No 10 says Michelle Mone has lost Conservative whip ‘by default’ – as it happened

The right to strike is a fundamental British liberty. With inflation running at 11 per cent, Rishi Sunak wants to make it harder for working people to win better pay and conditions.

Public sector workers would love to be able to deliver minimum service levels. But 12 years of Conservative cuts and mismanagement have left our public services falling apart at the seams.

Rather than attempting cheap political pot shots, the government should be getting around the table and negotiating with unions about pay. So far, ministers have seemed more interested in sabotaging talks than trying to resolve disputes.

Strep A can be treated appropriately with antibiotics. There are no current shortages of drugs available to treat it.

Train drivers at 12 rail companies have voted overwhelmingly to continue strike action in a long-running row over pay, PA Media reports. PA says:

Aslef said the turnouts were “huge” – showing how angry its members are. Unions have to re-ballot members for industrial action every six months.

Mick Whelan, the Aslef general secretary, said: “The resolve of our members is rock steady. A 93% “yes” vote – up on the very high figure last time – on an average turnout across the 12 companies of 85% shows that our members are in this for the long haul.

“We don’t want to go on strike. We don’t want to inconvenience passengers – our friends and families use the railway, too, and we believe in investing in rail for the future of our country – and drivers don’t want to lose a day’s pay. Strikes are always a last resort.

“But the intransigent attitude of the train companies – with the government acting with malice in the shadows – has forced our hand.”

The companies affected include Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Great Western Railway, Greater Anglia, GTR Great Northern Thameslink, London North Eastern Railway, Southeastern, Southern/Gatwick Express, South Western Railway (depot drivers only), SWR Island Line and West Midlands Trains.

Aslef, which has held five one-day strikes this year, said it has successfully negotiated pay deals with 11 train companies this year – DB Cargo, Eurostar, Freightliner Heavy Haul, Freightliner Intermodal, GB Railfreight, Grand Central, Merseyrail, MTR Elizabeth line, Nexus, PRE Metro Operations and ScotRail – and are in dispute only with those companies which have failed to offer their drivers anything.

Plaid Cymru has welcomed the publication of an interim report from a commission set up by the Welsh government saying independence would be a viable option for Wales.

The independent commission on the constitutional future of Wales was set up under the cooperation agreement between Plaid, which campaigns for Welsh independence, and the Welsh Labour government. It is chaired by Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, and Prof Laura McAllister.

In their foreward to the interim report, Williams and McAllister say the constitutional status quo is not sustainable. They say:

Devolution was a major step forward for Welsh democracy, but the current settlement has been eroded by decisions of recent UK governments particularly in the context of Brexit. The status quo is not a reliable or sustainable basis for the governance of Wales in the future.

They say there are three options they will consider in more detail in their final report.

Our work has led us to conclude that there are three viable future constitutional options for Wales: entrenched devolution, federal structures and independence.

The report itself says there are 10 reasons why devolution is under pressure.

Responding to the report, Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru leader, said:

This landmark report is the first government report to acknowledge that independence for Wales is both a credible and viable way forward for the constitutional future of Wales.

The significance of this cannot be overstated.

Not only does it reaffirm Plaid Cymru’s argument that the status quo simply isn’t working for Wales but makes clear that we are trapped within a UK economy that is overwhelmingly shaped in the interests of the South-East of England and the City of London and that this broken UK economic model does not deliver prosperity to Wales and offers no prospect of doing so.

The Welsh government was much less enthusiastic in its reponse. In a written statement, Mick Antoniw, the counsel general and minister for the constitution, just said the government would be considering the report carefully, and encouraged anyone interested in the constitution to do the same.

Albanian children are being subjected to racist bullying in UK schools because of the debate surrounding arrivals by small boats, Qirjako Qirko, the country’s ambassador in London, told MPs this morning. My colleague Rajeev Syal has the story.

Striking NHS workers could be targeted as part of Rishi Sunak’s promised “tough” new measures to curb a wave of industrial action, Downing Street has suggested. My colleagues Aubrey Allegretti and Kiran Stacey have the story here.

Border Force staff are going on strike over Christmas, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union announced.

The strike will involve PCS members at Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff airports, who will strike for eight days from 23 December to New Year’s Eve.

Matt Hancock announced he would not stand for parliament after local Tories wrote to the chief whip saying he was “not fit” to represent their constituency, the i’s Kate Maltby reports. The letter was due to be published tomorrow.

As Maltby reports in her story, Terry Wood, president of West Suffolk Conservatives, said in his letter:

I have been instructed by the Officers Group of West Suffolk Conservatives Association to write to you and advise you of the following. At an Officers Group meeting held on the 30 November 2022 a vote was taken that ruled that the Officer Group have no confidence in Matt Hancock as our sitting MP, and we would request that the Whip is not restored to him.

This vote was brought about following feedback from the constituents in West Suffolk, advising that by virtue of recent events, they consider Matt Hancock not fit to represent this constituency.

At its own post-PMQs briefing, Labour said it thought legislation requiring unions to maintain minimum service levels during transport strikes would be “unworkable”. A spokesperson said the party would oppose any such legislation.

But she would not commit the party to repealing it if it were passed.

However, she did say some trade union legislation would be repealed. She said:

We would repeal the 2016 Trade Union Act. There are unnecessary elements in trade union legislation that we would look at … One example would not allowing online balloting. We don’t think that’s practical, we think it’s costly and we think that’s unnecessary.

At PMQs Rishi Sunak said he was working on “tough” laws to protect people from strikes.

In a reference to the Tory proposal to legislate so that unions have to maintain minimum service levels during transport strikes (which was promised in the 2019 manifesto), he said:

The government has been reasonable. It’s accepted the recommendations of an independent pay review body, giving pay rises in many cases higher than the private sector.

But if the union leaders continue to be unreasonable, then it is my duty to take action to protect the lives and livelihoods of the British public.

That’s why, since I became prime minister I have been working for new tough laws to protect people from this disruption.

But at the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson would not give further details of what the new legislation would say, or when it might be introduced.

At the transport committee this morning Mark Harper, the transport secretary, said a bill of this kind was “not a solution” to the current dispute. (See 10.12am.)

At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s press secretary said Lady Mone lost the Tory whip “by default” when she took a voluntary leave of absence from the Lords. The press secretary said:

She’s taken a leave of absence therefore, by default, she has not got the Conservative whip any more.

Asked why Rishi Sunak waited for Mone to in effect strip herself of the whip if he was “shocked” by allegations about her, the press secretary claimed that was matter for the whips’ office.

When it was put to her that Sunak cut Mone adrift, the press secretary replied: “I wouldn’t characterise it as that. She’s taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords.”

She said she was not aware of “any conversations” between Sunak and Mone about her taking a leave of absence, adding: “As I understand it, it was her voluntary decision.”