Early evening summary
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is launching a £7.3bn national wealth fund, as part of a drive by the newly elected Labour government to attract billions of pounds of private sector cash for big infrastructure projects across the UK. As Kalyeena Makortoff and Julia Kollewe report, the NWF, which Reeves said would be established “in less than a week”, is designed to help projects such as ports, gigafactories, hydrogen and steel projects to attract a mix of investment, aiming for roughly £3 of private funds for every £1 of taxpayer cash.
Keir Starmer has used his first speech in the Commons as prime minister to urge MPs to “replace the politics of performance with the politics of service”. Speaking in a short debate following the election of the new speaker, he said the new Commons is “the most diverse parliament by race and gender this country has ever seen”, with the largest cohort of LGBT+ MPs in the world.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has said she wants to end the era of her department engaging in “culture wars”. In a message to staff, she said:
The era of culture wars is over.
Our government will be different.
A few years ago, the Royal Exchange in Manchester put on a play about the women of the miners strike.
And on one of my council estates in Wigan, working class women hired a coach to go and see it.
It was a story that had been told about their lives so many times without them in it.
And it was magical to see their response to being put at the centre of their own story again.
That is how I intend us to serve our country.
Celebrating and championing the diversity and rich inheritance of our communities and the people in them.
Under the Conservatives, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport was often accused of engaging in “culture war” politics because it seemed preoccupied with attacking cultural institutions, and the BBC, over activities that could be seen as too “woke”.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has said that he wants to turn the Department of Health and Social Care into “an economic growth department”. (See 2.04pm.)
Bob Blackman is the new chairman of the Conservative Party’s 1922 committee of backbench MPs, PA reports. Of the 98 votes cast, Bob Blackman received 61 and Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown 37.
Streeting says there is 'lot we can do' to improve conditions for junior doctors in upbeat statement after pay talks
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he was “optimistic” before his talks with the BMA junior doctors’ committee today (see 1.17pm) and he used the same word after their meeting.
In a statement issued after talks were over, he also said he was “angry” about the way junior doctors are treated in the NHS and that there was “a lot we can do to change that”. He said:
I met face to face with the junior doctors committee today to hit the reset button on relations between the government and junior doctors.
Patients, staff, and the NHS have already paid too high a price due to strike action, and I’m optimistic that we can bring this to an end.
It’s not going to be easy. This government has inherited the worst set of economic circumstances since the second world war. But both sides have shown willingness to negotiate and we are determined to do the hard work required to find a way through. I am angry about the way the junior doctors are treated in the NHS, and there is a lot we can do to change that.
Junior doctors are the future of the health service and I want to work with them to turn around our NHS.
I’m looking forward to meeting them again next week to discuss what went wrong in past talks, and to make further progress on finding a solution to this dispute.
DfE accepts resignation of Tory appointee James Wharton as chair of Office for Students
James Wharton, the Conservative peer and former minister, has resigned as chair of the Office for Students, the higher education regulator for England.
Wharton’s appointment to chair the nominally independent regulator in 2021 was controversial because of his close ties to the then prime minister, Boris Johnson (he had run Johnson’s campaign for the Tory leadership) and for his lack of relevant experience in regulation or higher education.
A Department for Education spokesperson said:
The Department for Education would like to thank Lord Wharton, for his service as chair of the Office for Students, through a period of change and challenge at the OfS.
Lord Wharton’s resignation has been accepted. The process to appoint an interim chair is underway, and a permanent replacement will be announced in due course.
During Wharton’s tenure the OfS was rebuked by the House of Lords’ industry and regulators committee for its lack of political independence, with the committee arguing that the OfS’s actions “often appear driven by the ebb and flow of short-term political priorities and media headlines”.
The regulator was also criticised for its “nonchalance” in dealing with the mounting financial stresses facing universities, and for losing the sector’s trust.
Boris Johnson has posted a message on X attacking the government for getting rid of levelling up. (See 9.41am.)
Axing levelling up shows lack of ambition and a failure to believe in this country’s potential. Labour will axe Brexit next. Then they will pointlessly whack up taxes. The drift backwards has begun.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) July 9, 2024
Axing levelling up shows lack of ambition and a failure to believe in this country’s potential. Labour will axe Brexit next. Then they will pointlessly whack up taxes. The drift backwards has begun.
The government insists it is just the slogan that it dropping, not the intention to address regional inequalities.
BMA say meeting with Streeting aimed at resolving junior doctors' pay dispute was 'positive'
Junior doctors in England have described their meeting with Wes Streeting today aimed at resolving their pay dispute as “positive”.
As PA Media reports, more talks are expected to take place next week, Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairmen of the British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors’ committee said afterwards.
Trivedi said:
It was a positive meeting, we were pleased to be able to meet the secretary of state and his team so quickly after the general election – it signifies the urgency that they’re placing on resolving this dispute which has already lasted 20 months.
The meeting today was positive and we’ve already agreed to meet again next week with the secretary of state to further discuss how we can progress.
Today we talked a little bit about some of the roadblocks that have prevented us from progressing so far, and how we can navigate through those to reach a resolution.
Laurenson added:
This secretary of state actually wanted to learn what was going wrong and why things were stalling, and we’re happy to have those conversations.
This meeting was definitely a positive step, but I don’t think we can place … a certainty on how quickly things are going to take to resolve, or what might need to happen to make things resolve.
This was definitely a collaborative talk, and I think it’s fair to say we have no plans at the moment to call for strike action.
Laurenson said that the talks today covered Streeting’s plans for reform, and that the BMA wanted to hear what he was considering. He went on:
This is a complex negotiation and it’s going to take some time.
This was a positive first step, but that’s all it was the first step. There’s much more meat that needs to be added to the bones before we’re going to be able to come out with any sort of agreement.
Now it’s just down to the government to be able to come up with a credible offer through the series of negotiations that we’re about to go into.
Trivedi said the BMA did not expect a resolution today. They just wanted to be listened to, “which is what happened,” he said. He said if both sides continued in good faith, he hoped they could reach a resolution.
Keir Starmer chose to affirm, rather than swear his oath on the bible. He said:
I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles his heirs and successors, according to the law.
Ben Houchen says Tories will be 'in opposition for generations to come' if they chose Braverman as leader
Back in the world outside the House of Commons, Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, has given an interview to Times Radio in which he did his best to bury Suella Braverman’s leadership bid.
Houchen, a Johnsonite Tory (which means he is often assumed to be on the right, although Boris Johnson and Houchen are not small state obsessives and arguably they are more leftwing than Rishi Sunak), said he thought Braverman had already “shot herself in the foot” as a leadership candidate.
He explained:
I don’t think [what Braverman is offering] is a credible offering and the MPs and the members that I speak to are not interested in the divisive, rightwing politics of Suella Braverman.
The fact that she continues to entertain Reform, and even in an interview the other day didn’t rule out joining Reform, shows just how out of step she is.
I also think if the Conservative party decides to go down the route of somebody like Suella Braverman, then we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come.
The road of redemption for the Conservative party can be as long or as short as we wish to make it. And the idea that we should be more rightwing – that is not the Conservative party that I recognise. And I absolutely wouldn’t support that. She, before the leadership contest has even started, has shot herself in the foot …
Suella Braverman could make her case if she wants to put herself forward for leadership. I think she’ll fail. I think it’s not something that the Conservative party will entertain.
And I think what you will find is the vast majority of the mainstream Conservative party recognises that it’s not about ideology why we lost. It wasn’t because we were too leftwing or too rightwing. It was about trust. It was about competence. And it was about the fact that the public had lost all confidence in us in being able to deliver effective governance.
MPs are now swearing in.
Edward Leigh and Diane Abbott, as the father and mother of the House, went first, followed by Keir Starmer. Other ministers are now taking the oath.
Updated
MPs due to start summer recess on Tuesday 30 July, Hoyle tells MPs
In the Commons Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, has just taken the oath.
In a statement, he tells MPs the arrangements for swearing in over the next few days.
He reminds MPs that they will be on camera when swearing in.
And he says the government has told him that the House will rise for the summer recess on Tuesday 30 July.
MPs are back in the Lords now, where Lindsay Hoyle is telling the royal commission that he got the job of speaker. His spiel includes a line saying that, if he mucks up, it will be his fault, not the Commons’.
In response Angela Smith, on behalf of the commission, tells Hoyle that His Majesty will always place the most favourable construction on Hoyle’s actions.
Updated
Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster, thanks Hoyle for treating all MPs equally, including those from small parties.
Adrian Ramsay, co-leader of the Green party, says the Green MPs are all grateful for the support they have had. They are conscious of the need to represent their constituents, he says.
Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, says he is looking forward to holding the government to account on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland.
Sorcha Eastwood, the Alliance MP, praises Hoyle for looking after the interests of smaller parties.
Jim Allister from Traditional Unionist Voice is the last party representative to speak. He says his priority is to stop Northern Ireland being subject to EU law.
And that’s the end of these proceedings. The Commons is now suspended.
UPDATE: Allister said:
We must end the partitioning of our kingdom by a foreign border, and we must end a situation where 300 areas of law in Northern Ireland are not controlled by this House, not controlled by Stormont, but controlled by a foreign Parliament, that is an appalling constitutional afront. And my focus in this House will be in playing my part in seeking to redress that gross inequity.
Updated
Nigel Farage uses first speech in Commons as MP to attack John Bercow, claiming he tried to 'overturn' Brexit
Gavin Robinson, the DUP leader, gives a short speech paying tribute to Hoyle.
And Nigel Farage gets called next as leader of Reform UK.
He says he has not sat in the Commons before, so he cannot judge him by experience. But he says he can judge Hoyle by how he is seen by the outside world.
We can judge you from the way the outside world sees you. I don’t just mean United Kingdom, I mean the world because Prime Minister’s Questions time is global box office politics, and it’s pretty clear everybody that you act with great neutrality. You have bought tremendous dignity to the role as speaker so we absolutely endorse you entirely for this job.
Farage goes on to say that Hoyle is better than “the little man that was there before you” – John Bercow. He says he disgraced his office “dreadfully’. He did his best “to overturn the biggest democratic result in the history of the country”.
Some MPs start to protest about Farage going party political. But at this point Farage ends.
UPDATE: Farage said:
We absolutely endorse [Hoyle] entirely for this job. And it is, I must say, in marked contrast to the little man that was there before you and besmirched the office so dreadfully in doing his best to overturn the biggest democratic result in the history of the country. We support you Sir fully.
Updated
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, welcomes the new Scottish MPs to parliament. But there are more of them than he would like to have seen, he says, joking about the large number of Scottish Labour MPs elected, at the expense of his party.
He says he and Hoyle have not aways seen eye to eye. (In the last parliament Flynn said the SNP no longer had confidence in Hoyle, after he gave a controversial ruling that stopped MPs voting on an SNP backbench motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.) He goes on:
In politics and in life,I think it’s important to a bygones be bygones, and to focus on the future.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, goes next. He says the Liberal Democrats want to hold the government to account as they clear up the mess left by the previous government.
There seems to be a bit of grumbling about the fact that Davey is getting party political, which is frowned on on a day like this.
Diane Abbott is speaking now. She congratulates the 304 new MPs. And she says she is glad they get a proper induction process. When she was first elected, MPs just got a bunch of keys, she says.
When she was first elected, there were only 40 female MPs, she says. Now there are 264, she says. She pays tribute to what her predecessor as mother of the House, Harriet Harman, did to help this happen.
UPDATE: Abbott said:
When I was a new member in 1987, there were only 40 female members of parliament. Today we have 264, and some of us are glad that we have lived to see this. And I can’t speak about the increased numbers of female members of parliament without referencing my predecessor Baroness Harriet Harman, who did so much to work to have an equal and diverse House.
We are going into very tumultuous times, and historically, this House has played a role in these events both nationally and internationally. And I’m sure it will be the same going forward, and we will be presided over in the excellent way of the speaker elect.
Updated
Edward Leigh goes next. He says his predecessor as father of the house, Peter Bottomley, advised him to “have fun, do some good, and make people happy”. That is what the speaker does, he says.
Sunak says sorry to Tory MPs who lost their seats
Rishi Sunak is speaking now.
He congratulates Starmer on his victory, and he says MPs can argue vigorously, as he and Starmer did over the election campaign, “but still respect each other”.
He says MPs are there to serve their constituents, and he urges the new arrivals not to foget that.
He says he has a message for his party.
Let me begin with a message to those who are no longer sitting behind me. I am sorry. We have lost too many diligent, community-spirited representatives, whose wisdom and expertise will be missed in the debates and discussions ahead.
Starmer says new Commons will have largest cohort of LGBT+ members of any parliament in world
Keir Starmer is now speaking. He congratulates Hoyle on his re-election, and starts by recalling how Hoyle support Craig Mackinlay when he returned to the Commons having had his hands and feet amputated after he got sepsis.
He congratulates Edward Leigh on being father of the House.
He says this parliament is the most diverse by race and gender the country has ever seen. It has the largest cohort of LGBT+ MPs of any parliament in the world, he says.
And he also pays tribute to Diane Abbott, saying she has done so much over many years to fight for a representative parliament. He says he welcomes her back.
(Starmer glosses over the fact that Abbott almost did not get re-elected, because she was suspended from the PLP until almost the last moment. It was widely assumed that Starmer did not want her back.)
Starmer says he hopes the new parliament will replace the “politics of performance with the politics of service”.
He says they all have a duty to show that politics can be a force for good.
UPDATE: Starmer said:
Mr Speaker-elect you preside over a new parliament, the most diverse parliament by race and gender this country has ever seen.
And I’m proud of the part that my party has played, proud of the part that every party has played in that. Including, in this intake, the largest cohort of LGBT+ MPs of any parliament in the world.
And given all that diversity, Mr Speaker-elect, I hope you will not begrudge me for a slight departure from convention to also pay tribute to the new mother of the House, Diane Abbott who has done so much in her career over so many years to fight for a parliament that truly represents modern Britain. We welcome her back to her place.
Updated
Lindsay Hoyle re-elected as speaker
Edward Leigh moves the motion, that Hoyle should be speaker. The vote is taken by acclamation. There are loud “ayes”, and no one shouts no.
Then Hoyle is “dragged” to the chair by Cat Smith and David Davis. That is a tradition intended to recall the time when speakers were reluctant to take the job, because several of them had their heads chopped off by the monarch.
Updated
Cat Smith (Lab) is speaking now, moving the motion that Hoyle should be speaker. She is a fellow Lancashire MP and she starts by saying he is a great champion of the county.
On his qualifications for the job, she says he is hugely experienced, and has championed the interests of backbenchers. He is “annoyingly right about many things”, which is a good Lancashire trait, she says.
Hoyle thanks Edward Leigh and Diane Abbott for their support. There is a particularly loud cheer for Abbott.
He says he has had a most unusual speakership, having to deal with Covid, and using new technology to allow President Zelenskiy to address the chamber. He had to deal with the death of the Queen, and the coronation, he says. He says he has been speaker during the tenure of three prime minister, two monarchs – and one Jim Shannon.
That is a joke about Shannon, the DUP MP, who is a particular assiduous attender of Commons debates – and well-liked too.
Lindsay Hoyle, the Chorley MP and speaker in the last parliament, is speaking now in the chamber.
He says this was the first election he fought without his father, Doug, to support him. He died earlier this year. Doug Hoyle was a Labour MP and peer, and a chair of the parlimantary Labour party.
After the clerk has finished his spiel, Smith tells MPs, on behalf of the king, that they should head back to their chamber and then find “some proper person” to act as speaker.
Angela Smith, leader of the Lords, addresses MPs in the Lords chamber. She says it was not convenient for the king to show up himself, but that on his behalf she has a message for them.
A clerk reads out the message in full. The gist of it is, again, that the king is sorry that he’s otherwise engaged, but that he has got a royal commission standing in on his behalf and that they are authorised to start a new parliament.
In the House of Lords a royal commission (for these purposes, five peers in robes and hats) has formed to send a message to the Commons saying they should attend.
The commission then despatched Black Rod to the Commons to summon MPs. That has just happened and they are now off to the Lords, led by Edward Leigh, the father of the House.
From the BBC’s Joe Pike
Labour MPs stand, applaud and cheer as Starmer arrives. Conservative stay seated but cheer as Sunak walks in.
— Joe Pike (@joepike) July 9, 2024
Starmer walks across to Jeremy Hunt to congratulate him on his (perhaps unexpected) reelection.
Labour MPs stand, applaud and cheer as Starmer arrives. Conservative stay seated but cheer as Sunak walks in.
Starmer walks across to Jeremy Hunt to congratulate him on his (perhaps unexpected) reelection.
MPs meet to elect speaker
The Commons is now sitting for the first time since the election.
They are due to elect the speaker.
But first they have to be summoned to the House of Lords, where a royal commission tells them to elect a speaker.
Rob Ford, a politics professor, says the electoral recovery strategy being set out by some of the speakers at the PopCons conference today (see 12.11pm, 12.35pm and 1.46pm) is unlikely to work. He has posted these on X explaining why.
The main opponents Conservatives need to defeat to win back seats are Labour (Con second to Lab in 219 seats) and Lib Dems (Con second to Lib Dems in 64 seats)
— Rob Ford (@robfordmancs) July 9, 2024
So naturally many in the party are arguing for an all out focus on Reform (Con second to Reform in…2 seats)
The main opponents Conservatives need to defeat to win back seats are Labour (Con second to Lab in 219 seats) and Lib Dems (Con second to Lib Dems in 64 seats)
So naturally many in the party are arguing for an all out focus on Reform (Con second to Reform in…2 seats)
Targeting the local winner is smart strategy because votes won from them count double - one off their pile, one on to yours. A smart Tory strategy would therefore start with “how do we win back votes from Lab and LDs?”
If you don’t understand the incentives and consraints of the electoral system and political geography you are competing with, then you can’t win. Squeezing Reform will achieve next to nothing if it puts off Con-Lab or Con-LD switchers, who count much more.
Given how volatile politics is now, I don’t think a substantial Con recovery can be counted out. But I don’t think it can happen until and unless the party develops an interest in speaking to the people and places who actually decide elections. The current Labour team has a laser focus on such voters and until you’re on the pitch competing for their favours, you’re going to get crushed.
Streeting says he wants to turn Department of Health into 'economic growth department'
Wes Streeting has said that he wants to turn the Department of Health and Social Care into “an economic growth department”.
In his speech at the Tony Blair Institute’s Future of Britain Conference, Streeting said:
One of the things I’ve said to my department and to the NHS is we need to rethink our role in government, and in our country at large.
This is no longer simply a public services department. This is an economic growth department.
And the health of the nation and the health of the economy are inextricably linked. And that means we’re going to be a government that firstly recognises that fact, and recognises that as we get people not just back to health, but back to work, that’s a big contribution to growth.
This is not how the Department of Health has been seen in the past. But Streeting’s comments suggest he is fully aligned with Keir Starmer’s determination to lead a “mission-driven” government. The first, and most important, of Starmer’s five missions is securing the highest sustained growth in the G7, and mission-driven government is supposed to be about ensuring everything the government does is tailored around these goals, not just the work of the relevant government department.
Explaining how his department could promote growth, Streeting said:
I want to end the begging bowl culture, where the health secretary only ever goes to the Treasury to ask for more money. I want to deliver the Treasury billions of pounds of economic growth.
This government’s agenda for health and social care can help drag our economy out of the sluggish productivity and poor growth of recent years.
By cutting waiting lists, we can get Britain back to health and back to work, and by taking bold action on public health we can build the healthy society needed for a healthy economy.
We will make Britain a powerhouse for life sciences and medical technology. If we can combine the care of the NHS and the genius of our country’s leading scientific minds, we can develop modern treatments for patients and help get Britain’s economy booming.
The NHS and social care are the biggest employers in most parts of our country. They should be engines of economic growth, giving opportunities in training and work to local people, as well as providing public services.
When Keir Starmer said he would lead a mission-driven government, this is what he meant.
Updated
Lord Frost tells PopCons conference Tories lost election due to their 'mishmash of sub-socialist ideas'
A post-election gathering of the Liz Truss-ite wing of the Conservatives has been told that Reform poses an “existential threat” – and that the solution is for the party to move to the right and take back their voters.
With every MP associated with the Popular Conservatism (“PopCons”) group losing their seat, Truss among them, the gathering-cum-inquest heard from a former MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg, two Tory peers, David Frost and Daniel Hannan, and assorted others. (See 12.35pm.)
The one sitting Commons member appearing, Suella Braverman, was not previously part of the group and appeared in a recorded video from Washington DC, where she had been making a controversial speech to another event.
It was Braverman who called Reform an existential threat, saying millions of Conservative voters “are now their voters”, and would only be brought back by the Tories pledging to quit the European convention on human rights, abolishing the Equalities Act and tackle the “lunatic woke virus working its way through the British state”.
This was strong stuff, and matched by several other speakers, among them Frost, who complained that his party had “followed the collectivist zeitgeist leftwards” and presented policies that were “a flabby mishmash of sub-socialist ideas”.
Manifesto policy was not the only topic discussed at the event in Westminster, and it also featured much slightly niche, if very necessary, discussion of how to better energise and engage Tory members, and give them more say over a dictatorial Conservative central office.
But a certain amount of the policy talk risked being filed under “no compromise with the electorate”, with talk about “educating” the electorate that was reminiscent of some internal Labour discussions in the 1980s. It was notable, too, with all the talk about Margaret Thatcher’s mentor, Keith Joseph, and the sovereignty of parliament, how much more ideological it felt than Keir Starmer’s Labour.
There was, however, also much realism. “We are now in opposition. We have no power,” Rees-Mogg began. Monday’s reshuffle of the Tory frontbench “doesn’t matter”, he said, bluntly.
To his former ministerial colleagues, he added: “The car doesn’t move, the chauffeur has gone, the red boxes have gone.” It was, he said, time for “humility but not despair”.
A number of children have been brought ashore in Dover as migrants continued to cross the English Channel on Tuesday, PA Media reports. PA says:
People arrived on Border Force and RNLI lifeboats after making the journey amid calm sea conditions despite the overcast and rainy weather.
Pictures showed youngsters among the group of people wearing life jackets, and some wrapped in blankets, as they came into the Kent port.
Monday saw 65 people make the journey in one boat after a six-day pause in activity – the first crossings since Labour’s election victory.
The five Reform UK MPs turned up at the Commons together for the first time this morning. Here they are posing for a photograph.
Streeting says he's 'optimistic' ahead of talks with junior doctors about resolving ongoing pay dispute
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has said he is “optimistic” ahead of talks with junior doctors aimed at ending their long-running dispute over pay.
Speaking at the Tony Blair Institute’s Future of Britain Conference, Streeting said:
I’m seeing the junior doctors this afternoon, they are coming into the Department of Health. I know they’re coming in not just from my diary, but from the army of cameras and journalists currently stationed outside the department.
Asked if he was optimistic about the talks, he said:
Optimistic? Yes.
This is an important reset moment in the relationship between junior doctors and their government.
Junior doctors say their pay should rise by 35% to restore it to the level it would have been if it had kept pace with inflation over the past 15 years. But Streeting said pay was not the only issue. He told the conference:
In opposition, we were very clear that the headline 35% pay demand is not one that we could afford, and that has not changed since the general election.
The reason we were so blunt in opposition wasn’t simply about delivering a tough message, but about showing them the respect I think they are due, and a key ingredient of respect is honesty.
Secondly, beyond pay, there are a whole range of issues about how junior doctors are treated by their employer which I am genuinely angry about – in terms of their placements, their rotations.
The most egregious case I saw reported was a junior doctor whose wife had cancer, they had two kids, and there was no flexibility shown in where that family was placed, despite the obvious challenges of treatment and the obvious challenges of care.
And when there was a public outcry, lo and behold, the situation was resolved.
That is not an employer that is treating their staff well – so I think there are lots of issues we can make progress.
As PA Media reports, the BMA’s junior doctors’ committee has said Labour comments about pay rises being a “journey and not an event” align with their pay restoration goals.
Health leaders urged the government to resolve the dispute as a priority after NHS England said 61,989 appointments, procedures and operations had been postponed as a result of the latest walkout from 27 June to 2 July. That was the 11th by junior doctors in 20 months.
My colleague Peter Walker has been at the Popular Conservatism (sic) conference today. This is the rightwing group launched by Liz Truss and her supporters, but Truss herself is not speaking today and, judging by one of Peter’s pictures, the sketchwriters almost outnumber the normal attendees.
Scene for today’s Popular Conservatism post-election gathering in Westminster. We can all make the jokes about “popular”, but it’s 20 mins before it starts, and a fairly decent crowd for a weekday work-time event. pic.twitter.com/UnapEpX9HZ
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) July 9, 2024
Scene for today’s Popular Conservatism post-election gathering in Westminster. We can all make the jokes about “popular”, but it’s 20 mins before it starts, and a fairly decent crowd for a weekday work-time event.
Where the “popular” element does have more sting is electorally: every one of the Pop Cons’ MPs, including Liz Truss, lost their seats last week. We are hearing from one MP, Suella Braverman (via video link from the US), but she was not previously part of the group.
First speaker, former IEA head honcho Mark Littlewood, kicks off the event with a joke about the one advantage of being a diminished party means they can hold an event “without being serenaded by Steve Bray”.
Steve Bray, aka "Mr Stop Brexit”, the protester who almost drowned out the Rishi Sunak speech announcing the election playing Things can only get better through a loudspeaker, is normally outside Parliament on big days. But there was no sign of him when I came in this morning. Maybe he considers his work is done.
Mark Littlewood dismisses the idea of the Tories needing to shift to the centre. He says Reform did so well because the Tories had “vacated Conservative territory”. He adds that the defeat “is not Nigel Farage’s fault”.
Littlewood says the Tories need to “listen to the right of centre and electorate much more attentively”. My guess is that blue wall ex-Tories who went Lib Dem this time might consider themselves “right of centre”. But is there anything here for them? Not as yet.
Next up is Daniel Hannan, who argues that one big Tory error was to change leaders twice without an election. This was “catastrophic”, he says, giving the message, “you little voters will put up with whatever we tell you”. pic.twitter.com/NVfmSqyiLU
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) July 9, 2024
Next up is Daniel Hannan, who argues that one big Tory error was to change leaders twice without an election. This was “catastrophic”, he says, giving the message, “you little voters will put up with whatever we tell you”.
David Frost is finally breaking his long silence about what the Conservatives should do next. [niche joke]
Frost says the Tories’ mistake was to “follow the collectivist zeitgeist leftwards”. Frost says “the electorate is never wrong”, but at the same time there still has been no mention of all the centrist Tory voters who delivered so many seats to the Lib Dems last week.
Suella Braverman is not even talking live to the PopCons, but recorded a video message last night.
Braverman said the Conservatives failed because they failed to cut taxes or stop the “lunatic woke virus working its way through the British state”.
Primary school pupils in England still behind pre-Covid levels of attainment, Sats results show
Children finishing primary school in England this year are still struggling to catch up with pre-pandemic levels of attainment in maths and literacy, according to the Sats results published today by the Department for Education (DfE).
The results from pupils at the end of Year 6 showed that 61% met the DfE’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths, a slight improvement on the 60% who did so last year but still below the 65% recorded in 2019.
Maths in particular remains lower than before the pandemic, with 73% reaching the standard this year compared with 79% in 2019.
Catherine McKinnell, the schools minister for England, said:
Despite the brilliance of our teachers, these figures show there are far too many pupils who are not meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, and almost total stagnation in progress nationally over the past three years.
This government will give teachers and families the support their efforts deserve and make sure every child leaves primary school with strong foundations for future learning.
Rightwingers don't have clear majority in Tory parliamentary party, research suggests
Earlier this week we reported that Suella Braverman is increasingly seen by Tories as having no chance of being elected next leader. But she is not going down without a fight. Speaking to the Telegraph, she dismissed Robert Jenrick, one of her rivals, as a leftwinger. As Tony Diver reports in his story, Braverman said:
[Jenrick] definitely comes from the left of the party. He voted for remain in the Brexit referendum. He was a big, kind of centrist, Rishi supporter.
I remember talking to him about leaving the ECHR a year ago, and him looking horrified by that prospect. It’s really good that he’s moving in a different direction.
Another problem for Braverman is that the assumption that a landslide defeat would leave the parliamentary Conservative party more rightwing than it was before seems to be wrong. Christian Calgie from the Express has been analysing the politics of the 121 Tory MPs who were elected and almost half of them are centrists. And a fifth are new members who are hard to place.
NEW: Digging into the data about who the remaining 121 Tory MPs backed in 2022 suggests there's going to be a lot of noise and heat in the battle for the right, while Tugendhat may have a quiet and easy ride into the final two run-off https://t.co/lopTsmBaPV pic.twitter.com/KZcFrIlrwg
— Calgie (@christiancalgie) July 8, 2024
NEW: Digging into the data about who the remaining 121 Tory MPs backed in 2022 suggests there’s going to be a lot of noise and heat in the battle for the right, while Tugendhat may have a quiet and easy ride into the final two run-off
47% of sitting Tory MPs backed either Sunak, Mordaunt or Tugendhat - Penny’s defeat makes the path even easier for TT While 17% backed Liz Truss, and just 12% backed the ‘cultural conservatives’ including Patel, Braverman and Badenoch
What else does this tell us? That the leadership hopefuls better get working on the 26 new intake Tory MPs stat if they want to make it to the final two.
It also suggests there could be more trouble ahead. Conventional wisdom suggests Tory members will pick the most right-wing candidate, but if nearly half of MPs prefer the centrist just *18* MPs are required under current rules to spark a vote of no confidence
Only 18 MPs would be required to trigger a leadership challenge because, under the current rules, 15% of MPs need to write to the chair of the 1922 Committee to trigger a no confidence vote in the leader. But the 1922 Committee can change these rules quite easily. Currently the committee does not have a chair, but Tory MPs are expected to elected on today. The two main candidates are Bob Blackman and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.
Keir Starmer posed for a photograph with the new intake of Scottish Labour MPs outside No 10 this morning.
Speaking after the meeting of metro mayors in Downing Street, Kim McGuinness, the Labour North East mayor, said that having multi-year funding deals would make a big difference.
Asked what changes the mayors were requesting, she said:
Everybody’s got a different devolution deal, but it is simple things like single funding settlements over multi years so that we’re able to have more control of how we spend our money to get more out of what we’re doing.
We want to see more houses being built, and some of the constraints removed in order to do that around things like planning and funding of housing.
And for areas like mine, I really want to be bringing our buses back under public control.
Suella Braverman criticised for saying flying of Progress Pride flag was 'monstrous thing'
Suella Braverman has attacked “liberal Conservatives”, saying she was angered by the flying of the Progress Pride flag in her department as UK home secretary, calling it a “monstrous thing”. Jessica Elgot has the story.
The proportion of primary school pupils in England who met the expected standard in this year’s Sats exams has risen slightly on last year but remains below pre-pandemic levels, PA Media reports. PA says:
The key stage 2 results, which assess attainment in literacy and maths in Year 6 in schools, showed 61% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, up from 60% in 2023.
In 2019, 65% achieved the expected standard.
The former Conservative government had set out an ambition for 90% of children in England to leave primary school at the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030.
In individual subjects, scores were higher than last year, or the same.
Starmer's message to metro mayors
Downing Street has released a full version of what Keir Starmer said in his opening remarks to the metro mayors at their meeting this morning. It is not on the No 10 website, so I will post it here.
Having this meeting four days after I was invited by the King to form a government is a real statement of intent on my part, on our part.
Because as we have said over and over again, economy and growth is the number one mission of this Labour government in 2024.
If it’s going to be growth that is worth having, it’s got to be across the country and in every single place and raising standards in every single place. And so, you are all absolutely central to it.
I’m a great believer in devolution, I’m a great believer in the idea that those with skin in the game – those that know their communities – make much better decisions than people sitting in Westminster and Whitehall.
I know you already have growth plans in place, some of you have shared them already, and that is fantastic – what we want to do is build on that with a real partnership where you feel the government is alongside you, supporting you, and working with you to achieve what you want to achieve.
And it’s that partnership we talked about a number of times before the election, but what I wanted to do today was to double down on that commitment and to do it really early on into the government, so it wasn’t weeks or months down the line before we had a chance to meet like today to get on with that discussion.
I think it is the first meeting like this in Downing Street, I don’t think all the metro mayors have come together in Downing Street like this so this is a first and that’s good, it’s what we want.
We will do regular meetings, probably around the country, because I think it’d be good to do it in different areas in each of your areas because there will be things that you will want to say this is what we do here. And it’s that cross collaboration and it’s about making sure that you are central to what we want to achieve. We will work alongside you to achieve it. That growth is so important – everything else hangs off it.
Reports are emerging of concerns over the way in which clinically vulnerable people were treated during polling.
Clinically Vulnerable Families, a support group involved in the coronavirus inquiry, says an audit by 80 of its members of polling stations during the UK general election, has raised concerns over the ability for people to vote while attempting to avoid infection – or give Covid to others.
The data suggests that while 38% of those involved in the poll completed ID checks while wearing a mask, 42% were asked to take their mask off indoors. The team add 26% of all respondents removed their mask indoors, however 1% were unable to vote because they did not do so. The group adds that 33% of all respondents were able to de-mask outdoors, but only 29% were distanced from the person conducting the ID check.
Lara Wong, founder of Clinically Vulnerable Families, said guidance for returning officers must be reformed to ensure that everyone can vote safely.
Tracy Brabin, the Labour West Yorkshire mayor, said after the meeting at No 10 that if felt like a new dawn. She said:
It was such an extraordinary moment and the speed at which this meeting has been put in the diary shows the change that is at the heart of government.
Being able to have the tools and the freedoms and flexibilities that we discussed in that meeting, I think is going to be a game changer.
It does feel very upbeat, positive and very much like there’s a new dawn.
Here she is taking a selfie of all the mayors present.
And here is the picture.
A new era. @Keir_Starmer @10DowningStreet @AngelaRayner @RachelReevesMP @hmtreasury pic.twitter.com/ttN5dIY7yx
— Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire (@MayorOfWY) July 9, 2024
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Tory mayor Ben Houchen praises Starmer as 'energetic' after No 10 meeting and says he hopes they can work well together
Ben Houchen cut a lonely figure at the Downing Street meeting for metro mayor. The Tees Valley mayor was the only Conservative in the room. But in a post on X afterwards, he offered a positive endorsement of the PM, saying Starmer was fresh and energetic
“Keir Starmer was fresh, energetic, keen to get on with things”
— Helen Hoddinott (@helenhoddinott) July 9, 2024
The only conservative mayor Ben Houchen sounding positive about the new Prime Minister after first meeting at number 10… though not enough to tempt a defection pic.twitter.com/IhWW8wxGeA
Later, in an interview with BBC News, Houchen said that he had never met Starmer before and that Starmer was kind enough to spend 15 minutes with him privately so that they could have an introductory chat. Houchen went on:
[Starmer] was very keen to impress upon me that he wanted to put the country first, he wanted to work with me, irrespective of party politics, to get things done to deliver on his growth agenda.
And I was also very clear with him. I’ve always said that I’ll work with anybody if it’s going to help me deliver for the people of Teesside, Darlington, Hartlepool.
I said to the prime minister that he’s won the election, he is our prime minister, and if he succeeds, then the country will succeed.
So now the election is out the way, the business of governing takes over, we need to deliver both in local government and in national government, and hopefully that relationship will blossom into a constructive role where we can deliver for people in our communities.
The “our prime minister” line is reminiscent of a famous letter George Bush wrote to Bill Clinton after Clinton beat him in the 1992 presidential election.
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Only one of the 12 metro mayors in England missed the meeting with the PM in Downing Street. It was Oliver Coppard, the South Yorkshire mayor. He has Covid.
Sadly, after a day of coughing and spluttering, it seems I’m going to have to miss tomorrow’s meeting with Keir, Angela and the team.
— Oliver Coppard (@olivercoppard) July 8, 2024
I’m sorry not to be there, but I’ve written to Keir to set out just some of South Yorkshire’s priorities for the new government. pic.twitter.com/4G9Kbz1ofL
Sadly, after a day of coughing and spluttering, it seems I’m going to have to miss tomorrow’s meeting with Keir, Angela and the team.
I’m sorry not to be there, but I’ve written to Keir to set out just some of South Yorkshire’s priorities for the new government.
Keir Starmer is now chairing cabinet. Here are pictures of ministers arriving for the meeting.
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Housing ministry dropping 'levelling up' from its title because it was 'only ever a slogan', says minister
The government department in charge of housing and local government is dropping levelling up from its title, the communities minister Jim McMahon has said.
McMahon is a minister in what is still, on its website, called the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. But, in an interview with BBC Breakfast, he said this was changing.
Asked if levelling up would remain part of his job title, he replied:
No, it was firmly tippexed out of the department yesterday, so we are now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Why that is important for me is levelling up was only ever a slogan, it wasn’t a thing that people felt in their communities.
He also said it was important to include local government in ministry’s title, describing that as “a refocus, but frankly … also just grown up politics”.
In a separate interview on LBC, asked if the government remained committed to levelling up, he replied:
We certainly believe in addressing the regional inequalities that are holding our communities and our economy back.
But we don’t believe a slogan fixes it, we believe action fixes it, we believe building 1.5m new homes fixes it, we believe investment in the NHS does, investment in our schools system, investment in transport and skills does.
Boris Johnson popularised the phrase levelling up, and he described it as the one of the main missions of his government when he became prime minister. But it was never entirely clear whether the main focus of this mission was reducing inequalities, or promoting infrastructure spending in left-behind areas in the north of England, and there have been reports suggesting that in practical terms the levelling up programme achieved little.
Burnham welcomes 'council of regions and nations' as 'very positive change'
Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, has said setting up a “council for regions and nations” will be a very positive change. Speaking to the BBC after the meeting with Keir Starmer in Downing Street, he said:
That, honestl, is music to my ears. People may remember some of the interactions I had with previous governments. It was always struggling to get heard and struggling to get our perspective, from the north, under stood in Whitehall.
To have a council of the regions and nations, meeting regularly, just means we can be sure that the voice of Greater Manchester, of the north of England, is heard at the heart of Whitehall on an ongoing basis.
It’s a big change to the way this country is run, and it’s a very welcome change, a very positive change.
Burnham also said he would like to see rail services placed under local control in Greater Manchester. Using the trains in many parts of the country was “daily misery” under the current system, he said.
Starmer tells metro mayors he will set up 'council for regions and nations' so they can meet government regularly
Keir Starmer has confirmed the government will set up a “council for regions and nations” so that ministers can meet regularly with metro mayors. He was speaking at the Downing Street meeting this morning attended by almost all of England’s metro mayors.
Starmer told them:
I’m a great believer in devolution, I’m a great believer in the idea that those with skin in the game – those that know their communities – make much better decisions than people sitting in Westminster and Whitehall.
We will do regular meetings, probably around the country, because I think it’d be good to do it in different areas.
And referring to the proposed council for regions and nations, an idea put forward by the former PM Gordon Brown in his Commission on the UK’s Future report, Starmer said:
We will set up a council for regions and nations.
Now I don’t want to overly formalise it, but I do want a degree of formality so that it’s a meeting that everybody knows is a meeting where business is done, where decisions are properly recorded and actioned.
And where people know that we will all be there and we won’t be sending substitutes, or missing the meeting.
Starmer said the forum would be used to discuss “shared challenges” and “opportunities”.
Most of the 11 mayors who attended were Labour, but Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor (and the only Tory metro mayor left in England) was also present.
Blair urges Starmer to embrace AI to stop UK facing ‘triple whammy of high taxes, heavy debt and poor outcomes’
Good morning. During the general election campaign the Institute for Fiscal Studies repeatedly said that neither of the main parties were being honest about the public spending problems the government would face over the next five years. There would have to be higher taxes or deep spending cuts, it said. Today Tony Blair, the former prime minister, is in part endorsing this analysis. His thinktank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, is holding a conference on the future of Britain and it has published a paper saying that, without change to the way government operates, taxes would have to rise by 4.5 percentage points, as a share of GDP, by 2040. It says a 0.9 point rise is already baked in, another 1 point rise would be needed by the end of this parliament to avoid austerity, another 0.6 point rise would be needed by 2040 to compensate for the loss of fuel duty (as people switch to electric cars) and another 2 point rise would be needed by 2040 because of the ageing population.
But Blair says the government can avoid the need for this if it embraces the opportunities provided by technological change, and particularly artificial intelligence (AI). In his speech at the conference he will say:
Britain is facing an unenviable triple whammy of high taxes, heavy debt and poor outcomes. And worse is to come with the demographics of an aging population against us, deep structural health problems and rising numbers of long-term sick.
The simple and unavoidable truth is that unless we improve growth and productivity, and drive value and efficiency through our public spending, we’re going to become poorer. Much poorer.
This explains the mood of pessimism evident in much of the election campaign.
But I do not share the pessimism. On the contrary I don’t think there has ever been a better time to govern. A better time to effect change. A better basis for optimism and a surer reason for hope.
But only if we understand how the world is changing and how we use that change to change our country.
Stable government and some clear early wins can definitely help.
But there is only one game-changer. Harnessing effectively the 21st century technological revolution.
There is absolutely no doubt that this is an era of transformation. Things which were impossible will become possible; advances which would have taken decades, will happen in a few years or even months; the value we can add, the improvements in efficiency we can make, the radical benefits in outcomes we can secure, could be truly revolutionary.
Blair has also given an interview to the Guardian urging Keir Starmer to “close off the avenues” of the populist right by keeping tough controls on immigration.
Blair provides a good guide to some of the problems facing the government. But the country is expecting the new prime minister to provide the answers, not an old one, and today Keir Starmer will be in the Commons speaking for the first time from the Treasury bench in his new role. It won’t be a major political speech; that will come in the king’s speech debate a week tomorrow, because today MPs are just electing a speaker. But as we see Labour’s 412 MPs try to squeeze onto the government benches, and the 121 Tory MPs barely able to fill the space on the opposition benches, we will get a clear insight into just how dramatically the election result has reshaped the Commons.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.15am: Metro mayors hold a meeting following their earlier meeting with Keir Starmer at No 10.
9.25am: Tony Blair gives a speech on “Governing in the age of AI” at the Future of Britain conference run by his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change thinktank. Other speakers included Wes Streeting, the health secretary, at 12pm, and William Hague, who is in conversation with Blair at 1.40pm.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10.30am: Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, is among the speakers at the Popular Conservatism conference. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Frost are also due to speak.
2.30pm: The Commons sits for the first time since the election to elect a speaker. Lindsay Hoyle is expected to be chosen again. There will be short speeches, including from Starmer and Rishi Sunak. Then MPs will start the process of swearing in.
Afternoon: Starmer flies to Washington for the Nato summit.
Also, Streeting is meeting the BMA junior doctors’ committee today.
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