Rishi Sunak apologises for ‘inadvertent’ breach of Commons rules about declaring interests – UK politics live | Politics

Home Office figures show the backlog of asylum cases in the UK has hit a new record high, PA Media reports. PA says:

A total of 175,457 people were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of June 2023, up 44% from 122,213 at the end of June 2022 and the highest figure since current records began in 2010.

The number of people waiting more than six months for an initial decision stood at 139,961 at the end of June, up 57% year-on-year from 89,231 and another record high.

There were 23,702 initial decisions made on asylum applications in the UK in the year to June 2023, up 61% on 14,730 in the year to June 2022. It is also above the 20,766 decisions made in the pre-pandemic calendar year of 2019.

Good morning. Rishi Sunak has apologised for inadvertently failing to declare an interest to the Commons liasion committee. As breaches of the code of conduct for MPs go, this is at the most minor end of the scale. But it is still embarrassing for someone who promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level” on the day he became prime minister. Sunak was trying to differentiate himself from his predecessor-but-one, Boris Johnson, who was notably deficient on all three measures.

Sunak’s apology came out late yesterday, after it emerged that Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, has published a 37-page dossier explaining how he had settled the complaint about Sunak via the rectification process. This is a system used to resolve minor complaints which he judges do not need to be referred to the Commons standards committee, normally because they involve minor and inadvertent breaches of the rule.

The complaint was triggered by the fact that Koru Kids, a childcare firm part owned by Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, is set to benefit from a funding measure in the budget. Sunak was questioned about this policy by the Labour MP Catherine McKinnell at the Commons liasion committee and, when she asked if the PM had anything to declare, Sunak replied: “No. All my disclosures are declared in the normal way.”

McKinnell wrote to the commissioner to ask if this was a breach of the Commons rule saying MPs must declare relevant interests in any parliamentary proceedings, including committee hearings.

After a lengthy investigation, Greenberg accepted that at the time of the hearing Sunak may not have been aware of his wife’s shareholding in Koru Kids. But he said Sunak had a duty to correct the record when he was fully aware of it, and he said that a subsequent letter to the committee saying that his interest had been “rightly declared to the Cabinet Office” did not go far enough.

Greenberg says that Sunak was “confused” because he had muddled the obligation to register interests (which, for ministers, can includes interests which do not get published) with the obligation to declare interests publicly (which covers interests that might be thought to influence action taken by MPs).

Greenberg says in his ruling:

I was satisfied that Mr Sunak had confused the concept of registration (whether in 25 the Register of Members’ Financial Interests or under separate arrangements made for Ministers) with the concept of declaration of interests under paragraph 6 of the Code and Chapter 2 of the Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members. I formed the view that the failure to declare arose out of this confusion and was accordingly inadvertent on the part of Mr Sunak.

And here is the apology from Sunak, sent to Greenberg on 5 July and published yesterday.

As we discussed at our meeting, I now understand that my letter to Sir Bernard [Jenkin, chair of the liaision committee] was not sufficiently expansive regarding declaration (as distinct from registration). That letter referred to media coverage of my wife’s minority shareholding and pointed to my (correct) registration of that interest under the Ministerial Code. On reflection, I accept your opinion that I should have used the letter to declare the interest explicitly.

I apologise for these inadvertent errors and confirm acceptance of your proposal for rectification.

I will be covering any reaction to this today.

Also today, we have asylum and immigration figures coming out from the Home Office, and Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, is speaking at an event at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

It is also GCSE results day in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Mabel Banfield-Nwachi is covering them on a live blog.

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