PMQs live: Dominic Raab faces Angela Rayner as Boris Johnson attends Nato summit | Politics

PMQs is about to start. Boris Johnson is in Madrid for the Nato summit, and so today Dominic Raab, the deputy PM, is standing in for him. Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, will be deputising for Keir Starmer.

The government might review the benefit cap between now and April next year in light of the cost-of-living crisis, Thérése Coffey, the work and pensions seceretary has told MPs. PA Media reports:

Asked by the work and pensions committee if the level of the cap might change in light of “rapidly rising costs”, the minister said: “We do have this statutory duty – I think I’ve had some advice because now we no longer have the Fixed-term Parliaments Act on exact timing – I’m slightly concerned as to whether we have a real reflection of life, but I’m getting some advice on that.”

Asked again if the government might review the cap, Coffey replied: “Yes, we may. I just want to make sure it’s as normal a landscape as possible.”

More than 120,000 households are already affected by the benefit cap, which was introduced in April 2013 and limits how much individuals, couples and families can claim.

It was initially set at £26,000 per year, and £18,200 per year for single adults with no children, but reduced to £20,000/£13,400 nationally, and £23,000/£15,410 in Greater London, which is where it remains.

A further 35,000 people are expected to fall into the bracket this year, leading campaigners to call on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to abolish it.

Britain is imposing sanctions on Russia’s second richest man and a cousin of the president, Vladimir Putin, in the latest round of measures targeting allies of the Russian leader, PA Media reports. PA says:

Among those sanctioned are Vladimir Potanin – Russia’s second richest man and owner of the Interross conglomerate – and Mr Putin’s cousin, Anna Tsivileva, who is president of the JSC Kolmar Group coal mining company, the government has announced.

The government is also sanctioning a group of Russian individuals and companies for their involvement in repressing civilians and supporting the Assad regime in Syria.

A government spokesman said: “As long as Putin continues his abhorrent assault on Ukraine, we will use sanctions to weaken the Russian war machine. Today’s sanctions show that nothing and no-one is off the table, including Putin’s inner circle.”

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has said she agrees with Boris Johnson about “toxic masculinity” being part of the explanation for Vladimir Putin’s conduct.

Asked about the PM’s comment (see 10.01am), Sturgeon told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that “Putin is a war criminal and a war monger”, adding “toxic masculinity is very much part and parcel of that, so I agree with that”.

She went on:

I also do perhaps unusually agree with Boris Johnson that the world would be a better place if there more women in positions of leaders.

Not that women don’t make mistakes but I do think women tend to bring perhaps a bit more common sense and emotional intelligence and more of a reasoned approach to decisions.

Sturgeon then went on to contrast her approach to obeying the law with Johnson’s.

Take the difference between me and Boris Johnson on the big matters of the constitution. He is breaking the law to renege on the Northern Ireland protocol, I am being very clear that any vote on independence has to be lawful.

More women in leadership would be a good thing, including in the UK, so maybe it is another reason why he should do the right thing and step aside.

Yesterday Sturgeon announced her new strategy for obtaining, or trying to obtain, a second independence referendum, which relies on getting a ruling from the supreme court that Holyrood can legislate for a poll even if Westminster says no. Our overnight story on her move is here.

Johnson says Nato expansion shows Putin has been proved ‘completely wrong’

Peter Walker

Arriving for the first day of the Nato summit in Madrid, Boris Johnson said the likely accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance had shown again the miscalculation of Russia in invading Ukraine. He said:

The first lesson really from today is that if Vladimir Putin was hoping he would be getting less Nato on his western front as a result of his unprovoked, illegal invasion of Ukraine he’s been proved completely wrong – he’s getting more Nato.

This is a historic summit in many ways, but we’ve already got two new members coming in, Finland and Sweden, a huge step forward for our alliance.

And what we’re going to be doing now is talking about what more we can do as an alliance to support the Ukrainians, but what we also need to do to make sure that we think about the lessons of the last few months and the need for Nato to revise its posture on its eastern flank.

Boris Johnson told a German broadcaster yesterday that Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he had been a woman. Nadeem Badshah has the story here.

This might not be the most profound geopolitical insight to come from a British prime minister, although that does not mean Johnson is entirely wrong.

On LBC this morning Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, was asked if he agreed. He said he did not want to get into this debate, but he then went on to offer his own assessment of Putin’s psyche. The Russian president suffered from “small man syndrome”, Wallace said. He went on:

You rarely hear the phrase small woman syndrome, you always hear small man syndrome. I think he’s certainly got it in spades.

Putin is reportedly 5ft 7in.

But Wallace did cast doubt on the theory that women are unlikely to be warmongers, citing Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, as evidence to support his point. In the course of this answer he also called Putin a “lunatic”. He told LBC:

To be fair there is that lady, the spokeswoman in the ministry of foreign affairs, she’s like a comedy turn, she does her statement every week, threatening to nuke everyone or doing something or another. She’s definitely a woman … She’s a lunatic like [Putin] is, so I’ll leave it to that.

Truss says invading Taiwan would be ‘catastrophic miscalculation’ for China

Peter Walker

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has told the Nato summit that invading Taiwan would be “a catastrophic miscalculation” by China, arguing that the UK and other countries should reconsider their trading relationships with countries that used their economic power in “coercive” ways.

Speaking at the panel meeting alongside Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, and Alexander De Croo, the Belgian prime minister, Truss said:

I do think that with China extending its influence through economic coercion and building a capable military, there is a real risk that they draw the wrong idea that results in a catastrophic miscalculation such as invading Taiwan.

With China expanding its strategic ambitions, Truss, said, Nato needed to expand its strategic concept – its core mission last updated in 2010 and due to be revamped at this summit in Madrid – to specifically reference China.

The G7 countries and nations like Australia should use their “economic weight” to challenge China, she said – adding that countries like the UK could even rethink their approach to trade with Beijing. She explained:

I think historically we haven’t used that economic power. We’ve been equidistant, if you like, about who we trade with, who we work with. And I think countries are becoming much more focused now on, is this trade with trust, do we trust this partner? Are they going to use it to undermine us, or are they going to use it for the mutual benefit of both of our economies? So trade has got a lot more geopolitical.

UPDATE: Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story about Truss’s comments.

Good morning. Boris Johnson is at the Nato summit in Madrid today, and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has been doing the morning interview round. The Daily Telegraph splashes today on a story saying Boris Johnson faces a cabinet split over defence spending. It says:

The Telegraph can reveal that Downing Street intervened to water down calls for higher defence expenditure from Ben Wallace in a speech delivered on Tuesday.

Mr Wallace, the Defence Secretary, was due to argue that spending just two per cent of GDP on defence was outdated. However, the line was removed at Number 10’s request.

Downing Street was said to have been left “furious” by what was seen as an attempt to bounce Mr Johnson into announcing a major defence spending increase while at the Nato summit this week.

This morning Wallace claimed the story was based on a misunderstanding. Some words were taken out of the speech, he admitted. But that was not because the PM disagreed with them, but because the PM wanted to say them himself, Wallace said. He told Times Radio:

There were some words in my speech that were taken out because the prime minister is going to say them today.

I think the centre just wanted to make sure that he said it before the defence secretary said it. It is perfectly legitimate. It was his words. There is nothing conspiracy in it, I’m afraid.

Wallace also restated his call for defence spending to rise. He told Sky News:

In the here and now we are rightly set. The question is what happens in the middle of the decade.

My settlement was done before Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is very, very dangerous on the world stage. The world is less secure than it was two, three years ago and is not looking likely to change for the rest of the decade.

That is the moment, in the middle of the decade, to say we should commit to increased funding.

While there is broad agreement in cabinet that defence spending should increase, views do seem to be split over quite what the rise should be, and how it should be presented. One issue is defence spending as a share of GDP; another is the Tory manifesto promise to increase defence spending at least 0.5% above inflation. In their overnight story, my colleagues Peter Walker and Dan Sabbagh explain what has been happening.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Boris Johnson attends the official opening of the Nato summit in Madrid. The summit will continue throughout the day.

9.30am: The Commons privileges committee meets in private to start planning its inquiry into whether Boris Johnson lied to MPs about Partygate. Harriet Harman is expected to be elected as the committee’s chair.

9.45am: Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee.

10am: Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international trade secretary, gives evidence to the Commons international trade committee about about the trade deal with Australia.

10.30am: Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, gives a speech to the Local Government Association annual conference.

12pm: Dominic Raab, the deputy PM, faces Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, at PMQs.

12.45pm: Sajid Javid, the health secretary, gives a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank on digital transformation in healthcare.

2.15pm: George Eustice, the environment secretary, gives evidence to the Commons environmental audit committee.

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