Minister says government working on sanction options for those involved in Alexei Navalny’s death – UK politics live | Politics

David Cameron visits Falkland Islands

Andrew Sparrow

David Cameron has become the first foreign secretary to visit the Falkland Islands in 30 years, in a high-profile demonstration the contested territory is a “part of the British family”, PA Media reports. PA says:

Cameron said that the archipelago’s sovereignty is “not… up for discussion” while the islanders wish to be British, despite fresh calls from Argentina for talks on the future of the islands.

The foreign secretary arrived at Mount Pleasant airbase and will visit some of the key battle sites of the 1982 Falklands War to pay his respects to those who lost their lives in the conflict.

Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, who met Cameron last month, has called for the South Atlantic islands to be handed over to Buenos Aires.

But ahead of his arrival in the UK overseas territory, Cameron said: “The Falkland Islands are a valued part of the British family, and we are clear that as long as they want to remain part of the family, the issue of sovereignty will not be up for discussion.”

That is all from me for today. Tom Ambrose is now taking over.

Libby Brooks

The war of words on the SNP’s Gaza vote continued today, with Labour’s Scottish secretary Ian Murray telling BBC Radio Scotland this evening that no decision has been taken on whether his party will support Wednesday’s motion.

The UK party is desperate to avoid another rebellion on the issue, as happened last November over a similar SNP vote, and led to the resignation of eight frontbenchers.

Murray said the actual motion had not yet been laid, and added that the SNP should be spending it’s time trying to persuade the government to support them.

Murray also insisted there was “a cigarette paper between” the motion Scottish Labour conference voted for on Saturday, calling for an immediate ceasefire, and Starmer’s call at the same conference on Sunday for the fighting to “stop now”.

But the SNP is continuing to ramp up the pressure on Labour, with Westminster leader Stephen Flynn continuing to offer a meeting to Labour leader Keir Starmer to discuss the vote, but stressing the aim of an immediate ceasefire must not be watered down.

In the Commons Leo Docherty, a Foreign Office minister, is now making a statement about the death of Alexei Navalny.

He told MPs the government was appalled at the news of Navalny’s death and that he was speaking for the whole house in sending his deepest condolences to Navalny’s family. He went on:

Mr Navalny dedicated his life with great bravery to exposing corruption. He called for free and fair politics and held the Kremlin to account. He was an inspiration to millions and many Russians felt that gave them a voice.

The Russian authorities saw him as a threat. President Putin fear to even speak his name Putin’s Russia imprisoned him on fabricated charges, poisoned him, and sent him to an Arctic penal colony.

Mr Navalny was a man of huge courage and iron will. Even from his remote prison so he persisted in advocating for the rights of the Russian people.

No one should doubt the dreadful nature of the Russian system. Years of mistreatment at the hands of the state at a serious effect on Mr Navalny’s health. His death must be investigated fully and transparently.

Docherty said the Russian authorities should tell Navalny’s family where his body is.

The UK government held the Russian authorities “wholly responsible”, he said.

And, in a reference to possible sanctions, he said that the people to blame should be held to account and that the government was “working at pace” on options to enable this to happen.

In her opening statement Kemi Badenoch said that Henry Staunton’s claims in his Sunday Times article were “completely false”. In particular, she addressed three of his specific claims, relating to briefings the media, why he was sacked, and claims compensation was delayed.

Mr Staunton alleges that I refused to apologise to him after he learned of his dismissal from Sky News. That was not the case.

In the call he referenced I made it abundantly clear that I disapproved of the media briefing any aspect of this story and out of respect for Henry Staunton’s reputation I went to great pains to make my concerns about his conduct private.

In fact in my interviews with the press I repeatedly said that I refused to carry out HR in public. That is why it is so disappointing that he’s chosen to spread a series of falsehoods, provide made up anecdotes to journalists and leak discussions held in confidence.

All of this merely confirms in my mind that I made the correct decision in dismissing him.

• She said Staunton was not sacked because, as he claimed she told him, someone had to take the rap for the Horizon scandal. She said:

Mr Staunton claimed I told him that someone’s got to take the rap for the Horizon scandal, and that was the reason for his dismissal. That was not the reason at all.

I dismissed him because there were serious concerns about his behaviour as chair, including those raised from other directors on the board. My department found significant governance issues, for example, with the recruitment of a new senior independent director to the Post Office board. A public appointment process was under way, but Mr Staunton apparently wanted to bypass it, appointing someone from within the existing board without due process.

He failed to properly consult the Post Office board on the proposal. He failed to hold the required nominations committee. Most importantly, he failed to consult the government as a shareholder which the company was required to do.

I know that honourable members will agree with me is such a cavalier approach to governance was the last thing we needed in the Post Office given its historic failings.

In his Sunday Times interview Staunton address this claim, arguing that he was backing the candidate favoured by the board, when the government wanted its own candidate to get the job. (See 4.07pm.)

I should also inform the house that, while he was post, a formal investigation was launched into allegations made regarding Mr Staunton’s conduct. This included serious matters such as bullying.

Concerns were brought to my department’s attention about Mr Staunton’s willingness to cooperate with that investigation.

So it is right that the British public knew the facts behind this case, and what was said in the phone call where I dismissed Mr Staunton.

Today I am depositing a copy of that readout in both libraries of the house so the honourable members and the public can see the truth. Personal information relating to other post office employees in those minutes have been redacted.

Mr Staunton claimed that when he was first appointed as chair of the Post Office he was told by senior civil servants to stall on paying compensation. There is no evidence whatsoever that this is true.

In fact, on becoming Post Office chair, Mr Staunton received a letter from the BEIS [Deparment of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy] permanent secretary, Sarah Munby, on 9 December 2022. It welcomed him to his role, making it crystal clear that successfully reaching settlements with victims of the Post Office scandal should be one of his highest priorities …

The reality is that my department has done everything it can to speed up compensation payments for victims. We’ve already made payments totaling £160m across all three compensation schemes. That includes our announcement last autumn of the optional £600,000 pound fixed-sum award for those who’ve been wrongfully convicted. It is the strongest refutation of those who would claim that we only acted after the ITV drama.

• She said that all 2,417 post office operators who claimed through the original Horizon shortfall scheme have now had offers of compensation. In total, around £1bn has been committed to ensure wronged post office operators can be compensated, she said.

In short we are putting our money where our mouth is and our shoulders to the wheel and ensuring that justice is done. It is not fair on the victims of this scandal, which has already ruined so many lives and livelihoods, to claim, as Mr Staunton has done, that this has been dragged out a second longer than it ought to be.

For Henry Staunton to suggest otherwise, for whatever personal motives, is a disgrace and it risks damaging confidence in the compensation schemes which ministers and civil servants are working so hard to deliver.

I would hope the most people reading the interview in yesterday, Sunday, Sunday Times, we’ll see it for what it was a blatant attempt to seek revenge following dismissal.

I must say I regret the way in which these events have unfolded. We did everything we could to manage this dismissal in a dignified way for Mr Staunton and others. However, I will not hesitate to defend myself, and more importantly, my officials, who cannot respond directly to these baseless attacks.

Kemi Badenoch is making her statement about the Henry Staunton claims.

She says they are “completely false”.

She says that he was dismissed after serious allegations were made against him, including bullying, and because concerns were brought to her about his willingness to cooperate with the investigation into those claims.

And she says she is publishing a transcript of the readout of the conversation she had in which she sacked him.

She says his interview was “a blatant attempt to seek revenge following dismissal”.

She says she sought to handle this in a dignified way. But she will not hesitate to defend herself, and her officials who cannot speak up for themselves, she says.

Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, will deliver a statement shortly about the claims made by Henry Staunton, the former Post Office chair, in an interview with the Sunday Times published yesterday. The main claim has been covered extensively here already, but Staunton made a series of specific claims. Here is the full list.

• Staunton claimed that a senior official from the business departments asked him to stall compensation payments to victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal until after the general election. He told the Sunday Times:

Early on, I was told by a fairly senior person to stall on spending on compensation and on the replacement of Horizon, and to limp, in quotation marks – I did a file note on it – limp into the election.

It was not an anti-postmaster thing, it was just straight financials. I didn’t ask, because I said, ‘I’m having no part of it – I’m not here to limp into the election, it’s not the right thing to do by postmasters.’ The word ‘limp’ gives you a snapshot of where they were.

• He claimed that, when she called to sack him, Badenoch told him: “Well, someone’s got to take the rap for this [the Horizon scandal].”

Staunton said UK Government Investments (UKGI), the body staffed by former investment bankers that manages taxpayers’ stakes in assets such as the Post Office, appeared to oppose blanket exoneration. Last month — after [the ITV’s drama about the scandal was aired] – Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, wrote to the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, with a legal opinion from the Post Office’s solicitors at Peters & Peters attached. The message said that in more than 300 cases, non-Horizon evidence supported sub-postmasters’ convictions. “Basically, it was trying to undermine the exoneration argument,” Staunton said. “It was, ‘Most people haven’t come forward because they are guilty as charged’ – ie think very carefully about exoneration. I said to Nick [Read], ‘This is not right – this goes to the heart of how we as an organisation feel. You’ve sent that letter as if that’s our view, and that is not my view, and it is not the view of at least half of the board … If this got out, we’d be crucified, and rightly so’.”

According to Staunton, Read said he sent the letter at UKGI’s behest …

“It was terrible, terrible governance,” [Staunton said.] “I picked it up with the UKGI director, who didn’t deny it but didn’t really want to talk about it. And I thought it was not my job to work out what the politics is behind all this.”

• Staunton said that ‘a big part” of the reason why he was sacked was because he opposed a bid by the government to put a Whitehall insider on the board. Staunton wanted the vacancy to be filled by Andrew Darfoor, who was the choice of the Post Office board.

• He said that Read often described the Post Office investigators, who prosecuted the post office operatives, as “the untouchables” because the organisation felt it could not get rid of them.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told MPs that Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, should be responding to the urgent question, not Bim Afolami. His failure to turn up was “an insult to all those people who go to work every day and experience the reality of 14 years of conservative economic failure”, she said.

She went on:

Will the minister explain why the economy is now smaller than when the current prime minister entered 10 Downing Street? Does the minister accept the misery that this government has caused homeowners with their kamikaze budget, leaving a typical family renewing their mortgage paying an additional £240 pounds every single month?

She also pointed out that the UK Statistics Authority has reprimanded Laura Trott, the chief secretary to the Treasury, for making misleading claims about tax cuts.