Jun 2: Gov set for legal battle with Covid inquiry; More rail strikes …

Ministers are preparing for a high-profile legal battle with the Covid-19 inquiry as the government seeks to challenge the request for Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks.

Bereaved families and opposition parties hit out at the government after the Cabinet Office took the highly unusual step of seeking a judicial review of inquiry chairwoman Baroness Hallett’s order to release the documents, arguing that it should not have to hand over material which is ‘unambiguously irrelevant’.

It comes as Johnson, in his own letter to the inquiry on Thursday evening, said he was he was ‘more than happy’ to hand over the requested material directly.

Strikes by railway workers will continue on Friday, causing fresh travel disruption for passengers.

Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) employed by train operators across England will walk out in a long-running dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.

Train companies are warning that services will be affected by the action, which comes almost a year after the RMT held its first strike in the same dispute. General secretary Mick Lynch paid tribute to RMT members, saying they were determined to continue defending their conditions as well as demand a decent pay rise.

A man arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after two youngsters died off Bournemouth beach has been released under investigation.

A boy, 17, from Southampton and a girl, 12, from Buckinghamshire, died after getting into difficulty in the water at the Dorset resort on Wednesday. Another eight people were treated by paramedics.

The man, in his 40s, who was ‘on the water’ at the time but not known to the youngsters, had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter but was later released under investigation, police said on Thursday.

Calls by senior Tories to abolish inheritance tax (IHT) have been met with scepticism from senior economists and tax experts.

More than 50 Conservative MPs, including former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, have urged prime minister Rishi Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt to scrap the tax, according to The Telegraph.

But Paul Johnson, head of the independent economic think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the tax should instead be overhauled, as it tends to be easier to avoid for the very rich with broadly-based wealth than for those with only one asset.

The downturn in UK manufacturing has deepened, with activity falling to a four-month low in May as post-Brexit trade checks weakened overseas demand.

The closely-watched S&P Global/CIPS UK Manufacturing PMI survey showed a reading of 47.1 in May, down from 47.8 in April. Any score above 50 indicates the sector is growing, whereas a reading below that figure means it is shrinking.

The hard-hit manufacturing sector has been in negative territory for 10 months in a row, as a prolonged dip in demand has caused new orders to plunge. It comes despite supply chain issues beginning to ease for firms in Britain.

The average UK house price recorded its biggest annual fall in nearly 14 years in May, according to Britain’s biggest building society, as it warned that housing market challenges look set to strengthen in the near term.

Property values fell by 3.4 per cent annually in May, marking the biggest drop seen since July 2009 when an annual fall of 6.2 per cent was recorded, Nationwide Building Society said.

The average house price fell by 0.1 per cent month on month, following a 0.4 per cent monthly increase in April. The average UK house price in May was £260,736, according to Nationwide’s index.

British Airways has been fined almost £1m by the US government over claims it failed to pay refunds for cancelled flights.

The US Transportation Department said in a legal document the airline did not ‘provide timely refunds to passengers’ for abandoned or rescheduled flights to and from the country during the coronavirus pandemic.

British Airways said it had ‘acted lawfully at all times’ after being hit with the 1.1m US dollar (£878,000) fine on Thursday, and refuted the claims.

An expansion for London’s ULEZ scrappage scheme has been announced, allowing more people to receive financial support to transition away from more polluting vehicles.

Introduced by London’s mayor Sadiq Khan yesterday, the move will allow all those receiving child benefit and small businesses registered in London with fewer than 50 employees to gain support for a new vehicle ahead of the ULEZ’s expansion in August.

London-based charities that want to scrap or retrofit up to three vans or minibuses can also apply. Retrofitting would see an existing vehicle brought up to current emissions standards, though not all models are able to do this.

Supermarkets have slashed the cost of diesel by more than 7p a litre following concerns voiced by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Over the two weeks since May 15, when the CMA issued its road fuel market study which stated that average supermarket margins in 2022 had increased over 2019, the average price of a litre of diesel at supermarkets fell by 7.44p. It means that a litre of fuel fell from 151.02p to 143.58p.

The RAC has been calling for the UK’s largest fuel retailers to cut the price of diesel ever since its wholesale price dipped below that of petrol at the end of March. Despite this change, the price of a litre of diesel has remained ‘stubbornly’ high, according to the RAC, with cuts of 10p only coming in the month prior to the CMA’s announcement.

Another dry day with plenty of sunshine for the majority of the UK, reports BBC Weather. Patchy cloud for southern parts; warm for the north. Highest temperatures will be in the west – highs of 23 degrees.

Clear and dry for most, but like during Friday southern areas will have patch low cloud.