Inside Politics: Kwarteng in fresh talks with industry amid energy crisis

Business secretary to meet leaders about soaring prices after being slapped down by Treasury over solutions to crisis, writes Matt Mathers

Monday 11 October 2021 08:22 BST

(PA)

The Tory conference is well and truly over, the party has finished, and Boris Johnson is ~~back in the office~~ on holiday as Britain grapples with an energy crisis. Allies of the prime minister say he has had a tough time of late and needs a break, while critics suggest it is irresponsible for him to jet off in the middle of a crisis. It didn’t take long for the infighting to begin after he’d left. Kwasi Kwarteng is embroiled in a war of words with the Treasury over how to deal with soaring energy prices. Elsewhere, Sajid Javid is increasingly concerned about the effects of long Covid on the NHS and wider economy, and the UK and EU are on course for a fresh row over the Northern Ireland protocol.

Inside the bubble

Parliament is in recess until 18 October.

Coming up:

– Security minister Damian Hinds on LBC at 7.50am

– Shadow Treasury minister Pat McFadden on Sky News at 8.05am

Daily Briefing

BOILING POINT: Kwasi Kwarteng is very a busy man. The business secretary meets with industry figures again later today to discuss Britain’s ongoing energy crisis. On Friday, the Spelthorne MP spoke to leaders whose sites suck up large volumes of energy, such as those in the steel, chemical, paper and minerals sectors, leading to a series of damaging headlines about how factories could shut within weeks as gas and electricity prices soar. And Kwarteng is all over the news again this morning amid a blazing row with the Treasury. He told broadcasters yesterday that Rishi Sunak’s department was in talks with the energy industry to work out ways to help it through the crisis, only to be immediately slapped down by No 11 officials in an extraordinarily scathing statement. “This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear, the Treasury are not involved in any talks.” Ouch. Labour has accused the government of presiding over a “farce” and urged ministers to get a “grip”. That Kwarteng told interviewers he didn’t know where the PM was. (he’s gone on holiday) or when he left, definitely won’t have helped with the government’s crisis management PR.

LONG WINTER: The spectre of Covid continues to loom over the health service like a dark cloud as the winter months approach. More than a year and a half after the pandemic struck, relatively little is known about long Covid, and ministers are becoming increasingly concerned about how the condition is affecting the health service and the economy more broadly. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has expressed alarm at the rising numbers of people suffering from the condition. He told a private meeting of health officials that the problem was “huge” and “getting bigger”. The meeting was given an update on long Covid treatment, with NHS England bosses revealing 10 per cent of all clinic appointments were being taken up by NHS staff, in a sign of the potential longer term impact of coronavirus and the risk it could undermine already depleted staffing levels.NHS staff are most likely to be affected by long Covid, followed by staff in social care and teachers. As many as 125,000 NHS staff may be affected by persistent symptoms.

CHILLY RELATIONS: The days are getting shorter, the nights becoming longer and the temperature continues to tumble...and the frost is beginning to harden. The Northern Ireland protocol row has slipped down the news agenda somewhat in recent weeks but will feature heavily this week as EU officials on Wednesday unveil a series of new proposals aimed at solving the post-Brexit impasse on trade. But Lord Forst, the Brexit minister, has already decided the changes aren’t enough. He will use a speech in Portugal on Tuesday to say the bloc must go further than its offer of scrapping its prohibition on British sausages crossing the Irish Sea. He will call for “significant” changes to the protocol he negotiated, including over the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in governing the arrangements in Northern Ireland. The EU is unlikely to budge on the role of the ECJ, increasing fears of a trade war between the two sides. Lord Forst and Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, traded barbs in a Twitter spat over the weekend.

SUNAK AID ROW: Rishi Sunak has been criticised for looking to save of billions of pounds by “recycling” money from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) windfall as aid spending. Campaigners believe the chancellor is preparing to use a large portion of the windfall in the overseas aid budget rather than on top of it. The government decided to cut aid spending from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of national income this year, a move that was widely condemned and met with a rebellion of Conservative MPs. Britain has received £19bn in a payout from the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDRs) to help poor countries ailing from the coronavirus pandemic.

On the record

“I believe he has gone away. I’m not sure where he’s gone. But what I would say is I am in regular contact with him. He’s also had a year-and-a-half in which he’s almost lost his life to Covid, his mother passed away very sadly two or three weeks ago and he may have decided to take a short break. I think that’s something reasonable. I’m in regular WhatsApp contact with him, I spoke to him only a few days ago. I’m not sure when he’s supposed to have left the country.”

Kwarteng tells Andrew Marr he’s in regular contact with the PM but doesn’t know where he is or when he left.

From the Twitterati

“Here’s the weird thing. Kwasi Kwarteng as business secretary clearly speaks to HMT all the time – including about support for industry during energy crisis. So why are Treasury denying it...?”