UK politics: government likely to have to ‘pay some Waspi compensation in election year’ – as it happened

Women campaigning against state pension inequality mark International Women’s Day at the statue of political activist Mary Barbour in Govan, Glasgow. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

5.46pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Thousands of women, potentially hundreds of thousands, are owed compensation because of government failings related to the way changes to the state pension age were made, a long-awaited official report has said.

• The UK’s poorest families have borne the brunt of the cost of living crisis, according to latest official figures that show 300,000 more children were plunged into poverty amid falling incomes and soaring levels of hunger and food bank use.

• The Conservative candidate for the Greater Manchester mayoral election has defected to Richard Tice’s rightwing Reform UK party. Explaining why he defected in an interview with the PM programme, Dan Barker said:

I switched to Reform UK because I thought the Conservatives were not serious about the election against Andy Burnham, they’ve given up on Greater Manchester and, I would argue, the north of England as well, and the policies in Westminster are no longer what I would call conservatism either.

So when I look at Reform UK, and look at their policies, and the people and the things they say, I see that as true conservatism.

Barker also said “it is clear that the Conservative party have lost the confidence of ordinary working people across the UK and there is a reckoning waiting for them at the general election.”

• Esther McVey, a Cabinet Office minister who has criticised Whitehall waste, has claimed tens of thousands of pounds in expenses to rent a London flat despite her husband owning a property a mile away.

• Humza Yousaf has hit back at “disinformation and inaccuracy” surrounding Scotland’s controversial hate crime act, after the Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, suggested the new legislation would result in “innocent people being prosecuted”.

• Record numbers of pupils in England were absent for long periods last year, with one in 50 missing at least half of their lessons, according to official data showing absences remain far higher than pre-Covid levels.

Updated at 5.49pm GMT

5.35pm GMT

Vaughan Gething, the new Welsh first minister, has appointed his cabinet. The full details are here. Gething says his new team “will answer the call of the generation in waiting, to create a stronger, fairer, greener Wales”.

Today is a significant day for Wales.@PrifWeinidog Vaughan Gething has appointed his new Cabinet, who will work together to deliver a stronger, fairer, greener Wales.

Full details of appointments here 👇https://t.co/bo6Uu13ENo pic.twitter.com/kNVlpmLKOL

— Welsh Government (@WelshGovernment) March 21, 2024