Chinese ‘state-affiliated’ organisations behind cyber-attacks on MPs and Electoral Commission, Dowden says – as it happened

6.00pm GMT

Early evening summary

• Chinese state-backed hackers were responsible for two “malicious” digital campaigns targeting the UK’s democratic institutions and politicians, the security services have found.

• Rishi Sunak is to face another tricky byelection in the coming weeks after the former Conservative backbencher Scott Benton quit parliament before the conclusion of a recall petition among his constituents.

• Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, has been criticised by campaigners for giving a non-committal response in the Commons to the report saying the government should pay compensation to the Waspi women. (See 5.26pm.) The chair of Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi), Angela Madden, responded to what he said with this statement:

The secretary of state now says this matter is so complex, he needs yet more months and years of head scratching to sort it out. He has made much of the report being 100 pages long as if he were being asked to digest War and Peace.

The fact it is has taken five years for the ombudsman to produce his conclusions is a pretty perverse reason to say more delay is now justified.

The report is not complicated at all. He says that 1950s-born women should be compensated and that Parliament should intervene to make a scheme happen.

Every day 111 of the affected women die waiting for justice. The Commons must get a debate and vote on compensation as soon as possible after Easter.

• Labour’s plan for state-backed offshore windfarms will be a “gamechanger”, Keir Starmer has said, as the party seeks to regain the initiative on green policy after the slow-motion ditching of its £28bn investment pledge.

• Michael Gove breached standards rules by failing to register hospitality he enjoyed with a Conservative donor whose company was awarded personal protective equipment contracts during the Covid pandemic, parliament’s sleaze watchdog has found.

Updated at 6.03pm GMT

5.54pm GMT

Murdo Fraser, a Conservative MSP, has threatened to take legal action against Police Scotland after a tweet he posted comparing choosing to identify as non-binary to “choosing to identify as a cat” was logged as a hate incident, the BBC reports.