Rishi Sunak to host barbecue to boost morale among Tory MPs after missing PMQs for second week – UK politics live

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A senior civil servant has offered a “sincere apology” to a chemical weapons expert who was blacklisted from speaking at a conference after finding tweets that were critical of the government.

Earlier this year, my colleague Dan Sabbagh reported that Dan Kaszeta had been disinvited by The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), commonly known as Porton Down, from giving a keynote speech at a UK-run expert conference after civil servants discovered social media posts he wrote criticising Conservative ministers and government migration policy.

Kaszeta was one of at least eight speakers banned from government events by an opaque vetting scheme introduced by Jacob Rees-Mogg in 2022, a policy that the banned expert described as an attack on free speech.

In January, government officials asked Kaszeta, who has more than 25 years’ experience in the field, to address the Chemical Weapons Demilitarisation Conference in London. He said the officials offered to waive a registration fee so he would speak.

But in early April, that offer was withdrawn when a civil servant wrote to him to explain that new government rules required that “the social media accounts of potential speakers must be vetted” before they could speak at official events.

“The check on your social media has identified materials that criticised government officials and policy,” the email continued, without indicating which postings were deemed unacceptable, or offering Kaszeta a right of appeal.

In a letter, seen by The Guardian, Paul Hollinshead, the chief executive of Porton Down, has admitted that its decision was based on an analysis of Kaszeta’s Twitter activity and was improper.

Hollinshead wrote:

I am writing to offer my sincere apologies for Dstl’s error in rescinding your invitation to the Chemical Weapons Demilitarisation Conference in May this year.

This decision was incorrectly taken following informal checks of your social media posts and due to a misapplication of Cabinet Office guidance which was referred to in media reports and which only applies to Cabinet office staff events.

This was not in accordance Dstl’s process for organising events.

Kaszeta, writing today in The Times, said that being banned was “bad for my career” and bad for democracy. He said that the apology was a vindication for him but did not go far enough.

He said:

Apologies to other victims of blacklisting would be even better . . . secret blacklists are indefensible in a modern democracy.

The fact that a policy was applied to me in error does not address the issue that they exist.

Jeremy Hunt has told ministers there will be no extra money to give millions of public sector workers an average 6% pay rise, potentially leaving departments facing a difficult choice between raising salaries or cutting frontline services.

The Guardian understands the chancellor has ruled out providing a further cash injection beyond what is already budgeted if Rishi Sunak decides to implement the recommendations of independent pay review bodies, which are expected as soon as Thursday.

Government sources said the decision over whether to back the proposal for no more funding would only be made once the prime minister was back from the Nato summit in Vilnius on Wednesday night and had gone over the figures. “There’s definitely still contention in this,” one said.

Cabinet ministers have been urging Sunak to agree to adopt the recommendations against a backdrop of the rising cost of living and amid concerns that public sector strikes could continue in the run-up to the next general election.

Senior Conservatives are concerned they will have to cut frontline services across education, health and policing if they are expected to fund the estimated ?5bn difference between budgeted increases of 3.5% and the pay review body recommendations.

Read more on this story here:

Nadine Dorries has written a book titled The Plot: The Political Assassination of Boris Johnson, due to be published days before the Tory Party conference in September.

The former prime minister’s staunch ally claims to have uncovered a “fault line” within the Conservative Party through conversations with cabinet ministers, civil servants and party officials which form the basis of her account, PA News reports.

The book, for which Dorries received ?20,500 as a partial advance from HarperCollins, is billed as the story of “treachery and deceit at the heart of the Westminster machine”.

It is set to hit the stands on September 28 – just three days before Conservatives convene for the annual party conference on October 1.

The former culture secretary said:

I had wanted to discover the forces behind the downfall of the prime minister. Instead, I found a fault line within the Conservative party stretching back decades, and a history of deception fuelled by the darkest political arts.

If you thought that power flowed from the people into Parliament, be prepared to think again.

Dorries was among eight Conservative parliamentarians recently rebuked for her conduct in relation to the Privileges Committee investigation of Johnson.

Rishi Sunak and Volodymyr Zelensky met earlier for a bilateral on the fringes of the Nato summit in Vilnius.

The prime minister suggested the pair meet without aides present, with the Ukrainian president agreeing that there should be “only two” of them in the room.

Sunak told his counterpart:

It is good to see you here at Nato where you belong.

Zelensky thanked Sunak for helping secure additional security guarantees for Kyiv, with a G7 deal due to be signed on Wednesday in the Lithuanian capital.

He also tweeted that negotiations with the UK “always enhance global security”.

Zelensky said he wanted to use his meeting with Sunak to talk about security guarantees for Kyiv.

The prime minister told him there had been “real progress” on that matter.

He said:

What your soldiers are doing on the front line, it is inspiring to everyone.

We’re proud to have played a part in training some of them.

They have served with enormous bravery and courage.

Zelensky said the training missions in the UK had been “very important”, with Sunak adding it was clear the exercises had “been put to good use”.

You can follow our dedicated liveblog on the Russia-Ukraine war here:

Michael Gove’s department is handing back ?1.9bn to the Treasury originally meant to tackle England’s housing crisis after struggling to find projects to spend it on.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has surrendered hundreds of millions of pounds budgeted for 2022-23, including ?255m meant to fund new affordable housing and ?245m meant to improve building safety.

Officials said the department was unable to spend the money, which accounts for about a third of its entire housing budget, thanks to rising interest rates and uncertainty in the housing market after the Covid-19 pandemic.

But experts warn the lack of investment is likely to exacerbate the housing crisis in England, where homebuilding is forecast to drop to its lowest level since the second world war.

Jack Shaw, a local government expert who uncovered the figures through a freedom of information request, said:

The government is experiencing significant challenges investing in housing because of a perfect storm in market conditions.

But the decision to delay housing investment or withdraw it altogether as a result of lower than anticipated spending will mean fewer homes are built.

Read the full story by my colleague Kiran Stacey here:

Thames Water bosses are being questioned by MPs on the at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee over the company’s financial viability.

The interim joint chief executive of Thames Water said leadership at the troubled supplier is “very focused on turning this business around”.

Alastair Cochran told MPs:

I was brought in with a whole new executive team to turn around this business.

This business matters – it serves 15 million customers. Our job collectively is turn this business around.

We know performance both operationally and financially hasn’t been where it needs to be. We’ve been very transparent about that.

We are very focused on turning this business around, making it sure it is financially resilient and delivers a better service for customers, and improves both its operational and environmental performance.

The chairman of the water supplier has told MPs that the departure of its former boss Sarah Bentley last month was surprising.

Sir Adrian Montague said:

I think Sarah’s resignation was a surprise.

I think she had got to the point perhaps of feeling that the burdens of office were considerable and it was an entirely personal decision, with which I think we had no involvement.

My colleague Alex Lawson wrote this piece yesterday which explains what has been going on:

Rishi Sunak is set to host all Tory MPs for morale-boosting hog roast at Downing Street tonight, as he misses his second PMQs in a row.

The prime minister is still in Lithuania, where he is attending a two-day Nato summit and meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, president of Ukraine.

He’s due to fly back to the UK this evening in time to welcome his guests and try to instil some positivity over his party’s struggle to recover in the polls and the prospect of them potentially losing in all three by-elections taking place next week on 20 July.

All MPs, regardless of allegiances are reportedly invited including Nadine Dorries who is set to trigger the fourth by-election battle of the summer.

Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden will once again hold the fort for Sunak, facing Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the Labour Party

Sunak has now missed around 20% of PMQ sessions, which is the largest percentage of Prime Minister’s Questions of any inhabitant of Number 10, figures from the House of Commons Library and research by Sky News shows.

I will be looking after the politics blog today. If you have any tips or suggestions, please get in touch: nicola.slawson@theguardian.com