UK politics: Employment rights bill set to become law after Lords backing – as it happened | Politics

Key events

Afternoon summary

The House of Lords has passed the employment rights bill, which means it will shortly become law. (See 5.01pm.)

Tice has apologised for comments he made about special educational needs last month, as he announced a new approach to the issue by Reform UK, including the launch of a review of Send policy. (See 1.28pm.)

Rishi Sunak has defended his pandemic-era Bounce Back Loan scheme against accusations that it was subject to excessive levels of fraud, the BBC reports.

Conservationists have accused the government of weakening rules to make developers pay to boost nature, hitting jobs and private investment in restoring wildlife. As PA Media reports, new exemptions for England’s “biodiversity net gain” (BNG) rules risk hollowing out the emerging market in which developers have to pay not only to replace habitat lost to development, but to deliver a 10% gain for nature, they warn. The Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL) coalition of environment and nature groups called for swift action to close loopholes which they say are already seeing more than four fifths of developments claiming exemption from the rules. WCL was commenting on proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework announced today.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

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Updated at 12.42 EST

Lammy says reducing average wait from reporting rape to trial from 6 years to 2 years would be acceptable

David Lammy, the justice secretary, has said two years would feel like an acceptable amount of time for rape victims to get justice as he vowed to bring down the courts backlog, PA Media reports. PA says:

Lammy was asked by a committee of MPs what figure would be acceptable as the average wait from reporting a rape to the end of a criminal trial is six years, as he seeks to bring in court reforms to ease delays.

He told the justice committee that women waiting that long is “justice delayed is justice denied” and that he wants to bring that six year figure down and see the court backlog falling downwards by the end of this parliament.

Pressed on a figure, he said: “Well, I would hope that no woman is waiting much longer than two years to get justice. That’s what would feel, I think, acceptable in a complex system and in a major democracy such as ours, but we are a significant way from that at this point.”

At the end of June, sexual offences accounted for nearly one in five cases (18%) open for at least two years.

Lammy said on Tuesday that he did not believe limited reforms, including just improving efficiencies in the courts system, would reduce the wait enough for victims.

He told the committee he hopes to bring in legislation for court reform in the spring to tackle the issue.

But pressed on whether the proposed reforms will even bring down the current six year average, he said the CCBD (crown court bench division – the proposed new judge-only court) will be able to deal with cases such as class B drug possession and owning a dangerous dog with a single judge, which is estimated to make the system 20% faster.

“Then effectively, once you’ve taken those cases out, the rape case that goes to trial is speeded up, and that is the significance of the proposal.”

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Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, was listening to the whole of Yvette Cooper’s evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee. He has posted this summary on social media.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper at UK foreign affairs select committee

Condemns Israel hold-ups to aid, saying there is an “urgent urgent desperate” need for more aid to go in.

Asked about banning products from illegal settlement says simply HMRC advice can be sought

Says Bd of Peace may not be named this year, but suggests disarmament of Hamas could be undertaken independently, as in N Ireland.

Says point of security guarantees for Ukraine is to ensure that Putin does not pause and come again.

Waffles when asked about US Security Strategy but says she admires Sadiq Khan, and Europe had been strong on Ukraine.

Refuses to say UK PM will not go to China until Jimmy Lai released.

Backs appointment of a special envoy for UK citizens detained overseas, but says this has been delayed by reshuffle. Her predecessor promised announcement by end of the year. So promise broken.

Won’t publish UK China audit.

Waffles some more about China super embassy application.

Says v worried of further bloodshed in Sudan, but has found no breaches of weapons embargo by UK.

Two reviews of British Council funding have not been completed. Still has budget of £960m.

Says she is concerned by bullying culture revealed in successive FCDO surveys.

Overall, Cooper is very adept at describing the process of decision making, less so the actual decision.

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Employment rights bill set to become law after it clears Lords, with Tories not pushing for further vote on compensation cap

The House of Lords has passed the employment rights bill. Last week Tory and cross-bench peers defeated the government over one aspect of the bill – a last-minute addition lifting the cap on compensation paid to people who win a case for unfair dismissal – but that defeat was overturned on Monday and this afternoon peers debated the bill again. This time the Tories and cross-benchers dropped their opposition to the measure, and the bill as agreed by the Commons was approved without a division.

That means it will now get royal assent very shortly.

Lord Sharpe of Epsom, the Conservative spokesperson, told peers that a letter from business groups released by the government yesterday, in which the business groups urged peers to pass the bill, showed that ministers had “misrepresented” the compromise deal unveiled last month.

Under the deal, negotiated with business and unions, the government agreed to remove day one protection from unfair dismissal from the bill, replacing it with protection coming in after six months. This was a win for business.

In return, it was agreed to lift the cap on unfair dismissal payments – a win for unions. But initially there was some confusion about what had actually been agreed.

Currently the cap on compensation payments is either 52 weeks’ pay or £118,223 – whichever figure is lower. Sharpe said the two sides agreed to remove the 52 weeks’ pay part of the formula, and instead have a slightly higher monetary cap. Instead, when the compromise deal was written into the bill, the cap was removed in its entirety.

Sharpe also criticised the Liberal Democrats for their stance. Originally they were opposed to the unfair dismissal compensation cap being lifted, but they dropped their opposition to this last week. Sharpe accused them of forming “a coalition of chaos” against business with Labour.

Sharpe said the bill will leave the UK as the only country in Europe, apart from Luxembourg, as the only country without a cap on compensation payments. He said that in France President Macron reimposed a cap on unfair dismissal compensation because of the impact not having one was having on employment.

He ended his speech saying the Tories would repeal every “job-destroying measure” in the bill if they win the next election.

But Sharpe did not push for a vote against the bill. It is normal for peers to eventually back down when the Commons has insisted on legislation, and Sharpe said the Tories felt they had made the bill better. It was nodded through without a division.

Welcoming the development, Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, said:

This is an historic day and early Christmas present for working people across the country, and the trade unions who represent them.

“Banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, sick pay for all, expanding parental and bereavement leave, strengthening protections for pregnant women, whistleblowers and victims of sexual harassment, repealing Tory anti-union laws, ensuring union access to workplaces, establishing a social care fair pay agreement – these are just some of the watershed measures this bill will now deliver.

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Yvette Cooper rejects Trump administration’s claim Europe at risk of ‘civilisational erasure’ because of migration

Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has rejected the Trump administration’s claim that Europe faces “civilisational erasure” because of issues like migration and ethnic diversity.

While she did not criticise the president in personal terms, in evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee she firmly dismissed one of the central ideas in his administration’s new national security strategy.

The document says that “economic decline (in Europe) is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure” and that migration is one of the main reasons for this. It says: “Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less.”

Cooper told the committee that, while the government agreed with some aspects of the strategy (which also calls for higher European defence spending), there were other areas where the UK took a different view.

She went on:

I think (it) wouldn’t surprise you that we’d take a different view on the strength of European democracies, the strength of our freedoms, our support for communities and our social cohesion as well.

And I think if you want to talk about the centuries of civilisation that we have to be proud of, our cultural industries are stronger than they have ever been. It’s a more important part of our economy than it has ever been.

We have strong and diverse communities who are proud to be British, who are an incredibly important part of the kind of country that we are, and we celebrate that, and will continue to do so.

Cooper said it was possible for the UK and the US to have “robust differences” on some topics. And she dismissed that parties had to share Trump’s ideas to be patriotic.

I would also just say I regard my party as a patriotic party as well, and will continue to be very clear about the strength of our country.

I’m very proud of Britain and the diverse country that we are, the creative, dynamic country that we are, and also the strong ally that we are to all sorts of countries across the world.

Cooper was more critical of the Trump document than her junior ministerial colleague, Seema Malhotra, who answered an urgent question about it in the Commons last week.

During that UQ, the former Labour minister Liam Byrne said the document had echoes of “some extreme rightwing tropes that date back to the 1930s”. In a post at the time I described this as a reference to the Nazis, but Byrne subsequently got in touch to say he was not referring to the Nazis but to Oswald Spengler, a German philosopher who wrote The Decline of the West in the 1920s and whose ideas influenced the ‘great replacement theory’ popular with the far right today. Byrne has explained this in more detail in a post on his Radical Centre Substack.

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Updated at 12.43 EST

Minister rejects plea from Jeremy Corbyn for meeting about concerns of health of Palestine Action hunger strikers

A justice minister has refused a request from Jeremy Corbyn for a meeting to discuss the plight of eight remand prisoners accused of offences related to Palestine Action who are on hunger strike.

Corbyn raised the issued during justice questions when he said there were “deep concerns” about the group, five of whom have already been taken to hospital.

The group have various demands, including immediate bail and the lifting the ban on Palestine Action. The first activists started their hunger strike in October.

Corbyn asked:

There are a number of prisoners at the present time who are undertaking a hunger strike. They are remand prisoner and some of them don’t have a trial date until 2027.

There are deep concerns expressed by them, their families and their legal representatives about access to medical treatment and the way they have been treated when taken to hospital as well.

To help the situation, would the minister be able to meet their legal representatives, and families if necessary, in order to discuss the situation and try and move forward to help the safety of these particular prisoners?

Jake Richards, a justice minister, replied:

No.

Luckily, the Ministry of Justice and the Prison Service has robust and proper guidance and procedures for when these scenarios come to fruition.

I am satisfied, and the ministry is satisfied, that those procedures are being enacted, and we will continue to keep it under review.

Around the same time Corbyn released a letter on social media, signed by more than 50 MPs and peers, also calling for a ministerial meeting with laywers representing the eight remand prisoners. He said:

More than 50 MPs and Peers have joined me in urging David Lammy to immediately meet with the lawyers of those on hunger strike.

The government needs to wake up, take responsibility, and show some humanity before it is too late

Two of the eight have been on hunger strike for 45 days, and their relatives have warned they could die if the matter is not resolved.

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Updated at 12.05 EST

A reader asks:

@ Andrew. Can we make any link between the BBC case and the US pausing the 41bn of tech investments?

Not really, other than that they are both evidence of Donald Trump being capricious.

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BBC vows to defend itself in $10bn Donald Trump lawsuit

The BBC has vowed to defend itself against the $10bn lawsuit that the US president, Donald Trump filed against it, Eleni Courea and Jamie Grierson report.

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Jim Dickson (Lab) says that Gwain Towler, the former Ukip, Brexit party and Reform UK press officer, is on record as saying that he asked Nathan Gill why he was making pro-Russian statements in the European parliament, but accepted Gill’s claim it was a free speech issue. He says this sort of approach is not good enough.

Dickson is referring to a post that Towler wrote on his Substack blog.

I remember vividly when Nathan first started raising questions about Ukraine in the European Parliament. This was around 2018, as tensions simmered between Kyiv and Moscow. In my role as UKIP’s comms chief, I gave him a proper rollicking, our party’s focus was Brexit and the UK, not meddling in Eastern European geopolitics. It was completely outside our purview, a distraction that could dilute our message and alienate supporters.

But Nathan countered smoothly, framing it as a matter of freedom of speech, defending the right to question narratives about press freedom and political persecution in Ukraine. He argued passionately that MEPs should speak freely without fear of censorship. I accepted his explanation at face value; after all, we were the party of free expression, weren’t we? It seemed principled, even bold. Little did I know, those “questions” were the opening salvos in a far more sinister agenda.

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Here is the news release from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the inquiry into foreign financial interference in UK politics.

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