Analysis says, allowing for concessions to welfare bill announced last week, cuts will still push people into relative poverty
The Department for Work and Pensions has just published an analysis saying that, allowing for the concesssions announced last week, the welfare cuts will still push an extra 150,000 people into relative poverty.
Here is the key chart from the document.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Vicky Foxcroft, who resigned as whip over welfare bill, urges ministers to work with affected people on changes
The Labour whip who resigned in protest against disability benefit cuts has said Keir Starmer’s concessions do not yet go far enough to win her over, as No 10 launched a fresh attempt to stem the revolt against its welfare bill.
Vicky Foxcroft, who quit her frontbench role over the welfare bill a little more than a week ago, urged the government to work jointly on the changes with disabled people and to publish the review of the system before bringing in cuts.
Continue reading...Estimate by disability charity published on eve of MPs’ vote on restricting welfare payments for new claimants
The extra cost of being disabled is on course to rise by almost 12% to £14,688 in five years, according to a new estimate published on the eve of a controversial vote to restrict welfare payments for new claimants.
A threatened rebellion by more than 120 Labour MPs forced the government into a last-minute climbdown on its welfare bill, by exempting claimants to planned cuts in personal independence payments (Pip), England’s main disability payment.
Continue reading...No 10 has offered significant concessions to the rebels, estimated to cost around £3bn a year, amid fears over Tuesday’s vote
Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, was the government voice on the airwaves this morning. Here are the main points he made about the welfare bill U-turn.
Kinnock rejected claims that the U-turn was a sign of weakness. When it was put to him on the Today programme that this move, coming after the U-turns on winter fuel payments and a national inquiry into grooming gangs, showed that if Keir Starmer was pushed, he would give in, Kinnock replied:
I think if you talk to people out there in the country, they respond very positively to politicians listening, engaging, recognising that you don’t get everything right from day one every time, and making the adjustments and the changes that are needed.
And this prime minister will always put the country first. He puts country before party, and he does the right thing for the country.
He defended having a “staggered” approach to changing benefit rules. Asked about the Tory claim that the government was creating a “two-tier benefits system” (see 8.30am), he replied:
Whenever you bring forward change to a complex system, you always have to decide between do you make the change for everybody that’s in that system, in one big move, or do you do it in a more staggered way? What’s clear from the announcement today is that it’s going to be a more staggered process.
He declined to say how much the U-turn would cost. He told Times Radio:
The full details around what we are laying out, what I’ve summarised really today, is going to be laid out in parliament, and then the chancellor will set out the budget in the autumn the whole of the fiscal position and this will be an important part of that.
He said he was now confident that the UC and Pip bill will pass its second reading on Tuesday.
All of the MPs I’ve spoken to who signed the reasoned amendment – MPs from across the party, not just on the left – are sticking to their position because we understand that we are answerable to our constituents.
If the government doesn’t pull the bill, doesn’t consult properly with disabled people and come back to MPs with a serious proposal that protects the dignity of disabled people, I will vote against and I will be far from the only one.
Continue reading...Immigration speech was criticised for echoing Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ rhetoric
Keir Starmer has said he “deeply regrets” a speech in which he described the UK as being in danger of becoming an island of strangers without tough curbs on immigration.
The prime minister made the remarks in an interview with the Observer, saying he should have read the speech more carefully and “held it up to the light a bit more”.
Continue reading...Backbenchers feel PM’s chief of staff missed strength of feeling over cuts – and there are deeper tensions at play
Being the prime minister’s right-hand man is a position of extraordinary power and privilege. But when things start to go wrong, you are directly in the line of fire. So has found Morgan McSweeney, the political mastermind credited with helping Keir Starmer win his election landslide, in recent days as the Labour party has collapsed into moral fury over planned welfare cuts.
The softly spoken Irishman, now Starmer’s chief of staff, has become the lightning rod for the frustration of many Labour rebels who backed a wrecking amendment designed to blow up the big welfare bill next week.
Continue reading...‘We want to see reform implemented with Labour values of fairness,’ the PM says
In his final answer Starmer explained how he thought government and business should work together.
A true partnership is not two people or two bodies trying to do the same thing. It’s two people or bodies realising they bring different things to the table.
Government shouldn’t try to run businesses. It’s done that in the past and it doesn’t work particularly well.
Continue reading...Prime minister deployed ministers to contain rebellion after more than 100 Labour MPs signed amendment to bill
When a prime minister is forced to deploy his cabinet to try to contain a rebellion, it is not a sign that things are going well. For one with a working majority of 165 MPs, it suggests that things are, in fact, going very badly.
This was the scenario Keir Starmer faced on Tuesday after more than 100 Labour MPs signed an amendment to his welfare bill which could blow up his attempts to reform the disability benefits system.
Continue reading...Pat McFadden insists welfare reform change vote will go ahead as planned but says party will ‘engage with’ rebels
Frances Ryan reports for the Guardian:
Downing Street’s disability cuts will have a “devastating” impact on women’s health and dignity and could breach equality law, the government has been warned.
Continue reading...Amendment intended to kill off legislation that would cut benefits could be backed by up to 100 Labour MPs including senior figures
Labour MPs have launched a significant rebellion against the government’s benefit cuts with an amendment that could kill its welfare bill, spearheaded by senior select committee chairs.
The amendment – which sources said could be signed by up to 100 MPs – declines to pass the government’s welfare changes and calls for a pause, including for further consultation and for support to be in place before any further cuts are made.
Continue reading...Prime minister says 10-year industrial strategy marks ‘turning point for economy’ as energy secretary says government will cut electricity costs for businesses
By the way, if you actually wanted to read the Modern Industrial Strategy document published by the government today, you can find it here.
The government has just pushed out a joint statement from business leaders welcoming it, which says:
The Industrial Strategy launched today marks a significant step forward and a valuable opportunity for the business community to rally behind a new vision for the UK – boosting confidence, sentiment, and enthusiasm for investment.
From start-ups and small businesses to large corporates, businesses need a more attractive, stable environment that enables faster, easier, and more certain investment decisions.
For too long high electricity costs have held back British businesses, as a result of our reliance on gas sold on volatile international markets.
As part of our modern industrial strategy we’re unlocking the potential of British industry by slashing industrial electricity prices in key sectors.
Continue reading...‘There isn’t a budget for this,’ health secretary says after MPs vote to legalise procedure in England and Wales
Wes Streeting has voiced doubts over whether the NHS can afford to establish an assisted dying service, after MPs passed a bill to legalise the procedure last week.
The health secretary was previously a supporter of assisted dying but switched sides last year, expressing concerns about the ethics of offering such a service before significant improvements could be made to the NHS.
Continue reading...Labour makes funding centrepiece of its industrial strategy in bid to counter Reform’s surge in so-called red wall
The government will present a £275m investment in technical training and apprenticeships as the centrepiece of its long-awaited industrial strategy, in a direct challenge to Nigel Farage’s growing influence in England’s manufacturing heartlands.
The package, announced by the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, on Sunday, includes funding for new technical excellence colleges, short courses in artificial intelligence (AI) and digital manufacturing, and major capital upgrades to training providers across England.
Continue reading...Two survivors urged politicians and those without experience of abuse to allow women to shape the investigation
Campaigners from trade unions, voluntary organisations and the Church of Scotland have announced plans for an anti-poverty march to “demand better” from politicians in Scotland, reports the PA news agency.
The campaign, Scotland Demands Better, will culminate in a march in Edinburgh on 25 October, walking from the Scottish parliament, up the Royal Mile and along George IV Bridge to The Meadows.
Change for the better happens when people stand together and demand it. Scotland desperately needs that change.
Too many of us are being cut off from life’s essentials. Too many are frightened of what the future will bring. Too many of us are feeling tired, angry, isolated, and disillusioned.
Air pollution remains the most important environmental threat to health, with impacts throughout the life course.
It is an area of health where the UK has made substantial progress in the last three decades, with concentrations of many of the main pollutants falling rapidly, but it remains a major cause of chronic ill health as well as premature mortality.
Continue reading...Labour MPs fighting Reform want action and a European renegotiation looks unappealing. How would the PM sell a third way?
Can a lefty human rights lawyer be the one to take on Britain’s uneasy relationship with the European convention on human rights (ECHR)?
It is the most unlikely of causes for Keir Starmer. But there is a growing feeling in government that he should seize the initiative.
Continue reading...Deputy prime minister takes PMQs facing shadow home secretary
Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, will be taking PMQs shortly. And she will be up against Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary.
When Kemi Badenoch became Tory leader, she did not appoint a deputy (or even a “de factor deputy”, a post that has existed in Tory politics in recent years) and she said she would decide who would stand in for her at PMQs on a case by case basis. Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, got the gig the first time Starmer was away.
Chris Philp follows Alex Burghart in rotating for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs. One Westminster wag asks “When is it going to be Robert Jenrick’s turn?”
We have this profound challenge of the number of people joining the armed forces being outweighed by the outflow the people leaving. So ultimately its about retention.
And the number one issue reason cited in last month’s attitude survey for the armed forces for leaving was family life. We know the quality of housing is unfortunately poor. It’s due to the basically to the structural nature of those homes.
To wrap up this topic, the state of housing for the armed forces is in a poor state because your government did not do enough for it?
[The housing] which is not in a good enough state because of your government?
What did I do about it? I did something that hasn’t been done for 30 years – yes, it completed under Labour – and now we would recommend to the government, when they bring forth their housing defence white paper, that we set up a housing association.
Continue reading...Parliament votes on biggest shake-up to reproductive rights in England and Wales in 60 years
Casey says in the past government has talked relentlessly about the need for better data sharing between departments.
But she says there is a need to consider making this mandatory.
I was there when the tragedy of Soham happened. We knew at that point that if we had had better data sharing there’s a possibility that we might have saved those girls’ lives. There’s certaintly an absolute clarity that intelligence would have been much faster in either avoiding it or or actually finding that dreadful human being earlier.
And we’ve known that forever onwards. And so I think there is also an issue that the Home Office can’t drag their feet on, looking at police intelligence systems, given we’ve living in the 21st century. Probably everbody in this room can connect within seconds. Yet we had Befordshire police finding a young boy that was being, in my mind trafficked to London. But the data intelligence system did not make it easy for them to find that he was in Deptford and being circled and dealt with by predators.
I feel very strongly on issues that are as searing as people’s race, when we know the prejudice and racism that people of colour experience in this country, to not get how you treat that data right is a different level of public irresponsibility.
Sorry, to put it so bluntly, I didn’t put it that bluntly yesterday, but I think it’s particularly important if you are collecting those sorts of issues to get them 100% right.
When we asked the good people of Greater Manchester Police to help us look at the data we also collected – I think it’s in the report – what was happening with child abuse more generally, and of course … if you look at the data on child sexual exploitation, suspects and offenders, it’s disproportionately Asian heritage. If you look at the data for child abuse, it is not disproportionate, and it is white men.
So again, just note to everybody, really outside here rather than in here. Let’s just keep calm here about how you interrogate data and what you draw from it.
Continue reading...Sources say party should have focused on the moral case for reforming the benefits system
Government officials have admitted they made a mistake by making the financial case for cutting benefits as they steel themselves for as many as 50 Labour MPs rebelling against the welfare bill that is being published on Wednesday.
Sources told the Guardian that they now believed the party should have focused on the moral case for reforming the welfare system, arguing that it was letting down millions of people who could be supported into work.
Continue reading...Prime minister’s comments were about ‘ministers from previous government who sat in office for years and did nothing’, says No 10 spokesperson
In his interview on the Sky News this morning Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said that Keir Starmer should apologise for saying in January that those calling for a national inquiry into grooming gangs were jumping on a far-right bandwagon. Kemi Badenoch, his party leader, is also quoted today in an Daily Express splash story saying Starmer should apologise, but she is saying he should apologise for not agreeing to hold a national inquiry earlier.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the No 10 spokesperson was asked if Starmer still thought that people who backed a national inquiry in January were joining a far-right bandwagon. In response, the spokesperson defended the phrase, and insisted that it only applied to Tories who were now demanding an inquiry they never set up when they were in government.
The prime minister’s comments about bandwagons were specifically about ministers from the previous government who sat in office for years and did nothing to tackle this scandal. As the prime minister has said, we will not make the same mistake.
The point the PM has made is that those spreading lies and misinformation were not doing so in the interest of victims. And those cheerleading for Tommy Robinson, who was almost who was jailed for almost collapsing a grooming case, are not interested in justice.
When politicians, and I mean politicians who sat in government for many years, are casual about honesty, decency, truth and the rule of law, calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far right, that affects politics because a robust debate can only be based on the true facts.
While some people had positive experiences to share, a worrying number [of veterans] felt that the covenant had been ineffective—or worse yet, had been disregarded—when they had cited it. As a result, many continued to face disadvantages as a result of their service in areas like healthcare, education, employment and welfare ….
We welcome the government’s intention to extend the covenant legal duty, which currently requires some public service providers to give due regard to the covenant’s principles when providing certain housing, healthcare and education services. We conclude that this duty should be extended to all central government departments and the devolved administrations, and should cover the breadth of areas in which the Armed Forces community regularly experiences disadvantage.
The covenant is a solemn commitment that the servicemen and women who place their lives on the line for us should face no disadvantage due to their service – we need to make sure every part of government lives up to that commitment.
Continue reading...Government announces £9m funding to make specialist blood machines more widely available across NHS
People living with sickle cell disease in England are to benefit from quicker and more accessible treatment due to a £9m investment, the government has announced.
Apheresis services, which are a type of treatment that removes harmful components from a patient’s blood, are to improve across England through the funding of more specialist treatment centres. The funding will ensure the wider availability of machines that remove a patient’s sickled red blood cells and replace them with healthy donor cells.
Continue reading...