Sports Direct shares fall again as founder refuses MPs' summons

Sports Direct’s founder Mike Ashley has refused a formal summons to appear before a committee of MPs investigating pay and conditions at the company. The committee has threatened Ashley with being in contempt of Parliament if he fails to attend the hearing scheduled for 7 June. The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has today suggested that MPs could debate Ashley’s refusal to attend. Last year, an investigation by The Guardian found that workers at the company’s Shirebrook warehouse were effectively receiving below the minimum wage.  In an interview in today’s Times, Ashley admitted that the company was in trouble and would not achieve the same profits as last year; leading to a 9% in the company’s share price. 

22 Mar 2016 17.06 GMT The Telegraph’s Michael Deacon has filed his sketch of George Osborne’s speech. He says “a display of almost rabid bravado”. Here’s an excerpt. After a few token words of appreciation for Mr Duncan Smith’s time in office, he reached the matter of his u-turn. Government, he said, required difficult decisions – “And when we don’t get them right, I’ve always been prepared to listen and learn.” Note the subtle difference between those pronouns. We make mistakes. I fix them.



22 Mar 2016 17.02 GMT When George Osborne was speaking in the budget speech, the Labour MP Rachel Reeves asked a question. (See 1.12pm.) Osborne responded by saying she should welcome the money in the budget for flood defences in Leeds, where she is an MP. In her speech Reeves said she had no reason to be grateful. The chancellor said earlier I should have welcomed the money for flood defences. But in 2011 the government cancelled a flood defence scheme in Leeds worth £135m and they announced last week money for Leeds of £35m. Well I’m sorry for not thanking him, but £35m rather than £135m isn’t really worth the thanks and the businesses in my constituency will be paying a heavy price if those rains come again.



22 Mar 2016 16.58 GMT Tory MP says government should 'look again' at decision to protect pensioner benefits In the budget debate the Conservative MP Stewart Jackson said the government should “look again” at its decision to protect pensioner benefits. I think we need to look again at pensioner benefits. You cannot discuss welfare without looking at things like the triple-lock and pensioner benefits. You can’t see this in a vacuum and it’s important we look again at means-testing and pensioner benefits. It’s wrong morally I believe to make large-scale transfer of wealth from the young to the old, and I think there has to be a consensus. He also said that, if the government were to means-test pensioner benefits, the money should be used to protect spending on adult social care.



22 Mar 2016 16.51 GMT Clarke says he would have introduced a 'much tougher' budget In his speech in the budget debate, echoing a point he made in his Today programme interview (see 9.36am), Kenneth Clarke, the Conservative former chancellor, said that he would have introduced a tougher budget if he were still in charge of the Treasury. Before the budget was delivered I decided that if I were in that position, and thank the Lord I’m not because I never faced problems of the kind that my right honourable friend actually inherited from his predecessor, but had I been in his position I expected a much tougher budget. I think my first thoughts would have been to get on with it. I would have introduced a budget, as I frequently did in my time, raising taxes and cutting public expenditure. He also said that he thought that George Osborne was “quite right” to “wait for events and see what happens” between now and the autumn statement before deciding how to fill the £4.4bn black hole (over four years) created by his decision to scrap the PIP cuts.



22 Mar 2016 16.28 GMT Cooper says Osborne will breach welfare cap if he keeps promise on no further welfare cuts Yvette Cooper, the Labour former Treasury minister and former work and pensions secretary, has issued a statement following George Osborne’s speech in the Commons. She says that Osborne will either have to breach his welfare cap again or break his promise not to look for further cuts in the welfare budget. She explained: This is either a further massive climb-down from the chancellor or he and the new work and pension secretary are misleading the House and there are still more welfare cuts to come. George Osborne’s budget last week committed him to meeting the welfare cap he set with great political fanfare by the end of the parliament. And he also said he would set out the measures needed to meet the welfare cap by the autumn statement. The Office for Budget Responsibility have shown that will require £3.2bn a year further welfare cuts by 2020. And his U-turn on PIP cuts means he would need an additional £1.3bn cuts on top of that - all from working age benefits. Yet today he appeared to support the work and pensions secretary pledge that there would be no further welfare cuts this parliament. So which is it? Either he has ripped up his own welfare cap and ditched another big plank of his budget in just a few days. Or he and the work and pensions secretary have used the most awful weasel words in Parliament and there are still more welfare cuts to come. Either this is chaos or it is a con. Yvette Cooper Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters



22 Mar 2016 16.21 GMT Theresa May's statement on the terror attacks in Belgium Theresa May, the home secretary, has just started giving evidence to the Commons home affairs committee. She opened with a short statement about the terror attacks in Belgium. They were “appalling” attacks, she said. We don’t yet know the full details, she said. There have been multiple explosions at Brussels airports and a further explosion at Malbec metro station, she said. At least 30 people have died, she said, and hundreds more have been injured. At least one British national was caught up in this, she said. She said she was aware of reports that the terrorist group Daesh (Islamic State) have claimed responsibility. She said that David Cameron has spoken to his Belgian counterpart, Charles Michel. And she said she had offered support to her counterpart. We stand together against the terrorists and they will not win. She said the UK already worked with the Belgian authorities on counter-terrorism. In the UK she said the threat level had not changed. It is currently set at “severe”, which means an attack is highly likely, she said. I would urge everyone to remain alert but not alarmed. She said the UK was taking a number of precautions to ensure public safety and to provide public reassurance. Border Force was carrying out more intensive checks at the border, she said. And the police have deployed extra officers at key locations and on the transport network, she said. And some travel firms have suspended services to Belgium. There is more information at the attacks in Brussels on our separate live blog. Brussels explosions: Isis claims airport and metro attacks – live updates Read more Theresa May giving evidence to the home affairs committee. Photograph: Parliament TV



22 Mar 2016 16.02 GMT During John McDonnell’s speech in the budget debate two Tory MPs accused him of supporting terrorism. They were referring to comments McDonnell has made in the past, most notably these ones, for which McDonnell apologised last year. Former Army officer Tom Tugendhat said McDonnell had stood alongside terrorists who murdered his friends. He told McDonnell: You have called into question the morality of the leadership of the chancellor. Will you please discuss with this House the morality that allows you to stand with bombers who murdered my friends in Northern Ireland and question the integrity of the chancellor? And James Cartlidge said:

You make a very personal point about fitness for office on the day of a major terrorist attack. Will you withdraw your previous support for terrorist organisations that have attacked this country? The interventions provoked loud shouting from Labour MPs. McDonnell replied: You have heard me share the sentiments of the whole House on the issue of Belgium. To bring that into the debate as a political point at this stage is unacceptable.



22 Mar 2016 15.19 GMT George Osborne's speech - Summary Here are the main news points from George Osborne’s opening speech. Osborne accepted that the proposal to cut the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) had been “a mistake”. But he refused repeated demands from Labour MPs to apologise for what he had done. He said: Where we’ve made a mistake, where we’ve got things wrong, we listen and we learn. And that’s precisely what we’ve done. He paid tribute to Iain Duncan Smith. He said: I’m sorry that my right honourable friend chose to leave the government, and let me hear in this House recognise his achievements in helping to make work pay, protecting the vulnerable and breaking the decades-old cycle of welfare dependency. But he admitted there was always “robust discussion between the Treasury and the spending departments where money needs to be saved”. But he said he and Duncan Smith had worked together longer than any other chancellor and work and pensions secretary. Osborne’s comments about Duncan Smith were positive, but not warm. For a better insight into their relationship, it is worth reading what Daniel Finkelstein, the Times columnist, wrote about this yesterday (paywall). The blurb to the article described Finkestein as a friend and ally of Osborne. Finkelstein wrote: From virtually the beginning of their time in office together, there has been tension between Mr Duncan Smith and George Osborne. Anyone knowing either of them at all well (I am a long-standing friend of the chancellor) will have been aware of it. The chancellor has been clear from the start (and the maths even clearer) that without welfare savings the structural deficit cannot be eliminated. Yet the work and pension secretary’s reform plans often (not always) seemed either to involve spending more money, or to be ineffective in saving the money they promised. Mr Duncan Smith believes that this is due to his superior moral conscience and concern for the vulnerable. The Treasury has been inclined to the view that his grasp of detail isn’t what it should be. Mr Duncan Smith’s plans for personal independence payments (PIPs) is this dispute boiled down to its essence. Osborne appeared to reject claims that pensioners have been protected for austerity measures. This was one of Duncan Smith’s complaints in his resignation letter. Osborne said: Let me just say this about benefits to pensioners because it’s been raised - in the same breath, some people say to me we’re not saving enough from pensioners but at the same time complaining about everything from long-term increases in the state pension age to keep pace with rising life expectancy, to restrictions on the lifetime allowances for the largest pension pots. The truth is that we have made substantial savings from pensioner welfare - half a trillion pounds of savings. They are vital to the long-term sustainability of our public finances but we’ve made these savings in a way that enables us to go on giving people who have worked hard all their lives a decent, generous basic state pension that we committed to in our manifesto, and I am not going to take that away from people. The problem with this argument is that although increases in the state pension age and cuts to pension tax relief sound like measures affecting pensioners, in reality their negative impact falls on the working-age population. He signalled that he would not abandon the pension “triple lock”, which guarantees pensioners an annual increase of at least 2.5%. This is what said he would carry on paying “a decent, generous basic state pension”. The Institute for Fiscal Studies and others have said the triple lock can no longer be justified. He said the government had now achieved the £12bn welfare cuts proposed in the Conservative manifesto. He refused to say how the government would compensate for the £4.4bn black hole left in his budget finances by the decision to abandon the PIP cut. “We made very substantial savings in the Welfare Reform and Work Act that has just passed through Parliament so we’ve now legislated for 12 billion a year of working-age welfare savings - the 12 billion we committed to in our manifesto and we’re going to focus now on implementing that. He said the government would assess the level of the welfare cap (the rule limiting overall government welfare spending) in the autumn statement. He said he endorsed what Stephen Crabb, the work and pensions secretary, said yesterday about the government not “seeking further savings from the welfare budget”. Crabb’s comment was seen as going marginally further than his original statement about not having plans for further welfare cuts. Osborne said it was a “socialist illusion” to think taxing the rich would solve all society’s problems. It’s a classic socialist illusion to think you can solve all society’s problems with taxes on the very richest. He said social justice depended on sound public finances. There is not some inherent conflict between delivering social justice and the savings required to deliver sound public finances. They are one and the same thing. Without sound public finances there is no social justice. George Osborne Photograph: BBC



22 Mar 2016 14.38 GMT John McDonnell's speech - Summary John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, responded to George Osborne. His speech was probably a bit top-heavy on hyperbole, but he made some powerful points and he pressed ahead quite well in the face of of a very hostile Tory heckling/intervention operation. Here are the main points. McDonnell suggested that Osborne should resign. And he said he was not fit to hold senior office. Let me make it clear from the outset that, in my view - and, I believe, that of many others - the behaviour of the chancellor over the last 11 days calls into question his fitness for the office he now holds. I also believe that it certainly calls into question his fitness for any leading office in government. What we’ve seen is not the actions of a chancellor, a senior government minister, but the grubby, incompetent manipulations of a political chancer. UPDATE: I’ve corrected the quote above. Originally it said “political chancellor”, but having heard the tape again, I’m clear he said “political chancer”. He said Osborne’s PIP cut undermined his “we’re all in this together” rhetoric. The chancellor was willing to cut away this vital support to some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people of our community. Do not tell us we’re all in this together. He criticised Osborne for letting the Treasury blame Iain Duncan Smith for the flawed PIP decision. He said this was “one of the most despicable acts we’ve witnessed in recent political history” and a “disgraceful act of betrayal of one of his own colleagues to save his skin and his own votes”. By the Friday of last week the chancellor was under so much criticism he needed to find someone to blame. So, I think, in one of the most despicable acts we’ve witnessed in recent political history, the chancellor sent out his large team of spin doctors to try and lay the blame on the former secretary of state for work and pensions. This was a disgraceful act of betrayal of one of his own cabinet colleagues to save his own political skin and his leadership hopes. The betrayal was why Mr Duncan Smith resigned. He said that there was “complete confusion” yesterday as to whether or not the government was giving a firm pledge not to cut welfare spending further. And he said that no one believed the government’s “mealy-mouthed assurances” on this. He criticised Osborne for not saying how he would fill the £4.4bn black hole in his budget. John McDonnell Photograph: BBC

Updated at 17.27 GMT