Ben Wallace has formally resigned as defence secretary ahead of a mini-reshuffle of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet.
In a letter to the prime minister this morning, he said he had “taken the decision to ask that I be allowed to step down” after four years in the job.
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Wallace announced last month that he planned to quit the Ministry of Defence and would also not be standing at the the next election.
He told the Sunday Times he would stay in his post until the next reshuffle.
Among those tipped to replace him are Grant Shapps, Treasury minister John Glen and Cabinet Office minister Jeremy Quin.
Sunak is expected to carry out a limited shake-up of his top time this morning, with a wider reshuffle later in the year.
Wallace became an MP in 2005, but his constituency of Wyre and Preston North is being abolished in a review of boundaries and he will not seek a new seat.
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Since 2015 he has also been minister for Northern Ireland and a security minister.
Wallace had hoped to be chosen as the next secretary general of Nato, but his chances were scuppered after the United States decided not to support his bid.
In his letter to the PM, Wallace said: “After much reflection, I have taken the decision to ask that I be allowed to step down.
“I won my seat in 2005 and after so many years it is time for me to invest in the parts of life that I have neglected, and to explore new opportunities.
“Thank you for the support and your friendship. You and the Government will have my continued support.”
He also called on the government to boost defence spending as the world becomes “more insecure and more unstable”.
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In his reply, Sunak said Wallace had “served our country with distinction”.
He said: “I fully understand your desire to step down after eight years of exacting ministerial duties.
“As you say, the jobs you have done have required you to be available on a continuous basis.
“But I know you have more to offer public life both here and internationally. You leave office with my thanks and respect.”
Rishi Sunak indadvertedly breached the code of conduct when he failed to declare his wife’s shares in a childcare company, parliament’s standards commissioner has said.
Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murthy, is a shareholder in Koru Kids, which looks set to benefit from the government’s new childcare policy.
But the prime minister did not mention Murthy’s links the company when he was questioned by MPs at the liaison committee in March.
Following his inquiry, Greenberg said: “I reviewed the information available to me and concluded that, in accordance with the Code, Ms Murty’s shareholding was a relevant interest that should have been declared during the Liaison Committee meeting on 28 March 2023
“Having considered the information available to me, I have decided that the breach of the code appears to have been inadvertent. I confirm that the matter is now closed.”
Greenberg added Sunak’s breach of the code had arose out his “confusion” over the rules.
The government has launched a pilot of incentive payments of £600 for childminders joining the profession, a sum that doubles to £1,200 if they sign up through an agency.
Koru Kids is one of six childminder agencies listed on the government’s website that could benefit.
A Tory civil war has erupted after dozens of the party’s MPs and peers called on Rishi Sunak to delay the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
Under the policy, drivers will be unable to buy the vehicles from 2030.
Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, the prime minister said: “The 2030 target has been our policy for a long time and continues to be – we are not considering a delay to that date.”
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But in a letter to the PM, 45 Tory MPs and peers – including former members of the cabinet – urged him to think again.
It said: “You rightly put on record this week that net zero is important, but you do not want to add to consumers’ bills and that measures need to be ‘proportionate and pragmatic’.
“We believe the proposed ban on petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030 would risk that entire approach and do grave harm to the economy.”
They said Sunak should follow the EU’s lead by delaying the ban until 2035.
“The future for this country is in imposing fewer burdens and being more lightly regulated than the EU, not in unilaterally imposing additional job-destroying burdens to meet and unnecessary and unworkable deadline,” the letter said.
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Sunak hinted at rowing back on the government’s environmental commitments in the wake of the recent Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election.
The Tories managed to hang on to Boris Johnson’s old seat by campaigning against opposing the expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which will see drivers of old cars charged £12.50 a day.
The letter said that showed net zero policies which cost voters’ money “are deeply unpopular”.
The MPs and peers added: “We urge you to review this policy to make sure car ownership remains affordable and manufacturers are protected.
“A move to 2035 to match competitor countries such as the EU bloc and the USA would seem entirely sensible.”
Dozens of groups, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace UK, the National Trust, RPSCA and RSPB, have written to the PM warning him not to use the environment as “a political football”.
They said: “Acting on climate change needs to be done fairly, but that is best done by delivering well-designed policy, backed up with public and private finance, and by working hand-in-hand with industry and communities. There is no public mandate for a delay.
“It is therefore with deep alarm that we have read reports over the last few weeks of your government considering watering down its commitments on almost every front of environmental policy.”
That led to speculation that he could ditch the government’s commitment to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and dilute plans to phase out the use of gas boilers.
The shift in approach comes in the wake of the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, which the Tories won on a campaign opposing the expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which will see drivers of old cars charged £12.50 a day.
Dozens of groups, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace UK, the National Trust, RPSCA and RSPB, have now written to the PM warning him not to use the environment as “a political football”.
The letter, which has 52 signatories, said: “The planet needs politicians to act urgently – not least, to protect people here in the UK, but also those across the world, who are being hardest hit by our changing climate.
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“At the last election, the Conservative Party manifesto put the 2050 net zero target front and centre. It did so because, as well as being the right thing to do, the environment remains a central concern for voters.
“Acting on climate change needs to be done fairly, but that is best done by delivering well-designed policy, backed up with public and private finance, and by working hand-in-hand with industry and communities. There is no public mandate for a delay.
“It is therefore with deep alarm that we have read reports over the last few weeks of your government considering watering down its commitments on almost every front of environmental policy.”
The letter added: “We will not stand by whilst politicians use the environment as a political football. It is courage and leadership that we need now.”
In a further sign of Sunak’s weakening commitment to protecting the environment, the prime minister has also order a review of “low traffic neighbourhoods”.
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The schemes close off certain roads to traffic in an attempt to improve air quality and encourage people to use their cars less.
However, they have proved highly controversial in some areas.
Sunak told the Sunday Telegraph: “The vast majority of people in the country use their cars to get around and are dependent on cars.
“I just want to make sure people know that I’m on their side in supporting them to use their cars to do all the things that matter to them.”
The Conservatives have narrowly beaten Labour to retain Boris Johnson’s former seat following a bitter by-election campaign.
In a major blow for Keir Starmer, Steve Tuckwell beat Tory candidate Danny Beales by just 495 votes to become the new MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
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The by-election was called following Johnson’s dramatic resignation last month after he was found guilty by the privileges committee of repeatedly lying to parliament over partygate.
The former prime minister retained the seat with a majority of 7,210 at the 2019 election.
Tuckwell received 13,965 votes to Beales’s 13,470 to claim the constituency for the Tories once again.
The Conservatives effectively turned the by-election into a referendum on Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s decision to expand London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) across the whole of the city from next month.
The result of a huge boost for Rishi Sunak, who had been braced for the Tories to lose the seat, given the unpopularity of the government and Labour’s commanding lead in the national polls.
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A Labour spokesperson said: “This was always going to be a difficult battle in a seat that has never had a Labour MP and we didn’t even win in 1997. We know that the Conservatives crashing the economy has hit working people hard, so it’s unsurprising that the ULEZ expansion was a concern for voters here in a by-election.”
A vessel that will house up to 500 asylum seekers arrived in the UK on Tuesday after parliament passed its long-debated bill to curb migration.
The barge Bibby Stockholm was pulled by a tug into Portland harbor, off the Dorset coast in south west England, after the government’s controversial legislation overcame resistance in the House of Lords and was passed.
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The vessel and the bill are both parts of prime minister Rishi Sunak’s strategy to stop migrants from making risky English Channel crossings in small boats. The legislation will become law after receiving the assent of King Charles III.
The Conservative government has pledged to “stop the boats” – overcrowded dinghies and other small craft that cross from northern France carrying migrants who hope to live in the UK. More than 45,000 people crossed the Channel to Britain in 2022; several died in the attempt.
The bill is intended to deter those journeys and will prevent migrants from claiming asylum in the UK. if they arrive illegally. Under the legislation, those caught will be sent back home or deported to another safe country and banned from ever re-entering the UK.
The government planned to send some of those who arrive without authorisation to Rwanda, but last month the Court of Appeal ruled it was illegal. The government is appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court.
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Sunak cheered the passage of the bill but said the government must prevail at the higher court for the law to function properly.
“This is an important part of our work to stop the boats. Obviously it needs to be paired with the Rwanda partnership,” said Sunak’s spokesperson, Max Blain. “It’s right that we have this power in place so it can be utilised swiftly and we remain confident we will be successful in the challenge in the Supreme Court.”
The bill was approved after an all-night tussle on Monday between the House of Commons, where the governing Conservatives have a majority, and the unelected House of Lords, which can amend but not block legislation.
Elected MPs defeated amendments that would have included protections for modern slavery and child detention limits.
The United Nations human rights and refugee chiefs said the bill was at odds with Britain’s obligations under international law and will have “profound consequences” for people seeking protection.
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The UN warned that the law would even deny protection to children with legitimate claims who are traveling without parents – some of whom might have survived human trafficking.
The Bibby Stockholm is expected to start housing people in two weeks. Its arrival on Tuesday at the port inspired two groups of protesters opposed to it.
Some locals are worried about the impact new arrivals will have on their town. A second group, Stand Up to Racism, said it welcomed refugees but objected to what it calls a “prison barge”.
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg last weekend, Rishi Sunak said the government must “hold our nerve” in the quest to bring down inflation, even if it means higher interest rates for a while.
However, his comments were interpreted as a message to the country at large, that we all just have to suck up higher mortgage and rent costs, on top of rising food and energy bills, until things get better at some point in the future.
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Coming from any prime minister that would be a tough political message to sell; coming from one as personally wealthy – and mortgage-free – as Sunak, it is even tougher.
And while politicians’ personal financial circumstances are usually off-limits, the PM’s opponents spot a major weakness and are beginning to take advantage.
At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn asked Sunak: “May I ask him, the near billionaire, when was the last time that he struggled to pay a bill?”
The fact that he completely avoided answering the question merely confirmed how uncomfortable this topic is for the PM.
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Labour leader Keir Starmer also made a point of mentioning this week that his own mortgage has gone up – a less-than-subtle invitation for voters to compare his situation with that of the prime minister.
Gabriel Milland, partner for research at Portland Communications, has carried out focus groups across the country, gauging the views of ordinary voters on the main issues of the day. His findings are a mixed bag for Sunk.
“Generally speaking, it’s not as if voters have a problem with Sunak being wealthy per se,” he told HuffPost UK.
“You have to remember that the kind of salaries that all MPs, let alone frontbenchers, earn places them far above average or median earnings. To most people, all politicians are very well off.
“Where it does become a problem is if politicians appear to be trying to be something that they are not. Boris Johnson never made any bones about the fact that he is, relatively speaking, very posh. Even working class voters accepted him for that.
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“What absolutely did cut through in the groups last year was the incident with the contactless payment card and and when he filled up a car with petrol and it turned out not to be his.”
Milland added: “There’s a danger of over-stating all this though. What the public absolutely do want is the sense that the government on their side and doing stuff to help them.
“They’re not that bothered if Sunak himself is facing the same sort of worries over his gas bill that they are.”
However, a senior Labour source said that their own focus groups suggest voters can make the distinction between a PM who is wealthy but seemingly in touch with their concerns – like David Cameron – and one whose unimaginable fortune means he has no idea about ordinary people’s lives.
“We’ve always tried to avoid doing stuff on him being rich, but gradually we’ve started to pick up that people see him as being out of touch,” he told HuffPost UK.
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“In focus groups we gets lots of ‘he’s a billionaire’ and ‘he’s part of the jet set elite’.”
Another added: “Someone who’s grown up within the wealth that surrounds him and always has done can’t possibly understand what it’s like for somebody like me.”
The Labour source said that rather than directly attack Sunak’s wealth, they want to convince the public that he’s out of touch with their concerns.
“It’s not how much money that’s in his bank account that matters, it’s things like the US green card, his wife’s non-dom status and him flying round the country in a helicopter,” they said.
“It builds up a picture of someone who’s out of touch and doesn’t have any idea of how you live your life.”
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Sunak has been criticised for his preference for private jets rather than train travel
No10 Downing Street
Sunak’s huge personal fortune is at least some comfort for him after another dreadful few days in Number 10.
It was supposed to be ‘NHS week’, when the government set out how it would tackle the many problems facing the health service and culminating in the long-awaited workforce plan setting out a strategy to recruit more doctors and nurses.
Rumours are rife that the PM might try to reset his government with a pre-summer recess reshuffle in what many will see as a last-ditch attempt to save a premiership that is barely eight months old.
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As one gloomy Tory aide observed: “There can’t be any more wheels to fall off of this particular shit wagon.”
Rishi Sunak has said there is a “deep moral responsibility” to get inflation under control as the cost-of-living remains stubbornly high.
The prime minister’s characterisation came as official data on Wednesday showed inflation defied expectations that it would slow and held at 8.7% in May – making the rate of price growth in Britain the highest of any major economy once again.
It means the Bank of England is likely to hike interest rates again on Thursday in a desperate attempt to cool the economy down, spelling bad news for homeowners who face further increases in mortgage repayments. The central bank’s over-arching aim is to keep inflation at 2%.
Sunak vowed in January that the government would halve the rate at which prices are rising by the end of the year. At the time, the inflation rate was around 10%.
Speaking at an event on Thursday, Sunak will put an added emphasis on the goal.
He is expected to say: “I feel a deep moral responsibility to make sure the money you earn holds its value.
“That’s why our number one priority is to halve inflation this year and get back to the target of 2%.
“And I’m completely confident that if we hold our nerve, we can do so.”
His comments suggest lowering inflation now trumps economic growth – one of Sunak’s other promises – which could have other negative economic impacts.
Acknowledging that this is a difficult time for families and businesses, the prime minister will add: “Beating inflation has to be the priority … because if we don’t get a grip on inflation now, the damage will be worse and longer lasting.”
Boris Johnson has been stripped of his parliamentary pass for repeatedly lying to the House of Commons over partygate.
MPs voted 354 to 7 to support last week’s privileges committee’s report which found him guilty of misleading parliament by insisting lockdown rules were followed in Downing Street during the pandemic.
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Johnson resigned as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip 10 days ago after seeing an advance copy of the committee’s report.
Had he remained an MP, the committee said it would have recommended he be suspended from the Commons for 90 days.
Johnson described the inquiry as a “kangaroo court” and claimed he was the victim of a political stitch-up.
But following a five-hour debate, an overwhelming majority of MPs voted to back the committee’s findings, including the recommendation that Johnson should have the parliamentary pass given to former MPs removed.
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The debate also exposed the deep splits within the Tories over their former leader, with around 200 of the party’s MPs – including prime minister Rishi Sunak – abstaining by failing to take part in the vote.
Some 118 Tory MPs voted to back the committee’s findings, including cabinet ministers Alex Chalk, Penny Mordaunt Gillian Keegan, and former PM Theresa May.
The Tories who voted against the committee’s report were Joy Morrisey, Karl McCartney, Adam Holloway, Heather Wheeler, Nick Fletcher and Bill Cash.
In a bizarre interview this morning, Sunak repeatedly refused to say what he thought of the report, insisting he “wouldn’t want to influence” any MPs on how to vote.
Meanwhile, the prime minister’s official spokesman said he was too busy with other engagements, including hosting the prime minister of Sweden, to attend parliament.
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Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “Tonight Rishi Sunak committed a cowardly cop-out. His failure to vote says all you need to know about this prime minister’s lack of leadership.
“Sunak promised integrity yet when push came to shove, he was too weak to even turn up.”
Nadine Dorries is to conduct her own investigation into why she did not get a peerage before actually resigning in the latest twist to the Boris Johnson honours list saga.
The move is in stark contrast to her tweet on Friday, which said: “I have today informed the chief whip that I am standing down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, with immediate effect.”
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The list of new additions to the House of Lords lacked the names of Dorries and another Johnson loyalist, Nigel Adams.
The former prime minister then dramatically announced his Commons exit, as the privileges committee of MPs prepared to report that he lied to parliament over partygate, with Dorries and Adams following suit.
Both Johnson and Adams have triggered the arcane process to officially resign – but Dorries has not, with reports suggesting the former culture secretary is delaying a by-election for her Mid Bedfordshire seat to inflict pain on Rishi Sunak.
The PM is blamed by Dorries for blocking her move to the upper house, though he maintains he only refused to intervene with Lords officials when pressed by Johnson.
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On Wednesday night, Dorries broke her silence on the issue – tweeting she will not formally resign until after she gets answers from the government about why she did not get her peerage.
🧵 There is much speculation about the time at which I become appointed the bailiff of Northstead Manor, as part of the arcane resignation process when standing down as an MP.
— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) June 14, 2023
She insisted it is “absolutely my intention to resign” but said her requests for documents from the House of Lords appointments commission “is now sadly necessary” as she accused No 10 of “varying and conflicting statements” over her absence from Johnson’s resignation honours list.
She also vowed to “continue to serve my constituents of Mid Bedfordshire”, after Sunak earlier said her constituents “deserve proper representation”.
With her demands for documents likely to take time, the three by-elections will almost certainly have to take place over separate days.
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The move could prolong the misery for the prime minister as he faces a battle to defend three Conservative seats at a time of dire polling as he publicly scraps with Johnson.
Downing Street has expressed bewilderment at her delay in officially quitting. Sunak’s press secretary said: “It’s obviously unusual to have an MP say they will resign with immediate effect and for that not to take place.”
In another Tory fit of pique, Johnson on Wednesday called for a Tory MP to step down from the partygate probe amid extraordinary claims he attended a gathering during lockdown.
The former prime minister wants Bernard Jenkin to resign from the privileges committee, which has been investigating whether he misled MPs over the lockdown scandal. The claim came on the eve of the report’s publication.
