Education secretary defends ‘incredibly rude’ comments about the value of A-level results – UK politics live

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has claimed that the party has been having “meaningful engagement” with the UK government over the restoration of the Stormont Assembly, while also criticising taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s interventions as “unhelpful”.

Speaking after a meeting between Stormont parties and the head of the Northern Ireland civil service Jayne Brady at Stormont Castle on Thursday, Donaldson said: “There is now meaningful engagement. The Government is responding to the points that we had put forward in our paper, that we presented to them some time ago.

“So I think we are now making progress, we are now getting down to addressing the issues that need to be resolved.”

PA Media reports Donaldson said his party wanted to see legislation that would “underpin Northern Ireland’s ability to trade with the rest of the UK, and to do so in a way that ensures our businesses have the access they need to that market, that fundamentally important market”.

He criticised Varadkar’s suggestion last week that if Stormont was not restored by the autumn there could be talks about potential alternatives as “unhelpful”, adding: “We’re not planning for failure. We want to get this right.”

Angela Rayner has insisted that SNP calls for employment law to be devolved are not needed while she was visiting Glasgow today.

The deputy Labour leader met apprentices in Glasgow as she set out her party’s plans to enhance workers’ rights. They include protection against unfair dismissal, sick pay from day one and banning zero-hour contracts and fire and rehire policies.

First minister Humza Yousaf had said on social media earlier: “I would remind Angela Rayner that we have engaged constructively with trade unions. That is why we haven’t had any NHS strikes in Scotland, in stark comparison to Labour-run Wales. Will Labour commit to full devolution of employment law should they form the next government?”

PA Media reports that during her visit to the Royal Strathclyde Blindcraft Industries Training College on Thursday, Rayner said: “They won’t need it because I want employment law across the whole of the United Kingdom to be uplifted and better. That’s why we’ve got a new deal for working people. I want a new deal for working people to be here in Scotland so we have those protections of employment law.”

She added employment practices would be “in effect across the board” rather than split off across the four UK nations. And she said she did not want to see “disparities” across the different parts of the UK.

The SNP’s social justice spokesperson at Westminster, David Linden countered “Neither the Tories or Labour at Westminster can be trusted to protect these hard-fought rights.

“Power over employment law must be handed to Scotland’s parliament where workers’ rights can be defended and strengthened under progressive leadership.

“Labour once proudly brandished itself the party of the workers. How far they have fallen under Sir Keir Starmer, that they would rather the rights of Scottish workers were ripped up by Westminster, than protected at Holyrood.”

Cambuslang East councillor Katy Loudon will be the SNP’s candidate in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection after the seat was left vacant after the departure of Covid rule-breaking MP Margaret Ferrier.

Ferrier won the seat for the SNP in 2019 with a majority of 5,230, but had been sitting as an independent since 2020.

The SNP have published a video on social media today introducing Loudon. The date for the byelection is yet to be set.

Rishi Sunak has spoken on the phone today to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: “He welcomed the opportunity to speak to the crown prince and looked forward to personally deepening the longstanding ties between the UK and Saudi Arabia, as the kingdom continues to go through a period of profound social and economic transformation under Vision 2030.

“The leaders discussed their commitment to further develop our trade and investment relationship, including by collaborating in new cutting-edge industries, and to strengthen our close cooperation on defence and security.

“The prime minister reiterated the UK’s longstanding commitment to support Saudi Arabia’s security and regional stability.”

No 10 said Sunak “highlighted Saudi Arabia’s constructive and positive leadership on Ukraine following the recent talks in Jeddah and the leaders agreed on the importance of allies working together to end the bloodshed in Ukraine and support a just and lasting peace”.

PA Media reports the Downing Street readout of the call stated that Sunak and bin Salman “looked forward to meeting in person at the earliest opportunity.”

In July the Guardian reported that the Saudi crown prince had been invited to the UK for an official visit in late autumn, which would be the first such visit by the heir to the Saudi throne since he was accused of masterminding the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and dissident, in 2018. Khashoggi’s body was hacked to pieces by a bone-saw at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Today’s call comes amid renewed media reports about the proposed visit.

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran, said it “beggars belief that Rishi Sunak is rolling out the red carpet for Mohammed bin Salman”.

She said: “This man, who authorised the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi and presides over a dismal human rights record, should not be receiving a warm welcome from the UK government. It sends a signal that he can continue acting with impunity and we and our allies will do nothing about it.”

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said Sunak should use the visit to “have a conversation about human rights”.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson visited Riyadh in March 2022.

Estelle Uba

The government collected more than £270m from the plastic packaging tax (PPT) during its first year, official figures show.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) released the first annual update on the PTT on Thursday. The tax was introduced in April 2022 as a £200 per tonne levy placed on plastic packaging with less than 30% recycled content.

PA Media reports HMRC showed that receipts for the financial year of April 2022/23 totalled £276m. It was £41m more than the Treasury predicted.

Sam Tuckett is associate director at the Education Policy Institute, and has written for the Guardian today about the English A-level results, arguing they reflect inequalities across England after challenging years:

[This cohort’s] GCSE years were disrupted by pandemic school closures, and their GCSE grades were teacher assessed, meaning most will not have sat a public exam prior to this summer. Furthermore, student absences were rife, with added disruption stemming from industrial action as unions strove to reach a pay deal.

These issues appear to have had unequal impacts on different students. In particular, the proportion achieving top grades in parts of northern England have declined relative to 2019, whereas the rate in other regions, notably London, has increased. As was the case last year, the return to exams relative to teacher assessments appears to have benefited male students across most subjects. In particular, the female lead in the proportion achieving top grades in maths and physics in 2022 appears to have reversed. Independent schools had one of the largest drops since last year, but their proportion achieving top grades since 2019 increased the most. In contrast, the proportion achieving top A-level grades in further education establishments has decreased since 2019.

We cannot say to what extent this variation represents differences in the impacts of school closures and absences, the suitability of post-16 course choices based on inflated 2021 GCSE results, or the year-on-year variation we might expect to see anyway. Most likely it is a combination of all three.

Read more here: Sam Tuckett – A-level results reflect inequalities across England after challenging years

Four people have been detained in France today after six people died and more than 50 were rescued when a boat carrying people to the UK sank in the Channel at the weekend.

PA Media reports proceedings were opened against the four – two Iraqis aged in their early 40s and two Sudanese, one in their late teens and the other in their late 20s – after the vessel got into difficulty and sank off the coast of Sangatte on 12 August, according to French judicial sources.

The investigating judges are looking at potential offences of involuntary homicide, criminal conspiracy for illegal immigration, with the Iraqis suspected of belonging to a human trafficking network, a spokesperson for the Paris prosecutor’s office said. The four suspects were placed in detention on remand, according to the judicial sources.

A total of 61 people were rescued by the British and French emergency services after a passing ship first raised the alarm at around 4.20am Saturday that a vessel was sinking near Calais. The boat had a motor problem and the majority of those on board did not have life jackets, the prosecutor’s office said.

Earlier PA reported that 444 people arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in eight boats on Wednesday, taking the provisional total for 2023 to date to 17,234.

Pub bosses have called on the government to loosen licensing rules for Sunday opening hours and alcohol sales for the Women’s World Cup final.

Industry bosses have warned that licensing rules could mean some venues will be unable to serve pints or open early for excited fans on the day. England kick off against Spain at 11am.

PA Media reports Alun Cairns MP, chair of the all-party parliamentary beer group, said: “Early opening and serving would be a fitting tribute to the Lionesses and a welcome boost to the industry. I have raised the issue with the home secretary directly, who is looking in to see what is possible.”

“Most” pubs are likely to be unable to serve alcohol until 11am, with some being restricted until midday, according to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA).

Individual pubs can apply for a temporary event notice to serve alcohol outside their licensed hours, but this takes a minimum of five working days and will, therefore, not be possible for pubs before the match.

There was a lengthy thread about this yesterday from Dr Alice Lilly, senior researcher at the Institute for Government, and her conclusion appeared to be that fans and the industry are just going to have to put up with the restrictions.

She noted that the primary legislation permits ministers to vary licensing restrictions via secondary legislation. However … it is recess.

Let’s get back to the Lionesses and the World Cup. The relevant primary act sets out how secondary legislation can be used to temporarily alter licensing laws. Ministers could follow that, like for the jubilee. The slight issue here is it’s recess. Parliament ain’t sitting.

So unless parliament is recalled, which would allow ministers to present a piece of secondary legislation under the powers given to them in primary legislation to change licensing this Sunday, you’ll have to wait for the usual time for a drink.

And in summary: that is just one example of how secondary legislation, a thing you might not really have heard of, actually can affect your daily life. (Which is also why effective mechanisms for parliament to scrutinise it really matter).

The whole thread can be found here.

Summary of the day so far …

Education secretary defends ‘rude and dismissive’ comments that employers don’t look at A-level results

A cross-party group of MPs and peers has urged the children’s minister to demand better data on the use of restraints on young people in care with an aim of ending the “brutal handcuffing of vulnerable children”.

Signatories to a letter to minister for children, families and wellbeing Claire Coutinho said they are concerned about what they described as the “worrying prevalence” of vulnerable children being restrained and handcuffed unnecessarily by secure transportation providers.

PA Media reports they said there have been instances of “innocent children outside the custodial system” being restrained in such a way when they are being transported.

Organisers from the Hope Instead Of Handcuffs campaign, founded in 2020, said the number of such instances is not known due to a lack of data.

The letter, with signatories including Labour former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, peer and ex-Green party leader Baroness Bennett, and the DUP’s Jim Shannon, asked that Ms Coutinho meet them and members of the campaign group to address the issue.

It called for the minister to “urgently conduct a review of the data gaps in secure transportation, which preclude proper monitoring and scrutiny of providers’ restraint practices”, and stated that “accountability and transparency can be increased across the sector”.

The letter also said: “Shockingly, many secure transportation providers use restraints such as handcuffs on vulnerable children in care. To be clear, these are innocent children outside the custodial system. Some of these providers even advertise that they use handcuffs on their website.”

It does slightly feel like while the government has been trying to make this week “NHS week”, Labour has been doing a bit of a “Scotland week”, with both Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner visiting ahead of this autumn’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection.

Starmer has just posted on social media a clipped-up section of his session earlier in the week alongside Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar, and it is pushing a positive “net zero” message about job creation specifically in Scotland.

My Labour government will use our net zero commitment as an opportunity to deliver lower bills and create good jobs, in Scotland and across the UK.

I did promise not to do A-level result-related news here, as we have it covered live in greater depth by Alexandra Topping over here, but I should point you in the direction of my colleague Sally Weale’s excellent explainer here about why there has been a drop in grades in England.

The sharp drop in grades in A-level results in England this year has little to do with this particular cohort’s ability. It is instead the result of a government strategy to get A-level results back to pre-pandemic levels after the soaring grade inflation of the Covid years.

The exams regulator in England, Ofqual, came up with the plan after teenagers who did their A-levels in 2020 and 2021 were awarded record high grades.

Ministers were concerned that a huge gap was opening between grades achieved before and since the pandemic, so decided that grades in A-levels and GCSEs must be brought back to pre-pandemic levels. But instead of a sudden drop year-on-year, the government and Ofqual agreed on a more gentle “glide path” back to pre-pandemic grading, spread over two years.

England, Wales and Northern Ireland got their A-level grades today. There was a similar fall in Scottish grades compared with pandemic years when they came out on 8 August.

Read more here: A ‘glide path’ to pre-Covid: why A-level grades are lower in England this year

Tourism visits to Scotland by residents of Great Britain rose by 12% in the first quarter of this year, figures show.

Jointly sponsored by VisitScotland, VisitEngland and VisitWales, the Great Britain day visits survey showed 20.6 million tourism day visits to Scotland from those living in other parts of Great Britain, spending about £956m.

The figure rose from 18.4 million visits in the first three months of 2022 – an increase of 12%.

PA Media reports the Scottish tourism minister Richard Lochhead said: “Scotland is increasingly seen as an attractive place to visit and we strive to support and work with the tourism and hospitality sector to grow its economic value, while delivering the very best for visitors, businesses, and communities.”

Water quality and its impact on life has become a political campaigning issue, with objections to the level of untreated sewage that is being allowed to be pumped into the UK’s waterways and seas. My colleague Clea Skopeliti has this report speaking to people who it has affected:

According to Southern Water’s data, 13 releases have affected Felpham beach since the beginning of May. After a sewage dump during warm, dry weather in mid-June, Felicity Fletcher says she had to shut the windows because of the stench. “The smell of sewage was permeating, it was disgusting. The heat made it worse – normally they dump it when it is raining and you don’t notice it, but the smell was unbearable.

I can’t imagine it’s been good for tourism. We’ve got a Butlin’s on our doorstep – people come here for the beach.

Josh Harris, the head of communications at Surfers Against Sewage, says: “The incompetence of decision-makers and the greed of water companies have eroded one of the great pleasures of our island nation – swimming in our coastal waters.

Read more of Clea Skopeliti’s report here: ‘My daughter started to run a fever …’: Britain’s swimmers on how sewage changed their summer

There is very little diary politics happening today, but Angela Rayner is due to be visiting Glasgow. Ahead of the trip Labour’s deputy leader is quoted in the Daily Record saying:

Working people in Scotland are right to demand better. Faced with a punishing cost of living crisis, an explosion in zero-hours contracts, and a wages crash, governing parties on both sides of the border are failing working people across the whole of the UK.

Scotland’s workers have been left out in the cold as ministers in Westminster and Holyrood engage in endless political battles on internal obsessions.

But it is not inevitable for working people to shoulder the burden of this crisis, and it is not inevitable that working parents must struggle to feed and clothe their children.

At the next general election, there will be a clear choice – between a Labour government, or another five years of Tory incompetence.

But in Scotland, the SNP can only oppose the Tories. Only Labour can boot them out of office.

As you might imagine, those words haven’t gone down well with the SNP. The first minister, Humza Yousaf, has posted on social media to say:

I would remind Angela Rayner that we have engaged constructively with trade unions. That is why we haven’t had any NHS strikes in Scotland, in stark comparison to Labour-run Wales. Will Labour commit to full devolution of employment law should they form the next government?

Neil Gray, the cabinet secretary for wellbeing economy, fair work and energy in Scotland, has also chipped in, saying:

Wage growth in Scotland at 8.1% is sitting higher than the rest of the UK, driven by our public sector pay policy and support for fair work. This is just nonsense from Labour. Keir Starmer’s Labour won’t even support workers taking industrial action, so who knows where they stand.

The Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection, where Labour hope to take the seat after Covid rule-breaking MP Margaret Ferrier was removed, will be in the autumn.