Reform UK would seize control of civil servants just like Trump in US, says Kruger – as it happened

Danny Kruger. Photograph: Corey Rudy/Reuters

5.03pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Reform UK would allow ministers to ignore international law and give them the ability to fire civil servants in a Donald Trump-style overhaul of government powers, the party’s new efficiency tsar has said.

• Rachel Reeves will have to account for a bigger-than-expected £20bn hit to the UK public finances in next month’s budget, increasing the likelihood that the chancellor will breach a key Labour’s manifesto pledge not to raise income tax.

• Refugee organisations have described plans to house thousands of asylum seekers in two disused military sites as fanciful and too expensive as local discontent grows.

• Ministers have agreed to give bankrupt Woking council an “unprecedented” £500m taxpayer bailout under government plans to merge a dozen local authorities in Surrey.

• The boss of the UK’s main betting and gaming lobby group has told MPs that there is no “social ill with gambling” as she warned against imposing higher taxes on the sector in the November budget.

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.

4.58pm GMT

Labour says Reform UK won't save £500m by closing office buildings because government ending those contracts anyway

Labour has said that Reform UK’s plan to save £500m over the course of a parliament by closing big departmental offices in Whitehall is flawed because the current government is going to end those contracts anyway.

At a press conference this morning, Danny Kruger said that he had identified how his party could save £100m a year – or £500m over the course of a parliament – but terminated the leases on five office buildings in Westminster. (See 2.42pm.)

But Anna Turley, the Labour chair, said the government announced very similar plans earlier this year.

She said:

It’s deeply embarrassing for Nigel Farage that his new policy chief’s first policy has already fallen apart. You can’t save money by closing government buildings that are already closing. Danny Kruger didn’t do the work and he’s been found out.

It’s the same at local level. Reform made big claims about the money they could save in councils, found they were wrong, and are now proposing raising council tax and cutting services.

Local government was supposed to be the blueprint for what Reform would do nationally, and it’s true: their savings plans collapse at the first contact with reality. It’s a serious case of Doge-ja vu.

Updated at 4.58pm GMT