Report into Dominic Raab bullying allegations expected to be published today – UK politics live

Key events

ASCL teaching union to ballot members nationally on strike action for first time

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has said it will hold a formal ballot for national strike action in England for the first time in its history “over the school funding crisis, the erosion of teacher and leader pay and conditions, and consequent staff shortages which are undermining the education system”.

The union’s executive committee of senior elected members met yesterday afternoon and unanimously decided to move to a formal ballot on strike action, PA Media reports.

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the ASCL, said:

ASCL has never before formally balloted at a national level and this is clearly a very significant step. The fact that we have reached this point reflects the desperate situation regarding inadequate funding, long-term pay erosion, teacher shortages, and the intransigence of a government which we can only conclude does not value the education workforce or recognise the severe pressures facing the sector.

We have made every effort to resolve this matter through negotiations prior to reaching this point. Unfortunately, the government’s offer has failed to sufficiently address pay and conditions, and, critically, did not provide enough funding for even the meagre proposal it put forward. Following the rejection of the offer by all education unions involved – ASCL, NAHT, NEU and NASUWT – the government has made no effort to reopen negotiations and has said only that the issue of pay will now revert to the school teachers’ review body.

The conclusion of the executive committee is that the government has left us with no option other than to conduct a formal ballot for national strike action.

The ballot will be held during the summer term at a date to be decided and if members opt to strike, the union said action would be expected to take place during the autumn term of the next school year, PA reports.

In an article for its website, Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, says most people in government assume Dominic Raab will resign, or be sacked, when the report into the bullying allegations about him is published. Mason says:

Speaking to senior folk in government privately, most assume that Mr Raab – who is also justice secretary – is “toast” as one figure put it to me.

“The breadth of this, the number of people complaining, surely he can’t survive?” said another.

“He’s got to be done for, so many people think he’s a nightmare,” one minister told me.

“How does he go home to his wife and kids when there have been so many headlines about him about this stuff?” another said. “To his credit, mind you, he manages to. He’s been getting on with things.”

Plan to let UK ignore European court injunctions blocking migrant deportations could be defeated in Lords, peer suggests

The government’s illegal migration bill, which will stop people arriving in the UK illegally from ever claiming asylum here and allow them to be detained and deported, was already billed as the toughest piece of immigration legislation introduced for decades. Now it is about to get tougher.

The bill is due to have its final day of debate in the Commons next week and, according to a report by Matt Dathan in the Times which has been confirmed by government sources, the government will accept two amendments that would significantly tighten its already-draconian provisions (which ministers have accepted might prove incompatible with the European convention on human rights). Dathan writes:

The government has agreed to amend its illegal migration bill to allow ministers to ignore interim injunctions from the European court of human rights that attempt to stop a deportation flight. Known as rule 39 orders, they have been branded “pyjama injunctions” by Conservative MPs after a judge from the Strasbourg court suspended the first scheduled deportation flight to Rwanda last June late at night.

The government had previously only committed itself to introducing the power to ignore last-minute injunctions if ministers failed to persuade the Strasbourg court to reform rule 39 orders.

A second concession offered to the rebels will also prevent UK courts from granting injunctions to stop migrants being deported, apart from in very limited circumstances. The Home Office has agreed to amend the bill to ensure that the only way in which a migrant who arrives illegally can avoid being removed from the UK will be by proving they face a “real risk of serious and irreversible harm” in the territory to which they are being deported.

These amendments are a concession to around 60 Tory backbenchers, led by Danny Kruger and Sir Bill Cash, who want to stop the government being constrained by the ECHR. It is thought that Suella Braverman, the home secretary, largely supports what they are trying to do.

Another group of Tories on the liberal wing of the party have been calling for amendments to the bill to protect child migrants and establish more safe and legal routes for asylum seekers hoping to come to the UK. According to Dathan, there will be a concession to them too. He reports:

The Home Office is expected to bring forward an amendment that would commit it to publishing its plan for new legal routes for refugees within six months of the bill passing into law. It is also about to make a commitment to introduce stringent safeguards to protect unaccompanied child refugees.

Rajeev Syal and Nadeem Badshah have more on the concessions here.

This morning Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, a former lord chief justice and a crossbench member of the House of Lords, said that allowing the government to ignore rule 39 orders would be an “immensely serious step” and one that “sets an extraordinarily bad example”.

These interim injunctions do not “in any way detract from the importance of a judgment being made by a court”, he said in an interview with the Today programme.

Thomas said that, when the bill went to the Lords, peers were likely to object this provision because it would amount to allowing the government to ignore the rule of law. He told Today.

Many people would say having the power to ignore a court order is something – unless the circumstances were quite extraordinary – this is a step a government should never take because it is symbolic of a breach of the rule of law.

Report into Dominic Raab bullying allegations expected to be published today

Good morning. After months of waiting, Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, seems likely to find out today whether he will be sacked over the claims that he bullied civil servants. The outcome of the investigation into those allegations is expected to be published today, alongside the decision from Rishi Sunak as to what will happen next.

As Aubrey Allegretti, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report, if Raab is cleared, some civil servants working in the Ministry of Justice are expected to resign.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s chief executive, gives evidene to the Commons public accounts committee on improving mental health services

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Noon: Humza Yousaf takes first minister’s questions at Holyrood.

Keir Starmer is in Belfast.

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