Strikes: Nadhim Zahawi says military part of contingency plans - BBC News

Laura Kuenssberg

Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Shadow education secretary Bridget Philipson interestingly told us that Labour would restore the concept of "legal but harmful" content for adults - where the government would define what kind of content could cause harm to users but not actually break the law.

That's the contentious part of the Online Safety Bill that's disappeared from the legislation due back in the Commons this week.

Phillipson also said, despite lots of speculation, that her party would scrap the House of Lords as it stands in the first term of a Labour government.

Let's see what Keir Starmer has to say when he launches the party's plans tomorrow.

There's been some consternation that Labour might not, after all, stick to its instincts and get that done.

It's clear also that Labour is intent on highlighting the issue of private schools. It wants to scrap tax breaks and accuses "vested interests" of standing in their way.

Laura Kuenssberg

Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

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Government minister Nadhim Zahawi tried to plead with the public sector unions this morning not to go on strike and to get round the table - while confirming the military is on standby to help out as part of contingency plans.

But there was no suggestion of any new offers or even concessions to stop the strikes from taking place at all.

When it comes to the online safety bill however he tried to give the impression that everything will be fine once the bill is on the books and the internet will become a safer place.

Yet children's digital rights campaigner Baroness Kidron was not convinced that's the case.

She and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told us the bill doesn't really confront the essence of how platforms work, and can bombard children and adults with material.

Here's Conservative Party chairman Nadim Zahawi speaking to Laura Kuenssberg earlier on the show.

Quizzed on what the government is doing about planned strikes, he said that demands from unions for a 19% pay rise for nurses would cost the NHS £10bn.

"That it is money which should be put on the NHS front line," he added.

Kuenssberg asks about childcare because Phillipson has been in Estonia where all children get a nursery place from 18 months old and parents only pay £60 a month.

She asks how it would be affordable to have such a system in this country.

Phillipson says lots of women are giving up jobs that they love because they cannot get affordable childcare. To grow the economy you have to give parents choices, she says.

And to deliver really high standards in school we must address the attainment gap that opens up really early and make sure all children get a really great start in life at the earliest possible point, she says.

Wrapping up the interview, Kuenssberg asks if Labour got in would they abolish the House of Lords.

Phillipson says: "We will make sure we have an elected chamber absolutely."

Asked definitely if this would happen in Labour's first term, Phillipson says: "That's the plan and we will be consulting ahead of the manifesto around how we make that happen."

Kuenssberg ends the interview saying she believes Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has a big announcement on these plans tomorrow.

Phillipson is now talking about Labour's plans to end tax breaks for private schools.

She says the government is about priorities and choices and if Labour ends that tax break we can make a real impact on teachers and mental health in schools.

Kuenssberg points out this plan would only raise £1.7bn which, in terms of government spending, is not going to make a huge difference.

Phillipson says she completely accepts that it will not be the entirety of Labour's offer around education and more needs to be done.

She says the Competition Markets Authority should get involved as we are "potentially seeing market failure here".

Asked if teachers are right to hold out for a 12% pay rise or should take the 5% government is offering, she says: "Teachers are right to argue for a better deal in terms of pay but also wider terms and conditions."

She says teachers tell her they felt demoralised, insulted and derided by the government during the pandemic.

Pushed on whether she would give teachers the 12% they seek, she says if she was the education secretary she would be finding a compromise which is "often somewhere in the middle".

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BBCCopyright: BBC

Kuenssberg starts the conversation with Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson about online safety, asking her about regulation and debate over damage to free speech.

Phillipson says: "It's a balance that you need to strike, the debate that we had with Parliament was supposed to happen back in July.

It is important that children are kept safe online. Like all parents you worry about the impact on children. Labour's plan is to guarantee access to mental health services in every school."

Kuenssberg then asks Phillipson if Labour wins the election, would they restore the idea of content being taken down that is harmful - even if it's not illegal for adults?

Phillipson says that Labour would put it back into the law because there's a lot out there in the online space that goes beyond the impact on young people. She reflects on Russian disinformation and misogynistic culture, saying: "We should not allow that harmful, hateful material to spread."

Kuenssberg goes on to ask Phillipson about end to end encryption and public concern over the regulator's power to see private messages.

Phillipson says there are always balances to strike in this area but that people have a right to privacy, she adds: "What we've got at the moment is just a Wild West."

Kuenssberg asks Baldock about the truth of a story in the Telegraph that says Currys has dropped Royal Mail from doing its deliveries because of its strike action.

Asked if this is true he says "for now, yes" but there's "no great drama operationally" because they had planned to switch to other providers if there are delivery issues.

He says the impact of the cost of living crisis is the root of the strikes but it doesn't help when his workers can't get to work and Currys can't get items delivered to customers. Wage price inflationary spirals will make things worse in the long term, he adds.

He says he's given pay rises of 16% over the past year and 40% over the past four years because we need to retain and motivate a work force and it's the price to pay for the right talent.

It's lively out there for retail, he says, with a shift to customers buying online from places like Amazon "who in some important ways seem to play by different rules to the rest of who pay tax".

Asked what he means by that, he says many UK-based retailers pay for the infrastructure on which Amazon is effectively getting a free ride and says the government must do better.

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Let's hear what the panel think to Nadhim Zahawi's interview.

Beeban Kidron says she did not think he gave an "adequate answer" on the online safety bill because she says making things illegal doesn't give a route to justice. She says she thinks the government is over concentrating on content and not enough on the responsibility of tech companies to keep children safe.

She says Kate Winslet expressed what her inbox is saying, that desperate parents just feel powerless. She says children should be online and it should be designed for them to be there because you can't lock it away.

Currys boss Alex Baldock says there's another problem of insufficent access to tech.

Half of young people haven't got access to broadband and a quarter didn't have access to computers in lockdown, he says. Being connected can give you life chances that are otherwise held from you, he adds.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says simply making things more illegal isn't the answer when the bill doesn't give £1 to fund policing things that are already illegal. He says you can't just choose three companies to regulate - "nobody is really in charge of the internet," he adds.

There should be age blocks for social media sites to improve protection for children using the internet, actress Kate Winslet has told the BBC.

Winslet told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that security checks could also be more rigorous and those in power "should step up" to protect children.

She was speaking ahead of the launch of her new Channel 4 film I Am Ruth.

The feature-length drama sees Winslet playing opposite her real-life daughter Mia Threapleton as the mother of a teenager whose mental health begins to suffer as she becomes increasingly consumed by the pressures of social media.

Kuenssberg asks what the chance are that the Tories would win the next general election.

Zahawi says there is no general election coming up and the party needs more time to deliver on what it's said it is going to do.

Kuenssberg moves the conversation on to the online safety bill and abuse of footballers being sent bananas.

Zahawi says racial abuse of footballers is "completely unacceptable...and the way you deal with it is to make all of that behaviour - like self harm videos illegal.

"I think if you're being racially abused it's a crime," he says.

The right balance is between free speech as well as dealing with this, he says, adding that he's very proud of what the government is doing and it has struck the right balance.

Kuenssberg says that Beeban Kidron, who is on today's panel, is going to bring up in the House of Commons her amendment to the bill so that families who have lost children in part through online crime will get the data they want from companies.

Zahawi says the team will look closely at representations and respond through the bill. "We want to get this right," he says.

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Nadeem Zahawi goes on to talk about immigration. He says: "Dealing with illegal small boats is the real issue that we have to deal with. We need to break the business model of those small gangs and increase the number of patrols.

"They've already turned back about 30,000 people but we need to do much better. As we did on the vaccine, we saved the country."

Kuenssberg asks Zahawi about the government confronting the wave of strikes coming.

Zahawi responds and reflects on Russian President Vladimir Putin's role with the Ukraine war and its impact on inflation.

"President Putin has used energy as a weapon, he knows it's a weapon. The bulk of inflation, at 11%, is because of energy."

Asked about the impact of long-term pressures on public sector pay and the NHS, Zahawi says: "If we allow inflation to be embedded we hurt the most vulnerable. We need to be disciplined about public and private sector pay."

Zahawi goes on to talk about nurses strikes and acknowledges that the public sector review bodies recommended a £1,400 increase.

"The nurses union is asking for 19%, that would cost the NHS £10bn," he says, adding that it is money which should be put on the NHS front line.

Kuenssberg asks Zahawi what the government is doing about the strikes.

He responds: "We are operationalising contingency plans with a surge capacity to make sure people are protected. It's unfair for the unions to damage people's lives and Christmasses. Let's not divide let's come together."

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Laura Kuenssberg begins her interview with Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi by asking about his party losing the Chester by-election.

He says there is no shying away from the fact that the internal challenges in the Conservative party contributed to the gap in the polls.

But he says PM Rishi Sunak is fixing the economy and will deal with problems in the NHS.

He says he was campaigning in Chester but never expected to win the seat - this was a "rebuilding exercise" and they are focused on local elections in May, he says.

On Sajid Javid, who has announced he will step down at the next election, Zahawi says he is a "huge talent and a friend". While lots of people are retiring they have some great candidates coming through the Conservative ranks, he says.

He says no other MPs have spoken to him about joining other parties and they've been asked to indicate by Monday if they plan to stand in the next election.

Football features prominently on the front pages of the papers this morning ahead of England’s last 16 match against Senegal at the World Cup in Qatar later. England captain Harry Kane is pictured on the front of several papers alongside messages of support - with the Daily Star Sunday going as far as urging readers to “give Lineker’s lugs a rub for good luck” alongside a manipulated image of the former England skipper-turned-broadcaster.

Elsewhere the Sun on Sunday and Sunday Express lead with stories about Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex who have a new documentary series coming to Netflix. The Sun report claims the prince said of his criticisms of the Royal Family that Britons “need to learn a lesson”.

The Sunday broadsheets lead on political stories, with the Sunday Times saying the government - or “panicking Tories” as it puts it - will bring in new laws to increase curbs on illegal immigration.

The Observer says ministers are under pressure to reopen pay talks with nurses in a bid to avoid a “devastating series of NHS strikes” this winter - but some have accused the government of “playing politics” over the dispute.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that local pharmacies could be brought in to “help break NHS strike action” and ease winter pressures on the health service.

Find out what's in the papers this Sunday in our full review

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Ahead of the Conservative Party chairman’s appearance on the programme, this week’s panel of Jimmy Wales, Beeban Kidron and Alex Baldock are telling Laura Kuenssberg what they feel are the key matters to be addressed.

Then we’ll hear from Nadhim Zahawi, before returning to our panel who will discuss his interview. All this and more to come in the next hour.

On the show first is Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi. Following Labour’s by-election victory last week in Chester and with Sir Keir Starmer’s party riding high in the polls - how can the Tories under Rishi Sunak turn things around in 2023?

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Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is due up at the top of the hour, and you can watch the programme without leaving this page by clicking on the play button in the picture above.

Stay with us for the latest news lines, quotes, and video clips as we follow the show - which features this week Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet, Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi and Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson.

Ahead of this morning's show the shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has demanded an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority into private school fees.

She's been in the papers this week talking about Labour's plans to end tax breaks for private schools. Today the party says it has new analysis which shows that schools’ fees have risen twice as fast as average wages since 2005 while pupil numbers have remained constant.

Phillipson accused Conservative MPs of “crying wolf” over “bogus” claims that ending private schools’ tax exemptions would force hundreds of schools to close, after the Chancellor cited figures from the Independent Schools Council during the Autumn Statement that 90,000 private school pupils would join the state sector.

Data from the Independent Schools Council shows average prices have now risen to over £15,600 a year for day school pupils or a mammoth £37,000 a year for boarding pupils – more than national average earnings.

Phillipson said: “The Education Secretary needs to commission the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate whether the private schools market is working as it should."

We'll be hearing more from her on this during the show.

Laura Kuenssberg

Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

"My God, I don't know what I'm supposed to do at all." That's not an admission that you expect to hear from a movie megastar.

But that's how Kate Winslet described some moments of being a mum in the 21st Century, with parents "rendered utterly powerless" as their kids spend more and more time online.

Winslet's new film confronts that dilemma head on. She tells the story of a mother desperately trying to help her daughter, whose mental health has been shattered as she's sucked deeper and deeper into social media.

The drama - I am Ruth - is hard to watch, but hard to look away from. Without giving a terrible spoiler, it does also in the end offer hope.

It's all the more powerful because Winslet's on-screen child is played by her own daughter - Mia Threapleton.

But the Oscar winner hopes the film will prompt a wider conversation about how vulnerable children are.

She suggests some online platforms should be banned for kids and accuses the government and tech firms of "shirking responsibility".

"Whoever those people are, they know who they are, they should just step up and do better," she told me.

Read Laura’s full article here

Joss Barratt/Juggle Productions/Channel 4Copyright: Joss Barratt/Juggle Productions/Channel 4

We’ve been talking this morning about Kate Winslet’s thoughts on children’s safety online - prompted by her new film for Channel 4 called I am Ruth.

Kuenssberg recorded her interview with the Oscar-winning actress a couple of days ago and BBC photographer Jeff Overs was on hand to capture their conversation in pictures.

Jeff Overs/BBCCopyright: Jeff Overs/BBC

Jeff Overs/BBCCopyright: Jeff Overs/BBC

Jeff Overs/BBCCopyright: Jeff Overs/BBC

Shiona McCallum

Senior technology reporter

The government is insisting its amendments to the Online Safety Bill will keep children safe on the internet. Powers to define legal but harmful content have been dropped - satisfying some free-speech advocates.

Safety groups say it's too easy for children to access pornography online.

But ministers reject criticism that the legislation has been watered down, pointing to what they say is better age verification for children.

Research by regulator Ofcom indicates that one in three children currently have access to adult content on social media. They simply lie about their date of birth to get around age restrictions on websites.

As part of the bill, all sites that publish pornography will have to put in enhanced checks to ensure their users really are 18 or over.

This could include adults using secure age verification technology to prove that they possess a credit card and are over 18, or having a third-party service confirm their age against government data.

Sites that fail to act could be fined up to 10% of their global turnover by Ofcom, and bosses of these websites could also be held criminally liable if they fail to co-operate.

Children's safety groups have long been calling for age verification on porn sites, over fears it is too easy for minors to access publicly available material online.

Read more here