SNP says Speaker has ‘broken his word’ by not allowing emergency debate on Gaza – as it happened

Speaker Lindsay Hoyle. Photograph: PRU/AFP/Getty Images

6.11pm GMT

Early evening summary

• Lee Anderson has stood by the comments that lost him the Tory whip and launched a fresh attack on Sadiq Khan, as a body for Muslim Conservative members said it was seeking an urgent meeting with government figures.

• Paul Scully, the former minister for London, has been criticised for saying there are areas in London and Birmingham, “parts of Tower Hamlets, for example” and parts of Birmingham Sparkhill, that have become “no-go areas”. He made the comment in a radio interview where he was talking about the concerns people have about neighbourhoods changing. No 10 said Rishi Sunak did not agree with what Scully said, and Andy Street, the Conservative West Midlands mayor, said on X Scully was talking nonsense.

The idea that Birmingham has a ‘no-go’ zone is news to me, and I suspect the good people of Sparkhill.

It really is time for those in Westminster to stop the nonsense slurs and experience the real world.

I for one am proud to lead the most diverse place in Britain.

— Andy Street (@andy4wm) February 26, 2024

The idea that Birmingham has a ‘no-go’ zone is news to me, and I suspect the good people of Sparkhill.

It really is time for those in Westminster to stop the nonsense slurs and experience the real world.

I for one am proud to lead the most diverse place in Britain.

• The SNP has accused Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, of breaking his promise to allow an emergency debate on Gaza. (See 4pm.)

• Britain’s stretched public services will buckle under the weight of the spending cuts being planned for after the election, economists have warned, as Jeremy Hunt prepares for another round of tax reductions in next week’s budget.

6.04pm GMT

Shapps tells MPs US/UK airstrikes have 'eroded Houthi capacity', but not their intent to continue attacks on shipping

Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, told the Commons this afternoon that US and UK airstrikes in Yemen had “eroded Houthi capacity” to attack western shipping in the aftermath of a fourth round of attacks on Saturday night.

However, despite the latest round of bombing, the minister conceded in an update for MPs that Houthi “intent to prosecute indiscriminate attacks against innocent vessels remains undiminished” – suggesting further Anglo-American attacks could come in future.

The defence secretary highlighted there were four recent attacks by the Houthis on merchant shipping in the past few days, including an attack on the MV Rubymar, a Belize-flagged, UK-owned bulk carrier that caused an 18-mile oil slick in the Red Sea.

Such Houthi targeting of commercial vessels justified the latest joint US-UK bombing, Shapps said. RAF Typhoons attacked eight times on Saturday knocking out “five one-way attack drones” at a site near Sana’a, the minister said, and hitting three more buildings at Banni, a launch site struck on two previous occasions.

The minister added that “consideration [was] given to minimising any risk of causing civilian casualties” and that previous rounds of RAF bombing are not thought by the UK to have killed any non-combatants. Eighteen targets were struck in Saturday night’s bombing, the last wave in a campaign that began on 11 January