Brexit news - live: Protocol checks could be ‘overwhelmed’ after grace period as Foster blasts ‘tone deaf’ EU

Stephen McPartland has said he hopes leaseholders will not have to pay for the government’s failings to replace dangerous, flammable cladding, such as the one attached to Grenfell Tower.

Speaking in the Commons on Wednesday, he said: “From my point of view, we’re very keen to ensure that leaseholders are not responsible and in terms of dealing with this order, we have to amend the Fire Safety Bill because we can’t wait for the Buildings Safety Bill.

“The Fire Safety Bill creates this legal obligation, it creates the position whereby a fire authority which is a competent authority can order a freeholder to do the works, they have 21 days to agree to do the works, provide a timescale or that’s a criminal offence.

“Once they’ve had this direction from a competent authority, the leaseholders are then required to refund the freeholders for those works that are done. We already have leaseholders in their thousands up and down the country who are on the verge of bankruptcy, some have already gone bankrupt, and that’s just waiting before they actually get to the costs of this remediation.

“Today, I urge the government to either accept our amendment, let us vote on our amendment, or work with us to ensure that in the Lords, we resolve these issues and leaseholders do not have to pay.”

Boris Johnson has been accused of misleading MPs, after he told the House of Commons there had been no cuts to the body responsible for transport in the North of England, just weeks after its central funding was slashed by 40 per cent.

Mr Johnson was challenged at prime minister’s questions in the Commons by Hull North MP Diana Johnson over a warning last month from Transport for the North that its core Department for Transport funding is to be cut from £10m to £6m in the coming financial year.

Dame Diana asked whether the reduction formed part of Mr Johnson’s much-vaunted “levelling up” agenda for the North.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock reports:

Priti Patel has blamed “mingling” asylum seekers for the spread of coronavirus at a controversial military barracks as it emerged nearly 200 residents tested positive during an outbreak that started in January.

Around 400 were placed at Napier Barracks, a military site in Kent that was repurposed into asylum housing five months ago, last September and required to sleep in dormitories of up to 28 people, with only sheets or thin partitions between their beds, and shared bathroom facilities.

It was also disclosed that 197 asylum seekers had tested positive during the outbreak: 178 in January and a further 19 in February.

Our social affairs correspondent May Bulam has the story:

Former first minister of Scotland Alex Salmond has been reinvited to give evidence on Friday to the Holyrood inquiry into the Scottish government’s botched investigation of him.

The former first minister pulled out of Wednesday’s scheduled appearance before the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints after parliament belatedly redacted his written evidence the day before.

Mr Salmond’s legal team said it was “clearly impossible” for him to give evidence under oath in the circumstances and offered to postpone his appearance until Friday.

A meeting of the cross-party committee agreed it still wants to hear evidence from Mr Salmond, who was awarded a £512,250 payout after the Scottish government’s investigation of him was ruled to be “tainted by apparent bias”.

The MSPs have now invited him to appear in person on Friday.

The committee also voted to recall Lord Advocate James Wolffe to face more questions as well as agreeing to order the Crown Office to release further documents to the committee.

A multibillion-pound government fund to drive regeneration is being extended to cover the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Treasury has announced.

The “levelling up” fund was originally announced in last year’s spending review with £4bn for town centre regeneration, local transport and cultural and heritage projects in England.

Treasury chief secretary Stephen Barclay said the funding, which runs to 2024-25, was now being increased to £4.8bn and would be extended across the UK.

“Our levelling-up fund will back local projects to improve everyday life for millions of people and we look forward to working with all areas to boost local economies,” he said.

“By extending the levelling-up fund to be UK-wide, we are ensuring that no community in the United Kingdom is left behind.”

Shaun Bailey has been accused of making “degrading” comments about women in a pamphlet in which he claimed young girls in London offer sexual favours in return for drugs.

The comments came in a report entitled “No Man’s Land”, in which the Conservative candidate for London mayor set out his analysis of the social problems of crime and welfare dependency on the disadvantaged London estates where he was a youth worker.

In the document, published in 2005, he said that girls in the area “let themselves be shared by the boys” in order to get drugs and attention and avoid being labelled “frigid”.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock has this exclusive story:

The world’s first Covax Facility shipment has arrived safely in Ghana, providing the West African nation with its first 600,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab called the move “a huge step forward in ending this pandemic”.

“We will only save lives and reduce the risk of future infections if we prevent the virus spreading in the world’s developing countries,” he said.

The UK has committed £548m to the programme and pledged to donate the majority of any surplus vaccine stocks.

Read our report on the major milestone:

Leaseholders will “not forget and not forgive” if ministers fail to compromise and stop them from having to pay for emergency fire safety works, Tory MPs have said.

The House of Commons voted 340 to 225, majority 115, to remove changes made by peers to the Fire Safety Bill which had sought to prohibit building owners from passing on any remediation costs, such as the replacement of dangerous cladding, to leaseholders and tenants.

A separate attempt to protect leaseholders from unexpected costs was also tabled by Conservative Stephen McPartland and backed by more than 30 of his Tory colleagues.

But Downing Street claimed the proposal from the would-be rebels could “slow” attempts to make fire safety reforms.

Conservative Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) said people “will not forget and they will not forgive” if leaseholders are forced to pay for remediation works.

He added: “I have no axe to grind with the government, they are my friends and colleagues, I like them, I get on with them, but I am not going to blindly follow them when I can see that the treatment of leaseholders is wrong.”

Diverging from messages put out by the government, Jenny Harries said earlier people in the UK may not have to wear face masks during the summer months.

They might be needed again in the autumn and winter, though, the deputy chief medical officer added.

Ms Harries told a Downing Street briefing that the warmer summer months are a “generally much safer period for us, with less need for interventions” on socialising, but said they could not be ruled out as the UK enters the winter period again.

“One of the things we know, of course, is doing things outside is ever so much safer than doing things inside - ventilation, we know, is really important,” she said.

My colleague Kate Ng reports:

Irish Sea checking processes in Northern Ireland are set to be overwhelmed by added bureaucracy when a grace period covering supermarket goods lapses, a Stormont minister has warned.

DUP junior minister Gary Middleton said there might not be enough state vets to deal with the anticipated surge in red tape on 1 April, when retail agri-food products will require EU Export Health Certificates (EHCs) to move from Great Britain in to NI.

EHCs have been a requirement on non-retail agri-food goods since the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December but a three-month exemption period was agreed for GB produce usually destined for supermarket and shop shelves in the region.

During the three-month grace period for retail produce, traders have instead been asked to complete a single operator declaration for each lorry load of goods crossing the Irish Sea.

To make things more confusing, products going to multiple destinations will also require multiple certifications.

EHCs are needed for all food of animal origin, some foods of non-animal origin (nuts, spices etc), live plants, other plant-based products and fish. Live animals and animal-based food products require the input of vets to sign off the EHCs.

A proportion of goods will also be required to undergo physical inspection at entry ports in Northern Ireland by the vets from Defra.

Two vets are involved in the process - one in GB to sign the EHC prior to submission and one in Northern Ireland to approve the submitted EHCs on a digital system - prompting Mr Middleton told an Assembly committee that there were fears there would just not be enough vets to cope with processes.

“We can’t have a situation where the internal market of the United Kingdom is disrupted so much to the point where it’s effectively crippling our businesses,” he said.