Early evening summary
Keir Starmer has said it is “far too early” for the UK to consider unproscribing Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which has taken over Damascus. (See 5.38pm.)
Starmer has agreed “a step change in defence partnership with Saudi Arabia today”, Downing Street has said. (See 3.42pm.) It issued the statement after Starmer’s meeting with the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. In a subsequent interview, Starmer said his visit to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia was primarily about boosting growth in the UK. He told broadcasters:
Last week I launched my plan for change and made it clear that economic growth in the UK is my number one mission, and I want that to be people feeling better off, living standards driven up across the United Kingdom, in all parts of the United Kingdom.
For that to happen we have to win contracts and investment around the world, and UAE and Saudi Arabia are key partners of ours.
So I’ve been making the case that now’s the time for further investment into our country.
Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, has said he would like to see “innovators and disrupters” working for the civil service. (See 11.42am.) He made the comment in a speech in which he also said the government would “rewire” the way Whitehall works by getting officials to adopt a tech startup-style “test and learn culture”. (See 9am.)
Updated
Tories accuse Labour of 'tinkering with democratic system' after Rayner announces council planning procedure changes
A Conservative housing spokesperson has suggested the government is “tinkering” with planning decision-making, instead of “getting developers developing and builders building” new homes, PA Media reports.
After ministers unveiled proposals to let some developers swerve town hall committees before they build (see 3.17pm), David Simmonds said the 4% of applications that elected councillors considered themselves were the ones where “the local democratic voice is so relevant”. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said Simmonds’s party had “torpedoed” housing supply when they were in power.
In a Commons urgent question on the plans, Simmonds said:
Given the huge increase in the housing planning permissions granted under the previous government, when does the government now intend to start work on getting developers developing and builders building, rather than tinkering with a democratic system that’s already delivered more than a million homes with consent in England already?
He also said during his question that with 96% of planning applications determined by council staff already, “it is that 4% to which the local democratic voice is so relevant”.
Pennycook replied:
It’s quite rich hearing from [Simmonds] crow about planning permissions in the system. We’re experiencing the lowest planning permission and completions in a decade as a result of the party opposite’s changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) made in December 2023 that have torpedoed supply and hit growth across this country.
He also said the announcement was “just the latest in a series of working papers on planning reform, and it’s explicitly designed to kick-start engagement before we launch a formal Government consultation on a more detailed proposition”.
As PA reports, Pennycook described three proposals which he said could “streamline local planning decision-making” across England: a national scheme setting out which types of planning applications should be determined by a committee of elected councillors and which by employed officers; new dedicated committees for strategic development “to dedicate energy to the most significant projects”; and mandatory training for elected decision makers.
He said that although just 4% of applications came before councillors’ committees, these represented some of the largest plans and therefore a “substantial portion of total units in the planning process”.
Home Office pauses decisions on asylum claims from Syrians
The UK has paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims due to the uncertainty following the collapse of the Bashar Assad regime, PA Media reports. A Home Office spokesman said:
The Home Office has paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims whilst we assess the current situation.
We keep all country guidance relating to asylum claims under constant review so we can respond to emerging issues.
Starmer says it is 'far too early' for UK to consider unproscribing HTS, Islamist group that toppled Assad
This morning Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, said that the government would be considering whether Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which has taken over Damascus, should remain proscribed in the UK as a terrorist organisation. At the No 10 lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the government did not routinely comment on matters like this. (See 2.03pm.) Now Keir Starmer has said it is “far too early” to consider this.
Speaking to journalists in Saudi Arabia, he said:
No decision is pending at all on this, it is far too early.
At the moment the focus has to be on talking to our allies, making sure that this is an opportunity for Syria and therefore we have to work to make sure that this is a peaceful opportunity.
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Labour at risk of losing control of Edinburgh council after minority administration leader resigns over sexting allegations
Cammy Day, the leader of Labour’s minority administration in Edinburgh, has quit after being accused of bombarding several Ukrainian female refugees with sexually suggestive messages about meeting for dates.
The allegations emerged over the weekend in the Times and Sunday Mail after Police Scotland confirmed they were investigating allegations that Day has sexted the women using social media.
Day denied any wrongdoing and said he would cooperate fully with the police and council investigations, but his resignation will trigger a battle for control over Edinburgh’s administration.
Day became council leader, despite leading the third largest political group, after brokering a deal with the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives to block the Scottish National party from taking control despite being the largest party on the council.
In a statement, Day said:
The recent commentary on my personal life is detracting from the important work this Labour-led council does for the people of Edinburgh. It undermines the dedicated efforts of my colleagues and council officers.
That’s why it’s time for me to step aside as leader. I have yet to be contacted by the police, but want to reiterate that I will cooperate fully with their ongoing inquiries.
I am hugely proud of what we’ve achieved for the capital during my time as leader and truly believe that Edinburgh is a better, fairer city as a result.
Updated
Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, told MPs that Assad was a “vile tyrant” and she says few would shed tears to see him go.
She says HTS was proscribed for a good reasons . She says it poses a potential threat to Syria, and to the wider region. And she says MPs should “not forget where this group originally came from” (in a reference to its origins as an al-Qaide offshoot).
Lammy says HTS will be judged 'by their actions', implying proscribed status won't be quickly lifted, in statement on Syria
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is making a statement to MPs now about Syria.
He says that, when Labour took office, people asked if the government would start to re-engage with Syria. Other governments were starting to do this, he says.
But Lammy says the UK government refused – because Bashar al-Assad was a “monster”, a “dictator’ and a “butcher”.
Lammy says Assad is now filing for asylum in Russia. But he says Assad’s demise is “no guarantee of peace”. This is “a moment of danger” as well as a moment of opportunity, he says.
Lammy says Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that has taken over the country, will be judged “by their actions”, including how they deal with civilians.
He is implying that the government won’t rush into deciding that they should no longer be proscribed as a terrorist group.
He says the British government wants to focus on protecting civilians, and pushing for “an inclusive, negotiated political settlement”.
And he says illicit finance played a role in supporting Assad’s regime. He says the government has appointed an anti-corruption champion to help address the problem of illicit finance.
Brexit will cut UK trade intensity by 15%, says Reeves, as she tells EU counterparts she wants better economic relationship
Here are the key points from Rachel Reeves’ speech to eurozone finance ministers. (I’ve left the punctation as it is in the official version.)
Reeves said Brexit has been bad for trade. She said:
In the long-run, Brexit is expected to cause UK trade intensity to fall by 15%…
… and with goods exports between both the UK and EU continuing to remain below 2018 levels, this is impacting UK and EU economies alike.
I know from speaking to business that they want to see trade barriers reduced….
…And so, the reset in relations is about doing what is in the best interests of our shared economies.
Trade intensity is not the same as the volume of trade. It is a means of measuring trade as a share of GDP. The 15% figure is not a new one (the OBR has been quoting it for some time) but in the past Reeves has not always been keen to highlight the downsides of Brexit for fear of sounding too much like a remainer.
She said the UK wants a “reset” with the EU that will build on the existing post-Brexit trade deal.
We intend to build on those agreements to reflect our mutual interests.
And we will be more ambitious in taking practical steps to strengthen our economic relationship, benefiting both the UK and the EU.
She said she wanted to see more cooperation on financial services.
Closer cooperation too on financial services is a great example of strength through openness…
… with the EU-UK Financial Services Regulatory Forum due to meet for the third time early next year.
Across Europe, we need to unlock private capital to invest in future growth.
The UK has deep global capital markets that can fund the growth that economies across the continent need…
…vital to help all our industries and innovative entrepreneurs access finance, grow and stay in Europe.
And we must work together, because the reality is that our financial markets are highly interconnected….
…and collectively ensuring financial stability is a prerequisite for economic growth.
She said it was important to defend the principle of “free, open trade”.
As well as a closer partnership on defence and security…
…I believe we must continue to make the case together for a crucial principle…
…the importance of free, open trade.
Of course, it would be naïve in today’s world to try to go back to the world of hyper-globalisation.
The shocks we have endured in recent years show that we have become too exposed to supply chain disruptions, disease and conflict.
But at the same time, it would be a profound mistake to abandon free trade.
Our citizens benefit significantly from all the investment, innovation, and lower prices that free trade brings.
Reeves says, after the “antagonistic” relationship of the past few years, the UK government wants “to draw a line under those relationships and turn a page to one of cooperation”.
Q: Will the EU offer a revised deal to the UK without changes to the post-Brexit fishing agreement?
Paschal Donohoe, the Irish public expenditure minister who is president of the Eurogroup, says fishing policy is not a matter for the eurozone group.
Today was not the day for a detailed negotiation, he says. He says it was about setting the tone.
Reeves says she was not opening negotiatons with the EU today.
That will happen in the new year, she says.
(She is referring to a review of the post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, which was always planned to take place in 2025.)
Q: Don’t you accept this reset will achieve little unless you are more ambitious in terms of changing your relationship with the EU?
Reeves says Labour set down its red lines in its manifesto (a reference to ruling out rejoining the single market or the customs union). She went on:
Those red lines remain, but subject to those, we want to build closer trade relationships, but also defence and security cooperation with our neighbors and trading partners in the European Union, because it is in our collective national interest to do so.
I recognize that the deal that the previous government secured post-Brexit was not the best one for our country, and indeed has reduced trade flows, not just from the UK to the European Union, but also from businesses based in the European Union into the UK.
And so there is a shared objective and a shared challenge to improve those trade flows, to improve those investment flows in the interests of citizens, not just in the UK, but also in countries in the European Union too.
Reeves says economic growth 'not zero-sum game' after meeting with eurozone finance ministers
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is speaking to reporters following her meeting with eurozone finance ministers in Brussels. There is a live feed here.
Reeves said she wanted the meeting to be a “reset” moment for relations between the UK and the EU.
And she said there was an agreement that growth is not a zero-sum game.
[There was at the meeting] a really clear recognition from everybody in the room that growth is not a zero sum game, and that all countries, in the European Union and indeed, the UK too, need to do more to boost our growth, our productivity and our competitiveness in national trade and in on the international stage.
UPDATE: Reeves said:
Economic growth is not a zero-sum game. Countries right across Europe, inside and outside the European Union, including the UK, have struggled with low growth, poor productivity and stagnant living standards these last few years.
Competitiveness and trade, crucially, are really important for driving productivity and growth.
And so, as we reset our relations, it is with the purpose of growing our economy and improving living standards for ordinary working people.
Updated
Starmer says UK strengthening defence partnership with Saudi Arabia
Keir Starmer has agreed “a step change in defence partnership with Saudi Arabia today”, Downing Street has said.
In a news release, No 10 said this would “pave the way for greater defence industrial cooperation”. It said it would cover “all aspects of the UK-Saudi defence relationship, including on combat air, and provides a framework for closer collaboration for generations to come”.
As part of the package of measures, including £11m of humanitarian aid for Syria and assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces to help them support the ceasefire with Israe, No 10 also said that Sir Michael Barber, the government’s efficiency adviser, has been reappointed as the UK’s envoy for Palestinian Authority governance. In this role he will be “supporting the Palestinian Authority as it implements its vital reform agenda to strengthen its delivery capacity and improve service provision”.
Starmer said:
From cutting the cost of living for hardworking British people, to building resilient supply chains or supporting communities in Britain, what happens in the Middle East matters at home.
That is why we are strengthening our defence partnership with Saudi Arabia, protecting the most vulnerable in Syria, supporting our partners in Lebanon and working with the international community to push for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza, secure the return of all hostages and accelerate aid into Gaza.
The Treasury has now released the text of Rachel Reeves’s speech to eurozone finance ministers this afternoon. You can watch this speech here.
Updated
Rayner announces plans for some applications to be approved without going through council planning committees
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, will make a statement in the Commons later about Syria. It will start around 4.15pm.
Before that, there will be an urgent question at 3.30pm about plans announced today changing the way councils in England deal with planning inquiries. David Simmonds, the shadow housing minister has been granted an urgent question because the government was not planning to have a statement.
This is how the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government describes the proposals in its news release.
As set out in the Plan for Change, the government is fully focused on unlocking economic growth across the country. To support this, the deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has set out plans to speed up the planning process and support better decision making in the system.
Under new plans to modernise the planning approval process, applications that comply with local development plans could bypass planning committees entirely to tackle chronic uncertainty, unacceptable delays and unnecessary waste of time and resources.
The measures would see a national scheme of delegation introduced, the creation of streamlined committees for strategic development and mandatory training for planning committee members.
Under the new plans, local planning officers will also have an enhanced decision-making role to implement agreed planning policy.
The changes will mean greater certainty to housebuilders that good-quality schemes aligned with already-agreed local development plans will be approved in a timely manner to get spades in the ground. With it, kickstarting economic growth and raising living standards in every part of the country, putting money back in the pockets of working people.
Amnesty International says Starmer should tell Saudi Arabia human rights 'part and parcel of UK doing business abroad'
Amnesty International UK has said Keir Starmer should make it clear that respect of human rights is “part and parcel of the UK doing business abroad” when he meets Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman today.
In a statement, the charity’s foreign policy adviser, Polly Truscott, said:
The PM needs to making it completely clear to his counterparts in Saudi Arabia that respect for human rights and the rule of law is part and parcel of the UK doing business abroad.
Mr Starmer needs to challenge the authorities’ draconian repression of human rights defenders, rampant use of the death penalty and institutionalised discrimination against women.
This year alone, the Saudi authorities have executed more than 280 people, the highest figure in decades, many after grossly unfair trials.
The plight of women who dare to speak out about the need for their rights to be respected in Saudi Arabia is especially grave.
Earlier this year, the 30-year-old fitness instructor Manahel al-Otaibi was sentenced to 11 years for tweeting in support of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia and posting photos of herself without an abaya.
For too long these business trips have treated human rights as an optional extra, usually meriting only a terse comment to the media that ‘human rights were raised’.
We need to see UK business visits completely overhauled, with human rights experts made part of trade delegations and proper impact assessments conducted into prospective agreements to ensure they don’t further undermine human rights.
Reeves says post-Brexit barriers to trade with Europe will get worse unless UK-EU relationship improves
Rachel Reeves has said the UK will face greater barriers to future trade with the European Union unless there is an improvement in the trading relationship.
Since Brexit the EU has developed new regulations that will impose more costs and red tape on companies outside the bloc, such as carbon tariffs on imports known as a carbon-border adjustment mechanism, to new rules on recycling plastic packaging.
Speaking to journalists ahead of a meeting with eurozone finance ministers this afternoon, the first of its kind since Brexit, the chancellor said:
I am not denying that there are barriers [to trade with the EU], and there will be greater barriers in the future, unless we improve our trading relationship with the European Union, which is exactly why I’m here.
She said reopening the debate about joining the EU’s single market and customs union would not be good for the country or the economy.
Reeves said the deal secured by Boris Johnson was not the best and that she wanted to do “practical things” to improve the trading relationship.
But do we want to reopen a national conversation about our membership of the EU, single market and customs union? Do I think that would be good for us as a country, or indeed good for the economy? I don’t think so. I think those years of uncertainty [during the Brexit negotiations] were bad for the UK, both politically and indeed economically.
At the meeting with the 20 finance ministers of the eurozone, she was expected to discuss the war in Ukraine, global trade and competitiveness. She rejected suggestions that greater closeness to the EU would risk the UK’s relationship with the US under incoming President Donald Trump.
To try and pick a side I think would be very damaging to the UK economy, and we’re not going to do that.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson said the government was working with regional allies to promote a political settlement in Syria.
Asked if the government was engaged in conversations with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that has taken over the country, the spokesperson said:
We’re having many conversations with regional allies. I’m not going to get into the kind of the detail of that, but our focus in all of those conversations is on ensuring a political, peaceful solution and stability in Syria and the wider region.
The spokesperson also suggested that the decision to proscribe HST as a terrorist group is being reviewed. He said:
When it comes to HTS, they have been proscribed in the UK, having been added as an alias of al-Qaida in 2017.
The government doesn’t routinely comment in more detail on the list of proscribed organisations, but as you know we keep our regime under regular review.
Margaret Hodge appointed as government's anti-corruption champion
Margaret Hodge, a former Labour minister and former chair of the Commons public accounts committee, has been appointed as the government’s anti-corruption champion, the Foreign Office has announced. Patrick Wintour has the story here.
Updated
Keir Starmer discussed “the untapped potential in areas such as artificial intelligence, and a joint desire to build on existing cooperation in defence and security” in his meeting with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, according to the Downing Street readout.
The Scottish Labour party appears to be in the doldrums after a spate of dire polling results and a fresh crisis over a police investigation into Labour’s leader in Edinburgh.
The party has been rattled by a surge in support for the Scottish National party in a spate of recent opinion polls, mirroring Labour’s steep decline at UK level. The latest for the Sunday Times Scotland by Norstat puts Scottish Labour on 21% - its lowest figure for three years - and the SNP on 37%.
Those numbers appear to vindicate John Swinney’s decision in last week’s Scottish budget to reintroduce a universal winter fuel payment for pensioners, and to promise scrapping the two child cap next year – policies Keir Starmer has refused to endorse.
Sunday’s papers also included the revelation that Cammy Day, the leader of Edinburgh city council, was under police investigation for allegedly sexting Ukrainian women refugees. Day denies any wrongdoing.
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, suspended Day on Saturday night but the controversy threatens the party’s control over Edinburgh.
Despite leading the city’s third largest party, Day had run a minority administration with support from the Liberal Democrats in a unionist alliance to lock out the SNP, which has the most councillors overall.
Cllr Simita Kumar, the SNP group leader, has urged Day to resign as leader. That raises the prospect that the SNP could resume control of Scotland’s capital.
Pressed about the polling figures and the SNP’s welfare proposals on BBC Scotland on Sunday, Sarwar said recent council byelections suggested the opinion polls were wrong: the SNP had only won one out of 20 contests.
He insisted Labour had been forced to make unpopular spending decisions, but confirmed he disagreed with Starmer’s stance on the winter fuel payment and the two child cap. Even so, he defended the prime minister’s stewardship.
I do actually think Keir Starmer is doing a good job. [He] has come into a situation where the Tories wrecked our public finances, wrecked the public services, and had a flat lining economy. And sometimes governments come in and they’ve got to confront one of those issues. This Labour government has come in and had to confront all three.
No 10 says economic growth 'number one priority' for Starmer ahead of his meeting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince
Downing Street has implied that economic growth will be Keir Starmer’s “number one priority” when he holds talks with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson did not rule out Starmer raising human rights issues in his meeting with the crown prince. But he did not say Starmer definitely intended to raise the topic.
Human rights groups want Starmer to protest about the number of executions taking place in Saudi Arabia. (See 9.51am.) Starmer is also being urged to confront the crown prince over the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Asked about the meeting, the PM’s spokesperson said:
Promoting economic growth is the prime minister’s number one priority, he has been very clear about that.
You saw the prime minister’s plan for change last week, you can see the government’s clear priorities for the British people as part of that.
But no aspect of the relationships that we’re building internationally … stop us from raising issues around human rights and protecting our values globally.
Updated
UK should prioritise ties with US, not Europe, to promote growth, say Tories
In his foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet last week, Keir Starmer said that he refused to accept that the UK had to choose between aligning with Europe and aligning with America. He said:
I want to be clear at the outset. Against the backdrop of these dangerous times. The idea that we must choose between our allies. That somehow we’re with either America or Europe is plain wrong. I reject it utterly. Attlee did not choose between allies. Churchill did not choose. The national interest demands that we work with both.
The Conservative party is now saying that Starmer is wrong, and that the UK should choose the US. Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, issued this statement overnight, in response to the Treasury briefing ahead of Rachel Reeves’ meeting with EU finance ministers this afternoon. He said:
The chancellor should be spending all her energy working out how to reverse her devastating budget measures that have crashed confidence and will see fewer jobs, lower salaries, and higher taxes.
If she is interested in growth, she should tell the prime minister to jump on a plane to the US and talk to Trump about getting a US-UK trade deal done, not trying to take Britain backwards into the slow growth EU.
Griffith’s statement came after Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, visited Washington and Toronto last week, where she delivered a major speech at the International Democracy Union dinner and had meetings with, among others, JD Vance, the US vice president-elect, and Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Canadian Conservative party.
Great to see the leader of the UK conservatives, @KemiBadenoch during her trip to the US. We discussed many topics, but I was unable to persuade her that coffee is much better than tea. Cheers, Kemi! pic.twitter.com/zJq3uiJfqo
— JD Vance (@JDVance) December 8, 2024
She also posted a clip on social media of some exchanges during her meeting with Poilievre, during which he argued that liberals, social democrats and communists are all essentially the same people. Badenoch seemed to agree. In her speech to the IDU, she said:
There’s a great movie from the 1990s - I’m sure many of you have seen called the usual suspects. And in it, there is a fantastic quote, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”
That is the trick that our opponents on the left, whatever you want to call them -communists, socialists, in this country they call them liberals- I don’t know why, there’s nothing liberal about them.
Conservative Party leaders in 🇨🇦 and 🇬🇧 uniting over shared values and discussing the emerging front line on issues economic and cultural.
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) December 8, 2024
What a delight to meet @PierrePoilievre . An impressive and thoughtful political figure I’m pleased to have as a new friend and ally! pic.twitter.com/HCW8WspXml
Few people in British politics are more evangelical about how technology could transform public services than Tony Blair, the former Labour PM. His thintank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, has issued this statement welcoming what Pat McFadden has been saying this morning.
Public services in Britain don’t need reform. They need wholesale transformation. This means fully embracing the technological revolution.
The private sector is rapidly outpacing government. While we’ve come to expect high personalisation and ultra-efficiency when we scroll, shop, bank and even date, critical government services such as healthcare and welfare are barely working. Adopting the approach of the companies that are leading the charge, and bringing their expertise into government via tours of duty, will ensure we can not only catch up, but build the public services we need for the future of Britain.
The catalyst for this reimagination must be artificial intelligence. This rapidly evolving technology gives us the power to shift public services from one-size-fits-none to become truly personalised while, according to TBI research, saving the taxpayer £200bn over five years.
As the government grapples with its inherited doom loop of low growth, low investment, low productivity and high taxes, the only route to better public services is through more innovation - not more taxes.
Claims of mass exodus from Tories to Reform UK 'slightly overblown', says shadow minister
Suella Braverman, the former Conservative home secretary, has said she is not defecting to Reform UK.
She issued a statement after the Mail on Sunday reported that her husband, Rael Braverman, is joining Nigel Farage’s party.
Suella Braverman told the Independent:
It’s not true. I am not defecting.
My husband and I have a healthy respect for each other’s independence – he doesn’t tell me how to do my job, and I don’t tell him how to pick a political party.
The wording of this statement does not rule out a defection later this parliament.
Matt Vickers, a shadow Home Office minister, told Sky News this morning that the defection of Braverman’s husband was “small fry in the grand scheme of things”.
Vickers said that “nobody was really surprised” when the former Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns joined Reform UK. He went on:
I think the thought that this is a mass exodus to reform is slightly overblown, really.
McFadden confirms ministers being asked to find further efficiency savings
Pat McFadden also confirmed that ministers will be told they need to find more efficiency savings in their departments in the spending review starting this week.
In his speech he said:
At the recent budget, the chancellor demanded efficiency and productivity savings of 2% across departments, and there’ll be more to come.
As we launch the next phase of the spending review, at its heart must be reform of the state in order to do a better job for the public.
According to a story by Tim Shipman in the Sunday Times yesterday, ministers will be told they need to find 5% efficiency savings. Shipman said:
On Tuesday a letter will land on the desk of every cabinet minister from Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, announcing the start of the public spending review, which will decide precisely how the government spends taxpayers’ money for the next two years.
It will demand three things: first, that ministers spend money on things the public actually cares about to demonstrate they are on the side of voters. Second, that they tackle waste. Every department will be told they need to find 5% savings from waste and inefficiencies. Third, that they reform public services to make them more productive and get better value for money for the taxpayer. “We cannot keep paying more for poor performance,” Jones writes.
McFadden says he wants to see 'innovators and disrupters' working for civil service
In his speech this morning Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, channelled Dominic Cummings when he said he wanted to see “innovators and disrupters” working for the civil service.
He said:
You might remember a few years ago, there was a call for weirdos and misfits in the system.
Well, whatever term you want to use, we do want innovators and disrupters and original thinkers.
My message to creative thinkers is this is your chance to serve your country, use your brain power, your technological talents, to fix some of the biggest problems we face today.
Britain needs you, and if you choose to serve I want government to empower you to help us deliver, to move fast and build things.
There are more details of the speech in the Cabinet Office news release here. It includes details of how the “test and learn culture” approach McFadden is proposing will be be tried first with two projects, operating in Manchester, Sheffield, Essex and Liverpool and covering family support and temporary accommodation.
Pat McFadden’s line about how the civil service has got “a lot of good people caught in bad systems” (see 9.31am) suggests he has been reading Failed State by Sam Freedman, one of the best of the books published recently about the dysfunctionality of the British political system. (After Brexit, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss etc, this is one literary genre that is booming.)
In his book, Freedman says:
Even when more talented people find themselves in power, they are trapped in institutions that do not work, and bad systems beat good people every time.
Freedman sometimes gets credited with this aphorism, but it was W Edwards Deming who first said ‘a bad system will beat a good person every time’. Freedman includes this as one of the epigraphs at the start of his book. Deming was an American pioneer of management studies.
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McFadden says Elon Musk 'incredible innovator', but says having business leaders in government not always successful
Q: [From Alex Wickham from Bloomberg] Do you think you will be able to learn from Elon Musk and the Doge (Department of Government Efficiency) review he is doing for Donald Trump? And has there been any outreach to him from the government?
McFadden said:
Let’s see how he gets on.
I was around in the government last time, and we brought in various people from the business world to help out. Some of them were an enormous success, made great ministers, did great things. Some others less so. Let us see what he can do.
One thing that’s clear is, in the technological world and in the industrial world, he’s been an incredible innovator, and he’s managed to do things in new ways. So let us see how that works out.
In terms of specific outreach to them, not that I’m aware of. But I think it will be interesting to follow what happens.
This was relatively positive, given what Musk has been saying about Keir Starmer, and Britain under Labour, on his X platform in recent months.
Q: [From Emilio Casalicchio from Politico] Wasn’t the problem with the PM’s speech the fact that he alientated civil servants with it?
McFadden says it is legitimate for the PM, and for him, to say they want civil servants to provide the best possible delivery. He says his speech set out how this might happen.
Q: Why has the government dropped plans for an NAO inquiry into the allegations about financial misconduct in relation to the Teesworks project?
McFadden says, when Angela Rayner was asked about this yesterday, she explained she had received an 800-page report with new information. The government will study that before deciding what happens next, he says.
Q: [From Christopher Hope from GB News] Do you want to cut the number of civil service jobs? Do you favour ID cards? And would you give Dominic Cummings a job?
McFadden says, in the past, when people have cut civil service numbers, they have ended up hiring more consultants, at greater expense.
On ID cards, he says the government is looking at a means of allowing people to access different government services with one log in.
And, on Cumings, he says that is a matter for him, but he says he is not expecting to receive a job application from him.
Q: [From Beth Rigby from Sky News] Do you disagree with what the PM said about civil servants being in the tepid bath of decline?
McFadden says he and Keir Starmer are both focused on changing the structures within which civil servants work.
Q: Do you think the civil service will end up smaller?
McFadden says he is focused on making the civil service more productive.
There is a live feed of the Pat McFadden speech here.
McFadden is currently taking questions.
In an interview with Times Radio, Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, was asked about civil servants working from home (a near obsession for some on the right, who want to see them back in the office). McFadden said that, while he supported flexibility, he was in favour of having people in the office. He said:
I’m a believer in working in the office. I think it’s good for people to come into the office, you get shared learning from your colleagues, you get the culture of working in a team. I think that’s harder if you’re at home all the time.
Of course, the civil service is flexible. As an employer of people who’ve got particular circumstances, which might mean they have to be at home sometimes that’s taken into account.
But if you ask me on the whole, do I want people in the office and getting the benefits of shared work? And the answer is yes.
The government has had “no contact or no request” for the British wife of Bashar al-Assad to come to the UK, Pat McFadden said this morning.
The Cabinet Office minister told the Today programme that he was not aware of any suggestion that Asma al-Assad, who was born in London in 1975 and was raised in the city, might want to return to Britain.
Asked about this, he said:
The family are in Russia as far as we know, that’s what Russian state media have said.
We’ve certainly had no contact or no request for Mr Assad’s wife to come to the UK.
Asked if Asma al-Assad would be allowed to enter the UK if she wanted to, he replied:
I couldn’t comment on her individual rights.
I don’t know her exact circumstances, so I don’t know what would happen in those circumstances, but it’s not something that’s been raised with us.
State bureaucracy 'urgently needs cutting back', say Tories
The Conservative party has dismissed the government’s announcement about civil service reform (see 9am and 9.31am), saying what matters is cutting the size of the state. In a response to the Cabinet Office overnight briefing on Pat McFadden’s speech, Richard Holden, his Tory shadow, said:
The bureaucracy of the British state urgently needs cutting back, which is why at the general election we had a plan to reduce it to pre-Covid levels, plans Labour opposed.
Everything Labour has done so far has been to swell the size and cost of the state, on the backs of workers, pensioners, farmers and family businesses across the country.
Starmer urged to protest about executions in Saudi Arabia when he meets crown prince
Keir Starmer is being urged to raise the execution of more than 300 people in Saudi Arabia this year when he meets the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman today to seek Saudi investment in the UK.
Starmer was scathing when Boris Johnson failed to raise the issue of Saudi executions when he visited the Kingdom in 2022, and so far none of the pre publicity for the trip issued by Downing Street makes any reference to human rights.
When Johnson visited Saudi Arabia in 2022, Starmer as Labour leader accused Johnson of “going cap in hand from dictator to dictator”.
Number 10 said the focus of the visit is sealing joint green energy projects that will bring jobs to the north-east, but the prospects of a ceasefire in Gaza, normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia as well as the future of the Houthis in Yemen will also be raised.
Starmer has also been visiting the United Arab Emirates, one of the countries in the Middle East closest to Syria’s toppled President Bashir al-Assad.
The total of 304 executions in 2024 in Saudi Arabia exceeds the record of 196 set in 2022. Analysis by Reprieve suggests less than half of those executed had been sentenced for lethal offences, including 79 foreign nationals executed for non lethal drug offences. In total nearly 40% of those executed were foreign nationals. In normally uncompetitive elections, Saudi Arabia lost its bid for a seat on the 18 strong UN Human Rights Council in October when it came last in an election for five regional seats.
The country’s own human rights commission has largely focussed on improvements to women’s rights.
In interviews with western media, including Time and the Atlantic, the crown prince has promised to abolish the death penalty for all but the most serious offences.
Commenting on Starmer’s visit Taha al-Hajj, legal director of the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights, commented:
Each time a world leader visits Saudi Arabia and says nothing about the bloodbath taking place in the Kingdom’s prisons, the executioner sharpens his blade. The families of men and women on death row tell us they are more terrified than ever, desperately hoping that someone with influence will speak up before it is too late for their loved ones. Many of the execution victims have committed no act of violence themselves: these killings flout international law and break the crown prince’s own promises.
Reprieve has been highlighting two cases Abdullah al-Derazi and Adbullah al-Howaiti who were both sentenced to death for offences allegedly committed when they were still children. Both were subjected to torture that was used to secure false confessions used against them in court.
Reprieve deputy executive director Dan Dolan commented:
When Boris Johnson visited Mohammed bin Salman in 2022, three days after the mass execution of 81 people, Sir Keir Starmer was rightly scathing of Johnson’s unconditional embrace of one of the world’s most prolific executioners of protesters. Now he is the prime minister, he has the opportunity to address the escalating execution crisis in Saudi Arabia. If he publicly raises the cases of child defendants Abdullah al-Howaiti and Abdullah al-Derazi when he meets with the crown prince, he could save their lives.
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McFadden rejects claim government picking fight with civil servants, saying they are 'good people in bad systems'
Last week Keir Starmer was criticised for suggesting, in his Plan for Change speech, that some civil servants are happy indulging in the “tepid bath of managed decline”.
In an interview with Sky News this morning, asked why the government was picking a fight with the civil service, Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, insisted that this was not the case. He said:
I’m praising the civil service today. I think we’ve got a lot of good people caught in bad systems.
Explaining why he wants the civil service to adopt a tech startup approach to delivering services, he said:
And the point I’m making today is that we’ve got huge change in the private sphere. If we think about all the companies we use and rely on, Airbnb or Spotify or WhatsApp - [they] didn’t even exist 20 years ago. They’ve changed our lives.
Has the government changed, the way it thinks about delivering services changed at the speed of the private sphere? It hasn’t. So we’ve got to take the learning from what’s happening in the private [sector].
Asked to give an example, McFadden replied:
When they started developing the universal credit system, they spent hundreds of millions of pounds doing it in the old Whitehall way. You issue a policy paper, you have lots of committees, lots of meetings, and they got nowhere.
What they did after that was they took the process out of the department, put together a small team of about 30 people, policy people, tech people, frontline workers, said, ‘Let’s do this small, we don’t have to do it for the whole country at once, let’s test this in a really small way and see if it works.’
They did that in Sutton. Then they rolled it out a bit more, and a bit more.
It’s what we call the test and learn approach where you don’t have to design everything from scratch. You test, you learn. You allow for some failure in the system. You don’t get panicked by that. You learn from that.
I want to see that approach adopted more in policy in the the future.
Some of McFadden’s colleagues may not find this example encouraging. While the decision to roll out universal credit gradually, in the way McFadden describes, not as a single ‘big bang’ reform, was generally seen as sensible, the project (an enormous reform undertaking) was nevertheless beset by problems, and rollout has taken more than a decade.
Pat McFadden says Labour will ‘rewire state’ by getting civil servants to adopt 'test and learn culture'
Good morning. Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have both spoken about their desire to completely “rewire” the way the British state operates. Badenoch has not said much about how this might happen (although she has spoken about wanting the state to do less, implying not so much a rewiring of the state as a complete removal of some of the wiring instead). And Starmer has not given a detailed vision of what rewiring might involve either, but this morning Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, will give a speech providing the answer, or at least one answer.
As Eleni Courea reports in her overnight story, McFadden will say the government will ask officials managing public service delivery to operate as if they are running a tech startup.
If the overnight press briefing is anything to go by, this will be bad news for civil servants who enjoy writing erudite policy documents. The Cabinet Office says:
‘Crack’ teams of problem solvers will be deployed to improve public services and support delivery of the Plan for Change. Made up of a mix of people working in partnership to drive change - with data and digital skills, policy officials, and frontline workers, they will be given the freedom to experiment and adapt - adopting the ‘test and learn’ mindset of Silicon Valley.
Instead of writing more complicated policy papers and long strategy documents, the government will set the teams a challenge and empower them to experiment, innovate and try new things.
In his speech McFadden will say he wants civil servants to adopt a “test and learn culture”. Explaining what this means, McFadden will say:
Test it. Fix the problems. Change the design. Test it again. Tweak it again. And so on, and so on, for as long as you provide the service. Suddenly, the most important question isn’t, ‘How do we get this right the first time?’. It’s ‘How do we make this better by next Friday?
That’s the test and learn mindset, and I’m keen to see where we can deploy it in government. Where we can make the state a little bit more like a start-up.
McFadden will say the government will start this approach with two smallish projects, before rolling it out more widely. He will say that, while “each of these projects is small”, they could ‘rewire the state one test at a time”.
McFadden has been doing an interview round this morning, and I will post more from what he has been saying about this in those exchanges shortly. But inevitably the interviews have been dominated by Syria. McFadden confirmed that the government is considering whether Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which has taken over Damascus, should remain proscribed in the UK as a terrorist organisation. HTS says it has changed since it emerged some years ago as an al-Qaida offshoot. There will be some discussion of Syria here on the blog, but most of our coverage will be on our Middle East crisis live blog.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, gives a speech on the civil service and public sector reform.
Late morning (UK) time: Keir Starmer arrives in Riyadh for a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Earlier he was in the United Arab Emirates for a meeting with its president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Afternoon: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is in Brussels for a meeting with EU finance ministers. As Mark Sweney and Phillip Inman report, she will say she wants a “mature, business-like relationship [with the EU] where we can put behind us the low ambitions of the past and move forward, focused instead on all that we have in common”.
2.30pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
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