A Tory minister has been slammed on social media after she gave a bizarre answer on when deportation flights to Rwanda will eventually take off.
Laura Trott insisted planes taking asylum seekers to the east African country will be in the air in the spring – then refused to say when that was.
The awkward exchange took place on Sky News this morning as MPs and peers prepare for another day of wrangling over Rishi Sunak’s flagship Safety of Rwanda Bill.
Peers last night passed four more amendments watering down the controversial legislation, but those changes will be defeated in the House of Commons later today as the parliamentary “ping-pong” over the bill continues.
Presenter Kay Burley asked Trott: “Who is going to fly these people to Rwanda?”
The Treasury minister replied: “We are working on operationalising this, but we’re not going to go into details on how we’re going to do that.
“We will be ready for flights to take off in the spring, when the legislation passes.”
Burley then asked her: “When does spring mean to you? We’re cantering towards May now.”
Laughing, Trott replied: “Well there’s lots of definitions of spring, but we’re hoping to get them up and running as quickly as possible.”
The minister’s answer did not land well with users of X (formerly Twitter).
The chief secretary to the Treasury repeated Conservative claims that her party is reducing the amount people are being taxed – despite clear evidence to the contrary.
Kuenssberg told Trott: “It’s very important that you are clear about the overall picture here.
″The overall picture for our viewers is that the tax burden is going up and up and up and up.”
But the minister said: “That’s actually not true. For people on average wages, their taxes would have been cut by about £1,000 on average since 2010.
“For some of the highest earners, we have asked them to take on more of the burden.”
Kuenssberg replied: “You know, and our viewers will have seen and heard on many occasions, taxes are going to reach a post-war high.
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“The overall tax burden is going up. Shouldn’t you just be straight with people?”
Trott said: “I am being straight. If you are on an average income, because of the tax changes that we’ve made, your tax burden will have gone down quite significantly.”
Kuenssberg hit back: “You are going to bring some taxes down, but the overall tax burden is going up – I want people to understand that clearly.”
The former judge on TV’s Dragon’s Den hit out at the Conservative politician for attacking Labour party policies when asked to explain why her government was failing on immigration.
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He later literally put his head in his hands as Trott struggled to explain how her party would keep migration numbers down after 13 years in power.
<img class="img-sized__img landscape" loading="lazy" alt="Fiona Bruce, Laura Trott and Theo Paphitis on BBC Question Time, which this week came from Gravesend.” width=”719″ height=”470″ src=”https://www.wellnessmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/laura-trott-leaves-frustrated-theo-paphitis-head-in-hands-on-question-time-1.jpg”>
Fiona Bruce, Laura Trott and Theo Paphitis on BBC Question Time, which this week came from Gravesend.
BBC Question Time
In a major embarrassment for Rishi Sunak, the Office for National Statistics show 606,000 more people entered the country than left it in 2022.
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That is up from the estimated 504,000 it was at in the year to June 2022.
At the last election, the Tories promised to bring immigration down from the 226,000 it was then.
Ministers have insisted that the war in Ukraine, as well as the political upheaval in Hong Kong, has played a major part in the surge in numbers coming to Britain.
Theo Paphitis destroying Laura Trott at every opportunity is hilarious #bbcqt
On Question Time, in response to the first question on the show – What is the right level of immigration? – Trott essayed the Ukraine and Hong Kong influx and said that the Tories have “got a plan to bring immigration down”, including the small boats crackdown.
She added: “The last thing I’ll say is you can’t trust Labour on this one. They went into the last election saying they wanted freedom of movement. As recently as 2020, Keir Starmer said he wanted to defend free movement.”
When it came to Paphitis, he said: “I’ve never been (so) disappointed when a politician comes on, gets asked a question, and the first thing they do rather than answering a question is attack the opposition. It was a question that needed an answer.”
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Hats off @TheoPaphitis for tolerating #Sevenoaks Tory MP Laura Trott talking utter drivel – & making excuses for 13 years of Tory catastrophic failures.
Later, when discussing the same question, host Fiona Bruce asked Trott repeatedly who currently on work visas would the Conservative government prefer not to be coming to the UK.
“It’s really important we have more training for people in the UK,” said Trott, who would only point to lorry drivers as an example, which a frustrated Bruce suggested would not make much of a dent in the 606,000 figure.
When Trott said “I would like lots of jobs to be done by British people …” after the fifth time of asking, she was interrupted by Bruce who said: “(Paphitis) has got his head in his hands so we’re not getting anywhere.”
This week’s programme came from Gravesend in Kent. The other panellists were Labour’s Peter Kyle, Munira Wilson of the Lib Dems and journalist Janet Street-Porter.
