During a visit to Glasgow on Thursday, the minister made fun of the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, who appeared to be unaware of the identities of two council defectors. Speaking to the PA news agency after a speech in Edinburgh, Murray said: “We’re certainly not terrified of a party (whose deputy leader) doesn’t know the name of his own councillors.”
After the US president suggested that his country would not defend allies who do not spend enough on defense, Downing Street stated that Donald Trump’s remarks regarding NATO are not different from what he said during his first term. Trump “reiterated his commitment” to article 5 during his meeting with Keir Starmer last week, according to the official spokesperson for the prime minister. On Friday, when Times Radio inquired about Trump’s remarks made overnight, health minister Stephen Kinnock stated that the remarks posed “no issues” for the United Kingdom. He also suggested it was “fair enough” for the US to expect Europe to do more on defence.
The defence secretary had “very constructive” talks with his US counterpart in Washington DC, Downing Street has said. John Healey and Pete Hegseth discussed “deepening the UK-US defence relationship” and finding a “lasting peace” for Ukraine, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said.
The “broken social security system is holding our people back”, Number 10 has said, ahead of an anticipated welfare overhaul. Downing Street said on Friday there has been an “unsustainable rise in welfare spending” and it promised reforms in “the coming weeks”.
According to the findings of a study, since the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), residents of London have been able to enjoy significantly cleaner air. There has been a decrease in the levels of harmful pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health issues, including cancer, impaired lung development, heart attacks, and preterm births. Some of the greatest improvements have occurred in the deprived areas of the capital. The government is “betraying our children and capitulating to big tech” by “gutting” a private member’s bill that would have included a ban on smartphones in school, MPs have heard. Conservative former education secretary Kit Malthouse described the protection of children (digital safety and data protection) bill, as a “hollowed-out gesture” before its consideration was adjourned on Friday. The bill that Labour MP Josh MacAlister proposed would direct UK chief medical officers to issue guidance to parents regarding their children’s use of smartphones and social media. MacAlister had originally intended for the bill to call for the creation of mobile-free zones in all English schools. He stated to the House of Commons on Friday that the prevalence of smartphones had led to a “fundamental rewiring of childhood itself.” Keir Starmer had a phone call with the leaders of Canada, Norway, Turkey and Iceland as well as European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Antonio Costa. Downing Street stated that it was primarily to provide an update on a meeting that EU leaders had yesterday. The leaders of the EU made a commitment at that meeting to increase the continent’s defenses and free up hundreds of billions of euros for security. The Scottish secretary, Ian Murray, stated that the Scotland Office has entered a “new era.” The minister stated during an appearance at an event held at Edinburgh University that the department had experienced three distinct eras: the first was centered on establishing devolution, the second was “muddled by division and conflict,” and the third was marked by the victory of Labour in the summer of 2017. The UK government is making plans to cut the funding for GB Energy, the state-owned company set up by Labour to drive renewable energy and cut household bills, in June’s spending review. Cuts to the £8.3bn of taxpayer money promised over the five-year parliament would be another blow for Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, after he was overruled by the government when the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, backed the expansion of Heathrow’s third runway.
Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees. Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.
The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has said helping more people back into a job is the best way to cut the benefits bill, as the chancellor looks for savings ahead of the 26 March spring statement. With Rachel Reeves zeroing in on welfare as a source of potential cuts as she prepares to take action to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules, Kendall said the starting point must be getting people back into work – not numbers on a spreadsheet.
Britain will continue to provide Ukraine with intelligence, but it will be difficult to replace the flow that was stopped by the US earlier this week due to the limited capabilities offered by London and other European nations. The UK will also continue to supply its analysis of the raw data, sources said on Thursday, though in line with normal intelligence practice it will not simply pass on US information obtained via long-established sharing arrangements between the two countries.
Tens of thousands of children in migrant and refugee families in the UK are being denied access to government-funded childcare because of benefit restrictions linked to their parents’ immigration status, a report says. Having “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF) means parents are not entitled to 30 hours of free childcare and are having to stay home to look after their young children instead of working. According to the report, this is causing families to fall into poverty and preventing their children from receiving the advantages of the early childhood education that their peers enjoy. After local governments in Scotland agreed to raise rates by up to 15% next month, council tax costs will reach a record high, with some authorities planning new levies on tourists and cruise ships. After years of successive cuts to their grant funding, all 32 local authorities in Scotland have announced council tax increases beginning in April of at least 6%, with the majority increasing them by approximately 10%. In a rare public statement on Friday, the chair of the watchdog intelligence and security committee (ISC) stated that the surveillance arrangements for Britain’s spy agencies are “fundamentally flawed” and that the current system “isn’t viable operationally.” Lord Beamish, a Labour peer and former MP, warned that “we cannot provide” the intelligence community “with its license to operate” due to insufficient staffing and resources, while new components of the intelligence apparatus are not being examined at all.