2 hours ago
Tories accuse Labour of 'pinching our ideas' with jobs plan
Helen Whately, the shadow works and pensions secretary, accused Kendall of “pinching our ideas”.
Responding to Kendall’s statement in the Commons, Whatley said her government counterpart had rebranded the WorkWell programme, which was introduced under the Conservatives, “as her own connect to work scheme”.
She said: “Far from being cross that the government is pinching our ideas, I welcome the right honourable lady taking our work forwards and that she’s making the right noises about how important this is to fix economic inactivity, which is a big problem for our economy and for each and every individual who risks being written off to a life on benefits.
“I am disappointed in the substance of what she is announcing today, because far from matching her rhetoric, this appears to be little more than a pot of money for local councils, some disparaging language about the work of job centers and a consultation which will be launched in the spring. Given that they have had 14 years to prepare for this moment, where are the reforms to benefits which will actually make material savings to the taxpayer? Like the £12bn we committed to save in our manifesto. Where are the reforms to fit notes which we had handed over already to go?
“Where is her plan for reforming the workplace capability assessment? She has banked the £3bn savings from our plan but fails to set out her own and her big announcement on making benefits for young people conditional. Did she forget that they already are? The fact is, the secretary of state has dodged the tough decisions every day she kicks the can down the road.”
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Back in the Commons, Kendall said the government wants to “drive down” economic inactivity caused by poor health, adding work is under way but ministers want to go “much further and faster to tackle this issue”.
She told the Commons: “To meet the scale of the challenge, we will devolve new funding, new powers and new responsibilities to tackle economic inactivity to mayors and local areas because local leaders know their communities best.
“We’ll support all areas in England to produce local ‘Get Britain Working’ plans, joining up work, health and skills support. Today I’m announcing eight trailblazer areas backed by £125m of additional funding in South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, the north-east, Greater Manchester, Wales, York and North Yorkshire, and two Greater London areas.
“In three of these areas – South and West Yorkshire and the north-east - this will include dedicated input and £45m of funding for local NHS integrated care systems.
“And we’re funding a new supported employment programme called ‘Connect to Work’ backed by £115m of initial funding for next year. This will be included in the integrated settlements for combined authorities, starting with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.”
Starmer in 'listening mode' at unpublicised meeting with farmers union, NFU head says
Keir Starmer has held a meeting at Downing Street with the head of the Farmers’ Union (NFU) to discuss continued worries among farmers about changes to inheritance tax announced in the budget.
While the government still has no plans to offer any concessions over the changes, the NFU president, Tom Bradshaw, said the prime minister “was very much in listening mode”, and that he hoped ministers could still change course.
The meeting, held on Monday but not publicised by No 10, came six days after thousands of farmers gathered in central London to protest against the decision to levy inheritance tax on some farms for the first time.
Previously, farmland had not been subject to inheritance tax, with ministers saying this has often been used as a tax loophole by wealthy people who buy up agricultural plots. Under the new plans, from April 2026, farmland worth more than £1m will be taxed at 20%, half the usual inheritance tax rate.
Last week, Bradshaw called the tax a “stab in the back” for the sector, saying: “I don’t think I have ever seen the industry this angry, this disillusioned, this upset.”
In a video update to members after the meeting with Starmer, Bradshaw took a more measured tone, while saying he had still pressed the case over the tax changes.
“The PM was very much in listening mode, and I hope that he’s able to act on what he’s heard this afternoon, and really understand that when we talk about the very real human impacts,” Bradshaw said. “When we talk about the viability of our family farms, the low returns from producing the country’s food, these are all conversations that we’ve picked up this afternoon.”
Saying the conversation also took in food security and trade deals, he added: “The prime minister engaged with us and made time to hear our story. And I really hope this marks a moment where we can move forwards and get to an outcome that works for everyone.”
2.8m out of work due to long-term sickness, says Kendall
Kendall told the Commons that 2.8 million are out of work due to long-term sickness, and almost one million young people are not in education, employment or training.
She said the situation is “far worse in parts of the country - in the Midlands and the North - that were deindustrialised in the 80s and 90s, the very same places that have lower life expectancy and chronic poor health, areas which the party opposite (the Conservatives) repeatedly promised to level up, but repeatedly failed to deliver”.
She continued: “And the result is an economic but above all social crisis, paid for in the life chances and living standards of people right across this country, and by a benefits bill for sickness and disability that is set to rise by £26bn by the end of this parliament.”
Tories accuse Labour of 'pinching our ideas' with jobs plan
Helen Whately, the shadow works and pensions secretary, accused Kendall of “pinching our ideas”.
Responding to Kendall’s statement in the Commons, Whatley said her government counterpart had rebranded the WorkWell programme, which was introduced under the Conservatives, “as her own connect to work scheme”.
She said: “Far from being cross that the government is pinching our ideas, I welcome the right honourable lady taking our work forwards and that she’s making the right noises about how important this is to fix economic inactivity, which is a big problem for our economy and for each and every individual who risks being written off to a life on benefits.
“I am disappointed in the substance of what she is announcing today, because far from matching her rhetoric, this appears to be little more than a pot of money for local councils, some disparaging language about the work of job centers and a consultation which will be launched in the spring. Given that they have had 14 years to prepare for this moment, where are the reforms to benefits which will actually make material savings to the taxpayer? Like the £12bn we committed to save in our manifesto. Where are the reforms to fit notes which we had handed over already to go?
“Where is her plan for reforming the workplace capability assessment? She has banked the £3bn savings from our plan but fails to set out her own and her big announcement on making benefits for young people conditional. Did she forget that they already are? The fact is, the secretary of state has dodged the tough decisions every day she kicks the can down the road.”
Young people 'have a responsibility' to take new opportunities, Kendall tells MPs
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has begun her statement in the Commons outlining the Get Britain Working white paper.
She told the Commons that young people “have a responsibility” to take up new opportunities.
She said: “This comes alongside our commitment to provide mental health support in every school, our work experience and careers advice offer, and our plans to reform the last government’s failed apprenticeship levy to give more young people the opportunities they deserve.
“But our new Youth Guarantee will go further, bringing together all the support for 18 to 21-year-olds under the leadership of mayors and local areas so all young people have access to education, training and employment opportunities, and so that no young person misses out.”
She announced eight Youth Guarantee “trailblazers” in the Liverpool City Region, West Midlands, Tees Valley, East Midlands, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, West of England, and two areas in Greater London, backed by £45m.
She continued: “I can also announce a new national partnership to provide exciting opportunities for young people in sports, arts and culture, starting with some of Britain’s most iconic cultural and sporting organisations including the Premier League, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Channel 4, building on the brilliant work they already do to inspire and engage the younger generation and get them on the pathway to success.”
Kendall later said: “In return for these new opportunities, you have a responsibility to take them up, because being unemployed or lacking basic qualifications when you’re young can harm your job prospects and wages for the rest of your life, and that is not good enough for young people or for our country.”
Her measures were reported ahead of her Commons statement.
Andrew Sparrow
Paul Brand from ITV News says he thinks turnout for the assisted dying debate on Friday will be particularly high.
Think turnout on Friday will be unusually high for a private members bill.
I had wondered whether undecided/unsure MPs would stay away. But I’m hearing that many feel - because the issue has punched through so significantly - that they can’t hide from and have to vote.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is just starting her statement about the Get Britain Working white paper. My colleague Sammy Gecsoyler is taking over for a bit, but I will be back later.
Cross-party group of MPs call for assisted dying bill to be voted down to allow full review of policy options
Seven backbench MPs have signed an amendment to the second reading motion for the assisted dying bill, which is being debated on Friday, saying the bill should be shelved to allow a proper review of the policy. They call for “a fully-informed debate and vote on assisted dying, which should be subsequent to an independent review of and public consultation on the existing law and proposals for change”.
The amendment has been signed by two Conservative MPs (Ben Spencer and John Lamont), four Labour MPs ( Anna Dixon, Polly Billington, Josh Fenton-Glynn and Uma Kumaran) and one Lib Dem one (Munira Wilson).
MPs are unlikely to be allowed to get a chance to vote on this amendment. But the fact that it has been tabled is significant, because it suggests there is growing support in the Commons for some sort of pause to the legislation, and for a proper, government-led review of policy in this areas. Even MPs in favour of assisted dying worry that the private members’ bill procedures in the Commons do not allow enough time for scrutiny for a social change as significant as this one, and last week the former Labour MP Ed Balls suggested that the best option might be for the vote to be pulled on Friday, and for the government to launch a review instead. In a blog earlier this month David Natzler, a former clerk to the Commons, said MPs should come to a decision at second reading – but that after that a government-led review might be the best way forward.
No 10 mystified as to why Boris Johnson seems to think archbishop of Canterbury partly to blame for obesity crisis
Downing Street lobby briefings can often end up sounding like the Sky News papers review, and this morning the PM’s spokesperson was also asked about a report in the Times by Steven Swinford about Boris Johnson’s latest thoughts on the reasons for Britain’s obesity problems. Johnson, the former PM, sounded off in evidence given to an inquiry on food policy backed by the charities Nesta and Impact on Urban Health. The report was out yesterday.
Summing up Johnson’s reasoning (no easy feat), Swinford says:
Boris Johnson has blamed the Church of England for Britain’s obesity crisis, saying that its failure to provide people with the “spiritual sustenance” they need was leading people to “gorge themselves”.
The former prime minister said that when he was younger it was “very rare for there to be a fatso in the class. Now they’re all fatsos, and I’d be shot for saying they’re fatsos, but it’s the truth.”
He criticised the Most Rev Justin Welby and other religious leaders for going on about slavery reparations rather than addressing “people’s spiritual needs”.
Asked if Keir Starmer agreed that Welby was in part to blame for the obesity crisis, the PM’s spokesperson said: “I didn’t quite follow [Johnson’s] line of argument.”
But the government is taking action to deal with the obesity problem, he added.
Watchdog refuses to sign off UK public sector accounts over unreliable data
The government’s entire public sector financial accounts are not fit for purpose, the official audit watchdog has said after the collapse of the “red flag” system that scrutinises billions of pounds of spending in local government. Patrick Butler and Michael Goodier report:
The Audit Office (NAO) said it was impossible to sign off the government’s latest public spending figures as accurate because of the unreliability of financial data relating to hundreds of councils and police and fire authorities.
The NAO’s unprecedented decision to “disclaim” the government’s accounts comes amid warnings that the chronic inadequacy of the council audit system – seen as an “early warning” indicator of financial failure or wrongdoing – could result in more councils going bust.
Just one in 10 local authorities submitted reliable formal accounts of their spending in 2022-23. Of the remaining 90%, half failed to submit any financial data at all and half submitted accounts that had not been audited, the NAO said.
Here is the full story.
No 10 knocks down story claiming extra bank holiday planned for 80th anniversary of VE day next year
This morning the Daily Express splashed on a story claiming the government would announce extra bank holidays to mark the 80th anniversary of end of the second world war next year.
Someone’s had a duff steer. At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson said that, while there will be special events to mark the 80th anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) day next year, “these plans do not include an additional bank holiday”.
Russia expels British diplomat for espionage
Russia has expelled a British diplomat, accusing him of espionage. Yohannes Lowe has more on our Ukraine war live blog.
Under the Get Britain Working plans announced today, eight areas in England will get funding for “inactivity trailblazers”. One of them is Greater Manchester, which will get £10m for its Working Well employment scheme, which it describes as “one of the top national programmes for job outcomes” and which is part of Greater Manchester’s Live Well wellbeing initiative.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, who has long called for mayors to have more power over employment policy, said:
For people to be working well, they have to be living well – and the current job support system cannot do that with a narrow, box-ticking focus.
Greater Manchester has already got a proven track record of helping people back into work. Our focus is on names and not numbers, and on providing a more empowering, more supportive experience within the community.
This trailblazer will enable us to build on strong foundations and develop Live Well on a bigger scale, so we can tackle the root causes of inequality and help more people get good jobs here in our city-region.
There is a full briefing on the Working Well programme here.
Record number of English bathing sites classified as having poor water quality
Water quality has been designated as poor in a record number of bathing areas this year after 16 rivers were included in summer testing for harmful bacteria, Sandra Laville reports. Sandra writes:
The push to clean up England’s rivers has led to a spike in demand for bathing water status at river locations across the country. Rivers suffer from water company sewage pollution and agricultural pollution, and the results show river water quality is distinctly worse than that of coastal bathing sites. The results come after sewage pollution into rivers by water companies reached record levels last year.
This year, 16 river areas were designated as bathing water sites out 27 new areas, which meant they were tested for harmful bacteria, E coli and intestinal enterococci.
Across the country, 450 locations have bathing water status and are tested during the summer season, from May to September. This year a record number of areas – 37, or 8.2% – did not meet the minimum standards for bathing waters, and were classified as poor.
Of the 27 new bathing water sites tested, 18 were classified as having “poor” water quality, most of which were rivers. There was a marked difference between river areas and coastal waters, with 95% of coastal waters meeting minimum standards, compared with just over half – 53% – of inland sites.
Here is the full story.
Here are the figures from the Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs.
Here is a chart illustrating the figures.
Commenting on the figures, Tim Farron, the Lib Dem environment spokesperson, said:
It is truly shocking to see just how many swimming spots are rated as poor water quality, enough is enough, this scandal must end.
People are rightly furious at water companies who continue to pump outrageous amounts of sewage into our rivers and seas and a previous Conservative government that let this scandal spiral with no consequences for those responsible.
For the Lib Dems, water quality has become a key campaigning issue.
Here is some more business reaction to the Get Britain Working white paper.
This is from Jane Gratton, deputy director for public police at the British Chambers of Commerce.
Today’s white paper – with its emphasis on improving access to health, skills and employment support – has the potential to make a real difference for employers, employees and local economies.
Our research shows only 1 in 10 SMEs are using job centres and this is a lost opportunity. It’s crucial to modernise the service to better connect businesses and job seekers.
The high number of working age people who are economically inactive though ill health is a particular concern for employers. We look forward to engaging with the review into how employers can be supported to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces. Tax reforms would make it easier for employers to take a proactive role.
And this is from Neil Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.
I agree with a lot of stuff in the white paper, but the employment rate is 74.8%. This is about supporting a jobs market that is already dynamic by increasing the flow from inactivity. A good way of doing that is realising that the private sector is the engine of job growth..
There will be two statements in the Commons today after Foreign Office questions.
First, at 12.30pm, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, will make a statement about the Cop29 climate conference.
And about an hour later Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, will make a statement about the Get Britain Working white paper.
Last asylum seekers housed on Bibby Stockholm barge set to leave after government stops using it for accommodation
The last asylum seekers living on the Bibby Stockholm are set to leave the barge, PA Media reports. PA says:
A group of eight remaining men will leave the accommodation moored in Portland, Dorset, today, according to a support group.
A spokesperson for Portland Global Friendship Group told PA: “We held our last community drop-in yesterday. We have been saying goodbye to the men for months as there has been a continual movement since the men first arrived in August last year. We continue to support many asylum seekers nationwide from the Bibby Stockholm remotely as they navigate the complex asylum process.”
Hundreds of residents have departed from the barge after the government said it would not renew its contract which expires in January.
One asylum seeker previously told PA that “everyone was happy” that the barge accommodation was shutting down so that other people will be saved from going through the same experience on the ship he described as sometimes feeling like a prison.
Labour has said continuing the use of the Bibby Stockholm would have cost more than £20m next year, and that scrapping it forms part of the expected £7.7bn of savings in asylum costs over the next 10 years.
The asylum seekers accommodated on the barge, who were all men, were being dispersed to accommodation in places including Cardiff, Wolverhampton and Bristol, according to the BBC. None of them will be moved to the Dorset Council catchment, which includes the area around Portland and Weymouth.
