Humza Yousaf says he’s ‘very confident’ of winning no confidence vote and he will ‘compromise’ with critics – as it happened

• Humza Yousaf has said he will not resign as Scottish first minister after 24 hours of intense speculation about his leadership. In a series of media interviews, he insisted he was confident of retaining his position when MSPs vote on his future next week, while also insisting that he wanted to reach an accommodation with his critics. Yousaf faces two votes next week; after the Tories yesterday said they were tabling a no confidence motion in Yousaf personally, Labour today said they were tabling one in the government as a whole. Arguably this is more serious, because Yousaf and his government would be legally obliged to resign if they lost this one, and it could force an early election. But with Alba, whose one MSP holds the swing vote in parliament, opposed to the Labour motion, it seems unlikely to pass. With some MSPs claiming he will never be able to recover the authority he needs to lead his party, the personal no confidence vote poses more of a threat and Ash Regan, the Alba MSP, has indicated that she expects substantial concessions if Yousaf wants to get her vote. (See 3.55pm.)

• More than 150,000 unpaid carers are facing huge fines for minor rule breaches, figures show, as MPs, charities and campaigners demand an immediate amnesty.

• Downing Street has said it is “too early” to say whether the Rwanda Act is having a deterrent effect. (See 12.43pm.) No 10 was responding to reports that Micheál Martin, the Irish tánaiste (deputy PM), has blamed it for asylum seekers travelling to Ireland from Northern Ireland.

Ash Regan, the Alba party MSP, may be raising the price Humza Yousaf will have to pay to secure her support in the no confidence vote next week. In a letter released this morning she focused on Scottish independence, protection for women, and governance issues. (See 9.50am.)

Now, according to PA Media, Regan has suggested investment in the Grangemouth refinery could be a price of her support for Yousaf in the confidence vote. As PA reports, in a letter to party members Regan said investment in the refinery – due to shut as early as next year and shift to an import and export terminal – would be a key demand for her support for Yousaf. Alba has launched a campaign to sustain jobs at the refinery.

Regan said:

A sign of good faith would be a significant government investment, reinforcing the campaign to save the Grangemouth refinery from closure.

I am requesting the undertaking to produce such an initiative in the early course.

I am hopeful that the first minister will commit to such an initiative in the near future as a sign of our shared dedication to Scotland’s welfare.

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Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, has said that his party will support Labour’s motion expressing no confidence in the Scottish government. He told Times Radio:

I want to remove the entire Scottish government. They have been focused on independence above everything else. Our health service has suffered, our education system has suffered, our funding for local government has been cut to the bone, all while the SNP have obsessed about independence above the priorities of people across Scotland.

But Ross also suggested that, because the Scottish Greens have not said they will back the Labour no confidence motion, it would fail. Ross suggested that the Conservative no confidence motion, into Humza Yousaf personally, had a better chance of success. He said:

Ultimately we are on the brink of removing Humza Yousaf from office. He has been a failure as first minister and we have an opportunity next week to end his time in office.

Even if the Scottish Greens did back the Labour motion, it does not seem likely to pass because Alba is opposed. (See 12.02pm.)

Humza Yousaf hasn’t ruled out calling an early Holyrood election as a means of resolving the leadership crisis, Kathryn Samson from Channel 4 News reports.

The First Minister insist he’s fighting on ahead of next week’s expected confidence vote.

I asked if he wanted to test his leadership on the public rather than on parliament by calling for an early Holyrood election.

He told me he hadn’t ruled that out.

For an early election to happen, two thirds of MSPs would have to vote in favour. That means Yousaf would need SNP MSPs to vote in favour, which might be hard because polling suggests many of them would lose their seats.

Alternatively, an early election would take place if the first minister resigned and after 28 days MSPs were still unable to elect a new one.

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Although Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, is holding out an olive branch of sorts to the Scottish Greens today (see 2.10pm and 2.17pm), Tom Gordon from the Herald cannot see it working.

Can’t imagine the Greens reconsidering their position without some major demands being met, which would put Humza Yousaf back to square one with his party.

As for asking other leaders how to make his minority government work, that’s something he should have thought of earlier

26 Apr 202410.08 EDT

Sally Weale

Lawyers acting for a Muslim pupil and her family who took Michaela Community School in Brent, north-west London, to court over a prayer ban on school premises have confirmed they will not be appealing the judgment.

The high court in London upheld the ban in a written judgment handed down last week, dismissing the pupil’s arguments against the ban on all key grounds.

The family, speaking via their legal team, said today whilst they had “not made the decision lightly”, they now wanted to “focus on supporting the pupil with her upcoming exams”.

In an earlier statement issued by the pupil, who is still a student at Michaela, she said:

Even though I lost, I still feel that I did the right thing in seeking to challenge the ban. I tried my best, and was true to myself and my religion.

Being involved in this case has not been easy for me. My main focus now is my GCSEs. The teachers are very good here and I hope to do the best that I can. I am also grateful for the understanding that my non-Muslim friends at school have shown as to the issues that affect us.

Michaela is one of the top performing state schools in the country. Founder and head teacher Katharine Birbalsingh, who is frequently described as Britain’s strictest headmistress, welcomed the ruling as “a victory for all schools”.

Angela van den Bogerd, the former Post Office executive who played a leading role in defending the prosecution of the post officer operators who are now recognised as innocent, has told the Post Office inquiry that issues raised by colleagues relating to the Horizon IT system were “outside my knowledge scope”, PA Media reports. PA says:

On her second day of giving evidence at the inquiry on Friday, van den Bogerd was asked about the cases of several individual subpostmasters and their branches.

The inquiry was shown an email from fraud analyst Helen Rose sent to van den Bogerd on February 13 2013 about the audit record query (ARQ) logs being provided by Fujitsu for use in court. Rose expressed concerns that in some cases the logs “would not be giving a true picture” in court, and later said: “I don’t know where to go with this.”

Asked by Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, if Rose was raising a broader issue about IT systems, van den Bogerd said: “That’s not how I read this.”

Van den Bogerd confirmed she did not do anything with the contents of the emails and that she expected Rose to raise the issue “through her reporting line”.

Beer asked: “That didn’t ring any alarm bells?”

Van den Bogerd replied: “Not for me at the time.”

Beer continued: “Is it one of those things that it’s just somebody else’s job, Ms van den Bogerd?”

Van den Bogerd said: “Well it was outside my knowledge scope, so I wouldn’t have had the knowledge to know what to do with that. Now, I would obviously look at this very, very differently.”

The inquiry was also shown a series of letters and emails concerning the case of Martin Griffiths, who was sacked from his Hope Farm Post Office branch in Cheshire in July 2013. Griffiths deliberately stepped in front of an oncoming bus on September 23 2013, after he had been deemed culpable for an armed robbery at his branch in May of that year.

He had also previously written to the Post Office in July 2013 about a £39,000 shortfall at his branch between February 2012 and May 2013.

An email shared by Alan Bates to Post Office executives from Griffiths’ mother on the same day said “the Post Office had driven him to suicide”.

The email was eventually forwarded to van den Bogerd with suggestions to hire a specialist media lawyer.

Beer asked: “The immediate reaction was not what can we the Post Office do to help this man’s family, was it?”

Van ven Bogerd replied: “Not at this point.”

Beer continued: “Is that what it was like working in the Post Office at this time? That the first thought was, we need a media lawyer?”

Van den Bogerd replied: “In all my time with Post Office from very, very early on, I was very conscious that PR was very important.”

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Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Green party’s co-leader, has said that Humza Yousaf is not able to unite the Scottish parliament and that the SNP should find a new leader.

Speaking to PA Media, Harvie said:

Very clearly, [Yousaf] doesn’t have the confidence of parliament, I think that’s going to be clear. We said very clearly the responsibility of the decision is on him. He needs to bear the consequences of that reckless and damaging decision [ending the power-sharing deal with the Greens].

I think it’s pretty clear he’s not the person who is going to be able to bring together a majority of parliament.

Asked if there was any way back for Yousaf in terms of working with the Greens, Harvie said the first minister had “broken trust”. He went on:

He still hasn’t really given any clarity on why he made such a dramatic U-turn and broken a promise on which he was elected as first minister.

So it’s very difficult to see how you can have a conversation that leads to a constructive outcome on the basis of that lack of trust.

This is what Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, told reporters about his intention to win over some of the opposition parties ahead of no confidence vote. According to PA Media, he said:

I intend absolutely to fight that vote of no confidence, I’ve got every intention of winning that vote of no confidence.

And let me say to the opposition, for minority government to work in the interest of the people of Scotland also requires the opposition to act in good faith.

And to the Greens I’ve obviously heard their anger, their upset.

What I will do is be writing to all the political party leaders, all the party groups represented in the Scottish parliament, including of course Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater [co-leaders of the Scottish Greens], asking them to meet with me, to say how do we make minority government work. It’s in the best interests of the people of Scotland that all of us act in good faith and make it work.

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According to Sky News, Humza Yousaf told reporters:

I intend to fight that vote of no confidence. I’ve got every intention of winning that vote of no confidence.

Yousaf seemed to be talking about the confidence vote into him personally. (Labour wants a separate no confidence vote, into the government as a whole, but Yousaf is in a stronger position to see off that one – see 12.02pm.) According to Sky News, when asked why he was confident, Yousaf replied:

I believe in our ability to be able to work with, negotiate, compromise where necessary. We’ve shown that in the past.

I’ll be looking to do that over the next coming days with the opposition leaders.

And with that, I’m quite confident, very confident, in fact, that we’ll be able to win that vote of confidence.

That makes it sound as if Ash Regan will get what she wants. See 9.33am and 9.50am.

Humza Yousaf has held out an olive branch to the Scottish Greens, saying that he recognises that they feel hurt as a result of his decision to end the SNP/Greens’ power-sharing deal. “I empathise with their position because I understand how they must be feeling,” he said.

These are from the Scotsman’s Alistair Grant.

“I’m confident I can win that vote,” he says.

The FM says he understands the anger and hurt of the Greens and he will be reaching out to them.

The SNP and the Greens have many shared interests, he adds.

Yousaf says ending the Bute House Agreement was the right thing to do.

But he said he will be speaking to Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater about what happened.

“I empathise with their position because I understand how they must be feeling.”

The FM said he will be writing to every party leader in Holyrood to seek a meeting. He said he would urge the Greens to reconsider their position.

The Greens said last night that they would vote against Yousaf in the Tory no confidence motion into his position as first minister. But they have not said how they would vote on the alternative Labour motion, expressing no confidence in the government as a whole.

This motion, if successful, would force all government ministers to resign and could trigger an early election. (See 11.22am.)

This is from Alan Jenkins from 5 News.