MASSIVE changes are being planned for hospital and care services across Dorset – which may see some local sites, including in Weymouth, sold off.

What line would your Devon County Council candidates make of this? Selling the family silver? NHS safe in their hands? – Owl

Trevor Bevins www.dorsetecho.co.uk 

Ultimately it may lead to investment of between £370m and £500m in services in the county up to 2030 through the Government’s Health Infrastructure Plan.

Dorset councillors have been told that much of the work is still in the early stages with the proposals including the sale of NHS land in the Weymouth area and in Sherborne –  with redevelopment plans for sites at Forston near Dorchester, Wimborne and Shaftesbury.

The scheme to extend the Dorset County Hospital site is already under way with the building of a new multi-storey car park.

Where land and sites are sold the NHS locally says it is determined that, where possible, it would be used for key worker housing.

The model for strategic redevelopment for county health services is based on community hubs which bring local services together on one site to reduce the need for people to travel.

Portland councillor Paul Kimber was told that no new building was currently planned for the island under the longer-term proposals although there would be an investment in reducing a patient backlog and, outside of the scope of the strategic programme, other local initiatives.

He was told in response to a question about Portland services that there would be a ‘consolidation’ of local services in Weymouth, possibly based on a new hospital building, with the ultimate likely disposal of two Weymouth NHS sites for housing. A figure for £30m has been presented for the Weymouth element alone.

Chris Lawrence from the Dorset healthcare trust admitted that the plan was ‘Weymouth biased’ but said there was also a commitment to having investment on Portland with a focus on a new scheme based centred around primary care.

Cllr Dr Jon Orrell said Weymouth people might be concerned that the town now seemed likely to go from four hospitals it once had with beds to just one, having already seen previous closures and site sales result in no apparent investment south of the Ridgeway.

He said that if the town was to lose further public land through NHS sales then there should be a 100 per cent commitment to key worker housing on those sites, which fellow Weymouth councillor Gill Taylor suggested should also be extended to social care workers.

Concern about the wider proposals came from Sherborne councillors Jon Andrews and Robin Legg who both said their town already relied on Yeovil Hospital for many services, although there are proposals for Yeovil to merge some services with the hospital in Taunton, reducing what might be available on the south Somerset site.

Cllr Andrews said if that happened many people would find it difficult to get to Dorchester for hospital treatment. He also questioned a proposal which said that Yeatman Hospital land might be sold for housing, although it was later admitted that the suggestion might be a mistake.

Cllr Legg said he had also been surprised to see a proposal to reconfigure the site and sell some of it for housing – an idea, which he said, the NHS seemed to have developed in a vacuum without talking to anyone.

He said if there were plans for a £18 million redevelopment at the Yeatman it might be better to consider whether the 150-year old building and its cramped site was worth continuing to invest in, or to move to a new site elsewhere in the town, possible on land being proposed for development by the Digby estate.

Members of the Dorset Council’s people and health scrutiny committee were told that the strategic plans were still in the early stages and would depend on winning Government funding and a detailed business case for each site then being signed off. It was at the next stage that wider consultations would be held once the details were fleshed out.

Parts of England protected for their beauty are being blighted by a doubling in the amount of greenfield land opened up to sprawling “executive home” developments, according to a report.

Ben Webster, Environment Editor www.thetimes.co.uk

Permission has been granted for development on an average of 294 acres of greenfield land per year within England’s 34 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) since 2017, up from an average of 128 acres a year in the previous five years, according to research commissioned by CPRE, the countryside charity.

The High Weald AONB, which covers parts of Sussex, Kent and Surrey, is facing the largest amount of development, with 932 houses approved since 2017. Another 771 homes have been approved in the Dorset area, 592 in the Chilterns and 684 in the Cotswolds. The research found that twice as much land as the national average was used per new home in developments in AONBs, with builders focusing on large “executive” properties.

Only 16 per cent of the homes met the government’s definition of affordable, which includes those sold or rented at lower than market value.

CPRE is calling for changes to planning rules to prioritise conserving AONBs over meeting housing targets. It also wants any developments in such areas to focus on providing affordable and social homes for local people.

Crispin Truman, the chief executive of the charity, said: “The fact that some of our most highly prized areas of countryside are being lost to build more executive homes says a great deal about our planning system.

“Continuing with this ‘build and be damned’ approach just serves to line the pockets of greedy developers whilst undermining climate action, stalling nature’s recovery and gobbling up our most precious green space that’s vital for our health and wellbeing, all the while doing next to nothing to tackle the affordable housing crisis.

“Rural communities are crying out for well-designed, quality and genuinely affordable homes in the right places. We know this kind of development is possible.

“To start building the right nature-friendly and low-carbon homes in the right places, we must see a swift change of tack from the government to put nature and countryside communities at the heart of any future planning bill. Continuing to give developers more power in the planning system will only make this bad situation worse.”

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP for the Cotswolds, said: “It is vital that areas like the Cotswolds and other AONBs, which have all been given that designation because they are unique and special areas, are carefully conserved by planning departments and other statutory consultees.

“Otherwise, this generation will fail to pass on this very special national heritage for future generations.”

The government’s planning guidelines state that “great weight should be given to conserving landscape and scenic beauty” in AONBs.

However, guidelines state that large developments can be permitted in these areas in “exceptional circumstances” and where it would be in the public interest. These terms are not clearly defined, creating loopholes for developers to use.

The development in the High Weald area includes 119 homes near Crowborough, East Sussex, approved last year against the advice of the official body that manages the AONB.

One in five government Covid contracts awarded between February and November 2020 contained one or more red flags for possible corruption and require urgent further investigation, a respected campaign group has warned.

Original source: “Track and Trace”  Transparency International.

David Pegg www.theguardian.com

Transparency International UK said a “seriously flawed” arrangement, whereby companies bidding for contracts were prioritised if they were referred into a “VIP lane” by their political connections, had “damaged trust in the integrity of the pandemic response”.

The group said Boris Johnson’s government must urgently disclose the identities of companies awarded public money through the VIP lane, which was set up by the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health and Social Care in the early days of the pandemic.

The government has so far refused to name the companies granted public money through the scheme, citing “commercial confidentiality”. It has previously claimed the purpose of the arrangement was to triage large numbers of offers to help from the private sector.

Transparency International UK said its analysis indicated “apparent systemic biases in the award of PPE contracts that favoured those with political connections to the party of government in Westminster”, contrary to denials by civil servants and Conservative ministers.

The group said it had identified 73 Covid-related contracts with multiple factors that would ordinarily be treated as red flags for possible corruption, such as the company being politically connected. Twenty-seven PPE or testing contracts worth £2.1bn were awarded to firms with connections to the Conservative party, it claimed.

The group said it had also identified £255m of contracts awarded to companies that had only been incorporated within the previous 60 days. The figure is surprising because the short lifespan of the companies suggests they cannot have had any track record of actual business.

Many of the contracts were awarded without competitive tender. The government has acknowledged suspending tender processes for Covid procurement, arguing that the urgency of the pandemic required it to move more quickly than a tender process would allow.

The report, Track and Trace, is compiled by researchers working for the UK chapter of the international organisation Transparency International. The group is respected in anti-corruption policy circles and publishes an annual corruption perceptions index that frequently informs national anti-bribery strategies.

Steve Goodrich, a senior research manager at the group, said there was disquiet at “patterns that you cannot explain away”, in particular the creation of the VIP lane.

“Fine, you have to triage [bids for PPE contracts],” he said. “Why on earth would you ask politicians to do that? Did they even ask any medical experts? Or was it just prioritised on the basis of who managed to ring the right person at the right time?”

The existence of the VIP lane was confirmed in a report last November by the National Audit Office. During a global rush for PPE that rapidly forced up prices, the government said it received large numbers of unsolicited and improbable bids for lucrative public contracts.

It said the high-priority lane allowed it to triage the large number of unsolicited offers of aid by prioritising those referred by government ministers, MPs, peers or health officials as credible companies that should be taken seriously, rather than chancers.

However the government’s repeated refusal to identify any beneficiaries of the scheme has prompted suspicion that it could have been used to disburse public funds to friends of the Conservative party. Companies referred into the VIP lane were 10 times more likely to be awarded a government contract.

Transparency International’s report makes 10 recommendations for urgent action by government, including immediate disclosure of the beneficiaries of the VIP lane contracts, a return to competitive procurement by default, and transferring responsibility for enforcing the ministerial code to an office independent of government and accountable to parliament.

A government spokesperson said: “During the pandemic our priority has always been to protect the public and save lives, and we have used existing rules to buy life saving equipment and supplies, such as PPE for the NHS frontline.

“All PPE procurement went through the same assurance process and due diligence is carried out on every contract – ministers have no role in awarding them.

“The priority list [VIP lane] was widely advertised across government as a way of more quickly triaging offers of support.”

A confidence trickster founded his own political party in Bideford and stood for election on a platform of ‘honesty and transparency’ while swindling companies out of thousands of pounds. 

www.northdevongazette.co.uk

Timothy Ahlbeck set up a string of companies and claimed to be a duke, lord or doctor while in reality he was an undischarged bankrupt and banned from running any business. 

He fleeced creditors by filing false returns which showed he had assets of £200,000 when he was penniless and trying to run a market stall in Newton Abbot. 

He registered The People’s Party UK ltd as the name of one of his companies and stood as an Independent in Torbay’s local elections in 2019. 

He was forced to pull out after local media exposed him as being a serial conman who has served a string of jail terms for fraud under his previous names of Timothy Skelding and Miles Prestland-Windsor. 

His election literature said: his campaign said: “Honesty and Transparency are of the utmost importance to me.” 

Ahlbeck set up 16 companies while disqualified from being a director. They claimed to be involved in telecoms, pet and horse care, perfume, gold bullion, courier or utility services. 

The People’s Party and several other firms were based in Mill Street, Bideford but he also used addresses in Torbay, London and Manchester. 

Ahlbeck, aged 37, now High Street, Wednesfield, Wolverhampton, admitted two counts of fraud and 16 of acting as a director while disqualified. 

He was jailed for two years, suspended for two years and ordered to do a thinking skills course and receive 30 days supervision by Judge Timothy Rose at Exeter Crown Court. 

He told him: “Over the 19 years of your adult life, you have been living in a form of escapist fantasy world, what some may call a Walter Mitty existence, in which you have repeatedly set up companies, more recently while disqualified. 

“There has been fraudulent paperwork and completely invented facts and figures and capital which has just come from the top of your head. 

Miss Bathsheba Cassel, prosecuting, said Ahlbeck was disqualified from being a director for 15 years in 2016 after one of his previous convictions but started running a string of companies from October 2017 onwards. 

He succeeded in getting credit from a variety of suppliers and the two frauds involved £20,315.94 from Staples for office equipment, laptop and phones, and a car leasing firm for £6,479. 

He supplied false bank account details and claimed to have £200,000 capital, £240,000 a year turnover and ten employees. 

Other businesses which supplied goods or services to his companies were left out of pocket to the tune of around £70,000. Many were small firms which were badly hit by the losses. 

Ahlbeck has six previous convictions for fraud and has served five prison terms since 2002. 

Miss Mary McCarthy, defending, said Ahlbeck’s offending is the result of a personality disorder and other psychological problems arising out of an abusive childhood. 

She said the full diagnosis and proper treatment have only been achieved since these set of offences finished in 2019. 

He is now living near Wolverhampton and receiving the help he needs to rebuild his life and stay out of trouble.

Whilst visiting Dartmouth 15 April, Boris Johnson said of the growing backlog of our over-burdened healthcare system:

 “We’re going to make sure that we give the NHS all the funding that it needs, as we have done throughout the pandemic, to beat the backlog.

“We’ve put about £92 billion already extra into the NHS this year and we’re going to do whatever it takes.

More empty words? – Owl

See also: health-provision-at-local-and-national-level-is-tory-achilles-heel-and-they-know-it/

Denis Campbell www.theguardian.com 

Doctors, nurses and NHS bosses have pleaded with Boris Johnson to spend billions of pounds to finally end the chronic lack of staff across the health service.

The strain of working in a perpetually understaffed service is so great that it risks creating an exodus of frontline personnel, they warn the prime minister in a letter published on Wednesday.

They have demanded that the government devise an urgent plan that will significantly increase the size of the workforce of the NHS in England by the time of the next general election in 2024.

Their intervention comes after the latest NHS staff survey found that growing numbers of them feel their work is making them sick and that almost two-thirds believe they cannot do their jobs properly because their organisation has too few people.

The letter has been signed by unions and other groups representing most of the NHS’s 1.4 million-strong workforce, including the Royal College of Nursing, British Medical Association and Unison. NHS Providers and the NHS Confederation, which both represent hospital trusts, have also endorsed it, as has the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, a professional body for the UK’s 240,000 doctors.

In the letter they draw attention to the fact that the NHS in England has almost 90,000 vacancies: “We are very aware of the strain and stress placed on NHS services and teams by the vacancies we see across services and roles. There is a very real risk that these vacancies are the greatest threat to the retention of our people.”

Johnson has lavished praise on NHS staff for their dedication and hard work in treating huge numbers of Covid patients during the pandemic, and acknowledged his personal debt to them after his spell in intensive care with the disease in April 2020. But his decision to offer NHS staff only a 1% pay rise this year has triggered an outcry, including from some Conservative MPs.

The NHS’s much-vaunted People Plan, drawn up by the Conservative peer Lady Harding in her role as chair of NHS Improvement, has not led to meaningful changes to increase staff numbers – with government reluctance to spend the money needed the reason, the signatories claim.

“It appears that no such plan can be developed because the government has not been able to commit to funding the implications … Billions in additional investment will be required by the end of this parliament to address these longstanding issues of supply and education,” the letter adds.

Demanding that staff shortages be banished once and for all, the authors tell the prime minister that staff are “exhausted” after a year fighting Covid and ask him to “give them hope – hope that there is a plan, matched by investment, which will address shortages of NHS staff in the medium and long term”.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “This government is committed to supporting the NHS and its staff in the fight against Covid and beyond the pandemic through the NHS People Plan. There are over 6,600 more doctors and 10,900 more nurses working in our NHS, compared to last year, and we are on track to deliver 50,000 more nurses by the end of this parliament.”

The spokesperson said an extra 1,500 places had been created in medical schools, and an undergraduate studying to become a nurse, midwife, physiotherapist or occupational therapist now received at least £5,000 a year to help with living costs.

Alison Hernandez has been seen out and about campaigning with local Tory Council candidates. She must also have been accompanied by a posse of phantom Police because she sees them “everywhere” she goes. 

So the Tories are playing the “law and order ticket” hard, as they frequently do.

With all the stories of sleaze and “chumocracy” swirling around; and after Cumming’s Durham Dash and Robert Jenrick bolting to his Hereford mansion a year ago during lockdown, you couldn’t make it up. Gamekeepers and poachers come to mind. – Owl

From Martin Shaw’s blog (defending his County division of Seaton and Colyton):

Is this a spoof account? ‘Everywhere I go I see the police’, says Alison Hernandez as she finally turns up in Seaton: ‘Visibility has begun’.

Posted on April 21, 2021 seatonmatters.org 

I don’t normally reproduce Conservative propaganda, but their local candidates Marcus Hartnell and Ian Hall must be squirming with embarrassment today after the police commissioner, Alison Hernandez – last spotted in Seaton in September 2016 (!) – turned up for election photo-ops with them.

The hapless Hernandez tweeted about her visit, ‘Everywhere I go I see the police’, and even continued, ‘Visibility has begun …’ . Let’s hope that this doesn’t mean that police were bused from all over Devon for a party-political event. Since the wider Seaton area has been reduced to one Police Constable and one Police Community Support Officer, it would have been simply impossible for her to have seen police ‘everywhere’ on a normal day.

Hernandez’ claims will be greeted with derision, if not anger, by people in the Colyford and Seaton Down Hill areas, who have been trying to get police enforcement of speed limits for years now. The police have been all but invisible locally throughout Hernandez’ term – time for her to go.

As a coroner says there is “no safe level of particulate matter” in the air and calls for national pollution limits to be reduced, Neil Parish MP is caught out operating dual standards in the “eye”. 

“Nothing is more important than the air we breath” – except when giving wood burning stoves a bit of a puff. (Penultimate paragraph). Neil Parish is Chair of the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Committee.

A coroner has called for a change in the law after air pollution led to the death of a nine-year-old girl.

BBC News www.bbc.co.uk Extract

Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who lived near the South Circular Road in Lewisham, south-east London, died in 2013.

An inquest had found air pollution “made a material contribution” to her death.

Coroner Phillip Barlow said there is “no safe level of particulate matter” in the air and called for national pollution limits to be reduced.

Ella was the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as the cause of death on their death certificate, following the inquest ruling by Mr Barlow last December.

Are you keeping up with all this? – Owl

The role of a former Tory parliamentary candidate and party donor in a £100m government deal to buy PPE has been revealed after an apparent admin error.

By Phil Kemp www.bbc.co.uk 

The deal for face masks was signed in July, but the names of those involved were blacked out when the contract was finally published seven months later.

A second document listed Samir Jassal, an ex-councillor who has campaigned with the PM, as the supplier’s contact.

The government has said ministers have no part in deciding who gets contracts.

But it is the latest in a series of revelations about PPE deals awarded to those with government connections.

A ‘good friend’

Although the deal, for protective masks for hospital workers, was signed last year, the details only came to light in March after a court rebuked the government for failing to publish contracts within the legal time frame. Health Secretary Matt Hancock was found to have acted unlawfully for this failure.

Even when the deal involving Mr Jassal was finally published, the contact details for the supplier were blacked out. Full contracts are routinely redacted when published by the government.

However, in what appears to have been a clerical error, a separate document published with the contract gives Mr Jassal’s name. He is listed as the “supplier’s contact” to Pharmaceuticals Direct Limited, the company paid to supply the masks.

He told the BBC he was a consultant for the firm.

Contact details on the contract (top) were blacked out, but Mr Jassal was listed as the “supplier’s contact” on a separate document (below)

The contract was negotiated in the aftermath of the first coronavirus wave in the UK.

At the time, with a rising global demand for PPE, the government directly awarded contracts under emergency terms, which meant it didn’t have to spend time following the usual tendering process.

However, this has led to concerns over why particular suppliers were chosen and accusations of favouring firms with political connections to the Conservative Party.

Who is Samir Jassal?

Mr Jassal, a former Conservative Party councillor, appears well connected to the government.

He joined the prime minister on an official trip to a recycling plant in west London last October, and accompanied him on a campaign visit to a Sikh temple during the 2019 general election campaign.

Mr Jassal himself stood as a Conservative candidate in two general elections and he is standing as a councillor again in Gravesham Borough Council in next month’s local elections.

His LinkedIn profile claims he worked as an adviser to the now Home Secretary Priti Patel between 2014 and 2015. The BBC understands this was unpaid. He describes her as a “good friend” on social media. In 2016, he donated £4,000 to the party.

At the height of the UK pandemic in 2020, the government set up a “high-priority lane” for businesses endorsed by Whitehall officials or politicians, to fast-track PPE orders. Ministers have refused to reveal the full list of firms that went through this fast lane.

In November, the spending watchdog found these companies were 10 times more likely to win contracts than suppliers that came through the normal route.

Mr Jassal’s involvement in the £100m face masks contract was uncovered by the Good Law Project, a campaign group which took the government to court over not publishing PPE contracts. It is now seeking to bring a case against the government in relation to this contract.

“It’s of profound public importance that we discover who has benefited from the special arrangements put in place, who has benefited from the billions of public money spent, and at whose direction,” Gemma Abbott, the group’s legal director told the BBC.

More on our PPE investigation

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) declined to answer whether Pharmaceutical Direct Limited’s (PDL) contract was processed as part of the high-priority lane.

Mr Jassal says PDL has 20 years’ experience in the healthcare sector and it asked to supply PPE via an online government portal. The company, he said, had supplied PPE to various outlets for many years.

Despite costing more than £100m, at least two hospital trusts have reported issues with the fit of the model of masks supplied under the contract

PPE orders in pandemic

• £12.3bnvalue of PPE contracts awarded by UK govt between March and July 2020

Source: NAO Investigation into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nov 2020

Mr Jassal said the masks “successfully entered the NHS supply chain in a timely manner” and they met “all technical standards which were rigorously vetted and approved by the Health and Safety Executive, the DHSC and the NHS”.

PDL said it had engaged its own independent expert consultants to test and certify that all masks were fully compliant. It said, to the best of its knowledge, all masks supplied had been distributed to, and put to use by the NHS.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “The first duty of any government in a national crisis is to protect the public and save lives, and to do that when confronted with this global pandemic we had to rapidly procure and produce PPE.

“This involved setting up a new logistics network from scratch and expanding our PPE supply chain from 226 NHS Trusts in England to more than 58,000 different settings, all of which was taking place at a time when global demand was greater than ever before.

“All PPE procurement went through the same assurance process. Due diligence has been carried out on every contract and Ministers have no involvement in deciding who is awarded contracts.”

Residents across East Devon have been left split over how development should take place and the number and location of new homes to be built in the district.

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com 

Earlier this year, the council went out to consultation on its draft Local Plan Issues and Options report, giving residents the chance to comment on a series of topic based sections around how future development across East Devon should be planned.

A report to next Tuesday’s East Devon District Council Strategic Planning Committee outlines the responses from the consultation, with officers set to bring a more detailed feedback report to May’s meeting of the committee.

But the responses reveal a divide among those who took the time to give their thoughts – as while 30 per cent indicated that less than the required 928 new houses a year should be built, the same number backed the options for up to 1,200 homes a year or planning to build considerably more than the Government target.

And in terms of where strategic development should be located, around a third of respondents felt that there should be more of a focus in the ‘West End’ of the district around Cranbrook and the edge of Exeter, a similar percentage wanted less of a focus in the West End, with around one third wanted the existing strategy to be continued.

The responses revealed that 43 per cent wished that new development should be focused around a combination of areas where large scale development will support the delivery of new services and clusters of growth in locations within easy walking and cycling distance of existing services and facilities, although 30 per cent had no preference.

Views were also sought on possible end dates with questions asking whether the council should plan for an end date that was well after 2040, whether or not a new town or a ‘second Cranbrook’ is proposed, with 30 per cent saying yes it should plan for a date further into the future, just under 20 per cent saying that was undesirable, with around 15 per cent saying it should only be done if a new town was being planned.

On the question of the importance of facilities to people in their community, access to full fibre broadband, paths for walking and cycling, open spaces, healthcare facilities and a convenience store/post office scored highest, with a place of worship, a train station and a supermarket bottom of the list.

On future use of town centres, the strongest support was for community uses, followed by mixed commercial use and then leisure uses, with dominance of retail and change of use to housing having the most opposition.

But on preference for locations for future job provision, more home working had the greatest support from those who responded, with the most opposition to a focus on the West End and in villages and countryside. In towns, or close to Exeter, had neither opposition nor support from the consultation.

And the consultation revealed that there was a divide between those who wished to see all the issues addressed in a single local plan covering all policy matters (45 per cent) and those who wished for a strategic plan to come first and then subsequent plans to follow that deal with the detail latter (41 per cent), with the other 14 per cent expressing no preference.

The Strategic Planning Committee, when they meet next Tuesday, are recommended to note the initial feedback received in consultation responses to the Local Plan issues and options report, with the May 2021 meeting set to have a more detailed feedback report from officers, including commentary on matters raised in free text boxes of the questionnaire and in other correspondence.

Councillors will also be asked to consider the proposed options for engaging with developers and site promoters on production of the Local Plan, with five options put in front of them.

They are to have no engagement at all with site promoters and developers, to restrict engagement to written submissions, to have engagement through site specific meetings, engagement via a working party, or engagement through the Strategic Planning Committee only, with officers recommending the latter.

The report says: “The agreed timetable for plan production proposes a debate of potential site options by the Committee in November. It is considered that part of this meeting could include providing a time slot for developers and site promoters to present to the committee to aid members’ understanding of the options prior to making decisions regarding which options they wish to put forward for consultation in the draft plan.

“It is considered that this option presents the most open and transparent option given that the presentations would then be given in a public meeting and it would also ensure that all of the committee could hear each presentation whereas this would be difficult to accommodate if separate meetings were to be held for each site.

“It may also cause some frustration among developers and site promoters if they have to wait until much later in the year to engage more fully in the process and they may also not wish to make their plans open to wider public scrutiny but clearly this would be their choice, but if this approach is favoured it is suggested that a special committee meeting be arranged and that each presentation be time limited to ensure parity across all of the sites being presented and to fit the time available.”

Lobbying can be absolutely legitimate. It’s part of how Westminster lives and breathes. Who would object to a small charity approaching its local MP to ask for help?

What about however, when the most powerful politician in the country sends a direct message to an influential businessman promising: “I will fix it tomo”?

Laura Kuenssberg www.bbc.co.uk

Who would complain about the pub industry pushing the government for answers about when they can serve pints again inside after the year we’ve all had?

Who would begrudge health unions trying to persuade ministers that their staff members deserve a pay rise?

Who wouldn’t see the logic of big business groups trying to make their arguments to decision makers at the top to help them thrive and prosper, when decisions made in SW1 affect millions of us, and billions of pounds?

There are thousands of different circumstances in which having those discussions is perfectly valid.

What about however, when the most powerful politician in the country sends a direct message to an influential businessman promising: “I will fix it tomo”?

What about when the request from the company in question was about the tax rules? What about when the exchange between the two ends with a guarantee from the prime minister, long before any official announcement: “You can take it that we are backing you to do what you need”?

In this case, where Boris Johnson assured Sir James Dyson his employees would not have to pay extra tax if they came to the UK to make ventilators during the pandemic, there is an obvious logic to the request made to government.

Sir James was trying to respond to the urgent call for help at the start of the pandemic, when there was deep and genuine fear that the NHS simply wouldn’t have the equipment to look after many thousands of patients at risk.

But Dyson also, understandably perhaps, wanted to be clear about protecting its business from any extra costs or liabilities. (In the end remember, they lost money from the project.) And the prime minister was heavily involved in efforts to get hold of ventilators and in touch with many businesses as the pandemic took hold.

Both Number 10 and Dyson stress the terrible urgency of the situation last year, rejecting the notion that the conversations were in any way inappropriate.

You can read both the government and Sir James’ responses to our story here.

But the rules that govern ministers’ behaviour aren’t just about what is being discussed, they are about how the conversations are had.

The principles are clear – contacts are allowed as long as there aren’t conflict of interests, and everything is transparent and out in the open.

Dyson had made an official approach to the Treasury on this issue. But it is not clear at this stage whether the prime minister did or didn’t tell officials about these specific exchanges of texts.

The practice of the principles that are meant to govern what is permitted has proved troublesome recently, provoking one of the all too regular concerns about lobbying of government.

Downing Street let it be known last week that the prime minister was shocked about some of the revelations that emerged, particularly about civil servants’ behaviour as the lobbying row got deeper and deeper.

But in the next few hours, some of his critics are likely to claim to be shocked by his.

Number 10 makeover scandal: New leaked memo shows Conservative Party chief knew £58,000 donation was earmarked for Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat.

• New evidence of how Tories used £58,000 to renovate PM’s Downing Street flat
• Leaked emails show Tory co-chairman was told in October money was for refit
• Lord Brownslow told the Conservatives he was giving two donations to them
• One gift of £15,000 was to be given for general party funds, the email disclosed
• A second donation of £58,000 was to pay for new decor for Boris Johnson

Extract from  www.dailymail.co.uk 

……“Dramatic new evidence of the way the Tories used nearly £60,000 of party funds on a lavish makeover of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat emerged last night

This was duly declared to the Electoral Commission watchdog, in accordance with transparency rules.

Crucially, the email, also sent to Conservative chief executive Darren Mott, shows a second donation of £58,000 was to pay for new decor for Mr Johnson and fiancee Carrie Symonds’s flat at 11 Downing Street.

This has not yet been declared to the Electoral Commission.

The £58,000 was to cover an identical amount secretly paid months earlier by Tory HQ for the refurbishment, including expensive wallpaper – in an attempt to disguise it.

The email appears to prove that the Tories planned to claim the £58,000 was paid not by Lord Brownlow but by a ‘soon to be formed Downing St Trust’ that did not exist – and still doesn’t, officially.”….

“The policy is a nonsense so profound you simply couldn’t make it up.”

www.independent.co.uk 

The government’s back in the business of underwriting mortgages, in a move that sees Rishi Sunak using a taxpayer-funded helicopter to spray petrol on to the house price wildfire currently burning. 

The market was running hot before this latest intervention, which sees the state underwriting  95 per cent mortgages for homes worth up to £600,000. Rightmove, for example, recently reported a 2.1 per cent jump in asking prices month on month, taking them to a record £327,797. The annual increase was 5.1 per cent. 

That’s what happens when a shortage of supply meets heavy demand, the first lesson your child will learn when they start taking economics classes, but something Mr Sunak, a former banker, seems to have forgotten. 

There are multiple reasons for this: the forthcoming end of the stamp duty holiday, the gradual opening up of the economy post-lockdown, people reassessing their circumstances as home working is much more widely adopted are just a few of them.

The problem with throwing the government-backed mortgages into the mix is that it will further increase demand, and thus prices, by bringing an army of new buyers when there will be no corresponding increase in supply.

It has justified this, and similar policies, by arguing that it’s helping people to get on to the housing ladder. 

But the policy is ultimately self-defeating because, sure, some buyers who couldn’t raise the deposit for a 90 per cent home loan will now be able to get on the ladder at 95 per cent (although mortgages at this level are proving to be quite expensive). 

Trouble is, it doesn’t matter if your mortgage is for 95 per cent of a home’s value, 90 per cent or even 100 per cent, you aren’t going to get one if you can’t pass the strict affordability tests financial watchdogs force lenders to apply. 

So Peter, who’d saved diligently for a deposit for a home he could just afford prior to the scheme, gets robbed by Paul, who, with a higher salary but less savings, can afford to buy at a higher price through one of the new subsidised 95 per cent loans. 

This is exactly what happened with the previous help to buy schemes, a point made by housing charity Shelter. 

“The fundamental problem with help to buy is that it tries to solve the problem of unaffordable house prices by making it easier for potential buyers to access a mortgage. 

“As the amount of mortgages issued are a key driver of house prices, the schemes push up prices further,” it said. 

History looks set to repeat itself. Think about this as well: to afford a 95 per cent mortgage for one of the £600,000 home at the top of the scheme you’ll need to be among the fortunate few with an annual household income of £127,000 or more.

Quite why the government is subsiding home loans for these people at a time when it’s next to impossible to get a council house in some parts of the country is beyond me. 

The policy is a nonsense so profound you simply couldn’t make it up. 

The biggest beneficiaries will inevitably be the fat cats at the top of the big house builders, who must be drooling right now. Profits – and CEOs’ bonuses – are set to go through the roof. 

Meanwhile, Britain has a chronic shortage of affordable housing, while those forced to rent privately have few rights and scant chance of making genuine homes of the properties they live in given they can be turfed out whenever it’s convenient for the landlord to cash in.

And don’t even get me started on cladding and Grenfell. 

But that’s Tory housing policy for you: a disaster whichever way you look at it. 

Of 46 UK domestic routes operated by Flybe at the time of its demise, 42 will be flown this summer by Loganair and six other airlines, comprehensively and successfully safeguarding the UK’s domestic connectivity.

William Telford www.business-live.co.uk.

The UK’s largest regional airline is to launch a new air route between Norwich and Exeter.

Loganair’s new service, which starts on July 12, will operate a four flights per week across the summer season on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday – moving to Monday and Friday flights from September onwards. The 70-minute flight on Loganair’s 49-seat Embraer 145 jets will compete against a 320-mile road journey.

Fares start from £49.99 one-way including all taxes and charges. All Loganair fares include a free checked baggage allowance, and tickets are on sale already.

The service links existing Loganair destinations. Norwich is already served from Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Jersey, and Exeter from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle.

Scottish-headquartered Loganair has also brought forward the resumption date of its Edinburgh-Norwich services, originally planned for September 2021, to recommence on July 12.

The new service adds to the restoration of domestic connectivity from Exeter lost through the collapse of Flybe in 2020 – between the four routes now flown by Loganair, those flown by its partner airline Blue Islands to Manchester and Jersey, and other airlines’ services to Belfast and Guernsey.

Of 46 UK domestic routes operated by Flybe at the time of its demise, 42 will be flown this summer by Loganair and six other airlines, comprehensively and successfully safeguarding the UK’s domestic connectivity.

Loganair chief executive Jonathan Hinkles said: “We are very pleased to expand our commitment to Norwich and Exeter with this direct service, connecting two important UK business and leisure locations.

“We’re sure this new connection will be warmly welcomed by customers travelling for work reasons and by those – just as soon as they can – travelling to visit friends and family.

“The need for domestic connectivity has been clearly recognised by the UK Government with its stated intention to reform Air Passenger Duty on domestic flights.

“There is no doubt the high level of APD has historically rendered such links as Norwich to Exeter economically difficult to sustain.

“The fact that 42 of Flybe’s 46 lost domestic routes have now been restored also shows the resilience and the importance of supporting the UK’s domestic airlines and this ‘team effort’ across the industry is something of which we should we all be proud.”

Exeter Airport operations director Stephen Wiltshire said: “It’s marvellous that Loganair is re-establishing the link between Exeter and Norwich, which is a key route for business, tourism and reconnecting family and friends kept apart by the pandemic.

“Importantly, this launch fills another gap left by the collapse of Flybe, with almost every domestic destination from Exeter now being restored by Loganair and other carriers over the coming months.”

Norwich Airport managing director Richard Pace said: “We’re delighted Loganair is re-establishing the link between Norwich and Exeter. We also welcome Loganair’s decision to restart the route to Edinburgh in July.

“In launching these routes, Loganair is putting its trust in the UK Government to deliver on its promise to reduce domestic Air Passenger Duty which is critical to the recovery and sustainability of domestic flying.”

Why do so many public contracts end up with friends of Dominic Cummings? Like us, you might have wondered. But, although reporters pick these stories up, nothing ever happens. Well, this time it’s different.

(Awaiting the reserved judgement – Owl)

goodlawproject.org 

On 3 March 2020, the Cabinet Office shook hands with Public First, a small privately held polling company. There was no formal contract, prior advertisement, or competitive tender process. It just made what procurement lawyers call a ‘direct award’. It formalised it retrospectively on 5 June 2020 and publicised it a week later. The total contract value is £840,000.

The directors and owners of Public First are Ms Rachel Wolf and Mr James Frayne. They have close connections with both the Minister for the Cabinet Office (the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP) and his long time colleague and Chief Adviser to the Prime Minister who works in the Cabinet Office (Mr Dominic Cummings).

We believe that money for your mates, on a handshake, formalised later, is unlawful. 

This is why Good Law Project has instructed Rook Irwin Sweeney and leading procurement lawyers Jason Coppel QC and Patrick Halliday. You can read our formal pre action protocol letter to Mr Gove and Mr Cummings here and the proceedings here.

To ensure value for money, to protect public funds, to guard against cronyism and bungs, one must put public contracts out to tender. And there was no exception here to that rule.

It is only with your support that we can continue to hold Government to account. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.

Timeline:

30th July 2020: Witness statement of Jolyon Maugham QC: available here

30th July 2020: Witness statement of Rook Irwin Sweeney LLP: available here

13th August 2020: Amended court bundle: available here

19th August 2020: Defendant’s Summary Grounds of Resistance: available here

24th November 2020: Order from Court granting Permission for application Judicial Review: available here

21st December 2020: Detailed Grounds of Resistance: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Dominic Cummings: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Lee Cain: available here (Government was unable to produce a signed version of Lee Cain’s witness statement and so it was not relied upon in the hearing)

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Helen Stratton: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Nicola Westmore: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Alex Aiken: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statment of Simon Soothill: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Catherine Hunt: available here

25th January 2021: Claimant’s skeleton argument: available here

1st February 2021: Defendant’s first skeleton: available here

9th February 2021: Witness statement of Mrs Jan Gooding: available here

10th February 2021: Email and instant messaging evidence: available here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here

10th February 2021: Extract from NAO report: available here

15th February 2021: Summary of hearing: available here

Because it is fielding 20 candidates, the “Freedom Alliance” gets significant publicity. 

Conservative anti-lockdown MPs in parliament number around 50 out of 364, about 14%. If this is representative of the general Conservative voting community then a number of Tory County seats could become marginal.

Owl thinks this provides an opportunity to “Change the Guard”. In the outgoing council the Conservatives held 41 of the 60 seats in DCC. So it only requires 11 of their seats to change for overall change to become a reality.

Remember there is a very different form of Alliance fighting this election. In East Devon, the East Devon Alliance (EDA) are candidates in Colyton & Seaton, where they won last time, and Axminster and Sidmouth where they came a close second.

From the EDA website:

We represent those who question the financial integrity of the District and County Councils; decisions made by a small “cabal” of Councillors from one dominant group, who use the party system to bulldoze through policy, and legislation – to the detriment of the vast majority of the residents in this County – ably and willingly assisted by a silent and compliant cohort of party members who rarely speak and who rarely object but continue – with a quiet word in their ears and a gentle arm at their elbows – to vote how they are told and when they are told. That is not democracy in our opinion. That is a virtual autocracy.

(Owl has already posted “All you need to know about one of Devon’s leading ‘Freedom Alliance’ candidates.”)

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com 

The newly formed Freedom Alliance political party is fielding candidates for 20 of the 60 seats in Devon, from Seaton to Hartland and from Combe Martin to Salcombe.

The Freedom Alliance Political Party, officially recognised earlier this year, say they are “committed to the principles of personal freedom” and oppose national lockdowns to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Stephen Hopwood is a local party spokesman and a doctor of medicine who has worked in Totnes as a holistic practitioner for 25 years, and said: “These are unprecedented times and we aim to show that we are indeed a viable force to be reckoned with.

“More and more people are intelligently analysing what is true and what is not and beginning to see through the false narrative. We have decided to stand to support these people in this understanding and to directly oppose this unacceptable roll out in our community.

“We’re offering electors the chance to vote for a genuine opposition to the measures which have been imposed by the Government – measures that we do not believe were even remotely justified by the scale of the threat in the first place.

“Our economy has been ruined and our individual freedoms massively curtailed. Our fundamental human rights are in real danger of being lost and we believe we must act now to protect our community and humanity.”

“We reject the kind of restrictions that have been imposed on us in the last year under the guise of a pandemic which is just not justified by a proper rigorous scientific study of the data,” said Dr Hopwood.

“We have seen the threat of Covid exaggerated and large numbers of deaths caused by the lockdown itself – a huge cost in human misery, with people unable to get treatment or not being diagnosed for other illnesses. The toll on mental health and on society as a whole has been completely appalling, punitive and very damaging.

“Old people have been imprisoned in care homes. Children have seen their education blighted and been coerced into virus testing regimes and mask-wearing which is all hugely psychologically damaging. Businesses and livelihoods have been unnecessarily destroyed.”

The Freedom Alliance is calling for an immediate end to all lockdowns and believes any testing or vaccination should be completely voluntary and any ‘decline’ should not lead to any detrimental consequences. The party rejects compulsory mask-wearing and says vaccine passports are unnecessary and discriminatory.

Dr Hopwood said: “Times are very hard and people are delighted to have sincere individuals and a new political party step forward and speak up for them. Our numbers are growing rapidly as increasing numbers of local people realise what is going on and identify the need to stand together.”

Elections will take place for all 60 seats on Devon County Council on Thursday, May 6, with voters going to the polls to elect their representatives for the next four years.

The entirety of the 60-strong council will be up for re-election, with 56 ‘single-member’ Electoral Divisions and 2 ‘two-member’ Divisions’.

The current composition of the council consists of 41 Conservatives, 7 Labour, 6 Liberal Democrats, 3 Independents, 1 Green Party, 1 East Devon Alliance and 1 North Devon Liberal.

All elected councillors will serve their usual four year term upon their election.

The Conservatives and Labour are the only parties who are fielding the maximum of 60 candidates, with the Liberal Democrats fielding 55.

The Green Party are fielding 45 candidates, with one from UKIP, five from Reform UK, and 20 from the Freedom Alliance, who are standing on a platform of ‘no lockdowns, no curfews’.

The East Devon Alliance have three candidates, the Trade Unionist and Social Coalition have six, while there are 28 Independent candidates.

Claims that a Cornish hotel needs to clear coastline to build conference rooms for the G7 Summit have been dismissed by the government.

When push comes to shove will Cornwall Council simply roll over? – Owl

Will Humphries, Southwest Correspondent www.thetimes.co.uk

Carbis Bay Hotel has felled mature trees, cleared scrubland and poured concrete foundations without planning permission on the basis that development is needed for the summit in June.

The Cabinet Office has made it clear to The Times, however, that the hotel estate met all its requirements at a visit last year. Extra meeting rooms were not needed for the summit.

The council rejected the hotel’s plans three years ago for holiday lodges and a spa on the same strip of land because the development would harm the “beautiful backdrop to the beach”. The National Trust, which owns adjoining land, objected to the 2018 proposals on the “undeveloped coast” and has objected strongly again to the latest plans.

The resort, which will host the world leaders, has ignored calls from Cornwall council to halt its development until it decides on its retrospective planning application. It is not illegal to request approval after works have been completed but all work must be removed if the application fails.

The hotel submitted its plans in March after complaints. Local elections mean that councillors cannot meet to consider the work until after the summit of world leaders is held.

The hotel claims in its application: “Additional space is needed to provide smaller meeting room spaces for bilateral talks.” It said that the meeting rooms were needed to “enable the hotel to meet the accommodation requirements of the G7 Summit”.

A government spokeswoman said, however, that they had not asked the hotel to carry out any work for the G7. “The venues selected for the summit at Carbis Bay Estate and Tregenna Castle Resort provide the facilities required to host this significant international event,” she said.

Rupert Manley, a retired doctor, from St Ives, said that the planning system needed reform to make it illegal to develop an area without planning permission. “It sends a disastrous signal to developers that this is the way to do it,” he said. “This loophole needs to be tightened.”

Elise Langley, of St Ives, said the hotel was “obliterating the coastal woodland with no planning permission”.

Linda Taylor, local councillor and Conservative group leader on Cornwall council, said she “cannot imagine for one moment the G7 would occupy property that has not got full planning permission”.

“The last thing the Cabinet Office wants to be engaged in is a planning dispute,” she said.

“I absolutely support the G7 coming to Carbis Bay and I have every confidence the hotel will be an absolutely fabulous venue but we do have a planning process.”

Taylor said that following concerns raised by locals she requested the planning decision be made by a committee of councillors.

The hotel’s planning application for the meeting rooms appears to have been rushed, with it relying on an out-of-date ecological survey which Cornwall Wildlife Trust said could only be relied upon until January 2015.

The design and access document carries one error-strewn section which reads: “Thsi (sic) investment combined with the hotels reputation and unrivalled location have atracted (sic) internationsl (sic) renown to an extent that the Hotel has been sucessful (sic) in hosting the upcoming G7 Conference.”

Carbis Bay Hotel did not comment.

Is East Devon missing a trick? How about joining forces with South Somerset to push this through? – Owl

Small villages in one part of Somerset could soon find it a lot easier to provide affordable housing for local residents.

Daniel Mumby www.somersetlive.co.uk

Under current planning laws, housing developers only have to provide affordable housing (i.e. housing sold for below the market rate) for any new development of ten homes or more – meaning many smaller sites get built out without any low-cost option being provided.

South Somerset District Council is attempting to fix this by asking the government to designate most of its parishes as ‘rural’ – meaning they can insist on affordable homes even for smaller new developments.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is expected to respond to the council’s request later in the year.

Under the Housing Act 1985, UK parishes which are ‘rural’ (i.e. those with a population under 3,000) can set a lower threshold for affordable homes – allowing them to seek contributions from developers towards rural affordable homes without approving massive new schemes.

‘Rural’ areas in Somerset already include parishes which lie within either national parks (including Exmoor) or areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs).

Map showing rural parishes in South Somerset (orange), those which could be designated as rural (blue and purple) and urban areas (grey) (Image: Ordnance Survey/ South Somerset District Council)

But only three small parts of the South Somerset district currently have this ‘rural’ designation:

• Settlements within the Blackdown Hills AONB – such as Buckland St Mary and Whitestaunton, both near Chard
• Settlements within the Cranborne Chase AONB – such as Pen Selwood near Wincanton and Brewham near Bruton
• Settlements within the Dorset AONB – solely the parish of West Crewkerne

If the council is successful, almost every parish in the district would be classed as ‘rural’ by the government.

Tessa Saunders, the council’s specialist in strategic planning, said continuing under the current system was not an option.

She told the council’s district executive committee on April 1: “The rural designation will enable more affordable housing to be delivered in our rural communities once new policies in the Local Plan review have been prepared and are supported by viability evidence.

“This designation will also help to protect our rural communities from potential future national policy changes that seek to accelerate housing delivery, but having the unintended consequence of reducing affordable housing delivery in rural communities.

“The current affordable housing unit threshold policy does not work for rural areas as it limits the supply of much-needed rural affordable housing and often results in schemes that no longer meet genuine community need.”

The only parishes which would be exempt (and retain the existing threshold of ten homes) are those which are currently classified as ‘urban’ due to their population size – namely:

• Bruton
• Castle Cary (and neighbouring Ansford)
• Chard
• Crewkerne
• Ilminster
• Langport (and neighbouring Huish Episcopi)
• Martock
• Somerton
• South Petherton
• Wincanton
• Yeovil

However, the planned reform would provide protection for a number of parishes on the fringes of growing towns – such as Tatworth and Forton near Chard, or West Coker near Yeovil.

Council leader Val Keitch said: “In rural areas there is a need for one or two affordable homes – and that’s not what we’re getting, and so people are having to move out. Personally, I think that’s unfortunate.”

The district executive committee voted unanimously to approve the plans, with MHCLG expected to respond to the council’s request in the coming months.

The follow-up to yesterday’s post Trending Boris Johnson’s “Lies” -10 million views and rising.

Something to bear in mind when you vote on May 6: “Tory Culture”. – Owl

Andrew Sparrow www.theguardian.com

Six opposition parties in the Commons are urging the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to allow a vote on an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s “consistent failure to be honest” in statements to MPs.

They want Hoyle to let them table a motion saying that Johnson’s conduct should be referred to the committee of privileges, on the grounds that making a deliberately misleading statement to MPs amounts to a contempt of parliament under the Commons rulebook, Erskine May.

Given the size of the Conservative majority, there is no realistic chance of MPs approving such a motion, but a debate on this subject – if the Speaker were to allow one – would be highly embarrassing to the prime minister.

The letter was organised by the Green MP Caroline Lucas and it has been signed by five other parliamentary party leaders: Ian Blackford (Scottish National party), Sir Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats), Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru), Colum Eastwood (SDLP) and Stephen Farry (Alliance).

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, was invited to sign the letter, but declined. A party source said Labour did not normally sign up to initiatives launched by other parties.

Lucas was partly inspired to take action by a video posted on Twitter by the campaigner Peter Stefanovic about what he describes as Johnson’s “lies”. It has attracted more than 11m views.

“It’s hard to recall any prime minister who has treated parliament with the contempt that this one does,” said Lucas.

“There is a normalisation of lying to the house which is deeply dangerous, especially coming from an increasingly authoritarian government which is looking at every means to avoid accountability.”

In their letter, the six MPs express their “deep concern” that the PM’s repeated failure to be truthful is damaging the reputation of the Commons.

They go on: “This is not a question of occasional inaccuracies or a misleading use of figures: it is a consistent failure to be honest with the facts, or to correct wrong information at the earliest opportunity when misleading information is given. This, we believe, amounts to a contempt of the house.”

The letter cites six examples of Johnson giving misleading information to MPs: saying the economy had grown by 73% under the Conservatives, when the figure covered the period since 1990 (including Labour’s term in office); saying CO₂ emissions had been cut by 42% since 2010, when the real figure was by 38% since 1990; saying the nurses’ bursary had been restored, when the replacement arrangement is less generous; falsely saying the number of families living in poverty had been cut by 400,000 since 2010; falsely saying Bridgend was going to be a battery manufacturing centre; and saying Covid-related contracts had been published when they had not.

When challenged about comments like this, No 10 will sometimes acknowledge that an error was made, but more usually brushes aside the complaint or argues that Johnson was misunderstood.

Johnson himself almost never corrects the record in the chamber, and Downing Street does not say his record for honesty is problematic – despite the fact that Peter Oborne, who was political editor of the Spectator when Johnson was its editor, has recently published a book, The Assault on Truth, wholly devoted to what he describes as Johnson’s “lies”. Oborne, a political reporter for almost 30 years, says he has never encountered a senior British politician “who lies and fabricates so regularly, so shamelessly and so systematically as … Johnson”.

The opposition MPs want the committee of privileges to investigate Johnson because other avenues of complaint appear closed. Knowingly misleading parliament is against the ministerial code, but only the PM himself can order an inquiry into breaches of the code.

The code of conduct for MPs says “honesty” is one of the values they should respect, but the parliamentary commissioner for standards does not investigate complaints about MPs making false statements in the chamber.

Intentionally misleading MPs could be a contempt of parliament, and contempt allegations can be investigated by the committee of privileges.

But the committee can only launch an investigation after a vote for one by MPs, and it is for the Speaker to decide whether a debate on such a motion can be held.

The Speaker’s office said it would not be commenting on private correspondence with MPs.

In response to the claims from the opposition MPs, a government spokesperson said: “The prime minister follows the ministerial code.”

Six opposition parties in the Commons are urging the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to allow a vote on an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s “consistent failure to be honest” in statements to MPs.