Afternoon summary
At a press conference after the British-Irish Council meeting in Edinburgh, John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, said relations with the UK government were “incomparably better” than they were when the Conservatives were in power. (See 2.51pm.)
The other leaders of devolved administrations said the same.
Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin first minister of Northern Ireland, said she was glad that Keir Starmer wanted a “reset” and that the PM showed a a “genuine willingness” to work with the Northern Ireland assembly. She said:
I think the tenure of the Tories in government was one of disrespect, one that drove an austerity agenda that decimated our public services, one that very much left people behind.
Stormont’s deputy first minister, the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly, said a key test would be whether the UK govenrment listened to concerns expressed about the budget. She said:
Will they listen to the many, many thousands of farmers from across the United Kingdom and their concern about agricultural relief? Will they listen to the thousands and thousands of businesses across the United Kingdom, across Northern Ireland, concerned about national insurance contributions? I think that’s the test for this government. We raised that today with them, and we’ll see what happens.
And the Welsh first minister, Labour’s Eluned Morgan, said: “You would expect me to say it has been a much better relationship as a Labour politician, and it genuinely has.” She went on:
We had a flooding in Wales last week and the Prime Minister picked up the phone that very evening to check if there was anything we needed. That would never have happened before.
PCS union says Starmer's criticism of civil servants 'inaccurate and cowardly'
The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents civil servants, has joined the FDA in criticising Keir Starmer for the comments in his speech yesterday claiming government officials are comfortable with decline. (See 11.22am, 11.33am and 3.28pm.) Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the PCS, said:
One of the reasons trust in politics is so low is because of politicians’ refusal to be accountable for anything. It’s always someone else’s fault.
To blame civil servants, who every day work above and beyond to keep the country running, for failing to deliver reform is inaccurate and, worse, cowardly. Accusing people who can’t answer back. Our members want the best for this country and will continue to work hard to deliver that.
The former Tory MP Bob Stewart should be stripped of his right to access the parliamentary estate after showing “blatant disregard” in failing to register his employment by a defence company for two years, the Commons standards committee said in a report. PA Media says:
Stewart, who stood down as MP for Beckenham at the election, failed to register his employment as a consultant with Ksantex, a firm registered in Luxembourg but owned by Azerbaijan-born French citizen Khagani Bashirov, according to the committee.
Were he still an MP, he would also be subject to a 10-day suspension from the Commons, enough to kick-start the process that could pave the way for a by-election.
The former Army officer was employed by Ksantex between 2015 and 2017, and was paid more than £70,000 over that period.
He referred himself to parliament’s standards authority after media reporting suggested the job could conflict with his role as a member of the Commons defence committee.
In his initial defence, Stewart said he had registered a role with a company he called VES Consultancy several years previously, which was part of the “same group of companies” as Ksantex.
Parliament’s standards commissioner found the registry for VES Consultancy was incorrect, that the company was actually called Vnesh Expert Services, and that Stewart did not register all his earnings from the role he undertook there.
The commissioner also found Stewart failed to register his role with Ksantex, and payments from the company worth £32,277.87 in 2015, and £41,385.20 in 2017.
After examining the findings of the commissioner, the standards committee said Stewart should have declared his role with Ksantex as it “could have reasonably been inferred to be a defence-related company for at least some of the time” during which he worked for it.
In its conclusion, the committee said: “For a senior member to commit several breaches, spanning three codes of conduct and a period of 14 years, shows a blatant disregard for the rules. It is integral to the transparency of the standards system that members accurately register their outside interests and make declarations in relevant proceedings. Nor are minor sums involved in these repeated breaches: payments of £41,385.20 and £32,277.87, for example, went entirely unregistered.”
Justin Welby apologises ‘for the hurt’ caused by farewell Lords speech
Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has apologised after being accused of making light of serious safeguarding failures in the Church of England.
Civil servants union boss writes to Starmer over ‘frankly insulting’ criticism
Dave Penman, head of the FDA senior civil servants’ union, has written to Keir Starmer urging him to rethink his “frankly insulting” criticism of Whitehall for being comfortable with falling standards, Rowena Mason reports.
TUV MP Jim Allister claims Windsor Framework has achieved what IRA wanted, pushing 'border to Irish Sea'
Jim Allister has accused SDLP leader Claire Hanna of valuing the “nationalist reach” of post-Brexit trading arrangements over the “democratic detriment”, PA Media reports. PA says:
Hanna said the TUV leader was “inserting the dynamism” into conversations around Irish unity as he drove “people to seek to get out of the control of men like him”.
The pair had a heated exchange during the second reading of Allister’s European Union (withdrawal arrangements) bill, which would allow UK ministers to scrap parts of the Windsor Framework deal.
The framework was negotiated by former prime minister Rishi Sunak to mitigate trade concerns in Northern Ireland relating to the previous post-Brexit trade agreements under the Northern Ireland protocol.
Allister claims the framework enables a “democratic deficit” by implementing some EU law in Northern Ireland and creates a border in the Irish Sea.
The MP for North Antrim questioned Hanna on her “democratic credentials” as he compared the protocol arrangements to the terror campaign of the IRA during the Troubles.
Allister told MPs: “For some – not all – but for some enthusiasts about the protocol arrangement of a nationalist or Irish republican persuasion, there is a political gain here that subsumes all doubts they might have as democrats. And it is this: that for 30 years and more, the IRA terrorised through bomb and bullet to try and push the border to the Irish Sea. ‘Brits Out’. Push the border to the Irish Sea. That is precisely what the protocol has done. It has pushed the border to the Irish Sea.”
Hanna shouted “shame on you”, to which Allister said: “Now [Hanna] may from a sedentary position object, but the challenge to her is: is her nationalism more important to her than her democratic credentials? How can [Hanna] – who calls herself a Social Democratic and Labour member – how can you look her constituents in the eye and say, ‘I believe you are not worthy to have your laws made by those you elect, and I would rather they are made by those you don’t elect’? Is it because the nationalist reach of the protocol is more important than the democratic detriment of the protocol?”
In her reply, referring to Allister, Hanna said: “It is his actions, in fact, that are inserting the dynamism in the question about constitutional change. Every time he pulls a stunt like this, he drives more people to seek to get out of the control of men like him. I, as a democrat, every day I accept, the constitutional reality I accept, we’re members of the United Kingdom. I’m seeking to change that democratically, so he will never again question my commitment to democracy in Northern Ireland.”
The debate on the bill ended without a vote, because the debate was still going on at 2.30pm. In other words, it was takked out. It won’t be debated further.
Swinney says relations between UK and Scottish governments now 'incomparably better' than under Tories
Keir Starmer has posted a video clip on social media about the British-Irish Council meeting, stressing his commitment to working with the leaders of devolved governments.
My government will deliver for working people across the whole of the United Kingdom, working closely with the devolved governments to bring about national renewal. pic.twitter.com/cCof8B19qr
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) December 6, 2024
At his press conference earlier, John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, was asked if he thought there had been a reset in relations with London. He said relations were now “incomparably better” then they were when the Tories were in power.
I have made no secret of the fact that relationships between the Scottish government and the United Kingdom government today are incomparably better than they were immediately before the general election. The relationship with the last United Kingdom government latterly, I speak only for the government that I lead, was awful. They could not have been more disrespectful. They could not have been more awful.
Keir Starmer came to see me the Sunday after the election. We’ve had a number of one to one meetings. We had another one this morning, which I very much welcome … So the dialogue is incomparably [better].
No 10 plays down claims Starmer's talk of 'missions', 'milestones' and 'foundations' confusing to voters
The Daily Mail splashed today on a Quentin Letts’ sketch mocking Keir Starmer’s speech yesterday, particularly for its use of jargon. In its news story the paper says:
In a jargon-laden speech, the prime minister set out seven ‘pillars’, six ‘milestones’, five ‘missions’, three ‘foundations’ and a ladder that would guide his government.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning, the PM’s spokesperson played down claims that these terms were all confusing. He explained:
The missions are the mandate for change. The foundations run through everything we do, but the milestones are a really important, tangible way the public can hold us to account.
Pat McFadden says Edinburgh will get UK data it needs' to lift two-child benefit cap - but stresses SNP policy not yet funded
Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, has said the UK government will provide Scotland with the data it needs to abolish the two-child benefit cap – while playing down the significance of the SNP’s commitment to get rid of it.
Speaking at a press conference in Edinburgh alongside John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, McFadden said that, although the Scottish government has announced the policy, it has not yet said how it will fund it.
In her budget on Wednesday, Shona Robison, the Scottish government’s finance secretary, announced that from April 2026 the SNP government would start paying families to compensate them for the impact of the UK-wide policy, originally introduced by the Tories, which stops parents getting child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children.
To implement this, the Scottish government has said that it will need to access benefits data held by the UK government’s Department of Work and Pensions. Swinney told press conference that he had raised this with Keir Starmer in talks this morning and that Starmer had said the UK would “work constructively” with Swinney’s government on this.
McFadden confirmed this saying, that he would ensure that the Scottish government gets “any data it needs for this”.
But, in response to several questions on this topic, McFadden repeatedly said the SNP pledge was not yet funded. He said:
Any commitment has to be funded. Funds, as I understand it, have not yet been committed [for the SNP policy]. That is true for all of us in government. If we make a commitment, we have to fund it.
Swinney said the Scottish government has set aside money in the 2025-26 budget enabling it to “do the work that is necessary to left the two-child limit”. He was referring to £3m set aside to enable his government to develop systems allowing the money to be paid.
As for how the benefits payments themselves would be funded, Swinney said that would be addressed in the 2026-27 budget.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that lifting the two-child benefit cap on a UK-wide basis would cost about £2.5bn a year.
The SNP has repeatedly criticised Keir Starmer’s government for refusing to lift the two-child benefit cap, a policy which is widely seen as a major contributor to child poverty. Although Labour MPs and activists would like to see the cap abolished, Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, have used their refusal to abolish it immediately as a sign of their commitment to fiscal responsibility.
In the press conference McFadden said that the UK government and the Scottish government both wanted to cut child poverty. He says the UK government has set up a taskforce looking at how this can be done, but he added:
We don’t believe it is just about benefits. We think there are other things that contribute to child poverty. And the conclusions of the child poverty taskforce that we’ve established will report next year.
Updated
Badenoch hits back at Starmer over his joke about her McDonald's/being working class comments
In his speech yesterday Keir Starmer started with a joke about Kemi Badenoch claiming that she was working class as a teenager because she was working in McDonald’s.
As Politico reports, Badenoch hit back last night in a speech she delivered in Washington. The Conservative leader said that if a Tory had made a comment like that about a black party leader, they would have been accused of racism. She said:
The truth is that the left are not that interested in ethnic minorities, except as a tool to fight their battles against the right. In fact, just this morning, the British prime minister … made a joke about how I worked at McDonald’s. He would never have dared to do that if I was a leftwing activist, and if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a Black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign.
As Christian Calgie reports for the Express, Badenoch devoted most of her speech to her claim that liberalism has been “hacked” because policies based on tolerance are being exploited by people who do not support western democratic values.
Updated
The Institute for Government thinktank has published an assessment of Keir Starmer’s speech yesterday which covers his attack on the civil service. (See 11.22am.) The IfG is not as critical as Dave Penman from the FDA, but it says Starmer “needs to be careful not to alienate and disillusion his workforce”. But civil servants should also take account of what Starmer is saying, the IfG says.
In one of the most memorable passages Starmer said that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”. Combine that with his earlier direction to his newly appointed cabinet secretary Chris Wormald to work on “nothing less than the complete re-wiring of the British state” and you have a sense of a prime minister frustrated with the support he is getting from the system.
Starmer’s instruction should be taken as a call for the civil service to rediscover its policy creativity and shake off the passivity which can characterise the minister-official relationship. Mission-led government requires innovative thinking, creativity and a willingness to listen to external voices, so Wormald and his colleagues can use Starmer’s new interest in internal reform to show how imaginative and energetic they can be in service of the government’s agenda. That must go alongside radically improving how the centre of government works, by restructuring and slimming down the Cabinet Office and building capacity in No.10 to hold the rest of government to account for delivering on the direction set by the Plan for Change.
Starmer needs to be careful not to alienate and disillusion his workforce, and the approach of some ministers in the last government showed that crude blob-bashing does not work. But at this moment of leadership change in the civil service, senior officials need to show they can rise to Starmer’s challenge. The new cabinet secretary inherits this plan, so Chris Wormald – who starts his new job on 16 December – has just been given a very public set of performance objectives by the prime minister.
Reform UK claims Tory co-chair's comments about Farage/Musk links shows Tories in 'total panic'
Reform UK has accused the Conservative party of being “in a state of total panic” about Nigel Farage’s links with Elon Musk.
Farage’s party issued the statement in response to a Sky News report saying that Lord Johnson of Lainston, co-chair of the Conservative party, criticised Reform UK for its links with Elon Musk in a private call with activists.
In her story for Sky News, Alexandra Rogers says:
In a recording of a video call with Tory activists heard by Sky News, Lord Johnson of Lainston said it was “extraordinary” that Mr Musk, the owner of X and Tesla and the world’s richest man, was “basically buying one of the political parties here”.
He said Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, should “be frankly embarrassed about that”, saying he risked becoming a “puppet of a foreign politician” if he accepted any donations from Mr Musk.
Although there have been reports saying Musk could donate $100m to Reform UK, Farage has said that he did not know anything about this until approached by the paper running the story. He has also said he does not think this will happen.
A Reform UK spokesperson said:
This leaked recording is the latest demonstration of a Conservative party in a state of total panic about the momentum of Reform UK in British politics.
Back to bats, and a reader points out that Natural England, a government advisory body, published a blog on a government website last month defending the requirement for HS2 to take steps to protect bats. (See 9.25am.)
Updated
Here is the ‘family photo’ from today’s British-Irish Council (BIC) summit in Edinburgh. The BIC was set up 25 years ago, after the Good Friday agreement, and today’s summit is the 42nd it has held.
Updated
Minister declines to endorse Starmer's claim about some civil servants being comfortable with 'tepid bath of decline'
In an interview on LBC this morning Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, was asked about Keir Starmer’s criticism of civil servants in his speech yesterday. (See 11.22am.) He would not endorse Starmer’s claim that some civil servants are comfortable with decline.
Pennycook said that the officials he had encountered as a minister were “some of the most dedicated, committed, professional people I’ve ever worked with”.
Asked by Nick Ferrari if that meant Starmer was wrong, Pennycook replied:
He’s not wrong …
We’ve also got to do government differently. I was asked on a couple of other programmes this morning about the construction capacity problems that we’re facing in terms of building those million and a half. We’ve got to do government differently. That isn’t an MHCLG problem. That cuts across the Department for Education, Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Business. We’ve got to break down silos in government.
And I think therefore, we have got to say to the civil service, we want to do things a bit differently, and you’ll have to come on that journey with us.
But asked specifically about civil servants enjoying the “tepid bath” of declinism (Starmer’s metaphor), Pennycook replied:
I haven’t experienced any particular civil servants in a tepid bath of declinism. They share our ambition. They are working absolutely flat out to make the changes to the planning system that we’ve already taken forward, and they’ll continue to do that.
Union leader accuses Starmer of using 'Trumpian' language to denigrate civil servants in speech
Prime ministers are normally very complimentary about the individual civil servants they work with (their office is staffed by the brightest and most able people in Whitehall) but they also normally end up getting frustrated by the civil service as a whole, and by the fact that it does not implement change was quickly as they would like. But usually this takes a while. Tony Blair waited two years before he started complaining about the “scars on my back” he had suffered as a result of his Whitehall reform plans.
Keir Starmer got their in five months. In his speech yesterday he criticised civil servants for being willing to accept decline. He said:
Too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline. Have forgotten, to paraphrase JFK, that you choose change, not because it’s easy but because it’s hard.
I totally get that when trust in politics is so low, we must be careful about the promises we make. But across Whitehall and Westminster that’s been internalised as ‘don’t say anything’, ‘don’t try anything too ambitious’, ‘set targets that will happen anyway’.
This has gone down very badly with civil servants. In an interview on Newsnight last night Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the union represting top civil servants, accused Starmer of using “Trumpian” language and said officials felt “a sense of betrayal”.
He said:
In the early days of this government, ministers were walking around departments saying, ‘we’re not going to be like the previous administration, we’ve got your back’. And yet here we are five months in with that Trumpian language that is getting used.
Penman said the reference to draining the swamp was Trumpian. When it was put to him that Starmer in his speech explicitly said “I don’t think there’s a swamp to be drained here”, Penman pointed out that a “but” came immediately afterwards. He said Starmer was invoking a Trumpian idea.
“I don’t think the PM understands quite how damaging his words have been...they feel a sense of betrayal”
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) December 5, 2024
Dave Penman, General Secretary of the FDA union, says Keir Starmer used “Trumpian” language about the civil service in his ‘plan for change’ speech.#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/YXgfo8bspl
This is how some of the morning papers in London have covered Keir Starmer’s Plan for Change speech yesterday.
TIMES: PM vows to stop ‘nimby lobby’ and get building #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/tSvtFCmvro
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) December 5, 2024
I PAPER: Starmer reset #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Tr069WdU15
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) December 5, 2024
TELEGRAPH: PM drops pledges as economy stumbles #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/mxdueXMXaZ
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) December 5, 2024
GUARDIAN: NHS facing a ‘quad-demic’ of emergencies #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/wD3zkxOySj
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) December 5, 2024
MAIL: Starmer’s bingo hall parade #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/YcFxBJBI5b
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) December 5, 2024
INDEPENDENT: The great reset #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/ov3hDnLxEM
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) December 5, 2024
MORNING STAR: Stumbling Starmer hits PANIC button #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/rEtZ5B86oR
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) December 5, 2024
In his London Playbook briefing for Politico, Dan Bloom has a good summary of the attack lines being used by the rightwing press.
While few quibble the aims behind the six targets, glum reactions generally fall into … accusations that Starmer’s previous missions have been “watered down” (Telegraph splash) … complaints about his techy rhetoric (Mail splash) … a focus on what’s left out of the hard targets, i.e. migration (Express splash) … claims that the new “milestones” are too easy … *and* that they’re unachievable as there isn’t a clear plan to get there.
Minister urges councils saying their housing targets are unachievable to consider using low-quality green belt
In her Today programme interview this morning Yvonne Gagen, the Labour leader of West Lancashire borough council, said the target for new housebuilding for her authority set by the Labour government, which is more than three times as high as the previous target, was unrealistic. (See 9.01am.)
Explaining why the West Lancashire target could not be achieved, she said:
We have 90% green belt, at grade one agricultural land, and we need to protect this. It’s high quality, and it’s deemed essential in its role for national food security and local employment.
We have very few brownfield sites and very few greyfield sites.
So we feel on that, on that basis, that we will really, really struggle to actually deliver what the governments are asking us to deliver.
As well as problems with the supply of land, Gagen also said “strains on local infrastructure, lack of capacity in planning systems and [in] the construction industry” were also going to make a big increase in housebuilding difficult.
Asked if all of the green belt land West Lancashire had to be protected from housing, Gagen said there were “some parcels” where building might be possible. But she suggested that there was not enough of that to make the government’s target realistic.
Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, was interviewed on the same programme later. Asked to respond to what Gagen said about why she thought the housing target for her council was unrealistic, he said:
We’re very clear … Yes, we want to put in place more stretching housing targets in most parts of the country. We need every part of the country to play its part.
When it was put to him that Gagen said West Lancashire did not have enough land available, because so much of it was green belt, Pennycook said:
What local councils should do is look in terms of allocating land for release and ensuring that permissions come forward. They should look to densify on parts of the land that is available, brownfield land, for example. They should look to review green belt. They should look to work in cooperation with neighboring authorities …
[They] should release, where necessary, those low quality parts of the green belt – we call it grey belt – in the first instance …
We’re saying to all councils across the country, exhaust all your options to meet these housing targets, because we are absolutely determined to have a planning system in place that is geared towards meeting housing need in full.
Gagen suggested she had very little grey belt land available. Pennycook said he did not know how she could be sure, because a final defintion of grey belt has not been issued by the government.
He said councils should look at all their options for housbuilding. He went on:
And then the planning inspector, when you bring a local plan forward, will judge whether you have exhausted all those options, or whether you have hard constraints that mean you can’t release the land.
Updated
Starmer dismisses slump in personal approval ratings, saying 'all that matters' is delivering change by time of next election
In his BBC Breakfast interview Keir Starmer also played down the fact that his personal approval ratings have slumped. Asked about his polling figures, he said:
I’ll be judged at the end of the five-year term on whether we deliver what we said we will deliver, and that’s all that matters. That’s what gets me up in the morning. That’s why I came into politics, to bring about that change.
'Why do you think you are so unpopular?'
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) December 6, 2024
Keir Starmer told #BBCBreakfast 'judge me at the end of the five year term' when he was questioned on his first five months as Prime Ministerhttps://t.co/Y4xDf76zn5 pic.twitter.com/uLwANfIXH0
Starmer says he wants people to feel improvement in standard of living 'as quickly as possible'
In his interviews this morning Keir Starmer stressed that improving public services would take time. He said he would not get everything done by Christmas. (See 9.36am.)
But Starmer also suggested that people would see their living standards rise “straight away”. Rejecting claims that things might get worse before they get better, he told BBC Breakfast:
I want people to feel better off straight away – feel better off in the sense of more money in their pocket, feel better off because they’ve got a secure job that they know is guaranteed to give them the money they need.
Starmer said the government had already given a pay rise to three million of the lowest-paid workers by increasing the minimum wage. He added:
I want others to feel the difference as quickly as possible.
Here is the passsage in the Plan for Change document setting out how the government intends to measures whether or not it has achieved its higher living standards goals.
Don’t expect better public services ‘by Christmas’, Starmer says
Keir Starmer has told voters not to expect rapid public service improvements. As Kiran Stacey reports, in interviews broadcast this morning the prime minister said he could not promise immediate change, blaming the previous Conservative government for leaving behind problems which could take years to solve.
Starmer condemns planning rules that led to 'absurd spectacle' of HS2 spending £100m on bat shed
In his Times article Keir Starmer says his government will introduce “a golden era of building”.
Generations before us built the infrastructure the entire nation was proud of — from civic buildings to train stations, hospitals to schools. So we will introduce a new golden era of building. That’s why we’re fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major infrastructure by the end of parliament, more than double those decided in the previous parliament. We’ll build the schools, the hospitals, the railways and roads, the towns and villages, that will shape our national landscape for years to come and fuel growth in every region and nation.
And, reviving an argument he has made countless times before, he also argues that planning regulations need to be relaxed. As an example of where current laws are too tight, he says the rules that led to HS2 having to set aside £100m for a shed for bats are “absurd”.
In the past 14 years, the Tories decided fewer than 60 infrastructure projects. We haven’t built a reservoir in 30 years, not least because the time it takes to secure planning permission for major infrastructure projects has almost doubled in the past decade. Every road, pylon and mast — which connect people with opportunity — must jump through endless hoops, only to be opposed, dragged out, before eventually, if lucky, approved. That’s how we ended up with the absurd spectacle of HS2 building a tunnel for bats that cost £100 million.
The £100m bat shed story is so extreme you might assume it’s made up. But it’s not. Here is Gywn Topham’s story about the HS2 chair talking about it at a conference last month.
UPDATE: A reader points out that Natural England, a government advisory body, published a blog on a government website last month defending the requirement for HS2 to take stepts to protect bats. (See 9.25am.)
Updated
Starmer vows to take on ‘blockers’ as Labour council says government housebuilding targets ‘impossible
Good morning. Yesterday Keir Starmer committed the government to six “measurable milestones” – a mixture of some new targets and some existing ones, wrapped up in a package intended to show people that the government is focusing on things that will make a tangible difference to their lives. They are in a Plan for Change which is an implicit admission that the previous headline performance indicators that Starmer said he wanted to be judged by – his five pre-election missions, and his six “first steps for change” – were a bit woolly.
One of the new milestones is:
Building 1.5 million homes in England and fast-tracking planning decisions on at least 150 major economic infrastructure projects - more than the last 14 years combined.
Arguably this involves two targets, but the most important is the 1.5m new homes one. It is not new – it was in the original five missions – but it is receiving fresh attention because Starmer has recommitted to it, and in an interview on the Today programme this morning, Yvonne Gagen, the Labour leader of West Lancashire borough council, said the specific targets set for councils as part of this ambition were “impossible”.
Gagen said the current housebuilding target for her council was 166 new homes per year, and West Lancashire was delivering above that. But she said the new target was 605. That was “unrealistic” and the council would “really, really struggle” to hit it, she said.
Gagen said that “the vast majority of councils” felt the same way and that the government should start listening to them. She went on:
I feel that we are going to be on a collision course with Labour. And it’s not just Labour councils. It’s Liberal Democrats, it’s Conservatives, they’ve all said the same thing.
When asked to confirm that, as a Labour council leader, she expected to be on a collision course with her own government, Gagen replied:
Absolutely, absolutely, over these planning targets. They are absolutely impossible and unrealistic.
The government has been consulting on the new housing targets for councils in England, announced by Angela Rayner in July, and on Monday the BBC published a report saying that most councils that have responded to the consultation are telling the govenment in private what Gagen was saying on Today this morning: that the targets cannot be achieved.
But Starmer has signalled that he won’t back down. In an article for the Times this morning about his Plan for Change, he says he welcomes the chance to win the argument with the “blockers” obstructing change. He says:
I know, with trust in politics so low, the public are sceptical of promises made by politicians. And who can blame them, after years of inaction by successive Tory governments. But that can’t be an excuse for low expectations and easy ambitions, a culture that isn’t brave enough to even try for fear of failure. I know some councils have come out this week to challenge our plans for housing reform. I always knew there would be resistance to our planning reform. Let me say this — I won’t shy away from this argument. In fact, I welcome it.
Where there are blockers putting the brakes on, it’s a sign you are delivering real change. And change is what the British people voted for this summer — a government that is willing to take on the obstacles and break down the barriers that prevent us from reaching our full potential.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: MPs start debating the European Union (withdrawal arrangements) bill, a private member’s bill tabled by the TUV’s Jim Allister that would remove checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. It has no chance of becoming law, but the debate will allow Allister and other MPs to criticise the current Brexit arrangements for Northenr Ireland.
10.30am: Keir Starmer attends the British-Irish Council meeting in Edinburgh, with Irish and devolved government leaders. There will be a press conference at 12.30pm, and Starmer is also doing interviews.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Afternoon: Starmer is on a visit in Newcastle.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I have still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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