Foreign Office denies minister’s claim the Chagos Islands deal has been paused – UK politics live

Minister told MPs the deal had been been paused, but that was immediately denied by the Foreign Office

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published figures showing that local authorities in England dealt with 1.26m flytipping incidents in 2024/25 – 9% increase on the previous year.

And there was an 11% increase in incidents involving a “tipper lorry load” amount of rubbish. There were 52,000 of these, up from 47,000 in 2023/24. Defra said these alone cost councils £19.3m.

These figures show the equivalent of 142 monster landfills a day took place, confirming what communities across the country know all too well – our beautiful countryside is being used by criminal gangs as their personal landfill.

For far too long, waste gangs have pocketed millions in illegal earning, poisoning our environment and our health without consequence. The Liberal Democrats are demanding an end to this environmental vandalism.

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Starmer says budget did not break manifesto tax pledge – as it happened

PM says: ‘We kept to our manifesto in terms of what we’ve promised. But I accept the challenge that we’ve asked everybody to contribute’

The Conservative party is attacking the budget on the grounds that Rachel Reeves is putting up taxes supposedly to fund more spending on benefit claimants. Even though the rationale for this claim is questionable, the Tories were making it before the budget was announced, and Kemi Badenoch firmed it up last night, claiming it was a “Benefits Street budget”.

On LBC this morning, asked if the budget meant “alarm clock Britain paying for Benefits Street”, Reeves said she did not accept that. She said 60% of the families that would benefit from the removal of the two-child benefit cap (the most expensive welfare announcement in the budget) were in work.

I don’t think children should be punished by this pernicious policy any longer. And the cost to society of this is huge, the cost for councils of temporary accommodation, when people can no longer afford the rent, putting families in B&Bs, kids having to move to school all the time because parents have moved from B&B to another lot of temporary accommodation, and there’s costs for years to come, because all the evidence shows that kids that are growing up poor are less likely to get into work and more reliant on the welfare state in the future for them.

So this is a good investment in those kids, to give them the chances that I want for my kids, and everyone wants for their kids. It also saves money for taxpayers on that accommodation, on those additional health costs, and ensuring that those kids grow up to be productive adults.

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Ed Miliband urges Labour to move on after Starmer apologises to Streeting for hostile briefings from No 10 – UK politics live

Fallout from extraordinary briefing operation against Wes Streeting continues as calls grow for Starmer to sack his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney

Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.

Five UN experts have written to ministers criticising the ban on Palestine Action as something that would be expected in an authoritarian regime rather than a liberal democracy.

In the work of UN experts in monitoring counter-terrorism laws globally, abuse of laws to proscribe organisations as terrorist that are not genuinely so has more commonly occurred in states that are authoritarian and lack legal and political cultures of respect for human rights, legality, due process and independent judicial safeguards, in order to target civil society organisations, human rights defenders, political dissidents and minorities.

It is deeply concerning that such practices appear to have spread to a number of liberal democracies. Organisations must never be listed as terrorist for engaging in protected speech or legitimate activities in defence of human rights.

We are concerned that proscription and its consequences result in unnecessary and disproportionate restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and the rights to take part in public affairs and to liberty.

The Scottish government’s tax decisions enable us to deliver higher investment in the NHS and policies like free tuition not available anywhere else in the UK.

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Second accidental release of prisoner ‘utterly unacceptable’, No 10 says, as Lammy blames system left by Tories – UK politics live

Lammy, standing in for Keir Starmer, avoided answering questions on the mistaken release during PMQs

David Lammy starts by saying the PM is in Brazil.

He says the thoughts of all MPs are still with the victims of the appalling attacks in Huntingdon and Peterborough, where, he says, he was at school for seven years.

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MPs vote down Farage’s proposal for UK to leave ECHR – as it happened

This blog is now closed, you can read more of our UK political coverage here

Mark Sedwill, the former cabinet secretary and former national security adviser, goes next. He is now a peer, and a member of the committee.

He says the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Collins, thought there was enough evidence for the case to go ahead. But the CPS did not agree. Who was right?

In 2017, the Law Commission flagged that the term enemy [in the legislation] was deeply problematic and it would give rise to difficulties in future prosecutions.

And I think what has played out, during this prosecution exemplifies and highlights the difficulties with that.

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SNP backs Swinney’s ‘clear’ strategy for new independence referendum

Members overwhelmingly endorse leadership motion that majority at next Holyrood election is only route to second vote

SNP members have overwhelmingly backed leader John Swinney’s “clear and unambiguous” independence strategy that a majority election win is the only route to another referendum.

On the first day of the party’s annual conference in Aberdeen, the vast majority of members backed the leadership’s motion that next May’s Holyrood elections should be fought on a “clear platform of national independence” and that winning a majority in the Scottish parliament – by securing 65 seats or more – would be “the only uncontested way to deliver a new vote on Scotland’s future”.

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Tory plan to abolish stamp duty ‘will benefit London and the wealthiest the most’ – as it happened

This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

Voting in the Labour deputy leadership election opens today. Lucy Powell, the former Commons leader, is seen as the favourite and, as Jessica Elgot reports, Powell told supporters yesterday that, if she is elected, she will use the post to argue for changes in the way the government is operating. “We can’t sugarcoat the fact that things aren’t going well,” she said.

Powell is no longer a government minister and, if she is elected deputy leader, she will do the job from the backbenches. In an interview on Newsnight last night, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary standing against Powell, said a Powell victory would be “destabilising” for the party. She said:

[Electing Powell] risks destabilising the party … we best achieve what we need to do together when we have those fierce conversations, including disagreements, behind closed doors.

Members need to understand that there’s a potential challenge around all of that – that if you’re not inside when the big decisions are being made, you’re not at that table, you’re not in those conversations.

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Andy Burnham calls for UK to rejoin EU within his lifetime and rejects claim he is fiscally irresponsible – as it happened

Mayor of Greater Manchester says he would have to be ‘wrenched’ out of city and says he wants UK to rejoin EU. This live blog is closed

In her Today interview Rachel Reeves was asked about a FT report saying she will urge business leaders to highlight the risks of a Reform UK government in her speech later.

The FT say Reeves will tell the Labour conference.

Who is standing up for Britain’s stability. A Labour government that is resolute in cutting interest rates and borrowing or a Reform party that cheered on Liz Truss’ mini-budget?

Who is standing up for Britain’s businesses? A Labour government that is forging a closer relationship with our nearest trading partners or a Reform party that talks Britain down and is hungry to cut us off from the world?

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Scottish minister Jamie Hepburn quits after Douglas Ross assault accusation

Former Scottish Tory leader alleges Hepburn grabbed him amid row over SNP’s apparent failure to tackle gull attacks

A Scottish minister has resigned after a row over aggressive gulls spilled over into an angry altercation with the former Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross.

Jamie Hepburn, the Scottish government’s minister for parliamentary business, tendered his resignation after Ross accused him of assault outside the parliament chamber on Wednesday.

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Assisted dying bill gets second reading in Lords, but with peers also setting up select committee to review it – as it happened

Committee to conclude review of bill by 7 November. This live blog is closed

The UK is preparing to recognise the state of Palestine imminently, after Israel failed to meet conditions that would have postponed the historic step, including a ceasefire in Gaza, Patrick Wintour reports.

YouGov has relased polling today suggesting that Britons are in favour of this by more than two to one, although a large minority of people do not have a view.

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Scottish parliament scraps legal verdict of ‘not proven’

Third option for juries – blamed for country’s lower conviction rates for rape and sexual assault – abolished

The Scottish verdict of “not proven” – a global legal anomaly thought to be a key factor in the country’s significantly lower convictions rate for rape and sexual assault – has been abolished.

MSPs agreed to scrap the unique Scottish verdict as they voted through a series of major changes that Angela Constance, the justice secretary, said “put victims and witnesses at the heart of a modern and fair justice system”.

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Home secretary suspends refugee family reunion applications until new, tighter rules are put in place – as it happened

Yvette Cooper says rules were designed years ago to help families separated by war but are being used in a different way now

And while we are talking about Blair-era Labour aides, Peter Hyman, who wrote speeches for Tony Blair and later worked for Keir Starmer in the run-up to the general election, has launched a new Substack blog. It is called Changing the Story, which tells you quite a lot about what he thinks is going wrong with No 10. Here is an extract from his first post.

Starmer is an ‘opportunity’ prime minister forced to become a ‘security’ one. And that’s why the government’s narrative is seen by some to be elusive.

Let me explain.

I remember well Tim Allan’s leaving drinks at Number 10 in the earlyish Blair era. In his fulsome farewell speech Tony Blair noted only half jokingly “Tim’s even more right wing than me..”

The same Tim Allan who as head of Portland had a contract to polish Vladimir Putin’s reputation?

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Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir Frankly taps into SNP discontent over party’s future

Her critics have reacted with fury but some in party feel nostalgia and ‘sense of loss for independence movement’

Nicola Sturgeon’s month-long promotional tour for her memoir Frankly comes to an end this Friday at the Southbank Centre in London, the city, according to one of many carefully placed publication interviews, where she is considering moving to escape the “goldfish bowl scrutiny” of Scotland.

The former first minister’s political memoir has generated a blizzard of headlines since its launch on 12 August. Some were diverting but ultimately inconsequential, like her choice of future base, others rubbed salt in raw wounds, reprising two of the most divisive episodes in the SNP’s recent history – the Scottish government’s investigation into allegations of sexual harassment made against her predecessor Alex Salmond, and her flagship gender recognition law changes.

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Scottish ministers face legal action over policies ‘inconsistent’ with UK gender ruling

Campaign group that won supreme court case brings challenge over transgender guidance in schools and prisons

A campaign group that won a legal victory on the definition of gender is taking action against the Scottish government over policies it says are “inconsistent” with the ruling.

For Women Scotland’s legal battle with Scottish ministers over the definition of a woman ended in the UK’s supreme court, which ruled in April that the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 referred to a biological woman and biological sex.

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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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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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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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Winter fuel payments U-turn likely to lead to higher taxes or other welfare cuts, says IFS director – UK politics live

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.

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Yvette Cooper quizzed over immigration and prisons crisis – UK politics live

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.

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Starmer defends not putting date on 3% defence spending target as UK to announce plans to build new submarines – politics live

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”.

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