Starmer says Labour finding ‘more mess’ from Tories every day as he launches Great British Energy plan – UK politics live | Politics

Downing Street said the public expects high standards of conduct from police officers.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said:

Clearly we understand the level of concern members of the public rightly have from seeing this video clip.

The public rightly expect a high standard of conduct from our police officers, who are there to protect our communities.

Asked whether Keir Starmer shared the Reform UK deputy leader’s view that the police action was “reassuring”, the spokesman said:

No, he wouldn’t characterise it like that.

As I say, he understands the concern that members of the public rightly have in relation to that video, the public rightly expect a high standard of conduct from our police and it is right that the police have reported themselves to the IOPC.

More from the speech:

Keir Starmer said nuclear power was “very much part of the mix” as he gave a speech in Runcorn on the government’s energy strategy.

Nuclear is very much part of the mix as we go forward. And we will be pushing hard on it.

I’ve already had discussions with the energy secretary about how we can speed up when it comes to nuclear.

He said he was “pretty appalled” at what Labour is discovering about the previous government’s decisions in terms of the speed of projects and the funding put behind them.

He added:

We will clear them up and we will move this on because nuclear is very much part of the energy mix as we go forward. And the task I’ve set the energy secretary is to take such steps that are necessary to make sure this is delivered faster and more efficiently and to do that as quickly as possible.

Steven Morris

Meanwhile, it looks as if the new first minister of Wales won’t be installed for almost two weeks.

Eluned Morgan, the current health secretary in Wales, was confirmed as Welsh Labour leader on Wednesday.

Vaughan Gething, who announced his resignation as Welsh Labour leader after the donations scandal, has now said he had written to the llywydd (the presiding officer) to recall the Senedd, the Welsh parliament on 6 August.

Morgan is expected to be confirmed as Welsh first minister then. Gething remains first minister for the moment.

In his speech, Keir Starmer said he stands by the figure from Labour’s manifesto suggesting that the party’s net zero energy plans would bring down household bills by £300 a year.

H said:

Yes I do – I stand by everything in my manifesto and one of the things I made clear in the election campaign is because I wouldn’t make a single promise or commitment that I didn’t think we could deliver in government and that’s why we carefully costed and funded everything in our manifesto.

That does depend on early firm decisions being made, which is why we’ve set up GB Energy, why we’ve announced the partnership today with the crown estate and why the energy secretary has already taken action in week one in relation to onshore wind, in relation to solar energy and also pushing on with nuclear. So I stand by that commitment.

What this brings us is lower bills, energy security, the next generation of jobs and of course an important contribution to our obligations in relation to the planet.

Here are some of the top lines from Keir Starmer’s speech on Great British (GB) Energy:

GB Energy will “drive down bills”, Keir Starmer said as he launched the government’s plan for a state-owned energy firm.

This will drive down bills, it gives us energy independence” because the UK currently relies on international markets which is why the energy prices have faced a harder hit than other countries, he said.

He said the money the government is putting into GB energy is intended to be a “catalyst” for private investment.

He added:

It will take time for this to develop it will take time before were able to get the benefits of clean power but that’s why were moving at pace.

Keir Starmer said he understands the “concern” over footage appearing to show a police officer kicking a prone man and home secretary Yvette Cooper is meeting the Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, to discuss the video.

Keir Starmer said the “hard graft of rebuilding this country has truly started” as he accused the previous government of leaving a “rot of shortsightedness and self-service” for Labour to clear up.

Giving a speech in Runcorn, Cheshire, the prime minister said “every day” his administration is finding “more mess” that the Tories left behind.

“The hard graft of rebuilding this country has well and truly started, and it is vital that we begin immediately because the last government dropped the ball,” he said.

He added:

They left us the worst inheritance since the second world war, and every day – every day – we’re finding more mess that they’ve left for us to clear up.

The rot of shortsightedness and self-service that has weakened the foundations of our country.”

In his speech, Keir Starmer said:

We said we would set up Great British Energy and we have. We said we would create good jobs and cut your bills and we will. The race has started. The work has begun. The planet and the people of this country will reap the benefits for decades to come.”

Keir Starmer is giving a speech on Great British Energy now. You can listen via the video at the top of this blog.

The PA news agency reports that on the government’s plans after recess, Commons leader Lucy Powell said on Thursday:

We’re getting on with the job with more to come in coming days. Manifesto commitments realised today, turning the page on an era of sleaze and scandal.

Our first bills considered next week to bring our railways back into public ownership, putting passengers not profit first, and to protect our economy and family finances from the Conservative Trussonomics of which (shadow Commons leader Chris Philp) was an author.

We’ll legislate for Great British energy when parliament returns delivering energy security and lower bills.

What a contrast to the dying days of the last government. So if he’ll forgive me, I won’t be taking his advice, but I will continue realising the change the country is crying out for.”

Rowena Mason

Labour has delayed proposals to tackle spurious lawsuits brought by oligarchs and others aimed at intimidating journalists, academics and campaigners.

Frederick Ponsonby, a Labour justice minister in the House of Lords, said he could not commit to bringing forward standalone legislation on strategic lawsuits against public participation, known as Slapps, or set out a timetable for tackling the issue.

He said the government would be conducting a review and while it did want to outlaw Slapps that are abusive, there was also a “need to protect access to justice for legitimate claims”.

Rishi Sunak had previously backed a Labour MP’s backbench attempt to ban Slapps but the legislation did not get through parliament before the election.

Before the election David Lammy, now the foreign secretary, had said he wanted to ban Slapps, as scrutiny of Russian oligarchs by journalists and campaigners has been frustrated by threats of lawsuits.

At the time, Lammy said:

We’ve really got to stop this happening. These are stifling effectively not just the rule of law and freedom of speech, but particularly going to journalists doing their job to throw a spotlight and transparency on the most egregious behaviour of oligarchy, plutocracy, and very corrupt individuals doing bad things.”

In the House of Lords on Wednesday, Tina Stowell, a Conservative peer, said the previous government had been “very close to outlawing Slapps in their entirety” and called for legislation in the first session of parliament.

However, Ponsonby said there were still outstanding questions about how to ban Slapps that were not addressed in the previous legislation.

You can read the full story here:

Commons leader Lucy Powell said she “won’t be taking” advice from shadow leader Chris Philp, as the Tories had “left the country in a worse state than even our worst fears”.

She told the Commons:

As we end our third week in government though, it is clearer than ever before that the Conservatives failed in their responsibility and left the country in a worse state than even our worst fears.

They don’t like to hear it. They failed to take the tough and right choices. It’s as if they knew they were going to lose the election and left the really difficult decisions for us. They don’t like it, but history will show it.”

She added:

So I’m afraid I won’t be taking [Philp’s] advice on the issues that he raises. He talks about redefining issues of illegal migration. I do remember the former home secretary redefining the backlog as a ‘cue’, I think, under the last government, but far from stopping the boats we saw the boats over the last year reached record highs coming over so their plan just wasn’t working.

And that’s why we’ve already reallocated those resources and we started returning illegal migrants already, something that his government failed to do.”

Earlier on Thursday in the House of Commons, Philp said the government suffered a “significant backbench rebellion” on the two-child benefit cap and their majority would be “gone by Easter”.

He told MPs:

The government has sent mixed messages about plans to scrap or not the very reasonable two child cap on welfare payments, but then on Tuesday the government whipped their MPs to vote against that.

There was a significant backbench rebellion less than three weeks after the election, not even Theresa May managed a rebellion within three weeks of an election. So it’s a bit of a first and at this rate, the government’s majority will be gone by about Easter of next year.”

Philp also said the government had “rebranded” their terminology in relation to migration. He said:

I also noticed the government has rebranded ‘illegal’ immigration as ‘irregular’ and that they merely want to ‘control’ it.

Can I say to the government that entering this country by small boat is illegal? It may help them to refer to section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971 as amended, if they’re in any doubt. The government’s objective should be to completely stop illegal immigration not merely to control it.”

Labour will be pushed to axe two-child benefit cap, says John McDonnell

Jessica Elgot

Labour will be pushed to act on abolishing the “indefensible” two-child benefit limit, the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell has claimed, after Keir Starmer suspended him and six others for the first rebellion of the new government.

It came as multiple MPs expressed shock and dismay at the suspensions, including one suspended MP who claimed she felt her experiences of domestic abuse had been “weaponised” in conversations with the whips. Labour said it did not recognise those allegations.

Writing in the Guardian, McDonnell said the rebellion was not a coordinated attempt to undermine the government by voting on the SNP amendment, but said it was a genuine point of conscience for those with high levels of child poverty in their constituencies.

“The seriousness of the risk demonstrates the seriousness of the issue at stake,” he said. McDonnell and others, who have had the whip suspended for six months for their vote on the king’s speech amendment, said they also had grave doubts about the effectiveness of the child poverty taskforce announced by the government before the vote.

McDonnell believes the rebellion and the attention it has focused on child poverty means that the government will eventually have to address the cap, and made it significantly more likely that it will be abolished.

Starmer’s political spokesperson confirmed the prime minister had been consulted on the move. “We’ve been very clear on our position on the two-child limit, and why we did not commit to removing it both during the campaign and since,” she said.

You can read the full story here:

A Labour MP who worked as an NHS physiotherapist during the pandemic has claimed that “crony contracts” resulted in wasted resources, reports the PA news agency.

Sonia Kumar, MP for Dudley, told the Commons:

As an NHS physiotherapist who worked during the Covid-19 pandemic I had the misfortune of witnessing first-hand how crony contracts resulted in wasted resources.”

Kumar added that the contracts did a “disservice to professionals and patients”.

Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould said:

Billions were spent on PPE (personal protective equipment) that was either unusable, overpriced or under delivered, and this government is absolutely determined to learn those lessons and safeguard every pound of taxpayers money.”

Government legislation designed to help nationalise the UK’s railways will be fast-tracked through the House of Commons, reports the PA news agency.

Commons leader Lucy Powell said the passenger railway services public ownership bill will undergo its committee stage and remaining stages on 3 September.

The bill, which was included in the king’s speech, is due to be debated for the first time at second reading on 29 July.

Powell added the budget responsibility bill, due to be debated at second reading on 30 July, will also complete its remaining stages in the Commons on 4 September.

The Great British Energy bill will receive its second reading on 5 September, Ms Powell said in the weekly business statement.

£5bn debt crisis of special educational needs ‘could bankrupt’ English councils

Patrick Butler

A £5bn debt crisis caused by out-of-control overspending on special educational needs could explode in less than two years, bankrupting scores of England’s local authorities, the UK government has been warned.

The crisis stems from the failure to properly fund a huge increase in demand for Special Education Needs and Disability (Send) services over the past decade, triggering an “existential” crisis for councils which have “no obvious means of paying off the debt”.

Council leaders have told ministers the Send system, which was introduced by the Con-Lib government 10 years ago, is in meltdown, and have described it as broken, unaffordable and failing hundreds of thousands of children and their parents.

The overspend is the legacy of the last Tory government’s decision to allow Send overspending to continue for years under a special “override” arrangement that allowed councils to keep these rapidly mounting debts off municipal balance sheets.

The huge off-balance sheet debts are due to be settled in April 2026, making it the latest financial headache to hit the Labour government as it takes stock of the costs of repairing a public sector depleted by years of austerity.

A highly critical report published by the Local Government Association (LGA) and the County Councils Network (CCN) on Thursday said Send services in England were overwhelmed and dysfunctional. Fundamental reform to the system was not only inevitable but unavoidable, it said.

It called for fundamental reform – likely to take two parliaments to implement – to ensure more Send provision is delivered in mainstream schools rather than expensive private special schools, as well a short-term injection of £2.2bn to ensure mainstream schools have suitable Send staffing levels and infrastructure.

You can read the full piece here:

Also, the Guardian’s Politics Weekly UK podcast, presented by John Harris, focuses on Labour suspensions and the Tory leadership race in its latest episode.

You can listen to the 33-minute podcast, where Harris is joined by columnist Gaby Hinsliff and former Downing Street chief of staff and Conservative peer Gavin Barwell, here: