Andy Burnham claims government note shows Covid tier 3 restrictions imposed on Manchester as ‘punishment beating’ – live | Politics

In the Commons Alex Cunningham, the Labour MP for Stockton North, is asking a point of order about James Cleverly’s heckle directed at him last week during PMQs. He says Cleverly’s explanation, that he was calling Cunningham a “shit” MP, not Stockton a “shit-hole”, was untrue.

Dame Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, objects to Cunningham saying that Cleverly said something that was not true.

Cunningham says finding alternative wording will be a “challenge”, but he says Cleverly may have inadvertenly misled people.

Laing says Cleverly is in the chamber, and she invites him to respond via his own point of order.

Cleverly rises, and says he did not make derogatory remarks about Stockton. He says he did not, would not and would never say something like that. He says he did make a derogatory remark about Cunningham and has apologised for that.

In response to heckling claiming that what he is saying is not true, he asks: “What are you saying, sir?” (He knows that the rules of debate do not allow MPs to call each other liars.)

Cunningham rises again. He says he does not need an apology for an insult against him “because it didn’t happen”. And he says Cleverly has not even apologised directly to him, or to the people of his constituency. He says Cleverly has just apologised for using unparliamentary language.

Laing says it is up to Cunningham whether he accepts the apology or not. But she required an apology for unparliamentary language, she says.

In his evidence this afternoon Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, also referred to a minute from the government’s Covid-O committee, which was responsible for Covid operational matters. Burnham summarised it as proposing a “punishment beating for Greater Manchester”. He quoted a passage from the minute saying:

Lancashire should have a lighter set of measures imposed than Greater Manchester since they had shown a greater willingness to co-operate. Tougher measures should be imposed on Greater Manchester that day.

Burnham went on:

Because we stood up for people in our city region who would otherwise have really struggled had they gone into that lockdown without the funds to help them, because we took that stand they decided to make an example of us.

It’s unbelievable for me now to look at evidence saying they knew it didn’t work, they knew tier 3 didn’t work.

They knew that, but they were still going to impose it on us without enough financial support.

As PA Media reports, the tier system was introduced in October 2020 and imposed different restrictions on English regions in an effort to contain the spread of Covid-19. The system was, however, unable to stem infections and a month-long national lockdown was introduced in November 2020, followed by a stricter tier system in December.

Burnham had argued that those unable to work because of regional restrictions should receive 80% of their salary under the furlough scheme, rather than the 67% suggested by the government, PA says.

Burnham also told the inquiry that he thought it was “disgraceful” that the same Covid-O minutes described his own behaviour during his row with Westminster over the policy as “appalling”. Burnham said:

I have seen that minute, the Covid-O minute, and frankly it’s nothing short of disgraceful, the points that were made in that minute.

It wasn’t me that was behaving appallingly, it was the people in that room that were behaving appallingly because they were about to impose a policy on Greater Manchester which they knew didn’t work.

And that’s something that I’ve only now realised looking at other people’s statements to this inquiry, and it makes me angry on behalf of the people of Greater Manchester that they sat in that room and they imposed a policy that they had been advised by Sage and others would not work.

Matt Hancock knew tier 3 restrictions would not work when he imposed them on Greater Manchester, the Covid inquiry heard this afternoon.

This came out during Andy Burnham’s evidence, when the Greater Manchester mayor quoted from the written statement to the inquiry given by Hancock, the former health secretary. Burnham said:

[Hancock] says in his evidence about tier 3: ‘I was in despair that we had announced a policy that we knew would not work.’

Sir Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, told Cleverly in the Commons that it was his “profound conviction” that, to be effective, the Rwanda legislation would have to allow the disapplication of parts of the European convention on human rights.

Cleverly told Clarke he was making an “incredibly important point”, but he said he did not want to prejudge what would be in the bill. He said he wanted to do everything he could stop to break the business model used by people smugglers.

Earlier he also refused to give two other Tory MPs the firm assurance they wanted on the ECHR. (See 3.14pm.)

Turning away from the Covid inquiry for a moment, James Cleverly and his Home Office ministers are taking questions in the Commons. It is Cleverly’s first question session in his new job.

At the weekend Cleverly alarmed some Tory rightwingers when he told the Times in an interview that the Rwanda deportation policy wasn’t “the be-all and end-all” of government policy on this issue. He said:

My frustration is that we have allowed the narrative to be created that this was the be-all and end-all. The mission is to stop the boats. That’s the promise to the British people. Never lose sight of the mission. There are multiple methods. Don’t fixate on the methods. Focus on the mission.

This came only a week after Cleverly refused to deny calling the Rwanda policy “batshit” in private.

The second question on the order paper was about small boats and Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, answered, instead of Cleverly himself. James Morris, a Conservative, used to have a go at Cleverly over this and he asked Jenrick if he agreed with his boss about Rwanda not being the be-all and end-all. And if he did agree, what was the government’s policy on small boats, he asked.

Jenrick defended Cleverly, saying that, although Rwanda was “an extremely important component” of the small boats strategy, it was not the only policy being pursued.

Back at the Covid inquiry Andy Burnham says he was “astonished” in May 2020 when he heard the government was planning to ease Covid restrictions. He says the spread of the virus in Manchester was two or three weeks behind what was happening in London and the south of England, and that meant lifting restrictions for Manchester was not wise.

He says this illustrates how there was a “London-centricity in decision making”.

Manchester had a higher case rate at the time than London, he says. And he goes on:

And I think because of that Greater Manchester was left stuck with a high case rate throughout the rest of 2020.

Rishi Sunak will reject pleas to return the Parthenon marbles to Greece when he meets the country’s prime minister this week, Downing Street has indicated, saying the British Museum was the “right place” for the treasures. PA Media says:

Athens has long demanded the return of the sculptures, which were removed from Greece by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century, when he was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said he will raise the issue during meetings with Sunak and Keir Starmer during his visit to London.

Downing Street on Monday pushed back against the Greek leader’s likening of the British Museum’s possession of the sculptures to the Mona Lisa painting being cut in half.

Sunak’s spokesman stressed the PM’s support for the law that prevents the marbles from being permanently returned and suggested he would not be in favour of any loan arrangement.

British Museum chairman George Osborne, the former chancellor, has previously said he is exploring ways for the marbles to be displayed in Greece, with speculation that this could involve a loan deal in which part of the sculptures would be sent to Athens.

Asked about such an agreement, Sunak’s spokesman told reporters: “We have no plans to change our approach and certainly we think that the museum is the right place for them. I haven’t asked him specifically about short-term or new ideas that have been put forward, but I think he’s been fairly robust on his position.”