A Labour government would recover billions of pounds lost to Covid fraud as part of its mission to “rebuild Britain”, Rachel Reeves has declared.
The shadow chancellor said taxpayers had lost £7.2bn during the pandemic, with “every single one of those cheques signed by Rishi Sunak as chancellor”.
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She said that if Labour wins the next election, it will appoint a “Covid corruption commissioner” whose job it will be to recover as much of that money as possible.
In a barnsotring speech to the Labour conference which earned several standing ovations, Reeves also said she would crack down on the use of private jets by government ministers.
On Covid fraud, she said: “We will go after those who profited from the carnival of waste during the pandemic.
“Today, the cost to the taxpayer of covid fraud is estimated at £7.2 billion, with every single one of those cheques signed by Rishi Sunak as Chancellor.
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“And yet just 2% of all fraudulent covid grants have been recovered. So, I can announce today that we will appoint a Covid corruption commissioner.
“Supported by a hit squad of investigators, equipped with the powers they need and the mandate to do whatever it takes to chase down those who have ripped off the taxpayer, take them to court, and claw back every penny of taxpayer’s money that they can.
“That money belongs in our NHS, it belongs in our schools, it belongs in our police. And conference, we want our money back.
“We are ready to serve, we are ready to lead, we are ready to rebuild Britain.”
Reeves also said she would “crack down on Tory ministers’ private jet habit”.
“What is Rishi Sunak so scared of up there in his private jet – meeting a voter?,” she said.
“We will enforce the ministerial code on the use of private planes and save millions of pounds for taxpayers in the process.”
The BBC “bowed to pressure” from the Tories by axing Gary Lineker from Match of the Day, Rachel Reeves has said.
The shadow chancellor said the corporation should reverse its decision, which triggered a mass revolt which threw its sports coverage into chaos.
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Reeves also pointed out that BBC chairman Richard Sharp, who has donated huge sums to the Conservatives, has kept his job despite his role in Boris Johnson securing a loan of up to £800,000.
The BBC announced on Friday that Lineker was “stepping back” from presenting Match of the Day this weekend over a tweet criticising the government’s migrant crackdown.
He said some of the language being used by ministers was like “Germany in the 1930s”.
On Sky News this morning, Reeves said: “Whether you agree with Gary Lineker’s tweets or not, and I wouldn’t have used that language, I think that it is perfectly reasonable that you can present the football commentary on the BBC at a weekend.”
Referring to Richard Sharp, she added: “He is still in his job. Gary Lineker isn’t able to present the football commentary? I think there is a sense of proportionality here.
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“The Tories obviously put a huge amount of pressure on the government to get rid of Gary Lineker, I don’t remember those same Tory MPs crying about impartiality when those revelations about Richard Sharp came out.”
Appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuennsberg on BBC One, Reeves said: “The BBC have clearly come under immense pressure from the Conservative Party to take Gary Lineker off air.
“I think it is a shame that the BBC has bowed to that pressure. I would urge the BBC to reconsider this decision, because I think it has now gone totally out of proportion.”
He told the Sunday Mirror: “Dad is a good man, a good human, and I’m proud of him for standing by his word. That’s why he was pulled off the show – because he wouldn’t apologise. But he will always speak up for people who don’t have a voice.
“He is passionate about helping refugee charities – he took in two refugees who he is still in touch with and trying to help.
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“It means a lot to him to stand up for people whose only hope is to escape a country with only the clothes on their back. That’s why he’s been so firm.
“Will he go back to Match of the Day? I think so – he loves Match of the Day. But he won’t ever back down on his word.”
BBC director general Tim Davie, who took the decision to suspend Lineker, said he was seeking a resolution to the dispute, but insisted he will not resign over his handling of the affair.
He said: “I think my job is to serve licence fee payers and deliver a BBC that is really focused on world-class, impartial landmark output – and I look forward to resolving this situation and looking forward to delivering that.”
Labour has condemned government plans to replace striking rail workers with agency staff in a bid to stop the network grinding to a halt later this month.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps is reportedly preparing to draft emergency legislation to allow the move ahead of planned industrial action later this month.
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Members of the RMT are due to stage a three-day walkout on June 21, 23 and 25 in a dispute over jobs and pay.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, Shapps wants to overturn a law brought in by the last Labour government banning the use of agency workers to carry out the jobs of those on strike.
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Asked for her view of the proposals on Sky News’s ‘Ridge on Sunday’ programme, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said she would not feel safe travelling by rail with untrained staff carrying out essential tasks.
She said: “It just doesn’t make any sense. The way to resolve this is to get people around the table, but the idea that you can replace a skilled train signaller with an agency worker – would you feel safe going on a train knowing that there was an agency worker rather than a properly-skilled and trained-up train signaller?
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“I know that I wouldn’t, so instead of this fanning the flames and increasing tensions the Government need to act like firefighters rather than arsonists and try and get some resolution to this.”
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union, accused the government to trying to “pour petrol on the flames” of the dispute.
Asked about the agency worker plan, he said: “That would be an outrageous act if the government go down that road.
“We’ve already got the most restrictive anti-union legislation in the whole of western Europe. It’s already incredibly difficult for unions and workers to withdraw their labour. There are so many legal loopholes to fly through.
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“If you think about what Grant Shapps is trying to do with that legislation, is to make industrial action ineffective, and I believe it’s a basic human right to be able to withdraw your labour.
“You only do it as a last resort and any attempts to bring people in to undermine disputes will not resolve the problems.”
Labour is set to force a vote on an emergency budget to help ease the cost of living crisis today after inflation hit a 40-year high.
Official figures showed the inflation rate increased to 9 per cent in the 12 months to April, up from 7 per cent in March.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the announcement would be “a huge worry for families already stretched”.
It means the cost of living in the UK has increased at its fastest rate since 1982 as soaring energy bills put millions of households under pressure.
Reeves said: “We can’t wait any longer for action from this out of touch government.
“Today, Labour force a vote for an emergency budget and for a plan for growth. The Tories must back it.”
The figures, revealed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Wednesday morning, will add to pressure faced by households to cut back on bills and everyday spending.
A large portion of the rise was due to the price cap on energy bills, which was hiked by 54 per cent for the average household at the start of the month.
Higher fuel and food prices, driven by the Ukraine war, are also pushing the cost of living up, with inflation expected to continue to rise this year.
Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the Office for National Statistics, said: “Inflation rose steeply in April, driven by the sharp climb in electricity and gas prices as the higher price cap came into effect.
“Around three-quarters of the increase in the annual rate this month came from utility bills.”
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said that inflation was hitting countries around the world and pointed to energy prices as a main culprit.
“We cannot protect people completely from these global challenges but are providing significant support where we can, and stand ready to take further action,” he said.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey called for an emergency VAT cut to “slash prices” at the till and fuel pump.
“The warning lights are all flashing red and Boris Johnson hasn’t a second to lose,” he added.
Meanwhile, the British Chambers of Commerce warned that “unprecedented” inflation could spark a recession later in the year.
Think tank Resolution Foundation said the government “must” provide further targeted support for lower income families at the “sharp end” of the crisis.
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It’s taken quite a while, but Labour is talking about Brexit again. In her first big intervention as shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves started the week by unveiling a new ‘Made in Britain’ policy under which the party would change procurement rules to boost home-grown firms.
As she set out details of how the plan would secure supply chains by “reshoring jobs” as the US and French have done, Reeves uttered the B-word. “It’s about sorting out some of the problems with our Brexit deal that the government signed last year,” she told me on TimesRadio.
That deal had “short-changed our creative industries, our professional services and our farming and food businesses. where we have seen a 47% drop in exports to the EU”, she added. New blue passports being made in France, just one UK firm winning HS2 contracts, overseas firms supplying PPE in the pandemic, all are examples of the government’s failures, she said.
For Labour the political benefits of this new policy are obvious. This week’s latest GDP figures showed that while professional services and construction were picking up again, manufacturing and farming were not. The former are concentrated in London and the south east, the latter are crucial in the ‘Red Wall’ seats (many of which have a mix of urban and rural) in the north and midlands.
And while Reeves is careful not to suggest Labour would reverse Brexit, she is determined to highlight the flaws in the Johnson deal. By focusing on how to make, sell and buy more British products, she has followed through on her very first Commons appearance in her new role. Add in examples of Labour metro mayors plugging the idea this week and you can see it’s no one-off strategy.
Labour’s win in Batley and Spen seems to have helped fuel this attempt to get on the front foot. And further proof of a new-found confidence on the issue comes in our latest Commons People podcast with Emily Thornberry. The shadow international trade secretary told us: “Six months out from the deal we can now start saying: ‘when you say this is a teething problem it obviously isn’t’,”
Liz Truss was like the “secretary of state for a doughnut”, because she focused on all trade apart from the great glaring hold of trade with the EU, Thornberry said. “She will take no responsibility for patching the deal that we really need, which is the biggest trade deal, which is the trade deal with the EU, which has great glaring holes…We need to repair this really thin deal. It’s like gossamer.”
Strong stuff, but Thornberry is clearly unafraid of taking the fight to her opposite number. In the podcast, she says Truss has become “a Margaret Thatcher tribute act”. And she reveals the gossip in the Department of International Trade is that Truss has a habit of writing on documents in her ministerial red box: “Too long, didn’t read”.
Thornberry also underscored Labour’s tougher lines on China, revealing she had been in talks with Taiwan’s UK representative today and calling for British firms to reveal if they use products made by Uighurs. This follows Lisa Nandy’s call earlier this week for the UK to stage a political, but not sporting, boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
The ‘Made in Britain’ policy itself has echoes of Gordon Brown’s “British jobs for British workers”, without using that exact phrase. I remember David Cameron was so outraged by the slogan he once said in PMQs it was “borrowed off the National Front”. And in a reminder of how politics has come since, Cameron even complained the policy would contravene EU free movement rules.
Yet focusing on British manufacturing and procurement perhaps also shows that Labour is also getting more comfortable with the idea of “progressive patriotism”, a phrase that Rebecca Long-Bailey road-tested in the leadership campaign but quickly backed away from.
Gareth Southgate’s calm, inclusive leadership of the England football team has embodied that concept better than most politicians (particularly Tory backbencher Lee Anderson, who will amazingly boycott England’s big game this weekend because the team continues to take the knee).
As Boris Johnson wraps himself in bunting, while curiously wearing his England top under a suit jacket, Labour is edging its way into criticising his skinny trade deal with the EU. I wonder if Keir Starmer will go the whole way and promise at the next election “a better Brexit”?
As the results came in, the pattern was clear and, for Labour activists, painfully familiar.
Keir Starmer, the man elected to stop the bleed in the party’s so-called red wall, was instead presiding over yet more red ruin.
Boris Johnson’s Conservatives had not only captured the totemic Westminster seat of Hartlepool – a Labour constituency since its inception – but a slew of English council seats from County Durham to Dudley were turning from red to blue.
Despite a scramble to manage expectations by Labour HQ, there could be no glossing over the fact these were terrible results, with Starmer rejected by much of its previous working-class base.
Starmer did not quell speculation he will embark on a reshuffle in response to the drubbing, telling reporters on Friday his party has “lost the trust of working people” and he will do “whatever it takes” to restore it.
So, who might he look to in order to shake things up? Here are some of the options.
On The Way Up
Stefan Rousseau – PA Images via Getty ImagesLabour’s shadow schools minister Wes Streeting could be in line for a promotion
Wes Streeting
Viewed as a rising star hungry to do battle with the Tory benches, the shadow schools minister grew up in a council flat in Stepney and went on to study at Cambridge.
A moderate and vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Streeting has become a close ally of Starmer’s in recent months, repeatedly taking to the airwaves to defend the party’s new direction.
As the country recovers from coronavirus, Labour may see the Tories as vulnerable on social mobility and the widening opportunity gap between rich and poor.
It is for this reason, many tip Streeting to take the education brief from Kate Green, who some feel has failed to land blows on Gavin Williamson despite the A-Levels fiasco and a series of cuts.
“Wes would be Gavin Williamson’s worst nightmare,” said one Labour source.
It is also possible, however, that Streeting’s confident media performances could be placed in a more strategic role, such as shadowing Michael Gove’s Cabinet Office role.
His previous support for the People’s Vote campaign could hamper his chances, however, with Starmer keen to draw a line under Brexit.
LEON NEAL via Getty ImagesRachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who spearheaded the Tory sleaze drive is tipped for a big job
Rachel Reeves
Widely tipped to replace Anneliese Dodds as shadow chancellor, Leeds West MP Reeves is one of the few shadow ministers with previous frontbench experience.
Seen as on the right of the party, Reeves served in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet and is seen as having won trust and respect among those the left by leading the campaign against “Tory sleaze”.
A former economist for the Bank of England and British Embassy in Washington, Reeves is not thought to have any competition if Starmer is searching for a new face to take on Rishi Sunak at the despatch box.
Yui MokPAJess Phillips could be in line for a promotion
Jess Phillips
One of Starmer’s most high-profile frontbenchers, the shadow domestic violence minister led party calls for action after Sarah Everard’s murder.
The Birmingham Yardley MP has a forthright style and, though Starmer may view her as something of a loose cannon, he is said to highly prize her work campaigning on homelessness, domestic killings and violence against women.
Phillips, who was the moderates’ candidate for leadership when Corbyn stepped down, is also a strong communicator, both online and on broadcast, and comfortable with the “red wall” voters Starmer fears the party has lost touch with.
The 39-year-old has previously voiced an ambition to be home secretary, which is a brief Starmer may consider for her, but possible alternatives may be shadow equalities secretary.
She may also be considered for the role of shadow employment rights secretary should Starmer wish to move Corbyn ally Andy McDonald.
On the way out?
Ian Forsyth via Getty ImagesAnneliese Dodds, shadow chancellor of the exchequer, is thought not to have landed any blows on Rishi Sunak
Anneliese Dodds
Starmer’s choice for shadow chancellor, the most important appointment for any leader, has attracted regular criticism.
Her allies point out her difficult task in facing Rishi Sunak while the occupant of Number 11 has handed out huge sums of cash via the furlough scheme and other Covid support.
But many feel Dodds has failed to nail her opponent when he was weak on free school meals cuts, the Eat Out To Help Out debacle and the Greensill Capital scandal.
Prevaricating over whether Labour would back a wealth tax and hiring a former advisor of John McDonnell’s also fanned concerns about whether she was suitable.
Demoting his own pick for such a crucial job would inevitably invite criticism of Starmer’s judgement, however, and Dodds is well-liked and viewed as knowledgeable among MPs.
But, equally, if Starmer refused to consider a move, he may face the charge of tinkering around the edges.
House of Commons – PA Images via Getty ImagesShadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth is a solid media performer but is connected to Jeremy Corbyn’s era in power
Jonathan Ashworth
The shadow health secretary has been in post since 2016 and was appointed by Corbyn, despite not sharing the former leader’s left-wing outlook.
Sources have suggested Starmer is keen for a reset on health policy, especially as the NHS is traditionally Labour’s strongest campaign issue and Johnson’s approach to social care may soon be a key dividing line.
Others have underlined that sacking Ashworth, whose current knowledge of the brief is likely to be unrivalled, during the pandemic would be a misstep.
Questions over whether Ashworth has briefed against Starmer and his staff to journalists have been swirling, however.
“He is acting like he has already lost his job,” said one source.
Liz Kendall, Justin Madders, Rosena Allin-Khan and Lucy Powell are among the names touted as his replacement.
Danny Lawson – PA Images via Getty ImagesEmily Thornberry during the Labour leadership hustings
Emily Thornberry
Relations between the shadow trade secretary and Starmer are thought to have been rocky in recent months.
Starmer demoted his leadership rival from her role as shadow foreign secretary last year and there are suggestions he could go further.
Despite her combative scrutiny of Liz Truss, Thornberry has been increasingly sidelined in recent months, rarely, if ever, appearing on the media.
Her previous comments about the St George’s flag are also seen by Starmer’s allies as undermining the party’s attempts to appear more patriotic.
It is possible she is offered an alternative role as shadow leader of the Commons, should long-serving Valerie Vaz wish to move on, but it’s not clear Thornberry would accept.
Starmer might consider bringing in a well-known “big beast” as her replacement, such as former shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn.
What else could Starmer do?
Ian Forsyth via Getty ImagesLisa Nandy
Starmer will be desperate to show working class voters he is listening and may look to boost the role of Wigan MP and shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy.
Her policy work on reviving the party’s offer to towns is highly rated and sources say he is keen for her to be seen on broadcast media more often.
A sideways move to the Home Office role, replacing Nick Thomas-Symonds, to shadow Priti Patel may be on the cards.
It would see Nandy front and centre of efforts to make the party credible on issues like crime and immigration, something vital to securing support in the red wall.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner’s role as elections chief has also been questioned, with some saying she lacks experience of marginal battles.
Others lay the blame for defeats at the door of former Darlington MP Jenny Chapman, Starmer’s campaign chief, though the leader is said to remain loyal to her.
Ian Murray, who is helping Anas Sarwar to lead a resurgence in Scotland, and Chris Bryant, whose local party has ousted Plaid Cymru’s former leader Leanne Wood in the Rhondda in the Welsh assembly elections, are said to have strong cases for expanded attacking roles.
Aaron Chown – PA Images via Getty ImagesSteve Reed, shadow communities secretary
Should Rachel Reeves’ potential elevation to shadow chancellor create a vacancy as shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, Starmer will need a strategic brain.
He may choose one of his key allies, such as Steve Reed or Bridget Phillipson, to battle Michael Gove. Rayner may also be approached.
It is a high-profile spot that entails building on the success Reeves has had scrutinising Johnson’s rule-breaking in the wake of the cash for curtains scandal and questions over PPE contracts.
It is not clear whether Marsha de Cordova’s position as shadow equalities minister is safe, despite fears about the optics of removing a black, disabled woman from his top team. Flo Eshalomi and Taiwo Owatemi could be options that allow Starmer to demonstrate a clear break with the Corbyn era.
Starmer may also choose to stamp his authority on the Parliamentary Labour Party by removing long-serving chief whip Nick Brown, potentially to make way for Alan Campbell.
Others in line for promotion include Sarah Jones, who is currently shadow policing minister, and Chi Onwurah, who has long been tipped for shadow business secretary. It is unlikely, however, that Ed Miliband will relinquish his climate change responsibilities ahead of the COP 26 conference.
Alison McGovern, shadow sports minister and Wirral MP, and Alex Norris may be asked to step up if Starmer’s reshuffle is wide-ranging.
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