Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
UK intelligence services have concluded that the deadly blast at al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza was caused by a rocket fired by a Palestinian militant group rather than by an Israeli airstrike, Rishi Sunak has told MPs. In a Commons statement after his trip last week to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the prime minister stressed the UK’s support for Israel but warned against actions that could undermine an eventual two-state solution, including a viable Palestine.
Rishi Sunak said the aid that had been allowed into Gaza was not enough. He said: The whole house will welcome the limited opening of the Rafah crossing. It is important progress and testament to the power of diplomacy. But it is not enough. We need a constant stream as a pouring in, bringing the water, food, medicine and fuel that is so desperately needed. So we will keep up the diplomatic pressure.”
The Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said he had a “really constructive meeting” with the home secretary, Suella Braverman, about the government’s position on the policing of pro-Palestine protests over the weekend. He said: “We’re accountable for the law. We can’t enforce taste or decency, but we can enforce the law.”
Downing Street has indicated there are no plans to give police more powers to address chants deemed to be extremist, after “jihad” was shouted at a pro-Palestine rally. The chant was heard at the demonstration by the Hizb ut-Tahrir fundamentalist group, which was separate to the main pro-Palestine rally.
The government is delaying the promised ban on no-fault evictions until after a change of the courts is achieved in the face of a Tory rebellion, provoking claims they are kicking the move into the “long grass”. The housing secretary, Michael Gove, has told Conservative MPs that the ban on section 21 evictions will not be enacted before a series of improvements are made in the legal system.
Humza Yousaf visited Brechin, Angus, to assess the damage from Storm Babet. The Scottish first minister met and thanked emergency service, and search and rescue personnel who had been working since the storm hit. He told one resident it would be a “long road to recovery” from the flooding.
Scotland’s justice secretary, Angela Constance, said the Scottish government had to have a “frank” conversation with vulnerable communities about how Scotland prepares for events such as Storm Babet.
Keir Starmer has said he had “productive” talks during a visit to Tata Steel’s giant Port Talbot plant in south Wales. The Labour leader told broadcasters: “We have ambitious plans for the steel industry. We see this as the future, not the past. That requires strategic thinking about our economy. We want to go to clean power, that will bring down energy costs.”
Parliament’s newest MPs have taken their seats after Labour inflicted a double byelection defeat on Rishi Sunak. The prime minister saw two healthy Conservative majorities disappear, in Tamworth and in Mid Bedfordshire, in results that the Labour leader, Starmer, said “made history”.
We’re closing this liveblog shortly. Thanks so much for joining us.
Our blog on the Israel-Hamas war is still live:
Updated
Encouraging extremism will be met with “the full force of the law”, the prime minister said, after being urged to ban a fundamentalist group that appeared at a pro-Palestine protest over the weekend.
Steve McCabe, the MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, told the Commons:
Hizb ut-Tahrir are a fundamentalist organisation who are banned in 40 countries and across most of the Arab world. Why are they allowed to parade on the streets of London and call for the destruction of the state of Israel?
Rishi Sunak replied:
As I previously said, we of course keep the list of proscribed organisations under review, but do not routinely comment on whether an organisation is or is not under consideration for proscription.
What I would also say, is I refer him to the comments that I made before: hate and extremism of the type we saw this weekend has no place in our society, and it should be met with the full force of the law.
The Conservative former minister Sir Michael Ellis later said:
Will the prime minister confirm that any person in the United Kingdom supporting this vicious terrorism will be subject to the full force of the law?
Sunak replied:
I can also tell him and provide him with the reassurance that he will know well [that] under the Terrorism Acts of both 2001 and 2004, glorification of terrorism, support of proscribed organisations, or encouraging of terrorism are all offences and will be met with the full force of the law.
Updated
Parliament’s newest MPs have taken their seats after Labour inflicted a double byelection defeat on Rishi Sunak.
The prime minister saw two healthy Conservative majorities disappear, in Tamworth and in Mid Bedfordshire, in results that the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said “made history”.
Sarah Edwards, the new MP for Tamworth, and Alistair Strathern, the new MP for Mid Bedfordshire, were cheered by their Labour colleagues as they arrived in the House of Commons.
MPs are required to make an oath or solemn affirmation of allegiance to the crown in order to take their seats in parliament.
Both contests were triggered by the high-profile departures of their previous MPs.
The former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries quit as Mid Bedfordshire’s MP in anger at being denied a peerage in former prime minister Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
In Tamworth, Chris Pincher resigned after being found to have drunkenly groped two men in an “egregious case of sexual misconduct” at London’s exclusive Carlton Club last year – an incident which helped trigger Johnson’s exit from No 10 because of his handling of the situation.
Updated
A plaque commemorating murdered MP Sir David Amess has been unveiled in the House of Commons.
Amess who was an MP for nearly 40 years, was stabbed during a constituency surgery at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, in October 2021.
The shield was unveiled by Amess’ wife, Julia Amess, at a small ceremony attended by family members, as well as commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle and home secretary Suella Braverman, Commons officials said.
The coat of arms features five red roses, representing his children and his love of gardening, and two talbot dogs, representing animal rescue, a cause he championed, and Bournemouth University, his alma mater.
Lady Amess said she chose the motto His Light Remains, which features just below the shield, because “wherever I go, I am reminded of him in some way: someone he has helped, a charity he has supported and people whose lives he has touched”.
She said:
The commons meant everything to David.
He loved people and worked tirelessly to help anyone. He rarely took no for an answer if he felt more could be done to help someone. I am sure some government departments became exasperated.
He didn’t seek high office, he just wanted to be a good MP and help change people’s lives for the better.
We are hugely honoured that his legacy lives on in the commons but, like so many of his friends, we miss his ready smile, ridiculous sense of humour and lifelong mission to brighten the most difficult of moments.
The shield in Amess’ memory joins plaques to other MPs who were killed while serving, including Airey Neave, Sir Anthony Berry, Ian Gow and Jo Cox, as well as MPs killed in the two world wars.
Stephen Flynn has urged the prime minister to agree to a ceasefire “given the severity of this appalling situation”.
The SNP Westminster leader said he welcomes the announcements from Rishi Sunak in relation to humanitarian aid, but added:
I believe that we can and must go further. And here’s why: because turning off electricity and water to Gaza is collective punishment; limiting the free access of foods and medicines to Gaza is collective punishment; preventing people from fleeing, including British citizens, from Gaza is collective punishment.
Dropping leaflets in northern Gaza, telling people to flee or they will be deemed partners of Hamas is a precursor for further collective punishment.
All of us, all of us in this chamber know that collective punishment is prohibited by international law. So I ask the prime minister to use his office to do some good on the humanitarian side of this conflict in Gaza and to answer the question, which I asked last week. Will he now, given the severity of this appalling situation, agree that a ceasefire is required in the region?
Sunak replied:
Israel has suffered an appalling act of terror. It has the right to defend itself and ensure that something like this does not happen again.
He [Flynn] talks about people moving from the north to the south of Gaza. It is absolutely right that Israel takes every precaution to avoid harming civilians, and indeed their president in my conversations confirmed that they intend to act within international humanitarian law. But what is happening is Hamas is preventing people from moving and keeping them in harm’s way.
Updated
The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, insisted Gaza needs “rapid, safe, unhindered and regular” aid.
He said there must be “clear humanitarian corridors” within Gaza for those escaping violence, and Palestinians forced to flee “must not be permanently displaced from their homes”.
Starmer also told the Commons:
Hamas may not care for the safety and security of the Palestinian people but we do. We cannot and will not close our eyes to their suffering.
Gaza is now a humanitarian emergency. There is not enough food, clean water is running out, hospitals are going without medicine and electricity. People starving, reduced to drinking contaminated filth. Babies lying in incubators that could switch off at any moment.
Starmer said the deal struck to get trucks through the Rafah crossing is an “important first step” but more needs to be done.
He said:
Gaza is not a small town facing a few shortages, it has a population the size of Greater Manchester, a place even before this devastation where life was a struggle. Gaza needs aid and it needs to be rapid, safe, unhindered and regular.
Starmer reiterated the need for a two-state solution in future, saying there has not been a “serious path or will” to make it happen.
Updated
Calls for jihad are not only a threat to the Jewish community but also a threat to “our democratic values”, Rishi Sunak has said.
The prime minister’s comments were in response to the Conservative former minister Andrew Percy, who told the Commons:
How can members of the British Jewish community feel safe when people are allowed to chant on the streets of Britain in favour of jihad? Call for the raising of religious armies to go and fight Israel and call for the mobilisation of the intifada, and walk down our streets holding signs which display despicable ancient antisemitic tropes?
These are not marches for peace, these are marches for hate. They are glorifying the murder, the worst murder of Jews since the Holocaust. And they have to stop.
Sunak replied:
Hateful extremism has no place in our society, calls for jihad and for Muslim armies to rise up are not only a threat to the Jewish community but also a threat to our democratic values.
Now, of course the police are operationally independent, but the home secretary has a role in holding police forces to account and as members will know she has raised this matter with the Met police commissioner at their meeting earlier today.
Anyone who commits a crime, whether that be inciting racial hatred, glorifying terrorism or violating public order, should expect to face the full force of the law.
Updated
Responding to Rishi Sunak’s statement, the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, told the Commons:
The brutal attack in Israel just over two weeks ago was the darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. Two weeks of grief for the innocent people who lost brothers, sisters, children; two weeks of torture for the families whose loved ones were taken hostage by Hamas.
Starmer said there was a “small glimmer of light” over the weekend with the release of two US-Israeli hostages, adding:
But Hamas still holds hundreds more. Sons, daughters, mums, dads still missing, innocent people who could – if Hamas willed it – be released immediately.
But they remain hostage because Hamas wants the chaos of war, Hamas wants Jews to suffer, Hamas wants the Palestinian people to share in the pain because the Palestinian people are not their cause, peace is not their aim, the dignity of human life –Jew or Muslim – means absolutely nothing to them.
In light of their barbarism, Israel has the right to defend herself. Yes, to get their hostages home but also to defeat Hamas so nobody need suffer like this again.
And that we might once more see a road to a lasting peace, a Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel. This operation can and must be done within international law.
Updated
The UK will deploy RAF and Royal Navy assets to monitor the situation in Israel and Palestine, the prime minister said.
Rishi Sunak told the Commons:
We are all determined to prevent escalation, that is why I am deploying RAF and Royal Navy assets, monitoring threats to regional security and supporting humanitarian efforts.
The violence against Israel did not end on 7 October, Rishi Sunak has said.
The prime minister told the Commons:
I travelled first to Israel. It is a nation in mourning. But it is also a nation under attack. The violence against Israel did not end on October 7.
Hundreds of rockets are launched at their towns and cities every day. And Hamas still holds around 200 hostages, including British citizens.
In Jerusalem, I met some of the relatives who are suffering unbearable torment. Their pain will stay with me for the rest of my days.
I’m doing everything in my power and working with all our partners to get their loved ones home. So in my meetings with prime minister Netanyahu and President Herzog, I told them once again that we stand resolutely with Israel in defending itself against terror.
I stressed again the need to act in line with international humanitarian law and take every possible step to avoid harming civilians.
He added:
I recognise that the Palestinian people are suffering terribly. Over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed in this conflict.
They are also the victims of Hamas, who embed themselves in the civilian population.
Too many lives have already been lost, and the humanitarian crisis is growing.
I went to the region to address these issues directly.
Updated
The police must take “all necessary action to tackle extremism”, Rishi Sunak said after condemning the use of the word jihad at pro-Palestinian protests on the weekend.
The prime minister said:
We need to learn the lessons and ensure that in future there is no rush to judgment.
He added:
We have seen hate on our streets again this weekend. We all stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. That is the message I brought to President Abbas. But we will never tolerate antisemitism in our country.
Calls for jihad on our streets are not only a threat to the Jewish community but to our democratic values and we expect the police to take all necessary action to tackle extremism head on.
Gaza hospital blast caused by militants’ rocket, UK agencies believe
UK intelligence services have concluded that the deadly blast at al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza was caused by a rocket fired by a Palestinian militant group rather than by an Israeli airstrike, Rishi Sunak has told MPs.
Briefing the Commons after his trip last week to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the prime minister said the explosion was likely to have been caused by a missile or part of a missile launched within Gaza towards Israel.
Sunak used this assessment to criticise some media outlets for initially reporting that the blast appeared to have been caused by Israel.
Also in the statement, Sunak stressed the need for a two-state solution, saying this was “essential” for lasting peace. He also said the UK would provide £20m in aid to Gaza.
US intelligence has already said Washington believes the blast last Wednesday was most likely not due to an Israeli attack and instead appeared to be because of a failed rocket fired by the militant group Islamic Jihad.
The Hamas-ruled territory has said 471 people were killed in the blast. US intelligence estimates put the toll at between 100 and 300 people while saying this assessment could change.
Updated
Regarding the strike on al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, the prime minister said “we have taken care to look at all the evidence currently available”.
Rishi Sunak said:
I can now share our assessment with the house.
On the basis of the deep knowledge and analysis of our intelligence and weapons experts, the British government judges that the explosion was likely caused by a missile or part of one that was launched from within Gaza towards Israel.
He said misreporting on the incident had a negative effect in the region, including on a vital US diplomatic effort and on tensions here.
We need to learn the lesson and ensure that in future there is no rush to judgment.
Updated
Rishi Sunak said increasing attacks by Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, rising tensions in the West Bank, and missiles and drones launched from Yemen show that some are seeking to escalate the tension in Israel and Palestine.
He said:
We need to invest more deeply in regional stability and Palestinian state solution.
Last night, I spoke to the leaders of the United States, Germany, France Italy and Canada … our support for a two-state solution is highly valued across the region, but it can’t be a cliched talking point to roll out at times like this.
The truth is that in recent years, energy has moved into other avenues, like the Abraham accords and normalisation talks with Saudi Arabia.
We support those steps absolutely and believe that they can bolster wider efforts. But we must never lose sight of how essential the two-state solution is.
He added that “we will work together with our international partners to bring renewed energy and creativity to this effort”.
He said:
It will rely on establishing more effective governance for Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank. It will also mean challenging actions that undercut legitimate aspirations for Palestinian statehood.
Updated
The UK will provide an additional £20m of humanitarian aid to civilians
in Gaza, Rishi Sunak said.
The prime minister said:
We’ve already committed £10m of extra support to help civilians in Gaza and Mr Speaker, I can announce today that we are going further.
We are providing an additional £20m of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, more than doubling our previous support to the Palestinian people.
Rishi Sunak said the aid that had been allowed into Gaza was not enough.
We must continue working together to get more humanitarian support into Gaza.
The whole house will welcome the limited opening of the Rafah crossing. It is important progress and testament to the power of diplomacy.
But it is not enough. We need a constant stream as a pouring in, bringing the water, food, medicine and fuel that is so desperately needed. So we will keep up the diplomatic pressure.
The prime minister said the government was also hoping that the British nationals stuck in Gaza would be able to leave through the same route.
He said:
We’re also working intensively to ensure that British nationals trapped in Gaza are able to leave through the Rafah crossing when it properly reopens.
Updated
Rishi Sunak is making a statement in the House of Commons about the situation in Israel and Palestine following his visit to the region.
He said he met with the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority last week to “renew a better vision of the future Hamas is trying to destroy”.
He said Israel is “a nation in mourning”.
He said:
In Jerusalem, I met some of the relatives who were suffering unbearable torment. That pain will stay with me for the rest of my days.
I’m doing everything in my power and working with all our partners to get their loved ones home.
He said he is calling for humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza:
I recognise that the Palestinian people are suffering terribly.
Over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed in this conflict.
They are also the victims.
Updated
A new “zero-tolerance” action plan will crack down on shoplifting and “get it back in its box”, the policing minister Chris Philp has told Sky News.
The minister said it would “target prolific offenders and go after them specifically” and also “go after the criminal gangs who often organise shoplifting”.
Philp said the national shoplifting action plan included permission to attend retail premises where someone had been apprehended or where an assault had taken place.
It also included a “commitment to always follow up lines of inquiry where they exist” and to “run CCTV footage through the facial recognition database”.
Updated
The environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, said residents of flood-hit Retford, in Nottinghamshire, were asking “why stuff hasn’t happened” since the last major floods in 2007.
During a visit to the area she told Sky News:
In that time, between 2015 and 2021 we’ve invested £2.6bn in flood defences right across the country, that was over 300,000 homes. We’re part-way through a programme of spending a further £5.2bn over a six-year time period.
Coffey said she thought it was “important to come and see people whose lives have been disrupted”.
She added:
Now I’m conscious of that with my own constituency, and of course the people who have lost their life, and their friends and family will be very distressed too, but it’s about coming and seeing what practical things we can try and get done quickly to help these communities.
And that’s part of the action that I’ll be understanding and trying to take away today.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day so far:
The Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said he had a “really constructive meeting” with the home secretary, Suella Braverman, about the government’s position on the policing of pro-Palestine protests over the weekend. He said: “We’re accountable for the law. We can’t enforce taste or decency, but we can enforce the law.”
Downing Street has indicated there are no plans to give police more powers to address chants deemed to be extremist, after “jihad” was shouted at a pro-Palestine rally. The chant was heard at the demonstration by the Hizb ut-Tahrir fundamentalist group, which was separate to the main pro-Palestine rally.
The government is delaying the promised ban on no-fault evictions until after a change of the courts is achieved in the face of a Tory rebellion, provoking claims they are kicking the move into the “long grass”. The housing secretary, Michael Gove, has told Conservative MPs that the ban on section 21 evictions will not be enacted before a series of improvements are made in the legal system.
Humza Yousaf visited Brechin, Angus, to assess the damage from Storm Babet. The Scottish first minister met and thanked emergency service, and search and rescue personnel who had been working since the storm hit. He told one resident it will be a “long road to recovery” from the flooding.
Scotland’s justice secretary, Angela Constance, said the Scottish government has to have a “frank” conversation with vulnerable communities about how Scotland prepares for events such as Storm Babet.
Keir Starmer has said he had “productive” talks during a visit to Tata Steel’s giant Port Talbot plant in south Wales. The Labour leader told broadcasters: “We have ambitious plans for the steel industry. We see this as the future, not the past. That requires strategic thinking about our economy. We want to go to clean power, that will bring down energy costs.”
Updated
Government officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) and complex algorithms to help decide everything from who gets benefits to who should have their marriage licence approved, according to a Guardian investigation.
The findings shed light on the haphazard and often uncontrolled way that cutting-edge technology is being used across Whitehall.
Civil servants in at least eight Whitehall departments and a handful of police forces are using AI in a range of areas, but especially when it comes to helping them make decisions over welfare, immigration and criminal justice, the investigation shows.
The Guardian has uncovered evidence that some of the tools being used have the potential to produce discriminatory results, such as:
An algorithm used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which an MP believes mistakenly led to dozens of people having their benefits removed.
A facial recognition tool used by the Metropolitan police has been found to make more mistakes recognising black faces than white ones under certain settings.
An algorithm used by the Home Office to flag up sham marriages which has been disproportionately selecting people of certain nationalities.
Read the full story here:
The former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald has said the home secretary needed to be a “bit careful” in her interventions on policing.
It comes as Suella Braverman met Sir Mark Rowley, the Met police commissioner, following a pro-Palestinian rally over the weekend.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme, the crossbench peer said:
This present home secretary is certainly making a habit of expressing her views about how policing ought to be conducted.
The rule is that the police are operationally independent, but of course the home secretary is entitled to express her view about what the correct objectives are and the sorts of things that police should be focusing on.
I think she has to be very, very careful not to put herself, insinuate herself, into the position of police officers on the ground who are having to make very difficult and sensitive decisions, in situations where there are perhaps 100,000 people marching through London, feelings are running quite high.
I don’t think it’s right for the home secretary to be assuming the power herself to dictate what those decisions should be. I imagine she is not doing that, I imagine she is simply expressing a view. But it is a view coming from the Home Secretary and that can have a power of its own.
I think she should be a bit careful and give the police, frankly, some space.
Updated
The Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said he had a “really constructive meeting” with the home secretary, Suella Braverman, about the government’s position on the policing of pro-Palestine protests over the weekend.
Rowley told reporters following the meeting that incidents of hate crimes against both Muslims and Jews had risen considerably in the past few weeks and that understandably those communities were feeling anxious and fearful.
He said:
I was explaining how we are absolutely ruthless in tackling anybody who puts their foot over the legal line.
We’re accountable for the law. We can’t enforce taste or decency, but we can enforce the law.
He said 34 arrests had been made over actions at the recent protests and there were another 22 cases they are looking into.
But he told Sky News that “the law that we’ve designed around hate crime and terrorism over recent decades hasn’t taken full account of the ability of extremist groups to stay around those laws and propagate some pretty toxic messages through social media.
“And those lines probably need redrawing.”
He said that Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the groups there is concern about and said it is banned in countries like Germany as well as “most of the Muslim world”.
He added:
So there are frameworks which are more assertive in some respects, and I think there’s lessons to be learned.
But that’s for politicians and parliament to draw the line.
Updated
The decision to delay the ban on no-fault evictions was welcomed by the National Residential Landlords Association chief executive, Ben Beadle.
He said:
Reform of the rental market will only work if it has the confidence of responsible landlords every bit as much as tenants. This is especially important given the rental housing supply crisis renters now face.
Following extensive campaigning by the NRLA, we welcome the approach taken by ministers to ensure court improvements are made before section 21 ends.
Updated
Angela Rayner said that the decision to “flip-flop” on the section 21 ban “kicks it into the long grass”.
The deputy Labour leader, who is also the shadow housing secretary, argued the promised ban on no-fault evictions was unlikely to be brought in before the next election because the Conservatives will act as “judge and jury” in deciding when the courts have been sufficiently improved.
She said:
Having broken the justice system, they are now using their own failure to indefinitely delay keeping their promises to renters in the most underhand way.
This comes at a heavy price for renters who have been let down for too long already. Tens of thousands more families who the government promised to protect now face the prospect of being threatened with homelessness or kicked out of their homes by bailiffs.
Polly Neate, the chief executive of the Shelter housing charity, said renters have “already had to wait far too long for reform”.
She added:
The government absolutely cannot kick abolishing no fault evictions down the road and leave them waiting any longer. We need a clear and unambiguous timeline for abolishing these evictions.
Downing Street was unable to say when a ban on no-fault evictions would be introduced.
Updated
Ministers to delay ban on no-fault evictions in face of Tory rebellion
The government is delaying the promised ban on “no fault” evictions until after a reform of the courts is achieved in the face of a Tory rebellion, provoking claims they are kicking the move into the “long grass”.
The housing secretary, Michael Gove, has told Conservative MPs that the ban on section 21 evictions will not be enacted before a series of improvements are made in the legal system, PA news reports.
The deputy Labour leader, Angela Rayner, accused the government of having “betrayed” renters with a “grubby deal” to win the support of Conservative backbenchers.
The renters reform bill containing the ban promised back in the Tories’ 2019 election manifesto will be debated in the Commons on Monday after a long delay.
The promise to ban section 21 notices, known as “no-fault evictions”, is strongly opposed by a significant number of Tory MPs, the Times reports. Those against the proposals believe it is anti-landlord and will exacerbate the shortage of private rented accommodation.
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and the home secretary, Suella Braverman, are among five cabinet ministers who earn at least £10,000 a year renting out housing, according to a new snapshot of parliament’s landlords.
In all, 68 Conservative MPs – nearly one in five – are currently landlords, according to research by a campaign group, 38 Degrees.
In a letter first reported by LBC, Gove said that “implementation of the new system will not take place until we judge sufficient progress has been made to improve the courts”.
Among the changes to areas that are “currently frustrating proceedings”, they will digitise more of the courts process to make it easier for landlords and explore the prioritisation of cases such as those including antisocial behaviour.
Improving bailiff retention and recruitment, and providing early legal advice for tenants were also cited.
Updated
Plans to close rail ticket offices in England go too far, too fast and are too radical to be rolled out without being piloted first, MPs have told the rail minister.
The transport select committee told Huw Merimann there was an unacceptable lack of evidence about the cumulative effect of the planned closures, which risked excluding some passengers, including disabled travellers, from the railway.
The committee said in a letter that both the Department for Transport and the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operating companies, had failed to provide to a recent inquiry any breakdown in the types of passengers who use ticket offices.
MPs said it left campaigners having to do “considerable detective work” to confirm whether operators’ claims stacked up against the details of the proposals.
The letter said:
It does not seem possible to accurately estimate how many of those passengers would be able to transition to purchasing their tickets without access to a ticket office.
We therefore consider that the proposals as put forward by train operating companies in this consultation go too far, too fast, towards a situation that risks excluding some passengers from the railway.
At a minimum, changes this radical should be carefully piloted in limited areas and evaluated for their effect on all passengers before being rolled out. This would allow for the alternative proposals, which at present are too vague, to be properly understood.
Read more here:
Updated
Updated
Downing Street has indicated there are no plans to give police more powers to address chants deemed to be extremist, after “jihad” was shouted at a pro-Palestine rally.
The chant was heard at the demonstration by the Hizb ut-Tahrir fundamentalist group, which was separate to the main pro-Palestine rally.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said:
Some of these scenes will have likely been incredibly distressing for people to witness, not least to the UK’s Jewish community who deserve to feel safe at what must be an incredibly traumatic time.
We do believe the police have extensive powers in this space and we will continue to discuss with them so there is clarity and agreement about how they can be deployed on the ground.
Pressed if there were any plans to give police more powers, he said: “I’m not aware of any, no.”
Updated
Downing Street is unable to say when a ban on no-fault evictions will be enforced after delaying the measure under the renters reform bill until changes are made to the court system.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said:
The bill will deliver on the government’s manifesto commitment to abolish no-fault evictions.
It’s right that courts are ready for what will be the most significant reforms to tenancy laws in three decades.
I think we’ve said from the start the implementation will be phased and I don’t know exactly if there’s set timelines to that.
Updated
The business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, has reportedly dealt another blow to the scandal-hit Confederation of British Industry by turning down an invitation to speak at the lobby group’s annual conference.
Badenoch’s team told the CBI she would not be able to address the conference due to scheduling clashes leading up to the chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement on 22 November, according to Sky News.
It leaves the CBI without a high-profile speaker at the annual event, the details of which have yet to be announced.
The summit is usually a major event for UK businesses, but was rumoured to have been scrapped as the CBI tried to recover from the fallout of a string of sexual misconduct allegations.
Earlier this year, the Guardian revealed multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by members of the CBI including a woman’s claim that she was raped by a manager during a 2019 summer boat party on the River Thames, and a separate woman’s allegation that she was raped by two male colleagues when she worked at an overseas office of the CBI.
The director general Tony Danker was sacked in April, after separate allegations of misconduct were made against him, unrelated to the allegations of rape.
Since then, nearly 100 British companies have paused or suspended their membership, including the carmakers BMW, Ford and Jaguar Land Rover; the supermarkets Tesco and Sainsbury’s; the asset managers Aviva, Fidelity and Schroders; the US banks Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan; and the oil companies Shell and BP.
The reaction nearly pushed the CBI to collapse, forcing it to secure emergency funding from several banks last month.
Read more here:
Updated
Updated
Keir Starmer says he had 'productive' talks during visit to Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot, south Wales
Keir Starmer has said he had “productive” talks during a visit to Tata Steel’s giant Port Talbot plant in south Wales.
The Labour leader told broadcasters:
We have ambitious plans for the steel industry. We see this as the future, not the past. That requires strategic thinking about our economy. We want to go to clean power, that will bring down energy costs.
He said it was necessary to “drive them down to ensure the future of British steel”.
If we are able to put in place our mission for clean power by 2030, that will require more steel – and therefore we want the demand for steel to go up. Of course, we need to transition to green steel. But we must do this transition very carefully, protecting the jobs and the skills and the history that we have here in south Wales. Connecting and bridging that to the future, which is green steel.
So, we have been having productive discussions this morning about what I think will be a very bright future for steel. But only with strategic thinking around it.
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Humza Yousaf’s mother-in-law has said she is living through “torture” in Gaza, the first minister said.
Speaking to journalists in flood-hit Brechin on Monday, Yousaf was seen to step away from cameras to take a call, which he later said was from Elizabeth El-Nakla.
El-Nakla and her husband, Maged, – the parents of Yousaf’s wife, Nadia – had travelled to Gaza to visit family when hostilities flared up.
He said:
They’re really living in a situation that my mother-in-law describes as torture.
The whole night there will be missiles, rocket fire, drones – they don’t know whether they are going to make it from one night to the next.
They’re down to six bottles of clean drinking water in a house of 100 people including a two-month-old baby, she tells me.
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Humza Yousaf has arrived in Brechin, Angus, to assess the damage from Storm Babet.
The Scottish first minister visited a home on River Street which was flooded after heavy rains during the storm.
He also spoke to residents, one of whom told of how he had a close escape from flood waters while rescuing his dog.
Yousaf met and thanked emergency service, and search and rescue personnel who had been working since the storm hit.
He told one resident it will be a “long road to recovery” from the flooding.
He was heard to tell one:
We’ll support you as much as we can. It’s going to be a long road to recovery.
A local councillor said some people living in Brechin could be permanently out of their homes.
The Conservative councillor Gavin Nicol, who represents the Brechin and Edzell ward on Angus council, called for more funding from the Scottish government, telling BBC Radio Scotland on Monday:
I can tell you the repercussions of the flooding will take months and years to resolve.
Angus council, unfortunately, does not have the resources to do the job it needs to to protect the residents.
We really need finance from the Scottish government in order to protect our residents, to rehome them.
Some will be out for months, if not permanently.
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Ireland’s finance minister, Michael McGrath, has told a meeting of Irish and UK parliamentarians that the relationship between the two governments is “back on a positive trajectory” following Brexit, PA news reports.
Speaking to politicians at the British-Irish parliamentary assembly, McGrath said:
On Brexit, mercifully, the debate is not where it was five or so years ago.
He said the Windsor framework had stabilised the UK-EU relationship and brought a “degree of certainty” to Northern Ireland.
The full economic effects of the UK exit still cannot be known but thanks to extensive contingency planning, and a large-scale response across government, the impacts for Irish business and trade are not what they otherwise would have been – and certainly not what would have been once feared.
He later added:
My message today is that the British-Irish relationship is, after some turbulent years which we have to acknowledge, back on a positive trajectory.
But we have work to do, in many ways we always will.
In that context, a close, equal and respectful partnership between London and Dublin, and all of our respective centres of power, will always be crucial.
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Judges are to be asked to rule on whether private landlords can “reasonably” deny a tenant’s request to keep a pet, under sweeping changes to the private rented sector facing a key parliamentary debate on Monday.
The shake-up in the balance of power between England’s 2.3 million private landlords and their 11 million tenants proposed in the long-awaited renters reform bill will finally be considered by MPs. It proposes a ban on no-fault evictions, four and a half years after the Conservative government promised to end the practice.
However, the government has warned of fresh delays even if the bill passes, telling MPs last week that it must speed up changes to the courts process before the ban comes in.
Landlords can currently deny tenants who want pets, and some have charged “pet rent”. The new bill “requires landlords not to unreasonably withhold consent”, leaving a new ombudsman for private renting, and ultimately the courts, to decide what is reasonable – creating a new grey area in landlord-tenant relations.
The National Residential Landlords Association is calling for “comprehensive guidance” on when landlords can refuse animals, and fears “tenants and landlords will be in a state of limbo, with the prospect of inconsistent judgments by the courts”.
The bill will also ask courts to rule on cases of antisocial behaviour, as the government plans to give landlords stronger powers to turf out badly behaved tenants. It is a move seen as reducing the impact of ending no-fault evictions for landlords.
Shelter’s chief executive, Polly Neate, said this was “deeply concerning” and “risks opening a new loophole for unscrupulous landlords to continue unfair evictions”.
The bill will also:
Allow landlords to evict tenants for persistent rent arrears, if they are selling up or moving a close relative in.
Allow landlords to raise rents annually to market prices with two months’ notice. Tenants will be able to fight excessive increases in the courts to prevent “back door” evictions.
Establish a national ombudsman with whom tenants can raise complaints. Membership of a redress scheme will be mandatory for landlords.
Set up a new database of private landlords and properties.
The bill will deliver “a private rented sector that is fit for the 21st century”, a government spokesperson said.
However, any ban on no-fault evictions will not take effect until at least next year – five years since the then prime minister, Theresa May, said they were “wrong” and “unfair”.
The government said last week it must first improve the courts system and said: “We will not proceed with the abolition of section 21 until reforms to the justice system are in place.”
Read the full story here:
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The transport secretary, Mark Harper, has argued it is not the right time to be considering taking refugees from Gaza.
He told Sky News:
Reaching for the tool of refugees at this stage is not the right one to do.
I think the most important thing is to support people in the region and that’s why we’ve been urging the Israeli government and the Egyptian government to make sure that aid can get into Gaza.
We saw the first stages of that at the weekend, and that was very welcome, and we will continue to urge that and we will continue to put our support into helping people on the ground.
You can follow our dedicated liveblog on the Israel-Hamas war here:
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Scotland’s justice secretary, Angela Constance, said the Scottish government has to have a “frank” conversation with vulnerable communities about how Scotland prepares for events such as Storm Babet.
She told BBC’s Good Morning Scotland:
We do have to have some frank conversations with government and our communities because, with the best will in the world, the best flood defences will not give 100% protection, 100% of the time.
What we’ve seen with Babet is, over two days, two months’ worth of rainfall, which is exceptional, and the impact of that will be with communities for some time.
Of course there’s been some really tragic consequences of the storm and our thoughts and prayers continue to be with those affected.
Two people died in Scotland during the storm, which prompted the issuing of a rare red weather warning by authorities, warning of a danger to life in the north-east.
Police confirmed on Monday morning that a search is continuing for a second man reported missing on Friday, who is said to have been trapped in a vehicle in flood water in Marykirk, Aberdeenshire.
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Humza Yousaf to visit Brechin, Angus, after flooding
The Scottish first minister will visit Brechin on Monday to see where the River South Esk burst its banks and flooded dozens of homes.
Humza Yousaf is expected to meet people affected by the flooding during his visit and thank volunteers, local authority staff and emergency service personnel who played a part in the evacuation.
Respite centres were set up in the town for those forced to leave their homes, and people only started returning in large numbers on Sunday to assess the damage done.
In the early hours of Friday, emergency services increased efforts to move people out of their properties as water started to spill over the sides of the defences and flood the street.
Angus council said it has had an “overwhelming” response to an appeal for accommodation for people unable to return to their properties because of the flood damage.
A call for clothing and toiletries for those affected by the floods also led to hundreds of donations, the local authority said.
Yousaf said ahead of his scheduled visit:
My thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives to the extreme conditions caused by Storm Babet during what will be a difficult time.
I want to pass on my thanks to local authorities, volunteers and the emergency services for all their efforts in these extremely challenging conditions.
The local community in Brechin, like others across Scotland, has come together to offer support to all those affected by the floods, with Angus council receiving hundreds of offers of alternative accommodation for those forced to leave their homes.
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The transport secretary, Mark Harper, has said a video appearing to show a tube driver leading chants on the London Underground of “free Palestine” was “disturbing”.
He told Sky News:
I saw that clip and on the face of it it was disturbing, but I know the British Transport Police and Transport for London are investigating that.
Because they are investigating that it wouldn’t be right for me to comment on an ongoing police investigation, but they took that very seriously and I thank them at the weekend for their vigilance on that matter.
I want to make sure people across the country are secure and those sorts of things will have been very concerning, particularly to people in the Jewish community.
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Police will have to explain the response to a pro-Palestine protester chanting “jihad”, a cabinet minister has said ahead of a meeting between Suella Braverman and the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley.
The home secretary will urge Rowley to use the “full force of the law” after video emerged of a protester chanting “jihad” at a demonstration by the Hizb ut-Tahrir fundamentalist group, which was separate to the main pro-Palestine rally, PA Media reports.
Officers said no offences were identified in the footage from the demonstration in central London over the weekend.
Braverman’s cabinet colleague, Mark Harper, said the footage from the weekend was “disturbing”.
The transport secretary told Times Radio:
The home secretary will make it clear that the government thinks the full force of the law should be used.
The police are operationally independent, which I think is appropriate, and they will have to explain the reasons for the decisions they have taken.
The Met has pointed out that jihad has “a number of meanings”, and said that specialist counter-terrorism officers had not identified any offences arising from the specific clip from Saturday.
Instead, officers spoke to the man to “discourage any repeat of similar chanting”.
But the home office minister Robert Jenrick said chanting the word on the streets of the capital is “inciting terrorist violence”.
Braverman will use her scheduled meeting to discuss protests surrounding the Israel-Gaza conflict to ask Rowley for “an explanation over the response to incidents” on Saturday.
A source close to the home secretary added:
There can be no place for incitement to hatred or violence on Britain’s streets and, as the home secretary has made clear, the police are urged to crack down on anyone breaking the law.
Welcome to today’s liveblog. I’m Nicola Slawson and I’m covering for Andrew Sparrow today. Do drop me a line if you have any questions or comments. I’m on nicola.slawson@theguardian.com or @Nicola_Slawson on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.
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