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Key events
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Early evening summary
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DUP says Joe Kennedy, Biden’s new economic envoy for Northern Ireland, must show he’s even-handed
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Alcohol duty freeze extended for six months, Treasury ministers tells MPs
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Braverman says ‘nothing off table’ when asked if new asylum bill will allow human rights law to be overruled
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Braverman says she wants to deliver Rwanda deportation policy ‘at scale as soon as possible’ following court judgment
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Government sues PPE firm linked to Michelle Mone for breach of contract
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Tories no longer ahead of Labour on party most trusted to grow economy, poll suggests
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Sunak urges unions to do ‘everything they can’ to minimise impact of health strikes
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Sunak claims Rwanda policy is ‘common sense position’ backed by ‘vast majority of public’ – despite polls saying otherwise
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Sunak urges Gary Neville to stick to football after pundit’s low pay outburst prompts Tory protests
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Refugee charities say high court judgment on Rwanda policy ‘deeply disappointing’
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Labour and Lib Dems urge government to abandon ‘unworkable, unethical, expensive’ Rwanda policy
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Braverman says she wants to press on with Rwanda policy ‘as soon as possible’ in light of court judgment
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Steve Barclay challenged about state of NHS by mother of young patient during hospital visit
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Priti Patel says court judgment has vindicated her ‘world-leading’ Rwanda policy
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Why high court ruled Rwanda policy not incompatible with refugee convention
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Sending asylum seekers to Rwanda ‘consistent with refugee convention and Human Rights Act’, says high court
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Government plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda are lawful, high court rules
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Hunt says next budget to take place on Wednesday 15 March
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NHS faces ‘incredibly challenging and disrupted week’ because of strikes, says health leader
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Sunak arrives in Latvia for summit with fellow leaders from JEF military partnership
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Union leaders dismiss chances of talks leading to ambulance strike being called off, blaming government intransigence
Early evening summary
DUP says Joe Kennedy, Biden’s new economic envoy for Northern Ireland, must show he’s even-handed
Joe Kennedy III, the 42-year-old scion of one of America’s most famous political families, has agreed to serve as the special envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs, the US state department has announced. My colleague Edward Helmore has the story here.
Irish Americans like Kennedy are often more sympathetic to the nationalist cause in Northern Ireland than unionism and Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, said it would be up to Kennedy to show he was even-handed. He said:
We welcome the fact that the United States is interested in developing economic links with Northern Ireland.
The appointment of an envoy demonstrates that commitment.
I think it is for Joe Kennedy to prove he will be even-handed in his approach.
He needs to take account of unionist views and concerns in relation to the economy.
While his role is economic matters, one can’t avoid the (Northern Ireland) protocol and the harm it is doing to our economy.
It will be important for the United States to gain a better understanding of the real concerns that unionists have about the protocol.
Alcohol duty freeze extended for six months, Treasury ministers tells MPs
James Cartlidge, a Treasury minister, has confirmed that the freeze on alcohol duty will be extended for a further six months, to 1 August 2023. In a statement to MPs he said:
Whilst new duty rates typically come in each year on the first of February, I can confirm that the chancellor will instead make his decision on future duty rates at spring budget 2023 to give businesses certainty and time to prepare.
To further support the industry, we are going further by confirming that if changes to duty are announced then they will not take effect until 1 August 2023.
This is to align with the date the historic forms of alcohol duties come into force and amounts to an effective six-month extension to the current duty freeze.
There are further details in the Treasury’s press release.
When Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory Brexiter, complained about a Russian judge blocking UK government policy (see 4.36pm), he seemed to be making a general point about the background of the judges who sit on the European court of human rights, rather than a statement of fact about the Rwanda hearing. The identity of the judge who granted the injunction against the UK was not revealed, but at the time the Telegraph said the judge who took the decision was understood to be either the representative from Hungary or a judge from Liechtenstein.
Russia did used to nominate a judge to the court because it used to be a member of the Council of Europe, which oversees its operation. After the invasion of Ukraine this year Russia was expelled from the council. But its judge was entitled to sit on the court until September, the Telegraph reported.
Braverman says ‘nothing off table’ when asked if new asylum bill will allow human rights law to be overruled
Greg Smith (Con) also asks for an assurance that the asylum legislation coming next year will contain a “notwithstanding” clause to allow the Human Rights Act to be ignored. He is the third Tory to make this request. Sir Bill Cash (see 4.31pm) and Sir Edward Leigh have already made the same point.
Braverman says the government will pass legislation that is robust. As for what it will contain, she says “nothing is off the table”.
A “notwithstanding” clause of the kind demanded by Smith and others would have the same effect as the “notwithstanding” legislation proposed by the Tory MP Jonathan Gullis in a 10-minute rule speech last week. Sixty-seven Tory MPs voted in favour.
UPDATE: Here is the question from Leigh, which came a few minutes before Smith’s. Leigh said:
While this judgment is welcome, it won’t solve the problem. Not just because of the relatively few numbers that can be deported to Rwanda, but because each case must be fought individually and human rights lawyers will fight every single case individually.
That is the problem. Surely the only serious way we can deter migration across the Channel is to have the legal right not just to process people when they arrive on our shores, but to arrest them and detain them until their asylum application is dealt with.
If it’s the Human Rights Act that stops us doing it, can we not apply in our new legislation for a notwithstanding clause to deal with that problem?
John Whittingdale, the Tory former cabinet minister, said he visited Rwanda recently and saw the accommodation available for refugees. He says the Rwandans were clear that they expected asylum seekers to be able to get jobs. So the policy is moral, he says.
Stella Creasy (Lab) asks if children will be deported to Rwanda.
Braverman says families are not subject to the policy.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory former business secretary, says once parliament has made up its mind, it should not be possible for it to be overuled by “a Russian judgen woken from a bar to issue an injunction”. He is referring to the European court of human rights.
Braverman welcomes Rees-Mogg’s argument.
The SNP’s Alison Thewliss says that just because a policy has been ruled lawful, that does not make it right. She says slaver, apartheid and rape within marriage were both once legal, but that did not mean they were right.
UPDATE: Thewliss said:
This is a dark day indeed with this judgment. And particularly when the home Secretary comes here to imply that having morals is fanciful.
On the SNP benches we will never get behind this policy. Not in our name.
I would remind people in this house that slavery, apartheid and marital rape were all lawful at one time, but none of them were right.
Sir Bill Cash (Con) urges Braverman to introduce “nothwithstanding” legislation, allowing the UK government to go ahead with its deportation policy regardless of what international human rights law says.
Braverman welcomes what Cash says. But she says the European court of human rights has not said the government’s policy is illegal. But it did rule against the removal of some individuals, she says.
Braverman is replying to Cooper.
She claims Labour is not being honest. It won’t even say if it would repeal the legislation making entry to the UK without proper authorisation illegal, she says.
What Labour would do would replace a crisis of illegal immigration with a crisis of legal migration, she says. It would be an open borders policy by the back door.
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