Rishi Sunak criticised during public Q&A as voters express scepticism about antisocial behaviour crackdown – UK politics live | Politics

Humza Yousaf has been elected SNP leader, beating Kate Forbes with second preferences by 52% to 48%.

He is now certain to be next Scottish first minister too, although that has to be confirmed by MSPs.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, has described Rishi Sunak’s antisocial behaviour action plan as “too weak, too little and too late”. In a statement, she said:

Over the last 13 years the Conservatives have decimated neighbourhood policing and youth services and weakened antisocial behaviour powers so they are barely used.

There are still 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and PCSOs on our streets than there were 7 years ago.

A few hotspot pilots is nowhere near enough to turn that around. We need guaranteed neighbourhood patrols and action in all areas or this is just yet more empty rhetoric.

Labour will put 13,000 more neighbourhood police and PCSOs back on the beat to keep our communities safe.

But Cooper also said that Labour would support the ban on laughing gas – even though this is one of the aspects of the plan that has attracted most criticism, because it runs counter to the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. In an interview on BBC News, when it was put to her that there was no evidence to support a ban, Cooper said there was some “early evidence” to suggest laughing gas did cause harm. She also said it was linked to antisocial behaviour.

Chris Philp, the policing minister, said almost exactly the same when he was asked to defend the ban. (See 12.26pm.)

Downing Street has said there is no need to change the rules governing what second jobs MPs are allowed to do despite the revelation that two former Tory cabinet ministers, Matt Hancock and Kwasi Kwarteng, agreed to work for £10,000 a day on behalf of a South Korean firm.

The firm was fake, and Hancock and Kwarteng were two of several Tories duped by an undercover sting operation carried out by the Led By Donkeys campaign group. The MPs did not break, or offer to break, House of Commons rules, but the investigation revived concerns that some MPs are unduly focused on work not relevant to their parliamentary duties.

At the morning lobby briefing, asked if Rishi Sunak was content with the current rules, the PM’s spokesperson replied:

The prime minister thinks that an MP’s primary job is and must be to support their constituents and represent their interests in parliament. That is why we agreed with the recommendation made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2018 that members should be banned from accepting any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant and why we brought forward an amendment to support the introduction of limits on members undertaking outside work.

It is right that MPs’ financial interests are transparently and publicly declared online … MPs having second jobs can contribute to their work in parliament, so we think this strikes the right balance.

In November 2021 Boris Johnson, the then PM, proposed putting “reasonable limits” on what MPs could earn from a second job. That proposal was subsequently abandoned.

Here is the Observer’s story about the Led By Donkeys sting.

At the weekend the Sunday Telegraph reported that ministers were preparing to accept a proposal from Tory MPs to amend the illegal migration bill to include provision for a new safe route for up to 20,000 asylum seekers a year to come to the UK.

Some Conservative MPs want to amend the bill to toughen the provisions enabling the government to ban people from claiming asylum in the UK if they have arrived in the country illegally, and to deport those people swiftly.

But other Tories, led by the former children’s minister Tim Loughton, want to make the bill less hostile to refugees by amending it so that it includes a new safe and legal route for asylum seekers wanting to come to the UK.

The Sunday Telegraph claimed ministers were preparing to accept the plan rather than risk defeat in a vote on the amendment.

But at the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson dismissed this report saying that, although the government was in favour of more safe and legal routes, it wanted to tackle illegal migration first. The spokesperson said:

It is true that we do want to create more safe and legal routes but the view remains that in order to do that we first need to get a grip on those crossing illegally so we can plan and make a proper decision about the numbers of people the country, local authorities, councils, GPs, are able to deal with each year.

We think that is something parliament should have a say on. We think that is an important democratic principle.

The spokesperson also rejected claims that Suella Braverman, the home secretary, was a “sock puppet” for Tory rightwingers wanting an even harder line on immigration. “Both the prime minister and the home secretary have been clear that this bill will comply with international law and stop the boats,” the spokesperson said.

There is a “significant gap” between what the UK needs in terms of new infrastructure and what the government is delivering, the National Infrastructure Commission says.

In a foreword to its 2023 progress review, Sir John Armitt, the commission’s chair, says:

If the commission saw 2021 as a year of slow progress in many areas, in 2022 movement has stuttered further just as the need for acceleration has heightened. There have been negligible advances in improving the energy efficiency of UK homes, the installation of low carbon heating solutions or securing a sustainable balance of water supply and demand.

The risk of a mixed scorecard is that readers take their pick based on their own experiences or purposes. Residents in the north of England, for instance, could hardly be blamed for focusing on the appalling state of current rail services within and between the places pivotal to supporting growth. Others will cheer the further expansion of cheap renewable energy generation at a time of severe concerns about energy security and the high costs of fossil fuels.

But taking a strategic view on the recent pace of planning and delivery suggests a significant gap between long-term ambition and current performance. To get back on track we need a change of gear in infrastructure policy.

The commission was set up to advise the government on infrastructure policy.

Rishi Sunak was relucant to explain why the government was banning laughing gas (nitrous oxide) despite the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs saying a ban would be disproportionate (see 11.50am), but in interviews this morning Chris Philp, the policing minister, was more forthcoming. He said:

There is some emerging evidence of physical medical harm. There have been some reports recently of paralysis being caused by large-scale use.

And of course it does fuel this anti-social behaviour problem where people, typically younger people, congregate, sometimes in large groups, and consume nitrous oxide and then discard the canisters which sometimes adds to a sense of menace or unease for other members of the public who may be using a park or some public place.

In its report the advisory council said “current evidence suggests that the health and social harms are not commensurate with control under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971”.

Voting has closed in the race for the SNP leadership, with Nicola Sturgeon’s replacement to be announced within the next two hours, PA Media reports. PA says:

Health secretary Humza Yousaf, finance secretary Kate Forbes and former community safety minister Ash Regan have taken part in about 16 hustings as they vied for the top job.

The first minister announced in February that she would resign after more than eight years in the job once her successor had been chosen.

SNP members had until noon on Monday to cast their ballots.

The fate of the three candidates is set to be revealed at about 2pm on Monday at the BT Murrayfield stadium in Edinburgh.

A vote in Holyrood will follow on Tuesday to select the next first minister.

Here are the main points from Rishi Sunak’s speech and Q&A in Essex. Unusually, this was one of those events where the questions were probably more newsworthy than the answers. In the past Sunak has always received a positive and generally respectful reception when taking questions from members of the public at his PM Connect events. Yet today the people who were there sounded sceptical and underwhelmed when Sunak set out the details of his antisocial behaviour action plan.

It was by no means a disaster, and there was no evidence of personal hostility towards Sunak. But if the strategists in No 10 believe that announcements like this are going to win them much credit with the electorate, they are probably mistaken. (It is also worth noting that the Daily Mail, probably the most influential of the pro-Tory papers, put the Sunak crackdown on pages 6 and 7 today, despite No 10 providing an article by Sunak to go with it; it splashed instead on a story critical of the government’s record on crime.)

• Sunak faced criticism during a public Q&A as voters expressed scepticism about his new crackdown on antisocial behaviour. The very first question came from a member of the public who told Sunak about his experience trying to report shoplifters using the non-emergency number for the police. He asked the PM:

Have you ever tried that non-emergency phone number? It’s the most frustrating thing in the world.

A second questioner said he had lived in Chelmsford his whole life and felt crime was getting worse. He was not impressed by the announcement today that laughing gas is being banned. He said:

I think the Conservatives have dropped the ball a little bit, to be honest. I know it’s all good talking about laughing gas, but that is the least of your problems.

He said he had seen people dealing drugs near his allotment, and using heroin, but nothing seemed to happen when he reported this.

We reported this and nothing happens. As the gentleman said earlier, you don’t know whether it goes into the system or not.

A third member of the audience interrupted while Sunak was taking media questions and asked why there were not more police officers on the streets. “Surely we could get a little bit more presence on the street,” he said.

• Sunak ducked a question about why he was ignoring advice from experts saying banning laughing gas could have “significant unintended consequences”. In a recent report, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs said banning nitrous oxide as the government is proposing (it will still be available for legitimate use in healthcare and catering) would “would be disproportionate for the level of harm associated with nitrous oxide and could have significant unintended consequences”. Asked why he was ignoring this, Sunak did not engage with the argument but instead depicted this first as a litter problem. He said:

I think, quite frankly, I and almost everyone else is just sick of having to deal with nitrous oxides canisters when they’re walking through their communities. It’s about being in your community, being in your park, being on the high street of the town centre, and not having to see these things strewn around.

But Sunak also said he favoured a zero-tolerance approach to drugs.

• Sunak sidestepped a question about whether Suella Braverman is seen by No 10 as a “sock puppet” for Tory MPs who want to harden the illegal migration bill. When this claim was put to him (see 10.27am), Sunak ignored the specific question, but praised Braverman’s contribution generally. He also stressed the government would abide by its international obligations.

The home secretary has done a superb job. The home secretary and I have worked incredibly closely for the last few months, since we’ve had this job, to get the legislation exactly right. It’s not easy. We need something that is going to be robust, that’s going to be effective, and that’s what we’ve got.

It’s important that it’s effective, which it will be, and it’s also important that we abide by our international obligations. This is a country and a government that does follow the law. Of course that’s important.

Braverman is thought to agree with Tory hardliners who want the government to deal with the small boats problem by withdrawing from the European convention on human rights. Sunak does not support that, and claims it will not be necessary.