Latest updates: prime minister due to give update on ‘progress’ on plans to ‘stop the boats’ as Iain Duncan Smith asks why people have not been removed
Government WhatsApp groups were never used to make important decisions during Covid and instead relayed information and discussed coffee orders, James Bethell, a former health minister, has argued. Peter Walker has the story here.
Good morning. Rishi Sunak is giving a speech in Kent this morning and taking questions from journalists. According to No 10, he will be “deliver an update on his plan to stop the boats and the progress we have made over the last six months” (since he made his statement to MPs in December about his plans to “stop the boats”). But the reporters will have lots of other topics to ask him about, such as his government’s legal action against the Covid inquiry.
The prime minister will cite a sharp decline in the number of Albanians arriving as evidence that a tough stance on deportations will deter illegal migrants.
The numbers are down from around 30 per cent of Channel arrivals last year to one or two per cent in the first four months of this year.
