UK politics: Reform will axe councils’ special needs funding if they win in local elections, Lib Dems claim – as it happened

5.31pm BST

Afternoon summary

• The National Autistic Society has accused Nigel Farage, the Reform Uk leader, of making “wildly inaccurate” remarks about people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) and mental health conditions. Farage claimed doctors were “massively over-diagnosing” these conditions. The Liberal Democrats said this showed Reform UK will slash Send spending if it wins controls of councils. (See 12.09pm, 2.30pm and 3.20pm.)

• A £5bn programme of disability benefits cuts planned by the UK government will disproportionately hit people living in Wales and northern England “entrenching deprivation”, according to new analysis.

• Ofcom, the communications watchdog, is prioritising the interests of tech companies over the safety of under-18s, according to the children’s commissioner for England.

• Primary schools in England will be forced to subsidise free school meals for infants from their own budgets after the government’s “pitiful” 3p increase in funding, according to school leaders.

• Children as young as 15 face being incapacitated with pepper spray after Shabana Mahmood on Thursday authorised its use at young offender institutions [YOIs].

Updated at 5.34pm BST

5.19pm BST

Supreme court ruling won't lead to trans women being treated in male NHS wards, Streeting says

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has said the supreme court ruling last week will not lead to trans women being treated in male wards in the NHS.

The supreme court said that references to sex in the Equality Act should be taken to mean biological sex, not gender.

In an interview with LBC being broadcast tonight, asked if that meant trans women would have to be placed in male wards in NHS hospitals, Streeting replied:

No. What we want to do is to make sure that we’ve got single-sex provision and wards in the NHS, and that’s based on biology, and to make sure that trans people have access to safe and dignified and respectful care.

Asked where trans people would be treated, Streeting said:

The NHS is updating its guidance and what we would like to see is appropriate kinds of rooms and private spaces for trans people to be cared for in NHS hospitals.

Streeting said the supreme court ruling had generated “palpable anxiety amongst trans people about their rights, their identities, their dignity, their respect”.

Asked if there was a case for having designated trans wards in hospitals, Streeting said that was not practical because of the relatively small number trans people in the country and the “tiny number of [trans] people who might be accessing a different range of NHS services at any one time”.

Asked if he thought other patients would object to trans patients in hospital getting their own room, Streeting replied:

I think most people in this country are fair-minded and decent people. And, when it comes to trans people in our country, they would recognise not just that we’re talking about a tiny minority of people, but we are talking about group of people who are at the wrong end of all of the statistics on hate crime, harassment, on mental ill health, self harm and suicide.

And most people in this country want trans people to be able to live with freedom, with dignity and respect. And that’s what this government wants too.