‘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...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...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...Prime minister faces Conservative party leader as chancellor to reveal how government plans to spend almost £1.4tn in 2026-27
Green party MPs and activists staged a protest outside parliament today saying the government should use the spending review to announce a wealth tax. In a post on social media, Adrian Ramsay, the party’s co-leader, said:
We expect the Chancellor to take another axe to public spending today: decline by design from a govt that refuses to tax wealth to properly fund our overstretched public services & support the most vulnerable. We need to invest in a secure & fairer future. #TaxExtremeWealth
Senior SNP figures held a secret meeting on Monday night to discuss removing John Swinney as party leader, The Herald has learned, following last week’s defeat in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection.
One of the 25 attendees said the first minister had two weeks to come up with a new strategy on independence — or risk facing a leadership challenge at the SNP conference in October.
Continue reading...Treasury says move to restore the funding for most pensioners will cost around £1.25bn
The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are both trying to take credit for the winter fuel payments U-turn by the government.
This is from Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader.
Keir Starmer has scrambled to clear up a mess of his own making. I repeatedly challenged him to reverse his callous decision to withdraw winter fuel payments, and every time Starmer arrogantly dismissed my criticisms.
This humiliating U-turn will come as scant comfort to the pensioners forced to choose between heating and eating last winter. The prime minister should now apologise for his terrible judgement.
Finally the chancellor has listened to the Liberal Democrats and the tireless campaigners in realising how disastrous this policy was, but the misery it has caused cannot be overstated.
Countless pensioners were forced to choose between heating and eating all whilst the government buried its head in the sand for months on end, ignoring those who were really suffering.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor says Badenoch ‘is the person to lead us’ and compares her to Thatcher, who ‘in the end, got it together’
Stride stresses the need for politicians to consider policy carefully, saying this is harder in the era of social media.
The digital age has many advantages, but in some ways, it has ushered in the death of what we might call the age of thoughtfulness, by which I mean, the careful consideration of arguments in order to establish the truth …
Audiences are increasingly attracted to the fleeting sparkle of the novel or shocking or celebrity, or in some cases simply the fake, and that risks allowing attractive but shallow arguments to take hold.
The fact is, for a large swathe of the population, our economy simply has not been working for them for some considerable time.
Incomes have stagnated. Many feel that the system only works for the benefit of others, for large corporations or people from other countries, but not for them and their families.
Continue reading...Senior Tory to give speech in which he will criticise ‘neo-luddites’ on right for failing to embrace green technology
James Cleverly has taken direct aim at Kemi Badenoch’s decision to ditch net zero targets by criticising what he called “neo-luddites” on the right who seemed scared of using green technologies to protect the environment.
The senior Tory MP, who lost to Badenoch in last year’s Conservative leadership race, said it was a false choice to believe the UK had to choose between economic growth and protecting the environment. Badenoch has argued current net zero targets will harm the economy.
Continue reading...Chancellor will give speech in Greater Manchester, while police leaders have written to the PM over potential cuts in next week’s spending review
Good morning. A week today Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will unveil the outcome of the spending review, which will set spending budgets – day-to-day (“resource”) and capital – covering most of the rest of this parliament. Many departments will get resource budgets that feel like cuts, but the Treasury has a more positive story to tell on capital spending and today Reeves is giving a speech announcing a £15bn spending spree on transport projects, mostly in the north of England.
Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot have all the details in our splash story.
We are deeply concerned that the settlement for policing and the [NCA], without additional investment, risks a retrenchment to what we saw under austerity. This would have far-reaching consequences.
Policing and the NCA have seen a sustained period where income has not kept pace with demand. Often, this has been masked by attempts to defer costs in the hope of more income in future, but that now leaves policing with very limited room for manoeuvre.
Continue reading...Home secretary appears to accept early release proposals will put more pressure on police as she is questioned at select committee
Defence sources believe that Britain will be forced to sign up to a target of lifting defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035 at this month’s Nato summit after a campaign by the alliance’s secretary general to keep Donald Trump onboard, Dan Sabbagh reports.
Later today the data (use and access) bill will return to the Commons from the Lords in the third round of “ping pong” between the two houses. It is not unusual for “ping pong” to go on for a round or two, as bills which are almost ready for royal assent shuttle between the elected and unelected chamber while they try to resolve matters of dispute. But, in this case, the Lords are digging in a bit more than usual.
The government has been accused of “supporting thieves”, as it suffered a further heavy defeat at the hands of peers pressing their demand for steps to safeguard the creative industries against artificial intelligence.
The fourth and latest setback for the Labour frontbench over the issue in the House of Lords was inflicted despite pleas by a minister for the upper chamber to end its prolonged stand-off over the data (use and access) bill.
Continue reading...Prime minister to launch strategic defence review in Glasgow this morning
Here is the clip of Keir Starmer in his Today programme interview refusing to say when the government will raise defence spending to 3% of GDP.
In an interview with the Times published on Saturday John Healey, the defence secretary, said that he had “no doubt” that Britain would reach the 3% target by 2034 – ie, before the end of the next parliament. Yesterday he described this as an “ambition”.
Continue reading...Shabana Mahmood is making a statement to MPs now about the findings of the sentencing review
The Conservatives are taking the credit for the near-50% fall in net migration. They say it is the changes to visa rules that they introduced that brought the numbers down.
This is from Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary.
Net migration has halved - dropped by 430,000 - in 2024 compared to 2023
This is thanks to measures put in place by the last Conservative Government
This drop is because of the visa rule changes that I put in place.
Labour will try to claim credit for these figures but they criticised me at the time, and have failed to fully implement the changes.
Continue reading...Office for National Statistics estimate shows fall from 860,000 in 2023 to 431,000 last year
Net migration to the UK has nearly halved over the year to 431,000, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said, publishing figures that will bring some relief to Keir Starmer.
The drop from 860,000 in the year to December 2024 follows a series of policies implemented by the last Conservative government that have been continued by the present Labour government.
Continue reading...Downing Street unable to say how many more pensioners would receive winter fuel payments or when changes would come in
YouGov has published more details of its polling on the electorate’s relationship with Labour, as covered in the Sky News report mentioned earlier. (See 10.06am.)
It shows that Reform UK supporters are most likely to think that Labour is trying hard to appeal to them – but least likely to say they would respond positively. Only 4% of Reform UK supporters say they would consider voting Labour, the poll says.
I ask her if there will be any changes as demanded by MPs
She says while “we want to make sure we address all of people’s concerns, but stressed: “whatever the fiscal position that the government faces, I think the system as a whole needs to change.”
Downing Street unable to say how many more pensioners would receive winter fuel payments or when changes would come in
YouGov has published more details of its polling on the electorate’s relationship with Labour, as covered in the Sky News report mentioned earlier. (See 10.06am.)
It shows that Reform UK supporters are most likely to think that Labour is trying hard to appeal to them – but least likely to say they would respond positively. Only 4% of Reform UK supporters say they would consider voting Labour, the poll says.
I ask her if there will be any changes as demanded by MPs
She says while “we want to make sure we address all of people’s concerns, but stressed: “whatever the fiscal position that the government faces, I think the system as a whole needs to change.”
Foreign secretary tells parliament that the Israeli government’s ‘egregious actions and rhetoric’ are isolating the country from its friends and partners. This live blog is closed
The Scottish secretary has said the new UK-EU trade deal provides “12 years of certainty and stability” for the fishing industry, amid criticism from the industry that the government has made too large a concession to the EU on fishing rights.
The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) has described the deal as a “horror show”, but Ian Murray said: “I don’t agree with that.”
It gives 12 years of certainty and stability for the industry, it doesn’t change any of the deal that was put in place in 2019, which is 25% more quotas for UK and Scottish trawlers and it gives wide access, of course to the new markets of the EU, in terms of pushing away all that red tape that was there before.
Not one more fish will be taken out of Scottish waters by an EU trawler as part of this deal and that provides that stability and certainty.
We should never trust Keir Starmer. You know, he’s screwing things up domestically, so he gets on the international bandwagon.
He’s selling us out, not just on Brexit, but on Chagos and … we’re hearing all sorts of things about Gibraltar. We’ll hold them to account on this. Where Labour negotiates, Britain always seem to lose.
Continue reading...About 150 changes have been made to the bill since MPs voted on it last year
One of the amendments to the bill being debated today has been tabled by the Labour MP Naz Shah, who voted against the bill at second reading. Her amendment 14 would tighten the bill so that anyone not terminally ill cannot qualify as terminally ill (meaning they can use assisted dying) “by voluntarily stopping eating or drinking or both”.
In her speech Leadbeater said that she could understand the concerns behind Shah’s amendment, but that she thought the risk of anyone being able to qualify for assisted dying as a result of anorexia was “negligible”. She said:
Not only would someone with severe anorexia be highly unlikely to be assessed to have capacity to make a decision about assisted dying, the other tragic reality is that if a patient was so ill as a result of not eating and drinking for whatever reason, they would die before the process of assisted dying would be able to take place.
I know that some people have expressed concerns that the severe physical consequences of a decision to stop eating or drinking could still enable someone to claim eligibility for assisted dying when otherwise they would not be able to do so, and I believe that is the motivation behind this amendment … As I’ve set out, I think that risk is negligible.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists have stated that they do not feel at the moment in time there are sufficient psychiatrists who would be able to deliver that position on such a panel. What response does the member have to that?
Continue reading...PM on trip to announce increased cooperation against people smugglers alongside Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama
All Commons Speakers, at least for the past 30 years, have complained about the government making major announcements to the media first, and not to parliament first. But rarely have any of them sounded quite as furious about this as Lindsay Hoyle, who this morning delivered an extended reprimand to the government about this at the start of an urgent question.
The UQ was about plans to limit the use of prison recall – something announced by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, at a press conference yesterday, while the Commons was still sitting. After pointing this out, and reminding MPs that details of the immigration white paper were given to the media extensively, long before the ministerial statement about it was delivered in the Commons on Monday, Hoyle went on to imply that, as well as regularly breaking the ministerial code, ministers were also guilty of hypocrisy. He said:
I note that those who now occupy senior ministerial roles were not slow to complain when the previous government made major policy announcements outside this house.
I will continue to uphold and defend the rights of this house, the rights of backbenchers, to be here, and hear it first, the most important announcements of government policy, and the right of honourable members to question ministers on those announcements in person.
When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of government policy should be made in the first instance in Parliament.
If the government is not going to take the ministerial code seriously, who will?
I’ve got to say, I don’t like this. I believe I am here to represent all backbenchers and backbenchers have the right to ask questions. I’m not interested in Sky News or the BBC or political programmes. I’m here to defend all of you. I will continue to defend. Please do not take MPs for granted. It is not acceptable.
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