Andrew ‘rude, arrogant and entitled man’, says minister as MPs debate release of trade envoy documents – UK politics live

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Bryant says Tory ministers and prominent journalists were defending Andrew in 2011 when warning signs already clear

In a reference to Ed Davey (see 9.06am), Bryant said that there were some people now saying, with reference to Mountbatten-Windsor, “if only we had known then what we know now”. He went on:

But I’m afraid that with me that doesn’t wash. We did actually have plenty of warning.

I called on the then prime minister, David Cameron, to dispense with the services of the then Duke of York in this chamber on 28 February 2011 because of his close friendship with Saif Gaddafi, as has just been referred to, and [a] convicted Libyan gun smuggler. I was rebuked by Speaker Bercow then for doing so because references to members of the royal family should be very rare, very sparing and very respectful.

(Bryant is right to say he was warning about Andrew 15 years ago. I covered this at the time on the live blog.)

Bryant said he repeatedly called for Andrew to lose his trade envoy job, over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the mysteriously excessive payment he received for the sale of his home, among other reasons.

But he said David Cameron, the then PM, Theresa May, the then home secretary, and many others defended Andrew.

He said that John Humphrys, the broadcaster, told him on the Today programme at the time that Epstein “wasn’t quite a paedophile, drawing a distinction between sexual abuse of prepubescent and other children”. And he said that Dominic Lawson also defended Andrew in his Sunday Times column, making “the same distinction between Epstein’s involvement with teenage girls and paedophilia since, as he put it, none of the girls was prepubescent”. But Lawson “did at least admit that both were sordid and exploitative”, Bryant said.

Bryant said this was happening after the photograph of Andrew with his arm around Virginia Giuffre was published.

Andrew 'rude, arrogant and entitled man' who could not distinguish between public and personal interest, says Bryant

Bryant turned to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Colleagues and many civil servants have told me their own stories of their interactions with Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor, and they all betray the same pattern: a man on a constant self-aggrandising and self-enriching hustle, a rude, arrogant and entitled man who could not distinguish between the public interest which he said he served, and his own private interest.

He said he recalled Mountbatten-Windsor visiting Tonypandy to meet sea cadets.

They were absolutely delighted and excited to meet a member of the Royal family, but he insisted on coming by helicopter, unlike his mother, who came twice to the Rhondda and always came by car. He left early and he showed next to no interest in the young people.

Bryant said that was not a crime, “nor is arrogance – fortunately, I suppose”, he added, in a self-deprecating joke.

Bryant says those who turned blind eye to Epstein 'out of greed, familiarity or deference' were complict in his crimes

Bryant opened his speech by saying that abuse suffered by Epstein’s victims was horrific. He said:

The abuse that was enabled, aided and abetted by a very extensive group of arrogant, entitled, and often very wealthy individuals in this country and elsewhere.

It’s not just the people who participated in the abuse, it’s the many, many more who turned a blind eye out of greed, familiarity or deference. To my mind, they too were complicit. Just as complicit. And I welcome the reckoning that is coming to them now.

I doubt there is anyone in this House who is not shocked and appalled by the recent allegations.

Trade minister Chris Bryant tells MPs government will support Lib Dem motion for publication of Andrew trade envoy papers

Chris Bryant, the trade minister, is responding for the government.

He started by saying that the government will support the motion.

Later in his speech he said that was subject to the caveat that it would not publish anything that might prejudice the police inquiry until it was over.

Chris Bryant speaks in the Commons on Tuesday during the Andrew trade envoy debate Photograph: Parliament TV

Davey says Epstein tried to use Andrew's trade envoy job 'to enrich himself'

Davey gave an example of how Mountbatten-Windsor’s work as a trade envoy helped his friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

I would like to highlight one example of how Jeffrey Epstein sought to use Andrew’s role as trade envoy to enrich himself.

Channel 4 uncovered emails in the Epstein files in which Epstein was trying to meet the Libyan dictator Gaddafi in the dying months of the Gaddafi regime, to help him find somewhere to put his money.

In other words, Epstein looked at the deadly crisis in Libya and saw a chance to make some money. And he thought his friend Andrew could help.

And this is what it says in one of the emails: “I wondered if PA could make the intro.”

A few weeks later, Andrew wrote back: “Libya fixed.”

Though the Epstein Gaddafi meeting doesn’t appear to have happened, it does show clearly what these relationships were all about.

Davey said that the relationships that Andrew and Mandelson had with Epstein were “a stain” on the reputation of the country. “We must begin to clean away that stain with the disinfectant of transparency,” he said. He urged MPs to debate the motion.

Davey says publication of Andrew documents under humble address should not jeopardise police inquiry

Davey said he accepted that, if MPs pass the humble address, nothing should be published that might jeopardise the police investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor.

We do not want to jeopardise that investigation with anything we say today. We must let the police get on with their work, especially for Epstein’s victims, survivors and their families.

Davey said that it has been reported that Peter Mandelson called for the then Prince Andrew to be made a trade envoy. He went on:

One friend of Epstein lobbying for a job for another friend of Epstein, a job that might help Epstein enrich himself. So we clearly need to get to the bottom of that appointment and the role Mandelson himself played in it. And only the papers demanded by this emotion will allow us to do that. We need them published as soon as possible.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is opening the debate for his party.

He started by condemning Jeffrey Epstein.

The appalling crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his associates have rightly stunned the whole world. The scale of Epstein’s operation was shocking. Selling human beings for sex, turning hundreds of young women and girls into victims and survivors. And is those women who are at the front of our minds today as we finally seek transparency, truth and accountability.

And he complained about the fact that for too long MPs were not able to criticise members of the royal family in the Commons. He said he came across this in 2011 when he took part in a debate on Andrew. (See 8.38am.) He said that Paul Flynn wanted to criticise Andrew, but was not allowed to. Davey said that he was obliged to give the government’s view when he was speaking in that debate.

Speaker Lindsay Hoyle urges MPs to exercise 'restraint' in Andrew debate given police investigation

MPs are now debating the Lib Dem motion on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

At the start Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, said it has always been possible for MPs to debate the roles subject to certain conditions (that they are debating a substantive motion about them).

He also urged MPs to exercise “a degree of restraint” given that some of the aspects of Mountbatten-Windsor’s work as a trade envoy are sub judice following his arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

UK suffering from 'totally unregulated sexual economy', says Reform UK's Danny Kruger, arguing for pro-family policy

Danny Kruger, the Reform UK MP in charge of preparing the party for government, has complained that Britain has a “totally unregulated sexual economy”, in an interview highlighting his parties support for families.

Kruger, a social conservative and evangelical Christian who defected to Reform from the Tories last year, made the comment in an interview with Politics Home.

Asked if he thought political parties had a role in undoing the sexual revolution, he replied: “A limited but important one.” He said that every government policy was “critically important to the way families form”.

Kruger explained:

Marriage traditionally was the means by which sexual relations between men and women were regulated, and I think we are suffering from having a totally unregulated sexual economy.

I’m not interested in your love life, or anything about your personal life – that is your business. But I am interested in the framework in which you make your decisions, and I’d like the framework to be more pro-social. If you want – most people do want – to settle down with one person to have children, we should make that easier.

In the interview, Kruger gave few details of what this might mean. He said Reform was “pronatalist” and that it wanted people to have more children. “We think the government should get behind that wish.”

This could mean more help with childcare, he said.

Clearly, the [childcare] system is totally dysfunctional. There’s a massive disincentive for parents to be able to organise their finances around their actual lives. It’s broken.

Kruger orginallly set out some of his views on the “sexual economy” in his book Covenant, published in 2023. In the book he said sex was “a public act because it is the basis of human regeneration and the bonding agent of the couple relationship on which society depends”. He said:

To get sex back to where it belongs, behind closed doors, we need to restore its status as a public act done in private – rather than, as currently, a private act done (or all but done, and certainly explicitly celebrated) in public.

Whether or not Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, also has concerns about the “unregulated sexual economy” remains unclear. Farage is divorced from his first wife, and seperated from his second, and is distinctly more libertarian than Kruger.

In the interview Kruger also said that Reform was looking at switching the tax system back to being based on households, not individuals. That would reverse the independent taxation of married women, a policy only introduced in the UK in 1990.

Reform UK accused of declaring war on workers and renters after Tice says he would repeal Labour's jobs and housing laws

Richard Tice has been accused of declaring war on workers and renters in his first speech in his new role as Reform UK’s business spokesperson.

In his speech this morning, Tice called for a “great repeal bill” that would undo some of the most significant legislation passed by Labour in government.

According to the extracts briefed in advance, Tice said:

Let’s have a great repeal bill that ditches daft regulations: scrap net zero, scrap ZEV mandates, scrap new employment rights rules, scrap new property rental rules – all well intentioned but kill jobs, hinder growth, investment and prosperity. This will all help lower inflation and bring down bills for consumers.

He said Reform would give more “trusted planning partners” freedom to build – subject to “tougher fines if they breach the government’s trust”

Tice also called for the creation of a British sovereign wealth fund, with assets worth £575bn from the local government pension scheme invested in listed shares with the aim of increasing UK growth; a new trade policy, with an emphasis on protecting “strategic national industries”, with heavy tariffs and tighter quotas for Chinese cars; and a big increase in oil and gas production.

In response, a Labour spokesperson said the proposed great repeal bill would weaken workers’ rights. The spokesperson said:

Reform have formally declared war on British workers. Nigel Farage and his cronies want to rip up hard-won workers’ rights on parental leave, sick pay, and would cut up to a million clean energy jobs in the process.

Reform have revealed whose side they’re on – and it’s not working people. And it’s families up and down the country who’d be left paying a very heavy price.

And, referring specifically to the commitment to repeal the Renters’ Rights Act, Ben Twomey, chief executive of Generation Rent, said:

Forcing people back into insecure and unsafe homes is not a promise, it’s a threat levelled at England’s 11 million private renters. Our homes are the foundations of our lives, so it is disgraceful to see Reform UK pledging to roll back new and essential protections that would improve the quality of our homes and help us to stay in them for longer.

Twomey also said Reform MPs has “nothing to say” about the bill as it was going through parliament.

Richard Tice (left) with Nigel Farage in Birmingham, where Tice was giving his speech this morning. Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images

Badenoch cites Roblox as problem for children as she says teen social media ban has to take account of how platforms work

Q: Would your proposed ban on social media cover particular platforms? Would it cover AI chatbots and Roblox? And would it cover WhatsApp?

Badenoch says she does not regard WhatsApp as social media. She sees it as “not that much difference from texting”.

On Roblox, she says she recenty allowed her nine-year-old son to use it – and now wishes she hadn’t.

I recently allowed my nine-year-old son to get Roblox. I am now fighting to get him off it. And one of the things that I had to close down was chats coming in, which I didn’t realise were part of Roblox. And there’s still ways – despite me shutting it down, the chats still keep appearing, and he now knows that this is a problem. So right now he has been banned from Roblox.

She says that highlights the way any ban on under-16s accessing social media has to take account of what platforms are actually doing.

If we define what it is doing, then we’ll be able to capture exactly the platforms that are causing the problem.

One of the parents on the platform agrees with Badenoch’s point about Roblox, saying he thinks no child should be on it.

Badenoch says she expects Lib Dem motion demanding release of Andrew trade envoy documents to pass without need for vote

Q: Are you going to back the Lib Dem motion calling for the release of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor documents?

Badenoch says she does not think there will be a vote, because she thinks all MPs agree with this.

But she goes on to criticise the second Lib Dem opposition day motion today, which is the one saying on Monday 9 March the Lib Dems should have control of the parliamentary timetable so they can pass a bill an online services (age restrictions) bill. She says there is no need for this because there is a live bill going through parliament (the one Laura Trott was talking about a moment ago) with a social media ban for under-16s amendment in it.

She says:

I think that this is there’s a lot of messing around that’s happening. There is already an amendment for a live bill. It’s important that we get all parties to work together rather than everybody trying to own the win. This is not about owning the win. This is really about getting this issue sorted.

(This is a bit rich; only a few minutes ago, Badenoch was demaning a U-turn from Keir Starmer on a social media ban for under-16s. She is trying to own the win just as much as anyone.)

Kemi Badenoch is now taking questions.

The first reporter, from GB News, asks if Badenoch agrees it is time to table a vote of no confidence in Keir Starmer. In her reply, Badenoch ignores this point, but she says is hoping to get him to agree to a social media ban.

Kemi Badenoch at her press conference Photograph: PA

At the Tory press conference, Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, is speaking now. She says there will be a vote in the Commons in the next two weeks on the Tory proposal for a ban on under-16s accessing social media.

She says it is hard to police the content of social media posts, but it is possible to police the age at which people access it.

Trott was referring to a Commons vote on the amendment passed in the Lords.

She did not mention the fact that the Liberal Democrats are holding a vote on this issue this afternoon.