Rightwing Tory MPs criticise Rishi Sunak’s ‘weakness’ over family visas U-turn – UK politics live | Politics

Regulated rail fares in England will rise by nearly 5% in March, PA Media reports. PA says:

The Department for Transport has set a cap of 4.9% for increases to most fares regulated by the government, which include season tickets on most commuter journeys, some off-peak return tickets on long distance routes and flexible tickets for travel around major cities.

July’s RPI measure of inflation, which is traditionally used to determine annual fare rises, was 9.0%.

The previous cap on increases in regulated fares was 5.9%.

The DfT has also said that fare rises for 2024 will not come into force until 3 March, which is later than normal.

Commenting on the rise, Mark Harper, the transport secretary, said:

Having met our target of halving inflation across the economy, this is a significant intervention by the government to cap the increase in rail fares below last year’s rise.

Changed working patterns after the pandemic mean that our railways are still losing money and require significant subsidies, so this rise strikes a balance to keep our railways running, while not overburdening passengers.

We remain committed to supporting the rail sector reform outdated working practices to help put it on a sustainable financial footing.

Department for Education says it will make ‘further changes’ to how Ofsted inspects schools in light of Ruth Perry inquest

Richard Adams

The government will make “further changes” to the way Ofsted inspects schools in England, following the coroner’s report on the death of the Reading headteacher Ruth Perry, the education minister Lady Barran told the Lords.

In response to a written question from the Labour peer Lord Watson of Invergowrie, Barran replied:

The death of Ruth Perry was the most awful tragedy. The inquest has now concluded and it is clear that lessons need to be learned. The (Department for Education) is working with His Majesty’s chief inspector to look closely at the coroner’s findings.

The department and Ofsted will make further changes beyond those already announced in June 2023 where these are needed to make sure that the inspection system supports schools and teachers, and ultimately secures Ruth Perry’s legacy.

Reading’s senior coroner concluded that Ofsted’s inspection of Perry’s school contributed to her death earlier this year. On Tuesday the coroner issued a “prevention of future deaths” report to be considered by Ofsted and the DfE, highlighting the “almost complete absence of Ofsted training or published policy” on dealing with staff distress during inspections.

Ofsted and the government have until 7 February to respond to the coroner’s report.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has said 2024 should be the year when “we need to throw off our pessimism and declinism about the UK economy”.

He made the comment in an interview with the Financial Times in which he suggested that the Bank of England would start cutting interest rates next year.

Asked if people would feel better off by the end of 2024, he told the paper:

There’s a reasonable chance that if we stick to the course we’re on, we’re able to bring down inflation, the Bank of England might decide they can start to reduce interest rates.

That probably is the moment when people will begin to have more confidence about their own personal prospects and the prospects of their family.

Mark Drakeford has defended his five years as first minister in Wales, saying he hopes people will recognise that his government has done “challenging and radical things”. He used the phrase in an interview with Steven Morris. Here is an extract.

When he became first minister in 2018, Drakeford promised to do radical things. He conceded that the Covid pandemic got in the way of some ambitions. “But I think, I hope, people will see this as a period when we did some of those challenging and radical things.”

One of the first was to scrap the M4 relief road, which supporters believed would relieve congestion on the motorway and boost the economy but critics said would cause huge environmental damage, not least to the precious Gwent Levels.

“The conventional thing would have been to give it the go-ahead. I felt that if we were to be serious about the challenges facing us, (the) changing climate, the burning platform we are creating around the globe, we couldn’t go on doing things in the way we had.”

Drakeford suggested one of the most radical things his regime had done was to give local authorities the power to use planning laws to stop local people selling up to would-be second homeowners. “That is a significant intrusion into the way people normally live their lives but it’s part of our determination to stop parts of Wales becoming social deserts where nobody actually lives. It’s not popular with some people.”

The first minister said he did not believe another of his government’s controversial moves, the introduction of a Wales-wide 20mph limit for most built-up areas, was as radical as the reaction to it suggested.

He compared the 20mph limit with the introduction of a smoking ban in enclosed public places, which Wales did before England. “I remember what a huge issue that was, but who would go back to that now? You run into people who are attached to the status quo. I think in time people will say, what was the fuss about 20mph?”

And here is the full article.

David Jones, deputy chair of the European Research Group, which represents hardline Brexiter MPs, has described the U-turn over family visas (see 9.30am) as “a sign of weakness”. He told PA Media:

The latest net migration figures very starkly showed the extent of the crisis we face. Increasing the threshold was absolutely necessary to address that crisis.

The government should have stuck to its guns. Yesterday’s decision was a regrettable sign of weakness, made worse by the fact that parliament was not sitting and therefore was unable to interrogate ministers on the reasons for the decision.

Good morning. The political year is more or less over, but it’s never too late for a U-turn, and the Home Office slipped one out last night that may have repercussions going into the new year.

Just over two weeks ago the government announced a series of measures to limit legal migration which it estimates will reduce numbers by 300,000. It was a muscular package with significant impacts for the economy, and it was broadly welcomed by Conservative MPs, particularly rightwingers who are alarmed at figures showing net migration at record levels.

But one aspect of the plan attracted considerable controversy – the proposal to raise the minimum income for family visas from £18,600 to £38,700, meaning any Briton who marries a foreigner would have to be earning that amount to actually live with them in the UK. This plan was only expected to reduce migration numbers by a figure in the tens of thousands (out of 300,000), but it was the proposal with the biggest direct impact on the Telegraph-reading classes (or, to be more accurate, their children), and Rishi Sunak soon came under pressure to change his mind.

As Peter Walker reports, the Home Office responded in an announcement that came quite late yesterday. The family visa threshold is going up to £29,000 in the spring next year. The government says it is still planning to increase it to £38,700 at some point. But it is not saying when, which is leading many people to conclude that the timetable it has in mind is “never”, or at least “not before the election”.

The increase from £18,600 to £29,000 is still significant, and will still stop thousands of couples who thought they would be able to live together in the UK from being able to do so. But it will not be seen in those terms by rightwing Tory backbenchers who already had their doubts about Sunak, and some of them have been speaking out.

Jonathan Gullis, a prominent member of the New Conservatives faction, posted a message on X saying this was “deeply disappointing”.

Sir John Hayes, chair of the Commons Sense group of Tory MPs, told the Today programme he wanted to see the government raise the threshold to £38,700 quickly. He said:

The policy remains to increase the threshold to £38,000, what they’re talking about is implementing it in phases …

What I’m saying is that needs to be done very quickly because you need certainty, you need certainty for individuals, certainty for employers. And if we’re going to £38,700, which seems to be very sensible, then that needs to be done with speed so that people know where they stand.

David Jones, the deputy chair of the European Research Group, told Politico the announcement was “alarming”. And, as Dan Bloom reports in his London Playbook briefing for Politico, a spokesperson for Robert Jenrick, who recently resigned as immigration minister, said the plans announced by the Home Office at the start of the month should be “implemented now, not long-grassed to the spring or watered down”. The spokesperson added: “More measures are needed, not less.”

The other main news today is the revised growth figures for the third quarter of the year, showing the economy shrank. Previous figures showed zero growth in the July to September period. Phillip Inman has the story here.

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