Starmer claims he cannot think of anything he should have done differently in first months as PM – as it happened

5.40pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Keir Starmer has told the Commons liaison committee that he cannot think of anything he would have done differently in his first months as PM. (See 4.55pm.)

• Hospices in England are to receive a £100m-plus boost to funding amid worries that some end-of-life services could close because of the impact of the national insurance increase and wage rises.

• Enormous budget overruns on the HS2 high-speed railway have been blamed by its new chief executive on a “rush to start”, as the Department for Transport admitted it did not know how much it would cost.

• Keir Starmer has given his full support to Tulip Siddiq, the Treasury minister, after Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission accused her and family members of embezzling billions as part of a deal for a nuclear power plant.

• Writers, publishers, musicians, photographers, movie producers and newspapers have rejected the Labour government’s plan to create a copyright exemption to help artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms.

• The Bank of England has kept interest rates on hold as it warned UK growth is on the brink of stagnation amid the fallout from Rachel Reeves’s budget and threat of Donald Trump reigniting global trade wars.

• The UK will not tolerate attempts by foreign countries to harass or intimidate British citizens, Dan Jarvis, the security minister, has warned, after a number of Sikhs complained they were being targeted either by or on behalf of the Indian government.

5.39pm GMT

Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers Union, says Keir Starmer’s comments at the liaison committee about the extension of inheritance tax to cover farms (see 3.16pm) show the government did not think about the impact of this measures. In a statement, Bradshaw says:

Despite ministers previously claiming this was about punishing wealthy people avoiding tax, it’s clear from the prime minister’s words today that it is simply an indiscriminate revenue-raising measure with no thought given to who it impacts.

What’s worse is that the government has clearly forgotten the reason agricultural inheritance tax reliefs were brought in in the first place – which was to ensure that farms would not be sold or broken up following the death of the owner and could continue to produce high quality British food through each generation. It’s clear that this government has entirely broken with that premise, and it will be farming, then its associated industries, and then consumers who will bear the impact.