No 10 won’t say if PM’s ethics adviser obtained proof that Reeves was wrongly advised over rental licence
At the Downing Street lobby briefing (or any other briefing, for that matter), it is not a good sign if the reporters end up laughing. But there was a bit of that today as the No 10 spokesperson faced questions about Rachel Reeves’ rental licence error. To be fair to the spokesperson, it was not his fault; he is expected to stick to “lines to take” agreed by the prime mininster and his most senior aides in No 10, and the spokesperson did that perfectly calmly and professionally. It is just that there were a lot of questions he would not address.
Here are some of the things that No 10 did say.
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The No 10 spokesperson rejected the claim that Reeves had got off “scot-free” to avoid spooking the markets. When it was put to him that Starmer had done a quick “stitch-up” to avoid upsetting the markets and “the chancellor has got away scot-free”, the spokesperson replied: “I don’t accept the framing of that at all.”
But there were a lot more questions that the spokesperson would not answer.
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The No 10 spokesperson declined to explicitly confirm that Reeves had not broken the ministerial code. Asked repeatedly whether or not Reeves broke the ministerial code, the spokesperson avoided answering one way or the other. But he did say that the ministerial code did say that an apology can be “an appropriate sanction” – implying the code was broken. The spokesperson repeatedly referred to section 2.7 of the code, which says:
Where the prime minister determines that a breach of the expected standards has occurred, they may ask the independent adviser for confidential advice on the appropriate sanction. The final decision rests with the prime minister. Where the prime minister retains their confidence in the minister, available sanctions include requiring some form of public apology, remedial action, or removal of ministerial salary for a period.
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The spokesperson would not say whether or not Sir Laurie Magnus, the PM’s ethics adviser, asked for proof that Reeves had been told that she did not need a rental licence, or whether he just took Reeves at her word when she said that was the case. The spokesperson just said that Starmer spoke to Magnus, who “advised that in the light of the chancellor’s prompt action to rectify the position, including her apology, further investigation is not necessary”. Reporters were left with the impression that Magnus had not asked for evidence to back up what Reeves said.
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The spokesperson would not say whether Starmer still believes that any breach of the ministerial code should lead to a resignation, as he proposed when he was in opposition. The spokesperson said that what Starmer did when he was opposition leader was not a matter for him. But he said as PM Starmer had strengthened the code.
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The spokesperson would not say why, if the ethics adviser is genuinely independent, why he rushed out a decision on this last night instead of taking time to establish what the full facts were. When asked this, the spokesperson said the chancellor had acted “with urgency”. But he did not explain why Magnus did not take longer to look at the matter.
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The spokesperson would not say whether or not Reeves’s mistake meant she had broken the law. The spokesperson just repeated the line about how Reeves had apologised for an inadvertent mistake. Asked if Reeves would have to resign if she gets fined over this, the spokesperson again referred to the PM’s letter to Reeves last night. He said he would not comment on a hypothetical question. But he said that Starmer has “set out the standards he expects in public life” in the past.
Key events
A raft of leading economists and thinkers from around the world are supporting a Green Planning Commission being launched today by the Common Wealth thinktank.
The commission will explore the need for “a new progressive climate consensus … which takes the break with market coordination as its premise, but which absorbs the political and policy innovations and limitations that have taken place over the past decade and comprehensively advocates for a more robust green planning policy framework”.
In a statement about their work, the commissioners say:
We are in a moment of peril for progressive climate action. In Washington, a revanchist carbon coalition is brutally dismantling the turn towards green investment and planning initiated by the Biden Administration. A Labour government in Britain, meanwhile, is at a crossroads; its ambitious transition targets threatened by rising costs and a stagnant economy. Across Europe, uneven but real progress is threatened by a populist right that promises to row back on decarbonisation efforts as an illusory solution to the cost of living crisis. Globally, despite the world-historic productive force of China’s green state developmentalism, the green transition remains dangerously off course.
It is, however, also a time of renewal, well suited to the rethinking of dominant political and policy paradigms. We have an opportunity and responsibility to develop a programme that can defeat forces of reaction, deliver a just transition, traverse a fraught geopolitical context, rebuild state capacity, and ensure economic security and affordability for working people.
There are more details of what the commission hopes to achieve here.
Nearly 40,000 prisoners let out under government’s early release scheme, MoJ says
Nearly 40,000 prisoners in England and Wales have been let out of jail under the government’s early release scheme to tackle overcrowding in prisons, PA Media reports. PA says:
Some 38,042 inmates had been freed as of the end of June this year, according to Ministry of Justice figures [pdf].
The scheme was launched as an emergency measure on 10 September last year, just days after the prison population reached a record high of 88,521.
It allows eligible prisoners to be released after serving only 40% of their fixed-term sentence, rather than the usual 50%.
It comes as part of efforts to curb overcrowding in jails. Officials warned in May that male prisons were on track to hit zero capacity by November this year.
Some 10,879 of the 38,042 early releases (28.6%) were serving sentences of six months or under, with a further 5,241 (13.8%) serving sentences of between six and 12 months.
The age group that made up the greatest proportion of early releases was 30 to 39-year-olds (37.6% of the overall total), followed by 40 to 49-year-olds (23.4%).
Meanwhile 34,332 (90.2%) were British nationals, 3,644 (9.6%) were foreign nationals and 66 (0.2%) had no nationality recorded.
HMP Humber in Brough, near Hull, has released the highest number of inmates so far under the scheme (1,126), followed by Berwyn in Wrexham (1,064); Fosse Way in Leicester (1,037); and Parc B in Bridgend (830).
The current scheme for the early release of prisoners replaced a separate scheme introduced by the previous Conservative government.
Under this separate process, 13,325 prisoners in England and Wales were freed early between October 17 2023 and September 9 2024.
UK rule change allows Palestinian scholars to bring families from Gaza
Palestinian students taking up scholarships at UK universities will be allowed to bring their families from Gaza with them after the government said it would consider case-by-case exemptions, Richard Adams reports.
Badenoch says Tories have ruled out retrospectively removing indefinite leave to remain from migrants living in UK
Kemi Badenoch has ruled out removing indefinite leave to remain (ILR) retrospectively from millions of people who have been told they can remain in the UK for as long as they want.
Speaking to reporters this morning, she finally killed off the most extreme elements of a policy that was set out by Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, in a private member’s bill published in May.
But the Tories remain committed to proposals that would make it much harder for migrants currently living in the UK to get ILR in the future.
Badenoch blamed the controvery on Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister, for speaking “imprecisely” – although Lam was mostly just explaining the policy drafted by Philp.
In February the Conservatives announced plans to make migrants wait 10 years until they can apply for ILR, instead of the current five years, and for applications to be refused if people have claimed benefits. And the time people would have to wait before being allowed to apply for citizenship would also be extended, the party said.
In May Philp followed this up by publishing a private member’s bill that would implement this policy. But the bill went further, saying people who have ILR now should have that status revoked in certain circumstances, including if they had claimed benefits, or were earning less than £38,700.
The bill received little attention at the time, but it was widely read after Lam gave an interview recently saying the Tories would like to deport large numbers of people who are in the UK legally. The Financial Times said the Philp policy could lead to 5% of the UK’s population being deported.
Yesterday a Conservative spokesperson said the Philp bill was no longer policy. The spokesperson said new plans would be published in due course. But he would not say whether these would involve ILR being removed retrospectively.
After the briefing yesterday, Philp posed a message on social media stressing that the February plans were still policy, and confirming that the party would stop people who do get ILR claiming benefits. But he did not repeat the proposal in his bill for those ILR benefit claimants to be deported.
Today, asked whether the Tories would remove ILR retrospectively from people who already have that status, Badenoch replied:
No, we’re not. We’re not being retrospective when we put, when we put that amendment through. It was for a live bill, so it wouldn’t have been retrospective. It was applied to a specific cohort. But that bill has now gone.
Referring to Lam’s interview, Badenoch said “she just stated it [the policy] imprecisely”.
Badenoch said, under current rules, ILR can be revoked retrospectively in some circumstances. But the Tories would not extend that, she implied.
There’s already some retrospective parts, already with ILR, if you commit crimes, you lose it, and so on. But we have a principle – we don’t believe in making things retrospective.
There are exceptions in the law already. We will look at that. But the principle that we are talking about is making sure that foreigners cannot come here and claim benefits.
Priti Patel calls for Reeves to be prosecuted over rental licence error
Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, has called for Rachel Reeves to be prosecuted over her rental licence error. She has posted this on social media.
Labour run Southwark Council boasts of “cracking down on” and having a “zero tolerance approach to rogue landlords” and have prosecuted landlords for renting unlicensed properties.
Rachel Reeves has made thousands from renting without following the licensing laws.
Southwark Council must now take action on Rachel Reeves and prosecute her.
Patel has also posted links (here and here) to stories on Southwark’s website about landlords being fined for not having a rental licence – although both these cases involved landlords ignoring warnings from the council about the need for a licence, which is not what Reeves did.
Patel has not always been so zealous about seeing people punished for breaking rules. As home secretary, she was found to have broken the ministerial code because she had bullied officials. But, with the support of Boris Johnson, PM at the time, she did not resign and remained in post.
John Swinney and Rhun ap Iorwerth discuss SNP/Plaid Cymru ‘progressive alliance’ to challenge Labour
Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
John Swinney, Scotland’s nationalist first minister, and Rhun ap Iorwerth, who hopes to become the nationalist first minister of Wales, have proposed forging a “progressive alliance” to challenge Labour at Westminster.
The pair met at Swinney’s official residence in Edinburgh this morning to pledge a close working relationship if Plaid Cymru wins next May’s Welsh parliamentary elections and ap Iorwerth becomes first minister, in what is a marked change in strategy for the Scottish National party.
Ap Iorwerth’s visit follows Plaid’s historic victory in the Senedd byelection in Caerphilly last week, beating Reform UK and consigning Labour, which had held the contiguous Westminster seat for a century, to a very distant third.
It signals a very deliberate realignment by the SNP: during Nicola Sturgeon’s time as first minister, she forged a very close bond with Mark Drakeford, the Labour first minister of Wales, jointly agreeing strategies to attack the then Conservative government in London.
The SNP’s ties then with Plaid were fraternal rather than strategic. But Labour’s crises and plunging polling support, and the interconnected rise of Reform UK since last year’s general election, has upended that dynamic.
Opinion polls in Wales show Plaid and Reform are vying for victory in next May’s elections, while in Scotland Labour’s efforts to unseat the SNP remain in deep trouble. Polling puts the SNP on course for a comfortable victory; Swinney believes it could win an overall majority at Holyrood.
In statements issued before their meeting – which did not include a joint press conference – ap Iorwerth said a Plaid administration in Cardiff would try to replicate the Scottish child payment, a £25 per child per week benefit funded from devolved budgets.
He said:
The Scottish child payment is a radical and exciting policy which we are committed to introducing as a Welsh pilot should Plaid Cymru form the next government in May. Thanks to measures like this, Scotland is the only part of the UK where child poverty rates are set to drop in the coming years. I want that to be the case in Wales too.
We have a genuine opportunity to show the power of progressive politics through close and continued cooperation between Scotland and Wales.
For Swinney, Plaid’s surge in popularity has the additional benefit of boosting his efforts to make independence central to next year’s Holyrood campaign: a buoyant Welsh nationalist party will strengthen the SNP’s attempts to appeal to yes voters who have recently stopped voting SNP. The polls show a gap of 10% or more between the SNP vote and support for independence; winning back those voters will bring Swinney closer to an overall majority.
Swinney said:
The Westminster status quo is not working – bills are going up, people are struggling and the UK Labour government’s answer is racing further and further to the right to keep up with Nigel Farage.
That is not a status quo I am willing to accept – and I will be delighted to work with my friends in Plaid Cymru to show the people of Scotland and Wales that there is a positive alternative to Westminster’s despair and decline.
Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/PA
Home Office welcomes figures showing almost 60,000 knives taken off streets
Tens of thousands of knives have been seized by police and handed in through surrender schemes, the Home Office has said. PA Media reports:
Nearly 60,000 blades have been taken away in England and Wales as part of government efforts to halve knife crime within a decade, as latest data shows knife murders have dropped in the last year.
Some 7,512 weapons were removed through the month-long ninja sword surrender scheme before the blades were banned from August under Ronan’s Law.
Some 47,795 zombie knives and machetes were also surrendered last year, the Home Office said, while 3,334 knives were retrieved by Border Force and 618 through operations to tackle county lines drug dealing.
There were no national knife surrender schemes in 2023/2024.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said: “Too many young lives are lost each year to knife crime. This government is determined to halve knife crime. We are making progress, but we won’t stop until we meet that goal.”
Latest crime figures for England and Wales show 196 knife-enabled homicides were recorded in the year to June, down by 18% from 239 in the previous 12 months.
Badenoch says Reeves has more questions to answer about rental licence error
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
Kemi Badenoch has said she thinks Rachel Reeves has more questions to answer about her rental licence mistake.
Speaking to reporters after her rally this morning, the Tory leader said:
I think that the more I hear about the story, the more questions there are to answer. This is a 2004 statute that was brought in by Labour. She has tweeted about how it should be extended, and yet she wasn’t following it herself.
And it’s all very well blaming someone else, the lettings agent didn’t do this or that, she is the chancellor. She needs to be on top of her paperwork. She was aware of this legislation. I think there should be an investigation.
But the bottom line is that Keir Starmer said again and again, that lawbreakers shouldn’t be lawmakers. So if she’s broken the law, then he should apply his own rules to her.
Badenoch declines to commit to reversing any tax rises in budget
Kemi Badenoch did speak to reporters in a “huddle” after her speech at the Tory rally this morning. (A “huddle” is mediaspeak for a mini press conference, normally standing up, and off camera.)
Asked if she would commit to reversing any tax increases in the budget, she declined to say she would.
Well, this is one of those things where we have to see where we are in four years’ time.
We talked about the things which we are going to reverse, the family farms, tax, family business taxes, taxes on education.
We want to abolish stamp duty. We want to scrap business rates for high streets.
But we don’t know what kind of mess Labour is going to be leaving in four years’ time.
All we know is that they’re going to be leaving one hell of a mess, and we’ve got to clear it up, and we will do that through applying our golden economic rule, making sure that we’re paying down the deficit as well as making investments.
This is the answer that you would expect an opposition leader to give at this stage in the budget process and the electoral cycle.
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