Tory extinction ‘can’t be ruled out’, says Jeremy Hunt – as it happened

Jeremy Hunt says the ‘old two-party system’ may be extinct Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

3.46pm BST

Afternoon summary

• Keir Starmer has accused the Tories and others criticising the UK-India trade deal because of its tax exemption provisions for workers on secondment of talking “incoherent nonsense”. (See 3.25pm.)

• A series of senior Conservatives have contradicted Kemi Badenoch after she criticised a landmark UK-India trade deal because it temporarily exempts seconded Indian workers from national insurance payments in the UK.

• Kemi Badenoch has been accused by Indian officials of talking “rubbish” after she denounced the “two-tier” tax arrangement at the heart of the UK/India trade deal, the Financial Times reports. In their story, George Parker, David Sheppard and Andres Shipani say “New Delhi officials insist Badenoch agreed the principle of giving Indian employees in the UK relief from Britain’s national insurance levy during her time as business and trade secretary in the last Tory government.”

• Reform UK’s plans to obstruct green energy projects in Lincolnshire put at risk almost £1bn in local investment and more than 12,000 jobs, analysis suggests.

• The government’s planned disability benefit cuts will hit 700,000 families who are already in poverty, according to internal Department for Work and Pensions forecasts obtained by the Guardian.

I’m sorry we have to wrap up early today. For a full list of all the stories covered here today, scroll through the key events timeline at the top of the blog.

3.36pm BST

Green party urges Labour to drop 'war on nature' after impact assessment suggests green rules aren't blocking development

There is very little evidence that protections for nature are a blocker to development, the government has admitted in its own impact assessment of the controversial new planning and infrastructure bill. Sandra Laville has the story here.

Commenting on the story, Ellie Chowns, the Green MP, said:

This is an astonishing admission from government today. Their own analysis shows how they’re willing to sell nature down the river under the entirely false premise that nature is a blocker to development. I have said for months now that this binary framing is reductive, untrue, and doesn’t help deliver a serious debate.

It’s time government dropped their war on nature and instead start thinking about how we can deliver the affordable house building we need, and the national infrastructure we all rely on, in a way that works with and for nature, and not against it. The impact assessment makes it abundantly clear that the existing planning and infrastructure bill does not currently do this.