Afternoon summary
Downing Street has shrugged off the claim from President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff that Keir Starmer’s stance on Ukraine amounts to “posturing”. (See 1.07pm.)
Peter Kyle, the science secretary, has confirmed in an interview with Politico that the UK is discussing with the US watering down the digital services tax in a way that would help American tech firms.
Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, has said his party is not doing enough to grab the attention of the public. In an interview implicitly critical of Kemi Badenoch, the party leader, he told PoliticsHome:
We need to do more and we need to work much harder to earn the right for the public to listen to us again. Because the problem we have in the Conservative party, particularly after the defeat that we had, is that many people within the Conservative party now were there when we were in government.
Kevin Hollinrake, the shadow levelling up secretary, has told MPs that the Conservatives will not vote against the planning and infrastructure at second reading tonight. But they will seek to amend it in later stages during its passage through parliament, but in ways that won’t undermine “the ambition to accelerate the delivery of new homes”, he said.
