Rachel Reeves set to confirm extra money to spend on areas outside south-east – UK politics live

Reeves to announce billions in regional spending after Treasury rule changes

Rachel Reeves is preparing to announce billions of pounds’ worth of extra spending for areas outside south-east England at next month’s spending review, after rewriting Treasury investment rules.

Reporting on the story, the Guardian’s political correspondent, Kiran Stacey writes:

The chancellor will unveil the extra capital spending after a review of the Treasury’s “green book”, which determines how officials calculate the costs and benefits of a scheme.

Critics say the rules are biased in favour of more economically productive areas of the country, and Reeves has promised a review to be published on the same day as the spending review.

The announcement, which was first revealed by the Times, comes as ministers look for ways to combat the threat of Reform UK in the “red wall” of seats in the north and Midlands, which were won by the Conservatives in 2019 and taken by Labour last year. Those areas are likely to be hit by reduced departmental spending, which Reeves will also lay out at the spending review.

In other news today, the government is setting out funding allocations for building repairs, with ministers saying children and patients deserve to be safe and comfortable in schools and hospitals across England.

Schools minister Catherine McKinnell and shadow paymaster general Richard Holden are on morning media round, so we’ll be hearing from them soon. And, Farage has announced Reform UK are now accepting donations in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

More on all of the above in a moment, but first, here are some other developments:

The UK is on the brink of signing a £1.6bn trade agreement with Gulf states, amid warnings from rights groups that the deal makes no concrete provisions on human rights, modern slavery or the environment. The deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council – which includes the countries Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is within touching distance, making it a fourth trading agreement by Keir Starmer after pacts were struck with the US, India and the EU.
Andrew Bailey has urged the UK government to deepen ties with the EU, as he warned a breakdown in global trade would make it harder for the Bank of England to control inflation. In a speech in Dublin on Thursday, the Bank’s governor said a stronger relationship between London and Brussels could “minimise negative effects” of Brexit on trade.
Kemi Badenoch has accused the Labour and Reform leaders of asking people to “fund unlimited child support for others” by scrapping the two-child benefit cap. Writing in the Daily Mail, the Tory leader accused Starmer and Farage of engaging in a “race to the bottom” on welfare.
Nigel Farage has launched a second attack video aimed at Anas Sarwar and accused the Scottish Labour leader of being “obsessed about race”, escalating the increasingly personal row before a key Holyrood byelection. The campaign for the central Scotland seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse is rapidly evolving into a head-to-head contest between the two party leaders. A Reform UK advert that incorrectly claims Sarwar has promised to prioritise Pakistani communities is now subject to formal complaints to Meta from Scottish Labour and the SNP.
“Millionaires” should not get “subsidy for their energy bills from the government”, a Treasury minister has suggested. Darren Jones has said that winter fuel payments will “still be targeted to those that need it the most”.
The treatment of autistic people who are referred to the government’s deradicalisation scheme could be in breach of equality laws, a human rights charity has claimed. In a pre-action letter to the Home Office, Rights & Security International (RSI) said it was “deeply concerned about a potential ongoing failure to collect and analyse data on the protected characteristics of those referred to Prevent and that this constitutes an ongoing failure to comply with their public sector equality duty”.

Key events

Reform UK to accept donations via bitcoin, Nigel Farage says

Aneesa Ahmed

Reform UK will accept donations through bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Nigel Farage has announced.

During an appearance at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, where he was introduced as a “UK presidential candidate”, Farage said:

As of now, provided you are an eligible UK donor … we are the first political party in Britain that can accept donations in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

He said Reform was planning to introduce a cryptoassets and digital finance bill. This would cut capital gains tax on cryptoassets from 24% to 10%, turning the UK into a “crypto powerhouse”, he said. Farage added that the crypto legislation that his party had drawn up would include a “bitcoin digital reserve in the Bank of England”.

Farage said the bill would make it illegal for banks to debank customers who use and trade in cryptocurrency.

On Thursday the Reform website was updated to accept cryptocurrency donations. There was a disclaimer stating that all donations were subject to Electoral Commission rules and that anonymous donations were not permissible.

At the conference, Farage called the acceptance of political donations “innovative”, before commending the US for being “ahead” with their stance on digital assets.

Farage said:

My message to the British public, and my message particularly to young people, is to help us to help you bring our country properly into the 21st century.

Let’s recognise that crypto and digital assets are here to stay.

“Millionaires” should not get “subsidy for their energy bills from the government”, a Treasury minister has suggested, according to the PA news agency

Darren Jones has said that winter fuel payments will “still be targeted to those that need it the most”.

Keir Starmer said at prime minister’s questions last week that he wants to restore the payments to more pensioners, after pressure from campaigners, signalling a partial U-turn on one of Labour’s first announcements in government.

He claimed that the UK’s improving economic prospects could allow for the move at the next fiscal event. The partial U-turn came as ministers are continuing to face calls to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

Speaking to Sky News on Thursday evening, chief secretary to the Treasury Jones was asked about Reform UK’s commitments on both the winter fuel and benefit cap policies.
“All of those things cost money,” Jones said. “It’s right that we set out the detail and how we’re going to pay for those in a proper and orderly way.”

He added:

We’re sticking to the principle that millionaires shouldn’t be getting subsidy for their energy bills from the government, so winter fuel payments will still be targeted to those that need it the most.

Jones also touched on the government’s approach to child poverty, telling the same programme that “we’re a Labour government we want child poverty to be falling in this country, not rising”. He added: “Of course, we want to help families lift themselves out of poverty.”

Starmer said he is looking at “all options” to drive down child poverty when asked if he would like to get rid of the two-child benefit cap on Thursday. Speaking on a visit to the north-west, the prime minister said:

There isn’t a single bullet, but I’m absolutely determined that we will drive this down, and that’s why we’ll look at all options, always, of driving down child poverty.

Kalyeena Makortoff

The energy watchdog for Great Britain has fined three companies £8m for failing to respond to some gas leak emergencies quickly enough, potentially putting the public at “serious risk”.

Ofgem said the three firms – Cadent Gas, Scotland Gas Networks (SGN Scotland) and Southern Gas Networks (SGN Southern) – had agreed to pay the fine after missing callout targets that require them to attend suspected gas leaks within one to two hours in 97% of cases.

An investigation by the regulator found that all three had fallen short of that target between 2022 and 2023. Ofgem said the fines would be paid into the regulator’s voluntary redress fund “in acknowledgment of the potentially serious risk to the public in failing to meet these targets”.

Ofgem’s director of market oversight and enforcement, Cathryn Scott, said:

The potential risk to households and businesses if gas leaks aren’t investigated quickly is significant, so it’s right that the companies involved have acknowledged the seriousness of missing these targets.

Scott said the regulator was confident that all three companies had since improved their systems and processes to “make sure this doesn’t happen again” and had met their targets in the two years since the breach.

Jessica Elgot

The UK is on the brink of signing a £1.6bn trade agreement with Gulf states, amid warnings from rights groups that the deal makes no concrete provisions on human rights, modern slavery or the environment.

The deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council – which includes the countries Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is within touching distance, making it a fourth trading agreement by Keir Starmer after pacts were struck with the US, India and the EU.

The UK has said it hopes the deal will eventually add an extra £8.6bn a year to trade between the UK and GCC countries by 2035. Sources close to the negotiations in the oil-rich region said the deal was now at its final stages and they expected UK agreement imminently.

The deal is likely to be particularly beneficial for the car industry and financial services, though estimates suggest that a free trade agreement would be worth less than 0.1% of GDP over the next decade.

However, there is likely to be a backlash over a deal on chicken imports, where lower animal welfare standards could significantly undercut British farmers.

The TUC is among those who have urged caution over the deal and has raised concerns with ministers, the Guardian understands.

Human rights groups have previously said the UK should not finalise a free trade agreement without legal commitments on human rights improvements, especially for migrant workers.

Welfare reforms will lead to rise in homelessness, charities warn government

Going ahead with welfare reforms will drive more people into homelessness, a number of major charities have warned the government, reports the PA news agency.

Shelter and Crisis are among the signatories to a letter to the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, voicing concerns over the risks from her proposed changes to the benefits system.

The government is already under pressure over the controversial reforms, with more than 40 Labour MPs earlier this month urging the prime minister to pause and reassess planned cuts, saying the proposals are “impossible to support”.

The proposed reforms, set out earlier this year, would tighten the eligibility criteria for personal independence payment (Pip) – the main disability benefit in England – and see the sickness-related element of universal credit (UC) cut.

A letter, coordinated by the St Mungo’s homelessness charity, has stated the “deep concern” organisations within the sector feel about the reforms.

In the letter, which has also been sent to deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner, they said:

We can only conclude that the proposed changes will increase the number of people at risk of becoming homeless for the first time, increase the number of people we have helped resolve their homelessness fall back into it and increase the length of time it takes to resolve people’s homelessness in the future.

According to the PA news agency, they said that while they share the government’s “ambition to establish a thriving and inclusive labour market and give people the opportunities and support they need to get back to work”, the reforms “will not help achieve your ambition and therefore we as a sector cannot support them”.

The letter said that the reforms will “push people further away from the labour market, increase homelessness and put excessive pressure on statutory services”.

They said increases in already record levels of homelessness “will have a catastrophic impact on mental and physical health, education and employment opportunities” and have a “domino effect of imposing a significant financial cost to the state” in paying for more temporary accommodation and emergency homelessness services.

The charities added:

Homelessness devastates people’s chances of employment. These cuts and eligibility restrictions will not give people a pathway to work and we urge the Government to reconsider its position.

Emma Haddad, chief executive of St Mungo’s, said:

Many people rely on these benefits to manage complex health conditions as part of their recovery from homelessness and pay for essential utilities. With already eyewatering rents, these benefits help people cover their additional costs.

Without them, we fear people will be increasingly unable to afford to secure somewhere safe to live.

Homelessness has already pushed these people to the edge. We should be supporting them to rebuild their lives, not creating more challenges for them to overcome.

A government spokesperson said:

We will never compromise on protecting people who need our support, and our reforms will mean the social security system will always be there for those who will never be able to work.

At the heart of the government’s reforms is a £1bn scheme to help the long-term sick or disabled out of poverty and into good, secure jobs.

We have also raised the national living wage, increased benefits and given additional help to the poorest households, as part of our Plan for Change.

Schools and hospitals ‘not over hurdle’ of unsafe concrete, says minister

Schools minister Catherine McKinnell said the government will make “substantial progress” in rebuilding schools, but was unable to provide a target for how much of the maintenance backlog would be dealt with.

Catherine McKinnell told BBC Breakfast on Friday:

We will make a substantial progress on rebuilding our schools during the next few years.

We have just under 600 schools in the rebuilding schools programme, we are really accelerating it actually.

Asked whether she could provide a figure for how much of the £14bn maintenance backlog would be eliminated or how when schools would be free of Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete), she could not.

She added:

We are working very hard, but you can’t just switch a switch and fix everything overnight.

Asked again about Raac in an interview on Friday with LBC, McKinnell said:

We’re not over that hurdle yet, and we’re not over it in the NHS either.

According to the PA news agency, she went on to say that “we have identified all the Raac” and there are plans for buildings to either be fixed or rebuilt “because [ …] the fact that they have Raac in them means that they’re probably a substantial age as a building”.

Kiran Stacey

Keir Starmer is braced for a major rebellion against his attempts to cut benefits when they come to a vote next month, with dozens of Labour MPs preparing to vote against the measures.

Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, has been setting out her reasons for rebelling against the government this morning, telling the Today programme the plan is based on “very weak” evidence.

“How does cutting people’s benefits help? No one can answer this question,” she said. “The government hasn’t provided any evidence of that and is expecting MPs to vote on it without providing that evidence.”

She added:

We can reduce the welfare budget in the long term, but that requires spending in the short term on our public services – on the NHS, on good quality social housing, better wages, etc. Cutting people’s benefits does nothing to help people.

Whittome’s backbench colleague Jake Richards defended the government, however, telling the programme:

The status quo isn’t working, the benefits system is not fit for purpose.

Starmer and Farage in ‘race to the bottom’ on child benefit cap, says Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch has accused the Labour and Reform leaders of asking people to “fund unlimited child support for others” by scrapping the two-child benefit cap, reports the PA news agency.

Her comments come after Nigel Farage announced his party would abolish the cap as part of a series of spending promises including reinstating the winter fuel allowance and changing rules on tax-free allowances for married couples.

At the same time, Keir Starmer said his government was looking at “all options” to drive down child poverty, but has not committed to getting rid of the cap.

Writing in the Daily Mail, the Tory leader accused Starmer and Farage of engaging in a “race to the bottom” on welfare.

She said:

Apparently, Starmer and Farage now believe in getting taxpayers – many of whom are struggling to raise their own children or choosing not to have them in the first place – to fund unlimited child support for others.

That’s not fair, it’s not sustainable and it’s not even compassionate. Welfare traps people, builds dependency and it drives up costs for everyone.

Badenoch said both leaders’ comments on the cap showed they were “content to make promises they can’t keep”, arguing the Conservatives were “going to be the party of sound money and fiscal responsibility again”.

The cap, introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, prevents universal credit claimants from receiving additional benefits for a third or subsequent child born after 5 April 2017.
Campaigners say the cap exacerbates child poverty and has had a minimal impact on birthrate or family-size.

The Child Poverty Action Group has said abolishing the cap would lift 350,000 children out of poverty and mean another 700,000 were in less deep poverty.

Reeves to announce billions in regional spending after Treasury rule changes

Reporting on the story, the Guardian’s political correspondent, Kiran Stacey writes:

The chancellor will unveil the extra capital spending after a review of the Treasury’s “green book”, which determines how officials calculate the costs and benefits of a scheme.

Critics say the rules are biased in favour of more economically productive areas of the country, and Reeves has promised a review to be published on the same day as the spending review.

The announcement, which was first revealed by the Times, comes as ministers look for ways to combat the threat of Reform UK in the “red wall” of seats in the north and Midlands, which were won by the Conservatives in 2019 and taken by Labour last year. Those areas are likely to be hit by reduced departmental spending, which Reeves will also lay out at the spending review.

More on all of the above in a moment, but first, here are some other developments:

The UK is on the brink of signing a £1.6bn trade agreement with Gulf states, amid warnings from rights groups that the deal makes no concrete provisions on human rights, modern slavery or the environment. The deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council – which includes the countries Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is within touching distance, making it a fourth trading agreement by Keir Starmer after pacts were struck with the US, India and the EU.
Andrew Bailey has urged the UK government to deepen ties with the EU, as he warned a breakdown in global trade would make it harder for the Bank of England to control inflation. In a speech in Dublin on Thursday, the Bank’s governor said a stronger relationship between London and Brussels could “minimise negative effects” of Brexit on trade.
Kemi Badenoch has accused the Labour and Reform leaders of asking people to “fund unlimited child support for others” by scrapping the two-child benefit cap. Writing in the Daily Mail, the Tory leader accused Starmer and Farage of engaging in a “race to the bottom” on welfare.
Nigel Farage has launched a second attack video aimed at Anas Sarwar and accused the Scottish Labour leader of being “obsessed about race”, escalating the increasingly personal row before a key Holyrood byelection. The campaign for the central Scotland seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse is rapidly evolving into a head-to-head contest between the two party leaders. A Reform UK advert that incorrectly claims Sarwar has promised to prioritise Pakistani communities is now subject to formal complaints to Meta from Scottish Labour and the SNP.
“Millionaires” should not get “subsidy for their energy bills from the government”, a Treasury minister has suggested. Darren Jones has said that winter fuel payments will “still be targeted to those that need it the most”.
The treatment of autistic people who are referred to the government’s deradicalisation scheme could be in breach of equality laws, a human rights charity has claimed. In a pre-action letter to the Home Office, Rights & Security International (RSI) said it was “deeply concerned about a potential ongoing failure to collect and analyse data on the protected characteristics of those referred to Prevent and that this constitutes an ongoing failure to comply with their public sector equality duty”.