Royal Navy ships mobilised to respond to Russian spy ship in North Sea, defence secretary tells MPs – UK politics live

• Kemi Badenoch has claimed the government’s proposed education reforms are a “tragedy in the making” for pupils, parents and teachers. As PA Media reports, Badenoch raised concerns over the impact of changes to academy freedoms, including on teacher recruitment and pay, contained in the children’s wellbeing and schools bill. She used PMQs to describe the bill as “pure educational vandalism” and the “worst of socialism”. But Starmer countered by insisting the bill benefits children and parents with its support for free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school in England, making school uniforms more affordable and introducing safeguarding measures. He added Badenoch had “got a nerve” to bemoan the impact of the reforms on special educational needs provision, adding the Government would “fix that mess” left by the Tories.

Using technology in schools could give teachers more time to focus on what matters and enjoy their work, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said.

In a speech at the British Educational Training and Technology, Phillipson said:

Using AI [artificial intelligence] to reduce workload will help unlock the recruitment and retention crisis that we face so that once again teaching can be a profession that sparks joy, not burnout, where teachers can focus on what really matters, teaching our children.

The government has now published details of changes to planning rules (see 10.44am) that will make it easier for developers to address the environmental concerns that often stop projects going ahead. In a news release, the government says the new rules will “help to deliver on the government’s commitment to make 150 major infrastructure project decisions by the end of this parliament”.

The government says:

Under current rules, infrastructure projects must secure mitigation or compensation for environmental harm to some protected sites and species before being granted planning permission, adding costs and delays to the planning process. Developers are required to identify and meet environmental obligations, typically on a project-by-project basis, and this misses opportunities to find strategic solutions with the greatest benefits for nature

The government will set up a Nature Restoration Fund enabling infrastructure builders to meet their environmental obligations faster and at greater scale by pooling contributions from developers to fund larger strategic interventions for nature.

This approach will mean the burden of individual site-level assessments and delivering mitigation and compensation is reduced. In many cases, a single payment will enable development to proceed.

A delivery body such as Natural England will then look at the actions needed to drive protected site and species recovery at a strategic, not site-by-site, scale. They will then take responsibility for securing positive environmental outcomes that infrastructure developers are not in a position to implement independently. These could be delivering a reduction in pollution affecting the water environment or securing nesting habitats to increase the population of a protected species for example.

The number of police officers in England and Wales has slipped to its lowest level in two years, PA Media reports. PA says:

The headcount of officers employed by 43 forces stood at 148,886 at the end of September 2024.

This is down 883 from a peak of 149,769 at the end of March and the lowest total since the end of September 2022 (144,346), according to Home Office data published today.

There has been a similar drop in the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) officers, which stood at 146,868 at the end of September. This is down 878 from a record 147,746 six months earlier and the lowest since September 2022 (142,146).

The figures indicate the challenge the government faces in its vow to boost police numbers, with both measures previously on a rising trend since 2019.

Last month, Keir Starmer promised a named, contactable police officer for every neighbourhood in England and Wales as he laid out his “plan for change”.

Suella Braverman, the former Tory home secretary, has said that the Conservative party and Reform UK should form some sort of pact.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Braverman, who is regarded as one of the most rightwing MPs in her party, said:

I like Nigel Farage … there isn’t space in British politics for two conservative parties.

We do need to unite the right. We need to come to some kind of accommodation. I don’t know what the precise form looks like – whether that is a merger, whether that is a coalition, whether that is a supply and confidence agreement, whether that is a non-aggression pact. I don’t know what it looks like.

In general, I am in favour of unifying the right.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed that there is considerable uncertainty about how much the Treasury will raise from its decision to extend inheritance tax so some farms are covered.

When Rachel Reeves announced the move in her budget in October, the Treasury said that by 2029-30 the measure would be raising £520m a year.

Today the OBR has published a briefing with a more detailed analysis of how much the policy will raise. It confirms the headline Treasury figures, but it says there is a “high” uncertainty rating to the figures.

The OBR says:

The central estimate for the costing is an increase in revenue of £0.5 billion by 2029-30, with the behavioural response reducing the static yield by around 35 per cent.

There are upside and downside risks to the degree of attrition in the long term, and the yield from this measure is not likely to reach a steady state for at least 20 years. Any increase in gift-giving will increase attrition and reduce receipts after at least a seven-year period, while the potential proliferation of new tax planning strategies will do likewise.

The OBR also said it will be difficult for older farmers to restructure their finances to avoid the tax.

More generally. individuals tend to structure their affairs with a view to inheritance planning in their 50s and 60s, which will primarily affect the costing over the longer-term. In the medium term, it is likely to be more difficult for some older individuals to quickly restructure their affairs in response to the measure.

Victoria Vyvyan, president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), said in a statement:

Ministers have repeatedly said that the OBR had certified their claims, but the truth is that the OBR themselves say there is a high degree of uncertainty as to how much money will be raised, if any at all.

In the Commons the money resolution for the private member’s assisted dying bill has just been passed without opposition.

Any legislation that might require public spending needs a money resolution and, without a money resolution, the end of life (terminally bill) bill cannot continue its passage through parliament.

In the debate Stephen Kinnock, a health minister, said the government remained neutral on the issue of assisted dying, but was supporting the money resolution so the bill, which passed its second reading, can be debated in committee.

He also said that the debate will publish an impact assessement for the bill before MPs debate the bill at its report stage, which will not happen before the end of April.

John Healey, the defence secretary, told MPs that it was not possible for the government to ban Russian ships from UK waters.

In response to a question from Tan Dhesi, the Labour chair of the Commons defence committee, who asked what could be done to exclude these vessels, Healey replied:

We defend more fiercely than perhaps any other nation in the world the freedom of navigation in our seas, and the ships of all states may navigate through our territorial waters, they are subject to the right of innocent passage.

So some of the steps that he might wish upon the government and urge us to take are simply not available to us under the United Nations law of the open seas.

And so it’s for that reason that we take such steps, and we take the actions that I’ve reported to the house in order to make sure that we monitor, we watch, we track, and that those who may enter our waters with malign intent … know that they will face the strongest possible response.

John Healey, the defence secretary, told MPs that “Russia remains the most pressing and immediate threat to Britain” and that “any threat will be met with strength and resolve”.

He said:

Russian aggression will not be tolerated at home or in Ukraine. It’s why one of the first acts of this government was for the prime minister to launch the strategic defence review. It’s why the government has increased defence spending next year by almost £3bn and why we will set a path to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP in the spring.

Royal Navy ships have been mobilised to respond to a Russian spy ship in the North Sea, John Healey, the defence secretary, told MPs.

In a statement to the Commons, he said he wanted Vladimir Putin “to hear this message – we see you, we know what you’re doing and we will not shy away from robust action to protect this country.”

Describing what happened, Healey said:

The foreign ship Yantar is currently in the North Sea having passed through British waters. Let me be clear, this is a Russian spy ship used for gathering intelligence and mapping the UK’s critical underwater infrastructure.

Yantar entered the UK exclusive economic zone about 45 miles off the British coast on Monday. For the last two days the Royal Navy has deployed HMS Somerset and HMS Tyne to monitor the vessel every minute through our waters.

I changed the Royal Navy’s rules of engagement so that our warships can get closer and better track the Yantar. So far, the ship has complied with international rules of navigation.

Healey also said this was the second time the Russian spy vessel had entered UK waters in recent months. He said it was closely watched in November, when it was spotted “detected loitering over UK critical undersea infrastructure”. He went on:

To deter any potential threat, I took measured steps then as part of a clear direct response to the Russian vessel. RAF maritime patrol aircraft alongside HMS Cattistock, HMS Tyne and RFA Proteus were deployed to shadow Yantar’s every movement.

Today, I also wanted to confirm to the house that I authorised a Royal Navy submarine, strictly as a deterrent measure, to surface close to Yantar to make clear that we had been covertly monitoring its every move. The ship then left UK waters without further loitering and sailed down to the Mediterranean.

Healey added:

I also wanted President Putin to hear this message: we see you, we know what you’re doing and we will not shy away from robust action to protect this country.

It is a low bar, but that was probably Kemi Badenoch’s best PMQs yet. Avoiding the temptation to follow Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage (see 11.41am), she asked about the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which had its second reading in the Commons two weeks ago. On that occasion she also mentioned the bill, but only because her party had tabled an amendment trying to turn it into a vote on a grooming gangs inquiry. Today she focused instead on the impact of the bill on academies – not something that Elon Musk has been tweeting about, but an area where even mainstream Labour MPs have concerns about what the legislation might do.

Academies, which were set up by Labour, first just as a niche option for schools failing under local authority control, and then mainstreamed by the Tories, are widely thought of as one of the better public sector reforms of recent years (even though educationists argue that they have not raised standards anything like as much as people like Michael Gove claim). In Tory circles they are regarded as the perhaps the greatest policy success of the last 14 years. The schools bill will curtail some of their freedoms, and the Tories have been arguing for some time that in particular it could lead to some academy teachers facing pay cuts, because the legislation removes the right of academies to diverge from national pay rates.

Badenoch attacked the bill for its overall impact on educational standards, but she focused in particular on the pay issue, even citing the clause of the bill that she said was causing all the problems. In some respects, she was a week too later. Starmer told her that the government has just tabled an amendment to the bill that will ensure that academy teachers don’t face pay cuts, because academies will be bound by a pay floor (the minimum they have to pay), not a pay ceiling. This effectively answered Badenoch’s attack. But the very fact that an amendment has had to be tabled does show that the opposition were right when they started raising this as a loophole. Two weeks ago Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, told MPs that academy teachers were not at risk of pay cuts under the bill, but the tabling of the amendment suggests that assurance was not robust.

Badenoch’s wider point was about standards. She told Starmer:

It’s about the reforms that [Starmer] is changing. We have an example of where these reforms were not introduced, Wales, which has been under Labour control for two decades.

Welsh educational outcomes have tumbled down international league tables, poor children in England now do better than wealthier children in Wales. This bill denies children the guarantee that their failing schools will be turned into a better academy.

It is an attack on excellence. It is an attack on higher standards. It is an attack on aspiration. This bill is the worst of socialism and isn’t it deprived children in England who will pay the price?

Talking about schools also enabled Badenoch to say that she knew what it was like to be educated at a school with low standards. By itself that does not mean that she would be a good PM, but it does make the point that she is someone who did not have the privileged education enjoyed by most of her Tory leader predecessors.

In the exchanges Badenoch did not win the debate on academies and standards, some of her language was absurdly over the top (“worst of socialism”) and it is hard to what extent curbing academisation may have an impact. But what was obvious was that Starmer was not willing to engage with the standards argument at all. He hammered Badenoch quite effectively by highlighting the positive and non-contentious aspects of the bill, and he was able, rightly, to condemn the Tories for leaving schools understaffed and underfunded. On standards, though? If he is convinced that school standards really won’t suffer, he should have been able to make that case more confidently.

Had Starmer had listened to the second reading debate a fortnight ago, he would have heard Siobhain McDonagh, a loyalist and Blairite MP, warn that good academy schools in her constituency were going to lose out under this bill. “I struggle to see how removing this right to a carefully tailored education will benefit the students that need the additional support that this provides,” she said. At the moment Starmer probably needs to worry more about McDonagh than Badenoch, but at least today the Tory leader was focusing on an issue where the government has questions to answer and where it did not sound like she was just regurgitating Faragism.