Minister dismisses ‘two-tier justice’ claim in light of Henry Nowak tragedy as ‘slur’ on police – UK politics live

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Good morning. The most interesting event of the day may well turn out to be one taking place late tonight, when Andy Burnham, the Labour candidate for Makerfield and potential next PM, takes part in a BBC byelection Question Times special. Yesterday Burnham said that at some point today he would give a more considered response to the Henry Nowak murder, and the issues it has raised about policing and race equality. It is not clear yet whether we will get that response on QT, or before.

But this morning the government seems to be firming up its opposition to those claiming that what happened to Nowak was evidence of “two-tier justice”. Reform UK is the main party using this phrase, but some Tories have made the same argument. Yesterday Keir Starmer said he did not accept that Britain has two-tier policing. This morning Lucy Rigby, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has been doing an interview round, and she told Sky News this allegation was a “slur” on the police. Asked about the claim, she said:

double quotation markFundamentally, I think that is a slur on the thousands of police officers that go out to work every day, putting themselves in harm’s way to serve the public, to try and prevent crime, and to keep us all safe.

The suggestion that we have two-tier policing, which suggests at its heart that the police are on a sort of systemic basis pushing the interests of one group above another – I genuinely think is a slur on all those police officers that are serving this country day and night, seven days a week.

Here is our overnight story on the Nowak controversy, by Vikram Dodd, Peter Walker and Steven Morris.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

9.30am: The Department for Education publishes annual figures on the number of pupils and staff in schools.