David Lammy has been accused of “rank incompetence” by his fellow Cabinet ministers after a multitude of blunders over mistakenly released prisoners.
The accidental release of a 24-year-old Algerian prisoner, who is on the sex offenders register, from HMP Wandsworth in south London on October 29, was the core of the complaints by Labour ministers.
Mr Lammy, the Justice Secretary, subsequently dismissed a call from Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to return to Parliament after he repeatedly refused to confirm that Brahim Kaddour-Cherif had been freed amid concerns it would be “career suicide”.
One Cabinet minister told The Times: “It’s cowardly. He should have fronted up and owned it.
“I still don’t understand why he didn’t confirm it or make a statement in the Commons. He left it to a junior minister to do the broadcast round this morning. The handling is terrible.”
Another minister added: “The PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] are deeply unhappy. They think the way he has handled this is awful. Why can’t he just hold his hands up?”
A senior Government source said: “It feels less like a contempt [of parliament] issue, more just rank incompetence and frankly pretty dodgy.”
The Prime Minister stood by Mr Lammy when pressed about it by reporters in Brazil ahead of Cop30.
Sir Keir Starmer said: “Let me just say how angry and frustrated I am that these mistakes have been made in releasing people. They’re intolerable and they shouldn’t be made.
“A lot of it comes from the burden and the strain on the system because of the failures of the last Government. But I recognise it’s our job to step up and to fix this, and we will.
“David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, has convened the governors to talk to them about what more can be done, but we must put the systems in place to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, and we will.”
Pressed on whether Mr Lammy was telling the truth on Wednesday or in his latest comments, Sir Keir said: “David Lammy can speak for himself on that.
“And I’m absolutely clear that he’s setting out the facts to the best of his knowledge, and that’s the right thing for him to do.”
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Lucy Powell demands ‘budget of fairness’ as she lays down gauntlet to Rachel Reeves
Labour’s Deputy Leader Lucy Powell has called for a “budget of fairness” as she warned the Government cannot raise income tax, national insurance or VAT.
Ms Powell, the MP for Manchester Central, said it was “really important we stand by the promises we were elected on and do what we said we would do.”
She told the BBC: “Trust in politics is a key part of that because if we’re to take the country with us then they’ve got to trust us and that’s really important too.
“We should be following through on our manifesto, of course. There’s no question about that.”
Rachel Reeves appears to confirm plans to hike income tax in chilling letter to OBR
Rachel Reeves is said to have now told the OBR she plans to raise income tax.
Last night, it was revealed the Chancellor had formally told the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that hiking the levy would be among the “major measures” announced on November 26.
After poring over Ms Reeves’s letter, the OBR will inform the Treasury of its impact assessment of the measure on Monday – the penultimate round of forecasts before the Budget.
Zia Yusuf: ‘More MPs will lose their seats at next election than ever before – and I’ll love it’
More MPs will “lose their seats in a single general election than at any point in British history”, Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf has vowed.
Mr Yusuf, the head of policy at the party, told today’s Chopper’s Political Podcast of Reform’s ambition to cut public spending – but admitted it would not halve the size of the state after five years.
He also issued a forecast for the scale of the upheaval Reform is internally planning for at the next General Election, expected in 2029.
The Reform UK bigwig spoke to this week’s Chopper’s Political Podcast, which you can watch in full here.
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