Afternoon summary
Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, has urged Labour MPs to support Keir Starmer when the Commons votes tomorrow on a Tory motion saying the privileges committee should investigate allegations Starmer lied to MPs about the Peter Mandelson vetting process. Brown issued a statement after the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, announced that a vote will take place tomorrow. Brown said:
At challenging times both for our country and the world, the Labour party, has always sought to put the needs of the country first and with conflicts raging around the world with profound consequences for our country, this is the time to do so.
Whatever the parliamentary games at Westminster, what the country expects of everyone in Labour is to focus on the priorities of the British people, which is what Keir Starmer is doing and for which he deserves all our support.
Labour has a working majority of 165, and the government should be able to vote down the Tory motion (which is based on very flimsy reasoning anyway – see 1.32pm) without difficulty. But, with Starmer’s authority with his MPs already diminished, No 10 is taking no chances. This is from the Times’ Steven Swinford:
Wavering MPs are being bombarded with calls from ministers and Starmer allies, sometimes half a dozen in quick succession
The PM is addressing PLP tonight
Gordon Brown has rowed in behind him, along with Alan Johnson and David Blunkett
The line - again and again - is that this is not a time to be distracted by Mandelson. The pitch is effectively this - don’t you know there’s a war on?
The debate will start tomorrow around lunchtime, or soon after – after Philip Barton, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, and Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s former chief of staff, have given evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee in the morning about the Mandelson appointment process.
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
Sarwar says Scottish Labour will make protecting single-sex spaces based on biological sex priority if it wins election
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has said Labour will implement changes to the Equality Act required by the supreme court’s trans ruling if it wins the Holyrood election.
This was the main pledge in his party’s women’s manifesto published today.
As the Press Association (PA) reports, the supreme court ruled in April 2025 that the definition of a woman in equalities law is based on biological sex. This has changed the definition of a “woman” in the 2010 Equality Act to mean a biological female, and that the term “sex” means biological sex. It also said that sex is binary, meaning someone is either male or female.
Sarwar said today:
First of all, the clearest example of the difference is we will stop using taxpayers’ money to challenge women and people, and we’ll get on straight away with implementing the Equality Act and making sure we’re protecting single-sex spaces based on biological sex. Services, spaces and schools.
The manifesto also pledges to deliver single-sex spaces on the basis of biological sex, “recommitting” the NHS to delivering single-sex wards and to “remove all biologically male” prisoners from women’s prisons within days of the election, PA says.
Updated
