Labour warned tough laws against people smugglers in new bill could penalise asylum seekers – UK politics live | Politics

• The former prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair both paid tribute to John Prescott at his funeral service today in Hull today. (See 3.12pm.) Robyn Vintner was there too and she has this article with all the colour.

• Campaigners have continued to criticise Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, for claiming that sustainable aviation fuel is a “game changer” that means a third runway at Heathrow can go ahead without climate targets being breached. (See 1.31pm.)

Two more refugees charities have joined the Refugee Council (see 1.44pm) in criticising the border security, asylum and immigration bill published today. They both want the government to open more safe routes for asylum seekers.

Lou Calvey, director of Asylum Matters, said:

This bill was a chance to make the change that’s desperately needed in our asylum system: to tackle the backlog; to let people work while they await their asylum decision; to save lives by creating safe ways to seek asylum.

Instead, the government has ignored evidence and experts to create a bill that repeats the same mistakes that have been costing lives and causing immense suffering for years.

Each new, harsher approach to militarising our borders, from Stop The Boats to Smash The Gangs, has done nothing but drive up deaths in the channel, leading to a record-breaking number of preventable fatalities.

We fear these measures will only cost more lives. Starmer could end irregular migration and save lives in one simple step, by opening up safe access to the asylum system. Instead, he’s chosen to copy failed policies in a bid to court popularity with a vocal anti-migrant minority.

And Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said:

Framing migration as a ‘national security’ issue to use counter terrorism-style laws will irreparably harm refugees, many of them children, and stoke divisions as we have seen in last summer’s racist riots.

Most people who seek asylum here are racially minoritised and legislation aimed at deterring, detaining and criminalising them perpetuates racial injustice both in our systems and on our streets.

We want to support the government to amend this legislation so it can be a platform on which to build real solutions to protect people seeking asylum and support them to build new lives in our communities.

This includes protecting the right to claim asylum on arrival, creating safe routes to reach the UK, giving people the right to work, and repealing each of the last government’s anti-refugee laws in full.

The former prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair both paid tribute to John Prescott at his funeral service today in Hull today.

With many of the major figures in the Labour party gathered to honour Prescott, who was deputy Labour leader and deputy PM for 10 years, Brown described Prescott as a “working class hero” who “kept the show on the road during difficult times”.

Giving the first eulogy at the service, Brown said:

We will never see his like again. A man of the people he certainly was, in a class by himself, a one-off. One of a kind but one of us, in the best sense of the word.

Unique, remarkable, extraordinary. John Lennon would have called him a working class hero, and not least because he risked appearing on Gavin And Stacey, seen by millions, as Nessa’s rejected suitor.

John was a man of the people because he could connect with people, and I don’t just mean that man in Rhyl who dared to hurl an egg at him.

John could connect with people who had not only encountered him in the media, but knew he was on their side.

The John you saw in Hull and the John you saw at home was the John you saw in Downing Street, and the reason is he was never afraid to stand up for what he believed, and for the people it was his life’s work to serve.

As PA Media reports, Blair joked with the congregation about the “pandemonium” that ensued after “the punch” in the 2001 general election campaign. He recalled ringing his deputy with reluctance and asking him to apologise.

Blair said he got the reply: “The answer is no, I’m not bloody apologising and that’s the end of it.” The former PM added: “Classic.”

Prescott’s son David told the funeral: “He was a man who spent his life overcoming challenges and helping others.” He also spoke about his father’s final days in a care home, thanking all the carers and staff who looked after him.

Deputy PM Angela Rayner read the poem Here by Hull-based poet Philip Larkin, and Keir Starmer read from Psalm 107.

Campaigners warn tough laws against people smugglers in new bill could penalise asylum seekers

Rajeev Syal

People seeking asylum on small boats who refuse to stop for the French authorities could receive sentences of up to five years under a new bill meant to disrupt irregular Channel crossings that has just been published.

A bill introduced to parliament will also allow people smugglers to be jailed for up to 14 years for handling small boat parts and strengthen police powers to seize laptops, financial assets and mobile phones from suspected smugglers.

The new powers, included within the border security, asylum and immigration bill, are inspired by powers used to combat terrorism, officials have said. It is understood that the Home Office is targeting “hundreds not thousands” of individual gang members believed to be responsible for the cross-Channel trafficking route.

Refugee groups have criticised the new powers, saying that they will criminalise legitimate asylum seekers who are forced to help gangs whilst en route to the UK and could make the cross-Channel route more dangerous.

They have also expressed concern that the new bill maintains some of the draconian powers introduced by the last Conservative government such as curbing the use of modern slavery laws by asylum seekers and powers to impose a cap on the number of asylum seekers allowed to settle in the UK.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said:

We are very concerned that by creating new offences, many refugees themselves could also be prosecuted, which has already been happening in some cases. This would be a gross miscarriage of justice.

Criminalising men, women and children who have fled conflicts in countries such as Sudan does not disrupt the smuggling gangs’ business model. When a refugee is clambering into a boat with an armed criminal threatening them, they are not thinking about UK laws but are simply trying to stay alive.

Labour hopes the new legislation will help turn the tide against people-smuggling networks that have facilitated more than 150,000 small boat arrivals in the UK since 2018. More than 1,000 people have arrived in the UK since the start of this year.

The bill will make it an offence to “endanger another life during perilous sea crossing to the UK”. Anyone involved in coercive behaviour, “including preventing offers of rescue”, will face prosecution and an increased sentence of up to five years in prison.

As part of Keir Starmer’s pledge to ‘smash the gangs’, those caught selling or handling small boat parts could also be jailed for up to 14 years as the Home Office will make it “illegal to supply or handle items suspected of being for use by organised crime groups”.

Where someone is suspected of selling or handling small boats parts or sharing suspect information online, officials believe the new bill will allow them to apply these offences against people smugglers and make an arrest.

Current rules mean law enforcement are unable to intervene until after a small boat crossing.

Campaigners have continued to criticise Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, for claiming that sustainable aviation fuel is a “game changer” that means a third runway at Heathrow can go ahead without climate targets being breached. (See 8.15am.)

Stay Grounded, a network representing groups campaigning to reduce flying on climate grounds, said in a statement:

Expanding Heathrow Airport in the midst of a climate crisis is a disastrous decision for people and planet. The claim that so-called “sustainable” aviation fuels can mitigate the climate impact of the expansion is completely misleading.

So called “sustainable” aviation fuels are nowhere close to being available at the scale that would be needed and would take clean energy away from the people and sectors that really need it. Instead the government must manage demand with measures such as a frequent flying levy.

Other campaigners and experts have made the same argument. See 10.19am, 10.32am and 10.53am.

MPs and peers call for review into claims policing of recent pro-Palestinian march in London was oppressive

Haroon Siddique

More than 50 MPs and peers have called on the home secretary to commission an independent review into policing of the recent Palestine solidarity demonstration in London and to repeal “anti-protest” legislation.

In a cross-party letter signed by the likes of Diane Abbott, Sian Berry and Clive Lewis, they say they are “deeply troubled … by the obstacles put in place by the Metropolitan police ahead of the demonstration of 18 January, as well as the policing on the day”.

The Met police arrested 77 people at the demonstration, accusing protesters of breaching police lines after it banned them from gathering outside the BBC’s London headquarters, citing its proximity to a synagogue and the fact it was taking place on the Sabbath.

The letter claims that footage posted by the organisers of the march, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, calls into question the Met’s account of what happened. It says:

There is a direct conflict in the respective positions of officers facilitating the progress of a delegation to lay flowers, and the allegation by police that their lines had been forcibly breached. Clearly being invited to proceed is wholly inconsistent with the allegation of a forcible breach.

It also says the signatories were “aghast” to learn that Met commissioner Mark Rowley said publicly the day after the protest that “his force imposed unprecedented restrictions” at the protest. Charges should be dropped against those “unjustly arrested or unjustly charged”, the parliamentarians say.

Labour MP Andy McDonald, one of the signatories, said:

There is a strong case for the home secretary to establish an independent investigation into the police’s decisions on Saturday 18 January, but also a wider review of public order legislation which Labour in opposition said would erode historic freedoms of peaceful protest.

Commander , the Met officer who led the policing operation, previously said: “We saw a deliberate effort, including by protest organisers, to breach conditions and attempt to march out of Whitehall.”

Sacha Lord has stepped down from his role as an adviser to Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham following the decision by the Arts Council to request a repayment for a grant issued to one of his companies.

The Arts Council granted £400,000 to Primary Event Solutions, a company which Lord is the director of, from the culture recovery fund in 2021 in the wake of the Covid-pandemic.

Following a report by the Manchester Mill last year that the grant was obtained through what the online newspaper called a series of “highly misleading claims” , the Arts Council began to investigate the nature of Lords’ application.

Lord, the co-founder of the Manchester based festival Parklife and club night series Warehouse Project, has consistently denied any wrongdoing, with the Mill claiming that they were threatened with legal action for publishing the claims.

Yesterday the Arts Council announced that they had found inconsistencies in the original application. A spokesperson said:

Following a thorough review of the application that Primary Event Solutions submitted to the culture recovery fund in 2021, our decision is to withdraw the grant that was awarded and we are seeking to recover this money.

Lord had occupied the role of night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester since being appointed to the position by Burnham in 2018. Burham said that he had accepted Lord’s resignation “with regret” and questioned the decision.

In a statement Burnham said that Lord had “accepted there were inaccuracies in a grant application”, and believed that “there was no intention to mislead and that he made no personal gain from the grant”.

Primary Event Solutions, the company to which the grant was given, entered liquidation in September 2023, leaving the fate of the £400,000 and the chances of repayment in doubt.

In at least two interviews this morning Rachel Reeves was asked about the essentially bogus claims that she exaggerated her CV when referring to her experience before becoming an MP. On ITV’s Good Morning Britain she insisted that she was “qualified to do this job” and that she was proud of her economics background. (See 8.47am.) In an interview with Times Radio, she also said she was “not bothered” about the abuse she received over this. She said:

Before I became an MP I worked as an economist at the Bank of England and then I worked in the private sector in financial services. I’m proud of the jobs that I did before I became an MP. I’m really not that bothered about what people think about the jobs I did before I became a politician.

In both interviews she was asked about being dubbed “Rachel from accounts” – a jibe that is blatantly sexist, but widely used in the Tory papers.

Reeves must feel aggrieved about this because she has a post-graduate qualification in economics (a master’s from the LSE). Arguably this makes her better qualified to be chancellor than any of her predecessors since Hugh Dalton and Hugh Gaitskell, who were both academic economists. Rishi Sunak had an MBA from Stanford, which isn’t pure economics (although may perhaps be more useful as training for running a government department). And Kwasi Kwarteng had a PhD in economic history. But he wrote his dissertation on a currency crisis from the seventeenth century, which may help to explain why his Treasury career was swiftly destroyed by the 21st century bond market.

Kim Leadbeater denies claim assisted dying bill could be watered down to remove need for judicial sign-off

Jessica Elgot

The Times has splashed this morning on a story saying the assisted dying bill could be amended to take out the requirement for a judge to sign off applications for an assisted death to be allowed. The story says:

Assisted dying campaigners are to look at dropping a requirement for a High Court judge to decide whether people should be allowed to end their own lives, amid concerns about the impact on Britain’s struggling court system.

Under plans being examined by MPs who support a change in the law to let people end their own life, a panel of experts, rather than a High Court judge, would decide whether to approve an assisted death.

The move follows private warnings from senior judges that the courts do not have the capacity to deal with the expected caseload. Family courts have seen a significant increase in delays in recent years, with cases taking an average of more than 40 weeks to be resolved. There are concerns that these delays could be increased if the family division in the High Court has to also deal with assisted dying cases.

But Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who tabled the private member’s bill and who is leading the effort to get it through its remaining Commons stages, has denied the story. A spokesperson for Leadbeater said:

There is no proposal or amendment on the table on this. Kim is very clear that the bill has the strongest protections and safeguards anywhere in the world and she would not support any changes that would weaken the bill.

There were suggestions during the oral evidence this week that a multi-disciplinary panel of some kind could bring in other experts like social workers and psychiatrists where necessary which the committee would look at if a proposal was tabled but Kim would not support anything that removed the judicial element. So, in short, if it strengthens the bill it might be acceptable to Kim but if not then she wouldn’t support it.

Many of the most senior figures in Labour politics are in Hull for the funeral of John Prescott. Here are some pictures of the mourners arriving.