Starmer to face PMQs after welfare bill climbdown
The UK Covid-19 inquiry is hearing evidence from former health secretary Matt Hancock today. I’ll be sharing updates as they come in.
Also, at 12pm we have prime minister’s questions (PMQs) where prime minister Keir Starmer will be taking questions in parliament.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Key events
A live stream of today’s PMQs has been added to the top of the blog. You may need to refresh the page to see it.
More urgent and bolder action is needed to improve Scotland’s diet and tackle growing obesity rates, the nation’s food standards experts have said, reports the PA news agency.
Food Standards Scotland (FSS) said recent moves towards a preventive approach have helped but progress remains too slow and Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the UK in some areas.
Results from the latest Scottish health survey, which was conducted in 2023, showed 32% of adults were living with obesity, up from 24% on 2003.
According to the PA news agency, FSS welcomed plans for restrictions on the promotion of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) food, but said a more fundamental change is needed.
The agency will be writing to health secretary Neil Gray to call for a more joined-up approach – including on areas reserved to Westminster such as the sugar levy and food labelling.
FSS board chair Heather Kelman said:
We welcome the direction of travel, but action must be stronger, faster, and better resourced.
Public health cannot continue to take a back seat to commercial interests. Delays and compromises only serve to deepen existing health inequalities with a continuing increase in dietary-related health costs.
She noted that Scotland faces some of the worst diet-related health outcomes in Europe, including on obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Kelman continued:
Without urgent and coordinated action, Scotland risks missing its ambition to halve childhood obesity by 2030, and allowing diet-related illness to continue placing unsustainable pressure on the NHS.
Clinical solutions can help but are not a panacea and preventing dietary related ill-health conditions is still a much better solution.
We need a bold strategy to reshape the food environment. The intent is there.
Now we need delivery, leadership, and the political will across all UK administrations to follow through.
And the prime minister is on his way to the House of Commons for today’s PMQs.
Keir Starmer has said that the Labour government is “delivering the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in decades”. In a series of posts on X on Wednesday, the prime minister wrote:
‘I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get our own place’. I heard that constantly after 14 years of Tory failure on housing. I don’t want to hear it again. My Labour government is delivering the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in decades.
The Tories snatched the dream of home ownership away from an entire generation. With the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in decades, my Labour government will make it a reality for families across Britain.
Starmer to face PMQs after welfare bill climbdown
The UK Covid-19 inquiry is hearing evidence from former health secretary Matt Hancock today. I’ll be sharing updates as they come in.
Also, at 12pm we have prime minister’s questions (PMQs) where prime minister Keir Starmer will be taking questions in parliament.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
When ministers announced major changes to welfare, many were left in shock that such deep cuts would be enacted by a Labour government, despite the urgent need to address the spiraling cost of benefits. But thanks to strong opposition from disabled people, organisations and rebel Labour MPs, many of the proposals were amended or removed before the bill passed through parliament.
The Guardian spent time with dissenting voices in the run-up to the vote, to learn what was at stake for disabled people, already disproportionately affected by rising poverty in the UK. You can watch the video report here:
Rayner defends Starmer, saying he is ‘doing the job for Britain’
Angela Rayner has defended Keir Starmer as “doing the job for Britain” as he approaches his first year in office.
The deputy prime minister said “there’s been a lot going on” in the 12 months since Starmer entered Downing Street, and indicated that she is not interested in the job running the country, reports the PA news agency.
Speaking to ITV’s Lorraine programme on Wednesday, Rayner was asked whether the prime minister is tired, and responded:
Even before I was in politics, I said that have you ever seen a prime minister after a year or two in government?
And people always say to me, do you want to be prime minister? Not a chance. It’ll age me by 10 years within six months.
She added:
It is a very challenging job, and there’s been, to be fair for Keir Starmer, there’s been a lot going on.
He’s been all around the world trying to repair the relationships in Europe. We’ve got the trade deals that the previous government wasn’t able to do, tackling the things like the tariffs that the president in the US wanted to put on to the UK, which would have damaged our economy again.
There’s a lot going on, and the prime minister’s been [ …] here, there and everywhere, doing the job for Britain.
Polling expert Prof Sir John Curtice has referred to Starmer’s first year in office as “the worst start for any newly elected prime minister”.
He told Times Radio that the prime minister was “never especially popular” and that “the public still don’t know what he stands for.”
Asked if she would be interested in being prime minister at some point, Rayner told the ITV programme: “No”.
She said that she is “passionate” about issues including workers’ rights and council housing. “I’m very interested in delivering for the people of this country, because … to be elected as an MP from my background was incredible,” she said, adding:
Having that opportunity to serve my community that have raised me, looked after me, given me opportunities, and I don’t forget that. And to be deputy prime minister of this country … it’s got to count for something.”
Frances Ryan has spoken to disabled people to get their reactions to the passing of watered-down welfare bill. You can read the news feature here:
Alexandra Topping
The chief executive of a miscarriage of justice watchdog for England, Wales and Northern Ireland has resigned after serious failings in the case of Andrew Malkinson.
Karen Kneller, who had held the position since 2013, has left her job at the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) after one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history, it was announced on Wednesday.
Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape in Greater Manchester that he did not commit, was cleared in July 2023. His case was knocked back twice by the CCRC until his legal team carried out crucial DNA testing that was then repeated by the commission and led to his release.
A report on the CCRC’s handling of the case in July last year laid bare “a catalogue of failures”, finding that Malkinson could have been exonerated almost a decade earlier. Thousands of cases are now being reviewed as a result of the botched process.
The welfare bill passed, but it was chaos, writes John McDonnell. In his latest Guardian opinion piece, McDonnell warns that “a party this dysfunctional and divided cannot escape the wrath of voters at the next election”.
You can read it here:
Children should not be strip-searched or detained unless a last resort, say MPs
Ben Quinn
Children should not be detained in custody unless arrested for a serious crime and strip-searched only under truly exceptional circumstances, two parliamentary reports have said.
Harrowing testimonies of children in England and Wales who were strip-searched and who accused police of racism and making damaging, disrespectful comments are included in the research for the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on children in police custody.
The reports – the culmination of a year’s research involving children, police forces and parents – were released days after the sacking of two Metropolitan police officers who were involved in the strip-search of a schoolgirl who become known as Child Q.
While a police misconduct hearing found that racism was not a factor in that incident, the research gives voice to young people who said that racism was a factor in their strip-searches.
Children as young as 10 in England and Wales are currently subject to the same processes and have essentially the same protections as adults when they are detained in police custody.
Instead, the MPs on the group say that police detention should be the last resort for a child and that any initial detention period should be limited to 12 hours – half of the time that adults can be held before they must be charged or released.
Dr Miranda Bevan, a law lecturer at King’s College London who led an inquiry for the APPG, said that children who were detained were disproportionately likely to have special educational or communication needs, to have been exploited or suffered victimisation, and to have been known to mental health authorities.
“Yet these children – some as young as 10 – are being left alone in a police cell, with very limited adult support, for up to 24 hours,” she said. “They are expected to decide whether or not they want to accept legal representation; a decision that they should not be asked to make in those circumstances.
“We must reshape police custody into a space that recognises and responds to the unique needs of children. Reform must be rooted in evidence, and that evidence starts with listening to children and examining their experiences.”
The APPG puts forward 10 recommendations, including a ban on strip-searching children unless under truly exceptional circumstances and making it a requirement that legal advice be provided for all children detained in police custody.
