Starmer highlights green measures on Welsh visit and attacks Tories’ ‘incoherent’ energy policies – UK politics live

Douglas Ross has said he would have been ousted as Scottish Tory leader even if he did not stand for a Westminster seat.

The current Scottish Tory leader – who will be replaced next month – told a fringe audience he would not have stood for the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat if he knew he “wasn’t going to win”.

However, Ross, who has faced criticism from within his own Holyrood party in recent weeks, said he did not think the “final outcome would have been any different”, PA reported.

Stating that MSPs within his own party were often “briefing against him”, he said: “I’ve known since I became leader that some people didn’t want me to become leader four years ago and throughout that time people have continued to hold that view, and for some that view will have strengthened.”

However, he said: “If I’d known I wasn’t going to win the seat (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) then I wouldn’t have gone forward with that seat.

“Even if I hadn’t of gone for that seat as the candidate I think would have been in the exact same situation.

“I would no longer have been an MP, I would still have been an MSP and we would still have had roughly the same vote share across the country; therefore there would have been calls – which I would have accepted – for me to stand down.

“So yes, there is personal and reputational damage, people speaking about me and making comments, some of which are legitimate, others I think are wrong.

“But I don’t think the final outcome would have been any different.”

Enjoyable gig/photo op for Tom Tugendhat today (if you like whisky) as he takes his bid for the Tory leadership to a Scottish distillery.

The former security minister earlier tweeted that “Unionism is indivisible from conservatism. I want to be leader for all of our party, for across the whole of the UK. In Scotland, that means getting Conservative MSPs and MPs elected.”

The Tories currently have just five MPs in Scottish seats in Westminster and 31 MSPs, with its Scottish arm mired in infighting.

In his latest tweet, Tugendhat is at the Glenkinchie distillery near Edinburgh.

Scottish ministers to reintroduce peak rail fares

Severin Carrell

Summary

The prime minister has looked at Wales’s natural resources and shallow seas as part of his plan to accelerate the green energy transition, he has suggested.

Keir Starmer told journalists: “The election of a Labour government in Westminster is a gamechanger. So, for the first time, you’ve got a Welsh government that has a Westminster government that wants to work with and collaborate, after 14 years of having a Westminster government that basically didn’t want to collaborate and cooperate in that way.

“So that is a gamechanger because it means the first minister and I can deliver together for Wales, and that’s our joint work.

“That’s what we will be absolutely focused on. What we’re doing in relation to the transition on energy is crucial to that.

“We’re here today looking at a particular project which is very successful in the energy that it generates but also in what it does for local communities – the work that it’s doing for communities near here is hugely important. That’s a model that we want to build on.

“GB Energy will sit alongside that. That’s a UK-wide entity and already we’re able to talk about what we can do offshore with the deal that we did with the crown estate just a few weeks ago, so there’s a huge opportunity here for Wales which has got the resources, it’s got the natural resources, it’s got the shallow seas, and it’s got the skilled people here in Wales that can operate this.

“This is a massive opportunity and we intend to work together to take that opportunity on behalf of everybody living in Wales.”

Keir Starmer has vowed to do “everything we can” to preserve jobs at the steelworks in Port Talbot, south Wales.

Asked whether he risked giving “false hope” to workers in the town, the prime minister replied: “No. We’re working really hard on this, both the first minister and myself jointly on this, because it’s so important that we do everything we can to preserve those jobs.

“We were working on this when I was in opposition – we’ve turbocharged that since we’ve been in power.

“Of course it’s difficult, I think everybody understands that.

“We’ve been able to put some money down just in the last week or so, particularly with the supply chain side of it, but we will do everything we can to preserve those jobs.”

Ministers have launched a campaign to urge those who still qualify to secure winter fuel payments as government plans are expected to strip away the energy benefit from millions of elderly people.

Pensioners are being urged to check if they are eligible for pension credit, which qualifies them for the winter fuel payment worth up to £300, PA reported.

They would need to apply by 21 December, the last date for making a backdated claim for pension credit, to receive the fuel payment.

About 1.4 million pensioners are already receiving pension credit but the Department for Work and Pensions estimates up to 880,000 further households are eligible for the support.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will work with local authorities and charities for a “pension credit week of action” in September and aim to identify eligible households yet to claim.

Kendall said: “The £22bn black hole in the public finances we have inherited has required us to take difficult decisions, but I am determined to ensure low-income pensioners are supported.

“That’s why I urge any pensioner, or their loved ones, to check if they could get pension credit.

“This government remains completely committed to pensioners which is why we’re protecting the income of over 12 million pensioners through the triple lock.”

Scotland’s external affairs secretary said he has not considered resigning his position after significant criticism over his meeting with an Israeli diplomat, PA reported.

Angus Robertson told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland (GMS) programme that he believed it was “right” to communicate the Scottish government’s opposition to the conflict in Gaza.

The senior minister apologised on Monday for meeting with Israel’s deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky two weeks ago, with Robertson admitting the meeting should have been limited to calling for an immediate ceasefire. However, he said issues which did not relate to the war were raised by Grudsky, including energy, tourism and economic cooperation.

He told the radio programme: That meeting was not an appropriate space or time for that meeting to take place.

Robertson has faced criticism from within his own Holyrood party, with veteran MSP Christine Grahame describing his position as a “liability”.

Meanwhile, SNP MP Ruth Maguire told the Herald on Monday she shared the “anger” felt by party members in relation to the meeting.

Robertson was asked if he had considered his position in the cabinet after the backlash. He told GMS:

No, I haven’t because I think it was right to communicate the message that we did. But I have reflected very strongly on the impact that it has created and the impression that was created, which is why I issued the apology yesterday.

I most certainly did not want to create an impression that there was a normalisation of relations between the Scottish government and the Israeli government when there is not.

The Scottish government has suspended any further meetings with the Israeli government until peace progress has been made in the conflict with Hamas.

The Liberal Democrats have been fined a total of £3,600 by election authorities for 22 offences linked to the late reporting of donations.

The Electoral Commission said the five fines were paid by 2 August.

Meanwhile, the Richmond Park Constituency Labour party in south-west London was fined £1,000, which it paid on 26 July.

The Electoral Commission probed the local party’s “failure to deliver its 2022 statement of accounts by the deadline”, and found one offence.

Jackie Killeen, electoral administration and regulation director at the watchdog, said in a statement: “The laws we enforce are there to ensure there is transparency over the money spent and received by political parties, and to increase public confidence in our system.

“It’s important that parties comply with the requirements, and report to us in a timely fashion.”

Welsh secretary Jo Stevens said Keir Starmer’s visit to an onshore windfarm in Carmarthenshire on Tuesday is an example of an energy project that will save local residents money on their bills.

She told GB News:

We haven’t had a ban on onshore wind in Wales, where there had been in England under the previous Conservative government.

We have lifted the ban in England, and today’s visit is about showing how two Labour governments – one in Wales, one in Westminster – can work together to deliver that energy security, to bring down bills and to create new jobs through green energy.

She said the government will focus on “all types of renewable energy” and projects like those in Wales where local communities that host infrastructure are directly rewarded, adding:

So they will get an additional discount on their bills as a result of hosting the infrastructure that is helping to deliver renewable energy, clean power by 2030 across the United Kingdom.

What the project that the prime minister and the first minister are seeing today in Carmarthenshire is exactly one of those projects where the local community are benefiting through discounts to their bills.

Opening summary