UK politics: Streeting does not want ‘corridor care’ in UK hospitals to be normalised – as it happened

Wes Streeting visiting a hospital last year Photograph: Leon Neal/PA

6.05pm GMT

Early evening summary

• The UK government will not sign off a deal to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius until Donald Trump’s administration has had a chance to consider the future of the joint military base, Downing Street has confirmed.

• Ministers will look at “every conceivable way” to prevent Gerry Adams, the former Sinn Féin president, being able to receive compensation under government plans to ditch controversial laws dealing with the Troubles period, Keir Starmer has told MPs.

• Keir Starmer has said Rachel Reeves will be chancellor for “many, many years to come”, as he insisted the government could not “tax our way out” of the problems it faces. (See 2.22pm.)

• Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has told MPs that he does not want “corridor care” – patients being treated in corridors because beds are not available in wards – to be normalised. (See 3.33pm.)

• UK inflation fell in December, giving the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, some breathing space and paving the way for the Bank of England to cut interest rates next month.

5.58pm GMT

The Conservative party never responded to my request earlier to a comment on the Polly Billington letter (see 11.19am) accusing Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, of gross hypocrisy for opposing a law that she introduced as a minister. But they have just sent out a press release saying 346 Labour MPs have voted today for the “boiler tax” (the term they are now using for the measure Coutinho first brought in). This letter from Billington explains the background.