to return bonus payments – or at least not now. He told Today:

One thing we should not have is trial by media. I think we should let the inquiry run its course. It should report and identify individuals and organisations responsible. At that point in time then sanctions can be placed on those individuals.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.30am: Chris Philp, the policing minister, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about the impact of police commissioners.

10.30am: Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, gives evidence to the Commons business committee about investment zones and freeports.

12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

2.15pm: Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee.

3pm: Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, and other experts give evidence to the joint committee on human rights on the Rwanda bill.

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