Will the Lucy Letby inquiry be enough? – POLITICO

Good Monday morning. This is Dan Bloom.

DRIVING THE DAY

GRIMMEST NEWS FIRST: Lucy Letby, the nurse convicted of murdering seven babies, will be sentenced from 10 a.m. — and new doubts are being cast on whether the government’s inquiry into the scandal is strong enough.

Roll call: In the last 24 hours, former Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, health committee Chair Steve Brine and crossbench peer (and former General Medical Council member) Alex Carlile have all said the non-statutory inquiry should be put on a statutory footing, led by a judge — which would allow it to force witnesses to appear.

What they say: Buckland tells the Times’ Matt Dathan he fears other “evil predators” could evade detection … Carlile tells Dathan a foreign pediatrician should sit on the panel to avoid pro-NHS bias … and Brine told Radio 4’s Broadcasting House the inquiry should not “disappear down a rabbit hole.” Will more like-minded colleagues emerge in the coming days?

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ASK HIM? Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is on a visit (more below) mid-morning and being questioned for a pool clip.

Why this matters: Because the saga at the Countess of Chester Hospital is, to put it politely, messy. Letby’s conviction on Friday opened the floodgates to a slew of reports about the way hospital managers handled consultants’ fears about the nurse. One manager has now issued a statement to the Times saying she is “taking legal advice.” 

Meanwhile … the case that has sickened a nation continues to take new turns. The Guardian’s Josh Halliday reports police have identified another 30 or so babies who suffered “suspicious” incidents, but survived, while Letby was on duty.

What the government says: Care Minister Helen Whately defended the non-statutory inquiry on Friday by saying it will be quicker and more flexible. And Schools Minister Nick Gibb, on the pre-football Sunday round, said the chair and terms of reference will come “very soon.” But Emma Norris of the Institute for Government tells the Independent there’s a “reasonable chance” the inquiry will be upgraded.

THE OTHER ISSUE … is whether Letby can be forced to attend her sentencing. The judge in the case said “there is nothing I can do,” but a “government source” tells the Telegraph Letby should be present — and “if that requires the use of lawful enforcement, so be it.”

So what does that mean? The “lawful enforcement” here means prison officers using force. A government official tells Playbook the judge is right that he cannot compel Letby to appear, and cannot hold her in contempt if she refuses. But he can say the defendant *should* appear, and the prison governor is able to make a judgment about whether officers use force as a last resort. To your author’s ears, that all sounds rather uncertain.

What we do know … is that plans to force criminals to attend their sentencing are still some way off. Officials believe the change has to be made by primary legislation, and therefore are looking at whether it can go into the King’s Speech in November — the last before the election. The Sunday Telegraph heard the same. Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed tells the Mirror ministers have “dragged their feet.”

Here’s an idea: Buckland said an amendment could be tacked onto the Victims and Prisoners Bill, which is going through parliament already. He also told GB News a live link of the sentencing should be “beamed” into Letby’s cell.

Another question for the government? The Mail reports that the parents of Letby’s victims would be likely to receive only £12,980 in NHS negligence compensation.

THEY’RE COMING HOME

ROAR OF APPROVAL: The front pages are rightly dominated by England’s first football World Cup final in 57 years, even if the Lionesses didn’t bring the trophy home (highlights here). Labour leader Keir Starmer called for the team to be “recognised by the honours system” about three hours after the 1-0 defeat to Spain, as they’ve “inspired a generation of women and girls.”

That doesn’t sound like a no: No. 10 is not being drawn on the call for honors (obviously — they have a long-winded official process attached), nor on when the surely inevitable reception will happen in Downing Street. But a No. 10 official says “an appropriate way of marking the incredible performance of the entire squad will be found,” and whatever happens will reflect the squad’s wishes.

How the leaders spent it: Playbook hears Sunak (who tweeted a photo of himself with regulars) was at the The Fleece Inn, Northallerton, where Charles Dickens is said to have written Nicholas Nickleby … Keir Starmer watched it with Labour Lords leader Angela Smith and her husband at a sports club in West Sussex … and Lib Dem leader Ed Davey watched it with family in Suffolk … while photoshopping an England shirt onto himself, obviously.

Too many tweets: Sunak’s X post (or whatever it’s called) that the Lionesses “left absolutely nothing out there” — instead of “everything” — earned vaguely bemused write-ups from PA, the Mail, Mirror, Guardian and more. Tory peer Daniel Finkelstein has gone down the Sunday night rabbit-hole of insisting the PM was right.

She’s coming home: Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer is mid-flight back to the U.K. after spending more time traveling than on Australian soil. She did manage to meet the governor of New South Wales, do Aussie TV and chat overlooking the Sydney Opera House in an England shirt. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who jumped in too and bagged the medal ceremony, should also set off home about now after meeting his Aussie counterpart Penny Wong.

Dry your eyes: Selections-watcher Michael Crick spotted two amusing examples of potential Labour candidates overcoming their World Cup grief by … enjoying the places they hope to represent.

MEANWHILE, BACK TO EARTH: The government will hope to ride some of this good feeling when it talks about childminders. Sunak is visiting a nursery in North Yorkshire mid-morning, where there’ll be a pool clip and an interview with ITV Calendar, while Children’s Minister Claire Coutinho has the morning round.

Top of the grid: Coutinho has written to housing associations, developers and landlords, “urging” them to remove clauses on running businesses at home which make life more difficult for childminders. The Department for Education will also consult on cutting registration times to 10 weeks. But Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, says the “minor changes” will “fail to rectify or even slightly remedy the issues” facing the sector. It hasn’t had huge pickup, but the Times has a story.

WHEN IS A WEEK NOT A WEEK? More education fodder seems likely this week, given GCSE results are on Thursday, but two officials insist to Playbook that this is not “Education Week.” After the somewhat mixed success of “Small Boats Week” and “Health Week,” perhaps that’s no surprise.

Brace for more of this: The weekend saw plenty of Tory-Labour scrapping, with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan telling the Sunday Telegraph “a lot of people go to university because they don’t know what else to do,” and writing in the Sun on Sunday that Tony Blair’s university target “sometimes did more harm than good.” Labour shadow Bridget Phillipson posted a 23-tweet thread hitting back while Nick Gibb did a thread on standards.

Speaking of GCSEs: Plenty of papers carry overnight analysis by the University of Buckingham’s Alan Smithers that 300,000 fewer top-grade GCSEs will be awarded this Thursday. That’s double the reduction we saw last year. Via PA.

WHAT LABOUR WANTS TO TALK ABOUT: Its research claiming business investment was 11.1 percent of GDP under the last Labour government and around 10 percent these days. Shadow Justice Minister Ellie Reeves is on the morning round. A Tory spokesman said “foreign direct investment in the U.K. is at its highest ever level.”

What it’ll want to crow about: Social affairs troubleshooter Louise Casey’s Observer interview in which she said “we need a change of government” and … she’s “100 percent behind” Starmer.

TORY LAND

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: Two weeks before parliament returns with a “reset” from Sunak, Tory grumblings are bubbling up again in some quarters. Nowhere is this so evident as the Home Office, which endured a slew of hostile briefing over the weekend after “Small Boats Week” ended with legionella forcing the removal of migrants from a barge. Not for nothing did former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett tell Westminster Hour it is “the most miserable part of government.”

Recap: The PM is returning to a work headache after a wince-inducing piece by Tim Shipman and Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times. A Cabinet member told them there are three camps who resemble a “circular firing squad” — Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her allies, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick and his No. 10 supporters, and senior officials.

A key split … appears to be over Braverman and Jenrick’s differing approaches to the small boats issue. Jet-setting Jenrick has visited Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, France, Belgium and Turkey in the last three months to form a “network of allies” against people-smugglers. The Sunday Times reported some in the Home Office think Braverman’s “boats on the beaches” focus has undermined this. But others aren’t keen on Jenrick, saying arrests abroad will not be enough to stop boats arriving here — and telling Saturday’s Times he has been “too busy galavanting around the globe.”

Then, of course … there’s Braverman’s hard-nosed style and views, which have long put centrist Tory noses out of joint. The two days of Times pieces were full of anonymous invective, with one Cabinet minister calling her a “nightmare” and another telling the i she “is sh*t.”

THIS WON’T HELP: A More in Common poll for the i finds 73 percent don’t think “tackling political correctness and woke issues” should be a key focus … while another for the Times finds only 23 percent support leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.

Nor will this: Tory MPs are demanding an end to Home Office rules saying staff should not be skeptical about asylum seekers’ claims, reports the Sun … more than 100 security guards at Kent’s Manston camp are on full pay but still not security-cleared to work, reports the Guardian … and Labour got pick-up for saying the number of small boat crossings since Sunak became prime minister had passed 25,000.

Braverman’s fightback: The home secretary is finalizing plans for police to pursue “all reasonable lines of inquiry” in solving crimes like phone theft, as reported by the Sunday Telegraph. Amusingly, it appears the story may have had its origins in a statement Braverman put on her constituency website about a visit to a plumbing merchant.

SPLASHING THE CASH: The Mail’s eagle-eyed David Barrett has spotted an “early stage” procurement document that estimates the government will pay private firms £306 million at three new immigration removal centers over four years.

NEW CONSERVATIVE CAMPAIGN: Sunak has been sent a letter by 46 Tory MPs and peers demanding the government distance itself from the Conscious Advertising Network, which vows to “break the link between advertising and harmful content.” They include ex-PM Liz Truss, who the Mail on Sunday reported was refused a Monzo account during her leadership campaign. It was in the Sunday Telegraph first and gets write-ups in the Times and Mail.

BLUE BLUES: Meanwhile, more detail comes Playbook’s way about the sheer scale of Conservative HQ’s centrally produced campaign material — which has left MPs “kicking off” due to a series of errors. The Sun’s Jack Elsom X’d last week that the leaflet for Wrexham talked about … err … Gloucestershire. Candidates in “80/20” seats (the 80 tightest defensive marginals and 20 targets to win) were offered a whopping 10,000 surveys and 20,000 fake “newspapers” each by HQ, a member of one team tells Playbook.

And yet … Out-of-date drafts have gone to print, the person says, beyond the errors revealed by Elsom (and Guido) leaving MPs “apoplectic with rage.” An MP in an 80/20 seat adds: “It’s been a bit of a sh*tshow.” A second MP in an 80-20 seat says there are wider concerns about the “growing centralization of the campaign machinery” — “you can unify your messaging but boy, you create a lot of risk around getting the correct data.” 

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TODAY IN WESTMINSTER

PARLIAMENT: *Silence*

SNOWFLAKES IN BEIJING: Foreign Office officials have been effectively banned from using the phrase “hostile state” in internal documents … in case it upsets China, the Times reports. China hawk Iain Duncan Smith tells the paper it’s “pathetic” and “Orwellian.” The Foreign Office tells the paper the phrase “state threats” has a better “legal grounding.”

Mulling action: My colleague Graham Lanktree has got his hands on a survey the government sent to firms in July, asking what investments they have in China — and some take it as a sign restrictions will be drawn widely.

CHIPPING IN: The Sunday Telegraph gets some pick-up for its story that the U.K. will spend up to £100 million on AI chips — though an official tells the Guardian it is far too low compared to the EU, U.S. and China.

Another G7: China will use a summit of 60 leaders on Wednesday to push the BRICS group of nations to become a rival to the G7, a Chinese official tells the FT in its splash. 

Another another G7: Business Committee Chair Darren Jones has an op-ed for tech site UKTN which proposes an “AI version of the G7” — and says China “really ought to be” part of it.

FIVE PLEDGES UPDATE: Only 8 percent of voters credited government policy for the recent fall in inflation, in a YouGov poll for the Times. No. 10 will be hoping that improves on Friday, when Ofgem announces the October 1 energy price cap. Average bills are predicted to fall back below £2,000.

GRAY SUITS: Sue Gray’s first task as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff next month will be plans to re-wire Whitehall, hears the Times’ Chris Smyth. His story has lots of nuggets, including that the Labour leader will ask, er, Sunak for nine to 12 months of pre-election talks with the civil service.

TODAY’S THE DAY: London Mayor Sadiq Khan is opening the scrappage scheme for cars that don’t comply with London’s enlarged ultra-low emissions zone. Ahead of the new ULEZ on August 29, the Sunday Telegraph ran emails that show Deputy Mayor Shirley Rodrigues asked a City Hall-funded expert to help counter a “misleading” study questioning the benefits of ULEZ. PA’s Patrick Daly says the emails were obtained by the Tories. City Hall said “it is commonplace for academic experts to disagree.”

More of this to come: Reminder that, three weeks until the Trades Union Congress annual jamboree in Liverpool, GMB General-Secretary Gary Smith told the Sunday Express Labour will face “ULEZ on steroids” if it gets “the discussion wrong on oil and gas.”

Rat runs: The Guardian’s Peter Walker has been digging into Rishi Sunak’s pledge to abolish low-traffic neighborhoods and suggests it could go far further than everyone thought.

NEST EGG: Times Financial Editor Patrick Hosking has heard more about Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s plans to make pension investments more adventurous — saying listed firms could be allowed to extract £50 billion from staff pension schemes.

PRISON REFORM: The period in which thousands of people on “Imprisonment for Public Protection” terms can be recalled to jail could be halved under plans being examined by Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, according to the Times.

WON’T SEE YOU NOW: A poll of 860 GPs by Pulse has found 60 percent are seeing more than the “safe level” of patients per day. PA has a story.

TRANS ISSUES: The Telegraph’s Dominic Penna has spotted a motion to the Lib Dem party conference which says “menstruation is not just a women’s issue, and also affects some trans and non-binary people.”

NOT ON TRACK: Mick Whelan of rail union Aslef has told the Mirror’s Sophie Huskisson that train firms are not implementing minimum service levels yet because of safety concerns and the fear of being blamed for “the first derailment, train crash or fatality.” The Department for Transport says it’s still consulting and “it is baseless scaremongering” to suggest they won’t be safe.

THE GOD CONSULTATION: Only 44 percent of civil servants are Christian — less than the U.K. proportion as a whole, according to today’s Times.

**Listen in on conversations with global power players with Power Play, a brand-new global podcast by POLITICO. Renowned host Anne McElvoy takes you into the minds of those shifting power, policy and politics across the globe, starting this September. Sign up here to be notified of the first episodes.** 

BEYOND THE M25

CHILD PROTECTION: Surrey County Council has confirmed 10-year-old Sara Sharif, who was found dead in Woking earlier this month, was known to the authorities — via the BBC.

RECESS IS OVER: Many schools pupils in Scotland return today for the new academic year.

BIG GUNS: Ukraine will finally get its much-desired F-16 jets from the Netherlands and Denmark — via POLITICO. 

BIG TABLE: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will dine with EU leaders in Athens tonight to discuss enlarging the bloc — with rumors Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend, my colleague Nektaria Stamouli emails to say.

FARAGE STILL INFLUENCES EUROPE: Nigel Farage’s so-far successful crusade against “woke capitalism” and Coutts dropping him as a client has been noticed in Europe — and it’s a strategy that the right wants to replicate ahead of the European Parliament election next year, Hannah Brenton writes.

TRUMP CARD: Former U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will not take part in debates with Republican rivals for the nomination to fight for the White House.

MEANWHILE IN CALIFORNIA: A “dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding situation” was developing overnight as a rare tropical storm called Hilary made landfall. The Guardian has been running a live blog.

TENSE ELECTION: Results in Ecuador’s presidential election suggest left-winger Luisa González will face a runoff against banana tycoon’s son Daniel Noboa, according to AP. Another candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, was assassinated two weeks before polling day.

SAD TROMBONE: Russia’s first mission to the moon in almost 50 years ended in a crash-landing for the unmanned robot. More here.

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MEDIA ROUND

Children’s Minister Claire Coutinho broadcast round: GB News (6.50 a.m.) … Times Radio (7.05 a.m.) … Sky (7.20 a.m.) … BBC Breakfast (7.35 a.m.) … LBC (7.50 a.m.) … Today (8.30 a.m.) … Good Morning Britain (8.35 a.m.).

Shadow Justice Minister Ellie Reeves broadcast round: BBC Breakfast (6.50 a.m.) … Times Radio (7.50 a.m.) … Sky (8.05 a.m.) … LBC (8.50 a.m.) … GB News (9.05 a.m.).

Also on Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: Former Met Police Chief Superintendent Victor Olisa (7.20 a.m.).

Also on Good Morning Britain: Retired Consultant Pediatrician Dewi Evans (7.25 a.m.) … Football coach Anita Asante and 1966 goal-scorer Geoff Hurst (8.15 a.m.).

Also on Sky News Breakfast: Former Lib Dem MP Lembit Öpik (8.20 a.m.) … former Labour adviser John McTernan with Women’s Parliamentary Football Club founder Jo Tanner (9.30 a.m.).

Also on TalkTV Breakfast: Migration Watch Director Mike Jones (7.30 a.m.) … Minister for London Paul Scully (8.30 a.m.)

TODAY’S FRONT PAGES

POLITICO UK: British firms quizzed on Chinese tech links as US-style clampdown looms.

Daily Express: King brings Andrew ‘in from cold.’

Daily Mail: Make coward Letby face us!

Daily Mirror: Proud of you: Defeat but Lionesses inspire nation.

Daily Star: We’re so proud of you.

Financial Times: Beijing pushes for Brics expansion in effort to create stronger rival to G7.

i: Heartbreak.

Metro: You did us all proud.

The Daily Telegraph: Letby can be forced to face families in court.

The Guardian: Pride and pain.

The Independent: The ecstacy, the agony.

The Sun: We still think the World of you.

The Times: Letby police fear that she attacked 30 more babies.

LONDON CALLING

WESTMINSTER WEATHER: Glorious — sunny afternoon, highs of 25C.

PICK OF THE FRINGE: Podcaster Matt Forde is interviewing former SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes at 1 p.m., at the Gilded Balloon.

JOB ADS: POLITICO is hiring a host for the Westminster Insider podcast, and a finance editor and a finance reporter.

THEATER FIX: The Oklahoma! revival at Wyndham’s Theatre by Leicester Square is entering its final fortnight — one for before recess ends. 7.30 p.m. nightly.

OR IF YOU LIKE PHANTOM: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel Love Never Dies is being performed “in concert” style tonight and tomorrow at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, also at 7.30 p.m.

FOR THE NIGHT OWLS: David Lynch’s The Elephant Man is on BBC Two at 11.15 p.m.

LIGHT RELIEF: Whipsnade Zoo’s weigh-in is today. You can play “guess the weight of the bears” before 9 a.m. here.

NOW READ: My POLITICO colleague Matthew Karnitschnig has a piece looking at why illegal immigration, war and a poor economy have made it springtime for Europe’s fascists — even in Germany.

BIRTHDAYS: Shadow Wales Minister Gerald Jones … North Warwickshire MP Craig Tracey … Former Tory MP Ben Howlett … ITV News presenter Julie Etchingham … Lib Dem peer Lindsay Northover.

PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editors Jack Lahart and Zoya Sheftalovich, reporter Noah Keate and producer Seb Starcevic.

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