Culture secretary says revised online safety bill would still block content of kind seen by Molly Russell – UK politics live | Politics

Truss and Kwarteng ought to have pressed on with spending cuts as an alternative of U-turning on mini-budget, says Rees-Mogg

Aubrey Allegretti

In one in all his first main sit-downs since being kicked out of the cupboard following the autumn of Liz Truss’s authorities a month in the past, Jacob Rees-Mogg has argued she and former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng ought to by no means have U-turned on their mini-budget.

As an alternative, he argued the pair ought to have tried to shore up market confidence by bringing ahead plans for spending cuts – together with pushing forward with the drive to chop 91,000 civil servants – and provide aspect reforms, to show the measures could possibly be paid for.

“U-turns made all of it worse,” he advised listeners of his fortnightly “Moggcast”, hosted by the ConservativeHome web site.

The previous enterprise secretary mentioned as soon as the mini-budget was introduced, “it was necessary to carry ahead the subsequent stage – the spending cuts that have been going to return and the availability aspect reforms – to attempt to construct the bundle, moderately than begin unpicking stage one”.

Such a transfer would have been a “diversion” moderately than a U-turn, Rees-Mogg argued.

He mentioned the “level at which there was no return” for Truss was when chaos erupted over the pulling of a confidence vote – ordered by Downing Road towards the whips’ needs. He mentioned:

Randomly – for no apparent cause – the rug was pulled. No person advised me and I’m unsure the chief whip knew both.

When he went into the whips’ workplace to seek out out what was happening because the division bells began ringing, Rees-Mogg recalled how he was advised: “The chief and deputy chief have resigned and no one is aware of something.”

Requested what Truss’s legacy could be, Rees-Mogg mentioned merely: “In seven weeks, the one factor of observe is the brevity of it.”

Listed here are some extra traces from the Michelle Donelan interviews this morning on the modifications being made to the net security invoice.

• Donelan, the tradition secretary, mentioned she was eradicating the “authorized however dangerous” provisions from the invoice (see 9.26am) as a result of they created a “quasi-legal class”. She advised Sky Information:

It had [a] very, very regarding affect, probably, on free speech. There have been unintended penalties related to it. It was actually the anchor that was stopping this invoice from getting off the bottom.

It was a creation of a quasi-legal class between unlawful and authorized. That’s not what a authorities must be doing. It’s complicated. It could create a distinct type of algorithm on-line to offline within the authorized sphere.

• She rejected Ian Russell’s criticism of the modifications to the invoice, and mentioned that the content material seen by his daughter Molly would nonetheless be eliminated below the brand new model. (See 9.26am.) She advised the Right this moment programme:

You talked about younger individuals and youngsters – nothing is getting watered down or taken out in the case of kids.

We’re including further in, so there is no such thing as a change to kids. It is a very difficult invoice and there’s numerous elements to it, however I wouldn’t need any of your listeners to assume for a minute that we’re eradicating something in the case of kids as a result of we’re not.

I believe it could be simply misunderstanding what Ian [Russell] has mentioned on this. I’ve spoken to him even this morning. So the authorized however dangerous side was pertaining to adults. Content material that’s dangerous or may damage kids that’s not unlawful, so is authorized, will nonetheless be eliminated below this model of the invoice.

So the content material that Molly Russell noticed is not going to be allowed because of this invoice. And there’ll not be instances like that coming ahead as a result of we’re stopping that from taking place, and I wish to be actually clear on that.

• She mentioned the fines within the invoice for social media firm which don’t implement correct age verification wouldn’t essentially apply for one-off instances. She mentioned it will “rely upon the circumstances” whether or not fines have been imposed. Requested about what would possibly set off a high quality, she advised the Right this moment programme:

If a baby had tried to get round it … or if it was a person remoted case, or if there have been ramifications, similar to any regulator works, they are going to have a look at the context of this, they’ll have a look at the methods and the processes that that firm has put in place to attempt to forestall that from taking place. So I can’t touch upon particular person, kind of hypothetical, instances that haven’t occurred.

Ministers will make an announcement on a ban on onshore windfarms within the coming days, together with potential “tweaks” to the levelling up invoice, within the face of a rising rise up by Conservative MPs, my colleague Jessica Elgot reviews.

Rishi Sunak appears to have beefed up his lord mayor’s banquet speech within the remaining hours earlier than he delivered it final night time. Based on a briefing launched on Sunday night time, he was going to say that the UK may deal with autocratic international locations like China “not with grand rhetoric however with strong pragmatism” (no matter which means). By the point he delivered the speech, as my colleague Aubrey Allegretti reviews, it contained a line saying the “so-called ‘golden period’ [in UK-China relations] is over, together with the naive concept that commerce would result in social and political reform”.

However he doesn’t appear to have gone far sufficient for the China hawks in his personal celebration. In an article for as we speak’s Every day Specific, Iain Duncan Smith, the previous Tory chief, says:

China, whilst I write that is committing genocide on the Uyghur, placing the boys into slave labour camps, forcibly sterilising the ladies, and rounding up their kids and inserting them in re-education camps. It doesn’t cease there.

They’re arresting Christians, trashed the Sino-British Hong Kong settlement and arresting peaceable democracy campaigners and journalists, invaded, and militarising the South China Seas illegally, while stealing key applied sciences from us and our allies. And final however not least, they threaten to invade Taiwan regularly …

I ponder if strong pragmatism now sounds an increasing number of like appeasement.

And in an interview with Occasions Radio this morning Bob Seely mentioned the UK and different international locations within the west ought to wean themselves off their financial dependency on China. He mentioned China needed to reincorporate Taiwan, and international locations within the west didn’t realise how powerless they have been to cease it. He defined:

What it can say to the west, and the remainder of the world, is that in case you put sanctions on us as soon as we invade Taiwan, you’ll destroy your economies, you’ll destroy your residing requirements, as a result of we are able to survive as a result of we’re autonomous, the place you’re depending on us.

And that’s the massive strategic problem that we face, as a result of we must be below no phantasm, China makes use of commerce for energy in a method that we don’t and naively, we don’t actually fairly perceive both.

England and Wales are actually minority Christian international locations, based on the 2021 census, which additionally reveals that Leicester and Birmingham have develop into the primary UK cities to have “minority majorities”, my colleagues Robert Sales space, Pamela Duncan and Carmen Aguilar García report.

The story relies on ONS census information accessible right here.

On Thursday final week Mark Harper, the transport secretary, held what each side described as a constructive assembly with Mick Lynch, the RMT common secretary. They have been speaking concerning the rail strikes and afterwards Lynch advised journalists that it was not clear to his union who had the authority to barter a pay settlement. The person rail corporations, and the Rail Supply Group (which represents them), have been each saying they might not have interaction in collective bargaining, he mentioned.

Lynch mentioned Harper had provided to ship him a letter clarifying who precisely did have the authority to barter a settlement.

Harper has now launched the textual content of his letter to Lynch. It’s brief and it does not likely tackle Lynch’s questions in any respect, however Harper is promising an extra assembly, in addition to “higher data sharing”. He says:

My function is to facilitate and assist – not negotiate. Negotiations will proceed between commerce unions and employers, however I can see scope for settlement.

Let me set out how I believe we can assist assist that. Higher data sharing between the rail minister, commerce unions and people main the negotiations on behalf of the employers can pace up this course of. We are going to quickly convene an extra assembly to assist advance, with the great religion of all events, settlement discussions and progress on this dispute.

Good morning. The Rishi Sunak cupboard could also be filled with faces from the David Cameron, Theresa Might, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss administrations, however it’s not all continuity and in some methods Sunak is revising insurance policies pursued by his predecessors. We’ve bought an instance as we speak, with modifications to the net security invoice.

The invoice, which has been years within the planning and which was revealed by Nadine Dorries when she was tradition secretary, would lengthen important new controls over social media corporations. It goes additional than what has been tried in most different western democracies. The invoice accomplished virtually all its Commons phases within the spring, however it was shelved as Johnson needed to resign, amid considerations that it restricted freedom of speech an excessive amount of and within the information {that a} new PM would possibly favor a distinct strategy.

He does, and this morning Michelle Donelan, the tradition secretary, has introduced important modifications. Right here is the Division for Digital, Tradition, Media and Sport’s abstract. And right here is my colleague Dan Milmo’s in a single day story.

The unique invoice centered closely on a class of content material deemed “authorized however dangerous” (posts about suicide, for instance). The invoice didn’t ban this content material, however it imposed strict restrictions on how social media corporations must deal with it (the complete particulars are in a briefing right here), and that led to claims that this may quantity to a de facto ban, as a result of the social media corporations would select to not take any dangers and take away the content material anyway.

The “authorized however dangerous” provisions have now been eliminated, and changed with plans which might be meant to attain the same impact whereas trying much less like censorship. Ian Russell, who has been a campaigner for stricter controls since his daughter Molly killed herself after viewing giant quantities of content material associated to suicide and despair on social media, mentioned he was glad the federal government was lastly bringing the invoice again to parliament.

However he mentioned the elimination of the “authorized however dangerous” clauses meant the invoice was being watered down. He advised the Right this moment programme:

There are two feelings this morning and one is a few aid, not simply on my half however on the a part of many mother and father who sadly discover themselves in related circumstances, that finally that is shifting ahead.

There’s been a rising sense of frustration amongst that neighborhood of bereaved mother and father and households that not sufficient is being finished, in order that’s the excellent news.

However, as ever with this stuff, the satan will likely be within the element and so it’s very laborious to know that one thing that was necessary as just lately as July, when the invoice would have had a 3rd studying within the Commons – and was included within the invoice, this authorized however dangerous content material – it’s very laborious to know why that instantly can’t be there …

I don’t see how one can see the elimination of a complete clause as something apart from a watering down.

However Donelan claims the invoice has been made “stronger”. And, interviews this morning, she mentioned the protections for kids within the invoice weren’t being watered down. She advised the Right this moment programme:

Let’s be completely clear. So that you talked about younger individuals and youngsters – nothing is getting watered down or taken out in the case of kids. We’re including further in, so there is no such thing as a change to kids.

And she or he has posted this on Twitter.

Right here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cupboard.

10am: Martin Lewis, the buyer champion and founding father of the MoneySavingExpert web site, offers proof to the Commons tradition committee at 10am on misinformation.

11.30am: Downing Road holds a foyer briefing.

3pm: Andrew Bailey, governor of the Financial institution of England, offers proof to the Lords financial affairs committee.

Afternoon: Olena Zelenska, the primary woman of Ukraine, offers a speech to MPs and friends in parliament.

I attempt to monitor the feedback beneath the road (BTL) however it’s inconceivable to learn all of them. You probably have a direct query, do embrace “Andrew” in it someplace and I’m extra more likely to discover it. I do attempt to reply questions and, if they’re of common curiosity, I’ll submit the query and reply above the road (ATL), though I can’t promise to do that for everybody.

If you wish to appeal to my consideration shortly, it’s in all probability higher to make use of Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

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