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3 weeks ago
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The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is hearing closing submissions from counsel today. Lawyers representing (in order) the Post Office, Paula Vennells, Fujitsu, Gareth Jenkins, and the Department for Business and Trade are all speaking, and they have been allocated an hour each.
The hearing started at 9.30am. There is a live feed here.
Good morning. The children’s wellbeing and schools bill is being published today and, as Sally Weale reports, it will set out plans to tighten checks on children being educated at home in England.
Publication coincides with the sentencing of the killers of 10-year-old Sara Sharif – her father and step-mother – following a trial that revealed details of one of the most shocking cases of child cruelty heard by a British court in years. Sara was taken out of school, and educated at home in the months before her death, even though teachers had started to notice evidence that she was being assaulted at home, and so the legislation – although planned well before the trial – does address one of safeguarding loopholes the Sharif case has highlighted.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has been giving interviews this morning. She told the Today programme:
Too many children have been failed by the state in recent years, it is clear that action is required. So no more lessons learned, no more words. Today we set out our plans to make sure that those agencies are working together and that we have much greater visibility of where children are and what they’re experiencing in their lives.
But in interviews Phillipson has also said the government does not plan to legislate to ban smacking children in England – even though it is banned in Scotland and Wales, and even though the government indicated in the autumn a rethink was on the cards.
In 2022, as opposition leader, Keir Starmer said he would like to see the ban extended to England. In October, after the Sara Sharif muder trial opened, Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner, said that “a ban on smacking is a necessary step to keep children safe and to stop lower level violence from escalating” and at the time the Department for Education said: “We are looking closely at the legal changes made in Wales and Scotland as we consider whether there is any more we could do in this area.” Last week, after the verdicts were delivered in the Sharif trial, de Souza said:
What haunts me the most about Sara’s death is that her father used the words ‘I legally punished my child’, believing this to be a defence to murder. It is unthinkable that any parent or carer could hide behind our legal system to justify such cruelty – and yet, children living in England today have less protection from assault than adults.
Yet today Phillipson has said that the government still has “no plans” to act on this. She told LBC:
We’re not intending to legislate around this. I do want to look at the experience in Wales and Scotland where they have legislated to understand what the effect has been.
And, asked why the government is not implementing a ban in England, she told Times Radio:
Because what I want to understand is the impact and the effect of the legislation in Wales. They will be setting out the first round of a review into the implications and effect of the legislation that they had introduced. I would like to see that, would like to understand it, and to decide then whether it’s necessary to take further measures here in England.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer has been having a breakfast meeting with business leaders in Estonia. Later he is attending the Joint Expeditionary Force summit, and then visiting British forces near the border with Russia.
9.30am: The Post Office Horizon scandal inquiry hears closing statements from counsel representing the Post Office, Paula Vennells, Fujitsu, Gareth Jenkins, and the Department for Business and Trade.
10.30am: Charles Clarke, the former Labour home secretary, and Michael Gove, the former Conservative justice secretary, give evidence on prisons to the Lords justice and home affairs committee.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Early afternoon (probably): The Home Office publishes a written ministerial statement with details of funding for police forces in England and Wales in 2025-26.
2.30pm: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee (which for many years she used to chair).
2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.
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