UK politics: Employment rights bill set to become law after Lords backing – as it happened

Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush-hour in London
Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

5.42pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• An independent review into the impact of foreign financial influence and interference in domestic politics from Russia and other hostile states has been announced after one of Reform UK’s former senior politicians, Nathan Gill, was jailed for accepting bribes from a pro-Kremlin agent.

• The BBC has vowed to defend itself against the $10bn lawsuit that the US president, Donald Trump filed against it.

• Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice has refused to condemn a mayoral candidate for the party who said David Lammy should “go home to the Caribbean”.

• The House of Lords has passed the employment rights bill, which means it will shortly become law. (See 5.01pm.)

• Tice has apologised for comments he made about special educational needs last month, as he announced a new approach to the issue by Reform UK, including the launch of a review of Send policy. (See 1.28pm.)

• The rate of UK unemployment rose to a four-year high of 5.1% in the three months to October, as the labour market showed signs of further weakening before last month’s budget.

• Ministers are examining plans that would increase the BBC’s independence from politicians, including ending political appointments to its board, as part of crucial talks over the corporation’s future.

• Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers are likely to die without David Lammy’s intervention, lawyers representing the prisoners have said as they criticised the justice secretary for refusing to meet them.

• Espionage offences in the UK’s new National Security Act are so broadly defined that they “will result in cases of real harm” with people wrongly investigated, according to the first review of state threats legislation.

• Rishi Sunak has defended his pandemic-era Bounce Back Loan scheme against accusations that it was subject to excessive levels of fraud, the BBC reports.

• Conservationists have accused the government of weakening rules to make developers pay to boost nature, hitting jobs and private investment in restoring wildlife. As PA Media reports, new exemptions for England’s “biodiversity net gain” (BNG) rules risk hollowing out the emerging market in which developers have to pay not only to replace habitat lost to development, but to deliver a 10% gain for nature, they warn. The Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL) coalition of environment and nature groups called for swift action to close loopholes which they say are already seeing more than four fifths of developments claiming exemption from the rules. WCL was commenting on proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework announced today.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

Updated at 5.42pm GMT

5.19pm GMT

Lammy says reducing average wait from reporting rape to trial from 6 years to 2 years would be acceptable

David Lammy, the justice secretary, has said two years would feel like an acceptable amount of time for rape victims to get justice as he vowed to bring down the courts backlog, PA Media reports. PA says:

Lammy was asked by a committee of MPs what figure would be acceptable as the average wait from reporting a rape to the end of a criminal trial is six years, as he seeks to bring in court reforms to ease delays.

He told the justice committee that women waiting that long is “justice delayed is justice denied” and that he wants to bring that six year figure down and see the court backlog falling downwards by the end of this parliament.

Pressed on a figure, he said: “Well, I would hope that no woman is waiting much longer than two years to get justice. That’s what would feel, I think, acceptable in a complex system and in a major democracy such as ours, but we are a significant way from that at this point.”

At the end of June, sexual offences accounted for nearly one in five cases (18%) open for at least two years.

Lammy said on Tuesday that he did not believe limited reforms, including just improving efficiencies in the courts system, would reduce the wait enough for victims.

He told the committee he hopes to bring in legislation for court reform in the spring to tackle the issue.

But pressed on whether the proposed reforms will even bring down the current six year average, he said the CCBD [crown court bench division – the proposed new judge-only court] will be able to deal with cases such as class B drug possession and owning a dangerous dog with a single judge, which is estimated to make the system 20% faster.

“Then effectively, once you’ve taken those cases out, the rape case that goes to trial is speeded up, and that is the significance of the proposal.”