Boris Johnson news – live: PM to visit Northern Ireland amid protocol row at Stormont

The minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency has rejected that reports the PM is set to cut the civil service by a fifth marks a “return to austerity.”

Speaking to Sky News, the Jacob Rees-Mogg said he had seen “duplication” within government departments and the axing will mean people are being used “as efficiently as possible”.

“What I’ve seen within the Cabinet Office, which is where I work and bear in mind each secretary of state will be responsible for is or her own department, is that there’s duplication within government, so you have a communications department and then you have within another department some people doing communications.

“So it’s trying to ensure that you use the resources that you’ve got rather than duplicating it bit by bit.”

Asked why the cuts were not being described as a return to austerity, he said: “I don’t think it is because what is being done is getting back to the efficiency levels we had in 2016.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg has defended proposed cuts to the civil service by saying that extra staff were brought in to help deal with the pandemic and the “aftermath of Brexit”.

The government efficiency minister told Sky News the reductions would see workforces return to 2016 numbers.

“I know it sounds eye-catching but it’s just getting back to the civil service we had in 2016... since then we’ve had to take on people for specific tasks. So dealing with the aftermath of Brexit and dealing with Covid, so there’s been a reason for that increase, but we’re now trying to get back to normal,” he said.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has dismissed the number of fines for the No 10 parties hitting the 100 mark as “a non-story”, claiming people no longer care about it.

“There are other things going on that are more important,” the Cabinet Office minister said.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has insisted that despite his “fortunate” personal circumstances he was able to empathise with his constituents over the soaring cost of living he said was affecting them “very significantly”.

“My personal circumstances are very fortunate and I think my lecturing people on my own circumstances is not relevant, not helpful. But I do try and help constituents who get in touch with me... and help my constituents who are struggling.”

Mr Rees-Mogg went on to claim he could “genuinely empathise” with people in poverty given his personal wealth.

“You’ll understand that people do sometimes look at you, the three-piece suits, the affectations, the nanny, the Westminster townhouse, the manor house in the countryside, the personal wealth, you’re running perhaps into triple figure millions,” Sky News presenter Niall Paterson said.

“That’s simply not true,” Mr Rees-Mogg interjected, before adding it was a “very fair question” to ask whether he could understand the struggles of lower-income constituents.

“As a constituency MP you have people come to see you most weeks to discuss how they are living their lives and you will have to be the most stone-hearted person not to be able to emphasise when people come to talk to you about how they are living.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg claimed “would not have said” the remarks made by Tory MP Lee Anderson, who suggested people use food banks because they “cannot cook properly”.

“Somebody in my position cannot possibly say things like that, I can’t cook myself and it wouldn’t be right for me to lecture people on how to live their lives,” he told Sky News.

“I think human nature is about empathising with people who live different lives from oneself.”

Pressed on whether he disagreed with the comments, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “I would not have said it.”

The general secretary of a union representing civil servants says government plans to slash 90,000 jobs is unrealistic.

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: “Since then we've had Brexit and we've had a pandemic, and the increase in staffing has been undeniably related to those two events, so unless we're undoing Brexit and can undo the pandemic it's unclear what exactly the government means by this.

"The government can decide what size it wants for the civil service but it also has to say what they're going to stop doing if they're going to have cuts of this sort of magnitude."

He added: "In 2016, the civil service was at its lowest point since the Second World War.

"It had already delivered huge numbers of efficiencies at that point, so the idea you are just going to squeeze those kinds of savings again is just unrealistic."

Jacob Rees-Mogg is out on the broadcast round this morning defending the government's plan to slash 90,000 civil service jobs.

The cabinet minister also took questions on the Partygate scandal, claiming it is a non-story - after the Met Police announced that 50 more fines have been issued for Covid law-breaking in Whitehall and Downing Street.

Our deputy politics editor Rob Merrick has more details below:

The cabinet minister has also been talking to broadcasters about the ongoing row with the EU over Brexit's Northern Ireland protocol.

He claims the bloc is refusing to budge on customs checks because it is trying to punish the UK for leaving the union.

Speaking to GB News, he said: "I think it (the EU) wants to make the UK feel bad about having left the European Union and that underpins its whole policy and it doesn't really mind about the consequences of that.

"And we just have to get on with life and recognise that we have left. We have to make our own way. We are an independent country, and what the EU wants and thinks is secondary.

"The Paymaster General, Michael Ellis, has made a speech in Brussels today, making it very clear that we are, if not at the end of the road, very close to it.

"To cancel the TCA (EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement), the European Union would need unanimity, and it seems to me that's a pretty high bar to get.

"And you have to say to the European Union, does it really want to punish its consumers at a time of rising inflation? And inflation in a lot of the EU countries is higher than it is in the UK."

In case you were wondering - this is not some sort of unofficial Jacob-Rees Mogg day.

Labour doesn't appear to have put any shadow ministers up for interview this morning, meaning the cabinet minister has been free to fill up the airwaves.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 Today earlier, he warned his boss Boris Johnson against tax cuts or extra spending to ease the cost of living squeeze.

He says such moves could worsen the UK's spiralling inflation problem.

Our deputy politics editor Rob Merrick has the story:

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has warned that Brussels will not give in to threats or blackmail, as the furious row over the Northern Irish border took a step closer towards sparking a trade war.

Our politics editor Andrew Woodcock has the story: