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Lindsay Hoyle starts by telling MPs that speakers from the parliaments in Fiji and Ukraine are in the gallery. And he says it is four years to the day since David Amess was murdered.
It’s PMQs. Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor sets out spending plans as party conference continues in Manchester
Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, was doing an interview round for the Conservatives this morning, and Miatta Fahnbulleh, the faith and communities minister, was on the air on behalf of the government. They were both asked about the latest development in the flag phenomenon – the former footballer turned property developer Gary Neville saying that he took down a union flag flying at one of his building sites because he felt it was being used in a “negative fashion”.
Asked if Neville (a Labour supporter) had a point, Fahnbulleh told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
I think he’s really right, that there are people who are trying to divide us at the moment …
I spent a lot of time going around our communities, talking to people. People are ground down. We’ve had a decade-and-a-half in which living standards haven’t budged and people have seen their communities held down. And you will get people trying to stoke division, trying to blame others, trying to stoke tension.
I think people that put up flags, the vast majority of people that do, do so for perfectly reasonable patriotic reasons. And I think reclaiming our flag as a flag of unity and decency and tolerance, which is the way most people see our flag, is a very positive thing.
So I’m afraid I really cannot agree with the comments that he’s made.
Continue reading...Mel Stride outlines plans to slash £47bn a year from public spending, including £23bn welfare cut
Overseas nationals denied benefits under a Conservative plan to limit social security to UK citizens would have the option to return to their own countries, the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, has said.
Before his speech to the Conservative conference on Monday, Stride set out Tory proposals to cut £47bn a year from public spending, with the biggest chunk, £23bn coming from reductions in welfare.
Continue reading...Deputy leadership candidate says party needs to be ‘clear that our objective is to lift children out of poverty’
Labour should consider raising taxes on gambling firms to cover the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap, the party’s deputy leadership candidate Lucy Powell has suggested.
The Manchester Central MP, who is battling with the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to succeed Angela Rayner as Labour’s deputy leader, also acknowledged the public was “exasperated” because of “some mistakes” Labour had made in office.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Cross-party Poverty Strategy Commission says abolishing limit would be part of its ‘once in a generation’ plan
A cross-party commission including former welfare ministers is urging the government to scrap the two-child benefit limit as part of an ambitious “once in a generation” plan to lift millions of people out of poverty.
The Poverty Strategy Commission said billions of pounds of investment – including a boost to the rate of universal credit – was needed to reverse record levels of poverty in the UK, and tackle longstanding failures over rising hardship and destitution.
Continue reading...Justice Collins Rice says it is for politicians and not courts to change rules around two-child benefit cap
Two women who conceived their eldest children while they were in violent and controlling relationships have lost a legal challenge to the rules around the two-child benefit cap.
A high court judge said the accounts of the abuse the women faced when they were “vulnerable girls barely out of childhood” were “chilling”.
Continue reading...UK PM and German chancellor sign first bilateral agreement between the UK and Germany since the second world war
While Rushanara Ali is answering the urgent question in the Commons, Keir Starmer is speaking at the event where he is announcing a “civil society covenant”.
There is a live feed here.
Why does this government think a 16-year-old can vote but not be allowed to buy a lottery ticket or an alcoholic drink, marry or go to war, or even stand in the elections they’re voting? It isn’t the government’s position on the age of maturity just hopelessly confused?
Continue reading...Resolution Foundation says unpaid carers on low incomes pay ‘very heavy price’ for looking after loved ones
The carer’s allowance benefit should be overhauled and the basic rate of payment increased to lift more unpaid carers and disabled people out of financial hardship, according to a living standards thinktank.
The Resolution Foundation said unpaid carers on low incomes were paying a “very heavy price” – a typical penalty of 10% or as much as £7,000 a year compared with non-carers – for looking after loved ones full-time.
Continue reading...UK prime minister will have talks with Emmanuel Macron later today
The BMA strike decision must be a tempting topic for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs, which is starting very soon. The Conservatives have repeatedly criticised the government for the way they swiftly settled public sector pay disputes when they took office; they argue that Labour was too generous to the unions, thereby encouraging them to threaten further strikes.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Streeting says he is “disappointed” by the proposed strike, and he insists resident doctors have had a relatively good outcome on pay. He says:
I remain disappointed that despite all that we have been able to achieve in this last year, and that the majority of resident doctors in the BMA did not vote to strike, the BMA is continuing to threaten strike action.
I accepted the DDRB’s recommendation for resident doctors, awarding an average pay rise of 5.4%, the highest across the public sector. Accepting this above inflation recommendation, which was significantly higher than affordability, required reprioritisation of NHS budgets. Because of this government’s commitment to recognising the value of the medical workforce, we made back-office efficiency savings to invest in the frontline. That was not inevitable, it was an active political choice this government made. Taken with the previous deal I made with the BMA last year, this means resident doctors will receive an average pay rise of 28.9% over the last 3 years.
He says the NHS is “finally moving in the right direction” and that a strike will “put that recovery at risk”.
He offers to hold meet the BMA to hold talks to avert the strike. He says:
I stand ready to meet with you again at your earliest convenience to resolve this dispute without the need for strike action. I would like to once again extend my offer to meet with your entire committee to discuss this.
As I have stated many times, in private and in public, with you and your predecessors, you will not find another health and social care secretary as sympathetic to resident doctors as me. By choosing to strike instead of working in partnership to improve conditions for your members and the NHS, you are squandering an opportunity.
Continue reading...Pat McFadden says U-turn will change calculations, as IFS says tax rises in autumn look increasingly likely
There will be “a cost” to the government’s climbdown on welfare changes at the budget, one of Keir Starmer’s senior ministers has said, as a leading fiscal thinktank said new tax rises appeared increasingly likely.
Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, defended Starmer and the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, after the second reading of the government’s main welfare bill passed its first Commons test only after a central element was removed.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: After frantic late negotiations, the government’s welfare overhaul has passed – now saving almost none of the money that the government said was crucial to its success
Good morning. To his loveless landslide, Keir Starmer can now add a vapid victory. Last night, the government’s flagship welfare reform bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons by 335 votes to 260 – a majority of 75. But after last-minute concessions from the government to secure the bill’s passage, a set of measures whose intended savings had already fallen from £5bn to £2.5bn a year, now looks like recouping much closer to nothing.
The central climbdown, where plans for deep cuts to the personal independence payment (Pip) in the future were shelved, has been celebrated by disabled people and the charities who represent them. They had feared that the support they rely on was about to be ripped away. But it is also a measure of how disastrous the whole process has been for Starmer.
Israel-Gaza war | Donald Trump says that Israel has accepted conditions of a ceasefire after US-Israeli talks and urged Hamas to agree. The US president did not give details of the terms and there is no indication that Hamas will accept them.
NHS | Three bosses at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter, police have said. The three, who have not been named, were arrested as part of the investigation into the actions of leaders at the Countess of Chester hospital.
UK news | The home secretary is coming under increasing pressure to abandon plans to ban Palestine Action, as UN experts and hundreds of lawyers warned that proscribing the group would conflate protest and terrorism.
US news | The jury in the high-profile federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs concluded the day without a verdict on Tuesday, unable to come to a decision on one of the five counts. The judge advised the jury to “keep deliberating”.
Extreme heat | Outdoor working has been banned during the hottest parts of the day in more than half of Italy’s regions, as an extreme heatwave that has smashed June temperature records in Spain and Portugal continues to grip large swathes of Europe.
Continue reading...Switch to four-point Pip eligibility rule may never happen at all as Stephen Timms says government will ‘remove clause five from the bill’
Compass, the leftwing group urging Labour to be more pluralistic, has put out a statement condemning the UC and Pip bill. Its director, Neal Lawson, said:
If your own friends are telling you to put the brakes on, then something has clearly gone wrong. Despite the government’s line, this legislation does not advance Labour values. It is fundamentally at odds with them, and with the views of the mainstream of the party and civil society.”
MPs from across the House, and especially the Labour side, must back Rachael Maskell’s reasoned amendment. This bill’s creation of a three-tiered social security system would condemn thousands to poverty and could lose Labour the next election.
A bill of this magnitude should have been co-produced with disabled people and our organisations from the very start.
Now, ministers scramble to promise ‘consultation’ as one small part of the process. That is too little, too late. Co-production is not a rushed tick-box exercise tagged onto legislation already steaming through Parliament. It means disabled people shaping the system at every step – not just commenting on the detail of changes already baked in.
Continue reading...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...‘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...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...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...