UK overseas aid spend will reach 17-year low without urgent action, NGOs warn

Humanitarian sector says UK will lack credibility at world summits owing to ‘devastating’ impact of budget cuts

UK aid spending will fall to its lowest level since 2007 unless the government takes urgent remedial action in the autumn budget, a group of more than 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the aid and humanitarian sector jointly warn on Wednesday.

The budget dedicated to providing aid overseas will be just 0.36% of gross national income (GNI) in 2024 largely owing to huge sums in the budget being diverted to hosting asylum-seekers in the UK, the aid organisations say.

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Minister struggles to defend Keir Starmer over his record of accepting freebies – UK politics live

Angela Eagle, border security minister, says prime minister has to answer why he has accepted £76,000 worth of gifts since 2019 election

The number of migrants who have crossed the English Channel since Labour won the general election has passed 10,000, according to provisional figures from the Home Office. As PA Media reports, some 65 migrants were detected crossing the Channel on Monday, taking the cumulative number of arrivals since July 4 to 10,024. PA says:

The cumulative total for the year so far now stands at 23,598.

This is 1% lower than the equivalent figure at this point last year, which was 23,940, and 21% lower than the total at this stage in 2022, which was 29,783.

The home secretary announced the package of up to £75m, which redirects funds originally allocated to the previous government’s Illegal Migration Act. It will unlock sophisticated new technology and extra capabilities for the NCA to bolster UK border security and disrupt the criminal people smuggling gangs. The investment is designed to build on a pattern of successful upstream disruptions announced at an operational summit, attended by the prime minister, at the NCA headquarters last week.

They became climate dinosaurs, crashing offshore wind, blocking onshore wind, moving the goalposts on electric vehicle targets, doubling down on oil and gas, leaving British wildlife in crisis.

Our biodiversity declining at an unprecedented rate, our precious national parks in decline, our rivers, lakes and seas awash with toxic sewage, blind to the opportunities of the energy transition – a fossil fuel government in a renewable age.

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Giorgia Meloni: Starmer showed great interest in our Albania migration deal

Britain promises to send £4m to back Italian crackdown on irregular migration

Keir Starmer has shown “great interest” in the Italy-Albania migration deal, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has said, as the UK vowed to send £4m to support her controversial crackdown on irregular migration.

Speaking at a press conference in Rome, the prime minister agreed with Meloni, stressing the importance of the relationship betwen the UK and Italy.

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Traffic to be banned from London’s Oxford Street under Sadiq Khan plan

Mayor to be given power to overrule Westminster council, which blocked previous plan amid concerns over rerouting buses

Traffic will be banned from London’s Oxford Street under plans announced by the mayor, Sadiq Khan, using new powers from Labour to push through long-thwarted pedestrianisation of the capital’s famous shopping strip.

Khan said urgent action was needed so that the mile-long street could “once again become the leading retail destination in the world.”

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Ex-NatWest CEO who left after Nigel Farage row to advise law firm

Alison Rose appointed as diversity and inclusion adviser at leading firm Mishcon de Reya

Alison Rose, the former chief executive of NatWest, has taken a job as an adviser to one of the UK’s top law firms as she tries to return to the City after a career-damaging row with Nigel Farage last year.

Rose is joining Mishcon de Reya as a diversity and inclusion adviser, a role that will involve mentoring some of the firm’s partners. She will also work closely with the equity, diversity and inclusion committee at the firm, which is known for having represented Diana, Princess of Wales during her divorce.

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Lib Dems hopeful of more election gains if Tory drift to right continues

Officials predict further gains if next Conservative leader focuses on winning back voters from Reform UK

The Liberal Democrats could take dozens more seats from the Conservatives at the next general election if the Tories select a leader who keeps pushing them to the right, Lib Dem officials believe.

The prediction came as Ed Davey prepared to attack the Conservatives in his leader’s speech to the Lib Dem conference, saying he wants his party to supplant them at “the top table of our politics”.

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Starmer puts ‘pragmatism’ before perceptions in meeting with Meloni

Some Labourites may see a hard-right populist but the British PM has an eye on the immigration policies of an ally

Keir Starmer will be under no illusions at the level of discomfort some in his party may have felt at the sight of their leader smiling and joking with Giorgia Meloni as they strolled through the gardens of the Villa Doria Pamphili on his trip to Rome on Monday.

The Italian prime minister’s brand of hard-right populism is far out of the comfort zone of many Labour MPs, and even though she governs, for the most part, from the centre-right, they are unable to shrug off her party’s neo-fascist roots.

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Planned Shein IPO needs closer scrutiny, says former Labour minister

Trade committee head Liam Byrne wants checks on firm’s possible supply chain links to forced labour

A former minister has called on the government to closely scrutinise Shein for possible links to forced working as the China-founded fast-fashion retailer prepares for a stock market listing in London.

Liam Byrne, the Labour MP who heads parliament’s business and trade committee, said the UK should introduce new legislation to increase scrutiny of supply chains that may include products made in the Xinjiang region of north-western China.

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‘Quite shocking’ lack of government contact during UK riots, says MCB head

Zara Mohammed calls for review of Downing Street’s non-engagement policy with Muslim Council of Britain

The head of the Muslim Council of Britain has called for an explanation and a review of the government’s policy of non-engagement with the body after her appeals for contact during the summer riots were ignored.

Zara Mohammed, who was elected more than three years ago as the MCB’s youngest and first female secretary general, said there had been a “quite shocking” lack of contact with the new government at a time when mobs were targeting Muslims and mosques.

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Benefit sanctions more likely for minority ethnic claimants, UK data shows

Black universal credit claimants 58% more likely to get sanctions than white people, while mixed ethnic groups are 72% more likely

Black and minority ethnic benefit claimants are disproportionately likely to be hit with universal credit sanctions – financial penalties typically running into hundreds of pounds – according to official statistics unveiled for the first time.

Black universal credit claimants were 58% more likely to be sanctioned than white claimants, mixed ethnic groups were 72% more likely and Asians 5% more likely, according to the figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

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Public inquiries should be shorter and recommendations tracked, Lords says

Committee says major overhaul required to restore public confidence among victims and survivors

Public inquiries should be shortened and the progress of their recommendations tracked, according to a House of Lords committee, which says a major overhaul is required to restore public confidence among victims and survivors.

The committee’s report, published in the wake of the Grenfell Tower public inquiry, which took almost seven years, warns there is a perception that inquiries are frequently “too long and expensive”, undermining their credibility and prolonging trauma for those affected.

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Starmer under pressure to distance UK from Italy’s hard-right immigration plans

Backbenchers and NGOs criticise decision to explore how country has cut migrant numbers at Rome talks

Keir Starmer is under pressure from Labour backbenchers and NGOs to distance his government from Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right immigration policies on the eve of bilateral talks in Rome.

After the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said the UK would consider copying Italy’s plans to process asylum applicants in a third country such as Albania, one backbencher questioned why a Labour administration was “seeking to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government”.

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Fewer than one in five UK voters are ‘hard nimbys’, finds survey

Pro-building Labour group hopes study will spur on major planning reform and government drive to build 1.5m homes

Fewer than one in five voters are “hard nimbys” who are opposed to local housebuilding under almost any circumstances, according to polling by YouGov that will give a boost to the government in its aim of building 1.5m homes this parliament.

An MRP model based on a 12,000-person survey shows between 15% and 20% of British voters would almost never support housing developments near them, with the rest willing to do so if certain conditions are met.

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‘The moment has come’: pro-building Labour yimbys are set to raise the roof

Proponents of more homes, turbines and infrastructure – even on the green belt – prepare for rally at party conference

On the Sunday night of Labour conference, one rally is expected to attract the biggest crowd of the season. Its theme is a subject that was once deemed one of the most difficult in politics – yimbyism.

Yimby stands for “yes in my back yard” – a play on the traditional nimbys, who have been a dominant force in British politics where planning has been one of the thorniest battlefields. It is a campaign for more housebuilding, more turbines, more infrastructure, even on once-sacred spaces such as the green belt.

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Eight people dead in attempt to cross Channel, say French authorities

Investigation opens in France into deaths as David Lammy says UK could process asylum claimants in third country

Eight people died overnight trying to cross the Channel from France to England, French regional authorities have said, as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said the government could follow Italy’s lead and process asylum claimants in a third country.

The French maritime prefecture said 59 people were onboard the boat, which got into difficulty off the coast of France, and 51 of them were rescued. An investigation has been opened by the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office.

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Keir Starmer alleged to have broken rules over party donor’s gifts to wife

The prime minister made a late declaration of a personal shopper and clothes for his wife paid for by Lord Alli

Keir Starmer is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife from the Labour donor Waheed Alli.

The gifts to Victoria Starmer were not initially declared in the register of MPs’ interests, the Sunday Times reported.

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Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

US president Joe Biden and British PM Keir Starmer fear secret arms link-up amid talks in Washington over Ukraine

Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.

During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.

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Nurseries in England say new rules have reduced care to ‘crowd control’

The first study into Tory shake-up of childcare shows staff are overwhelmed

The first major study into the Conservatives’ controversial shake-up of childcare has revealed that nursery staff are often doing more “crowd control” than education, because of the increased number of children they are looking after.

Since September last year, nurseries in England have been allowed to increase child-to-staff ratios, so one adult now looks after five two-year-olds rather than four. The change was intended to help deliver the party’s pledge of 15 hours’ free childcare a week from this month for working parents of children aged from nine months to three years.

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‘I’m not sure what to trust’: a student navigates the news in the age of social media

With more people getting their news online than on TV, Ben Herd, 20, records his experience of following current affairs

An Ofcom report this week marked a tipping point: more people now get their news online than on TV. We asked Ben Herd, a 20-year-old currently at university, to keep a diary for a couple of days of how he was following news stories and current affairs. He gets most of his news from social media …

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Joe Biden dismisses Russian threats during meeting with Keir Starmer

US and UK leaders’ talks dominated by row with Russia over use of Storm Shadow missiles

Joe Biden dismissed sabre-rattling threats made by Vladimir Putin as the US president met with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House on Friday.

Biden said he did not accept that Ukraine using western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow.

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