UK politics: Trump talks ‘complete nonsense’ about crime in London, says Met police commissioner – as it happened

Rowley said the homicide rate in London was lower than that of all big US cities. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma/Shutterstock

4.30pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Britain’s economy shrank unexpectedly in October as consumers held back on spending before Rachel Reeves’s budget, and car manufacturing struggled to recover from the cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover.

• Wes Streeting has told resident doctors that strikes and a sharp rise in the number of flu cases over the Christmas period could be “the Jenga piece” that forces the NHS to collapse.

• Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, has accused President Trump of talking “complete nonsense” about crime levels in London. (See 11.20am.)

• Members of the House of Lords have proposed “totally unnecessary” and “very cruel” amendments to the assisted dying bill in an attempt to scupper it, the MP leading the campaign has said.

• Conservative policies that pitted drivers against cyclists risked making the roads less safe by inflaming tensions, a minister has said, promising that the era of transport culture wars is over.

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.

4.19pm GMT

Peers told there's 'perception we are being unreasonable' as debate on assisted dying bill drags on very slowly

The assisted dying bill could have “enhanced protections” added regarding assessments of mental capacity, the House of Lords heard during its final debate on the legislation this year. PA Media reports:

Labour peer Lord Falconer of Thornton, who is leading the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill through the House of Lords, told peers that those who are “particularly vulnerable” should have an “enhanced level of assessment”.

This came after it was suggested that anyone who has been deprived of their liberty under the Mental Capacity Act (2005) in the last year should be ineligible for an assisted death.

The former president of the British Medical Association, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, argued that an impairment of capacity serious enough to result in a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) application should act as a “yellow flag” and an “indicator that risk may be elevated”.

Former Labour MP Luciana Berger added: “I hope we can all agree that people whose incapacity for basic decisions is so severe that they are deprived of their liberty or have an application made for the deprivation of their liberty are the most vulnerable members of society.

“And the protection of people who lack capacity is a solemn duty. The state looks after their interests because they cannot.”

Meanwhile, several peers urged colleagues to increase the pace at which amendments are debated to ensure the bill does not run out of time to be passed into law, given the more than 1,000 that have been tabled at committee stage in the upper chamber.

Former Lord Justice of Appeal Lady Butler-Sloss warned that there is “the perception that we are being unreasonable”, and urged colleagues to “exercise restraint, by dealing with the amendments relatively briefly”.

She said: “I don’t like the bill, but I am here like other noble lords to try and make it work. It needs scrutiny, it needs improvement, but we must get it to third reading.

“If we don’t, there is a very real danger that the reputation of this House, which not only I but all your lordships care about deeply, will be, or possibly will be, irreparably eroded.”

Supporters of the bill believe that peers opposed to assisted dying are deliberately dragging out the debates on the amendments to the bill so that it runs out of time and does not become law.