Early evening summary
Keir Starmer has said he wants to see “the complete rewiring of the British state to deliver bold and ambitious long-term reform” – while announcing that Sir Chris Wormald, seen as one of the more conventional shortlisted candidates, will be the next cabinet secretary.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has published new details of why the last government’s Rwanda deportation policy cost £715m – even though only four people ever ended up going there, as volunteers. (See 5.35pm.)
Downing Street has played down claims that Keir Starmer’s ambitious targets to cut waiting lists for routine operations, due to be announced in a major ‘plan for change’ speech on Thursday, could lead to other parts of the NHS losing out. (See 1.06pm.)
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has repeated his claim that Donald Trump’s team are “appalled” by the British government’s deal transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. He also claimed that over time the deal would fall apart, just as the Sino-British Joint Declaration supposedly guaranteeing Hong Kong certain rights for 50 years after the 1997 handover has been abandoned. (See 4.23pm.)
Kemi Badenoch won't commit to reviving Rwanda policy because she knows it was 'con', says Cooper
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, urged Yvette Cooper to revive the Rwanda policy.
Responding to her Commons statement, he said:
Behind all the bluster and all the chat about previous governments, we see her record and her government’s record. A 64% increase in small boat crossings since the same period before the election, 6,000 extra people in hotels, the asylum backlog up by 11,000, all since the 4th of July.
We see the Rwanda deterrent, which the National Crime Agency and even Ursula von der Leyen says is necessary, cancelled by this government before it even started, so I call on her to think again on those issues.
But Cooper, the home secretary, said that Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, won’t commit to bringing back the policy because she knows it’s flawed. Cooper said:
So much do they know that this was a total failure, that their leader, their newly elected leader, won’t even promise to reinstate it. Because she knows the whole thing was a con.
