Working for Dominic Raab led some officials to have mental health crises, says union leader – UK politics live | Politics

Ofgem, the energy regulator, has launched an investigation into British Gas after a Times investigation revealed that agents working on its behalf ignored customers’ vulnerabilities, my colleague Alex Lawson reports.

NHS England has published some new performance figures this morning. They show some evidence that pressures on hospitals are easing very slightly. PA Media has the details

A total of 18% of ambulance patients waited at least 30 minutes last week to be handed to A&E teams, down from 20% the previous week.

The figure hit a record 44% in the week to 1 January.

Some 6% of patients waited more than an hour last week to be handed over to A&E teams – again, the lowest so far this winter, and down week on week from 7%.

• Nearly 14,000 hospital beds in England last week were filled with people who were fit to leave, close to recent record levels, PA says. It reports:

An average of 13,983 beds were taken up with medically fit patients in the seven days to 29 January, up from 13,566 the previous week and just short of the all-time high of 14,069 in the week to 8 January.

At this point last year the number stood at 12,257.

The proportion of patients ready to leave hospital last week but who remained in their beds stood at 59%.

This is down from a record 63% in the week to 1 January.

An average of 1,291 patients with flu were in hospital beds each day last week, down 37% from 2,034 in the week to 22 January, according to NHS England data.

It is the fourth week in a row the number of flu patients in hospital has dropped, down 76% from a peak of 5,441 in the week to 1 January.

As the headline on our overnight story about Dominic Raab puts it rather well, the justice secretary and deputy prime ministers remains “in peril” because of the inquiry into allegations he bullied officials.

In the papers today there is evidence that Raab, or his allies, are fighting back.

In a story in the Daily Mail Jason Grove says that at least two senior officials giving evidence to the bullying inquiry have spoken in defence of Raab. And Grove reports:

A former colleague said: ‘There is a clear attempt by a group of politically motivated mandarins to get him – it looks like a coordinated attempt by a number of senior civil servants.

‘In one case it looks like revenge as the individual was effectively forced out by the government.’

Several of Mr Raab’s former staff yesterday said they had not witnessed unreasonable conduct.

One said he was ‘demanding, sometimes difficult and a bit curt – but not a bully’.

And Matt Dathan and Chris Smyth in the Times report that “Raab has declared he has never sworn or shouted in a meeting after it was claimed he roared ‘bullshit’ in response to a senior official’s briefing he disagreed with”. They quote a spokeperson for Raab saying:

The deputy prime minister has never sworn or shouted in a meeting. He sets targets across the department to focus relentlessly on delivery in the way that the British people would expect.

In response to the Daily Mail report, Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, the union representing senior civil servants, rejected claims that the complaints against Raab were politically motivated. He told Sky News:

That’s extraordinary and it couldn’t be further from the truth. Are we really seeing two dozen civil servants in three different government departments over a period of four years have got together in some massive conspiracy? That just doesn’t sound credible.

Penman said he knew that some people who worked for Raab had suffered mental health crises. He said:

I’ve spoken to people who are civil servants working, and have worked, for Dominic Raab, who have suffered mental health crises, have lost their careers essentially because they’ve had to move and change jobs.

Referring to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s claim that people should not be too “snowflakey” about these allegations, Penman said:

This sort of behaviour destroys lives. I mean it’s not just about careers, people’s lives and their mental health are at risk when they are subject to systematic bullying, and to belittle it in that way is absolutely outrageous from a former leader of the house and cabinet minister.

Penman also repeated his call for Raab to be suspended until the inquiry concludes, and he said Rishi Sunak should “come clean” and reveal whether he was informally warned about Raab’s conduct before he appointed him to his cabinet.

Raab has repeatedly denied bullying staff and insisted that he “behaved professionally at all times”.

The failure of successive Conservative governments to recognise the negative impact of public spending cuts on the wider economy has meant Britain missed out on £400bn of growth since 2010, according to a report by the TUC. My colleague Phillip Inman has the story here.

Here is a statement from Chris O’Shea, the chief executive of Centrica, which owns British Gas, on the Times report about a contractor working for the company forcing vulnerable customers to move to prepayment meters, including by breaking in to homes to execute a court warrant (See 9.17am.)

The allegations around our third-party contractor Arvato are unacceptable and we immediately suspended their warrant activity.

Having recently reviewed our internal processes to support our prepayment customers, as well as creating a new £10m fund to support those prepayment customers who need help the most, I am extremely disappointed that this has occurred.

As a result, on Wednesday morning, we took a further decision to suspend all our prepayment warrant activity at least until the end of the winter.

More broadly, there are clearly significant challenges around affordability and unfortunately, we don’t see that changing any time soon.

We need to strike a balance between managing spiralling bad debt and being aware that there are those who refuse to pay and those who cannot pay. We think government, industry and the regulator need to come together to agree a long-term plan to address this and ultimately create an energy market that is sustainable.

Good morning. There are two big stories involving energy companies out this morning. Both of them have important political ramifications, and Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary for climate change and net zero, has been speaking out forcefully on both issues. As for the government – it has been rather quieter.

First, Shell has announced its profits for the final quarter of 2022, $9.81bn, taking its profits for the whole year to almost $40bn (£32.2bn). My colleague Alex Lawson has the story here.

In response, Miliband said this showed why the windfall tax on energy companies should be increased. He said:

As the British people face an energy price hike of 40% in April, the government is letting the fossil fuel companies making bumper profits off the hook with their refusal to implement a proper windfall tax.

Labour would stop the energy price cap going up in April, because it is only right that the companies making unexpected windfall profits from the proceeds of war pay their fair share.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, announced an extension to the windfall tax in the autumn statement, but as my colleage Nils Pratley argued at the time, it could have gone a lot further. And the BBC has a good account of some of the loopholes in it here.

Second, the Times has this morning splashed on the findings of a powerful investigation revealing that “British Gas routinely sends debt collectors to break into customers’ homes and force-fit pay-as-you-go meters, even when they are known to have extreme vulnerabilities”. It says:

An undercover reporter worked for Arvato, a company used by British Gas to pursue debts, amid rocketing energy prices and more customers falling behind with their bills.

The reporter accompanied debt agents in below-freezing conditions as they worked with a locksmith to break into the home of a single father of three young children and switch it to a prepayment meter. If families with these gas meters cannot afford to top up, their heating is cut off.

On another occasion agents were sent by British Gas with a court warrant to force-fit a meter at the home of a young mother with a four-week-old baby. Her bills have risen sevenfold during the cost of living crisis.

According to job notes seen by The Times, other British Gas customers who have had prepayment meters fitted by force in recent weeks include a woman in her fifties described as “severe mental health bipolar”, a woman who “suffers with mobility problems and is partially sighted” and a mother whose “daughter is disabled and has a hoist and [an] electric wheelchair”.

On the Today programme this morning Chris O’Shea, the chief executive of Centrica, British Gas’s parent company, said he was appalled by the paper’s revelations. “There is nothing that I can say that can express the horror I had when I heard this. It is completely unacceptable,” he said.

O’Shea said the contractor used by British Gas had let them down, and he said the forced introduction of prepayment meters had been suspended, at least until the end of the winter.

Labour has been calling for a moratorium on customers being forced on to pre-payment meters and this morning Miliband – who tabled an urgent question on this topic only last week – told the Today programme this morning it was “shameful” that this was happening. He said:

It’s shameful that we are in Britain in 2023 and this is happening.

That is why for weeks now we have been calling for a moratorium, a ban, on the forced installation of prepayment meters, not just to British Gas, but right across the board, because this is a system that stinks and is in disrepute.

There’s no proper definition of vulnerability. There’s no proper checks on when these prepayment meters are being forced into people’s homes. There’s no proper system for when this so-called last resort happens. This is a system that is in desperate need of reform.

People are being put through appalling hardship and appalling circumstances and the government must act, as I have been urging for weeks now, to stop this practice happening right across the board.

Last month Grant Shapps, the business secretary, said he was asking energy companies to voluntarily stop forcing customers to use prepayment meters. He told the Times he was “horrified” by its revelations.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs about whether there will be a public inquiry into the Omagh bombing.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

11.30am: The Welsh government holds a briefing ahead of the strikes planned for 7 February.

12pm: The Bank of England announces its decision on interest rates. My colleague Graeme Wearden will be covering this on his business live blog.

12pm: Nicola Sturgeon takes first minister’s questions in the Scottish parliament.

Afternoon: James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, hold a press conference after talks with their Australian counterparts.

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