Inside Politics: Johnson says it’s job of business to plug labour shortages amid supply chain crisis

Tory Party conference continues today with big speeches from Rishi Sunak and Lord Forst, the Brexit minister. Amid an ongoing supply chain crisis and worsening petrol supplies in southern England, the Conservatives will use this week’s conference to pitch themselves as the party willing to deliver high wages for Britain’s workers, as opposed to Labour who they will claim are ready to plug labour shortages by “pulling the lever” of immigration. Elsewhere, Tony Blair and a major Tory donor are caught up in a huge leak of financial documents which exposes the financial secrets of the rich and powerful. The chancellor will announce £500m for a jobs programme.

Parliament is in recess until 18 October. Tory Party conference continues with Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, set to give a speech from the main stage at 11.50am. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, speaks at fringe event, Transport for the North, at 1.30pm.

Coming up:

– Former Met Police deputy assistant commissioner Andy Trotter on LBC at 8.05am

– Sunak on BBC Radio 4 Today at 8.10am

CHECKING OUT: Britain’s businesses have had a torrid time of late with the Covid pandemic and resulting lockdowns. And things are looking increasingly bleak approaching Christmas amid the ongoing supply chain crisis. Just days after Suank admitted food shortages could last right up until the big day, Johnson has told firms they’re own their own in sorting out supply chain problems. “In the end, those businesses, those industries, are the best solvers of their own supply-chain issues – government can’t step in and fix every bit of the supply chain,” he told broadcasters as the Conservative Party conference kicked off in Manchester. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, echoed the message, claiming that the PM should escape blame even if people are unable to buy what they want over the festive period. Johnson has extended an emergency visa programme for truck drivers in order to alleviate some of the problems and did not fully rule out doing so again. In an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he also admitted government has known about “shortages in road haulage long, long, long before” industry warnings in June.

BLAIR STITCH-UP PROJECT: Former prime minister Tony Blair is among a host of global elites named in a huge data leak being named the ‘Pandora papers’, which exposes the financial secrets of the rich and powerful. Blair and his wife Cherie avoided paying £312,000 in tax on the purchase of a London property by acquiring an offshore company, according to the documents, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and first reported by the Guardian and BBC. Blair and his wife bought the £6.45m townhouse on Harcourt Street, Marylebone, in 2017 as an office for her legal advisory firm Omnia and her foundation for women. The manner of the deal allowed the Blairs to avoid having to pay stamp duty, as the tax is not paid when the holding company of a property is acquired rather than the building directly. There is no suggestion the Blairs actively tried to avoid paying the tax and the transaction was not illegal. In a statement, the couple stressed they had purchased the property “in a normal way through reputable estate agents” and had “nothing whatever to do with the original company nor those behind it”. They said they had “never used offshore schemes either to hide transactions or avoid tax”.

BOX OPENED: Further reports this morning reveal that a major Tory Party donor is also caught up in the data leak. Mohamed Amersi, who has given nearly £525,000 to the party since 2018 and contributed to Johnson’s leadership campaign, advised on the structure of a deal that was later found to be a $220m (£162m) bribe for the daughter of the then president of Uzbekistan, according to the Guardian. Amersi denies any wrongdoing.

SUNAK JOBS PLEDGE: In his speech later this morning, Sunak will pledge £500m to renew job support programmes as he seeks to offset the huge impact the pandemic has had on the jobs market. Sunak’s address will seek to shift the focus on getting people into new or better jobs as the government comes under sustained pressure over a major squeeze on living standards. He will also use his address to set out his vision of shaping the economy around “the forces of science, technology and imagination”. Sunak is out on the broadcast round promoting the funding. His morning has been made significantly more tricky following the Amersi revelations, which he is likely to be questioned about.

PROTEST CRACKDOWN: Johnson’s government is set to crack down on climate change protests by bringing in six-month prison sentences for activists who block Britain’s motorways. Home secretary Priti Patel will use her Tory Party conference speech to warn that those who use “guerrilla tactics” to block highways could face unlimited fines as well as up to six months in jail. The move follows days of protests by the Insulate Britain group, which has staged sit-down demonstrations on a series of key arteries around London, including on the M25, M1 and M4.

‘BRITISH RENAISSANCE BEGINS’: Brexit minister Lord Frost will claim that the “British Renaissance has begun” as the nation struggles with staffing issues linked to the departure from the European Union. He will tell the Tory Party conference on Monday the “long bad dream” of EU membership is over, as he challenges Brussels to be more “ambitious” to solve separate issues over Northern Ireland. The Conservative peer’s speech will come as the UK continues to feel the effects of a fuel crisis and faces the prospect of shortages in the run-up to Christmas due to a lack of HGV drivers.

“We have known about shortages in road haulage long, long, long before then. They have been a chronic feature of the way the road haulage industry has worked.”

PM says government has been aware of lorry driver shortages long before industry warnings in June.

“Slogan of this year’s Tory conference is the workmanlike ‘Getting the Job Done’. Internal focus groups clearly showed that people aren’t too fussed about radical new policies.”

Financial Times Whitehall correspondent Sebastian Payne on Tory Party conference slogan.