UK rail strikes suspended as RMT says employers ‘seeing sense’ and talks intensifying – as it happened

The strikes had been due to start on Saturday and continue into next week. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

5.10pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• A series of planned strikes from Saturday by railway workers have been suspended, the RMT union has announced.

• Downing Street has said plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Suffolk have not been scrapped as part of a drive to make sweeping government spending cuts.

• Nicola Sturgeon has “utterly” refuted allegations that a decision to award a major ferries contract to an ally of the Scottish government was “jobs for the boys”.

• Fresh elections for the Northern Ireland assembly have been put back to the new year amid claims that the EU and the UK are close to agreement on some elements of the controversial Brexit arrangements that have caused a Democratic Unionist party (DUP) boycott of Stormont.

• Sir Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, has defended his claim that the UK economy has shrunk from being 90% the size of Germany’s to 70% the size of it since Brexit. See 9.25am.

• Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, has said the former prime minister Boris Johnson had the backing of enough MPs to mount a challenge to Rishi Sunak in last month’s leadership contest.

• Boris Johnson has accepted another £10,000 of accommodation from the Bamford family, taking their contributions to his lifestyle to almost £50,000 since he resigned as Conservative leader.

Updated at 5.24pm GMT

4.54pm GMT

Sunak praises king for working on climate 'long before Cop1, let alone Cop27'

Rishi Sunak praised the king’s long record as an environmental campaigner in the speech he gave at the Cop27 reception at Buckingham Palace earlier.

According to PA Media, Sunak paid tribute to Charles for “helping to find practical solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss for more than 50 years, long before Cop1 let alone Cop27”. He added:

The reduction in global emissions pledged during our presidency is now equivalent to more than six times the annual emissions of the entire global aviation industry.

Sunak said perhaps the greatest breakthrough of the UK’s presidency of Cop26 was an idea suggested by Charles – bringing together leading investors and businesses at Glasgow to direct the world’s wealth at protecting the climate. He went on:

As a result of what many of you here are doing today, we’re turning the fight against climate change into a fantastic source of new green jobs and growth.

Charles ended the day by planting a lime tree in Buckingham Palace’s garden as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy project – thought to be the first time he has carried out a tree-planting ceremony as monarch. The initiative has planted more than a million trees across the UK to honour and celebrate the Queen’s 70 years of service to the nation.

Rishi Sunak speaking at the Cop27 reception. Photograph: Reuters

Updated at 5.24pm GMT