Early evening summary
Yvette Cooper has announced an urgent national review of the scale of grooming gangs as part of a range of new measures to tackle the issue, following sustained political pressure. She also said in a Commons statement the Home Office would fund more local inquiries, starting in Telford and four other towns, (See 3.28pm.) The Tories claimed this was a “totally inadequate” response to public concern about grooming gangs, but Labour MPs who have been campaigning on this issue were generally positive. However one of those MPs, Sarah Champion said that she was concerned that the local inquiries would not have the power of a statutory national inquiry, which can compel witnesses to give evidence, and that the extra £5m set aside for these local inquiries would not be enough, given the Telford inquiry alone cost £8m. Champion also asked Cooper for an assurance that the government would be adopting all the 20 recommendations in the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) report published in 2022. Cooper said a timetable for addressing the recommendations would be set out before Easter, but she said some of them raised “complex issues” or would require “considerable work”. It has been reported that the IICSA compensation scheme proposal would cost around £7bn. Commenting on Cooper’s reply, Richard Scorer, who represented more than 100 victims at the inquiry as head of abuse law and public inquiries at Slater and Gordon, said:
Last week the government promised that it would implement all the key recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. Today in parliament the home secretary was pressed by Sarah Champion MP to confirm that all the recommendations would be implemented. In response, the home secretary failed to give a clear and categorical assurance . We are very concerned that the government is backing down on its commitment to full implementation . Any delay or failure to implement IICSA in full is unacceptable and a betrayal of survivors.
Kemi Badenoch has said the UK is getting poorer and people should be honest that it is failing to compete with the rest of the world. She made the claim in a speech in which she was more critical than she has been in the past about Tory failings over Brexit policy. But, taking questions from journalists, Badenoch played down the case for apologising for her party’s record. (See 2.45pm.) The Conservative leader also surprised journalists by saying Rachel Reeves was a “woman problem” for Keir Starmer. (See 4.08pm.) For an analysis of the speech, see 11.45am and 3.01pm.
Updated
Kemi Badenoch ended her speech today with the line:
We are under new leadership, we are back in the service of the British people, and we are going to give you your country back.
Commenting on Bluesky, my colleague Jessica Elgot says;
Quite interesting that this is basically an amalgamation of Labour and Reform UK’s slogans
Stephen Bush has a good assessment of Ed Davey’s EU speech today in his Financial Times Inside Politics briefing. Here’s an extract.
One challenge for the third party at Westminster is to have a distinctive position that gets you in the headlines and has an electoral constituency, but for whatever reason is not going to appeal to the government or the main opposition. And you can be sure neither of the latter parties is going to touch the topic of Britain rejoining the customs union.
There is no prospect of Kemi Badenoch embracing the customs union, for both her own ideological reasons and the balance of forces within the Conservative party. And for reasons of electoral calculation, Keir Starmer won’t either.
Under Badenoch, the Conservatives have had precious little to say about the Lib Dems. This is surprising, given that unless they can make a big dent in the 59 seats Davey’s party gained from the Tories in England, there isn’t a path to a Conservative parliamentary majority. Still, one thing that spooks some Lib Dem MPs is that they end up being seen simply as Labour-by-proxy by the Tory voters they won last time and need to hold on to.
So a distinctive position on which they can criticise Labour without risk of being crowded out by the Conservatives and that aligns with both their activists and core voters ticks a lot of boxes.
Bush has added an update to this on Bluesky.
There’s another element that makes it smart that I hadn’t thought of this morning, which is that the Lib Dems need to attack Labour in a way which makes “my heart is red but I live in the Cotswolds” types go “fair enough” and still vote tactically, rather than “screw you, Davey”:
Starmer won't attend Trump's inauguration, No 10 confirms
Keir Starmer will not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony next week, in line with precedent, his spokesperson confirmed today. AFP reports:
Trump has broken with tradition by inviting some foreign leaders to Monday’s event, after which the Republican will return to the White House, but Starmer is not among them.
“It is US custom that foreign governments are officially represented at presidential inaugurations by their ambassadors, and the British ambassador will represent the UK,” his spokesperson told reporters.
“We look forward to working with him [Trump], and you know from the readout of their phone call earlier this month the two look forward to seeing one another at the earliest available opportunity,” he added.
Foreign leaders are by tradition not invited to attend the inauguration of the US president, but Trump has invited the far-right Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen will not attend.The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, is due to be at the ceremony, as is French far-right politician Eric Zemmour.
Updated
The full text of Kemi Badenoch’s speech is now on the Conservative party’s website.
Kiran Stacey is a Guardian political correspondent.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has urged Israel to accept the peace deal proposed with Hamas.
In a statement to MPs earlier, he said:
It is critical that there is final approval of this agreement, and as the Israeli cabinet meets, I urge them to back this deal. Now is not the time for any backtracking.
This deal is now final and needs to be implemented.
He also pushed for Israeli politicians to repeal their law to ban Unwra, the UN relief agency, which is due to come into force later this month. “The unravelling of Unwra will make the West Bank even more fragile than it currently is,” he warned.
MPs were unusually united in their comments as members from both sides welcomed the proposed ceasefire in Gaza and joined Lammy in urging the Israelis to accept it.
Some Tories encouraged him to continue putting pressure on the Israelis to abide by the agreement.
Oliver Dowden, the former Conservative deputy prime minister, said:
Can I urge the foreign secretary to use all the diplomatic efforts of His Majesty’s government ... to secure agreement from the Israeli cabinet?
Ex-MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle cleared after Labour drops inquiry into surprise complaint that ended his Commons career
Aletha Adu is a Guardian political correspondent.
Former Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle has been readmitted into the Labour party, after he was suspended last May and blocked from standing at the general election.
Russell-Moyle, a leftwinger who was the MP for Brighton Kemptown since 2017, was barred from standing one day after it emerged Labour officials were planning to also block Diane Abbott from contesting her seat if she would not agree to stand down. Russell-Moyle had been expecting to stand again, and the launch of disciplinary proceedings came as a surprise.
Today he said:
I am pleased to announce that in final weeks of December, I received a letter from the Labour party informing me that the complaint against me, which I said at the time was ‘vexatious, politically motivated and designed to disrupt the election’, had been dropped and the party has no remaining case against me. My membership of the party has been restored.
After thanking his team for their support as they also “lost their jobs”, he added:
This complaint has had a deep and lasting impact on me and my health, but with this ordeal now over, I am looking forward to putting this year behind me with my reputation restored and my head held high.
Sources close to the former MP believe he is seriously considering his future within the Labour party, given the handling of this investigation.
The Guardian understands Russell-Moyle has been a long supporter of devolution in the Sussex region, in which his former constituency sits, and would be interested in a future leadership role. The government’s devolution plans would create one strategic authority which would govern East Sussex, Brighton and Hove and West Sussex. It would require for the new members of the new authority and a mayor of Sussex.
Leader of Tory group on Glasgow council defects to Reform UK
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
The leader of the Scottish Conservative group at Glasgow city council, and a former Westminster candidate for the Tories, has defected to Reform UK.
Thomas Kerr, a councillor in Shettleston who fought the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection for the Tories, is the highest profile of a handful of council defections to Reform UK in Scotland recently.
According to several recent polls, Reform UK is now neck and neck with the Scottish Tories. One earlier this week from Survation put Reform on 15% and the Tories on 13%, raising the prospect the party will win seats in next year’s Holyrood elections.
In a statement, Kerr, until now one of only two Conservative councillors in Glasgow, said:
Reform UK represents the change our communities desperately need, and I’m excited to continue my work for Shettleston with this dynamic new party.
Reform said it was “delighted”.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay described Kerr’s announcement as “very disappointing”. Asked by reporters at Holyrood whether there might be further defections, he said: “I can’t control what people may or may not decide to do.”
There is speculation the second Tory councillor in the city may also defect, as well as another former Labour councillor.
Reform has yet to win an election in Scotland despite a raft of council byelections. But it now has six councillors, including five in Aberdeenshire and two in North Ayrshire, after a spate of defections from the Tories and realignments by previously independent councillors
Kerr was first elected to Glasgow city council in 2017 aged 20, and became the Conservative group leader in 2019. He came a distant third in the Rutherglen byelection, which was comfortably won for Labour by the current junior energy minister Michael Shanks.
Updated
Badenoch describes Reeves as 'woman problem' for Keir Starmer
Here is the quote from Kemi Badenoch’s Q&A with journalists where she referred to Rachel Reeves as being a “woman problem” for the PM.
Asked, jokingly, if she would back Keir Starmer if he sacked Reeves (see 2.07pm), Badenoch replied:
If he does the right thing with Rachel Reeves, I will also support him in that, but his ‘woman problem’ is not my concern.
Asked later why she referred to Reeves being a woman in this context (see 2.15pm), Badenoch replied:
Well, when [Reeves] stood up in her budget, she wanted everyone to know that she was the first female chancellor. I didn’t stand up here congratulating myself for being a female leader, or being a black leader. And that’s why when you open the door to those things, it means that people can comment on them.
Updated
Cooper suggests lack of national inquiry powers won't hold back local inquiries
Bernard Jenkin (Con) told Yvette Cooper that he welcomed her statement, and that he thought she had come a long way since last week, but that he thought the local inquiries need to have the power to summon witnesses to appear and to compel the production of documents. He said they should have these powers.
Cooper said that the best protection for victims would come from the work done by police. And she said the previous local inquiries did not have the powers of a national inquiry (which can order the production of papers and witnesses). But those inquiries “still managed to uncover serious problems and also make serious recommendations”, she said.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp says Labour's plans for five local inquiries 'totally inadequate'
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, accused Keir Starmer of “smearing” people concerned about child rape by suggesting they were far right last week.
(That is a misleading account of what Starmer actually said.)
He described the announcement of local inquiries in five towns as inadequate.
What the home secretary has announced today is totally inadequate. It will only cover a fraction of the towns affected, and it appears these inquiries will not have the legal powers they need. That is why we need a full national public inquiry covering the whole country and with the powers under the Inquiry Act needed to obtain the evidence required.
Updated
Here is Peter Walker’s story about Yvette Cooper’s announcement.
Cooper also says the Home Office will increase support for police tackling online abuse, including funding undercover online officers infiltrating live streams and chat rooms.
Cooper says Home Office to fund more local inquiries, starting in Telford and four other pilot areas
Cooper says local inquiries can be more effective than national inquiries.
And so she has asked Tom Crowther, who carried out the Telford inquiry, to develop “a new framework for victim-centered, locally-led inquiries where they are needed”.
These will start in Oldham, and four other pilot areas, she says.
And this will include support for councils who want to explore “other ways to support victims, including local panels”.
Cooper says there will be an extra £5m to back these inquiries.
Cooper says Louise Casey will do 3-month audit of extent of gang-based abuse, including looking at ethnicity of offenders
But Cooper says just looking at historical cases is not enough. She goes on:
There are currently 127 major police investigations under way on child sexual exploitation and gang grooming across 29 different police forces. Many major investigations have involved Pakistani-heritage gangs and the police taskforce evidence also shows exploitation and abuse taking place across many different communities and ethnicities.
She says the ethnicity data is not adequate. She says she has asked for an overhaul, with data published covering when investigations end, not just when they begin.
And she says she has asked Louise Case, the crossbench peer and former civil servant, to carry out a “rapid audit” of gang-based exploitation across the country, and to make recommendations.
The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse concluded that an accurate picture of the prevalence of child sexual exploitation could not be gleaned from the data and evidence it had available. So this audit will seek to fill that gap.
Cooper says the audit will look at evidence not previously available. And it will “properly examine ethnicity data and the demographics of the gangs involved and their victims”.
Cooper says Casey is the right person to do this because she carried out a “no-holds barred” report on child abuse in Rotherham.
Cooper says Casey will spend three months on this audit, meaning she can start before she has to start work on the commission on social care that she has also been asked to lead for the government.
Updated
Cooper says the government will introduce stronger sentences for grooming, making organising abuse and exploitation an aggravating factor.
She says the remit of the independent child sexual abuse review panel will be extended, so it does not just cover historical cases before 2013. That means any victim will be able to ask for a review of their case, without having to go back to the institution that failed them.
She says she is writing to all chief constables urging them to look again at historic gang exploitation cases where no further action was taken.
Cooper says timetable for implementing child abuse inquiry recommendations to be set out before Easter
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, says Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has been meeting survivors of sexual abuse in Oldham today.
She says she will tell MPs what the next steps will be.
She says the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) produced its report, after a seven year inquiry, in 2022.
She says before Easter the government will set forward its timetable for implementing the recommendations from the IICSA report.
Four of the 20 recommendations relate to the Home Office. They wll be accepted in full.
And all the recommendations from IICSA’s standalone report into grooming gangs, published in February 2022, will be implemented.
Yvette Cooper's statement to MPs about grooming gangs
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has just started giving her Commons statement about grooming gangs.
Badenoch's speech – snap verdict
Kemi Badenoch’s problem is that she leads a party with a dire record in government and has not yet done much to persuade voters that she’s different. The extracts from her speech released in advance contained a hint that she was willing to address this, because in those passages she went further than she has done before in disowning the Tory record on Brexit. (See 9.36am.) But, overall, the speech as a whole did not live up to the expectations created by the overnight preview. Badenoch’s enthusiam for truth-telling seems extremely limited and, after she got through the pre-briefed bits (which were mostly at the start of the speech), the rest of it sounded very familiar. The analysis of its drawbacks filed earlier, at 11.45am, still stands.
Sam Coates from Sky News had a point, too, when he said the overall tone was negative and gloomy. None of it sounded uplifting.
But Nigel Farage has found something to joke about. He posted this on social media.
A total of 21 people are currently watching Kemi Badenoch’s speech on Facebook and her YouTube stream crashed.
It’s a good job she understands the digital age.
That is a reference to Badenoch’s tweet over the Christmas holidays about the Reform UK membership ticker, in which she claimed Farage “doesn’t understand the digital age”.
Updated
Badenoch plays down need for apologising over Tories' record, saying getting Labour out more important
Q: [From Katie Balls from the Spectator] Is there anything you want to apologise to voters for on behalf of Tory party? And do you think Donald Trump’s election will lead to a '“vibe shift”?
On apologising, Badenoch said:
When we had a speech last month about immigration – and that’s one of the things where I came out upfront and said we acknowledge that we made mistakes – I was knocking on a door recently, and I was apologising to the person at the doorstep, and said, I’m not interested in your apology, I want you to get these people out, and that’s what I’m going to be focused on.
On vibes, Badenoch said:
I think that things have been in a state of flux for at least 10 years. There’s been a vibe shift almost every 18 months, and we’re seeing the latest iteration. We are going to have to be flexible as a party.
And that was it.
Badenoch took a lot of questions, but none from leftwing news organisations.
Badenoch says public 'aren't interested in litigating membership numbers', drawing line under row with Reform UK
Q: Do you think the last Conservative government should have held an inquiry into grooming gangs? And do you still stand by your claim Reform UK membership numbers are wrong?
On the inquiry, Badenoch says she does support a national inquiry into grooming gangs. That was not her view at the time, but it is her view now, because of what has happened since.
On the row about the Reform UK membership figures (she claimed Reform were making up the figures – Reform produced evidence that seemed to disprove this), Badenoch says:
I stand by between I made at the time. I think if you read [the tweet] very carefully, you’ll see I was very specific.
But I don’t think the public are interested in litigating membership numbers. They want to know what we are going to do for them, and that is what my speech today is about.
In her tweet, Badenoch claims the Reform UK membership numbers being shown on a ticker were fake, but also that Reform were wrong to claim they had more members than the Tories because Reform were using the last published figure for Tory members – when the most recent figure has not been disclosed.
Her answer today suggests she wants to draw a line under the affair.
Updated
Q: [From Sam Coates from Sky News] This all sounds depressing. Doesn’t Nigel Farage have an advantage because he is more cheerful?
Badenoch says she has just taken over. She wants to offer hope and optimism. She says Farage has been around for 20 years. “Let’s see where we are in a few months, in a few years,” she says.
Q: What do you think of the Sun’s story about the BBC promoting a rapper who committed murder? What do you think of the BBC licence fee?
Badenoch says she pays her licence fee. That is all she will say on that.
Referring to the Sun story, she says she was shocked by that.
She says the public sector should support free speech. But that does not mean it always has to pay for it.
Q; [From Kate McCann from Times Radio] You accuse Keir Starmer of legalism, not leadership. Your speech would have made a good newspaper column. But that is not the same as leadership.
Badenoch says she is setting out a plan for the future. That is leadership.
Q: You talked a moment ago, in relation to Rachel Reeves, about Keir Starmer’s women problem. What is the relevance of her gender.
Badenoch says she was referring to the fact that Reeves boasted about being the first woman chancellor.
Updated
Asked about the Yvette Cooper announcement today on grooming gangs (see 1.36pm), Badenoch says local inquiries are not enough. There has to be a national inquiry.
On trust, she says the Tories got a lot of things wrong. But they got a lot of things right too, for example on education, she says.
Badenoch rules out Tory merger with Reform UK
Q: [From Christopher Hope from GB News] Why are you letting Nigel Farage make all the running? And would you merge with Reform UK?
Badenoch says Farage wants to destroy the Conservative party. “Why on earth would we merge with that?”
She says she is not going to make promises without plans.
But they do have policies, she says. They believe in lower taxes.
Updated
Q: [From Hugo Gye from the i] What is your assessment of the state of the economy?
Badenoch says Labour has a fundamental misunderstanding of the economy. It is “not government that creates growth, it is business that creates growth”, she says.
Updated
Badenoch is now taking questions.
Q: [From Martyn Brown from the Express] What will you do differently on Brexit? And you say you will support Keir Starmer if he does the right thing. Will you back him if he sacks Rachel Reeves.
On Brexit, Badenoch says:
Doing things differently doesn’t require us to steer away from Conservatism. We are Conservative. I want to take us back to the very best version of who we are.
On Brexit, I think there is a lot more that we could have and should have done. I did what I could as business secretary, I removed the supremacy of the European court of justice. We removed about 4,000 EU laws. But what we need to start doing is looking at where we have competitive advantage with countries around the world, and use our regulatory system to exploit that competitive advantage.
What I worry about with Labour is they’re looking to just copy what is already out there and just stay aligned with what the EU is doing.
Updated
Badenoch is on her peroration.
Conservatives are under new leadership. We are going to do things differently, and this is my message to people watching today.
We need a government that supports, not punishes, those who do the right thing.
We need to rebuild the state to be more focused, more efficient and more effective.
We need to make our country more resilient, secure and prosperous, where hard work is rewarded, where children can have a better life than their parents.
It may not feel like it right now, but our country’s best days are ahead of us.
Badenoch says things need to change.
First, we must restore trust. We will start by fulfilling the role the British people gave us, being an effective opposition, fighting for common sense and truth, building a plan which actually delivers.
She says Keir Starmer cannot do what the people need because “he’s a lawyer, not a leader”.
Second, we are absolutely going to keep saying what people in this country think. We’re not going to be quiet about the things that are too important for our country.
Badenoch says she has a record of doing this.
Let’s take the Post Office, another scandal that needed addressing. Hundreds of postmasters, wrongfully convicted, decent lives ruined, a national scandal. We were told that it was being sorted, that ministers didn’t need to get involved, and yet the system was so slow, so I made sure that victims got justice with an unprecedented law to quash the unfair convictions of sub postmasters.
Under my leadership, our party is going to be about telling it straight. We need more people in politics who will do the right thing and who will use their common sense, even when they are attacked.
When I was a minister, I took on extremists who were putting women and children in harm’s way. They called me a transphobe. They even called me homophobic. They said I was fighting culture wars as I tried to stop young children from receiving irreversible transgender procedures without any evidential basis – that same ideology led to male rapists being put in female prisons. This was one scandal other politicians were too scared to tackle and tried to ignore.
And she identifies a third priority.
Third, we are going to push Keir Starmer to do the right thing for the good of the country.
Updated
Badenoch says politicians are refusing to focus on what matters.
This has to stop because the dream of every generation, that our children can have a better future than we did, is slowly dying. It’s dying because as our problems have got more urgent, our politics has got less serious.
Since July, there has been more discussion in parliament on Oasis tickets than on our 2.7 trillion pound debt pile. That has to stop.
The young people I speak to are deeply despondent that their country is unable to provide them better opportunities, let alone guarantee health, wealth and prosperity.
Badenoch claims Labour policies are making things worse.
Business Success is treated with suspicion, a burden to be tolerated rather than celebrated.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Last Friday, I spoke with a group of workers in Derbyshire. They are the backbone of our country. They have little time for politics. They’re not interested because they are trying to build a better life for themselves and their families. They want government to do what it says it’s going to do, and they don’t really ask for much more.
One lady, a single parent, told me just how much impact rising prices were still having, that it just seemed to be one thing on top of another, that nothing seems to be getting better, and it feels like no one is looking at it.
Part of the problem is that Labour ministers don’t have business experience, she says.
Badenoch says Britons not as rich as they think and refusing 'to live within our means'
Badenoch accuses Labour of making mistakes, and says the last Conservative government made mistakes too, using the passages briefed in advance. See 9.36am and 11.45am.
Badenoch goes on to say the UK is not as rich as it thinks.
If we are going to turn our country around, we’re going to have to say some things that aren’t easy to hear.
Let’s start with our problems. We think we are rich, but we are living off the inheritance that previous generations left behind, a complacency that Britain will always be wealthy, and a refusal to live within our means.
We owe it to that next generation to leave an inheritance for them and not mortgage their future to make our lives more comfortable, and that will demand the kind of tough, soul-searching conversations we’re not having right now.
Energy supply is vulnerable, more vulnerable than ever, and our energy is far, far too expensive when it should be secure, cheap, plentiful.
Demography is destiny. People are having fewer children. Our society is getting older. We are living longer and needing more support towards the end of our lives. Look at productivity. A shrinking group of people are working to support an ever growing number of those who are unable or unwilling to work.
The information age means it is easier than ever for rogue governments to destabilise us and for rogue companies and countries to steal our know how.
And – no ifs, no buts – we simply cannot take all the millions of people who want to come here from elsewhere. Our country is our home. It is not a hotel. If people arriving don’t want to integrate into British culture, they shouldn’t be here.
Badenoch accuses Starmer of 'legalism, not leadership'
Badenoch says it is “hard not to feel sorry for the Labour government” because they have walked into some of the same traps the Tories walked into.
They have walked into some of the same traps that we did, like assuming that you can just keep raising taxes and there’ll be no consequences.
But I don’t feel sorry for them, because, as we saw last week when Keir Starmer labelled people calling for an inquiry far-right, he is what is wrong with politics. It’s legalism, not leadership.
Updated
Badenoch says politcians have not 'told the truth' about state of UK
Kemi Badenoch is speaking now.
She starts by saying we are all getting poorer.
We are all getting poorer. Politicians across all parties have not told the truth about this, and instead keep prescribing quick fixes.
And she says politicians have not been honest.
The truth is that Britain is failing to compete in a world that is changing and is not working for its citizens, certainly not the way it used to.
Back in the 1980s it took just months to save up for a house deposit. Now it is over a decade.
And for many, the dream of owning a home is impossible.
Jobs which didn’t require a degree 20 years ago now need to loading up to 50,000, pounds of debt on someone just starting out.
One of my favorite quotes is from the economist Thomas Sowell. He says he says when you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has reportedly been threatened with legal action over the government’s failure to implement the recommendations of the 2022 report from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA), PA Media reports. PA says:
Maggie Oliver, a former detective who resigned from Greater Manchester Police in 2012, warned Yvette Cooper in a pre-action letter yesterday that she would take her to court unless she takes “urgent steps to allay widespread public concern” over gangs sexually exploiting children.
In a statement from the charity set up in her name, Oliver said she had put Cooper “on notice” that she would seek a judicial review in the high court unless the home secretary “publicly confirms that she will implement all 20 of the recommendations of IICSA and publishes a timetable for implementation of those recommendations, and takes urgent steps to allay widespread public concern regarding the grooming and sexual abuse by organised gangs/groups”.
If Cooper “does not agree to these reasonable requests”, Oliver added: “I will issue an application to the high court seeking permission to challenge the secretary of state’s refusal to take action on urgent issues of child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation.”
The Kemi Badenoch speech will start soon.
There is a live feed here.
Tories claim Lib Dem plan for customs union with EU would 'undo' Brexit vote
The Conservatives have accused the Liberal Democratos of wanting to “undo a democratic vote”. Referring to Ed Davey’s speech this morning proposing a customs union with the EU, Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, said:
Just like Labour, the Liberal Democrats are looking to undo a democratic vote.
Our divorce from the EU was finalised and politicians in this country should be focused on delivering for the British people. If they think overturning the democratic will of this country, and damaging the special relationship we have with one of our closest allies, is a good approach then it is clear they are even more unfit for government than we thought.
Ed Davey should spend less time posturing and more time on actually working for the British people in the face of this disastrous Labour government.
Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016. But the leave campaign never gave details of exactly how this would be achieved, and it took some years before the government decided on a version of Brexit that involved leaving the customs union. When Theresa May was prime minister, she proposed a Brexit deal involving a customs partnership with the EU which would have been quite similar to customs union membership.
Labour MP Sarah Champion welcomes reports that Yvette Cooper to announce support for local inquiries into grooming gangs
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is expected to announce “a plan for government-backed local inquiries into grooming gangs” in her statement to MPs later, ITV News is reporting.
It says she will also announce new directions for police about how they should investigate cases of child sexual exploitation.
The news has been welcomed by the Labour MP Sarah Champion, who has been calling for a national inquiry, but one involving local inquiries feeding into an overarching national one. She posted this on social media.
Wow! Looks like the Government is accepting my 5 point plan to prevent child abuse and expose cover-ups over Grooming gangs! Statement approx 2pm – I’ll be all over the details!!
By amazing coincidence, the Cooper statement will take place around the same time as the Kemi Badenoch speech. (It might have started at exactly the same time if the David Lammy statement on the Middle East had just lasted the usual hour – but that one has already lasted 100 minutes, and is still running.)
Labour have not been spooked by Badenoch’s performance as Tory leader. But they not entirely complacent either, and if a Cooper announcement on a topic popular with GB News, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail etc means those outfits devote less of their reporting space to the Tory leader, the Labour spin machine may regard that as a good thing.
Updated
UK should use offer of state visit to get Trump to attend pro-Ukraine summit, says Davey
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
The UK should offer Donald Trump a state visit on the condition he agrees to a sit-down summit with Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of an openly “transactional” relationship with the returning US president, Ed Davey has said.
In a speech which also saw the Lib Dem leader call for the UK to seek a new customs union with the EU to help insulate itself from the potential impacts of Trump, Davey said that while the American president could not be trusted, he could also very much not be ignored.
The reality is, unfortunately, very clear: the incoming Trump administration is a threat to peace and prosperity for the UK, across Europe and around the world.
For the next four years, the UK cannot depend on the presence of the United States to be a reliable partner on security, defence or the economy.
The only way for the UK to deal with Trump, he argued would be from a position of strength, requiring both closer links to Europe and, when interacting with the president, to do so “with our eyes wider to the kind of man he is,” Davey argued.
He’s transactional, so let’s treat him that way.
The good news is we have leverage. We have something Trump desperately wants – a state visit, the pageantry of Buckingham Palace, a banquet with the King.
We all know he craves it. So I say we give it to him, but only if he delivers what we need first for Britain and Europe’s defence and security.
This would involve Trump agreeing to attend a UK-convened summit with Zelenskyy and other European leaders to pave a future for Ukraine, including discussion of how to use frozen Russian assets to pay for Ukrainian weapons.
Elsewhere in the speech, which marked a renewed focus on post-Brexit links and international affairs following a Liberal Democrat election campaign focused largely on domestic issues, Davey slammed Keir Starmer for what he called a vastly cautious approach to Europe.
The prime minister has at least recognised The need to reset our relationship with the EU. So far, I’m afraid that only seems to amount to saying no more politely than the Conservatives.
As well as calling for talks to begin on the UK seeking a bespoke customs union deal with Brussels, with a plan to complete this by 2030, Davey also called for immediate action on a reciprocal youth mobility scheme with EU member states.
Reform UK says Mike Amesbury should resign as MP after guilty plea
Reform UK says Mike Amesbury should resign as an MP after pleading guilty to assault today. (See 10.48am.) Zia Yusuf, the Reform chair, said:
Today Mike Amesbury has pleaded guilty to assault.
The great people of Runcorn deserve far better than this.
We call on Mike Amesbury to do the honourable thing and resign immediately so a byelection can be held.
Updated
Labour claims Badenoch 'doing exact opposite' of restoring trust
The Labour party has already sent out two press releases about the Kemi Badenoch speech, which is not starting for another hour or so.
One of them is a briefing noted headed “5 reasons Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives can’t ‘rebuild trust’”. For the record, here are the five headline reasons given by Labour. (The full briefing is a lot longer.)
1) The Conservatives have continued to make unfunded commitments despite crashing the economy when in government
2) Clinging to discredited ideas risks groundhog day for the Tory open-border experiment that delivered record migration
3) Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet is packed full of the politicians who delivered 14 years of failure
4) The Conservatives have continued the chaos and infighting that led to the Tories losing the trust of the British people
5) Kemi Badenoch says personal responsibility is for other Tories, not her
And Labour has also issued this statement on the speech from Ellie Reeves, the Labour chair.
The public rightly lost trust in the Conservatives after 14 long years of failure in government. Far from rebuilding trust, Kemi Badenoch is doing the exact opposite. Another speech, but no apology for her role in Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-budget that crashed the economy and left a £22bn black hole in the public finances.
The Conservatives under Kemi Badenoch have nothing to offer in opposition apart from recklessly continuing to make unfunded spending commitments and overseeing yet more Conservative chaos and infighting. The Tories haven’t listened and they haven’t learned.
Staff at sixth form colleges in England to strike over pay
Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor.
Thirty-two sixth form colleges across England will be hit by more strikes over a pay disparity between staff employed by academies and those in standalone colleges.
The National Education Union (NEU) said around 2,000 of its members will walk out on 29 January, 6 and 7 February, adding a further three days to the seven days of strikes already held as students prepare for A-levels and BTec assessments this spring.
The dispute centres around the time lag between sixth form college staff receiving the full 5.5% pay increase from April that school sixth form teachers received last September, costing college staff hundreds of pounds in lost earnings.
Daniel Kebede, the NEU’s general secretary, said:
We will never accept a situation in which college teachers in non-academised colleagues are paid less than their academised peers for identical work. It is absurd and blatantly unfair to under-fund sixth form colleges in this way, risking lasting damage to longstanding collective bargaining arrangements.
This week the NASUWT union opened a strike ballot among its 1,800 sixth form college members, warning that further strikes could take place.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said:
We cannot make a 5.5% pay offer for the whole year, because the government has not provided funding for the whole year. Students will pay the price for this through further disruption to their education.
Sixth form college staff have been given a 3.5% pay increase until March, with the full 5.5% increase from April. As a result, a college teacher on £40,000 a year will be nearly £500 worse off than their peers in school sixth forms.
Updated
My colleague Peter Walker, who wrote our preview story about Ed Davey’s speech, was Blueskying from it as it was being delivered this morning. Here are his thoughts.
There’s a case to be made that on two important and connected political issues - how to deal with Donald Trump and the aftermath of Brexit - the Lib Dems are more aligned with what pols show voters actually want than ether Labour or the Tories.
It’s an interesting shift also for the Lib Dems who slightly gave up talking about Brexit after the 2019 election. Their 2024 manifesto called only for closer ties with Europe, making no specific pledges.
Of course, even a UK government saying they wanted to be in the customs union wouldn’t necessarily make it happen.
I’m at Ed Davey’s speech, which is being held at some co-working space with the chairs arranged in the round, rather than rows. I would say this is getting close to peak Lib Dem, but I’m experienced enough in such matters to know that this is a journey, not a destination
Making his speech, Davey says we are about to enter a four-year period where the US cannot be relied on as a partner. The UK must thus “step up”, he says, and forge closer links with Europe. But, he adds, that does not mean Trump can or should be ignored.
Davey says that while Keir Starmer recognises the need to reset links with the EU, at the moment all this means is “saying no more politely than the Conservatives”. He calls for talks on joining the customs union, as outlined in the overnight speech trail. He also calls for a youth mobility scheme.
Davey says Trump should be dealt with on a “transactional” basis, “with our eyes wide open to the kind of man he is” – offer him a UK state visit *only* if Trump also agrees to a sit-down summit with Zelenskiy over support for Ukraine.
Davey has thus far taken questions from not just broadly sympathetic papers (eg me) but also the Mail, Telegraph and Sun. Let’s see if Kemi Badenoch’s range of questioners is as broad when she gives her speech this afternoon.
Badenoch's 'rebuilding trust' speech - summary and analysis from what we know so far
Here are more lines from the “Rebuilding Trust” speech that Kemi Badenoch will deliver later. (See 9.36am.) They came from the extracts sent out by CCHQ in advance. I’ve included some analysis.
Badenoch will argue that politicians of all parties have failed to tell the public the truth about what is happening in the UK. She will say:
Politicians across all parties have not told the truth about this and instead keep prescribing solutions that are actually making things worse.
This problem is broader than one party, one leader, or one period of government. Generations of leaders and entire ranks of senior managers have been trying and failing for a long time. Many have not been honest with the public about the challenges we face. And others have not even been honest with themselves.
Analysis: At one level, it is hard to argue with this. For example, at the last election the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and other economists, were warning almost every day that the next government would have to either raises taxes or cut public services. The Conservatives and Labour both refused to accept this – and Labour is now claiming the state of the public finances came as a surprise.
But talking about politicians ‘not telling the truth’ can quite easily take you into deep state/conspirarcy theory/tinfoil hat territory. It is not clear yet how far Badenoch will push back against this.
She will claim that, unlike Keir Starmer, she is willing to admit her party’s mistakes.
The public will never trust politicians unless we can accept our mistakes.
Labour are making a lot of mistakes. But the difference between me and Keir Starmer is that he doesn’t believe he’s ever made a mistake.
I will acknowledge the Conservative party made mistakes.
Analysis: In one respect, this is totally wrong. Starmer has gone much further in admitting Labour made mistakes before he became leader than Badenoch has in relation to her party. Starmer threw his predecessor out of the party. Asked if Boris Johnson or Liz Truss should be allowed to return to parliament, Badenoch has never said no.
If she is talking about Starmer’s willingness to admit personal errors, Badenoch has a point. Giving evidence to the liaison committee at the end of last year, Starmer would not identify any mistakes he had made as PM. But Badenoch is also terrible at admitting her own errors. In an interview last year she claimed: “I never have gaffes.”
She will identify at least three mistakes made by the last Conservative government. (See 9.36am.)
Analysis: Only three? What about the state of the NHS, or the criminal justice system, or train services, or growth, or productivity, or university finances, or adult social care, or welfare costs, or the state of the armed forces? The list goes on and on.
She will stress that the Conservative party is under “new leadership”.
Analysis: This is true, but voters are not clear yet what Badenoch’s leadership entails. Today’s speech might help.
She will claim that she is committed to telling the truth.
For the next four years and beyond we are going to be telling the British people the truth, even when it’s difficult to hear.
The truth about the mistakes we made
The truth about the problems we face.
And the truth about the actions we must take to get ourselves out of this mess.
Analysis: That is going to require a lot more truth telling about Tory failures. See above.
She will say Britain is “getting poorer”.
Analysis: And why is that? If Badenoch ever gets round to delivering a ‘time to tell the truth’ speech about Brexit, there is going to be a lot to cover that Badenoch has so far never addressed.
She will claim that Labour does not have proper plans for what it wants to do.
Labour are having even worse problems than we did, because they announced policy without a plan.
Policies without a plan are not policies … they’re just announcements.
That’s why Labour are struggling. It’s the old cliche that “failing to plan, is planning to fail.”
Because when you haven’t worked out what you’re going to do in opposition, you will accept whatever you’re given in government.
Analysis: Starmer has published lots of plans. But there are plenty of non-Tory commentators who also believe there are many policy areas where Labour’s reform plans are either vague or untested (eg promoting growth), or thin/non-existent (eg schools, tuition fees or adult social care).
She will criticise Rachel Reeves for being bounced into agreeing policies favoured by Treasury officials that they have been trying to sell to ministers for years.
That’s why Rachel Reeves announced mad and bad ideas on snatching winter fuel and taxing family farms.
Those options were presented to us, time and time again by officials, and we rejected them time and time again because they would hurt so many people for so little benefit.
The chancellor took them because she has no ideas of her own.
Analysis: Again, this is an argument that has been made by non-Tory commentators.
She will condemn Labour’s plans to reduce some of the freedoms enjoyed by academy schools.
The schools bill going through parliament now has one or two bits on safeguarding that may be good … the rest of it is worse than garbage. It is pure vandalism. The new Labour government will not fix any of the problems we have faced for decades. Because they wasted their time in opposition.
Analysis: Some Labour MPs also believe the plans in the schools bills for academies are a mistake. But when MPs were debating the bill last week, and the Tories could have focused on this argument, Badenoch instead chose to table a reasoned amendment that turned the whole debate into an argument about the case for a grooming gang inquiry.
Mike Amesbury will not be readmitted to the parliamentary party following his guilty plea today. (See 10.48am.) A Labour spokesperson said:
It is right that Mike Amesbury has taken responsibility for his unacceptable actions. He was rightly suspended by the Labour party following the announcement of the police investigation. We cannot comment further whilst legal proceedings are still ongoing.
It is understood that Amesbury will not have the whip returned and is no longer a member of the party.
Mike Amesbury MP pleads guilty to assault
The suspended Labour MP Mike Amesbury has pleaded guilty to assaulting a man in the street, PA Media reports. PA says:
The Runcorn and Helsby MP appeared at Chester Magistrates’ Court on Thursday accused of attacking 45-year-old Paul Fellows in Main Street in Frodsham, Cheshire, which was reported to officers at 2.48am on October 26 last year.
Amesbury was suspended from the Labour Party after footage emerged which appeared to show him punching a man.
He now sits in Parliament as an Independent.
The 55-year-old was summonsed to court to face a charge of section 39 assault after a file was passed to prosecutors on 29 October.
It is expected that this will lead to a byelection in Runcorn and Helsby, where Labour had a majority of almost 15,000 over Reform UK at the general election.
Amesbury has not been sentenced yet. Under the Recall of MPs Act 2015, the recall process kicks in if an MP gets a custodial sentence, even if suspended, or if they get suspended from the Commons for at least 10 sitting days. Amesbury has not been subjected to the Commons disciplinary processs yet, but that is likely to happen once the legal process is over.
Alternatively, Amesbury may decide to resign.
Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, is making a Commons statement now about next week’s business. This will run for about an hour.
After that, there are three ministerial statements.
Around 11.30am: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, on the Middle East.
Around 12.30pm: Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, on the government’s response to the first report from the Covid inquiry.
Around 1.30m: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, on child exploitation and abuse.
UK should seek new customs union with EU, says Lib Dem leader Ed Davey
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is also giving a major speech this morning. Here is Peter Walker’s story from the preview of what he is going to say.
Pressure eases on Rachel Reeves as UK economy grows by 0.1% in November
The UK economy grew by 0.1% in November, reversing a 0.1% drop in the previous month and easing pressure on embattled chancellor Rachel Reeves, Phillip Inman reports.
Starmer confirms '100-year partnership' between UK and Ukraine on visit to Kyiv
Keir Starmer is confirming what Downing Street is describing as a 100-year partnership with Ukaine on his visit to Kyiv today. This is what No 10 is saying about the deal in a news release.
The UK and Ukraine will sign a historic partnership, as the prime minister travels to the country to meet President Zelenskyy.
The unbreakable bonds between the UK and Ukraine will be formalised through the landmark new 100-year partnership between the two countries, broadening and deepening the relationship across defence and non-military areas and enabling closer community links.
From working together on the world stage to breaking down barriers to trade and growth and nurturing cultural links, the mutually beneficial partnership will see the UK and Ukraine advocate for each other to renew, rebuild and reform for generations to come.
The partnership underpins the prime minister’s steadfast leadership on Ukraine as his government continues to provide support. Spanning nine key pillars, it will harness the innovation, strength and resilience that Ukraine has shown in its defence against Russia’s illegal and barbaric invasion; and foster it to support long-term security and growth for both our countries. The treaty and political declaration, which form the 100-year partnership, will be laid in parliament in the coming weeks.
Yohannes Lowe has more coverage on his Ukraine war live blog.
Updated
Kemi Badenoch admits Tories made mistakes on Brexit, saying party had ‘no plan for growth outside EU’
Good morning. Keir Starmer is in Ukraine and, as Pippa Crerar and Luke Harding report, he is signing a 100-year partnership deal with the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
We will be covering the trip in detail in a live blog here.
Back in the UK it is also an important day for Kemi Badenoch, who is delivering a major speech on the subject “Rebuilding Trust”. She has been leader of the Conservative party for just over three months, and so far she has not had much success. Her performances in the Commons have been mediocre, her pronouncements on policy and values have either been predictable and reductive, and sometimes just bizarre, and she is being outplayed by Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party is hoovering up her vote and is now level pegging with the Tories in the polls.
One problem Badenoch has is that she is leader of a party that suffered its worst election result in 200 years because its record in office was generally seen to be terrible. Badenoch has often said that the party made mistakes while it was in power, but she has not done much to disown former leaders and she has not managed to persuade voters yet that she represents a radical break with the past.
Today’s speech seems to be an attempt to change that. On the basis of the fairly lengthy extracts released overnight, it contains her strongest criticism yet of the mistakes made by the past government (of which she was part – but only at cabinet level from September 2022).
Here is the key passage.
I will acknowledge the Conservative Party made mistakes …
We announced that we would leave the European Union before we had a plan for growth outside the EU.
We made it the law that we would deliver net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. And only then did we start thinking about how we would do that.
We announced that we would lower immigration, but immigration kept going up.
These mistakes were made because we told people what they wanted to hear first and then tried to work it out later.
That is going to stop under my leadership. If we are going to turn our country around, we’re going to have to say some things that aren’t easy to hear.
The admission that the Tories failed on immigration sounds largely like a rehash of a speech Badenoch gave in November. She has frequently criticised net zero targets in the past. But what she is saying about Brexit does seem to be new.
Last year she criticised the fact that the last Conservative government organised a referendum on Brexit without a plan for implementing it if people voted to leave. This was a relatively bold thing to say, because it was obviously a rebuke to David Cameron, and at the time he was back in cabinet as foreign secretary. But comments like this were popular with the pro-Brexit Tory mainstream, who by that point were suspicious of Cameron.
Today Badenoch seems to be saying something slightly different – that Brexit went wrong not just because there was no plan in 2016, but because there was no plan in 2020. This means she’s also blaming Theresa May for Brexit failures, and probably Boris Johnson too. We will find out this afternoon quite how far she is willing to go in condemning Johnson, who is still popular with Tory members, but it seems to be a new approach.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer is in Kyiv, where he is meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, and signing a 100-year partnership deal.
9.30am: Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Morning: Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry as part of the module covering vaccines.
10.30am: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, gives a speech on British leadership and links with Europe.
Noon: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions at Holyrood.
1.30pm: Kemi Badenoch delivers a speech on restoring trust.
Afternoon: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, holds a meeting with regulators, urging them to do more to promote growth.
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