Net migration boosted the UK population by a record 745,000 in the year to December 2022, fuelled in part by a surge in overseas professionals arriving to work in the NHS and care homes and prompting a furious response from rightwing Conservatives. The former home secretary Suella Braverman called the figures “a slap in the face to the British public” and called for much tougher visa restrictions and an annual cap on net migration. (See 4.09pm.) The Labour MP Alex Cunningham has said that he does not accept James Cleverly’s claim that, in the Commons yesterday, he did not call Stockton a “shit-hole”, but he did call Cunningham, one of its MPs, a “shit”. The home secretary issued this account of what happened after Ben Houchen, the Tory Tees Valley mayor, joined Labour MPs saying Cleverly should apologise for his slur on the town. (See 2.20pm.) Cunningham told Radio 4’s PM programme he did not believe Cleverly’s new version of what happend and that people had seen the minister describe the town as a “shit-hole”. He went on: I want an apology for the people of my community who are really upset about this. As Mark Brown reports, Cleverly’s comment has provoked fury in the town.
But Houchen has welcomed Cleverly’s apology, describing him as “a good guy who made a mistake”. I’m pleased James Cleverly has apologised for using unparliamentary language Whatever was said, the speculation dragged Stockton’s name through the mud, which is unacceptable We’re all human & he’s a good guy who made a mistake Now let’s get back to building Teesside
British households are on course to be worse off at the end of a parliamentary term for the first time in modern history, leading economists have warned, after Jeremy Hunt’s £20bn autumn statement tax cuts favoured the richest 20% of earners. Jeremy Hunt has said he did not opt for “crowd-pleasing taxes” in his autumn statement as a pre-election giveaway, adding the government’s “long-term goal” is to boost the economy. The Scottish health secretary, Michael Matheson, is to be investigated by Holyrood authorities over the near-£11,000 bill racked up on his work iPad.