Starmer warns ‘no quick fix’ for UK as he faces pressure over child poverty and benefits – politics live

Starmer appoints two influential leftwing critics as government advisers

Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s economics editor, has filed his take on the king’s speech. He says two of the main measures are the bills on planning and employment rights. “Both have the advantage of potentially being transformative without costing the government serious amount of money,” he says. He explains:

Planning reform is seen as key to unlocking the door to faster growth. There will be national targets for housebuilding and a national strategy for infrastructure. The planning system will be reformed and streamlined. Democratic engagement will be about where, not if, new homes and infrastructure are built. This top-down approach is almost certain to be tested in the courts and is at odds with Labour’s separate plans to devolve more power to local authorities and metro mayors. It might not be universally popular in some of Labour’s newly won seats in the leafy shires either.

Business likes the sound of planning reform but is less keen on the employment rights bill, which will ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, end fire and rehire, provide a range of employment rights from a worker’s first day in a new job, and make it easier for trade unions to organise and operate.

Employers have expressed concern that the reforms will make the labour market less flexible. The government’s argument is that flexibility has not resulted in higher productivity or strong real wage growth, and that the changes will lead to companies being encouraged to invest more in new labour-saving equipment and in training.

Larry’s full article is here.

Priti Patel, the former home secretary, will definitely stand as a candidate in the Conservative leadership contest, Sky News has reported. Speaking in the Commons in the king’s speech debate, she said the Tories should be proud of their record in key areas. She said:

Much was advanced over the last 14 years and we’re proud of our record and the transformation that we led, including of public finances.

These are big things that don’t just happen over a few months and weeks, we’re proud we transformed the public finances from the government borrowing £1 in every £4 to a much better fiscal position today. It’s not easy to get into these fiscal positions and I think the benches opposite should just reflect in terms of the fiscal position they’re now inheriting.

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This is from Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, on the king’s speech.

Labour’s King’s Speech is just more big state with the assumption that government can create wealth.

And this is from Richard Tice, the deputy leader.

This Govt programme will lead to:
💥higher taxes
💥more bureaucracy
💥more regulation
💥more immigration
💥more expensive energy
My Boston & Skegness constituents will become poorer along with everyone else

The party has not sent out a full press release about the announcements.

The government has confirmed that no further cash will be sent to Rwanda as part of the deportation deal signed by the last government.

As PA Media reports, asked about an additional £100m which had been due to go to Rwanda as part of the previous Tory government’s asylum scheme, the prime minister’s spokesperson told reporters:

Yes, we are clear that that money won’t be sent to Rwanda.

We’ve been very clear that the partnership with Rwanda has finished.

The home secretary’s going to provide an update shortly after she’s analysed all the details around both the money, the legislation and the processes.

We’re clear we will repeal the Safety of Rwanda Act, we will terminate the agreement.

Yvette Cooper’s update will also analyse “the existing legislation and how it interacts with the new legislation”, he said.

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In the Commons Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, said he was “disappointed” that abolishing the two-child benefit cap did not feature in the king’s speech. He told MPs:

This is a policy – an iniquitous, heinous policy – which was introduced by the former Conservative government in 2015.

Each and every one of us in this chamber knows that it retains children in poverty – hundreds of thousands of children across these isles.

In Scotland alone, it impacts 27,000 households. It’s estimated that 14,000 children would immediately be taken out of poverty were it to be scrapped, but it was not mentioned in the government’s programme for government today.

Instead, all we have heard is that a taskforce is going to be created – no timeframe for that taskforce, no indication of when that taskforce will conclude, and all the while, those children will remain in poverty.

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Theo Bertram, who worked as an adviser in Downing Street in the last Labour government and who now runs the Social Market Foundation thinktank, has posted a message on X saying he cannot see the point of the announcement this afternoon about the child poverty ministerial taskforce. (See 3.09pm.)

Hard to work out logic of this

-Distracts from King’s Speech

-Undermines No10 credibility: wobble at 1st rebellion

-A child poverty taskforce can only conclude 2 child cap must go (& cld do so immediately)

-Does it buy time? Yes but at cost of starting countdown clock on U-turn

That prompted this reply from the writer and policy expert Sam Freedman.

I’ve never understood the point of turing this into a fight. No way it could ever hold.

Bertram replied:

The campaign logic was combination of:

1. threat of Tory attack on where £3.5bn spending commitment would come from

2. public opinion against it

3. fear of loss of credibility with markets

Some of those fears have clearly diminished now

And Freedman replied:

Agreed – but they could have been clearer they wanted the policy to go and removing it would be a priority when finances allowed.

Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, is speaking now. He says, as MPs campaigned during the election, they heard constant complaints about nothing working. The public overwhelmingly rejected the Tories, he says.

But he says the scale of the problem is huge.

He says the Liberal Democrats will tell the government when they think it is wrong, but that if what it is doing is right, they will support it.

Starmer says he wants everyone, no matter where they started in life, to feel that success can belong to them.

The DUP’s Jim Shannon asks what Starmer’s plan is for Northern Ireland.

Starmer says it was important to him to go to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland within days of becoming PM. He says he worked on reforming the police service in Northern Ireland. He says it matters to him.

Getting back to the king’s speech, he says the government will reform the NHS and schools.

And he confirms his intention to halve violence against women and girls. He refers to how inspired he was by the story of the parents of Jane Clough, who was killed by an ex-partner. He met them when he was director of public prosecutions, and he says their story brought home to him what public service can achieve.

Starmer says the government will serve everyone, whether they voted Labour or not.

And, addressing opposition MPs, he says, if they are invested in their areas, he will work with them in the best interests of those places. That is what service means, he says.