Conservatives could ‘potentially’ strike a deal with Taliban-run Afghanistan to return migrants, says party chair
The Conservatives could “potentially” strike a deal with Afghanistan over migration, the party’s chair has said.
Asked directly if the Tories would set up a returns agreement with the Taliban-run country, Kevin Hollinrake told Times Radio: “Well, potentially, yes.”
The former minister added that his party’s deportation plan, which was published in May, is “far more comprehensive than the one we’ve seen from Reform, in that it dealt with both legal migration and illegal migration”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had refused to say whether she would consider seeking such an agreement when pressed on the issue on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage has been accused of “ugly” and “destructive” rhetoric after announcing plans to deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and pledging to pay despotic regimes such as the Taliban to take them back.
Unveiling Reform UK’s “Operation Restoring Justice” at a combative press conference in Oxford, Farage said he would rip up the UK’s postwar human rights commitments, contained in a range of international conventions, to deport “absolutely anyone” – including women and children – arriving by small boat.
Elsewhere, the Government has said it wants to get a permanent deal with the EU on food and drink agreed in the next 18 months, as it sets out its stall ahead of talks later this year. Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds and Conservative party chair Kevin Hollinrake are on today’s morning media round. I’ll bring you any interesting lines from them as they come in.
But first, here are some other developments:
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UK companies spent up to £65m last year on licences to export food and agricultural products to the EU – costs that the government is promising to eliminate as part of a new deal to be agreed by 2027. Government figures released on Tuesday showed it issued 328,727 such licences last year, at a cost of between £113 and £200 each. That would put the total cost to business at somewhere between £37m and £65m.
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The cost of UK government borrowing has jumped to near a 27-year high, piling pressure on Rachel Reeves to reveal how she will tackle the deficit in the public finances before the autumn budget. The yield, or interest rate, on the UK’s 30-year bond rose by eight basis points (0.08 of a percentage point) on Tuesday to 5.62%.
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Ministers have approved plans to help a further 30 students leave Gaza to take up places at UK universities next month but their evacuation remains uncertain and dependent on Israel’s approval. It takes the total to 39, after a government commitment last week to work to secure the evacuation from Gaza of nine Chevening scholars with places at some of the UK’s leading universities.
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Energy costs will rise for millions of British households this autumn after the price cap for a typical annual dual-fuel bill increased by 2% to £1,755. The energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, will raise the cap on gas and electricity charges from October by the equivalent of just over £35 a year for the average home, following a rise in European gas prices.
Key events
Tories and Reform only offer ‘easy answers and snake oil’ on UK-EU relationship, says Thomas-Symonds
The Tories and Reform UK only offer “easy answers and snake oil” when it comes to the UK’s relationship with the European Union, Nick Thomas-Symonds has said.
In a speech hosted by the Spectator magazine, the EU relations minister said:
Some will hysterically cry even treason. Some will say we’re surrendering sovereignty or freedoms, but that is nonsense.
He added:
Now, we know we are going to have a political fight on this, especially when we legislate for it in parliament. But the prime minister was very direct in his instructions to me on taking office – national interests first, build on what’s best about Britain.
We are determined to plug the gaps, to rebuild Britain, protect our borders, bring down bills in every part of the country and secure good jobs, a new relationship of mutual benefit, one that brings freedom back to our businesses and exercises our sovereignty.
And it needs pragmatism. When you’re tough, decisive and collaborative. That cannot rest on easy answers and snake oil. The Tories [are] completely 2D, stuck with a ghost of Brexit past. And then Nigel Farage, who has pledged to reverse our progress.
Thomas-Symonds also accused Farage of “dividing communities and stoking anger”. He also dismissed Reform UK’s proposal to negotiate returns agreements with states such as Iran and renegotiate the Good Friday agreement, saying Farage was struggling to control his own parliamentary party.
The Cabinet Office minister told an event in Westminster hosted by the Spectator magazine:
I think that a careful, considered approach in Northern Ireland is absolutely critical. I think the Good Friday agreement is one of the great achievements of any peacetime UK government since 1945 and a comment like that just simply shows that Nigel Farage produces outlandish, unrealistic promises for solving problems and that, I’m afraid, is another one of them.
He was talking as well, as far as I can make out, of negotiating with hostile regimes around the world. He’s struggling at the moment to negotiate the politics of a parliamentary party that fits in the back of a taxi. I don’t put too much confidence in them.
Nigel Farage is about to hold a press conference in Scotland. You can watch it live here if you’d like:
Talks on food and drink deal with EU will start in autumn, says Cabinet Office minister
Talks on a food and drink deal with the EU will begin in the autumn, with MPs having the final say on any agreement, the minister in charge of negotiations with the bloc has said.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told an event hosted by the Spectator magazine on Wednesday:
This autumn, we will start the detailed negotiations on the SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary standards) deal, as well as other commitments from our summit last May.
We will then bring the legislation to parliament to implement the deal. We will get that done by 2027, so businesses and consumers see the tangible impacts as soon as possible – money saved at the borders, profits freed up to invest, pounds kept in the pocket of working people.
Earlier, Thomas-Symonds had insisted that the government’s approach would deliver “practical” benefits including lower prices, easier food exports for farmers and less time spent by truck drivers sitting in queues.
Thames Water has said its fines would not be paid for out of customer bills (see 10.21am BST).
According to the PA news agency, Thames Water said:
The company continues to work closely with stakeholders to secure a market-led recapitalisation which delivers for customers and the environment as soon as practicable.
Joanna Partridge
Thames Water has agreed a payment plan with the water regulator for fines it owes worth £123m, as it races to secure funding to avoid temporary nationalisation.
The water company, which serves 16 million customers across London and the south-east, is trying to pull together a deal to avoid collapse.
Earlier this month, the government approved the appointment of insolvency advisers FTI Consulting to consult on plans for Thames Water to be placed into a special administration regime.
The debt-laden utility company was hit with a record £104m fine by Ofwat in May over environmental breaches involving sewage spills, after failing to operate and manage its treatment works and wastewater networks effectively.
At the same time, a further £18.2m fine was levied on Thames for breaking dividend rules, the first penalty of its kind in the water industry. Ofwat said the company had paid out cash to investors despite having fallen short in its services to customers and its environmental record.
The penalties were originally due to be paid by 20 August but the regulator has given the company some breathing space to pay the fines.
Ofwat had previously told Thames that the penalties had to be “paid by the company and its investors, and not by customers”.
The regulator has approved Thames’s request for a payment plan, which will result in it paying £24.5m, or 20% of the penalties, by the end of September, with the rest to be paid later.
The company will pay the remainder on the earliest of three possible dates, which would be either 30 days after the implementation of a restructuring plan, or if Thames enters an SAR the balance would be due 30 days after the end of that process. The final deadline for payment of the fine will be 31 March 2030.
Responding to Ofgem announcing that the energy price cap will rise by 2% (see 8.47am BST), Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said:
The last thing struggling families and pensioners need is higher energy bills this winter. The government should cancel this rise and take up our plan to halve energy bills instead.
Ministers should be cutting bills by making sure energy firms pass on the benefits of cheap renewables, not putting up bills yet again.
Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage would only make things even worse by shackling us to expensive, dirty fossil fuels, pushing us into the arms of Vladimir Putin.
Farage described as ‘disastrous’ and ‘damaging’ by SNP over immigration plans
Nigel Farage has been called “one of the most disastrous politicians” and “extraordinarily damaging” by the SNP after the Reform UK leader outlined his plans to curb migration.
SNP MP Stephen Gethins, the SNP foreign affairs spokesperson at Westminster, questioned parts of the policy – which could see a future UK government potentially work with the Taliban to send people back to Afghanistan, with the UK also leaving the European convention on human rights.
He argued that Brexit – which Farage campaigned for – had “pushed up the small boats crisis” in the UK, as it means those seeking asylum are forced to do so in the first country they arrive in.
Hitting out at the Reform UK leader, Gethins told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme:
He is the architect, along with people like Boris Johnson, and others of the small boats crisis.
Now he wants to remove us from the European convention on human rights, which was the convention introduced at the end of the second world war to give us some of the most basic rights, like prohibition of torture and right to life and all these other basic things we take for granted.
Reform on Tuesday said they would scale up detention capacity for asylum seekers to 24,000 and secure deals with countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran to return migrants. However Farage failed to answer when asked how much he would be prepared to pay Iran and the Taliban to take deportees back. Gethins insisted such policies show Farage “is an extraordinarily damaging politician”.
The PA news agency reports that the Arbroath and Broughty Ferry MP continued:
On Afghanistan, he now wants to do deals with the Taliban. Will that mean people who were abandoned in Kabul, who served alongside the British army … are they now going to be sent back to the Taliban, and are we going to be paying for the Taliban for the privilege of sending these people back?
I think most people can see that doing a deal with the Taliban to send back women, human rights advocates and others who have campaigned against that brutal regime is unrealistic.
I don’t think it is realistic, and I think any basic reading of this is unrealistic. That is why Nigel Farage is one of the most disastrous politicians. He is one of the most consequential, but not in a good way.
But Reform councillor Ross Lambie defended the party’s immigration policy, saying:
My view on it and Reform’s view on it is that largely, if not all, of those people crossing the Channel are bogus asylum seekers who are, at best they’re here to gain the benefits system of this country. At worst, they could be here to do us harm.
He told BBC Radio Scotland that those coming to the UK in small boats are “not people fleeing” oppressive regimes and are “obscuring their identity”. Lambie said this involves either “hiding their past” or “actually hiding their true country of origin”.
According to the PA news agency, his comments came after a poll, by the David Hume Institute and Diffley Partnership, found 21% of Scots think immigration is one of the top three issues in the country, up from 16% in May and just 4% in May 2023. It suggests that immigration is now seen as the third biggest priority for the country, with only health and the cost-of-living crisis regarded as more important by voters.
While the Conservative party chair told Times Radio earlier that the party could “potentially” strike a deal with Taliban-run Afghanistan over migration (see 8.19am BST), Kevin Hollinrake later told Sky News such a deal would be “very expensive” and have “very significant” human rights consequences.
According to the PA news agency, he added that the previous government’s proposal of deporting people to Rwanda had been “a better way of doing that”.
Tim Jarvis, director general of markets at Ofgem, told Sky News that households struggling to pay their energy bills should contact their supplier for support.
Jarvis said:
One of the things that’s coming in this quarter is that the government has announced an increase in the warm home discount, so that will help some of the lowest income households in the country and see them receive an additional £150 towards their energy.
If people are struggling with their bills, I would very much urge them to talk to their supplier. I know it’s often the thing people don’t want to do, but there is support available.
Speaking about the news of a 2% rise in energy bills from October for a typical household in England, Scotland and Wales, director general of markets at Ofgem, Tim Jarvis, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday:
That’s slightly lower than the rate of inflation, but is nevertheless a rise, and I recognise that that’s going to be unwelcome for many households.
If this is a cap on what suppliers can charge, it’s important to remember that people can get cheaper deals in the fixed rate market, and we’ve already got about a third of households that are on fixed rate deals – but there have been increases in prices, in costs related to the network and related to policy costs from government, which have led to this slight increase this quarter.
Jarvis added:
I recognise that it’s difficult for households, as a lot of essential goods have been going up higher than the rate of inflation. As I say, today’s rise is lower than the rate of inflation, but I think people are going to struggle to feel that in their pockets with the other things that are going on.
It is welcome that the government is expanding the help available to households on low incomes. We’ve been calling for that for some time, so that’s a welcome additional increase this winter to try and help people with their bills.
Jarvis also said that Ofgemwill be looking at upgrading the country’s network to stabilise prices in the long term. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We have seen prices come down by around 60% since the height of the crisis, and that’s even taking into account the level of government support that was made available at that time to deal with the increase in prices. But we are entering a period where we’re looking to try and stabilise the bill that is largely going to be about getting off international gas prices.
It is that volatility that is making prices very difficult to predict, and we’re seeing big spikes and big reductions over time. And that’s why it’s so important that we’re investing in the network, and the investment in the network will enable us to get access to clean energy and cheaper energy in the longer term.
Labour’s plan for change will protect consumers, the party said, following Ofgem’s announcement that the energy price cap will rise by 2% from October.
According to the PA news agency, a Labour Party spokesperson said:
Energy bills soared under the Conservatives because they tied our country to the fossil fuel rollercoaster and working people are still paying the price.
From banning onshore wind to failing to deliver new nuclear, their reckless decisions left Britain exposed to wholesale gas prices that are still 75% higher than before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
That’s why Nigel Farage’s unpatriotic war on clean energy would be a total disaster for families, businesses and our economy. His destructive plans would push bills higher, kill nearly a million jobs and scrap billions of pounds of vital investment across the country that will strengthen our energy security.
This Labour government’s plan for change is protecting consumers with three million more families getting £150 off their bills through the warm home discount, a total of six million in all, as we continue to invest in clean homegrown power to bring energy bills down for good.
Typical annual energy bill to rise to £1,755 in Great Britain from October
Jillian Ambrose
Energy costs will rise for millions of British households this autumn after the price cap for a typical annual dual-fuel bill increased by 2% to £1,755.
The energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, will raise the cap on gas and electricity charges from October by the equivalent of just over £35 a year for the average home, following a rise in European gas prices.
The modest increase follows a brief reprieve from rising energy bills over the summer when the energy price cap fell by 7% to £1,720 from July because of lower market prices.
Energy bills will also increase because of an expansion of the government’s warm home discount scheme, which is expected to add about £15 to a typical bill, according to analysts at Cornwall Insight, an energy consultancy.
About 9 million households who buy their energy through variable tariffs will see an immediate impact on their bills when the cap takes effect in October. Households could face even higher bills if they use more than the typical amount of energy.
This is because the cap, which is recalculated every three months, limits the rate energy suppliers can charge customers for each unit of gas and electricity – not the total bill.
The return to rising energy bills means the typical household will pay about £600 a year more on its annual bill than before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 caused gas market prices to soar.
The rising price cap is likely to reignite the debate over the affordability of the UK’s energy as households look ahead to winter.
UK has had reassurance from France that small boat interceptions deal ‘will go ahead’, says Cabinet Office minister
The UK has had reassurance from France that the deal between the two countries to allow small boat interceptions in the English Channel “will go ahead”, Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said, reports the PA news agency.
He told Times Radio:
The Home Office have already set out that they’ve had reassurance from the French interior ministry that this change in maritime law will go ahead.
Thomas-Symonds added:
We’ve had that reassurance it will go ahead. And it is important, because what that particular change is talking about is the ability for French police to intercept the boats within 300 metres of the shore in shallow water. That was not the case before.
Farage attacked for ‘ugly’ rhetoric of plan for mass deportation of asylum seekers
Haroon Siddique
Nigel Farage has been accused of “ugly” and “destructive” rhetoric after announcing plans to deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and pledging to pay despotic regimes such as the Taliban to take them back.
Unveiling Reform UK’s “Operation Restoring Justice” at a combative press conference in Oxford, Farage said he would rip up the UK’s postwar human rights commitments, contained in a range of international conventions, to deport “absolutely anyone” – including women and children – arriving by small boat.
Calling asylum seekers a threat to national security and to British women, he claimed his plans would stop Channel crossings “within days” and “save tens and possibly hundreds of billions of pounds”.
Downing Street accused Farage of not being serious about his plans, but in a sign of how Reform has set the tone for public debate, the prime minister’s spokesperson refused to criticise his references to irregular migration as an “invasion” and a “scourge” or his prediction that Britain is “not far away from major civil disorder”.
Pushed on whether it would be a good idea to sign a returns deal with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, as Farage proposed, the spokesperson said the government was “not going to take anything off the table”.
The Conservatives merely accused Reform UK of “reheating and recycling” Tory plans.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said:
We really are through the looking-glass now. Nigel Farage pretending to be patriotic while pledging to rip up Britain’s proud record of leading the world on human rights.
As we’ve seen across history, his populist playbook is ugly, powerful and incredibly destructive. We know where it will lead if we don’t stop it.
Laura Smith, a co-head of legal at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said:
If today feels like a Rubicon moment, it’s because it is. We are hearing proposals that would tear through centuries of British legal tradition – from the Magna Carta to the Human Rights Act – with barely any resistance from those who should be defending those values.
The ban on torture is absolute and fundamental; it cannot be bargained away. That mainstream parties have failed to push back is deeply alarming. This isn’t about migration policy any more, it’s about whether we still value the basic human rights and freedoms that define a democratic society. Now more than ever, we must fight against the normalisation of this rhetoric.
Conservatives could ‘potentially’ strike a deal with Taliban-run Afghanistan to return migrants, says party chair
The Conservatives could “potentially” strike a deal with Afghanistan over migration, the party’s chair has said.
Asked directly if the Tories would set up a returns agreement with the Taliban-run country, Kevin Hollinrake told Times Radio: “Well, potentially, yes.”
The former minister added that his party’s deportation plan, which was published in May, is “far more comprehensive than the one we’ve seen from Reform, in that it dealt with both legal migration and illegal migration”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had refused to say whether she would consider seeking such an agreement when pressed on the issue on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage has been accused of “ugly” and “destructive” rhetoric after announcing plans to deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and pledging to pay despotic regimes such as the Taliban to take them back.
Unveiling Reform UK’s “Operation Restoring Justice” at a combative press conference in Oxford, Farage said he would rip up the UK’s postwar human rights commitments, contained in a range of international conventions, to deport “absolutely anyone” – including women and children – arriving by small boat.
Elsewhere, the Government has said it wants to get a permanent deal with the EU on food and drink agreed in the next 18 months, as it sets out its stall ahead of talks later this year. Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds and Conservative party chair Kevin Hollinrake are on today’s morning media round. I’ll bring you any interesting lines from them as they come in.
But first, here are some other developments:
-
UK companies spent up to £65m last year on licences to export food and agricultural products to the EU – costs that the government is promising to eliminate as part of a new deal to be agreed by 2027. Government figures released on Tuesday showed it issued 328,727 such licences last year, at a cost of between £113 and £200 each. That would put the total cost to business at somewhere between £37m and £65m.
-
The cost of UK government borrowing has jumped to near a 27-year high, piling pressure on Rachel Reeves to reveal how she will tackle the deficit in the public finances before the autumn budget. The yield, or interest rate, on the UK’s 30-year bond rose by eight basis points (0.08 of a percentage point) on Tuesday to 5.62%.
-
Ministers have approved plans to help a further 30 students leave Gaza to take up places at UK universities next month but their evacuation remains uncertain and dependent on Israel’s approval. It takes the total to 39, after a government commitment last week to work to secure the evacuation from Gaza of nine Chevening scholars with places at some of the UK’s leading universities.
-
Energy costs will rise for millions of British households this autumn after the price cap for a typical annual dual-fuel bill increased by 2% to £1,755. The energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, will raise the cap on gas and electricity charges from October by the equivalent of just over £35 a year for the average home, following a rise in European gas prices.
