Reeves refuses to say she will stick to manifesto pledge on tax rises and insists she must face world ‘as it is’ – as it happened

5.01pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Rachel Reeves has refused to rule out tax rises in this month’s budget, insisting she must “deal with the world as I find it, not the world as I might wish it to be”. Here is Heather Stewart’s analysis of the chancellor’s speech.

After the speech gilt prices rose, pushing down the yield (or interest rate) on UK debt, as Graeme Wearden reports in his business live blog.

• Bridget Phillipson has urged the equalities watchdog to focus more on helping ministers do their jobs and less on having public debates as a row continues about how long it will take to implement new rules on gender recognition.

• Caroline Dinenage, the Tory MP who chairs the Commons media committee, has written to the chair of the BBC saying she is “extremely worried” about a report claiming that the corporation selectively editing a Donald Trump speech to overstate the extent to which he was supporting an attack on the US Capitol. The Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said that “heads should roll” at the BBC over the incident. (See 3.21pm.)

• Sir Alan Bates has agreed a multimillion-pound settlement with the government more than two decades after he began the campaign for justice for post office operators over the Horizon IT scandal.

Updated at 5.02pm GMT

4.47pm GMT

Liberty says proposed law saying police must consider cumulative impact of protests more restrictive than expected

Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.

The civil liberties group Liberty has warned that a proposed expansion of anti-protest powers is a blow to the right to protest and worse than anticipated.

As trailed by the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, last month after the fatal terror attack on a Manchester synagogue, the government has now tabled an amendment to the crime and policing bill introducing restrictions on repeat protests.

The amendment says that when considering whether to restrict a protest a senior police officer “must” take into account any cumulative disruption caused by past protests – regardless as to whether they were organised or attended by the same people.

Earlier this year, Liberty defeated very similar regulations introduced by then home secretary Suella Braverman under the Conservative government, when the court of appeal upheld a legal challenge against anti-protest laws which stated, among other things, that officers “may” take into account relevant cumulative disruption.

Ruth Ehrlich, Liberty head of policy and campaigns, said:

The government’s plans to restrict repeat protests go even further than we had feared, and combined with other anti-protest measures in the pipeline like bans on face coverings, will see the right to protest in the UK stripped to the bone.

Liberty defeated very similar restrictions to this in the courts earlier this year. The fact the government has reintroduced them but with even further reach is a serious blow to people’s fundamental rights.

Police already have extensive powers to restrict protests, yet these measures add to an ever-expanding web of anti-protest laws. It is becoming harder and harder for people to exercise their democratic right to protest without falling foul of the law. Instead of introducing new restrictions, the government should focus on why existing laws are supposedly failing and ensure people’s rights to demonstrate are protected.