Afternoon summary
The government has agreed to ensure women and their partners are entitled to paid bereavement leave if they experience a miscarriage, PA Media reports. During the report stage debate on the employment rights bill, business minister Justin Madders said the government “fully accepts” the principle of bereavement leave for pregnancy loss and will work with MPs and peers to amend the bill. His commitment came in response to amendments tabled by Labour MP Sarah Owen, who chairs the women and equalities wommittee which recommended changes to the law.
Louise Haigh, the Labour former transport secretary, and Lib Dem Layla Moran both gave MPs detailed examples of ITN using NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) to cover up workplace harassment during the employment rights bill debate. They were backing an amendment that would ban firms from using NDAs to prevent workers from disclosing harassment, including sexual harassment. (See 4.14pm.)
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has said she remains willing to legislate to force the Sentencing Council to withdraw guidance issued last week that she claimed could lead to “two-tier sentencing”. She is meeting the council on Thursday. The council has defended its guidance, which was supported by the Ministry of Justice until the Tories attacked it as “two-tier” and suggested that legislation as proposed by Mahmood would undermine the independence of the judiciary. (See 12.40pm.)
The government has published its planning and infrastructure bill – one of the most important measures in its legislative programme. (See 3.15pm and 5.15pm.)
The Treasury has announced that “up to 300,000 people, including those with side hustles, will no longer need to file a self-assessment tax return” under new tax reforms.
Updated
What industry insiders and experts say about the planning and infrastructure bill
My inbox today has been inundated with industry and expert comment on the planning and infrastructure bill. Here is a flavour of what they are saying.
Organisations in the housing or property sector are broadly positive.
This is from Richard Beresford, chief executive at the National Federation of Builders.
The Labour government is wasting no time in proving that their manifesto pledges on planning reform are real. Planning is a considerable barrier to growth and delivery, not just for housebuilders but for all construction projects, and it had a knock-on effect to the broader industry because clients spend so much of their budget on bureaucracy, not on project outcomes.
This is from Melanie Leech, chief executive of the British Property Federation.
There’s a lot to welcome in the latest stage of the government’s planning reforms. We called for strategic planning, easier brownfield development and a more certain local planning process in our planning manifesto ‘Building More, Building Better’ last year and it seems that government have listened.
Planning at the ‘larger-than-local’ level should mean that housing targets are allocated more sensibly, and that there’s better planning for employment uses …
Greater delegation of planning decisions to planning officers and the better functioning of planning committees will, when combined with wider local government reform, help to improve decision-making and better deploy resource in the system by freeing up committees to deal with larger, more complex developments.
And this is from Ed Griffiths, chief analyst for Barbour ABI, a construction research company.
There has been a planning logjam for several years and the government is clearly laser-focused on changing that picture. There are thousands of renewable energy projects in planning and connecting them to the grid is the huge challenge. This is a major step forward.
Planning lawyers have also welcomed the reforms (even if they can’t agree whether or not they amount to a radical overhaul).
This is from Trevor Ivory, planning partner at DLA Piper.
I’m glad to see the government has resisted overhauling the rulebook in the planning and infrastructure bill and will deliver what the industry has been calling for. This is a collection of sensible, targeted measures that could help delivery without the delay that comes from wholesale reform of the system.
And this is from Kylie Wesson, planning partner at Shakespeare Martineau.
The development industry is breathing a sigh of relief today. For too long committee practice has slowed and stagnated planning decisions, with little oversight, intervention or accountability around decisions. A radical overhaul and the introduction of the national scheme of delegation is not only long overdue, but absolutely necessary to meet the ambitious housing targets set by the government last year. With so many flaws in the system, the government will have its work cut out to rectify them all at once.
Environmentalists are supportive too.
This is from Ami McCarthy, head of politics at Greenpeace UK.
More renewables, faster delivery, cleaner energy, lower bills - what’s not to love? These welcome reforms will supercharge progress towards meeting the UK’s clean power targets, which will reduce our dependence on expensive gas and its volatile prices, as well as help slash emissions and tackle the climate crisis.
But free market enthusiasts see the government should be “overhauling the rulebook” and going much further.
This is from Kristian Niemietz, editorial director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a libertarian thinktank.
Britain’s inability to build thing has long been the biggest drag on economic dynamism and prosperity, making us all poorer for no good reason. The system has become a playground for semi-professional obstructionists, for whom blocking things has become a way of life.
The planning reforms announced today contain several steps in the right direction, because they will close off some of the entry portals for lifestyle NIMBYism. But the emphasis is very much on “streamlining” the existing system, as opposed to overhauling it. If all goes according to plan, the planning bill will deliver a speedier and tidier version of the system we have. But what will stop that system from cluttering up again over time? What will keep the momentum going when the government runs out of steam, or is replaced by a less development-friendly one?
And this is from an article in the Economist, which champions free market liberalism.
[After the war] on the Labour government’s benches was a zeal for extending state control, including over property rights. And so they came to pass a landmark law [the Town and Country Planning Act 1947] – among the first of its kind – that prohibited all private development without explicit permission. No longer would land ownership confer the right to build; that power would rest instead with the local council …
[Labour MPs now see more building] as this government’s most plausible route to higher growth (and with it better-funded public services, or higher defence spending). They believe they are seizing it.
Yet talk to those more immersed in the absurdism of Britain’s planning system, and the story is rather different. “They are assuming the creators of the 1947 system were broadly right,” says John Myers of the YIMBY Alliance, a pressure group for home-building. “They have shied away from real reform and are trying to patch over what is broken,” says Christian Hilber of the London School of Economics. “They’ve not grasped the absolute obstacles to what they need to do,” says Paul Cheshire, also at the LSE.
Few question that the government is proposing many welcome changes. Set against the scale of the task, however, the Starmer team appears to be wasting its best shot at success.
The Economist argues that the government should be repealing the 1947 Act and introducing a zoning approach to planning instead (where any building in a particular zone is allowed, provided it complies with general, pre-determined rules). It cites Auckland as a good example of why this works.
Updated
Louise Haigh and Layla Moran give examples of ITN using NDAs to cover up workplace harassment in amendments debate
In the Commons MPs are debating amendments to the employment rights bill. The paper listing all the amendments runs to 274 pages.
Louise Haigh, the Labour former transport secretary, has given a speech promoting her amendment that would ban the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that would prevent workers revealing the harassment they endured, including sexual harassment. Haigh and the Lib Dem MP Layla Moran both gave detailed examples of how ITN used NDAs to cover up cases of harassment in the workplace to support their case.
Haigh said it was already known that ITN is a company that has used NDAs to cover-up misconduct. She quoted the account given by the former ITN journalist Daisy Ayliffe who said that, after she complained about being harassed at the company, she was paid off and made to sign an NDA.
Haigh said she had another example of ITN using an NDA in this way. She said the victim asked not to be named, and so she described him as Mr B.
Haigh said Mr B joined ITN in 2008 through a scheme designed to help disabled people join the workplace. He had a neurologicial condition that could lead to seizures. ITN made reasonable adjustments, and he was happy with the support he had until he moved to another job.
But, when Mr B returned to ITN in 2017, he got none of the support had received before, Haigh said. She went on:
The situation got so bad that he had what he describes as his first ‘full-blown’ seizure in seven years and the zone outs and blackouts became increasingly frequent. After suffering from one particular seizure at work, he was required to apologise to everyone who had witnessed it.
And he was repeatedly accused of lying about his disability and told his issues were nothing to do with his disability, despite joining ITN on a disability inclusion scheme.
Mr B took ITN to a tribunal. He settled but, he was required to sign an NDA. Haigh said that his health deteroriated to the exent that for a while he was homeless. She said her amendment was needed to stop NDAs being used in this way.
If it can happen in organisations like ITN, whose literal job it is to expose injustice, or in trade unions whose job it is to protect workers, then it can happen anywhere.
In her speech, Moran she said she had her own example ITN using an NDA to cover up harassment. She said the victim, whom she did not name, joined ITN in her 20s, but quickly became involved in “a coercive, controlling sexual relationship with an older, male editor”. He accused her of affairs with colleagues, but she ended up suffering panic attacks.
After she ended the relationship, she was demoted and had her hours reduced. When she complained to other editors, they told her not to speak out. One told her, ‘It’s not like he ever hit you’, Moran said.
Moran said that it took months for the woman to get HR to take up her complaint. “HR found they could not assess the complaint, as it was criminal in nature, but at the same time found [the complaints] to be unfounded,” Moran said, pointing out this did not make sense.
Moran said that, when the woman asked at staff event what support was available for women reporting alleged sexual harassment, she was suspended without pay. ITN told her not to tell anyone what happened, and even her best friend had to sign an NDA to attend a meeting to support her.
Moran said the woman got a settlement eventually, but it was “extremely one-sided”, and the NDA covered not just her, but her partner, her best friend and her parents. The woman ended up in hospital because of the damage to her mental health, but even in hospital she was getting regular messages from the ITN lawyers telling her to sign the NDA.
Moran said MPs were “kidding ourselves” if they thought NDAs weren’t still be used. She said the woman thought ITN was “trying to change”, and that her own NDA might be lifted. But she said Haigh’s amendment was needed because NDAs like this should never be allowed in the first place.
Local Government Association welcomes parts of planning bill, but suggests it involves too much centralisation
The cross-party Local Government Association has broadly welcomed the planning and infrastructure bill, while expressing concern that it could involve too much centralisation. This is from Adam Hug, the Labour leader of Westminster council and the LGA’s housing and planning spokesperson.
This bill has included some of the LGA’s long term asks, such as making it easier for councils to purchase vacant land for house building, localising planning fees, and increasing planning capacity. These will speed up the planning process and ease the building of new homes and necessary infrastructure we need across the country.
However, there remains concerns around how it will ensure that councils – who know their areas best and what they need – remain at the heart of the planning process. The democratic role of councillors in decision-making is the backbone of the English planning system, and this should not be diminished. Councils approve nine out of ten planning applications that come before them.
The government has now published the planning and infrastructure bill. It runs to 167 pages, and it’s here.
Industrial action by criminal barristers in Northern Ireland causing 'serious damage', Stormont told
Industrial action being taken by criminal barristers in Northern Ireland is causing “serious damage”, the Stormont justice minister, Naomi Long, has said.
As PA Media reports, Long was speaking in the assembly while criminal barristers in Northern Ireland continue to withdraw some services in an ongoing dispute over legal aid.
The Bar Council said the action was “regrettable”, but said it was “inevitable” after the Department of Justice “failed to engage meaningfully with the Bar in respect of the serious concerns which have given rise to the Criminal Bar Association’s action”.
In a statement to MLAs (members of the legislative assembly), Long expressed her frustration at the stalemate. She outlined the engagement and action her officials have taken, and said her department was on track to introduce a 16% uplift in civil, family and criminal legal aid fees in May.
She warned the industrial action was causing “serious damage” to the justice system. She said:
Additional delay means that defendants, whether guilty or innocent, must wait longer for their case to be resolved.
Delay means additional stress, anxiety and often trauma for many victims and witnesses and it must be recognised there are some victims and witnesses who are particularly vulnerable and who are suffering acutely.
Cargo ship in North Sea collision likely to sink, MPs told
Mike Kane, the transport minister, has told MPs that the cargo ship involved in a collision off the Yorkshire coast yesterday is likely to sink.
In a statement to MPs, Kane also said that everything possible would be done to recover the body of the one sailor still missing after yesterday’s collision between the Stena Immaculate, an oil tanker, and the cargo ship Solong.
Explaining what happened, Kane said:
Although they became attached to each other during the collision, the Solong broke free of the Stena Immaculate late last night and began drifting southwards.
Modelling suggests that should the Solong remain afloat it’ll remain clear of land for the next few hours. The assessment of His Majesty’s Coastguard is, however, that it is unlikely the vessel will remain afloat.
Tugboats are in the vicinity to ensure that the Solong remains away from the coast and to respond as the situation develops.
I want to be clear that while there are 1,000-metre temporary exclusion zones established around both vessels, maritime traffic through the Humber Estuary is continuing.
Kane said the Stena Immaculate was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel, which was the source of the fire. He said the MCA (Maritime and Coastguard Agency) was standing by with marine and aerial counter pollution measures.
Here is our latest story on the collision, by Robyn Vintner, Josh Halliday and Damien Gayle.
Green party claims plans reportedly drawn up to cut PIP disability benefit would be 'cruelty for cruelty's sake'
The Green party has described the plans reportedly drawn up by the government to cut disability benefits as “cruelty for cruelty’s sake”. Referring to a claim by Scope that 700,000 disabled households would be pushed into poverty if they were to lose PIP (the personal independence payment), the Green’s co-leader Carla Denyer said:
It’s absolutely beyond belief that a government that came in promising to make life better for ordinary people is now planning to plunge 700,000 disabled people into poverty.
This is cruelty for cruelty’s sake. The amount of money the government is talking about saving from this measure pales in comparison to what could be raised easily if we made the tax system fairer.
Either this government has lost sight of the people it was elected to serve, hundreds of thousands of whom are at this very moment terrified that the support they rely on will be pulled out from under them – or they have decided that they no longer care.
Every single MP must search their conscience and decide if they are prepared to vote to push already vulnerable people into poverty and insecurity – and I hope that none will, when these plans come before parliament.
The government reportedly plans to save up to £5bn by reducing eligibility for PIP. But nothing firm has yet been announced, and the government is not expected to set out its plans in detail until next week.
Met police say they will investigate Reform UK's allegations about Rupert Lowe, as he calls them 'entirely untrue'
The Metropolitan police have confirmed that they are investigation allegations that Rupert Lowe MP issued verbal threats to Zia Yusuf, the Reform UK chair. Reform UK reported the complaints to the police last week, after Lowe gave an inteview criticising the party leader, Nigel Farage.
As Sky News reports, the Met said:
Our original statement referred to alleged threats made in December 2024. We would like to clarify that when this matter was reported to us it referred to a series of alleged threats made between December 2024 and February 2025. Further enquiries are ongoing at this stage.
In a post on social media Lowe, who denies the allegations, which he claims are contrived to discredit him because Farage seems him as a threat, said he had not been contacted by the police yet, but would cooperate with them.
I have instructed lawyers to represent me in this matter.
My lawyers have made contact with the Met Police, and have made them aware of my willingness to cooperate in any necessary investigation.
My lawyers have not yet received any contact from the Police.
It is highly unusual for the Police to disclose anything to the media at this stage of an investigation.
I remain unaware of the specific allegations, but in any event, I deny any wrongdoing.
The allegations are entirely untrue.
Updated
Starmer tells cabinet ministers they should stop 'outsourcing' decisions to regulators and quangos
Jonathan Hinder, the Labour MP who took a swipe at “unelected bodies” at the end of justice questions (see 12.44pm) was clearly on message. At cabinet this morning Keir Starmer told his ministers that the government should be taking more responsibility for decisions, and not outsourcing them to regulators.
In a readout of cabinet, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The prime minister then turned to the future of the state, ahead of his intervention on Thursday [when he is due to make an announcement on Whitehall reform]. He emphasised that recent global events had shown the pace at which the world is changing, and the impact that global insecurity has domestically. He said that to deliver security and renewal we must go further and faster to reform the state, to deliver a strong, agile and active state that delivers for working people. This included cabinet assessing processes and regulations that play no part in delivering the Plan for Change, and the government taking responsibility for decisions rather than outsourcing them to regulators and bodies as had become the trend under the previous government.
Asked which regulators Starmer was referring to when he suggested they had failed, the spokesperson declined to say. But he said Starmer thought the state had become “passive’.
Asked if the government was planning a “bonfire of the quangos”, the spokesperson said he would not get ahead of the announcement on Thursday. But he went on:
The state in Westminster has grown larger but it has not become more effective, and as [the PM] said in cabinet we have seen examples over time of government becoming more passive when it comes to decisions by outsourcing them to other bodies and to regulators rather than being accountable itself.
In order to deliver security and renewal, the prime minister’s clear belief is we need a strong state, and agile and active state, that does deliver for working people.
Updated
Labour rebels back amendment to employment rights bill to boost paternity leave
Jessica is the Guardian’s deputy political editor.
An amendment to increase paternity leave signed by more than 80 MPs including a significant number of new Labour MPs is set to be debated in a push to get the government to agree to review the time given to new fathers.
But MPs said there was a major drive by party whips to pressure a number to withdraw their names overnight from the amendment to the employment rights bill that was put down by the Labour backbencher Stella Creasy, an outspoken campaigner on parental rights.
One MP who had signed the amendment said whips tactics had meant more than a dozen withdrew names overnight but a similar number have now backed the amendment in protest at the tactics.
The Speaker has selected the amendment to the employment rights bill, which has been signed by a cross-party group of MPs including the Lib Dems, Greens, independents, SNP and Alliance parties.
A coalition of charities have signed a statement urging MPs to back the amendment to review paternity leave. The statement, signed by organisations including Oxfam, the Fawcett Society, Women’s Budget Group and Pregnant then Screwed, said Britain had some of the worst parental leave in Europe and that shared parental leave was not working because so few could afford to take it. “With society debating masculinity and the role of men, it’s time to recognise dads need better rights in their own right,” the statement said.
The amendment commits the government to a consultation at the end of an already promised parental leave review, to increase paternity leave from the current two weeks.
In the Commons Jonathan Hinder (Lab) said he was shocked by the tone of the letter released by the Sentencing Council last night. He said that “we’ve given too much power away to these unelected bodies in recent years” and that he would back the government in restoring “equality before the law”.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, confirmed that she was willing to change the law if necessary to get the guidelines changed.
Mahmood confirms she might legislate to over-rule Sentencing Council, saying she will 'never stand for two-tier' policy
In the Commons Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, is asking Shabana Mahmood about the Sentencing Council’s decision to refuse her request to change what he described as its “two-tier guidance”.
Jenrick says Mahmood briefed the papers that she was “incandescent”. Was she incandescent about her officials, or about her failure to read the papers about what the Sentencing Council was proposing.
In response, Mahmood accuses Jenrick of “amnesia”, saying he has forgotten that the last Conservative government approved the guidelines. She refers to the letter from Richard Bacon, when he was a Tory justice minister, confirming this. She says there has only been a “minor change” from the wording approved by Bacon and the text published last week.
In his follow-up question, Jenrick says the new guidance is coming into force in 21 days’ time. Accusing Mahmood of being “too lazy to do her job”, he says the Tories have done it for her and he says he has prepared a bill that would block these new guidelines. He challenges Mahmood to say the government will back it.
In response, Mahmood says she has been very clear.
We will never stand for a two-tier approach to sentencing, but I am actually getting on with fixing the problem, rather than looking for a bandwagon to jump on. That is why I have already written to the Sentencing Council. I will be meeting with them later in this week, and I have made it very clear I will consider their role and their powers, and if I need to legislate, I will do so.
But I will make sure that whatever changes I bring forward are workable and they deliver the fair justice system that we all need and deserve, and one his government did not deliver.
Updated
Former Blair adviser warns against proposed benefit cuts, saying DWP 'confusing long-term sickness and disability'
At the parliamentary Labour party meeting last night, Keir Starmer strongly defended the government’s plans to cut sickness and disability benefits, saying the current system is the “worst of all worlds”. Jessica Elgot and Patrick Butler have the full story here.
But Starmer’s plans are bound to fail, according to John McTernan, who was political secretary to Tony Blair when he was PM and who worked as a special adviser to Harriet Harman when, as social security secretary, she tried to cut disability benefits.
In an interview with the i, McTernan said it was hard for any government to take on the disability sector. He said:
The one lobby that defeated Tony Blair’s welfare reforms wasn’t lone parents – their cut went through despite a massive rebellion. It was disability cuts which were ditched once they were floated. The disability lobby is massive and influential because disability itself is distributed widely across the country.
He also said that the government was “foolishly and dangerously confusing the categories of long-term sickness and disability” with“no coherent case for change”.
He added:
Labour tested the public’s patience when it took winter fuel payments from 10m pensioners with no warning. It risks losing support for the benefit cuts it is trailing.
Updated
Around a third of Reform UK voters think the party would be doing better if Nigel Farage were replaced as leader, a YouGov poll suggests.
33% of Reform UK voters feel the party would be doing better if Nigel Farage was no longer leader
— YouGov (@YouGov) March 11, 2025
Would be doing better under different leader: 33% of Reform UK voters
Would be doing worse under different leader: 34%
Neither better nor worse: 25% pic.twitter.com/Spi3PKSQGk
Israel blocking supply of tents and sleeping bags to Gaza on grounds they are 'dual use', MPs told
The Israeli government has been told that it has obligations under international humanitarian law to allow free and unimpeded access to aid to Gaza, a Foreign Office minister has said.
As PA Media reports, Hamish Falconer told the foreign affairs committee this morning that “limited progress” had been made in urging the Israeli government to lift “far-reaching” restrictions in order to help people deal with colder conditions in winter.
He said that Israel had claimed that some items were “dual use”, meaning they could be used for both civilian and military purposes. This includes tents “because the claim is that the poles could be used as weaponry”, sleeping bags “because they’re said to be in camouflage colours,” and water purification units “because there’s some fear that they could be used for some other purpose”.
Falconer said:
The nature of the dual-use restrictions that Israel has imposed have been so far-reaching as to make … providing the aid required to help people respond to the colder conditions of winter very, very difficult indeed.
It was a question very much on our minds as winter came in Gaza, and it was an issue on which we made limited progress.
Asked whether he could confirm it had been “impressed upon the Israeli government that they have an obligation under international humanitarian law to allow the free and unimpeded access of aid to Gaza,” he said: “I can.”
Tories confirm they would support legislation to curb powers of Sentencing Council
In an interview with Sky News, Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, said the Conservatives would support the government if it decided to change the law to force the Sentencing Council to withdraw its alleged “differential treatment” rules. (See 10.56am.) He said:
I don’t want to live in a world where ministers are deciding any individual sentence, to be clear. But overall policy, the balance between rights, the values that we have in society, is the domain of elected politicians.
And frankly, I want if it needs legislation, then we will support that. But it should never have got to this.
Asked about reports confirming that Gareth Bacon, a justice minister in the last Conservative government, approved the guidelines that his party is now opposing, Griffith claimed that a large number of ministers and officials were involved in the decision. He said he was blaming “a system that needs fundamental reform” because arms-length bodies like the Sentencing Council had too much power.
Ousted Reform MP Rupert Lowe could join breakaway rightwing party
The ousted Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe could join forces in a breakaway rightwing party with a former deputy leader of the party who was also forced out by Nigel Farage, Jessica Elgot and Ben Quinn report.
Justice secretary to meet Sentencing Council after it refuses to back down over alleged 'differential treatment' rules
Ministers have revived their threat to legislate to curb the powers of the Sentencing Council after it refused the government’s request to withdraw guidelines allegedly favourable to minorities.
Speaking on behalf of the government on the morning interview round, Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, said the government did not support “differential treatment” and that it would legislate to get its way if necessary.
He also said Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, would be meeting the Sentencing Council on Thursday to discuss the stand-off.
The council, which is independent of government, published the new guidelines last week after a long consultation period during which the last government, and the current government, raised no objections to what was being proposed. But, after the Tories claimed the new guidelines would amount to “two-tier justice”, Mahmood in effect said she agreed, and she called for the guidelines to be withdrawn.
Yesterday the council replied with a letter saying it was “completely wrong” to say the new guidelines will lead to sentencing policy favouring minorities. It said some minority ethnic offenders receive harsher sentences than equivalent white offenders, and the new guidelines would make the system fairer.
In his letter Lord Justice William Davis, chair of the council, suggested that in this case the justice secretary does not have the legal power to call for sentening guidelines to be revised because they have only just been published, following consultation with her department. He said he would be taking legal advice to clarify this.
And, if the government tried changing the law to give itself powers to rewrite the guidelines, it would be undermining the independent of the judiciary, he suggested.
But Pennycook implied the government is willing to change the law anyway to get the rules changed. Asked about the story, he told LBC:
We’ve been very clear on our position on this matter. We think everyone’s equal before the law. We don’t agree with differential treatment, regardless of anyone’s background, and the justice secretary has made her views very well known.
We don’t agree with the policy. We’ve asked the Sentencing Council to rethink and rescind the guidance. They’ve obviously replied to the justice secretary yesterday evening. She has a meeting with him later this week where she’ll press her case.
But we’ve been very clear that we won’t hesitate to act through legislation if required.
Overall energy bills will only have to rise by between 80p and £1.50 per year to fund pylons discount scheme, says minister
Yesterday the government announced that, under measures in the planning and infrastructure bill, people living near new electricity pylons, or other new power infrastructure, could be given £250 a year off their energy bills.
In an interview with Times Radio this morning, Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, said this discount scheme would mean overall bills for consumers being a bit higher than they otherwise would be. But he said it would just mean average bills going up by between 80p and £1.50 per year. He said:
[The discount scheme] will be put as an obligation on energy suppliers, and will be made up in the bills of households across the country. But we are talking extremely small amounts. We expect between 80p and £1.50 per year.
And over the long run, because we are deploying more renewable energy, more homegrown, clean energy, the cost of everyone’s bills will come down.
Ben Quinn is a senior Guardian reporter.
Rupert Lowe’s seven-strong team at Westminster and his constituency office have put out a statement in their own names to back him and claim that processes designed to protect staff had been “weaponised” in a “malicious fashion.” They are defending the MP after he was suspended by Reform UK over alleged misconduct – allegations that Lowe claims have been contrived because he poses a political threat to the party’s leader, Nigel Farage.
A statement in the name of the five staff in parliament and two in Lowe’s constituency office of Great Yarmouth was posted on the MP’s X account this morning.
In it, the staff said they had felt obliged to take the unusual step of publishing the statement and that their employer had no involvement in organising or drafting it.
Describing Lowe as a “decent, and honest man,” they said that wider allegations of bullying were untrue. They said:
We are all uncomfortable to see processes designed to protect staff weaponised in such an unpleasant and malicious fashion.
Not just tarnishing Rupert’s name unfairly, but also our office and subsequently us. Nobody from Reform has ever raised these concerns, or any about Rupert, with any of us before this ‘investigation’. If they were so concerned about Rupert’s behaviour why were we not warned?
Updated
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook rejects claim that planning reforms designed to penalise farmers
Good morning. The government’s planning and infrastructure bill is being published later today, and in an article for the Times Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, claims it will be “a major step forward in getting Britain building again”. The measures in the legislation have already been well publicised and Rayner sums them up like this.
A new road for Norwich was set to make life easier for 44,000 homeowners, speeding up journeys to East Anglia’s biggest hospital and creating 33,000 new jobs. But it was delayed by spurious legal challenges for two years until the case was dismissed as having no logical basis. This government gave it the green light last week.
The many organisations that must be consulted in the planning process are also putting up unnecessary obstacles. A row over balls hit from a cricket club has delayed 139 new flats in Bradford. The wait for a development consent order increased by 65 per cent between 2012 and 2021. It now takes around four years to get a decision on major infrastructure.
That will change, thanks to our new planning and infrastructure bill. As part of our Plan for Change, we’re fast-tracking decisions for more than 150 major infrastructure projects this parliament …
We will streamline consultation requirements for projects such as roads and railway lines while keeping them robust. Wind and solar projects will be prioritised for grid connections, helping us achieve clean power by 2030, with those living within 500 metres of new pylons given up to £250 a year off their electricity bills.
And we’re fixing a system that both stops development going ahead and fails to protect our habitats and species. Developers will pay into a Nature Restoration Fund which Natural England experts can use to achieve better outcomes.
The bill itself will be published later today.
Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, has been giving interviews this morning to promote it, and he has had to respond to a fresh line of attack from opponents of the legislation that has made the Telegraph splash. The government has been saying for some time that it wants to give councils in England the powers to acquire land for housebuilding via compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) at market prices without having to pay “hope value” – what the land would be worth assuming planning permission for housing were granted. The Telegraph story presents this as a fresh Labour attack on farmers. It quotes Tim Bonner from the Countryside Alliance as saying:
We have been supportive of many of the government’s changes to planning policy, but giving councils more power to reduce the value of land is a step too far, especially in the context of such a challenging outlook for farmers and the inheritance tax fiasco.
This is not about people blocking development, it’s about the state paying the market price for land. We need more houses and more economic development, but not at the cost of basic principles.
Tuesday's DAILY TELEGRAPH: Farmers hit again in Rayner land grab#TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/MyBWO6kCA0
— Jack Surfleet (@jacksurfleet) March 10, 2025
In his interviews Pennycook did not challenge the facts of the story. He told LBC the government was giving councils the power to disapply “hope value” in a compulsory purchase acquisition “where there’s a site with a significant public interest involved, higher affordable levels of housing, for example, or health and education facilities”. But he said this was not aimed at farmers.
We are obviously and very clearly not setting out to target agricultural land. The land use framework we’re consulting on currently will ensure that prime agricultural land is protected, and food security is protected.
I see this power being used in particular, to much greater effect – and that’s where I want to see it come forward – specifically in urban areas, on previously developed brownfield land where regeneration projects with a significant public interest can be unlocked more easily.
When he was asked to admit that the Telegraph was right to say farmers could be affected, Pennycook said he did not think the Telegraph was right – “and it’s not often right, I must say” – because the final decision would rest with the local authority. Ministers would not be saying that prime agricultural land should be sold, he said.
Asked about the same issue on the Today programme, Pennycook said that he was “somewhat mystified that the Telegraph have looked through our CPO powers through the lens of farmers and prime agricultural land” when he expected them to be used mostly “for regeneration projects on previously developed brownfield land in urban centres”.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer to chair cabinet.
11.30am: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 12.30pm: MPs start debating the remaining stages of the employment rights bill.
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