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Tuesday 21 July 2020 17:16
The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has judged it “credible” that Russia tried to interfere in the Scottish independence referendum as part of an effort to influence political life in the UK.
MPs setting out the Russia report have told Boris Johnson to order an assessment of “potential” Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum. The government “did not want to know” if there been interference in the 2016 vote – and had “actively avoided looking for evidence”, they said.
However the government quickly rejected the call for further enquiries, with foreign secretary Dominic Raab describing a retrospective investigation as “unnecessary”.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has called on the prime minister to reveal the Russian donors to the Tory party believed to be named in the classified section of the report.
“I believe the public has a right to know whether Russian money is buying influence in the Conservative Party,” he writes.
Tories target Labour MPs with anti-immigration campaign
The Conservatives are running an under-the-radar online advertising campaign targeting Labour MPs in marginal seats over immigration.
The adverts, shown to Facebook users in 19 marginal constituencies, highlight Labour’s decision to vote against the government’s immigration bill at the start of the month – which it opposed over visa restrictions on care workers.
The Attorney General has said “the right to trial by jury is not going to be compromised” by the government’s efforts to clear the backlog of criminal cases waiting to be heard.
Suella Braverman told the Justice Committee: “There are a lot of options on the table but I think it is clear that the right to trial by jury is not going to be compromised.”
She was asked how the 10 emergency ‘Nightingale’ courts will be able to make up for the almost 300 courts that have been closed in the last 10 years.
Ms Braverman: “I think (Nightingale Courts) are a big step forward in terms of increasing court capacity as we deal with the backlog going forward, and there’s been a lot of progress that has been made to ensure cases can flow through the system despite the Covid prevention measures.”
She added: “You have got to also mention the digital capabilities that have been announced in thousands of cases that have made a real inroads.”
Ms Braverman said money was being spent on updating court rooms, building more courts cells and ensuring more courtrooms have digital capabilities.
“That represents the biggest investment in our courts for 20 years,” she said, adding: “I think there is some really good news in terms of Government commitment to increasing capacity and rebuilding our ability to deal with this backlog.”
Tory MP Rob Roberts has been referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to investigate WhatsApp messages he allegedly sent to a young female intern and a male worker at Parliament.
A Conservative Party spokeswoman said: “An investigation into Rob Roberts MP’s conduct is ongoing.
“While Mr Roberts has apologised for his behaviour and has been undertaking safeguarding and social media protection training, we are clear such conduct is completely unacceptable.”
The married MP, who came out as gay in May, recently apologised for his behaviour and was rebuked by the Tory Party chairman and asked to undertake safeguarding and social media protection training.
Government criticised over low pay for care workers
Ministers have been accused of “sidestepping” the issue of low pay for care workers while providing 900,000 professionals in the public sector an above inflation pay rise.
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, announced on Tuesday hundreds of thousands of public sector workers in England will benefit from the one-off above-inflation pay rise, including teachers, doctors and police officers.
The measures, includes armed forces, soldiers, dentists and senior civil servants, but not nurses and healthcare assistants, who are covered by the three-year pay deal agreed in 2018.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Public Health England (PHE) will “very, very shortly” publish a “revised methodology” on accurately measuring Covid-19 deaths.
It follows the decision to “pause” the daily death statistics after it emerged deaths were being counted as Covid-19 even if the patient recovered from coronavirus and then died of other causes.
“At the start it was perfectly reasonable to say that if somebody had ever registered positive with Covid and died, they died from Covid,” he told the Commons Science and Technology Committee.
“For the first few weeks of the crisis and indeed in the peak, that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. However, that is no longer reasonable.
“Because if you have Covid in March and fully recovered, or even were asymptomatic and now die of something completely different, then the way it was being measured until last week counted that as a death with Covid, that clearly is no longer appropriate and PHE are currently reviewing that time series.”
Asked if the review by PHE was in place already, Mr Hancock said: “They’ll publish very, very shortly a revised methodology for how to get an accurate measure of deaths with Covid.”
According to today’s update to the government’s coronavirus dashboard, the UK death toll rose by 110 to 45,422.
While the US Secretary of State was urging the world to combat the threat from China, the US Justice Department announced it was charging two Chinese hackers targeting firms developing a coronavirus vaccine and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of trade secrets from companies around the world.
The indictment says the hackers in recent months had researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of companies publicly known for their work in developing vaccines and treatments.
More details are due to be given at a press conference at 4.30pm UK time.
“A third round (of negotiations) is scheduled for later this month, a primary focus for the United States is to see that we can make progress on this and bring this to a closure just as quickly as possible,” the US Secretary of State said during the news conference with his British counterpart Dominic Raab.
“I spoke with the prime minister this morning about this, and I hope that we can get it finalised before too long,” said Pompeo.
Both Mr Raab and Mr Pompeo deny the US “strong-armed” the UK to drop Huawei from the 5G network.
Mr Pompeo said: “I think the United Kingdom made a good decision, but, I think that decision was made not because the United States said it was a good decision, but because leadership here in the United Kingdom concluded the right thing to do was to make that decision for the people of the United Kingdom.”
He added: “We want to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy, and values that and knows that it’s important to their own people, their own sovereign country, to be successful, to understand this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing to them and to work both themselves and collectively to restore what is rightfully ours.”
Suella Braverman has again denied her tweet in support of Dominic Cummings’ trip to Durham during lockdown amounted to political interference in due process.
Speaking at her first appearance before the Justice Committee, she said: “I don’t think there is any question I offered a legal opinion. I treat the independence – operationally and in other ways – of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) extremely seriously.
“There’s no question of my having interfered with or influenced any decision made by the CPS or the police on that matter.”
She added: “I don’t regret tweeting in the way that I did.”
The tweet in question was made by the attorney general on 23 May: “Protecting one’s family is what any good parent does. The 10DowningStreet statement clarifies the situation and it is wholly inappropriate to politicise it.”
Education unions have warned that more experienced teachers may not stay in the profession following the Government’s announcement of lower pay rises for long-serving staff.
One head teachers’ union leader described it as a “kick in the teeth” for many teachers and he warned that many schools may struggle to pay the salary increases to staff without funding due to tight budgets.
The comments came after the Government revealed that the 3.1 per cent pay rise for teachers will consist of a 5.5 per cent rise to the starting salary for the profession, while more experienced teachers will see a 2.75 per cent rise.
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said: “The prospect of salaries tapering off as they progress through the profession means that progress made in recruiting teachers will not be sustained in retaining them.
“More experienced teachers and leaders must see their immense hard work and efforts rewarded fairly, and this pay award does not do that.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “First, we do not think it is fair or reasonable that the pay award is much lower for experienced teachers and leaders after years of pay austerity which has seen the real value of salaries deteriorate.
“This won’t help to keep long-serving teachers in the profession and feels like a kick in the teeth.”
Professor Chris Whitty has suggested care homes are not to blame for the severe problems they faced with coronavirus in an apparent swipe at Boris Johnson remarks on the issue.
Appearing at the Health and Social Care Committee, the chief medical officer for England said that major risks in social care settings were not considered early on in the pandemic, including staff working in multiple residences and those not paid sick leave.
Boris Johnson is “absolutely” confident the 2016 European Union referendum result was fair, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.
“We have seen no evidence of successful interference in the EU referendum,” the spokesman said, as he confirmed the Government would not order an investigation of Russian activities around the vote.
“Our intelligence and security agencies produce regular assessments of the threat posed by hostile state activities, including any potential interference in past or current UK democratic processes.”
Six things we learned from Russia report
The long-awaited official report on Russia’s activities in the UK has concluded that Downing Street “took its eye off the ball” and failed to respond to a range of threats from Moscow.
So what are the very biggest takeaways from the 50-page dossier?
Boris Johnson has rejected a second key strand of the Russia report, its call for a crackdown to stop London being a “laundromat” for illicit Russian cash.
The UK already has “some of the strongest controls in the world”, the prime minister’s spokesman insisted.
Sturgeon open to IndyRef interference probe
Scotland’s First Minister said she has “no objection” to an inquiry being launched into Russian interference in the Scottish independence referendum.
Speaking at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing on Tuesday, hours after a heavily redacted report by Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) was published, Nicola Sturgeon said governments should not be “complacent” about the possibility of interference in democratic processes.
The UK Government response to such warnings could be viewed as “negligence”, she said.
She said: “If there’s to be an inquiry into that – and I would have no objections, to the contrary – it is for the UK Government to do.”
The Home Secretary told MPs: “A series of reconciliation events to rebuild the relationship between the Home Office and those who were affected will now take place. This is an essential step to enable people whose lives were shattered because of Windrush to directly articulate the impact this scandal has had on their lives. We must learn from the past.
“Mandatory training is being introduced for new and existing members of the Home Office staff to ensure everyone working across the department understands and appreciates the history of migration and race across the country.”
She added: “There are simply not enough individuals from black, Asian or minority ethnic staff working at the top in senior roles and there are far too many times where I am the only non-white face in the room.
“Action must happen now. So right now, I am introducing more diverse shortlists for senior jobs, specialist mentoring and sponsorship programmes to help develop a wider pool of talent and drive cultural change.”
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