Summary of the day …
Defence secretary John Healey has announced a restructure of leadership at the Ministry of Defence and in the armed forces, with what he described as a new “quad” of four senior leaders to bring greater accountability and efficiency. Healey said the UK’s defence structures were full of “exceptional” people, but that UK defence had become preoccupied with process rather than outcomes. He suggested the changes might bring as much as £10bn in savings to the taxpayer by reducing duplication of effort
Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has rebuked a senior judge who said she was “deeply troubled” by what Lady Sue Carr said was an “unacceptable” exchange at PMQs last week. The judge objected to both Badenoch and prime minister Keir Starmer describing the granting of the right to live in the UK to a Palestinian family fleeing Gaza as “wrong”. Badenoch said “Parliament is sovereign”. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick also criticised the judge, complaining of “rule by lawyers”
Nigel Farage has said that chancellor Rachel Reeves makes him want to reach for the “cry tissues” and that the Labour government is “miserable” and “declinist”, while arguing that “the Conservative party is not on the right in any measurable way”. He was being interviewed by self-help guru Jordan Peterson at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC). The Reform UK leader said “our platform is to reindustrialise Britain. Let’s produce all the stuff we need in this country” and that the country needed to increase its birthrate, needs “some sense of optimism” and praised ‘“udeo-Christian culture”
Reeves has reportedly called in executives from leading financial services companies for a meeting tomorrow to discuss ideas to stimulate growth in the financial services sector. UK pay growth rose in December and unemployment remained unchanged despite warnings from business that the autumn budget would lead to job losses
The Liberal Democrats said that farmers were being “thrown to the wolves” by the Labour government over changes to inheritance tax. “Their family farm tax could be the final nail in the coffin for many communities struggling to cope,” said MP Tim Farron, while leader Ed Davey made a visit to a farm to drive home the message
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has welcomed an interim report from David Gauke’s sentencing review looking at the justice system in England and Wales. Mahmood said “The Tories left us with prisons on the edge of collapse. This government will ensure we never run out of prison places again”. Shadow home secretary. Gauke’s report found that successive governments’ overreliance on prison sentences and desire to seem “tough on crime” has driven the justice system in England and Wales to the brink of collapse. Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, responded to the report by saying “We need to be tough on crime”
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander has said Labour is proposing to “fundamentally rewire” railways in England to escape “decades of waste, inefficiency, fragmentation, with the privatised railways” introduced by the Conservative government of the 1990s. She was announcing a consultation on the setting up of new body Great British Railways and a new public rail watchdog
The Green party of England and Wales have responded to the news that Thames Water is being allowed to borrow £3bn by reiterating their call for water companies to be nationalised
In bad news for the cost of living crisis, the average gas and electricity bill for households across England, Scotland and Wales is expected to rise by nearly 5% from April
A 39-year-old man has been jailed for sending what a judge termed an “utterly deplorable” email to safeguarding minister Jess Phillips. He had also sent malicious communications to Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, and Matt Twist, the assistant commissioner at the Met Police
Khan told diplomats at a meeting in London today that “Brexit was a mistake that continues to have a negative impact” while backing the idea of a new youth mobility scheme between the UK and EU countries
Wales is set to become the first nation in the UK to ban greyhound racing as a sport
That is your lot from me today. Thank you for reading and for all your comments. I will be back with you tomorrow. Take care, and have a good evening.
A ban on greyhound racing will come into force “as soon as practicably possible”, a Welsh government minister has said, PA Media reports.
Huw Irranca-Davies, the deputy first minister, made the announcement in the Senedd. She said:
I believe that now is the right time to move to ban greyhound racing in Wales. We are proud to be the first nation in the UK to do this.
I want a ban to come into force as soon as practicably possible. There will be work to do in ensuring the dogs, their owners and those involved in the industry around the racetrack, can wind down from this activity while still protecting the welfare of dogs currently within the industry, the local community and the local economy.
Once in place, Wales, which has one greyhound track in Ystrad Mynach, will be the first part of the UK to implement a ban on the sport. Greyhound racing has come under heavy criticism, with the RSPCA saying it leads to hundreds of dog deaths and thousands of injuries each year in the UK.
A 39-year-old man has been jailed for sending what a judge termed an “utterly deplorable” email to safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, PA Media reports.
District judge Stuart Smith said the email had caused Phillips “great distress” and that she “was concerned for your potential to escalate or to encourage others for violence against her, having in her mind the murder of her colleague Jo Cox.”
Jack Bennett, from Seaton, Devon, pleaded guilty to sending malicious communications to three people between February 2024 and January 2025.
Bennett also sent racist and offensive emails to Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, and Matt Twist, the assistant commissioner at the Met Police.
Appearing for the prosecution, Hannah Cotton said the emails featured “serious racist abuse towards politicians”, and she asked for restraining orders to be put in place for five years, which was granted by the judge.
Badenoch rebukes senior judge over intervention, saying 'parliament is sovereign'
Kemi Badenoch has issued a typically combative statement after it was revealed that the most senior judge in England and Wales was “deeply troubled” by what Lady Sue Carr said was an “unacceptable” exchange at prime minister’s questions last week.
Hitting out at both the lady chief justice and the prime minister, Badenoch said:
Parliament is sovereign. Politicians must be able to discuss matters of crucial public importance in parliament. This doesn’t compromise the independence of the judiciary.
The decision to allow a family from Gaza to come to the UK was outrageous for many reasons. The prime minister couldn’t even tell me whether the government would appeal the decision.
He pretended he was looking at closing a legal “loophole”. This is not just some legal loophole that can be closed, but requires a fundamental overhaul of our flawed human rights laws.
Badenoch, who was a government minister during both the Rishi Sunak and short-lived Liz Truss administrations, raised the case at PMQs of a Palestinian family granted the right to live in the UK after they applied through a scheme originally meant for Ukrainian refugees. The family of six were seeking to flee Gaza, which has been subjected to over 15 months of devastating Israeli aerial bombardment, leading to the deaths of tens of thousand of Palestinians, and were allowed to join their brother who was already in the UK.
Keir Starmer said in parliament that he did not agree with the decision, and that the Home Office intended to close the loophole.
Lady Carr earlier told reporters:
I think it started from a question from the opposition suggesting that the decision in a certain case was wrong, and obviously the prime minister’s response to that. Both question and the answer were unacceptable. It is for the government visibly to respect and protect the independence of the judiciary. Where parties, including the government, disagree with their findings, they should do so through the appellate process.
Carr said she has also written to the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, about Starmer’s response.
Other senior Conservative figures have also attacked the judge over her intervention.
Defeated Conservative leadership hopeful and shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick complained of “rule by lawyers” and said:
The rule of law does not prevent politicians – or indeed any other citizen – from publicly disagreeing with a judge’s decision. Particularly when, as here, the judge displayed clear overreach by removing limits elected politicians had imposed on our immigration system – turning a Ukraine only scheme into one for the whole world.
If judges step into the political arena they can expect a political response. You can explain why you think a decision is wrong, and why it should be appealed, while respecting the rule of law by accepting the decision is binding unless successfully appealed.
The principle of the rule of law is being misused. It needs to be reclaimed. It does not, and never has meant, rule by lawyers.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said “Politicians are perfectly entitled to comment on decisions by judges. This is especially the case with human rights based cases, where judges have adopted increasingly bizarre and expansive interpretations of vaguely worded ECHR clauses.”
The Liberal Democrats said earlier that farmers are being “thrown to the wolves” by the Labour government, and to drive the point home Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has visited a wolf sanctuary a farm where he did some mucking out and handled some newborn calves.
He met North Norfolk MP Steff Aquarone and dairy farmers in North Walsham, and naturally there were photographers there …
Labour have been getting pushback on their policies towards farmers from the Conservatives as well today, with shadow secretary for the environment, food and rural affairs Victoria Atkins also weighing in on social media. The MP for Louth and Horncastle said:
Farmers are right to be furious. Labour’s treatment of them is down right pig-headed and unacceptable. Calling them in for a meeting to patronise and ignore them shows Labour are driven only by metropolitan arrogance.
This is a massive kick in the teeth to rural communities across the UK. Labour has shown its utter disdain for the farming sector and cavalier attitude to our food security.
She added that “Labour refuse to accept they’ve got their figures wrong”, and referring to the government reducing inheritance tax breaks for farmers, said “they refuse to acknowledge the human cost of this vindictive policy.”
She finished by saying “This arrogant city-dwelling government doesn’t care about the countryside – and the sooner they are kicked out of office the better.”
In a statement about its meeting with the government, the National Farmers’ Union described the government’s position as “morally bankrupt”.
NFU president Tom Bradshaw said:
This is a mess, but there is still time for Treasury to review. I urge them to look at the proposal put to them by all the major farming organisations today. It will raise the money needed. It is a way forward which is fair, removes the huge risk to British agriculture, including significant emotional and financial pressures, and delivers for UK food security, something the government continues to insist is a priority.
Updated
Healey: defence secretary outlines four key new senior leadership roles for armed forces
Defence secretary John Healey gave a speech earlier today at the Institute for Government, in which he outlined how he planned to reform defence spending and the organisation of Ministry of Defence and armed forces.
The key central plank of the reforms are what he called a “quad” of new senior leadership appointments. The government have now published the full text of the speech, and this is the key section outlining those roles and their responsibilities. Healey said:
We’re introducing clear points of accountability at every level within UK defence, starting at the top with four new senior leaders, four leaders who report to me as defence secretary and my ministerial team at the central point of accountability to the British people and to the British public.
The Chief of the Defence Staff, who, for the first time since this role was created, now commands the service chiefs and will be the head of newly established military strategic headquarters, responsible for force design and war planning across our integrated force.
The Permanent Secretary, our principal accounting officer, who will run a leaner, more agile department of state with more policy muscle to lead arguments across Whitehall and with allies, we’ll revamp senior roles to elevate those into policymakers with broad portfolios and powerful mandates.
Third, our new Armaments Director, who will fix procurement and drive growth.
Fourthly, our Chief of Defence Nuclear, who will continue to lead and deliver the national nuclear enterprise.
This new quad will … shift the approach as an organisation, which too often has been obsessed with process, to one focus on outcomes, in which information flows quickly, accountabilities are clear, and results are demanding. This new quad will be up and running from 31 March.
Our political correspondent Eleni Courea has written up the events this morning at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference, where Nigel Farage was earlier interviewed by Candian self-help guru Jordan Peterson. You can read her report here:
John Crace’s verdict on the event on social media was rather more succinct. He said:
I’ve heard some batshit stuff in my time. But Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, Nigel Farage and Niall Ferguson are excelling themselves at the ARC convention
Mark Kleinman, the city editor at Sky News, has reported chancellor Rachel Reeves has called in executives from companies including Abrdn, BlackRock, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Schroders for a meeting on Wednesday morning.
Kleinman said sources had informed him “the meeting was intended to feed ideas into the forthcoming financial services growth and competitiveness strategy” and that the chancellor would be seeking ideas to help drive UK economic growth by “assessing Britain’s international competitiveness.”
We reported earlier that England and Wales’s most senior judge has written to Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch about an “unacceptable” exchange at prime minister’s questions, saying she was “deeply troubled” by the discussion on a Palestinian family’s asylum case.
My colleague Jessica Elgot has this full report on Lady Sue Carr’s intervention: Top judge ‘deeply troubled’ by PMQs exchange on Gaza asylum case
It is Martin Belam back with you again now for the next couple of hours. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
The Liberal Democrats say farmers are being “thrown to the wolves”, as farming communities express fury after a meeting between The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and Treasury officials.
Sky News reports that the meeting between officials and NFU president Tom Bradshaw took place after the government refused to change its inheritance tax plans.
Bradshaw said: “The government believes they are correct in the decisions they’ve made. Disappointment doesn’t describe how I feel
“The message was clear to them today - go away.”
He said the NFU is “really cross” about the government’s decision. Now the Liberal Democrats said the “government is throwing farmers to the wolves”.
“Their family farm tax could be the final nail in the coffin for many communities struggling to cope,” said MP Tim Farron.
Updated
Some dismal news on the energy component of the cost of living crisis from my colleague Jillian Ambrose, our energy correspondent:
Millions of households face a greater than expected increase to their energy bills of £85 a year from April after Europe’s gas storage levels slumped, according to analysts.
The average gas and electricity bill for households across England, Scotland and Wales is expected to rise by nearly 5% from April to £1,823 a year for a typical household under the energy regulator’s price cap.
The forecast by the influential consulting firm Cornwall Insight is higher than its earlier prediction that prices would rise to £1,785 a year this spring after colder weather and limited renewables caused gas storage levels to fall across Europe.
The energy industry regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, will confirm the figure for the energy price cap covering the three months from 1 April on 25 February. The regulator increased the cap in January by 1.2% to a rate equivalent to £1,738.
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has commented on the interim findings of David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review, which was published today.
In a post to social media, she said:
The Tories left us with prisons on the edge of collapse. This government has committed to 14,000 new prison cells by 2031 – a record prison-building programme. We must also reform sentencing – and last year, I commissioned David Gauke to lead that review. The sentencing review has published interim findings. Their recommendations for reform will follow later this spring. This government will ensure we never run out of prison places again.
Shortly after coming to power last year the Labour government was forced to initiate an early release programme after it became clear the prison system in England and Wales was out of capacity. In October Mahmood described it as “the greatest disgrace of the last Conservative government.”
You can read Gauke’s report here. It found that successive governments’ overreliance on prison sentences and desire to seem “tough on crime” has driven the justice system in England and Wales to the brink of collapse.
Gauke said politicians needed to “have an honest conversation about who we send to prison, and for how long”, and in an interview this morning on BBC Radio warned the government that prisons were likely to hit capacity in England and Wales again soon.
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp has also responded, but on a slightly different tack and with no apparent acknowledgment of the crisis in the prison system the Labour government inherited. He posted to social media to say:
We need to be tough on crime. Prison works: it stops people offending while incarcerated and is a deterrent. Overall crime has fallen in recent years, as the prison population has risen. The government seem to want a different approach – soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime.
Philp was minister of state for crime, policing and fire in Rishi Sunak’s government between October 2022 and July 2024. He also held two different positions in the short-lived Liz Truss administration.
In July 2024, just days after the election, Keir Starmer described the prison crisis in England and Wales as “a shocking indictment” and “a total failure of government,” saying the Conservatives had been reckless in letting prisons come within a fortnight of reaching overflow. At that point, prisons were understood to have been operating at 99% capacity for 18 months.
In Scotland, which has its own national justice system, an early release scheme to ease pressure on prisons, where there are about 300 more prisoners than there are places, is beginning this week.
The Green party of England and Wales have responded to the news that Thames Water is being allowed to borrow £3bn by reiterating their call for water companies to be nationalised. In a message on social media, the party said:
Thames Water have been allowed to add another £3bn to their existing £19bn of debt. They’ve run up this bill by paying out huge amounts to bosses and shareholders instead of investing in our water infrastructure. It’s time for water to be run for people, not profit.
Yesterday evening, in an interview with the Mirror, party co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay were highly critical of the Labour government’s stance on environmental issues.
Ramsay told the paper “It’s incredible how much Labour has stumbled at its first six months. We’ve just had so many different policies – whether it’s on public services, poverty and inequality, on climate – where they’re not willing to take the action that’s actually needed.”
He said the decision on allowing a third runway at Heathrow was an example of “Labour just not taking its environmental commitments seriously,” suggesting “there will be a lot of disillusioned Labour MPs.”
Denyer criticised Labour’s failure to bring in a wealth tax, saying “it’s been so absolutely, maddeningly frustrating. Over and over again, they say that there are no alternatives. And there are, they are just refusing to consider them.”
Senior judge says she has written to Keir Starmer over 'deeply troubling' PMQs exchange
The most senior judge in England and Wales said she has written to Keir Starmer over last week’s prime minister’s questions, telling reporters she was “deeply troubled”, PA Media reports.
Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch raised the issue, describing a tribunal decision that granted a Palestinian family the right to live in the UK after they applied through a scheme originally meant for Ukrainian refugees as “completely wrong”. Starmer said in parliament that he did not agree with the decision, and that the Home Office intended to close the loophole.
The Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said on Tuesday that she was “deeply troubled to learn of the exchanges” and told reporters:
I think it started from a question from the opposition suggesting that the decision in a certain case and was wrong and obviously the prime minister’s response to that.
Both question and the answer were unacceptable.
It is for the government visibly to respect and protect the independence of the judiciary.
Where parties, including the government, disagree with their findings, they should do so through the appellate process.
Also on economic news for a moment, the UK-wide unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.4%. PA Media reports the employment rate in Scotland between October and December for those aged 16 to 64 was 74.2% – about 2,625,000 people – up 0.9% on the previous quarter but slightly below the UK rate of 74.9%. The rate of people classed as economically inactive in Scotland was 22.8% in the past quarter, down 1.2% on the previous quarter.
The SNP’s deputy first minister Kate Forbes said:
These figures indicate that Scotland’s labour market is proving resilient despite a challenging economic environment. It’s encouraging to see payrolled employment remains close to record levels and Scotland has higher median monthly pay than the UK.
To help more people into work our draft budget for 2025-26 allocates an extra £11m for Scotland’s employability services. We are also rolling out enhanced employability support for disabled people by this summer to help address barriers to employment as part of our plans to tackle economic inactivity.
My colleague Phillip Inman has this analysis today, suggesting that the earlier strong wage growth figures are likely to delay any possible interest rate cuts from the Bank of England, as policymakers at the central bank are likely to consider persistently high pay rises as inflationary.
Farage says Labour government is 'miserable' and 'declinist' in attack on Rachel Reeves
Nigel Farage has said that chancellor Rachel Reeves makes him want to reach for the “cry tissues” and that the Labour government is “miserable” and “declinist” while being interviewed in London by Canadian self-help author Jordan Peterson.
Asked about the family unit as a fundamental pillar of civilised society, the Reform UK leader and MP for Clacton said that when he decided to come back into frontline politics ahead of the last general election the three things that motivated him were “family, community and country.”
Farage then lamented declining birthrates in the UK, saying:
Family matters enormously. Of course, we need higher birthrates, but we’re not going to get higher birthrates in this country until we can get some sense of optimism, and we need a complete 180 degree shift in attitudes.
We need some very, very big cultural changes. We’ve got to get that spirit, that sense of optimism, back in the country. We had it in the late 1980s. We actually had it through much of the 1990s. That’s what we have to recapture
Frankly, being led as we are by … I mean, God … doesn’t Rachel Reeves just make you want to reach for the cry tissues? It’s all so miserable. It’s all so declinist. Frankly, the Conservatives have been no better.
We deem a change of attitude in Britain, we get that right, people will have more kids.
In October 2024 the ONS reported that the fertility rate in England and Wales had dropped to the lowest on record, saying “The number of children born in England and Wales has been falling for the last decade and is at its lowest since 1977, while the average age of first-time mothers is at an all-time high.”
Nigel Farage was put into a somewhat awkward spot during his interview by Jordan Peterson at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London, after Peterson asked him a long rambling question which including describing single mothers and same-sex couples as “deviations from the norm”.
Peterson continued “You could make the case that that stable, committed monogamy, heterosexual child-centred monogamy is the kind of long-term commitment to community, to sacrifice and to future that’s the fundamental unit of civilised, organised, civilised society. And so I’m curious what you think about that?”
Farage said, with some wry self-awareness, “Well, I may not necessarily be the best advocate for monogamous heterosexuality or stable marriage, having been divorced twice.”
Farage: right is not split in UK as 'Conservative party not on the right in any measurable way'
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has been speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London, where he was being interviewed by Canadian self-help handbook author Jordan Peterson.
He rejected Peterson’s assertion that the right was split in the UK, because, Farage said, “the Conservative party is not on the right in any measurable way.”
He said their 14 years in government saw “the highest tax burden since 1947 … legal, mass immigration on a scale hitherto never even dreamt … illegal migration, small boats crossing the Channel, and the government completely incapable of dealing with it, because they couldn’t face up to what membership of the European convention on human rights was all about, and 14 years that saw net zero enshrined into law by a Conservative government.”
Farage was asked about energy production and net zero policies by Peterson, and the Reform UK leader said “our platform is to reindustrialise Britain. Let’s produce all the stuff we need in this country. Let’s become not just energy independent. We could actually become an energy exporter right now.”
There was a lengthy interlude when Peterson spoke about what he called “carbon apocalypse mongering and terrorising” and what Farage called “carbon dioxide hysteria”. Farage said “I’m an environmentalist in the old school sense” and suggested a focus on carbon had “actually blinded us to other environmental disasters that are going on.”
The first of up to 390 prisoners are being released early as the Scottish government attempts to tackle overcrowding in the country’s prisons, PA Media reports.
Emergency legislation passed by MSPs in November will change the release point for those serving prison sentences of less than four years from 50% of their sentence to 40%.
The Scottish government said it expects the change to bring about a 5% reduction in the prison population. Those convicted of domestic abuse or sexual offences will not be released early under the changes.
Justice Secretary Angela Constance told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme:
It is fair to say that in terms of crimes of violence that is not an insignificant proportion of people serving short-term sentences.
But the important point, and the raison d’être of this legislation, is that we need to achieve a sustained reduction in the prison population that is necessary to ensure that our prisons can continue to accommodate those who pose the greatest risk of harm, and also to support rehabilitation in order to reduce re-offending.
There is an inextricable link between the work that goes on in prisons and the safety of our community.
Towards the end of last year prisons in Scotland had a population of about 8,300 inmates, above the total capacity which is set at about 8,000.
Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Liam McArthur said: “For years, the government was warned that overcrowding in the prison system was a disaster waiting to happen and failed to act.”
Government warned 'only matter of time' before prisons in England and Wales exceed capacity again
The chair of the independent sentencing review has warned the government that it is “only a matter of time” before prison numbers exceed capacity again in England and Wales.
Former justice secretary David Gauke told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme:
It is only a matter of time before, once again, prison numbers will exceed capacity. The government was forced into taking action in the autumn, but we are going to be in a similar position probably at some point next year, and that is far from ideal.
We should be much more strategic about these things. You don’t want to be rushing the release of prisoners out and action is going to be needed. What we have seen for the last 30 years is something of a bidding war between political parties as to who is prepared to lengthen sentences the most.
As a consequence, we’ve seen our prison population essentially double over that time. We now have the highest incarceration rate in western Europe and with that comes consequences, not least the fact that prison is pretty expensive.
Gauke, who was a Conservative justice secretary for 18 months in Theresa May’s government, was asked to carry out a review of the sentencing system this year.
He found that successive governments’ overreliance on prison sentences and desire to seem “tough on crime” have driven the justice system in England and Wales to the brink of collapse.
Transport secretary: Labour aiming to 'fundamentally rewire' railways after decades of 'leaking money' to private sector
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander has said Labour is proposing to “fundamentally rewire” railways in England to escape “decades of waste, inefficiency, fragmentation, with the privatised railways” introduced by the Conservative government of the 1990s.
Announcing a consultation period over the setting up of what will be called Great British Railway, Alexander said “this is a brand new public organization that is going to bring together for the first time in decades, the management of the trains with the management of the tracks and infrastructure.”
Alexander also told viewers of ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the government was intending to set up “a brand new passenger watchdog, which is going to have much greater powers than the travel watchdog that exists at the moment so that we can put passengers at the heart of the system.”
She said:
Over the last couple of decades, we have leaked money to private sector train operating companies in the management fees that we have been paying. And so this is about making our railways more efficient, providing better value for money for the taxpayer, and ultimately improving the reliability of those services.
It’s really important that we do this properly, because we are fundamentally rewiring our railways. We’ve had decades of waste, inefficiency, and fragmentation with the privatised railways.
I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t problems on the rail network in some parts of the country, and I recognise that people are ambitious for change. That is why we are going to have a radical overhaul of the way our railways are organised.
Reacting to those wage and unemployment figures, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said:
Since July, wages have continued to grow at pace, putting vital money back in people’s pockets as we work to make work pay and improve living standards for all.
But these figures also show that too many people are being locked out of work and denied that chance, including those sick and disabled.
Instead of writing people off and labelling them, we must step up our support.
UK pay growth rises 6% and unemployment remained unchanged
Richard Partington is economics correspondent for the Guardian
UK pay growth rose in December and unemployment remained unchanged despite warnings from business that Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget would lead to job losses.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show annual growth in total average weekly earnings rose by 6% in the three months to December, up from 5.6% in November and above a 5.9% forecast made by City economists.
Regular pay, excluding bonuses also accelerated from 5.6% to 5.9%, matching estimates.
Unemployment remained unchanged at 4.4%, confounding expectations for a marginal increase to 4.5%.
Liz McKeown, an ONS director of economic statistics, said: “Growth in pay, excluding bonuses, rose for a third consecutive time, with increases seen in both the private and public sector. After taking account of inflation, real pay growth also increased slightly.
“The number of employees on payroll was broadly unchanged in the last three months of the year, continuing a medium-term trend of slowing growth. The number of vacancies also continued to fall in the latest quarter, albeit more slowly, with the total number remaining a little above its pre-pandemic level.”
Read more here: UK pay growth rises 6% despite job loss warnings after Reeves’s budget
Sadiq Khan: 'Brexit was a mistake that continues to have a negative impact'
London mayor Sadiq Khan is expected to tell diplomats today that “Brexit was a mistake” and renew backing for a youth mobility scheme.
In comments briefed to the media in advance, the Labour politician, in his third term as mayor, will tell delegates at a meeting with the EU ambassador and UK ambassadors of the 27 member states that Britain’s withdrawal from the EU “continues to have a negative impact.”
“As mayor, I’m strongly in favour of a new youth mobility scheme,” PA media reports he is expected to tell the gathering.
“This would help to aid economic growth across Europe, but also give young Londoners and EU citizens important life experiences – like the opportunity to work abroad and learn more about our respective languages and cultures.
“As part of this, I’m keen for us to look at how we can make it easier for schoolchildren from the EU to visit the UK and learn more about our shared ties and history.
“I’m a proud European and of the view that Brexit was a mistake that continues to have a negative impact – not just on my city and country, but on the European community as a whole”
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning, defence secretary John Healey has finished speaking, so I can take a quick pause and actually welcome you to our rolling coverage of UK politics for Tuesday. Here are the headlines …
Defence secretary John Healey has announced what he described as the most significant defence reform for 50 years, in which reporting lines and budgets will be simplified, and a new “quad” of four senior leaders reporting directly to the minister appointed
Healy said there were extraordinary people in the UK’s defence forces, but too often they were hampered by process, and there was a lack of direct accountability. He suggested his changes might bring about up to £10bn in savings to the taxpayer over the next decade
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander has said the UK should not rule out sending troops to Ukraine as part of any future peacekeeping force
The rate of UK unemployment remained unchanged at 4.4% in the three months to December. Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said “Since July, wages have continued to grow at pace … but these figures also show that too many people are being locked out of work”
London mayor Sadiq Khan is reportedly set to tell EU diplomats “Brexit was a mistake”
Successive governments’ overreliance on prison sentences and desire to seem “tough on crime” have driven the justice system in England and Wales to the brink of collapse, an official review has found
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has spoken at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London. Yesterday Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch told the same event that “western civilisation will be lost” if the Tory party fails
It is Martin Belam here with you again today. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com. It is always useful if you let me know when you spot my inevitable typos, errors and omissions.
Healey: defence reform is not a 'change for change's sake programme'
John Healey has said that his reform proposals for defence in the UK is not a “change for change’s sake programme”.
He said “it is required, in my view, for us more effectively to meet the challenges of the times. It’s required, in my view, in order to give us the foundation for implementing the strategic defence review.”
Admitting it was ambitious in its scope and timescale, Healey said of his reform programme “I do not know of any big change programme that has not been complicated, and I do not know of any big organisational change programme that can ever be said to be completed, so I expect this to be a feature of my role for the entire time that I’m in this position.”
One of the key changes is the appointment of a national armaments director, which he said they are attempting to recruit as soon as possible.
Away from defence for a second, there are two breaking stories with privatised water companies in England. Thames Water has won court approval for an emergency debt package worth up to £3bn that should stave off the collapse of Britain’s biggest water company for at least another few months. Anglian Water, meanwhile, has asked the UK’s competition watchdog to allow it to raise bills over the next five years even more than it has so far been allowed to, as it called a ruling by the water regulator “unacceptable”.
Lib Dems: parliament should be recalled over British troops in Ukraine plan
The Liberal Democrats have called for parliament to be recalled amid discussion of the possibility that British troops might be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part of a European peacekeeping force in the event there is a US-Russia brokered peace deal.
Leader Ed Davey said:
This is an era-defining moment for global security with events that will impact us for decades taking place over days.
We must act immediately to save Ukraine from a shoddy deal cooked up by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
It is vital that parliament has a chance to debate and scrutinise the government’s plans to support Ukraine.
Strong cross-party support from across the House will strengthen the prime minister’s hand and allow the UK to step up and lead in Europe at this critical moment.
Parliament is presently due to resume on 24 February. Yesterday Davey said he expected broad cross-party support for Starmer’s plan, aside from what Davey called the “Trump bootlickers” in Reform UK.
Defence secretary John Healey has been asked about his Conservative predecessor Ben Wallace’s comments that the UK armed forces had been “hollowed out and underfunded” and whether he agrees with that sentiment after six months in office.
He offers in response a lengthy critique of the previous government’s policies, saying:
Ben Wallace’s government came in in 2010. The first thing they did in that first year was cut £2bn from the defence budget over those first five years.
George Osborne, as the chancellor, reduced in real terms the defence budget by just under 19%. That’s a very deep cut in defence, and the consequences are long lasting.
In 2010, when we lost the election and we were ejected from government, we were spending, as a country, 2.5% of GDP [on defence]. That’s a level that the last 14 years have got nowhere near.
We had the British army with over 100,000 full-time troops. It’s now even below the 73,000 target that the previous government set.
So there is a combination of a long legacy of decisions like that, with an extraordinary professionalism and a willingness and a capacity to fight now, fight tonight, fight as required, and to do whatever this nation requires of our armed forces. And it’s that extraordinary combination which is my responsibility of defence secretary.
By the way, there are two live politics events going on at the same time this morning. Defence secretary John Healey is at the Institute for Government to discuss his reform plans for UK defence in conversation with the institute’s CEO Hannah White.
At the same time, at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London we are expecting Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to be interviewed by Canadian self-help author Jordan Peterson.
I will be keeping across both and will bring you the key lines that emerge.
Healey: Labour government commitment to defence is 'unshakeable'
Wrapping up his speech at the Institute for Government, defence secretary John Healey has said “This is a government whose commitment to defence is unshakable.”
Announcing what he described as “the biggest shake up of UK defence for over 50 years”, Healey said:
Let me say this. This is a government whose commitment to defence is unshakable. It’s the foundation for our plan for change, for the delivery of our government’s missions. We will match sustained investment with serious reform. It will mean growing the economy. It will mean a more muscular defence for a more dangerous world. It will mean a Britain which is secure at home and strong abroad.
Healey is now taking questions, and asked if there was frustration at the way the UK’s defence was set up he said:
I and Keir Starmer had recognised the requirement for defence reform early. We came into government with a plan.
What I’ve been struck by is how responsive defence is to direction and decision, how wide the appetite for change within defence is, and that’s at every level.
So I come across many just really talented officials who want greater scope to be able to take the initiative, who want the ability to offer the advice and make the decisions. And it goes right across the board and right to the top.
He continued by saying:
There aren’t any bonus points in politics for administrative and managerial reform. But I want the results. I want defence to be stronger. I want us to be more influential.
And I want the people who are dedicated, that I talked about in their different ways, right across defence, in and out of uniform, dedicated, defending our country, and keeping people safe. I want them to be able to do the job that they’ve joined to do.
Defence secretary John Healey is announcing significant changes to the management structure of the UK’s defence, with four new senior leaders appointed, and the changes to come into force by the end of March.
He has said it will streamline procurement and budget processes, with “three new centrally determined financial budgets, each with ministerial oversight.”
He has said that he sees elements of the changes as being like having a FTSE 100 company at the heart of the Ministry of Defence, and suggests that the changes he is proposing could save the taxpayer up to £10bn through efficiencies and better oversight.
He says the reformed MoD will be tasked with “getting the very best capabilities needed into the hands of our frontline forces.”
He goes on to claim it will be “delivering on our defence industrial strategy to create more defence jobs, more defence apprenticeships in every region and nation across the UK, tasked with driving British exports up and up , and tasked with assuming responsibility for the entire end-to-end acquisition system for the mod.”
Healey announces he is reforming defence leadership structure
Defence secretary John Healey has paid tribute to the UK’s armed forces and those that work with them, saying “one of the really special things about this job, the special thing about this special job, are the deeply impressive men and women I meet every day” who he described as “extraordinary people doing extraordinary things.”
However he went on to say they are working “within a system that very often doesn’t work in the way that we need it to for an increasingly dangerous world.”
He has identified the problem as “an absence of clear, consistent accountability”
Healey says “I’m here to declare that investment in defence will be matched by reform”, and has announced that he will be appointing four new senior leaders reporting into the minister.
He says:
This new quad … will shift the approach as an organisation which too often has been obsessed with process, to one focused on outcomes, in which information flows quickly, accountability is clear, and results demanded.
The number of budget-holders will be reduced from ten to four.
Defence secretary John Healey: 'We are in a new era of threat'
Defence secretary John Healey is speaking in London at the Institute for Government. He has opened his speech by saying that when he confirmed this appearance a couple of weeks ago he had no idea that geopolitical events would lead to such interest in his opinions on MOD reform.
He said:
The decisions that we make right now over the coming weeks will not only define the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine, but the security of our world for a generations to come. And the nature of government means dealing with these challenges.
But in my view, the test of leadership, of political leadership, isn’t just about managing the immediate, it’s also about reforming for the future. We are in a new era of threat, and that demands a new era for defence.
