Politics Live blog – Tuesday 6 September

Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments including live coverage of David Cameron before the liaison committee and Boris Johnson at the home affairs committee 11.20am: David Winnick is asking the questions now. Q: Do you accept that the relatives of Mark Duggan were not properly informed about his death? Godwin says there was “confusion” about who should have spoken to them. He can understand how this happened, but it was wrong. There were “errors”. He says the local commander has apologised to the family. 11.14am: Boris Johnson has finished giving evidence. The committee is now taking evidence from Tim Godwin, the acting commissioner of the Met, and Lynne Owens, one of his assistant commissioners. Keith Vaz asks the first questions. Q: Was David Cameron right to say the initial police tactics were wrong? Godwin says that if he had had the benefit of hindsight, he would have had “lots” more officers on duty on the Sunday and on the Monday. He says it was “unprecedented” to have disorder in so many locations. Q: The Met has said the riots will cost £74m. Is that just the cost to the Met? Godwin says that is just the cost for London. Q: Is there an ongoing cost? Godwin says 500 officers are still investigating the offences. There is lots of CCTV to be examined. Crime has to have consequences, he says. Q: Do you agree with Kenneth Clarke’s claim in the Guardian today that the criminal justice system is at fault? Godwin says this should be a “wake up call” for the criminal justice system. Q: Will you write to the Treasury asking for the £74m to be reimbursed? Godwin says he will present figures to the Metropolitan Police Authority. They will take it up with the Treasury. 11.08am: Keith Vaz is asking questions now. He says that Theresa May said she had told police to cancel leave. (This proved controversial, because Sir Hugh Orde, the ACPO president, later said she had no power to issue operational orders of this kind.) Q: Did May issue an order of this kind? Kit Malthouse, the deputy mayor, says there were discussions about this issue. Mark Reckless, a Conservative, says the Guardian performed a public service by exposing the phone hacking scandal. Why did the Metropolitan police authority fund legal action against the Guardian? Malthouse says the MPA was keen to protect the reputation of the Met. Reckless says that funding legal action of this kind was illegal. He says that he is referring to John Yates, who sent a legal letter to the Guardian claiming that he had been defamed. Malthouse says that the sum of money involved was very small. It was only about £1,500, he says. 11.02am: Labour’s Steve McCabe asks if the Met will be reimbursed by the government for the amount it needs to spend paying compensation to people affected by the riots. Johnson says the Met has received 100 claims, costing £9.3m. He says Cameron told MPs that the Met would have the money it needs. That assurance needs to be honoured, he says. Keith Vaz asks if Johnson will be asking the Treasury to reimburse all the costs of the riots. Q: How much did the riots cost the Met? Johnson says £35.5m. Vaz says he has a figure of £74m. Johnson says that the police operation cost £35.5m. But, if you include the “opportunity costs” (the costs incurred because officers on riot duty were not available for other work), the cost rises to around £74m, he says. Q: And will you be asking the Treasury to pay this in full? Yes, says Johnson. 10.59am: Bridget Phillipson, a Labour MP, asks about the rioters. Johnson says 83% of those convicted had already had some contact with the police, and 75% of them already had a criminal record. Q: Do you agree with Kenneth Clarke’s description of them as members of a “feral underclass”. Johnson says he largely does agree with this. Keith Vaz suggests that labelling people in this way will encourage them to break the law. Johnson says he does not think people will use an article in the Guardian as an excuse for rioting. Q: Those 83 figures – are they London figures or national figures? Johnson says they are Ministry of Justice figures. 10.54am: Johnson says he wants to extend the police cadet scheme. If people join the police cadets having been an offender, they do not offend again. Q: Do you accept that race was not a factor? Johnson says race was not a factor. What the rioters had in common is that they had already had contact with the police. (This is the point Kenneth Clarke makes in his Guardian article today.) 10.47am: David Winnick asks when Johnson first learnt of the death of Mark Duggan. Johnson said he learnt by text message on the day it occurred. Q: Were you told the full circumstances? Johnson says he was given a rough account of what happened. The incident is now being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Q: Do you have any views on the use of rubber bullets and water cannon? Johnson says the police contained the disturbances using robust policing in a commonsense way. I am not being lobbied by the police for a greater panoply of weapons. But the police want society to support them by ensuring that offenders are punished properly and “go behind bars”. At the moment, that is not happening, he says. (He seems to be making a general point, not a point about the way the courts are sentencing rioters.) • Johnson says the police do not need rubber bullets or water cannon. (For the second time, he’s made a point of distancing himself from David Cameron. See 10.33am.) 10.43am: Michael Ellis, a Conservative, is asking the questions now. He asks about the Met’s plans to get more officers on the beat. Johnson says the Met is “way ahead” of other forces in this area. In relation to riots, we as a society need to think about what what we ask of the police, he says. (He is trying to change the subject.) He says police officers are worried about being criticised for excessive use of force. Ellis says there are 32,000 officers in the Met. Q: Is it right that there were about 3,000 officers on duty on the first night? Johnson says that figure is roughly right. He does not have the exact number. Q: A report some years ago said 90% of officers were not available to the public at any one time. Do you think this needs to be addressed? Johnson says “good must come” out of the riots. 10.39am: They are now talking about the riots. Keith Vaz says David Cameron said that the Met initially deployed too few officers. Q: That’s a serious criticism, isn’t it? Johnson says that with “20/20 hindsight” you can make this comments. But he defends the work of the Met. Johnson says “more and more” people will be arrested and charged. Q: But do you agree with Cameron? Johnson says it is “self-evident” that there was a crisis that caught people unaware. Q: Why did it take you so long to return from your holiday in Canada? Johnson says he was in a camper van in the Rocky Mountains. As soon as it became obvious that events were not dying down, he came back. 10.33am: David Winnick, a Labour MP, is asking the questions now. Q: Do you have any feeling of responsibility for the fact that two commissioners have resigned during your mayoralty? Johnson says the top team at the Met are doing a “remarkable job”. Crime is down in London. Mark Reckless, a Conservative, is asking questions now. Q: Wouldn’t it be best to allow foreign candidates to apply? Johnson says there is a “very good range of candidates”. There is no shortage of excellent police officers, he says. I see no need to widen it to people of other nationalities. Q: Isn’t the argument that the job has to go to a Briton because of its anti-terrorist responsibility invalid? Johnson says he does not think that is the reason why foreigners have been excluded. It is more to do with practical reasons, he says. • Johnson defends the decision to stop foreigners like Bill Bratton from applying for the Met commissioner’s job. (David Cameron, of course, was in favour of allowing Bratton to apply. Boris watchers won’t be surprised to hear the mayor saying he doesn’t agree.) 10.30am: Nicola Blackwood, a Conservative, is asking the questions now. Q: Is it true that he will veto any candidate who does not have a compelling plan to tackle gang violence? Johnson says he and the home secretary both have an effective veto over the appointment. 10.24am: Boris Johnson is giving evidence. He says he “regretted” the fact that Sir Paul Stephenson had to resign as commissioner of the Met. Stephenson thought the News International controversy was going to “go on and on”. They had a long conversation about it, Johnson says. But Johnson could see the “logic” of Stephenson’s argument. Q: Did you want him to stay on? Johnson says: “I accepted his analysis.” The News International story would go on, distracting Stephenson and undermining his ability to do his job. Keith Vaz says the decision about Stephenson’s replacement will be made next Monday. Q: Are there still four people on the shortlisted? Or has it already been whittled down? Johnson says he does not want to discuss the process. He and Theresa May will make the final decision. Q: Who has the final say? Johnson says this is an important question. At the moment the home secretary must “have regard to” what the mayor says. In practice, that means it’s a joint decision, he says. “With good will and common sense”, that can work. 10.21am: The home affairs committee hearing has just started. Keith Vaz, the chairman, opens it by showing a short video about the riots. (Select committee chairmen are becoming more and more like theatre impresarios. They are dreaming up ever more inventive ways of making their hearings audience friendly.) 10.18am: I’ll be focusing on the home affairs committee and the riots for the next two hours or so. If you want to follow the phone hacking hearing, our media team are running a live blog. 10.12am: The home affairs committee hearing on the riots, with Boris Johnson first up giving evidence, will be starting shortly. You can watch it on the parliament website here. 10.07am: You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today’s paper, are here. As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories and articles that are particularly interesting. • Robert Winnett and Christopher Hope in the Daily Telegraph say David Cameron may water down Vince Cable’s plans to implement the agency workers directive. The Prime Minister’s office secretly commissioned its own legal advice on the Agency Workers Directive, which concluded that the impact of the new laws could be moderated. The directive, to be introduced under EU law, will give temporary agency workers the same rights as full-time workers to pay, holiday and maternity leave after 12 weeks of employment. The laws are expected to cost British businesses almost £2 billion a year. But Downing Street has been told by lawyers that the Business Secretary’s department has “gold-plated” the legislation with additional rules that need not have been included, despite a pledge by the Coalition not to introduce unnecessary regulation that undermines business. Mr Cameron’s advisers are weighing up whether to strip out some of these provisions. • Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times (subscription) says Germany should resist demands to do whatever is necessary to save the euro. Saying that the German chancellor should do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, assumes that we know what it would take. Eurobonds are the latest panacea, recommended by many of the same people who assured us years ago that the euro would be a secure currency. Ms Merkel has no real idea whether they would work. But we do know that expanding the bail-out fund (as will almost certainly happen), or creating eurobonds, would mean piling more and more potential costs and liabilities on to the German taxpayer. • Andrew Grice in the Independent reports on a ComRes poll showing that a majority of voters think scrapping the 50p tax rate would be unfair. Most people (57 per cent) agree that abolishing the 50p rate would show we are not “all in it together” – as the Chancellor has claimed when defending the Government’s spending cuts. This view is shared by 67 per cent of Liberal Democrat supporters, 64 per cent of Labour supporters and 54 per cent of Conservative supporters. Overall, only 31 per cent disagree. The finding will increase the fears among some allies of David Cameron that Mr Osborne’s proposal to cut the tax bills of the 300,000 top earners could alienate millions of others facing a squeeze in their living standards. But the poll also suggests Mr Osborne might be able to persuade some of the doubters to support scrapping the 50p rate, which applies to earnings above £150,000 a year. Some 56 per cent of people believe its abolition would encourage entrepreneurs to stay in Britain and stimulate growth, while 34 per cent disagree. • In a letter to the Times (paywall), Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, as well as the heads of four medical royal colleges and two other professional medical associations publish a letter criticising the health bill. Our organisations believe that the Bill could still potentially destabilise the NHS as we know it. This is despite some positive amendments that the Government made to the legislation. Though the language may have changed, the Government remains committed to opening up the NHS further to market forces as a priority. Without building in appropriate safeguards, extending choice to any qualified provider risks seriously destabilising existing, mainly NHS, providers and making it much harder to develop the integrated care patients want and need. • Paul Boissier, chief executive of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), tells the Times (paywall) that David Cameron’s “Big Society” idea has not helped the voluntary sector. This is what he told the paper: If I understand the Big Society, it is about engaging members of the public to get involved in their communities. Well, the public has been doing that for a long time. Of course, we and other charities would say more volunteers are very welcome, but to be quite honest we don’t need the assistance of politicians to do that. The people who are motivated to do it are doing it already and I’m not sure what the value added has been in making it part of political debate … I’m not saying [politicians] should keep quiet about it, but I’m not terribly interested in what they say. They can say what they like and I will get on with running the RNLI. 9.59am: Margaret Moran, the former Labour MP, will find out today whether she will be prosecuted over her expenses claims, the Press Association reports. This is from its story. Margaret Moran, the former Labour MP for Luton South, claimed more than £20,000 for the treatment of dry rot at her Southampton home. The Crown Prosecution Service said it will make an announcement at 11am after the case was held up amid Ms Moran’s claims of ill-health. The decision comes more than two years after revelations surrounding illegal claims by MPs came to light. Miss Moran faced allegations she repeatedly “flipped” her designated second home, making claims for properties in London, Luton and Southampton over a four-year period. The former MP, who was forced to step down at the last election, claimed more than £98,000 in second home expenses between 2004 and 2009, documents showed. 9.34am: For the record, here are the latest YouGov GB polling figures. Labour: 43% (up 13 points since the general election) Conservatives: 37% (no change) Lib Dems: 9% (down 15) Labour lead: 6 points Government approval: -25 ComRes has also published a poll today, in the Independent. Here are its figures. Labour: 38% Conservatives: 37% Lib Dems: 11% Labour lead: 1 point 9.06am: Therese Coffey, a Conservative member of the Commons culture committee, told Radio 5 Live this morning that it was “highly unlikely” that Rupert Murdoch would be recalled to give evidence to the committee. But, according to PoliticsHome, she hinted that James Murdoch would be asked to appear again. Rupert Murdoch was very much at the top of the empire and covering a vast range of activities. I think it’s clear that James Murdoch was the key figure in the negotiation of the payoff for Gordon Taylor, and I think that’s where some of the aspects of the allegations of cover-up focus around that kind of activity, rather than any involvement of Rupert Murdoch. 8.47am: In an ideal world, news would arrive in a steady flow. But we don’t live in an ideal world and there are some days when it arrives in a torrent. Today’s going to be one of them. Here’s what’s coming up. 10.15am: Boris Johnson , the London mayor, and Kit Malthouse , his deputy, give evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about the riots . The hearing is going to go on all morning and I’ll be covering it in full. At 11am Tim Godwin , the acting commissioner of the Metropolitan police, will appear with Lynne Owens , an assistant commissioner. At 11.30am Sir Hugh Orde , president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and Tim Hollis, the Acpo vice president, will be questioned. And at 12pm representatives of the Independent Police Complaints Commission will appear. 10.15am: Environmental and aviation groups give evidence to the Commons transport committee about High Speed Rail . 10.30am: Four former News International executives give evidence to the Commons culture committee on phone hacking. Two of them, Colin Myler , the former News of the World editor, and Tom Crone , the paper’s former legal manager, will be asked about evidence they have already given claiming that James Murdoch did know about a key email suggesting phone hacking was widespread at the paper – contrary to what Murdoch claimed when he appeared before the committee in July. They will also be asked about the letter from Clive Goodman, the royal reporter who went to jail, saying that phone hacking was so routine that it was regularly discussed at editorial meetings . My colleagues at Media Guardian will be covering the hearing on a live blog, and you should go there for full coverage, but I’ll report the key points in my lunchtime summary. 10.30am: The Leveson inquiry meets to consider applications from groups or individuals wishing to be given “core participant status” in the inquiry. 10.30am: Andy Burnham , the Labour former health secretary, gives evidence to the Mid Staffs NHS Foundation Trust public inquiry . 2.30pm: George Osborne , the chancellor, answers Treasury questions in the Commons. 4pm: David Cameron gives evidence to the Commons liaison committee . The session will last for about 90 minutes and the first half will focus on the eurozone crisis, and the second half will focus on “government, politics and the media” (ie, phone hacking). I’ll be covering it in full. Today I’ll be focusing on the home affairs committee hearing and the liaison committee hearing, but I’ll also be picking up all the political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I’ll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm, and an afternoon one after Cameron has finished. House of Commons David Cameron UK riots Boris Johnson Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

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