Grant Shapps says it will ‘take some time’ to conclude who was to blame for cyber-attack on armed forces payroll – as it happened

British Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, attends a Cabinet meeting of the British government at Downing Street in London, Britain Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

6.20pm BST

Early evening summary

• Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, has said that “state involvement” in the large-scale cyber attack on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) cannot be ruled out – but without confirming reports that China was responsible.

• Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has accused Labour of trying to win the election by frightening pensioners with “fake news” about the government having a secret plan to raise income tax by 8p in the pound. (See 3.42pm.)

• Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has tried to counter arguments that Labour is not offering proper change at the election by arguing “stability is change”. Under the Tories, the country would face “five more years of chaos”, she said in a speech. (See 9.01am and 12.10pm.)

• John Swinney has been elected by MSPs as Scotland’s new first minister.

• University bosses are to attend a Downing Street summit to discuss antisemitism on campuses, as Palestinian solidarity protests continue to escalate at UK universities, with 10 students now vowing to go on hunger strike.

Updated at 6.23pm BST

5.50pm BST

Tobias Ellwood (Con) said that, if this was a physical attack, MPs would be demanding a proportionate reponse, and Nato’s article 5 might even be involved. What would be a proportionate response in this case?

Shapps repeated the point about the government not being sure a state was involved. And he said data did not appear to have been stolen.

But he accepted that Ellwood was right in his general point, about the need not to ignore state involvement in attacks of this kind.