George Osborne tells Tories to stop blaming civil servants ‘if we don’t get things right’
The former chancellor George Osborne has told his party to stop blaming “the blob” and to be “much more ambitious on devolution”.
Speaking at the Northern Research Group conference in Doncaster, he said:
Whitehall is very against devolution, as an orthodoxy. There are some Conservatives who blame ‘the blob’ and the civil servants and the establishment. We’ve been in office since 2010, we’re in charge of our country’s destiny, and we should stop blaming others if we don’t get things right.
He acknowledged worry about whether central government will have to step in to bail out devolved authorities in case of problems.
But if you take that attitude, you won’t also let parts of the country take responsibility for their own future.
And I think the Conservatives can afford to approach this by being much more ambitious on devolution. We should now be looking, as we fire up Northern Powerhouse 2.0, to give more power to local elected bodies, including metro mayors.
Key events
Rishi Sunak is also due to speak at the Northern Research Group conference in Doncaster (see also 12.4pm) this afternoon, back in Britain from his US trip.
As well as the prime minister and George Osborne, senior Conservatives former party chair Jake Berry and education secretary Gillian Keegan will also attend the event to discuss devolution, healthcare and energy.
Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, was met with cheers when he spoke about tax cuts.
He said:
As Jeremy Hunt said at the dinner last night, I think he’s said it publicly before… the state is growing at over 2%, growth is at 1.6%, that is not fiscally responsible. So we need to grow the economy and make sure the economy is growing faster than the size of the state. I think we will be rewarded… I think we will reap the benefits of that very sensible fiscal position.
Levelling up minister, Dehenna Davison, said backing tax cuts was a “no brainer” for any Conservative.
Labour and the Lib Dems have criticised the government’s plan to drop windfall tax if oil and gas prices fall (see also 12.07pm), with Ed Davey claiming it is one of Rishi Sunak’s “biggest personal failures”.
The Lib Dem leader said:
The families and businesses still suffering so much from high energy bills will not forget the failure of the Conservatives to tax the windfall profits of the oil and gas companies properly.
This out of touch government has shown yet again that it doesn’t care about people struggling just to get by, or the small business clinging on. This energy tax failure ranks as one of Rishi Sunak’s biggest personal failures as chancellor and prime minister.
It’s right that as oil and gas producers are making historically high profits that they are asked to contribute more. We need a proper windfall tax on the enormous profits of oil and gas giants to help ease the cost of living crisis.
We will look at the detail of this change. Of course if the windfalls of war disappear then we’ll look at what the right long-term tax position should be for the North Sea.
The Green party, meanwhile, said it was “beyond comprehension”.
The government seems happy to allow these huge corporations to not only wreck the climate but to profit off the back of the cost of living crisis which they themselves have contributed to.
Meanwhile, Sky News reports that the advisory firm where George Osborne is a partner has been enlisted to work on the $75bn takeover by Microsoft of Activision Blizzard, the maker of Call of Duty.
Robey Warshaw, which the former chancellor joined as a partner in 2021, has reportedly been privately involved in the takeover for some time.
Environmental and business experts at the University of Oxford have criticised Labour’s announcement to delay green investment plans (see also 9.24am).
Anupama Sen, head of policy at the university’s Smith school of enterprise and the environment, said:
Policymakers shouldn’t be hesitant about or delay investing in technologies that speed up the transition to clean energy. Renewable energy technologies are inherently capital intensive, and require significant amounts of upfront capital investment, but have very low running costs once they are up and running.
The savings from this could go towards lowering energy bills and improving our energy security in the medium to longer-term. Research at Oxford [Joule] shows that the faster we decarbonise, the faster the costs of clean energy will fall, and the sooner savings can be realised for UK consumers.
We also have a good idea of what the policy challenges are required, and what needs to happen for us to get to a completely decarbonised energy system. Delaying the transition will not necessarily change things and in fact may increase costs as uncertainties increase.
George Osborne tells Tories to stop blaming civil servants ‘if we don’t get things right’
The former chancellor George Osborne has told his party to stop blaming “the blob” and to be “much more ambitious on devolution”.
Speaking at the Northern Research Group conference in Doncaster, he said:
Whitehall is very against devolution, as an orthodoxy. There are some Conservatives who blame ‘the blob’ and the civil servants and the establishment. We’ve been in office since 2010, we’re in charge of our country’s destiny, and we should stop blaming others if we don’t get things right.
He acknowledged worry about whether central government will have to step in to bail out devolved authorities in case of problems.
But if you take that attitude, you won’t also let parts of the country take responsibility for their own future.
And I think the Conservatives can afford to approach this by being much more ambitious on devolution. We should now be looking, as we fire up Northern Powerhouse 2.0, to give more power to local elected bodies, including metro mayors.
Downing Street claims windfall tax suspension will ‘safeguard thousands of jobs’
The government has claimed that its plan to suspend the windfall tax on oil and gas companies if energy prices fall (see also 9.37am) will “safeguard thousands of jobs”.
A No 10 spokesperson said:
You’ll remember that the energy profits levy was introduced last year to respond to exceptionally high prices that meant that oil and gas companies were benefiting from extraordinary profits.
To protect domestic energy supply and safeguard thousands of jobs reliant on that sector, we’ve introduced the energy security investment mechanism, and that means that if oil and gas prices consistently fall back to normal levels before March 2028, which is when it would end anyway, the energy profits levy would be switched off.
Asked whether the government’s concerns came from firms, the spokesperson said:
Obviously, we continue to have conversations with energy companies as we do with all business sectors.
Green party accuses Labour of rowing back on green promises at the ‘first sign of any difficulty’
Adrian Ramsay, the co-leader of the Greens, has accused Labour of rowing back at “the first sign of any difficulty” and claimed doubt over its £28bn green plan strengthened his party’s chances of winning more seats at the next election.
In response to Rachel Reeves’s comments this morning (see also 9.24am), he said:
This highlights more than ever why it is necessary to have more Green MPs elected at the next general election.
We are witnessing environmental breakdown at an increasingly alarming rate, so you would have thought the Labour party would understand that we need to see a transformational change if we are going to tackle the climate emergency along with the cost of living crisis that is causing so much harm in our society.
Yet once again we see them offer a policy that does not go far enough, and then row back at the first sign of any difficulty.
The Conservative party chair, Greg Hands, has also weighed in on Rachel Reeves’s comments, claiming Labour’s “main economic policy is in tatters”.
He added:
It doesn’t matter if they try and pretend otherwise, Labour’s plan remains to stick £28bn of borrowing on the government credit card which will lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates.
Jess Ralston, the head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), claimed the UK is “stuck in the mud”:
Since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed nearly a year ago, spades have hit the ground in the US, but the UK’s been stuck in the mud.
Whichever party is in charge in the coming years will have to prove why organisations should invest here compared to the US or EU, and with the global race heating up, there’s really no time to lose.
Sue Ferns, tje deputy general secretary of Prospect, a trade union representing engineers and scientists, said:
It is not only just about the total investment, which of course is important, but also about giving investors, companies and the workforce long-term certainty. This is something which the current government have failed to do.
Any proper plan must put developing the skilled workforce that we need, and making sure that no communities are left behind as we transition to clean energy, front and centre.
More reaction to Labour’s green prosperity announcement:
James Murray, editor of Business Green, said:
Fatima-Zahra Ibrahim, co-director of Green New Deal Rising campaign group, said:
Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty said:
Will McCallum, co-executive director of Greenpeace, said:
Greenpeace says Labour plans to water down £28bn green prosperity promise ‘huge mistake’
Matthew Taylor
Responding to Rachel Reeves’s comments about Labour’s green investment on the Today programme (see also 9.24am and 9.45am) Rebecca Newsom, Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, said:
Any U-turn would be a huge mistake. Without the necessary immediate investment, we will lose out on the creation of thousands of jobs needed as we phase out fossil fuels, and we will lose out on the opportunity to put green tech industries at the centre of our economy.
Rachel Reeves rightly cites the opportunities of green growth, but this prevarication on confirming the scale of investment needed from the start of a new Labour government risks throwing in the towel on the global race in green tech, with the US, China and the EU already far ahead.
It would be simply bad economics to say that we can’t afford this now when it would pay for itself. Green infrastructure investment is now one of the best economic growth generators, and with it the opportunity to lower bills and tackle the climate crisis. Labour mustn’t let this go.
England’s largest teaching union threatens strikes before summer
Richard Adams
England’s largest teaching union is threatening to hold strikes before the end of the school term this summer unless the government restarts talks over pay, school funding and working conditions.
In a letter to the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, the National Education Union’s general secretaries give the government until 17 June to resume negotiations or risk further school closures.
The NEU said:
Should this letter be ignored, and negotiations are not in place by the 17 June the NEU national executive will be discussing our next steps. This will include the consideration of NEU teacher members in England taking further strike action in the week beginning 3 July.
There are six school term weeks until the summer holiday. Up and down the country, head teachers are trying to plan their school budgets for next year and trying to cope with the rapidly growing problem of recruiting enough teachers to fill their classrooms.
By not publishing the STRB report, your department is withholding vital information about what proposals that body has made on teacher pay, which may or may not help with the recruitment difficulties. It is also withholding vital information about the funding of pay rises.
The levelling up minister Dehenna Davison has called for the creation of “new towns” and garden cities.
Speaking at the Northern Research Group conference, the MP for Bishop Auckland said:
I would certainly like new towns, garden cities – I would like to see us be bold and brave. I don’t see why we can’t be building new towns and garden cities that we would see as big commuter hubs.
She also suggested that it would result in Britain “nicking jobs from all over the world” and “keeping people in parts of the country that we want to see people in”.
PM urged to block Boris Johnson’s honours list amid reports it will be published today
Rishi Sunak has been urged to step in to block the former prime minister Boris Johnson from handing honours to a “carousel of cronies”.
The prime minister is reportedly set to sign off Johnson’s honours list, which is understood to include about 50 names and could lead to two byelections, within weeks.
Labour has renewed its calls for the list to be stopped. It comes amid reports that the list is likely to be made public today.
Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said Sunak had “caved in” to appease his divided party, accusing the prime minister of being “too weak” to block them.
“Some of the people on that list, it just looks like a carousel of Boris Johnson’s cronies and, frankly, the prime minister has caved in yet again because there’s warring factions in the Conservative party.
“They’re so divided and fragmented and the prime minister realises that if he wants to keep the sort of Johnson wing of his party quiet he’ll need to … Some of the names on there are very, very dubious indeed and the prime minister should not be accepting them.”
Fresh from the US, where he and Joe Biden signed the Atlantic declaration, Rishi Sunak is expected to address a conference of Conservatives in the north of England later today.
The prime minister is to appear in Doncaster this afternoon for the Northern Research Group conference.
Among those also expected to attend are the former Conservative party chair Jake Berry, the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, and the former chancellor George Osborne.
Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, said the event was aimed at making sure ministers do not backtrack on the levelling-up agenda.
He told Times Radio it was about “making sure we get more powers and making sure we can create better communities and opportunities and jobs for local people.”
Responding to Rachel Reeves’ comments this morning – and an article in the Times – Ed Miliband, shadow climate and net zero secretary, has shared his support for the reneged green prosperity plans (see also 9.24am).
He tweeted:
Jeremy Hunt offers ‘get-out’ clause from windfall tax
Meanwhile, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has offered the North Sea oil and gas industry a “get-out” clause from the windfall tax on fossil fuel profits if wholesale energy market prices fall back to normal levels.
The chancellor hopes to boost investment in the North Sea by agreeing to suspend the windfall tax on oil profits if the market price for Brent crude falls below $71.40 a barrel, and gas prices fall below 54p a therm, for a period of six months. The global oil price is now about $75 a barrel, and the UK’s gas price is about 64 p/th.
The Treasury has put forward the change a little over six months after raising the energy profits levy from 25% to 35%, on top of the usual 40% rate of tax, and extending the regime by two years until 2028. It is expected to raise tens of billions of pounds to help cover the cost of the government’s support for energy bills.
The government said its levy had raised about £2.8bn to date, and it did not expect the new changes to have an impact on the tax receipts based on current forecasts for energy market prices.
The levy attracted fierce criticism from the North Sea industry, which claimed it could put the brakes on new investment in oil and gas projects at a time when the government hopes to increase domestic fossil fuel production.
Today’s admission from the shadow chancellor (see 9.24am) comes less than two years after Rachel Reeves pledged £28bn a year in climate measures until 2030 to protect Britain from disaster and told Labour’s party conference that she would be “the first green chancellor”.
Labour said in September 2021 that the amount would quadruple the government’s current capital investment. In total the party said it would commit £224bn on climate measures over the next eight years.
Targets for spending were planned to include gigafactories to build batteries for electric vehicles, the hydrogen industry, offshore wind turbines made in Britain, cycle paths and flood defences, Jessica Elgot reported at the time.
Here’s the full story from our Whitehall editor, Rowena Mason:
Labour says £28bn green prosperity plan in doubt
Labour has admitted that its £28bn green prosperity plan may have to be watered down.
Blaming the Tories, who she said had “crashed our economy”, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, this morning said she could not supply a “final set of numbers” on spending until a further fiscal statement from the government.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
The other thing that has happened in last two years is the Tories have crashed our economy, and as a result interest rates have gone up 12 times, inflation is now at 8.7% and I’ve always said our fiscal rules are non-negotiable. Economic stability, financial stability, always has to come first and it will do with Labour. That’s why it’s important to ramp up and phase up our plans to get to the investment we need to secure these jobs so that it is also consistent with those fiscal rules to get debt down as a share of GDP and to balance day-to-day spending.
The £28bn figure, previously given by Labour, would instead be a target to work towards, she said, rather than the initial sum allocated for the plan in the first year of government, as the party had previously pledged.
She also said she is “staggered” that the prime minister has returned from the US with “no industrial plan” for Britain after Rishi Sunak and the US president, Joe Biden, announced the Atlantic declaration:
I’m staggered, frankly, that he’s come back with no industrial plan for Britain to seize the opportunities that they are seizing in the US.
I’ll be looking after the politics blog today. Please get in touch with any tips or suggestions: miranda.bryant@theguardian.com
Kacey Musgraves has shared her latest single ‘Too Good To Be True’ and has announced details of a 2024 UK, European and US tour.
READ MORE: Kacey Musgrave
A green energy expert has warned that The West needs to "wake up" to the threat of China dumping cheap electric vehicles into our markets and destroying jobs. I