Average private rent in Great Britain falls for first time in five years

Lower mortgage rates have helped cool rental sector after years of above-inflation increases in rent, data shows

Average private rents in Great Britain have fallen for the first time in five years as lower mortgage rates helped take some of the heat out of the rental sector, data shows.

Years of above-inflation increases in rents have put the squeeze on many households but the estate agent Hamptons said the average rent on a newly let property fell by 0.2% year on year in July. It was the first annual decline since August 2020, during the height of the Covid pandemic – although this national figure masks wide regional variations.

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Elon Musk’s Tesla applies to supply electricity to households in Great Britain

US carmaker makes move for licence that would allow it to provide energy to domestic and business premises

Elon Musk’s Tesla is gearing up to launch a household electricity supplier in Great Britain in the coming months.

The US electric car manufacturer run by the world’s richest man has formally applied to the energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, for an electricity supply licence, according to a notice published on the watchdog’s website.

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Storm Floris: Scottish government holds emergency meeting amid warnings of more UK travel disruption

Scotland says there have been 119 incidents on the rail network caused by Storm Floris, including 75 tree-related ones

The Scottish government has held emergency meetings in response to the “significant disruption” caused by Storm Floris across the country, with warnings of further travel chaos on Tuesday as poor weather continues.

On Monday night, the Scottish government’s Resilience Room held a meeting to help decide an appropriate response to the storm, which has included power outages and almost 120 rail incidents. Representatives from the Met Office, Police Scotland, Transport Scotland and transport and utilities companies were in attendance.

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UK politics live: Farage announces defection of Leicestershire’s police and crime commissioner from Tories to Reform UK

Rupert Matthews, elected to post as Conservative in 2021, claims police are ‘fighting crime with one hand tied behind their back’

George Finch, the Reform UK leader of Warwickshire county council, goes next. (Aged 19, he is the youngest council leader in the country.)

He claims the police have opposed his attempts to expose the immigration status of someone arrested in connection with an alleged crime.

It was dirty, run down and had major drug issues. My attitude to the task was assertive and no nonsense. That’s the approach that I will take for my role within Reform UK [advising on crime].

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Labour does not deserve to win next election without change, Reeves says

Chancellor admits voter frustration as government faces renewed calls from Labour politicians for a wealth tax

Labour does not “deserve” to win the next election if it does not change the country, Rachel Reeves has said, as she acknowledged some voters were disappointed with the party’s record since entering government.

The chancellor said she understood the unhappiness felt by some voters towards a government that has U-turned on winter fuel allowance and welfare policies in recent months.

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Labour does not deserve to win next election without change, Reeves says

Chancellor admits voter frustration as government faces renewed calls from Labour politicians for a wealth tax

Labour does not “deserve” to win the next election if it does not change the country, Rachel Reeves has said, as she acknowledged some voters were disappointed with the party’s record since entering government.

The chancellor said she understood the unhappiness felt by some voters towards a government that has U-turned on winter fuel allowance and welfare policies in recent months.

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Labour does not deserve to win next election without change, Reeves says

Chancellor admits voter frustration as government faces renewed calls from Labour politicians for a wealth tax

Labour does not “deserve” to win the next election if it does not change the country, Rachel Reeves has said, as she acknowledged some voters were disappointed with the party’s record since entering government.

The chancellor said she understood the unhappiness felt by some voters towards a government that has U-turned on winter fuel allowance and welfare policies in recent months.

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Storm Floris to hit UK on Monday with unseasonably strong winds forecast

Yellow weather warning for wind in Scotland, Northern Ireland, north Wales and north of England from 6am

Storm Floris is forecast to bring unseasonably strong winds to the UK on Monday, the Met Office has said.

The strongest winds are expected during the afternoon and night across Scotland, with gusts of up to 85mph possible on exposed coasts and hills.

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UK to recognise Palestinian statehood in September unless Israel agrees ceasefire and two-state solution, Starmer says – as it happened

UK also demands Hamas release all hostages, disarm, sign up to a ceasefire and accept that they will play no role in the government of Gaza. This live blog is closed

Donald Trump is speaking now at the opening of his new golf course in Aberdeenshire. He said that as president he had “stopped about five wars”.

Yesterday he was claiming to have stopped six of them, and it is not clear why he has revised the number down.

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John Swinney urges Trump to exempt scotch whisky from 10% tariffs

First minister says there is ‘window of opportunity’ as he holds talks with US president at Aberdeenshire golf resort

Scotland’s first minister has urged Donald Trump to exempt scotch whisky from 10% tariffs as the leaders met before a lavish opening ceremony for a second golf course at the US president’s Aberdeenshire resort.

John Swinney said he believed there was “a window of opportunity” to look at the specific tariff, which is believed to be costing the scotch whisky industry £4m a week.

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Trump cuts deadline for Putin to reach Ukraine peace deal to ‘10 or 12 days’

US president expresses frustration with Putin after meeting with UK PM amid pressure on Russia for ceasefire

Donald Trump’s timeline for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has sped up, the president said while visiting Nato ally Great Britain on Monday.

“I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump said in response to a question while sitting with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer. “There’s no reason in waiting. There’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”

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Starmer defends investment in wind turbines after Trump wrongly claims it is ‘most expensive form of energy’ – UK politics live

UK PM meets US president at his golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, where they discuss energy, Gaza and trade

In a column for the Daily Record, John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has said that, if the SNP get a majority in next year’s Holyrood elections, that will be a mandate for a second independence referendum. He said:

Over the next few months, the SNP will set out some radical policies that we know will transform Scotland – ambitious ideas that can be realised with the powers of independence.

For us to achieve that independence, the first step is to secure a legal referendum recognised by all. In 2011 we secured that reliable and dependable route when the SNP achieved a majority of seats at Holyrood.

Tariffs are very important for the Scottish economy and obviously scotch whisky is a unique product.

It can only be produced in Scotland. It’s not a product that can be produced in any other part of the world. So there’s a uniqueness about that, which I think means there is a case for it to be taken out of the tariffs arrangement that is now in place.

I think what’s important is that we focus on the solutions that are required now, and the absolutely immediate situation is a necessity for a ceasefire and for humanitarian aid to need to flow into Gaza so that the people of Gaza can be saved from the starvation that they face.

And I think President Trump is ideally positioned. In fact, he’s perhaps uniquely positioned to apply that pressure to Israel to ensure that there is safe passage for humanitarian aid to support the people of Gaza, who face an absolutely unbearable set of circumstances as a consequence of the conflict.

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Ibiza venue cancels music events after deaths of two British men in two weeks

Ice hockey player Gary Kelly died at Ibiza Rocks Hotel as did fellow Scot Evan Thomson, who fell to his death on 7 July

An Ibiza hotel and music venue has cancelled a number of music events after the deaths of two British men on its premises in the space of two weeks.

Gary Kelly, 19, who was a professional ice hockey player for the Dundee Stars, died at the Ibiza Rocks hotel on Monday. His club paid tribute to the “hugely talented and charismatic individual” who “had a great future ahead of him”.

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Green mission aims to raise £1bn to bring nature into UK towns and cities

Initial £15.5m will go to schemes such as launch of large regional park to improving green spaces along canals

A coalition of environmental and heritage bodies has launched a billion-pound mission to bring nature into the heart of urban areas in the UK.

The first phase of the Nature Towns and Cities initiative will involve £15.5m being invested in 40 towns and cities across the four nations.

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Sydney man charged over attack on Stone of Scone in Scottish museum

The 35-year-old charged with ‘malicious mischief’ after alleged attempt to break the glass case containing the famous artefact

A man from Sydney has appeared in a court in Scotland charged with “malicious mischief” following reports a glass case containing the Stone of Scone was broken in Perth.

It follows an incident at Perth Museum on Saturday afternoon when visitors reported a man in a kilt attempting to smash through the case containing the ancient artefact, which has long been associated with the monarchy.

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First-time buyers turn from rural areas to Britain’s regional cities

Number looking to move to urban centres up 16% in first five months of 2025 compared with same period in 2015

With the rise of home working and surging house prices in many urban areas, one might have assumed that British cities had lost some of their appeal to homebuyers over the past decade, but it turns out the opposite is the case.

An analysis of the first five months of this year shows the number of would-be first-time buyers in Great Britain looking to move to cities is up by 16% on average compared with the same period in 2015.

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Extra cost of being disabled in UK to rise by almost 12% in five years, says Scope report

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.

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Remove decisions on lone child asylum seekers from Home Office, report says

Call for root-and-branch reform of treatment of children, many of whom are wrongly classified as adults

Decisions relating to lone child asylum seekers should be removed from Home Office officials because of fundamental problems with the way they treat this vulnerable group, a report has found.

The report calls for root-and-branch reform of the treatment of thousands of children who have fled persecution in their home countries and made hazardous journeys in search of safety, often crossing the Channel in a dinghy or concealing themselves in the back of a lorry.

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Scottish government faces legal action over failure to implement biological sex ruling

Campaign group accuses Holyrood of ‘intolerable’ delays to new policies required after landmark case

The Scottish government has been given a deadline to implement the UK supreme court’s ruling on biological sex across all public bodies or face further legal challenges.

Sex Matters, the UK-wide gender-critical campaign group, has threatened legal action in 14 days if ministers continue “intolerable” delays to new policies and guidance required by April’s landmark ruling that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 does not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates.

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MPs back bill to end criminal penalties for abortion in key vote – as it happened

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.

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