End of day summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
Ministers have held talks about an alternative to Rishi Sunak’s plan to exonerate those wrongfully convicted in the Post Office Horizon scandal. No 10 insisted it was pressing ahead with the bill announced last month, which would immediately quash the convictions of hundreds of post office operators.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has announced further junior doctor strikes in England, from February 24 to 28. The union said the government had “failed to meet the deadline to put an improved pay offer on the table”.
More than 100,000 patients in England face having their NHS care cancelled this month due to the fresh wave of strike action. Health leaders expressed alarm, warning the five-day walkout would jeopardise all efforts to tackle the record waiting list and push other services to “breaking point”.
Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, has spoken of receiving death threats after she was described by former Tory MP Nadine Dorries as aligned to a plot controlling the top of the Conservative party. Badenoch said death threats had intensified since the publication of Dorries’s book The Plot: The Political Assassination of Boris Johnson.
Rachel Reeves has defended Labour’s U-turn on its pledge to spend £28bn a year on green projects. The shadow chancellor blamed the Tories and the economic impact of Liz Truss’s mini-budget, as she told BBC Breakfast she would not “make any apologies” for fiscal responsibility.
Keir Starmer said he believes the British public “appreciate” Labour being “straight” about its plans for the economy, after the party announced a major U-turn on its green spending pledge.
Rishi Sunak again refused to apologise for his transgender jibe at Keir Starmer in the Commons this week, rebuffing calls from Peter Spooner, Brianna’s Ghey’s father, for him to say sorry. The prime minister, appearing on BBC Radio Somerset, rejected the idea he had been making a joke.
Brianna Ghey’s murder has “humanised the debate” around transgender people in her native Warrington, and stopped local Conservative politicians from using trans issues for “culture war” attacks, according to Brianna’s local Labour MP.
Rishi Sunak has published his personal tax return. The tax return shows that the prime minister paid more than half a million pounds in UK tax last year.
We are closing this liveblog now. Thanks so much for joining us.
Ed Miliband has insisted he did not consider resigning over Labour’s junking of its pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green projects.
The shadow climate secretary, seen as a key proponent of the policy, said the party’s plans still meet his criteria of moving the dial on climate, PA News reports.
He was said to have argued strongly for sticking with the £28bn figure as the Labour leadership considered a U-turn.
But he publicly rowed in behind Keir Starmer as the Labour leader announced its axing.
Asked whether he thought about quitting over the issue, Miliband told Channel 4 News on Friday:
Absolutely not. Because the test I apply is are we going to go into the next election, if we’re the next government, am I going to be able to be the energy secretary who can genuinely say Britain is leading the world?
Britain is going to move the dial on climate and that is the test. That’s why I’m in frontline politics because I care so much about this cause and my test of what we’ve come up with is - does meet the criteria I have? And absolutely it does.
He argued Labour still has a “massive agenda to invest in the future of the country” and that he has a “responsibility” to “make a difference” should he become energy secretary.
He said:
The only thing I can do, the only right thing to do, is to fight for the maximum possible ambition. And to make sure that in government we can make a difference. I’m confident we can.
