Sunak Greenpeace row: Security for PM called into question after activists climb his Yorkshire home

Questions have been raised about the prime minister’s security arrangements after Greenpeace activists scaled his home in protest at new fossil fuels drilling, our policy correspondent Jon Stone reports.

Health minister Maria Caulfield said on Friday that it would not be “responsible” for her to comment on Rishi Sunak’s security arrangements, as police said there was “no threat to the wider public” from the demonstration.

But former home secretary Priti Patel urged her successor Suella Braverman to launch an immediate review into the PM’s security arrangements.

“This raises some very serious questions around how the home of a sitting prime minister has been accessed in this way, to the extent that political campaigners and activists have been able to trespass on his property and physically gain access,” she told the Daily Mail newspaper.

And former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said he believed security “doesn’t seem to know how to protect the house of the Prime Minister”, adding: “There has to be an inquiry into what the hell was going on.”

Greenpeace has said it planned its protest “carefully and meticulously” and would not have done it if Rishi Sunak was there.

“It was an empty home, the fact that he wasn’t there was actually national news, everybody knows that he wasn’t there,” said Ms Hamid.

“We made sure, in fact we wouldn’t have done it if he was there because our intention was to draw attention to the fact that what he’s doing on climate is actually a big disaster, rather than to talk about his family or where he lives, so that was the entire point.

“Security is a big part of whatever we do, we planned it carefully and meticulously, we knew he wasn’t going to be there.

“We knocked on the door to make sure that there was nobody there, initially there was no response, then we got a response, we told them who we were. So this was quite a peaceful, calm thing to make a very important point.”

A Conservative government minister has appeared to concede that Labour will win the next election during an appearance on TV news.

Maria Caulfield was accused of a “poor choice of words” after seemingly painting a Labour victory at the next election as an inevitability.

Speaking on Sky News the health minister said people would be afraid of what Labour would do “when they get into government”.

Our policy correspondent Jon Stone has more:

Sadiq Khan’s announcement of financial support to ease the impact of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) has “not touched the sides”, a health minister has said.

Maria Caulfield told Sky News: “I don’t think it touched the sides of people’s concerns. I think he’s reacting to why Labour didn’t win the Uxbridge by-election. £2,000 is nothing if you’re having to replace your car.”

The security of MPs is “always a concern”, health minister Maria Caulfield has said, when asked about protesters targeting Rishi Sunak’s home.

Ms Caulfield told LBC’s Nick Ferrari: “MPs overall do have security concerns.

“We’re coming up in October to two years since our good colleague Sir David Amess was murdered, so yes, security around MPs is always a concern.”

Health minister Maria Caulfield has claimed that people are worried about what will happen with London’s ultra-low emission zone “when [Labour] get into government”.

She was picked up on the apparent mistake by Sky News presenter Anna Jones, who said: “You said when Labour get into government, I assume you mean if they get into government?”

“Well absolutely, that’s the concern that people have,” Ms Caulfield replied.

People should be “proud” of the Greenpeace protest on the roof of Rishi Sunak’s constituency manor house, a climate activist from another campaign group has said.

Jon Fuller, of Extinction Rebellion, told LBC: “I do think it is a very, very sad situation we’ve got ourselves into here where this actually happens and people feel that it’s necessary.”

He added: “We are seeing an awful lot of damage being done to property because of climate change. So people are going to get frightened, young people are very frightened indeed.

“They see on the government’s website this message of adapt or die, and they see the government isn’t adapting, so that fear just grows and grows. So what are people supposed to do? I think we should be proud of them because they’re not violent.”

“Unsackable” Jeremy Hunt looks set to stay as chancellor as Rishi Sunak eyes a Cabinet reshuffle while striving desperately to cut inflation eating into cash-strapped households’ budgets.

Mr Sunak is understood to be weighing up whether to “signpost” future tax cuts in the autumn – being aware of the need for a significant “gear change” despite being insistent that there will be no tax cuts this year, the paper reports.

Talk of a reshuffle first began in the run-up to last month’s triple by-election challenge sparked by Boris Johnson’s exit from parliament. The Tories lost two of three seats after defence secretary Ben Wallace announced his intention to leave politics at the next election.

Mr Sunak is expected to make limited changes, according to The Times, which links Michael Gove to the role of health secretary and reports that the PM is keen to promote “rising stars” to the lower ranks of ministers of state, in an attempt to build a new-look “election-ready” Cabinet.

Mr Sunak, the MP for nearby Richmond, this week announced plans to “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves by granting more than 100 new licences for extraction in the North Sea.

Protester Alex Wilson, who lives in Newcastle with her partner, who was also on the roof, released a video message from the scene of the protest, saying: “We’re all here because Rishi Sunak has opened the door to a new drilling frenzy in the North Sea while large parts of our world are literally on fire.

“This will be a disaster for the climate.”

On the ground, Greenpeace UK climate campaigner Philip Evans defended the action at the Prime Minister’s family home.

He told the PA news agency the group had knocked on the door when they arrived and said “this is a peaceful protest”, but there was no answer.

Asked whether it was intrusive to target someone’s home, Mr Evans said: “This is the Prime Minister. He is the one that was standing in Scotland going to drill for every last drop of oil while the world is burning.”

Peter Walker, who stepped down as North Yorkshire Police’s deputy chief constable in 2003, said he was “absolutely astonished” the protesters gained access to the house, as he called for an investigation.

He told LBC radio: “It is clearly in my view a major breach of security.”

A group of Greenpeace activists arrested following an anti-oil protest on the roof of Rishi Sunak’s constituency manor house have been released while inquiries continue, police have said.

North Yorkshire Police, who have come under criticism following the security breach at the Prime Minister’s grade II-listed mansion in Kirby Sigston on Thursday, said their investigation “remains ongoing”.

The campaigners draped his home with an oil-black fabric to protest against the Government’s plans to allow licences to be granted for further development of North Sea oil and gas.

They scaled the roof of his home at about 8am on Thursday, while Mr Sunak, his wife and children were on holiday in California, and stayed up until around 1.15pm, when they were arrested.

The force said: “All five suspects who were arrested following the protest in Kirby Sigston on August 3 have been released on conditional police bail to allow for further inquiries to be carried out.

“The investigation remains ongoing.”

Assistant Chief Constable Elliot Foskett said: “There was no threat to the wider public throughout this incident, which has now been brought to a safe conclusion.”

But a former deputy chief constable from the force said it was a “major breach of security”, as he called for an “investigation into how this has been allowed to happen”.