Justin Welby says he forgives serial abuser John Smyth
On the BBC this morning, former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby gave his first interview since resigning in November last year. He told Laura Kuenssberg that he was ‘profoundly ashamed’ of his speech in the House of Lords in which he had joked that ‘there is only, in this case, one head that rolls well enough’. He also reiterated his claim that he knew nothing of Smyth’s abuse before 2013, and said he had not moved fast enough while in office because he’d been ‘absolutely overwhelmed’ by the scale of abuse. When Kuenssberg asked if he could forgive Smyth, Welby said he could, but added that it was not him who had been abused by Smyth, and that his forgiveness was ‘irrelevant’.
Alex Burghart: ‘The risk [with mandatory reporting] is that everyone will over-report’
After watching Laura Kuenssberg’s interview with Justin Welby, abuse survivor advocate Dame Jasvinder Sanghera said on Kuenssberg’s panel that the treatment of survivors ‘hasn’t changed’, and called for ‘mandatory reporting’ of abuse cases. Kuenssberg also interviewed shadow cabinet minister Alex Burghart, who said the priority was to make sure that all the abuse cases that had ‘overwhelmed’ Welby had been properly investigated. Kuenssberg asked why the Conservatives had not implemented all the recommendations of Professor Alexis Jay’s independent inquiry into child sexual abuse when they were in power. Burghart argued that when it comes to mandatory reporting, there were concerns that it would create an environment of over-reporting, leading to a ‘huge haystack of observations’, and that real cases might be lost.
Yvette Cooper: ‘This is… a global war on the criminal trafficking gangs’
On Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a summit on people-smuggling crime with representatives from over 40 countries. On Sky News, Trevor Phillips pointed out to Cooper that there have already been 5000 crossings to the UK this year, the earliest that number has been reached. The home secretary said that the summit was important because the criminal activity organising boat crossings stretches across the globe, and that the UK had reached a new agreement with France which means French police will take action to prevent boat crossings in French waters. Phillips asked how close the government was to a ‘third country deal with Albania’. Cooper said the government is increasing ‘returns everywhere’, but is also talking to Italy about their controversial deal with Albania in which asylum seekers would be held and processed in Albania. Cooper said she would ‘always look at what works’, but that the government would avoid ‘gimmicks’ like the Rwanda scheme and focus on border control and breaking up the people smuggling gangs.
Is the chancellor’s ‘£500 better off’ claim a lie?
In Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement, she claimed that the OBR had said ‘people will be, on average, over £500 a year better off under this Labour government’. However, that figure has not been confirmed by the OBR, and the Resolution Foundation think tank has actually predicted lower-income households to be £500 worse off. On GB News, Camilla Tominey asked Labour MP Dan Jarvis why the chancellor was ‘telling lies’. Jarvis said that was an ‘unfair and unreasonable criticism’, and suggested the chancellor was doing a ‘good job under very difficult circumstances’. Jarvis claimed that Labour’s work on planning reform would bring in £6bn, and that their investment in the NHS was bringing down waiting lists. Tominey argued that the OBR had also suggested Labour would not meet its 1.5m housing target, and asked again whether the chancellor’s £500 claim was true. Jarvis said, ‘I completely back what the chancellor has said’.
Charity chair accuses Prince Harry of ‘harassment and bullying at scale’
Prince Harry and Sentebale co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho stepped down from the charity on Tuesday, saying they had done so ‘in… solidarity with’ the board of trustees who resigned over a dispute with Sentebale chair Sophie Chandauka. Since then, the situation has escalated with Chandauka accusing the Duke of Sussex of bullying, and unleashing ‘the Sussex [PR] machine’ on her. On Sky News this morning, Chandauka claimed that the charity had been losing donors because of Prince Harry’s reputation since leaving the UK, and described him as the ‘number one risk’ the charity faced. She also told Trevor Phillips that the Duke of Sussex had been trying to ‘eject’ her from the organisation for months. Phillips pointed out that a source close to the former Sentebale trustees had described Chandauka’s claims as ‘completely baseless’.
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