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Here is a summary of the key posts from today’s live blog:
Labour is “not terrified” of Reform UK, Scottish secretary Ian Murray has said. The minister ridiculed the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice, who on Thursday appeared not to know the names of two council defectors during a visit to Glasgow. Speaking to the PA news agency after a speech in Edinburgh, Murray said: “We’re certainly not terrified of a party (whose deputy leader) doesn’t know the name of his own councillors.”
Downing Street said Donald Trump’s comments on Nato are not any different to what he said in his first term, after the US president suggested his country would not defend allies who do not spend enough on defence. The prime minister’s official spokesperson noted that Trump “reiterated his commitment” to article 5 last week when he met Keir Starmer. Asked about Trump’s comments overnight, health minister Stephen Kinnock told Times Radio on Friday that the comments presented “no issues” for the UK. He also suggested it was “fair enough” for the US to expect Europe to do more on defence.
The defence secretary had “very constructive” talks with his US counterpart in Washington DC, Downing Street has said. John Healey and Pete Hegseth discussed “deepening the UK-US defence relationship” and finding a “lasting peace” for Ukraine, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said.
The “broken social security system is holding our people back”, Number 10 has said, ahead of an anticipated welfare overhaul. Downing Street said on Friday there has been an “unsustainable rise in welfare spending” and it promised reforms in “the coming weeks”.
People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found. Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas.
The government is “betraying our children and capitulating to big tech” by “gutting” a private member’s bill that would have included a ban on smartphones in school, MPs have heard. Conservative former education secretary Kit Malthouse described the protection of children (digital safety and data protection) bill, as a “hollowed-out gesture” before its consideration was adjourned on Friday. The version of the bill introduced by Labour MP Josh MacAlister, would instruct UK chief medical officers to publish advice for parents on the use of smartphones and social media by children. MacAlister had originally planned for the bill to call for a legal requirement to make all schools in England mobile-free zones. On Friday, he told the House of Commons that there had been a “fundamental rewiring of childhood itself” as a result of increasing smartphone use.
Keir Starmer had a phone call with the leaders of Canada, Norway, Turkey and Iceland as well as European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Antonio Costa. It was primarily to update on a meeting EU leaders held yesterday, Downing Street said. In that meeting, EU leaders committed to bolstering the continent’s defences and freeing up hundreds of billions of euros for security.
The Scotland Office has entered a “new era”, Scottish secretary Ian Murray said. Speaking at an event at Edinburgh University, the minister said there had been three eras at the department, the first based on setting up devolution, the second one “mired by division and conflict” and the third was ushered in by the Labour win last summer.
The UK government is making plans to cut the funding for GB Energy, the state-owned company set up by Labour to drive renewable energy and cut household bills, in June’s spending review. Cuts to the £8.3bn of taxpayer money promised over the five-year parliament would be another blow for Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, after he was overruled by the government when the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, backed the expansion of Heathrow’s third runway.
Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees. Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.
The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has said helping more people back into a job is the best way to cut the benefits bill, as the chancellor looks for savings ahead of the 26 March spring statement. With Rachel Reeves zeroing in on welfare as a source of potential cuts as she prepares to take action to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules, Kendall said the starting point must be getting people back into work – not numbers on a spreadsheet.
Britain will continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine, though the more limited capabilities on offer from London and other European countries will make it difficult to replace the flow halted from the US earlier this week. The UK will also continue to supply its analysis of the raw data, sources said on Thursday, though in line with normal intelligence practice it will not simply pass on US information obtained via long-established sharing arrangements between the two countries.
Tens of thousands of children in migrant and refugee families in the UK are being denied access to government-funded childcare because of benefit restrictions linked to their parents’ immigration status, a report says. Having “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF) means parents are not entitled to 30 hours of free childcare and are having to stay home to look after their young children instead of working. This is pushing families into poverty and denying their children the benefits of the early years education available to their peers, the report finds.
Council tax costs in Scotland will hit record levels next month after local authorities agreed to raise rates by up to 15%, with some planning new levies on tourists and cruise ships. All of Scotland’s 32 local authorities have announced council tax increases from April of at least 6%, with the majority raising them by about 10%, after years of successive cuts to their grant funding.
Scrutiny arrangements for Britain’s spy agencies are “fundamentally flawed” and the existing system “isn’t viable operationally,” the chair of the watchdog intelligence and security committee (ISC) said on Friday in a rare public statement. Insufficient staffing and resources mean that “we cannot provide” the intelligence community “with its licence to operate” warned Labour peer and former MP Lord Beamish – while new parts of the intelligence apparatus are not being scrutinised at all.
Reform UK is facing a split at the top after Nigel Farage called one of his most prominent MPs “utterly completely wrong” for calling him the “messianic” leader of a protest party. Farage hit out at Rupert Lowe after the Great Yarmouth MP and former Southampton FC chair criticised his leadership publicly in an interview.
Here are a couple of images from today on the newswires:
Conservative MP Ashley Fox said he suspected a government whip had told Josh MacAlister “he had a very promising career ahead of him should he agree to do the right thing and water this legislation down to the point where it doesn’t actually do very much at all”.
Intervening, MacAlister said:
Private members’ bills are often a shot in the dark, and my aim from the beginning of this process has been, yes, to have the national debate, but also to put all of my energy on landing this with some action and progress.”
According to the PA news agency, Fox then went on to say there is “nothing in this bill that requires legislation” and MacAlister “should be a little bit ashamed of having campaigned so vigorously and then presented this bill”.
Caroline Voaden, the Liberal Democrat MP for South Devon, said she hoped the bill marks “the first step in a journey which will be far-reaching and hopefully fairly swift”. She said:
I know I am not alone to be somewhat disappointed that the bill we see today is but a shadow of its former self, and that the government has been so timid in what it is willing to do to try and save our children and young people from something that is clearly causing them considerable harm.”
In her contribution, Labour MP for Darlington, Lola McEvoy said “there’s no case for children to have their smartphones in schools” and urged the government to “to get on with it and take as much action as we can”.
Conservative MP Damian Hinds, who like Kit Malthouse previously served as education secretary, said a lack of evidence around digital harms is no reason not to legislate, instead calling on the government and researchers to prove online spaces are safe for children before they can be used.
“It seems odd that we allow something to happen to our children because we cannot 100% prove it causes harm, rather than because we can prove that it is safe,” he told MPs. He said:
That is not the way we deal with children’s toys, it is not the way we deal with children’s food, it is not the way we deal with children’s medicines.”
Data protection minister Chris Bryant said he was “not going to make any arguments today against action”, adding:
Everybody accepts that action is inevitable in this sphere.”
He said he wanted to secure “the liberty of the individual at the same time as the protection of the vulnerable, and that’s precisely what we need to be able to adopt as we move forward”.
Bryant said the government was working to implement the already-passed Online Safety Act “as fast as we possibly can”, adding that illegal content codes will come into force this month, with new duties on social media companies to detect and remove some content including child sexual abuse and terrorism material.
He said children’s safety codes are “nearly finalised”, and told the Commons that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is running a feasibility study into the impact of smartphones and social media, due to report in May so ministers “have all the information that we need to make a considered view”.
MPs agreed to adjourn the debate, which will be listed to resume on 11 July.
Government 'betraying children' by 'gutting' smartphone bill, MPs told
The government is “betraying our children and capitulating to big tech” by “gutting” a private member’s bill that would have included a ban on smartphones in school, MPs have heard.
Conservative former education secretary Kit Malthouse described the protection of children (digital safety and data protection) bill, as a “hollowed-out gesture” before its consideration was adjourned, reports the PA news agency.
The version of the bill introduced by Labour MP Josh MacAlister, would instruct UK chief medical officers to publish advice for parents on the use of smartphones and social media by children. It would also compel ministers to say within a year whether they plan to raise the age at which children can consent for their data to be shared without parental permission.
MacAlister had originally planned for the bill to call for a legal requirement to make all schools in England mobile-free zones and committing the government to review further regulation of the design, supply, marketing and use of mobile phones by children under the age of 16.
Malthouse told MPs he lamented “the gutting of what could have been a landmark bill” and the government “has dithered, diluted and capitulated”. He said:
We should all be furious about this. We should all be furious about the delay and the prevarication that is being injected into what could have been a huge step forward for parents and children.
I cannot then understand why the government has pressured (Labour MP Josh MacAlister) to produce what is, frankly, a cosmetic plug, betraying our children and capitulating to big tech. I’m afraid this bill is a shell of what it could have been, and as a result, is yet another missed opportunity to improve the lives of our young people.”
Updated
Labour 'not terrified' of Reform, says Murray
Labour is “not terrified” of Reform UK, Scottish secretary Ian Murray has said. The minister ridiculed the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice, who on Thursday appeared not to know the names of two council defectors during a visit to Glasgow.
Under questioning from journalists, Tice appeared to have forgotten or not known the surnames of councillors James Gray and Ross Lambie, who had left the Tories to join his party, only using their first names.
Earlier in the day the deputy of the Nigel Farage-led party said both Scottish Labour and the SNP were “terrified” of them.
Speaking to the PA news agency after a speech in Edinburgh, Murray said:
We’re certainly not terrified of a party (whose deputy leader) doesn’t know the name of his own councillors.”
He added that Labour has to perform as a government to succeed in next year’s Holyrood election. “We’ve set out our stall, we’ve set out our missions,” Murray added.
Muray said:
Our manifesto is there for everyone to see.
We’ve settled and stabilised the economy with the budget back in October, now it’s time to start delivering on those big issues.”
Speaking at a Q&A session after the Edinburgh speech, Murray said Tice had been “battered” by the questions – a reference to the Glasgow visit taking place at a chip shop – adding that he struggled to answer “basic questions”.
“When you start to scratch under the surface of politicians from parties like Reform, you start to see what they really are all about,” he said.
Updated
'Broken' welfare system holding people and economy back, says No 10
The “broken social security system is holding our people back”, Number 10 has said, ahead of an anticipated welfare overhaul, reports the PA news agency.
Downing Street said on Friday there has been an “unsustainable rise in welfare spending” and it promised reforms in “the coming weeks”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves suggested the system is “letting down taxpayers” due to the costs, with curbs expected to make up a chunk of government savings anticipated at the spring statement later this month.
Asked whether Keir Starmer agrees with Reeves, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said:
Our broken social security system is holding our people back, our economy back.
We’ve got three million people out of work for health reasons, one in eight young people is not currently in work, education or training, and that is a shocking situation to be in.”
He said there has been an “unsustainable rise in welfare spending”, and added:
Left as it is, the system we’ve inherited would continue to leave more and more people trapped in a life of unemployment and inactivity, and that’s not just bad for the economy, it’s bad for those people too, and it’s why this government is going to set up plans to overhaul the health and disability benefits system in the coming weeks.”
Reeves told Sky the welfare system is “letting down taxpayers” because it is costing too much.
“We don’t need an Office for Budget Responsibility forecast to tell us that we’ve got to reform our welfare system,” the chancellor told the broadcaster’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast.
Reeves will deliver her statement on 26 March in response to the latest forecasts from the budget watchdog, with increased borrowing costs and weak economic growth likely to require spending cuts in order to meet her commitments on managing the public finances.
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall told cabinet colleagues earlier this week that the current system is “bad for people’s wellbeing and health”, with the sickness and disability bill for working age people rising by £20bn since the pandemic and forecast to hit £70bn over the next five years.
Updated
The Scotland Office has entered a “new era”, Scottish secretary Ian Murray said.
Speaking at an event at Edinburgh University, the minister said there had been three eras at the department, the first based on setting up devolution, the second one “mired by division and conflict” and the third was ushered in by the Labour win last summer.
The current period, Murray said, was an “era of delivery”, punctuated by a better relationship between Holyrood and Whitehall.
“The election last year heralded a new era for the Scotland Office,” he said.
“The third era since Scottish politics changed for good in 1999.”
Murray added: “I say we stand on the edge of a third era - an era of delivery.
“The vast majority of Scots want their two governments to work together to increase living standards and improve public services.
“Under my leadership, that is what the Scotland Office is determined to do.”
Conservative former education secretary Damian Hinds has suggested the government should take action to curb children’s social media use, unless researchers and the government can prove that online environments are safe for them.
He said:
It seems odd that we allow something to happen to our children because we cannot 100% prove it causes harm, rather than because we can prove that it is safe. That is not the way we deal with children’s toys, it is not the way we deal with children’s food, it is not the way we deal with children’s medicines.
Hinds had earlier described three online factors which affect children – the content they consume, the contact they have with other people including child abuse and cyberbullying, and the time they spend using smartphones and social media.
“The sheer amount of time that gets sucked out of these children into these activities, and it is the compounding factor, because it is the thing that makes the other two things – content and contact – worse and more risky,” he said.
Labour MP for Lowestoft Jess Asato had earlier said:
We cannot stand idly by in the name of freedom or freedom of speech, because there is no freedom in addiction. There is no freedom in being harmed.
There is no freedom in being underdeveloped as a child because you’ve not experienced socialisation or the great outdoors or the pleasure of books, or simply not being harmed from being sent horrible things that you shouldn’t have to see.
A Labour MP has said adults “wouldn’t accept our children being flashed in the streets”, yet young people are being sent explicit material online.
According to the PA news agency, Jess Asato told the Commons:
It’s something that’s incessantly traumatising them [children]. We wouldn’t accept our children being flashed in the streets, so why is it different online?
And why do we not expect the tech companies to act? This is something that their products enable to happen to our children all day, every day, and yet we still don’t have the movement from them.”
The Suffolk MP called on ministers to consider “age verification for app stores, so that our young people know that when they access app stores, that content on them is right for their age and their level of development”.
Legislators have a “duty to try and mitigate” digital harms, including pornographic material being made available to children, an MP has said.
Caroline Voaden, the Liberal Democrat MP for South Devon, told the Commons:
We as responsible adults and legislators have a duty to try and mitigate these harms.
I’m thinking now particularly of horrible, dangerous misogyny of the likes of Andrew Tate which is being lapped up by boys who are under his influence, boys who then spread his misogynistic hate speech.
I’m thinking of the violent pornography that’s being accessed and viewed by children as young as nine or 10, pornography that isn’t just naked pictures like you’d find in an old-fashioned top-shelf magazine – I’m told – but violent porn that celebrates assault and rape.”
Voaden warned the type of pornography that children consumed was “leading to an increase in harmful practices such as strangulation, that it warps the way young people view sexual relationships”.
Downing Street said Donald Trump’s comments on Nato are not any different to what he said in his first term, after the US president suggested his country would not defend allies who do not spend enough on defence.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson noted that Trump “reiterated his commitment” to article 5 last week when he met Keir Starmer.
Trump has repeatedly talked about a need for Nato allies to “step up and pull their weight” when it comes to defence spending, he said.
“I don’t think from what the president said yesterday is any different to what he was saying in his first term in office, and indeed, what he pointed to is the fact that that position that he took in his first term has led to increased defence spending from Nato allies,” he said.
The defence secretary had “very constructive” talks with his US counterpart in Washington DC, Downing Street has said.
John Healey and Pete Hegseth discussed “deepening the UK-US defence relationship” and finding a “lasting peace” for Ukraine, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said, according to the PA news agency.
He noted that the US defence secretary said he was encouraged by Ukraine’s actions since last week. US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia scheduled for next week are a “welcome development”, he said.
He added:
President Zelensky has set out his readiness to move quickly and set out some possible elements for a first stage of a peace deal. And this provides a good basis for the discussions that will be taking place in Riyadh next week.”
When I took my seat in the House of Lords almost a year ago, I pledged to campaign for the abolition of my job. Our second chamber has become a gated community of more than 800 members, making it the second largest legislative chamber in the world, topped only by China’s National People’s Congress. The House of Lords casts a shadow over parliament, and its unelected peers have a huge influence on the laws that get passed.
Last March, I joined the second chamber representing Plaid Cymru. Aged 28, I was the youngest member of the chamber, and the youngest ever life peer. Plaid Cymru doesn’t believe that an unelected chamber should form part of our democracy, but we do believe that we should have a seat at the table wherever decisions affecting Wales are being made. Since taking my seat in the Lords, I have been clear about my desire to change the system from within, while standing up for Welsh people and for young people across Britain.
As much as I have enjoyed working with members across the political spectrum, over the past year I have gained a rare insight into how Westminster functions behind the scenes and, at times, how it fails to function altogether. One only need look at the recent Lords debate investigation in this newspaper to see the conflicts of interest that persist within the second chamber, where some peers have used their positions to advance commercial interests.
Keir Starmer had a phone call with the leaders of Canada, Norway, Turkey and Iceland as well as European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Antonio Costa, reports the PA news agency.
It was primarily to update on a meeting EU leaders held yesterday, Downing Street said. In that meeting, EU leaders committed to bolstering the continent’s defences and freeing up hundreds of billions of euros for security.
Tens of thousands of children in migrant and refugee families in the UK are being denied access to government-funded childcare because of benefit restrictions linked to their parents’ immigration status, a report says.
Having “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF) means parents are not entitled to 30 hours of free childcare and are having to stay home to look after their young children instead of working. This is pushing families into poverty and denying their children the benefits of the early years education available to their peers, the report finds.
About 4 million people in the UK are affected by NRPF restrictions, according to the report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in conjunction with the human rights organisation Praxis, which works with migrants and refugees.
They include about 71,000 families who would otherwise qualify for 30 hours of free childcare a week – provided they met the income threshold – were it not for NRPF restrictions, which ban access to the social security system.
The report argues that the system of childcare entitlements excludes families facing greatest disadvantage, despite the government’s manifesto commitment to break down barriers to opportunity for every child.
Families affected by NRPF are entitled to a halved offer of 15 funded hours of care for their three- and four-year-olds, and some low-income families may be entitled to care for their two-year-olds, but they cannot access any other support with childcare costs, including the extended entitlement for working parents, and universal credit support with childcare costs and tax-free childcare.
Scrutiny arrangements for Britain’s spy agencies are “fundamentally flawed” and the existing system “isn’t viable operationally,” the chair of the watchdog intelligence and security committee (ISC) has said this morning in a rare public statement.
Insufficient staffing and resources mean that “we cannot provide” the intelligence community “with its licence to operate” warned Labour peer and former MP Lord Beamish – while new parts of the intelligence apparatus are not being scrutinised at all.
“When it comes to resources, the committee is on the brink,” Beamish wrote in Intelligence Online. Spending on MI5, MI6 and GCHQ has doubled in the last 12 years, he said, while 20 new intelligence teams have been created across government.
A plan for an emergency increase of 15 staff, agreed under the last government in May 2024, has not been implemented, leaving its staff struggling to oversee spending of £3bn on spies with a budget of less than £2m.
“The problem has been steadily getting worse but we are now at the point where the organisation isn’t viable operationally,” Beamish said, and he argued that as well as extra resources a comprehensive restructuring was needed.
Negotiations had begun with Downing Street to resolve the crisis, which Beamish described as “very positive” and he added he believed that national security adviser Jonathan Powell agreed that reforms were urgent.
The body, which was created by special legislation and unlike a normal Commons committee, plans to move out of the Cabinet Office and “link into” parliament. “The parliamentary oversight body tasked with holding the UK’s national intelligence community to account cannot be seated within, and therefore beholden to an organisation it oversees,” Beamish concluded.
Liz Kendall says getting people into work is best way to cut benefits bill
The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has said helping more people back into a job is the best way to cut the benefits bill, as the chancellor looks for savings ahead of the 26 March spring statement.
With Rachel Reeves zeroing in on welfare as a source of potential cuts as she prepares to take action to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules, Kendall said the starting point must be getting people back into work – not numbers on a spreadsheet.
“I think the only way that you get the welfare bill on a more sustainable footing is to get people into work. And you know, we will be bringing forward big reforms that actually support people into work, that get them on a pathway to success,” Kendall said.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is due to publish a green paper on welfare in the coming days, before Reeves’s statement.
With the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expected to downgrade its growth forecasts against the backdrop of a deteriorating global economy, the chancellor is preparing to make spending cuts to ensure she can still meet her fiscal targets.
Kendall refused to comment on specific policy changes. “I want to be really clear about our objective: it’s reforming the system, changing the system to provide people with the support that they need because that’s the only way,” she said.
However, she repeatedly declined to deny reports that the Treasury is seeking up to £5bn in cuts.
With the OBR unlikely to pencil in uncertain future savings from supporting people into employment, analysts believe cuts on such a scale will be impossible to achieve without making it harder to claim benefits, or reducing their value.
One senior government source hinted at radical change, describing the current system as “completely busted”, adding: “You don’t need the OBR to tell you it’s not working.”
The protection of children (digital safety and data protection) bill was designed to “secure explicit government backing”, the Labour MP who prepared it has said.
Josh MacAlister, the MP for Whitehaven and Workington, told the Commons:
We must act on excessive screen time today in the same way we acted on smoking back then, and like debates that were had on smoking and car seatbelts, it took a process of legislation rather than one ‘big bang’ event. That’s why starting today with these initial steps and then following them through with major action soon will be so important.”
The private member’s bill, if passed, would instruct the UK chief medical officers to publish advice for parents on the use of smartphones and social media by children. It does not include proposals for schools to become mobile-free zones, as MacAlister had originally planned.
According to the PA news agency, Ashley Fox, the Conservative MP for Bridgwater, intervened in MacAlister’s speech and said:
Nothing he has said so far requires legislation. The bill he’s brought today could all be achieved by a minister just deciding to ask the chief medical officer to produce a report or the minister to produce a plan.
What has happened to the legislative action that was clearly in earlier drafts in his legislation?”
MacAlister later addressed Fox’s point in his speech, when he said:
This bill has been drafted to secure explicit government backing. It’s been written to achieve change rather than just highlight the issue. That is why the bill before us is narrower than where I started when this campaign began six months ago.”
UK Treasury ‘plans funding cuts at GB Energy’ in blow to Ed Miliband
The UK government is making plans to cut the funding for GB Energy, the state-owned company set up by Labour to drive renewable energy and cut household bills, in June’s spending review.
Cuts to the £8.3bn of taxpayer money promised over the five-year parliament would be another blow for Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, after he was overruled by the government when the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, backed the expansion of Heathrow’s third runway.
GB Energy, a vital cog in Keir Starmer’s plans to “supercharge” Britain’s clean energy revolution, was only given an initial £100m in October’s budget to cover its first two years.
Ministers are carrying out a “zero-based review” of all government spending, which has been given additional impetus after Starmer’s pledge to boost investment in defence.
One option under consideration by the Treasury is to cut the £3.3bn earmarked for GB Energy to fund low-interest loans via local authorities, for projects such as solar panels and shared-ownership wind projects, according to the Financial Times.
Despite Labour making the £8.3bn funding for GB Energy a pledge in its general election manifesto, neither the Treasury nor the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has said that it is guaranteed.
“We are fully committed to GB Energy, which is at the heart of our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower and to ensure homes are cheaper and cleaner to run,” a government spokesperson said.
Last month, GB Energy admitted that it could take 20 years to meet its pledge to employ 1,000 people, as the chair, Jürgen Maier, also refused to put a date on when it would bring down energy bills.
A Labour MP has warned of a “fundamental rewiring of childhood itself” as a result of increasing smartphone use, reports the PA news agency.
Introducing his protection of children (digital safety and data protection) bill, Josh MacAlister told the Commons he began his career as a teacher in 2009 when “there was the odd phone in the classroom, the odd instance of a child being bullied through their device”.
The MP for Whitehaven and Workington said:
Neither I nor any other teacher at the time could have imagined the impact these devices would come to play in childhood.”
He told MPs that the average 12-year-old spends 21 hours a week on their smartphone, “that’s the equivalent of four full days of school teaching per week”.
MacAlister continued:
This is a fundamental rewiring of childhood itself and it’s happened in little over a decade. Children are spending less time outside, less time reading, less time exercising, exploring, meeting people, communicating in person – all the things that make childhood special and the things that are necessary for healthy childhood development.
Instead, many children now spend their time captured by addictive social media and smartphone use, often sat alone doom scrolling, being bombarded by unrealistic representations of life, communication through asynchronous large group chats rather than through looking at facial expressions, eye contact, body language, learning to interact – moving less, smiling less, learning less.”
UK to continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine after US cutoff
Britain will continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine, though the more limited capabilities on offer from London and other European countries will make it difficult to replace the flow halted from the US earlier this week.
The UK will also continue to supply its analysis of the raw data, sources said on Thursday, though in line with normal intelligence practice it will not simply pass on US information obtained via long-established sharing arrangements between the two countries.
“They are not as far reaching as US capabilities, not at the same scale and not able to take their place,” a former Whitehall insider said. But they will allow Ukraine to maintain some early warning from attack and a degree of deep strike capability into Russia.
Reconnaissance data collected from satellites, ground stations, surveillance aircraft such as Rivet Joint, and even covertly deployed ground forces is accumulated and shared with Ukraine in conjunction with open source material to enable damaging deep missile and drone strikes into Russia.
France also said publicly that it would continue to provide intelligence to Ukraine. Sébastien Lecornu, the country’s armed forces minister, said that while the US decision would have a “significant operational impact” Paris would continue to help with its “sovereign intelligence”.
The French minister said the UK’s position was “more complicated” because its intelligence apparatus was more closely bound up with Washington – though British sources emphasised there had been a long history of competition as well as cooperation between the UK and US.
One expert suggested the US decision to halt its intelligence could make it easier for Russia to renew a stalled offensive towards Ukraine’s second city. The Kremlin could “move everything inside its borders near Kharkiv and attack again”, Dr Jade McGlynn, of King’s College London, said.
Council tax in Scotland to reach record high with 15% rise in some areas
Council tax costs in Scotland will hit record levels next month after local authorities agreed to raise rates by up to 15%, with some planning new levies on tourists and cruise ships.
All of Scotland’s 32 local authorities have announced council tax increases from April of at least 6%, with the majority raising them by about 10%, after years of successive cuts to their grant funding.
Bills for people living in Falkirk will rise by 15.6% at the start of next month, taking their band D rate to £1,576.77, while islanders on Orkney face a 15% increase. Water bills in Scotland will rise too from April, by 9.9%, although 50% of households receive discounts.
The Accounts Commission, a spending watchdog, warned earlier this year that Scottish local authorities faced “severe financial pressures” because of government funding shortfalls that forced them to borrow more and eat into their reserves.
The Scottish government has offered councils £1bn extra this year, but councils argue that remains insufficient.
The councillor Laura Murtagh, who pushed through Falkirk’s increase to bridge a £33m budget gap, said she felt “physically ill to the pit of my stomach where we are having to make these impossible decisions”.
Councils also cite the rising costs of Scotland’s above-inflation public sector pay awards, the £100m cost of the Treasury’s decision to increase employer national insurance contributions and the increasing costs of inflation and energy.
Figures compiled by the BBC show rates will rise by 7.5% in Glasgow; by 8% in councils such as Edinburgh, East Ayrshire and Dundee; by 10% in Aberdeenshire, East Lothian, Scottish Borders and Shetland; and by 11% to 13% in Angus and Clackmannanshire.
Advice Direct Scotland, which runs the moneyadvice.scot debt advisory service, said these increases will push more households into “heartbreaking” financial distress.
Reform UK is facing a split at the top after Nigel Farage called one of his most prominent MPs “utterly completely wrong” for calling him the “messianic” leader of a protest party.
Farage hit out at Rupert Lowe after the Great Yarmouth MP and former Southampton FC chair criticised his leadership publicly in an interview.
Lowe, who was touted as a replacement leader by Elon Musk earlier this year, had said Reform needed a “proper plan”, more policy and spokespeople. He also suggested he could leave the party unless it was centred less around Farage’s “messianic” leadership.
The MP’s criticism comes after internal Reform speculation about tensions with Farage, especially after Musk’s intervention.
Asked by the Daily Mail if Farage would make a good prime minister, Lowe said:
It’s too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods. He can only deliver if he surrounds himself with the right people.
Nigel is a fiercely independent individual and is extremely good at what we have done so far. He has got messianic qualities. Will those messianic qualities distill into sage leadership? I don’t know.”
Farage responded to Lowe in an interview on TalkTV saying he was “utterly, completely wrong” about Reform being a protest party. He also pointed out that Lowe was already on the frontbench of the party, adding:
Perhaps he wants to be prime minister, half the House of Commons do.”
“We’re not a protest party and he’s on the frontbench. What is he talking about? With only five people, you can’t really have a shadow cabinet, can you? We’ve got a lot of development to do but we’re absolutely not a protest party,” he said.
Asked if Lowe had been told to wind his neck in, Farage said there was “no point telling him what to do or what not to do … the fact is, we are making huge strides”. Pressed on whether Lowe would be an MP at the next election, Farage said:
I hope so, he seems to be taking a tone that suggests he won’t accept us.”
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London air pollution down since Ulez extended to outer boroughs, study finds
People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found.
Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas.
Sadiq Khan had faced severe opposition to the 2023 expansion of Ulez to outer London boroughs. But on Friday as the report was published, the mayor of London said the scheme had driven down pollution, taken old polluting cars off the roads and brought cleaner air to millions more people.
He said:
When I was first elected, evidence showed it would take 193 years to bring London’s air pollution within legal limits if the current efforts continued. However, due to our transformative policies we are now close to achieving it this year.”
Several outer London councils mounted unsuccessful legal challenges to the Ulez rollout, and Keir Starmer blamed it for Labour’s defeat in the Ruislip and Uxbridge byelection and called for Khan to “reflect” on his plans.
But Friday’s report, published by the Greater London Authority with findings extensively reviewed by an independent advisory group of experts, said Ulez had had a positive impact and that London’s air quality had improved across the board and at a faster rate than that of the rest of the country.
The report covers the first year since the zone’s expansion and is the fullest analysis of its impact yet conducted.
Khan said:
The decision to expand the Ulez was not something I took lightly, but this report shows it was the right one for the health of all Londoners. It has been crucial to protect the health of Londoners, support children’s lung growth and reduce the risk of people developing asthma, lung cancer and a host of other health issues related to air pollution.”
The report found London’s air quality was improving at a faster rate than that of the rest of England. It said this was particularly notable in outer London, where concentrations had improved more rapidly over recent years and were now similar to the average for the rest of England.
Ministers delaying inquiry into treatment of migrant carers, RCN says
Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees.
Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.
Despite the government’s promises to clamp down on abusive practices by rogue employers and agencies, the RCN says it continues to receive more than 100 calls a year from nurses who say they are being mistreated.
Ranger said in her letter:
The RCN is deeply concerned by reports of exploitative workplace practices that many international educated nursing staff in the care sector face. Our members report a range of issues from long working hours, excessive repayment fees to exit contracts, substandard and crowded accommodation, and illegal work finding fees.”
Cooper promised last June to hold an investigation into the experiences of people coming to the UK to work in the social care sector, after the Guardian uncovered widespread allegations of mistreatment.
The investigation showed how dozens of migrant nurses had been induced to pay tens of thousands of pounds for their visas on the promise of a job, only to find little or no work when they arrived.
Some were sharing rooms, and even beds, with other migrant workers, to make ends meet.
The problems stem from the decision by the previous government to relax the rules around sponsoring care worker visas, which ministers took in response to a staffing crisis in social care.
Cooper said at the time the Guardian’s revelations were a “disgrace”, adding:
There must be a full investigation into these reports to ensure standards are upheld, and exploitative employers are prosecuted.”
Starmer to speak to European allies amid diplomatic push on Ukraine
Keir Starmer will speak to European leaders on Friday as he presses on with a diplomatic push over Ukraine. The prime minister and French president Emmanuel Macron are seeking countries willing to supply troops for a peacekeeping force to defend a potential deal – an idea that Russia has rejected.
Defence secretary John Healey said Donald Trump has “asked Europe to step up, and we are” as he started talks in Washington with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth on Thursday.
Hegseth said it was “very encouraging” to see France and the UK say they are prepared to take a leading role. He also said suggestions that the US had moved to a “pro-Russia” stance were “all garbage” and that Trump is “working with both sides in a way that only President Trump can”.
Speaking to US news channel Newsmax after the meeting, Healey said the UK and Europe were on a “push for peace” in Ukraine, reports the PA news agency. He said:
It’s a lasting, secure peace that we all want to see. We’ve got a big role to play in Europe and we are determined to do that.”
Negotiations between the US and Ukraine could be getting back on track as Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed talks will take place in Saudi Arabia next week, after a Trump administration envoy earlier said they were in the works. But the fate of the minerals deal that Trump and the Ukrainian president were due to sign before a dramatic Oval Office row last week remains unclear.
Since then, the US has paused military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
The US president is “very encouraged by the signs we’re seeing” from Ukraine, Hegseth said.
Rachel Reeves said the government will work with Ukraine for “as long as it takes”. She said:
The world is changing and that’s why this government is stepping up to take defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, funded by a reduction in the aid budget. And we’ve just signed off the extraordinary revenue acceleration loan agreement, to be repaid by the profits on sovereign Russian assets, to unlock £2.26bn additional for Ukraine to help them fight this war after Russia’s illegal invasion.”
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It is 'fair enough' for the US to expect Europe to do more on defence, suggests minister
Kinnock has also been speaking to Sky News this morning about Trump’s comments on defence spending.
The health minister told Sky News:
Donald Trump’s not actually the first president to say that the European arm of Nato needs to step up. More needs to be spent on defence, military capability needs to be made fit for purpose.
Sadly, in our country, we’ve seen our armed forces hollowed out by 14 years of Conservative neglect and incompetence, and it’s about now rebuilding our military capability to look after our own back yard.
And, you know, I think that’s fair enough – the challenge has been laid and we must now show that we are equal to that challenge.”
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Health minister Stephen Kinnock is on the morning media round.
Asked how hopeful he was of progress at talks between the US and Ukraine, due to take place next week, health minister Kinnock told Sky News:
It’s very welcome that those talks are taking place, and I think it reflects absolutely what the prime minister has been saying, which is that we’ve got to get Ukraine to the table: nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.
And what we’re also working to do is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for when these talks do start.
The prime minister, I think, has played an outstanding role as a statesman and an honest broker between the United States and Ukraine and our European partners and allies, and those are all the key factors that we need to bring together to deliver a just and lasting peace.”
The Online Safety Act could be used for “bargaining” during trade negotiations after US president Donald Trump showed his support for less regulation of US social media companies, a former culture secretary has said.
Asked on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether there could be trade consequences if the UK government acted against someone like controversial influencer Andrew Tate, Nicky Morgan said:
There could be, and I think what worries a lot of us now who campaigned for the Online Safety Act is that actually the act itself could be up as part of the bargaining on the trade deal, for the very reason, as you say, which is that you know, president Trump appears to want to take a step back from regulation of the platforms, and they’re allowing him to do that, and that will be, I think, a huge retrograde step.
The UK has done the right thing in bringing the Act into force, and this is just the starting point for regulating the platforms.”
UK has ‘no issues’ with Trump’s Nato challenge, says minister
Donald Trump’s comment that he would not defend Nato countries that do not spend enough on defence presents “no issues”, a government minister has said.
Asked about Trump’s comments overnight, health minister Stephen Kinnock told Times Radio on Friday that even before Trump took office the US “has been challenging the other Nato members to step up and boost defence capability and be ready to defend our own back yard”.
According to the PA news agency, he added:
I think it’s absolutely right that we are now seeing, particularly through the leadership of our prime minister, the European arm of Nato coming together and meeting that challenge.
So I think there’s no issues really around the challenge that the United States has set for us as European nations, what’s vitally important now is that we step up and do that.”
Asked whether the UK could trust the US, Kinnock said:
Donald Trump has never said that he thinks the United States should leave Nato, he has never said that he doesn’t believe in article 5, and I think that we absolutely have to hold together as an alliance in defence of freedom and democracy and the values that we cherish.”
Keir Starmer will speak to European leaders on Friday as he presses on with a diplomatic push over Ukraine. Yesterday, Starmer said it would be a “big mistake” to think that Ukraine no longer needs military help because a peace deal is inevitable.
More on that in a moment, but first, here is an roundup of some of the latest developments in UK politics:
Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees. Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.
The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has said helping more people back into a job is the best way to cut the benefits bill, as the chancellor looks for savings ahead of the 26 March spring statement. With Rachel Reeves zeroing in on welfare as a source of potential cuts as she prepares to take action to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules, Kendall said the starting point must be getting people back into work – not numbers on a spreadsheet.
Britain will continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine, though the more limited capabilities on offer from London and other European countries will make it difficult to replace the flow halted from the US earlier this week. The UK will also continue to supply its analysis of the raw data, sources said on Thursday, though in line with normal intelligence practice it will not simply pass on US information obtained via long-established sharing arrangements between the two countries.
People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found. Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas.
Tens of thousands of children in migrant and refugee families in the UK are being denied access to government-funded childcare because of benefit restrictions linked to their parents’ immigration status, a report says. Having “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF) means parents are not entitled to 30 hours of free childcare and are having to stay home to look after their young children instead of working. This is pushing families into poverty and denying their children the benefits of the early years education available to their peers, the report finds.
Reform UK is facing a split at the top after Nigel Farage called one of his most prominent MPs “utterly completely wrong” for calling him the “messianic” leader of a protest party. Farage hit out at Rupert Lowe after the Great Yarmouth MP and former Southampton FC chair criticised his leadership publicly in an interview.
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