UK politics: Badenoch refuses to commit to reversing rise in employers’ national insurance in speech at CBI – as it happened

Kemi Badenoch at the CBI Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

5.50pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has refused commit to reversing the rise in employers’ national insurance in the budget. (See 2.13pm.) Responding to her comment at a CBI conference, Labour said this meant the Tories were now implicitly accepting the need for the tax increases announced by the government. (See 3.06pm.)

• Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has told the CBI that she is ruling out a further rise to overall public spending and that “public services now need to live within the envelope that we’ve set”. (See 4.46pm.)

• Rupert Soames, the CBI chair, has accused the government of treating employers as a “cash cow” in last month’s budget, and urged ministers to water down plans for workers’ rights.

• Steve Reed, the environment secretary, has said the UK’s flood defences are in the “worst condition on record” and promised the new Labour government has committed £2.4bn to upgrade them. There is more coverage on our Storm Bert live blog.

• Keir Starmer is under renewed pressure over electoral reform after dozens of newly elected Labour MPs signed up to a parliamentary group calling for the UK to move to a proportional voting system.

5.32pm GMT

Scottish Labour accused of 'hypocrisy on stilts' after it plans vote on restoring winter fuel payments in Scotland

Scottish Labour will force a vote designed to re-design the Scottish government’s winter fuel payments, despite them being cut because of a decision by the UK government, PA Media reports. PA says:

Within weeks of taking office, chancellor Rachel Reeves set off a political firestorm by announcing the winter fuel payment would be means-tested, cutting spending and ultimately scuppering the Scottish government’s plan to offer its own universal counterpart.

But last week, Scottish Labour announced it would bring in re-designed payments, which would lower the bar for those who would receive them if it won the 2026 Holyrood election.

And today the party announced it would seek to bring the payments back by forcing a vote in Holyrood during stage three of the social security (amendment) (Scotland) bill.

Amendments submitted by the party would require ministers to make regulations that would make all pensioners eligible for winter heating assistance, while also allowing for any payments made to be recovered if the recipient’s household income exceeds an amount set by ministers.

Currently, winter heating assistance – as described in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 which the current bill is designed to amend – is “assistance (which may or may not take the form of money) given by the Scottish ministers under section 24 to an individual to meet, or help towards meeting, the individual’s heating costs during the winter months”.

The amendments would appear to make changes to the devolved benefit the Scottish government pushed back until next year after the chancellor’s announcement.

Commenting on the move, the Scottish government’s social justice secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville, said:

This is hypocrisy on stilts from Labour.

After betraying millions of pensioners by taking away their winter fuel payment, they now expect people to believe that they can be trusted to stand up for pensioners.