No 10 says Starmer will not offer reparations or apology over Britain’s position in slavery at Commonwealth summit
As Eleni Courea reviews, Keir Starmer is below stress from Labour MPs and Caribbean governments to open the door to reparatory justice when he travels to Samoa this week.
On the Downing Road foyer briefing, the prime minister’s spokesperson mentioned the federal government remained against the thought of paying reparations for Britain’s historic position within the slave commerce. The spokesperson additionally mentioned there can be no apology on the Commonwealth heads of presidency assembly (Chogm) this week.
He mentioned:
Reparations should not on the agenda for the Commonwealth heads of presidency assembly. The federal government’s place on this has not modified, we don’t pay reparations.
The prime minister’s attending this week’s summit to debate shared challenges and alternatives confronted by the Commonwealth together with driving progress throughout our economies.
Requested about an apology, the spokesperson mentioned:
The place on apology stays the identical. We gained’t offer an apology at Chogm, however we are going to proceed to interact with companions on the problems as we work with them to sort out the urgent challenges of right now and certainly for the long run generations.
Key occasions
No 10 says making anonymised NHS information obtainable to corporations for medical analysis may present important advantages for sufferers
On the Downing Road foyer briefing the prime minister’s spokesperson was requested in regards to the plan for digital “affected person passports”, and what can be executed to cease random NHS staff with the ability to learn the data. Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, got here below stress when requested about this on the At this time programme. (See 9.43am.) Requested about the identical difficulty, the spokesperson mentioned:
The info invoice will introduce robust safety protocols to guard information, and all NHS organisations have gotten robust governance preparations in place.
However what this information invoice may even do is rework sufferers’ expertise, and that’s clearly placing sufferers on the coronary heart of our reforms.
However the spokesperson additionally mentioned that any information shared with organisations outdoors the NHS for medical analysis functions can be anonymised. There would even be safety protocols too, he mentioned. He went on:
However we do suppose that there’s important alternative on this area, inside these parameters and with these strict controls, to drive analysis and game-changing improvements that can in the end be a profit to sufferers within the NHS.
Some journalists have been monitoring responses to the NHS consultation launched by Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting this morning, they usually’re noting that not everyone seems to be partaking critically.
From the Occasions’s Chris Smyth
From Katy Balls on the Spectator
From Christian Calgie on the Specific
And these are from James Ball from the New European
I’d think about someplace within the Division of Well being there’s a civil servant at the moment feeling *extraordinarily* vindicated over their try to clarify why session responses aren’t normally simply instantly made public.
(Among the many many causes is that they’re extraordinarily game-able by stress teams, who suppose flooding them with comparable responses is in any method helpful, and many others)
No 10 geese query about whether or not Britain traditionally responsible of genocide in Australia
On the Downing Road foyer briefing the PM’s spokesperson was additionally requested if Keir Starmer agreed that Britain was traditionally responsible of genocide in Australia, as an Indigenous Australian senator mentioned when she hecked King Charles at Parliament Home in Canberra. Lidia Thorpe informed Charles:
You dedicated genocide towards our individuals. Give us our land again. Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our infants, our individuals.
Requested if Britain was responsible of genocide in Australia, the spokesperson mentioned he wouldn’t be drawn on feedback made in relation to royal issues. However he mentioned Britain’s relationship with Australia was “improbable” and that it was a key ally.
No 10 says Starmer will not offer reparations or apology over Britain’s position in slavery at Commonwealth summit
As Eleni Courea reviews, Keir Starmer is below stress from Labour MPs and Caribbean governments to open the door to reparatory justice when he travels to Samoa this week.
On the Downing Road foyer briefing, the prime minister’s spokesperson mentioned the federal government remained against the thought of paying reparations for Britain’s historic position within the slave commerce. The spokesperson additionally mentioned there can be no apology on the Commonwealth heads of presidency assembly (Chogm) this week.
He mentioned:
Reparations should not on the agenda for the Commonwealth heads of presidency assembly. The federal government’s place on this has not modified, we don’t pay reparations.
The prime minister’s attending this week’s summit to debate shared challenges and alternatives confronted by the Commonwealth together with driving progress throughout our economies.
Requested about an apology, the spokesperson mentioned:
The place on apology stays the identical. We gained’t offer an apology at Chogm, however we are going to proceed to interact with companions on the problems as we work with them to sort out the urgent challenges of right now and certainly for the long run generations.
Voters overwhelmingly in favour of employers’ NICs going up if cash going to NHS, polling for Labour thinktank suggests
Most voters will again an increase in employers’ nationwide insurance coverage contributions if the cash goes in direction of the NHS, in line with polling commissioned by a Labour thinktank.
The YouGov polling means that, when persons are simply requested in the event that they approve or disapprove of an increase in employers’ NICs, they disapprove by 40% to 30%.
However when persons are requested if they might approve this tax going as much as fund healthcare and the NHS, they’re in favour by 69% to 18%.
Individuals who voted Labour on the election are much more supportive, with 85% of them approving of the thought, the polling suggests. And individuals who voted Labour within the 2024 election having voted Conservative in 2019 are additionally 82% in favour.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has strongly hinted that employers’ NICs will go up within the finances. She has mentioned that this tax was not covered by the Labour manifesto promise to not put up nationwide insurance coverage typically.
The polling was commissioned by Labour Collectively, a thintank and marketing campaign group partly arrange by Morgan McSweeney, who’s now Keir Starmer’s chief of employees. It’s centered on prompting insurance policies that can assist the get together to hold on successful elections.
YouGov additionally explored what different causes may make individuals help an increase in employers’ NICs. Extra cash for well being was by far probably the most highly effective motivator, however individuals would additionally again employers’ NICs going up if informed the cash can be used for training, for tax cuts or for the police.
But when informed the cash was happening defence, on chopping the nationwide debt or on giving public sectors a pay rise, they weren’t in favour.
Matt Upton, director of coverage at Labour Collectively, mentioned:
Time and time once more in polls and focus teams, voters throughout the nation have informed us that Labour should ship on their key priorities: the NHS and price of residing. If it doesn’t, it faces immediate dismissal on the subsequent election.
This polling exhibits that voters are overwhelmingly keen to again a possible tax rise like this on enterprise, if the cash is spent on the issues they care most about.
Crucially for Labour strategists, help for that is even larger amongst those that switched from the Tories in 2019 to Labour in 2024.
This group, although small in quantity, have been decisive at this election and shall be once more on the subsequent one if Labour is to win a second time period.
Robert Jenrick, the Tory management candidate, has referred to as for manadory life sentences for members of grooming gangs. In an interview with GB Information, he mentioned:
The general public need motion now. They’re sick of this. It is a ethical stain on our nation, that 1000’s of youngsters have been abused on this method and public officers have turned a blind eye to it.
What we’d like is motion now to attempt to eradicate this, as a result of solely a idiot would imagine this isn’t occurring right now on our streets someplace in our nation.
What I wish to see are obligatory life sentences for these despicable predators, so that you just’re not out in 14 years, as the present legislation suggests, or much less, however really you’re by no means out of jail once more.
I need these of those predators who should not British residents to be faraway from our nation with obligatory deportations, and the general public officers who flip a blind eye for concern of racism or group relations, I need them to be prosecuted and barred from working within the public sector ever once more.
Ex-council chief govt who needed to apologise for anti-monarchy remark turns into SNP’s performing chief govt
Severin Carrell
A former council chief govt who needed to apologise for attacking monarchists as bigots and xenophobes has been appointed the Scottish Nationwide get together’s performing chief govt.
Carol Beattie, the previous chief govt at Stirling council, was given the put up by the SNP nationwide govt on Saturday lower than a day after Murray Foote, all of a sudden stop because the get together’s chief govt.
Beattie sparked controversy after criticising an article about Kate Middleton’s return to public duties following her most cancers prognosis by claiming “clever individuals don’t help the monarchy”. People who do, she added, “use them as symbols of their bigotry or xenophobic values”.
Her tweets emerged final month after Beattie stood because the SNP’s candidate for a byelection in Falkirk, which was held final week, solely six months after she stood down as Stirling council’s lead official. The SNP has persistently stayed away from republicanism, to keep away from alienating pro-monarchy votes.
She mentioned: “I apologise for any offence brought on by the language I used and have eliminated the tweets.”
Keith Brown, the SNP’s deputy chief, mentioned:
She brings appreciable expertise to the position and her appointment will proceed the work, below John Swinney’s management, to make sure an expert, fashionable, dynamic election-winning organisation.
The SNP stays the dominant political drive in Scotland, and Carol Beattie’s appointment will guarantee we stay outfitted for the duties forward.
Beattie narrowly lost the Falkirk South byelection to Labour’s Claire Aitken final Thursday. It had been referred to as after the incumbent, Euan Stainbank, was elected as a Labour MP in July – the get together’s youngest Scottish MP at 24.
Scotland makes use of proportional voting in council elections. In a sign that Labour help is being hit by the winter gas fee cuts and the controversies over Keir Starmer’s garments and glasses donations, Beattie gained probably the most votes within the first spherical of voting, 1,043 – 29 votes greater than Aitken. Aitken took the seat within the seventh spherical of voting.
Craig Hoy, the Scottish Conservative chair, mentioned:
The murky appointment of Carol Beattie highlights the extent of chaos unfolding inside the scandal-ridden SNP. Regardless of saying he would keep on till a everlasting alternative was discovered, Murray Foote clearly couldn’t go away quick sufficient from the turmoil of the SNP.
Previously the weirdest finances custom was the conference that the chancellor is allowed to drink alcohol whereas delivering the finances speech. However since no chancellor has taken benefit of the rule for the reason that Nineteen Nineties (and nobody expects Rachel Reeves to be quaffing on Wednesday week), this custom might be finest seen as lapsed.
However Sam Coates from Sky News has found one other bizarre finances ritual. On his Politics at Jack and Sam’s podcast, he says:
Somebody messaged me to say: ‘Do you know that over within the Treasury as they’ve been going over all these spending settlements, in one of many workplaces, its filled with balloons. And each time a person division finalises its settlements, one of many balloons is popped.’
Streeting revives claims that some sufferers going through avoidable ‘loss of life sentence’ as a result of present NHS failings
Wes Streeting, the well being secretary, has revived claims that some sufferers are receiving a “loss of life sentence” due to the issues with the NHS.
Talking at a well being centre in east London, the place he was launching the session on the way forward for the NHS (see 9.13am) alongside Keir Starmer, Streeting mentioned:
There couldn’t be a extra necessary time for us to have this dialog.
The NHS goes by way of what’s objectively the worst disaster in its historical past, whether or not it’s individuals struggling to get entry to their GP, dialling 999 and an ambulance not arriving in time, turning as much as A&E departments and ready far too lengthy, generally on trolleys in corridors, or going by way of the ordeal of figuring out that you just’re ready for a prognosis that could possibly be the distinction between life and loss of life.
Worse nonetheless, receiving a prognosis that quantities to a loss of life sentence that might have been averted as a result of the NHS didn’t attain you in time.
That’s, I’m afraid, the day by day actuality within the NHS right now.
Streeting additionally mentioned the session was necessary as a result of the most effective concepts for NHS reform wouldn’t come from Whitehall. He mentioned:
We really feel actually strongly that the most effective concepts aren’t going to come back from politicians in Whitehall.
They’re going to come back from employees working proper throughout the nation and, crucially, sufferers, as a result of our experiences as sufferers are additionally actually necessary to understanding what the way forward for the NHS must be and what it could possibly be with the suitable concepts.
Streeting has used the time period “loss of life sentence” earlier than in relation to sufferers’ expertise of the NHS (usually in relation to most cancers, as a result of some most cancers survival charges are worse than in comparable nations). It has been reported that some NHS leaders don’t like this language as a result of they fear it should deter sufferers and undermine employees morale. However in his speeech to Labour’s convention Streeting doubled down, claiming it was necessary to inform the reality as a result of in any other case he can be “killing [the NHS] with kindness”.
Jenrick says Tory candidates at subsequent election must help ECHR withdrawal if he turns into chief
Robert Jenrick, who’s seen because the underdog behind Kemi Badenoch within the Tory management contest, has mentioned that if he wins, Conservative candidiates on the subsequent election must help his plan for Britain to depart the European conference on human rights.
In an interview on Radio 4’s Westminster Hour final night time, he mentioned:
If we have been fortunate sufficient to win the following common election, then this could be a part of our manifesto. So sure, it might be Conservative get together coverage, and people selecting to face on the election must help it, as they do some other necessary coverage that’s a part of the manifesto.
Jenrick has already mentioned Tory MPs must again the coverage if they wanted to take a post in his shadow cabinet. Requiring candidates on the subsequent election to declare in favour of ECHR withdrawal goes even additional, and would most likely be a step too far for some present Conservative MPs.
In his Westminster Hour interview, Jenrick additionally criticised Badenoch’s resolution to not announce coverage plans at this level. Badenoch says that there is no such thing as a level asserting coverage thus far forward of the following common election, and that it’s extra necessary for the get together to determine its values and ideas. (This has not stopped her saying she would reverse Labour’s imposition of VAT on personal faculty charges.)
Commenting on Badenoch’s strategy, Jenrick mentioned:
I feel it’s disrespectful to the members and the general public to ask for his or her votes with out saying the place you stand on the large points going through our nation right now.
A plan right now is what I supply. A promise of a plan in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later is what my opponent presents, and I don’t suppose that’s the way in which to rebuild the general public’s belief and confidence in us.
Starmer tells NHS employees they’ve ‘once-in-generation’ probability to reshape NHS for future
Keir Starmer has defended plans to digitalise data within the NHS.
Talking at an occasion in east London to launch the session on the way forward for the NHS (see 9.13am), he mentioned:
There are some apparent issues that I feel we do have to do. We have to go from analogue to digital, we have to use significantly better expertise, whether or not that’s within the ambulance service, in our hospitals, in our neighbourhoods, making way more use of expertise.
He additionally mentioned NHS employees had a “once-in-a-generation alternative” to reshape the service for the long run.
Addressing claims that the federal government ought to be beginning NHS reform now, as a substitute of consulting, Starmer informed well being employees:
We wish to hear from you and from as broad quite a few individuals as doable, each within the NHS and people who find themselves utilizing the NHS, as a result of this must be the once-in-a-generation alternative so that you can put your fingerprints on the long run – actually to craft the service that you’re working for.
It is a actually necessary dialog to create that NHS of the long run, a second in our historical past.
Tory former mayor Andy Road hints he won’t vote in management contest as a result of there isn’t any reasonable candidate
Andy Road, the Conservative former West Midlands mayor, has hinted that he might decline to vote for both of the 2 candidates left within the Tory management contest.
Kemi Badenoch, who’s seen because the favorite, and Robert Jenrick are each now firmly on the suitable of the get together. Road, who was West Midlands mayor for seven years till he was narrowly defeated by Labour in Might, is on the alternative wing of the get together, and is seen as a “reasonable” or “centrist”.
In an interview on the At this time programme, requested if he would say who he was backing within the management contest, Road replied:
I’ve received my poll paper. However you’re not going to get me to do this, I’m afraid.
I used to be clear earlier than the earlier two rounds that I needed a candidate from the centre, the reasonable a part of the get together. I backed Tom Tugendhat publicly. I’m not going to again anybody publicly now.
Requested if he can be backing both of the 2 candidates privately (ie, voting for one in all them), Road replied:
I’ll determine that myself. The reply to that’s personal.
Requested if he thought both Badenoch or Jenrick may symbolize the way forward for the get together, he replied: “Perhaps.”
If Road does boycott the competition, he gained’t be alone. As Jessica Elgot reported final week, polling suggests 15% of Conservative councillors gained’t vote within the contest as a result of they don’t like the selection on supply.
Listed below are social media posts from two journalists in regards to the plan for digital “affected person passports” within the NHS.
From John Burn-Murdoch, the Monetary Occasions’ chief information reporter
Everybody saying “no we are able to’t let the NHS use a correct joined up digital affected person database, it’s all a part of a plot to privatise British healthcare and promote your information” ought to be compelled to learn the handfuls (a whole bunch?) of case research like these
From Jim Waterson, the previous Guardian journalist who now writes the London Centric publication on Substack
I hate doing private posts however: When my mum was dying final yr, NHS information sharing failures and prioritising GDPR over ache reduction repeatedly left her in agony. In desperation I started to construct a Google Doc of her data linked to a QR code for medical doctors to scan. System’s damaged.
Appearing Alba get together chief says no resolution but taken over whether or not Sturgeon shall be invited to Salmond’s memorial service
Severin Carrell
Claims that Nicola Sturgeon has been banned from attending Alex Salmond’s memorial service have been rejected as “untimely” by Kenny MacAskill, the performing chief of Alba, the previous first minister’s nationalist get together.
The Sunday Mail reported on the weekend an Alba supply saying there was “not an opportunity in hell” that Sturgeon can be invited, given the pair’s incendiary break up over the allegations of sexual misconduct towards Salmond.
Sturgeon and Salmond haven’t spoken for the reason that allegations emerged following a Scottish authorities inquiry in 2018. Salmond had repeatedly accused her aides of orchestrating a smear marketing campaign towards him – claims Sturgeon has persistently dismissed.
In an announcement rejecting the Sunday Mail’s claims, MacAskill mentioned:
Now’s the time for Alex’s household to be given the privateness and time to grieve the lack of a beloved husband, brother and uncle.
An announcement shall be made within the coming days about preparations for a personal funeral to be attended by his household and shut buddies.
There shall be time within the coming weeks to have fun his life and commemorate his achievements in a memorial service, the household have but to make any preparations for that. All different hypothesis is untimely.
Salmond’s household expect to carry a personal funeral for the previous first minister in his dwelling village of Strichen, Aberdeenshire, subsequent week, the place he may even be buried. No date has but been fastened for a memorial service, although some allies have urged St Andrew’s Day on 30 November.
It stays unclear whether or not Sturgeon would count on to be invited. Salmond informed a BBC Scotland documentary which aired final month: “It’s a giant remorse that Nicola and I are not on talking phrases and I critically doubt if it’s going to enhance.”
Well being minister performs down privateness fears about digital ‘affected person passports’, saying it’s going to be like ‘on-line banking’
Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, was giving interviews this morning on behalf of the federal government. He was selling the session on the way forward for the NHS, however most of the questions he took have been in regards to the authorities’s plans for a digital “affected person passport”, making certain individuals’s medical data are all obtainable in a single place, by way of the NHS app. Pippa Crerar and Denis Campbell clarify that right here.
Kinnock sought to minimize issues that folks’s information can be in danger. However, in an interview with Mishal Husain on the At this time programme, he was couldn’t give her agency assurances on this level.
When Husain requested if individuals’s affected person data can be obtainable to all 1.5 million NHS staff below the federal government’s plans, Kinnock mentioned the protocols can be set out within the forthcoming information invoice. He went on:
We’re completely dedicated to defending information, and we’d like the cyber safety in place. After all, one of many issues is the NHS makes use of Excel XP which isn’t conducive to probably the most fashionable cyber safety strategies. We’ve received to modernize the tech.
Husain mentioned defending information from cyber assaults was a diferent matter, and she or he once more requested if all NHS staff would have the ability to entry somebody’s medical data. Kinnock replied:
What we’re proposing isn’t any totally different to on-line banking apps. So that is undoubtedly extra NatWest than it’s Star Trek. It is a system that’s going to be primarily based on frequent sense, on enabling a single affected person document.
Ultimately, if we don’t modernise the NHS, make it extra environment friendly and productive, you possibly can have the most effective information safety guidelines on the planet, however you not going to have a well being and care system that truly works.
Husain tried twice extra to get a transparent reply in regards to the restrictions on NHS employees accessing people’ data. Kinnock didn’t say intimately how the system would work, however he mentioned in the end it was a matter of stability.
You’ve received to have a system that works and that allows the vastly necessary interface between GPS, hospitals and sufferers, and to create that single affected person document.
That needs to be balanced towards water tight information safety, and that’s the stability that we’re going to strike.
However in case you always simply say, we are able to’t do that due to information safety issues, you’re simply going to have the established order happening and on and on, and also you’re going to have a system that doesn’t work.
Michael Gove says private assaults on ex-wife Sarah Vine ‘harm a lot’
Michael Gove has mentioned that probably the most hurtful a part of his political profession was the assaults on his former spouse, Sarah Vine, Peter Walker reviews.
Starmer and Streeting invite ‘total nation’ to contribute to session on reforming NHS
Good morning. When the Labour authorities got here into energy, Wes Streeting, the well being secretary, declared on his first day in workplace “the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken”. The federal government goes to publish a 10-year well being plan to repair it, and it is because of be revealed subsequent spring.
Streeting has mentioned the plan will contain three major parts: shifting from analogue to digital; extra deal with main care, not hospital care; and extra deal with prevention. Keir Starmer explained them in a speech on the NHS in September.
However right now the federal government is asking individuals who work within the NHS and use it – the “total nation”, because the Division of Well being and Social Care places it in its news release – to contribute to a session how well being service ought to change. The DHSC explains:
Members of the general public, in addition to NHS employees and specialists shall be invited to share their experiences views and concepts for fixing the NHS through the web platform, change.nhs.uk, which shall be dwell till the beginning of subsequent yr, and obtainable through the NHS App.
The general public engagement train will assist form the federal government’s 10 12 months Well being Plan which shall be revealed in spring 2025 and shall be underlined by three large shifts in healthcare – hospital to group, analogue to digital, and illness to prevention …
Daring ambitions for the NHS can solely be achieved by listening to the experience and data of its 1.54 million robust workforce. Their understanding of what’s holding them again from acting at their finest will assist us carry down ready occasions and supply the world class care the general public deserve.
The federal government has already taken rapid motion to deal with challenges within the well being service and ship an NHS match for the long run. Whether or not that’s agreeing a cope with resident medical doctors inside weeks, securing a funding enhance for GP practices to handle rising pressures or hiring an additional 1,000 GPs into the NHS by the tip of this yr, there are each short- and long-term reforms working hand in hand.
Streeting has posted a hyperlink to the web session web page on social media.
Governments launch consultations for varied causes. Clearly, when ministers are making large adjustments to giant, necessary establishments, it is sensible to search out out first what the general public suppose, and sometimes these train throw up concepts ignored by the thinktank, policy-making world. However that’s not the one, and even the principle, operate of those initiatives like this. Making certain individuals really feel consulted will be simply as necessary as discovering out what they suppose.
Extra importantly, that is additionally about pitch-rolling – persuading those that a problem issues, and that change is required. The general public don’t have to be informed that the NHS wants rescuing; it’s often at or close to the highest of issues that folks say matter to them most, in line with polling. However we’re lower than two weeks away from a finances that’s set to lift the tax burden by a document quantity in money phrases (not essentially as a proportion of GDP) and it is extremely, essential for the federal government to persuade those that that is occurring for purpose (like fixing the damaged NHS) and never simply out of profligacy. Gordon Brown was the grasp of this; when he put up national insurance to raise money for the NHS, it turned out to be some of the widespread tax rises ever. At this time’s NHS session might be extra about finances framing than a few scramble for concepts to pad out subsequent yr’s 10-year plan.
Right here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, the well being secretary, are visiting a well being centre in London to launch their public session on the NHS’s future.
11.30am: Downing Road holds a foyer briefing.
2.20pm: Yvette Cooper, the house secretary, takes questions within the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary, opens the Commons debate on the second studying of the employment rights invoice.
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