Commons to ask crown estate for details of Prince Andrew’s rent-free housing as inquiry moves closer – as it happened

Prince Andrew leaves his home at Royal Lodge earlier in October. Photograph: Shutterstock

5.36pm BST

Afternoon summary

• Keir Starmer has said he can’t express how much he disagrees with the Tory MP who wants mass deportations to make the UK more “culturally coherent”. In an interview at the weekend Katie Lam called for the deportation of large numbers of people who are settled in the UK lawfully. At first it was widely assumed that Lam was freelancing, but Lam was in fact describing the official party policy as set out in a bill tabled by Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, earlier this year. (See 3.09pm.) Lam said the deportations would leave “a mostly but not entirely culturally coherent group of people”. Asked what he thought of her comments, Starmer told ITV Meridian:

I can’t tell you how much I disagree with her. I think that her approach, where people who are lawfully in this country, who have been working in our communities, perhaps in our schools, our hospitals, running businesses, our neighbours, people lawfully here, she wants to reach in and remove them from our country, for cultural reasons, she says. That is how far the Conservative party has sunk.

PM: "I can't tell you how much I disagree with her."

Sir Keir Starmer hits back at @Katie_Lam_MP's suggestion that "multiculturalism has not succeeded in this country". The Weald of Kent MP made the comments this week on @itvpeston.@itvmeridian pic.twitter.com/xFAheH5lYr

— Kit Bradshaw (@kitbradshaw) October 23, 2025

• Conservative MPs have complained to party whips after Katie Lam’s comments.

• Ministers have confirmed plans to reduce affordable housing quotas in London as they try to reverse the recent collapse in housebuilding in the capital.

• The Commons public accounts committee has asked the crown estate for details of Prince Andrew’s lease, bringing the prospect of a parliamentary inquiry into his rent-free housing one step closer. (See 3.31pm.)

• Five survivors invited on to the child sexual exploitation inquiry panel have written to Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood to say they will continue working with the investigation only if the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, remains in post.

• The only Black branch chair of Reform UK has left the rightwing populist party, saying the tone of Britain’s migration debate is “doing more harm than good”.

• Mark Sedwill’s prospects of becoming the UK’s ambassador in Washington have taken a blow after officials raised concerns about an article he wrote in 2021 praising Joe Biden and criticising Donald Trump.

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.

Updated at 5.50pm BST

5.12pm BST

AI, used well, can 'rebuild trust in state' and in politics, David Lammy says

The use of artificial intelligence can boost trust in the state and tackle problems with the “bloated” public sector, David Lammy said.

In a speech at OpenAI’s Frontiers conference in London this morning, the deputy PM said that the public sector had become “too expensive” and that productivity was still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels, but that AI had the potential to change that.

He said:

Governments and corporations who seize AI faster and more robustly will surge ahead and those that hesitate will fall very quickly behind.

I’m also convinced that if used well – emphasis on used well – AI can help to rebuild trust in the state, badly needed trust in our politics, delivering what people really want: shorter waits, fewer errors, lower costs and better outcomes.

He also said:

Parts of our bureaucracy have become bloated, they have become too expensive, they have become too unproductive, to the point that too often they fail to meet the needs of the people that they’re meant to serve.

And, let’s be frank, public sector productivity is still lagging, certainly behind pre-pandemic levels, and that’s not good for anybody. It’s certainly not good for the people of our country …

If we get this right, if we embed AI across government, across every system, across every service, I believe that we can rejuvenate 150 years of British state enterprise in the next 15 years, possibly even sooner.