Category Archives: Politics

Children being traumatised at Gatwick deportation centre, finds watchdog

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Assessment finds detention unit is subjecting families to ‘unnecessary suffering’ amid lengthy Home Office delays

Young children are being traumatised while held at a Gatwick airport deportation centre that should be closed down, a watchdog has found.

The independent monitoring board (IMB) also said the children’s parents were being subjected to “callous treatment and unnecessary suffering” because of the Home Office’s lengthy decision-making process over removals.

Children are witnessing or overhearing their parents’ “considerable distress” at their expected deportation, despite staff efforts to shield them.

Children are being asked by staff to translate for their distraught parents, despite having been taken from their homes and facing removal to a country they may know very little about.

The use of the Family PDA may prolong or add to trauma already experienced, particularly for children.

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Green energy firms promise more than £24bn of new investment in Britain

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Industry bosses to meet prime minister before government’s international investment summit next week

The leaders of the world’s biggest green energy companies have promised more than £24bn of new private investment across Great Britain ahead of a meeting with the prime minister on Friday.

Keir Starmer is expected to meet the green energy bosses on the sidelines of the first Council of Nations and Regions in Edinburgh to discuss the multibillion-pound projects just days before the government’s international investment summit next week.

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Employers must protect workers from sexual harassment in new employment bill

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Bill will give new rights to millions of workers including protection from third-party harassment

Employers must protect their workers from sexual harassment – including from customers and clients – under the government’s sweeping new employment rights bill.

The new obligation is part of a series of measures published in Thursday’s landmark employment bill, which Labour had promised to lay before parliament within 100 days.

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Labour whips warn their MPs not to try to amend bills or disagree in public

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Exclusive: private message from whips aims to crackdown on discipline, telling MPs to speak with ‘one voice’

Labour MPs have been warned that they must not put down any amendments on government bills and must resolve disagreements privately with ministers, in a crackdown on discipline in parliament.

In a private message, seen by the Guardian, Labour whips told MPs that they could no longer act as if they were in opposition and said amendments suggested a lack of trust in the government. The message said MPs should be speaking with “one voice” in public.

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UK has not agreed to long-range missile use after Zelenskyy meeting, No 10 says

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Downing Street indicates no change in position on Ukraine’s request to fire Storm Shadow weapons into Russia

The UK has not lifted restrictions on Ukraine using long-range missiles after Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit, Downing Street has said.

The Ukrainian president met Keir Starmer in No 10 on Thursday and reiterated his request to fire Storm Shadow missiles and other western-supplied weapons deep inside Russian territory.

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One Nation Tory group refuses to back Badenoch or Jenrick in party leadership race – UK politics live

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TRG says both candidates have ‘used rhetoric and focused on issues which are far and away from … the values we cherish and uphold’

Robert Jenrick, one of the final two Tory leadership candidates, is delivering a speech in London. There is a live feed on his X account.

Jenrick started by promising “a complete break with Labour’s failing agenda”. He said:

The real choice this country faces is between Labour’s failing agenda and the new approach I want us to take, the new approach we need as a country.

Because if I am chosen as the next leader of this party we will stand to offer a complete break with Labour’s failing agenda.

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Donald Trump will need Nato if elected as president, says new alliance chief

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Mark Rutte says US would risk isolation if Republican candidate decided to withdraw from military alliance

Mark Rutte, the new head of Nato, has brushed off anxieties about the possible election of Donald Trump, arguing that the US would risk isolation in “a harsh, uncompromising world” if he sought to withdraw from the military alliance.

Speaking in London on Thursday, after meeting the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Rutte said he believed both Trump and his presidential rival, Kamala Harris, recognised the value of continuing military aid to Ukraine.

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Will Rachel Reeves’s rules on debt and spending survive the budget?

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The chancellor desperately needs more money to finance growth and public spending so expect a bit of tweaking to supposedly strict constraints

Change*. If Labour’s one-word campaign slogan had an asterisk, it would have directed voters to Rachel Reeves’s budget.

Later this month the chancellor will attempt to walk the line between repairing Britain’s battered public realm, while sticking to a manifesto promise to balance the books without raising taxes on working people.

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New enforcement agency will protect workers’ rights as part of ‘watershed’ bill

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Employment rights legislation has been widely heralded by trade unions despite some commitments being watered down

Rogue employers will be targeted by a beefed-up new enforcement agency to protect sweeping changes to rights at work for millions of Britons, set to be outlined in a “watershed” bill published on Friday.

The Fair Work Agency will be created as part of the government’s employment rights legislation, which will include stronger protections against unfair dismissal and exploitative contracts.

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Labour’s employment rights bill: what key changes will it bring?

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Improvements to workers’ rights to include day-one universal sick pay and an end to zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire

Labour’s employment rights bill is the biggest step towards enacting one of its key election offers: to make sweeping changes to rights at work and improve pay. Here are the main details of the legislation, though much of it will take more than two years to consult on and implement.

Guidance – but not legislation – on the right to switch off, preventing employees from being contacted out of hours, except in exceptional circumstances.

Legislation to end pay discrimination, which is expected to come separately in a draft bill that will include measures to make it mandatory for large employers to report their ethnicity and disability pay gap.

A consultation on a move towards a single status of worker – one of the most important changes that has been left out of the bill, which Labour sources have said needs a much longer consultation period.

Reviews into the parental leave and carers’ leave systems.

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Labour needs £25bn a year in tax rises to rebuild public services, warns IFS

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Thinktank says tax increases in budget will be necessary even if Rachel Reeves changes fiscal rules

Keir Starmer’s promise to end austerity and rebuild public services will require tax increases of £25bn a year in the coming budget even if debt rules are changed to provide scope for extra investment spending, a leading thinktank has said.

In its preview of the first Labour budget in 14 years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said Rachel Reeves would need to raise taxes to fresh record levels to meet the government’s policy goals. The chancellor was also warned of the risk of a Liz Truss-style meltdown if the City responded badly to substantially higher borrowing.

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Ministers facing questions over Met’s VIP protection for Taylor Swift

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James Cleverly asks Yvette Cooper if she intervened to ensure popstar’s London concerts went ahead

Ministers are facing questions over whether they intervened to grant Taylor Swift VIP police protection in order to stop her cancelling her London concerts.

James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, wrote to his opposite number, Yvette Cooper, on Wednesday to ask whether she had personally made representations.

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New UK laws to stop repeat of P&O mass sackings scandal go before parliament

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Labour clamps down on poor working conditions at sea with laws on collective dismissal and minimum wage on cross-Channel ferries

Laws to ensure that the P&O Ferries mass sackings scandal can never recur will be laid before parliament this week as Labour clamps downs on poor working conditions at sea, with cruise and cargo ships also in its sights.

The transport secretary, Louise Haigh, said the new laws would close the loopholes exploited by P&O when it fired 800 crew without warning in 2022, and any company would now face unlimited fines for acting in such a way.

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Far-right activists fundraising for people jailed over UK riots

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Money is being given to families of people involved in riots whom far-right groups are calling ‘political prisoners’

Far-right activists are trying to raise funds for people jailed over their roles in the summer riots, describing them as “political prisoners”, in an attempt to generate support by giving money to their families.

More than £14,000 has been raised by a leading group, which has been promoting the start of its “gifting” of funds to families of “political prisoners”.

One of the leaders of Patriotic Alternative (PA) recently met a teenager in HMP Hull who had been jailed for racially aggravated harassment during the disturbances, his wife told supporters.

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Wednesday briefing: Inside Labour’s plan to move the fiscal goalposts – and tackle debt

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In today’s newsletter: Rachel Reeves calculates that changing debt rules could help boost the UK economy, but what does it really mean?

• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition

Good morning.

There are just three weeks to go until the biggest fiscal and political event for any government: the budget.

Middle East | Israel has said it is expanding its ground operation in Lebanon with the deployment of a fourth division after another night of intense airstrikes. The reservist 146th division was sent to southern Lebanon overnight, meaning the number of troops on the ground is now likely to number 15,000. The Lebanese health ministry said late on Tuesday 36 people have been killed and 150 have been injured in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours.

Environment | Florida’s western coast was making emergency preparations on Tuesday for the impact of Hurricane Milton, with thousands of evacuees clogging highways, contending with fuel shortages, and the mayor of Tampa warning residents bluntly “you are going to die” if they stayed behind.

Conservatives | James Cleverly has topped the latest MPs’ vote in the Conservative leadership contest, making him the new favourite, as Tom Tugendhat became the latest candidate to be eliminated.

Poverty | More than 9 million people in the UK experience levels of poverty and hunger so extreme they are vulnerable to reliance on charity food handouts, according to research by the charity Trussell.

Society | Deaths have outstripped births in the UK for the first time in almost half a century, excluding the start of the pandemic, official figures showed.

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Labour’s workers’ rights plans can win over Tory and Reform voters, says TUC

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Trade union leaders meet ministers for final talks on employment rights bill before unveiling on Thursday

Labour can use its overhaul of workers’ rights to win over disaffected Tory and Reform voters, the TUC has said, as the government prepares to introduce landmark legislation that will grant new rights to 7 million workers.

Trade union leaders met ministers on Tuesday for final discussions on the employment rights bill before its announcement on Thursday.

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More than 9 million Britons vulnerable to reliance on food banks, research finds

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One million more people are in what Trussell charity defines as ‘hunger and hardship’ than five years ago

More than 9 million people in the UK experience levels of poverty and hunger so extreme they are vulnerable to reliance on charity food handouts, according to research.

A report by the charity Trussell found Labour would fail to deliver its manifesto promise to remove the “moral scar” of food banks unless it tackled low household incomes in this group, which amounted to one in seven of the population.

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Energy industry trade body chief to head UK’s climate watchdog

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Emma Pinchbeck will take over as chief executive of Climate Change Committee next month

The government’s official climate watchdog has appointed the head of the energy industry’s trade association to lead its work helping to drive the UK’s emissions to net zero by 2050.

Emma Pinchbeck, the head of Energy UK, will take up the role of chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) from early next month after four years at the helm of the trade association.

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Cleverly, Badenoch and Jenrick stay in Tory leadership race as Tugendhat knocked out – UK politics live

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Trio face one more round of voting by MPs before party members have their say on final two

The prison system in England and Wales was “teetering on disaster” when Labour came to power, James Timpson, the prisons minister said today.

Speaking at his first Prison Governors’ Association conference in Nottingham since he took on the role, Timpson said:

It has not been easy to rehabilitate offenders in a system teetering on disaster.

We have to take the tough decisions bringing changes to release to ease the pressure on our prisons. It was quite frankly a rescue effort. If we had not acted our justice system would have grinded to a halt – we would have faced a total breakdown of law and order.

Unison said it has given notice to Perth and Kinross Council for strike action by members in schools and early years centres.

The union, which is the largest local government trade union in Scotland, hopes targeting the action in Swinney’s constituency will “bring home to him the importance of finding a fair settlement” to the council pay dispute.

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Cleverly emerges as Tory leadership frontrunner after third round of voting

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Tom Tugendhat knocked out of contest as Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch remain in running for final MPs’ ballot

James Cleverly has topped the latest MPs’ vote in the Conservative leadership contest, in a surprise set of results that makes him the new favourite to replace Rishi Sunak.

In the third round of voting, Cleverly took 39 of the 120 votes, above Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch. Tom Tugendhat came fourth, becoming the latest candidate to be eliminated.

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