Sunak claims meeting public sector pay demands would cost families an extra ?1,000 in taxes – UK politics live

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Rishi Sunak has claimed that families would have to pay an extra ?1,000 a year if the government met the pay demands of public sector workers in full.

On a visit to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, asked about the strikes, he said:

The government is always going to try and act fairly and reasonably.

What I’m not going to do is ask ordinary families up and down the country to pay an extra ?1,000 a year to meet the pay demands of the union bosses. That wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t be fair.

In a clip for broadcasters, when asked to give details of the new anti-union legislation being planned, Sunak would not go beyond saying he was looking at “tough” new laws. He said:

We’re looking at everything right now at pace but my priority is going to be to protect lives and to minimise the disruption on people’s lives.

So the government is trying its best to act reasonably. That’s why we’ve accepted in full the recommendations of independent bodies who make recommendations to the government about pay settlements in the public sector, and often those pay settlements have been higher than what many people in the private sector are receiving, but the government accepted them in full to be reasonable, to be fair.

But it’s right now that we also look to minimise the disruption on people’s lives and that’s why we’re looking at tough new laws.

When pressed on whether emergency workers could be banned from going on strike, Sunak just said he was “looking at all options”.

And he again said he wanted to “always be reasonable” – using the word that he and No 10 are now using obsessively when describing their policy on strikes.

Good morning, and I’m sorry for the late start.

There is a big financial announcement from the government this morning, which can be added to the list of things the Treasury is doing now which undo, wholly or partly, things that the Treasury was doing when the Conservatives first came to office. My colleague Graeme Wearden is covering that on his business live blog.

In non-business politics, there are interesting developments in asylum policy today. As my colleague Kiran Stacey reports, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, has said Labour would rush through asylum applications for people from certain countries deemed “safe”, including Albania, in an attempt to clear the backlog of claims.

And in the House of Lords Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has just opened a debate on asylum and refugee policy. He called for a “compassionate” asylum policy and, in what seemed like a criticism of the language used by Suella Braverman, the home secretary, he said it was wrong to demonise asylum seekers.

A compassionate policy is one that has confidence to regret reject the shrill narrative that all who come to us for help should be treated as liars, scroungers or less than fully human.

Braverman has never said all asylum seekers are criminals, but she has said many Albanian ones are.

Welby also restated his criticism of the government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. He and the other bishops in the House of Lords were united in thinking this was “an immoral policy that shames Britain”, he said.

But he also attacked not just the morality of government policy, but its efficiency. It was taking far too long to process asylum claims, he said. He told peers

The average processing time for an asylum case is currently around 15 months. It should be a maximum of six. In Germany, in 2021, the average asylum procedure took 6.6 months, despite a far higher refugee and asylum seeker population.

Nearly one third of those who’ve been waiting more than six months are made up of nationals from 10 countries that have a successful application rate of between 75 and 99%.

It is ridiculous, and disgraceful, that people fleeing Afghanistan and Syria are having to wait so long when their applications will almost certainly be granted.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: MPs debate private members’ bills, including Greg Clark’s protection from sex-based harrasment in public bill. The government announced yesterday that it is in favour of legislating to create “an offence of public sexual harassment”.

10am: The House of Lords holds a debate on the asylum and refugee policy, proposed by Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury.

Morning: Rishi Sunak is on a visit in Lincolnshire.

Afternoon: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is due to give an interview to broadcasters about his plans for an overhaul of City regulation.

Afternoon: James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, holds a press conference in London with his German opposite number, Annalena Baerbock.

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