Nicola Sturgeon says SNP crisis unexpected, beyond her ‘worst nightmares’, but not her reason for resigning – as it happened

Nicola Sturgeon talking to media as she returns to the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

6.10pm BST

Early evening summary

• Nicola Sturgeon, the former Scottish first minister, has said that the SNP finance crisis was not the cause of her resignation and that what has happened in recent weeks was something she “could not have anticipated in my worst nightmares”. (See 4.35pm.)

• The UK government borrowed about £13bn less than expected last year, official figures show, despite the budget deficit reaching the fourth-highest level on records dating back to 1946.

• Keir Starmer has pledged to make spiking drinks a standalone offence as Labour seeks to bolster its “tough on crime” message.

• Conservative MPs have voted down an attempt by Labour to set aside time next month for MPs to debate a bill to reduce sewage discharges into rivers. After the vote Labour said the Tories had voted to allow sewage dumping to continue. (See 5.02pm.) Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, said most of what Labour was proposing was being done by the government anyway, and that the other aspects of the plan were counterproductive, or would increase prices for consumers. (See 4.14pm.)

• British households and businesses “need to accept” they are poorer and stop seeking pay increases and pushing prices higher, the Bank of England’s chief economist, Huw Pill, has said.

Nicola Sturgeon speaking to reporters at Holyrood today. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Updated at 6.15pm BST

5.42pm BST

1,000 jobs at risk in Welsh universities after loss of EU funding, economy minister tells Senedd

The Welsh economy minister, Vaughan Gething, has claimed there are 1,000 imminent job losses in universities across Wales because replacement for EU funding leaves the country £1.1bn worse off.

Speaking in the Senedd, Gething said the shared prosperity fund was “smaller, less flexible and narrower in scope than the EU funding it claims to replace”. He said:

In the existing round of EU programmes, £380m was invested in research, development and innovation, which supported expansions of research facilities and major collaborations between business and academia.

The shared prosperity fund does not even have RD&I within its investment priorities. This is resulting in major job losses and the closure of key projects in areas such as decarbonisation, renewable energy and industrial skills. There are around 1,000 imminent job losses across Welsh universities and scaled-back RD&I opportunities for Welsh businesses as a direct result of the UK government’s choices.

Gething said the levelling-up fund was “equally dispiriting” for Wales. He continued:

Local authorities ... have spent huge amounts of time developing project bids – the vast majority of which have been rejected by the UK government.

Five local authorities – Flintshire, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Newport and the Vale of Glamorgan – have received nothing from the first two rounds of this fund.

Updated at 6.02pm BST