Humza Yousaf faces vote of no confidence after ending power sharing with Scottish Greens – UK politics live (2024)

Labour’s shadow care minister has admitted he does not know if a Keir Starmer-led government will be able to find £8bn a year in extra funding which is widely estimated to be the minimum needed to stabilise England’s creaking social care system.

Andrew Gwynne MP told council social services directors today that the care system was “in crisis” after successive Conservative governments.

But he was unable to say how much extra money a Labour government could provide, and also cast doubt over how far Labour could deliver existing plans, announced by Jeremy Hunt, to cap social care costs to prevent people having to sell their homes to pay care fees.

Gwynne insisted that reforming social care is “one of the top priorities of the next Labour government” and said that by 2035 Labour would have created a new national care service.

But with over 150,000 care jobs vacant and real terms falls in funding over recent years, the Commons health and social care committee has estimated at least £7bn extra a year is needed, at a minimum, while the Health Foundation has said £8.3bn a year will be needed by the end of the coming decade.

Asked by the Guardian whether Labour could promise £8bn year, Gwynne said:

I am not going to put a figure on it, but we are making the case to Rachel [Reeves] that investment in social care, if you get it right, releases resources elsewhere in the system … You can invest in services that at some stage pay back to the public purse.

We are determined that we have a once in a generation opportunity to fix health and social care. We are very realistic of the timescales and we are also realistic about the resource implications.

Social care leaders have been having to ration care because of tightening budgets and rising demand and the president of the Association of Directors of Social Services , Melanie Williams, said they have endured “a decade of disappointment”.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, is the speaker at a press gallery lunch this afternoon. (The guest is normally expected to give a short speech, but the most interesting part is when they take questions; it’s like a press conference, only with food, wine and table service.) According to Adam Payne from Politics Home, Cleverly had a blunt message for Tory MPs who are considering triggering a no confidence vote in Rishi Sunak after the local elections.

Speaking at the lobby lunch, James Cleverly says having another Tory leadership contest before the general election is a “catastrophically bad idea”.

Asked by @GeorgeWParker for his message to Tory MPs who are considering sending no confidence letters post-local elections, Cleverly says: “If you’re going to jump out of the aeroplane, please make sure you have a parachute and don’t say ‘we will work it out on the way down’…”.

A former top Post Office executive has claimed she forgot about an email in 2010 saying that cash balances in subpostmasters’ branch accounts could be remotely accessed, PA Media reports.

Angela van den Bogerd had earlier told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry in central London on Thursday that she never “knowingly” did anything wrong in the scandal. (See 12.47pm.)

However, van den Bogerd, was asked if she had “airbrushed” from her mind the fact that Horizon developer Fujitsu had remote access to accounts, PA reports.

A December 5 2010 email sent to her by Lynn Hobbs, the organisation’s general manager of network support, said she had “found out that Fujitsu can actually put an entry into a branch account remotely”.

But van den Bogerd said to the inquiry: “I don’t actually remember receiving these emails.”

Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, asked: “Is what truly happening here is that you’re telling us that you don’t recall it because you know the email of December 5 2010 presents you with a problem?”

Van den Bogerd responded: “No not all – I wish I had remembered that information.”

As PA reports, in her witness statement, van den Bogerd insisted she was not aware of remote access to accounts until 2011.

The inquiry heard that while giving evidence in the Mr Bates vs the Post Office High Court case in March 2019, van den Bogerd said she first knew about remote access “in the last year or so”.

Beer asked: “That’s false isn’t it?”

She replied: “At the time I didn’t think it was.”

Beer said there were also emails in January 2011 and April 2014 telling her about remote access.

As PA reports, the inquiry was shown a 2014 email sent from communications worker Melanie Corfield to several Post Office bosses including Angela van den Bogerd. It read: “Our current line, if we’re asked about remote access being used to change branch data or transactions, is simply ‘this is not and has never been possible’.”

Van den Bogerd said she does not remember if she challenged the “false lines”, despite knowing this was the case.

She said she “must have missed” the email, saying: “If it had registered with me, I would have challenged it.”

She insisted it was not a “cover-up”.

Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, refused to say in an interview with Radio 4’s the World at One whether or not he would support Humza Yousaf in the no confidence vote. Harvie said:

That will, of course, be put to our entire parliamentary group for decision. That’s the way we do things in the Greens. We don’t have one or two individuals that [decide matters].

At this press conference this morning Humza Yousaf went out of his way to thank and praise Harvie and Lorna Slater, the other Green co-leader, for their contribution as ministers to his government.

But Harvie was not so complimentary about this former government colleague. He told the World at One:

Over the last while there’s been a small and mostly fairly marginalised rightwing faction on Humza Yousaf’s backbenches who’ve been starting to throw their weight around.

And I think what’s clearly happened now is that Humza Yousaf has decided to capitulate to that rightwing, socially and economically conservative agenda within his own party.

I think that’s tragic for Scotland, it’s bad for the government and I’ve no doubt it’ll be bad for Humza Yusuf as well.

Harvie said he and Slater were intended to advise Scottish Green party members to vote to continue the power-sharing agreement with the SNP in the ballot the Greens were planning to hold. He and Slater wanted cooperation “to go further”, he said.

But the first minister, I’m sorry to say, has decided to dump a lot of progressive values in the Bute House agreement. And I’ve no doubt that we’re now going to see a raft of policy decisions that water down, delay or ditch altogether some of the progressive measures that we were committed to, things like rent controls and a whole host of other measures.

As Alistair Grant from the Scotsman reports, Labour and the Liberal Democrats will back the Conservative no confidence motion in Humza Yousaf.

The Greens and Ash Regan, a former SNP MSP who now represents Alba, are undecided, he says.

- Labour confirms it will back the vote of no confidence in Humza Yousaf.
- Liberal Democrats will back it.
- Greens meeting later to discuss.
- Ash Regan (Alba) says she’s writing to the FM and her support will depend on his answer to that.

Extraordinary day.

The SNP has 63 MSPs.

There are now already 57 MSPs lined up to vote against Yousaf: Conservatives (31), Labour (22) and Lib Dems (4).

The Greens have 7 MSPs and Alba just one (Ash Regan).

A UK deposit return scheme for recycling drinks bottles has been delayed to 2027, meaning it will not be in place until almost a decade after it was proposed, Helena Horton reports.

A reader asks:

Could Holyrood force an early Scottish election, if the Greens say they have no confidence in the SNP minority government? Scottish polls suggest Labour, Greens might both gain seats in an election at the expense of SNP and Tories.

That seems very unlikely. In Scotland the first minister does not have the power the UK PM does to set the election date. Instead Scotland operates under rules much more akin to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Elections were originally meant to take place every four years, and now it is every five years. The next one is due in 2026.

There are circ*mstances in which an early election can be called, but they are not levers that can be used easily.

Under one option, for an earlier election to be held, two thirds of MSPs would have to vote to dissolve parliament early. That means the SNP, and opposition parties, would have to be in favour. The SNP does not have a majority, but it has more than a third of the seats at Holyrood, and so for a vote of this nature it has in effect a veto.

Alternatively, an election would take place if parliament failed to nominate a first minister. But that would require Yousaf deciding to resign, and MSPs failing to elect any alternative. That seems unlikely too.

When the Scotland Act was being drafted, and a PR electoral system proposed, it was assumed that majority governments at Holyrood would be the exception, not the norm, and that minority or coalition governments could be quite common. This was a point Humza Yousaf made himself today (see 11.34am). At Westminster it is assumed that a minority government cannot last long without an election, but in Scotland different assumptions apply.

A former Post Office executive who played a leading role in defending the prosecution of the post officer operators who are now recognised as innocent said this morning she she never “knowingly” did anything wrong in the Horizon scandal.

As PA Media reports, Angela van den Bogerd began her evidence at the Post Office Horizon inquiry in London on Thursday by saying she was “truly, truly sorry” for the “devastation” caused to wrongly convicted subpostmasters and their families.

Van den Bogerd, who was played by Coronation Street actress Katherine Kelly in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, later said: “I didn’t knowingly do anything wrong, and I would never knowingly do anything wrong.”

Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, pointed out that she had not apologised for her own role in the scandal in her witness statement.

Van den Bogerd replied:

I’ve reflected on this quite a bit and the disclosure that I’ve seen through this process, there are things that, documents that I’ve seen that … clearly knowing what I know now, I would give further weight to some of those documents than I did at the time, so they would have more significance.

So things that I might have missed at the time I really regret that and wish I’d been able to see that back then.

As PA reports, Beer pressed again, asking: “You don’t apologise for anything that you did wrong, do you?”

Van den Bogerd responded:

I apologise for not getting to the answer more quickly. But with the evidence I had and the parameters of my role at the time, I did the best I could to the best of my ability.

Asked if she blames Horizon developer Fujitsu for not being “transparent” with her and the Post Office, van den Bogerd responded: “Yes.”

She also agreed with Beer that chiefs were attempting to control the narrative by using the words “exception or anomaly” to describe bugs or defects in the Horizon system.

Van den Bogerd held various roles throughout her 35-year career at the Post Office, starting off as a network change operations manager, then on to head of network services, head of partnerships, director of support services and the director of people and change.

She was appointed as the Post Office’s business improvement director in 2018, but stepped down from the role in 2020.

At the start of her evidence van den Bogerd said:

Saying sorry I know doesn’t change what’s happened.

But I do want to say to everyone impacted by wrongful convictions and wrongful contract terminations that I am truly, truly sorry for the devastation caused to you, your family and friends.

I hope my evidence will assist this inquiry with getting to the answers you and so many others deserve.

Van den Bogerd was the most senior Post Office witness in Bates v the Post Office, the legal case that resulted in Alan Bates securing a £57m settlement from the Post Office on behalf of 555 post office operators wrongly accused of taking money. Much of the payment went towards legal fees.

Ross said Yousaf was a weak first minister who jumped before the Scottish Green members pushed him.

He said the Scottish Conservatives would be tabling a motion of no confidence in Yousaf.

Yousaf said the Tories were “nothing if not predictable”. He accused them of playing “political games”.

He said voters would give the Tories “an almighty thumping” at the election.

UPDATE: Ross said:

I can confirm today that on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives I am lodging a vote of no confidence in Humza Yousaf.

He is a failed first minister. He is focused on the wrong priorities for Scotland.

He has governed in the SNP’s interests and not in Scotland’s interests. He is unfit for office.

And Yousaf said:

I’ll leave it to Douglas Ross to play the political games that he wants to play.

If he wants to put our record and his party’s record on the line, let’s do that.

There’s a general election coming this year and I can guarantee you the electorate will give the Conservative party an almighty thumping, show them the door, and they deserve nothing less.

The Scottish Greens have also held a press briefing following the collapose of their power-sharing agreement with the SNP. Lorna Slater, the party’s co-leader, said “future generations of Scotland have been betrayed” by Humza Yousaf’s decison.

Asked if she had been betrayed, she replied:

I think the future generations of Scotland have been betrayed. The progressive policies that Greens are working towards were about creating a longstanding vision for a greener and fairer Scotland. And now anything we see brought to the chamber will be watered down, delayed, underfunded. It’s a worse future for Scotland.

And here is the full text of the statement Slater issued earlier.

She said it was wrong for Yousaf to end the pact unilaterally, in a “weak and thoroughly hopeless way”, when it would have been more democratic to let Scottish Green party members vote on it.

And she contrasted Yousaf’s stance with the position taken by her and her co-leader, Patrick Harvie. She said:

We as co-leaders of the Scottish Greens were prepared to put our own political careers on the line with our members, to defend our achievements in government, despite enduring all that SNP backbenchers and others threw against us.

Here are the main lines from what Humza Yousaf said at his news conference. But what the reporters were saying was probably just as interesting too. One of the reasons why I often report press conferences in full, covering the questions as much as the answers, is because from the questions you can guage how an event is likely to end up being reported in the papers the following day. Yousaf rejected the claim that his U-turn on the pact with the Scottish Greens was a sign of weakness, but that did not stop the question from being put repeatedly. The tone of the exchanges implied that the Scottish papers (which are not over-favourable to the SNP at the best of times) won’t make pleasant reading for Yousaf tomorrow.

• Yousaf said he was ending the power-sharing pact with the Scottish Greens (the Bute House agreement) because he felt it had “served its purpose”. He explained:

Cooperation in any sphere of life is almost, by definition, a trade off – one in which the benefits of working together are held up against the limitations of compromise.

And when it comes to our the agreement with the Scottish Green party, I believe that the benefits have outweighed the compromises. When I said that the agreement was worth its weight in gold, I meant it.

However, it is now my judgment that the balance has shifted.

The Bute House Agreement was intended to provide stability to the Scottish government, and it has made possible a number of achievements. But it has served its purpose.

It is no longer guaranteeing a stable arrangement in parliament. The events of recent days have made that clear.

Therefore, after careful consideration, I believe that going forward, it is in the best interests of the people of Scotland to pursue a different arrangement.

• He said that he expected the SNP to continue to cooperate with the Scottish Greens, but in a “less formal” way. He said that governing as a minority government would be “tough”. He also said the SNP would work with other opposition parties. They needed to “step up, he said. In his opening statement he said:

In essence, I hope that we will still be cooperating [with the Scottish Greens] but just returning to, frankly, a less formal arrangement …

We will now step up over ambition, but we will do so as a minority government. That will be tough. We will seek to work not just for the Scottish Greens, but with MSPs from across the chamber.

The SNP has, of course, governed as a minority for most of our time in office and, having served as a minister for a number of years during that time, I’m well used to working constructively with opposition parties where necessary secure parliamentary support.

It was, of course, under that agrement that some of our biggest successes in government were achieved.

And in response to a question, he said:

There’s a serious challenge here to the opposition too. They cannot simply oppose for the sake of opposing. They have to work constructively in order to make sure that we continue as a parliament to achieve for the people of Scotland.

So instead of sniping from the sidelines, as they often do, not coming with anything useful in terms of suggestion, now it’s time for the opposition to also step up.

• He rejected claims that his decision to abandon the pact with the Greens just 48 hours after he was saying he wanted it to continue was a sign of weakness. Instead, he claimed he was showing leadership. (See 10.25am.)

• He said that he had been considering ending the pact “for quite some time”, but that he kept defending the Bute House agreement in public because he was reflecting on the matter in private. Asked what changed between now and Tuesday, when he was saying he wanted the deal to continue, he replied:

I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time but, of course, you’d understand that for me it was important to take some of that counsel in private. I’ve been speaking to people that I trust, I’ve been reflecting myself very hard, and often with careful consideration, on what is in the best interests of the country, the government and, importantly and crucially, my party.

• He denied ending the pact himself just because he did not want to let Scottish Green party members vote to end it first. (See 10.30am.)

Royal assent has been granted to the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act, the Lord McFall, the Lord Speaker, has told the House of Lords.

That means it is now law.

Q: Aren’t you doing this because it is better to do the breaking up yourself than be dumped? (The Scottish Greens were planning to have a vote of members on whether to continue the pact.)

“I wouldn’t know,” Yousaf jokes.

He says he does not know how Scottish Green members were going to vote.

Q: Does this U-turn show you are weak? [This is the argument the Scottish Tories are making – see 9.54am.]

Yousaf replied:

Quite the opposite. It shows leadership.

As the leader of the government, leader of the party that elected me, I’ve got to make sure I do what’s in the best interest of Scotland.

Yousaf says as leader of the government he has to decide how best it can make changes.

For almost three years the SNP had done that throught its agreement with the Scottish Greens. That deal has “undoubtedly” delivered some successes.

But he says, in almost any walk of life, cooperation is a trade-off.

He says, when he said the deal was worth its weight in gold, he meant it.

But he says that is no longer the case. He goes on:

The balance has shifted. The Bute House agreement was intended to provide stability to the Scottish government. And it’s made possible a number of achievements. But it has served its purpose.

Yousaf says the deal was no longer providing stability in parliament.

He says he has told the Scottish Greens he is terminating it with immediate effect.

In the future, the two parties will still cooperate, but in a less formal way, he says.

Humza Yousaf, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, is holding a press conference now.

He says he has been in the post for little more than a year.

When he took over, he said he was committed to ensuring every family had equality of opportunity, and to promoting measures to encourage growth, and to improve well being.

He says his policies are making a difference.

We are investing record [sums in the NHS], ensuring it can employ record numbers of staff delivering the best performing A&E units in UK. We are, of course, the only part of the UK to avoid strike action in NHS. I’ve delivered the council tax freeze this year in every local authority, helping families …

And last week we approved plans for Europe’s largest floating offshore wind farm. These are just some of the actions that are making Scotland a better country.

The Tories are claiming the end of the pact with the Scottish Greens is “an utter humiliation” for Humza Yousaf. The Scottish Conservative chair, Craig Hoy, has put out this statement.

The collapse of this toxic coalition is an utter humiliation for Humza Yousaf, who hailed it as ‘worth its weight in gold’ and continued to back it to the hilt right until the end.

The first minister’s judgment is so poor that he couldn’t see what a malign influence the anti-growth Greens have been in government and his authority so weak that he was bounced into this U-turn by his own MSPs.

It beggars belief that the Greens were invited into government in the first place – but even more astonishing that Humza Yousaf allowed them to call the shots on issues like abandoning oil and gas, further delays to dualling the A9 and A96, devastating fishing curbs and gender ideology.

Humza Yousaf’s year as SNP leader has been a disastrous mix of scandals, infighting and policy U-turns. The collapse of the power-sharing pact he staked his reputation on is not just humiliating, it highlights once again how inept and out his depth he is.

Lorna Slater, one of the co-leaders of the Scottish Greens, has confirmed that the power-sharing agreement with the SNP is over.

In a statement, she said the SNP’s decision to end the deal, without allowing party members a say, was ‘an act of political cowardice”.

Good morning. Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, has reportedly abandoned the SNP’s power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens. He called an emergency meeting of his cabinet this morning, and the co-leaders of the Scottish Greens, Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie, who were ministers, were seen leaving soon afterwards. Yousaf reportedly sacked them, and plans to run a minority administration.

Yousaf has not publicly confirmed this yet, but a press conference is expected later.

This is from PA Media with some background.

The Greens were angered when the Scottish net zero Secretary Mairi McAllan announced last week the Scottish government was to ditch a key climate change target.

That, combined with the decision to pause the use of puberty blockers for new patients attending the only Scottish gender identity clinic for children in Glasgow, resulted in the Greens saying last week that they would have a vote on the future of the powersharing deal.

That vote is expected to take place later on in May – but it now appears the SNP could end the Bute House Agreement before that.

The deal, which was signed in 2021 and is named after the official residence of the Scottish first minister in Edinburgh, brought the Green party into government for the first time anywhere in the UK.

It gave the SNP a majority at Holyrood when the votes of its MSPs were combined with those of the seven Greens members, and also made Greens co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater junior ministers in the Scottish government.

Without it the SNP would need to operate as a minority administration at Holyrood.

High-profile figures in the SNP, such as former leadership candidate Kate Forbes and party stalwart Fergus Ewing, have previously called for the deal to be ended.

We will have more on this as the situation develops.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, gives a speech setting out details of Labour’s plans to nationalise the rail network.

9.30am: The ONS publishes crime figures for England and Wales.

9.45am: Angela van den Bogerd, the former Post Office people services director, gives evidence to the Post Office Horizon inquiry. She is seen as one of the most important Post Office executives to give evidence so far because of the key role she played in defending the prosecutions of post officer operators.

11am: An announcement is expected in the Lords confirming that the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill has received royal assent.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Lunchtime: James Cleverly, the home secretary, is speaking at a press gallery lunch at Westminster.

Early afternoon: Keir Starmer is on a visit to a rail manufacturing plan in the north-east of England.

Also, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, is in Mongolia on the latest stage of his trip to Central Asia.

If you want to contact me, do use the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.