Rachel Reeves set to verify more money to spend on areas outdoors south-east – UK politics dwell

The UK is on the point of signing a £1.6bn commerce settlement with Gulf states, amid warnings from rights teams that the deal makes no concrete provisions on human rights, trendy slavery or the atmosphere.

The cope with the Gulf Cooperation Council – which incorporates the nations Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is inside touching distance, making it a fourth buying and selling settlement by Keir Starmer after pacts had been struck with the US, India and the EU.

The UK has stated it hopes the deal will ultimately add an additional £8.6bn a 12 months to commerce between the UK and GCC nations by 2035. Sources near the negotiations within the oil-rich area stated the deal was now at its ultimate phases they usually anticipated UK settlement imminently.

The deal is more likely to be notably useful for the automobile trade and monetary providers, although estimates recommend {that a} free commerce settlement can be price lower than 0.1% of GDP over the following decade.

Nonetheless, there may be more likely to be a backlash over a deal on hen imports, the place decrease animal welfare requirements may considerably undercut British farmers.

The TUC is amongst those that have urged warning over the deal and has raised issues with ministers, the Guardian understands.

Human rights teams have beforehand stated the UK mustn’t finalise a free commerce settlement with out authorized commitments on human rights enhancements, particularly for migrant employees.

Going forward with welfare reforms will drive extra folks into homelessness, quite a lot of main charities have warned the federal government, experiences the PA information company.

Shelter and Disaster are among the many signatories to a letter to the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, voicing issues over the dangers from her proposed adjustments to the advantages system.

The federal government is already below strain over the controversial reforms, with greater than 40 Labour MPs earlier this month urging the prime minister to pause and reassess deliberate cuts, saying the proposals are “impossible to support”.

The proposed reforms, set out earlier this 12 months, would tighten the eligibility standards for private independence fee (Pip) – the primary incapacity profit in England – and see the sickness-related ingredient of common credit score (UC) reduce.

A letter, coordinated by the St Mungo’s homelessness charity, has said the “deep concern” organisations inside the sector really feel in regards to the reforms.

Within the letter, which has additionally been despatched to deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner, they stated:

We are able to solely conclude that the proposed adjustments will enhance the variety of folks prone to changing into homeless for the primary time, enhance the variety of folks we’ve got helped resolve their homelessness fall again into it and enhance the size of time it takes to resolve folks’s homelessness sooner or later.

In keeping with the PA information company, they stated that whereas they share the federal government’s “ambition to establish a thriving and inclusive labour market and give people the opportunities and support they need to get back to work”, the reforms “will not help achieve your ambition and therefore we as a sector cannot support them”.

The letter stated that the reforms will “push people further away from the labour market, increase homelessness and put excessive pressure on statutory services”.

They stated will increase in already document ranges of homelessness “will have a catastrophic impact on mental and physical health, education and employment opportunities” and have a “domino effect of imposing a significant financial cost to the state” in paying for extra short-term lodging and emergency homelessness providers.

The charities added:

Homelessness devastates folks’s possibilities of employment. These cuts and eligibility restrictions won’t give folks a pathway to work and we urge the Authorities to rethink its place.

Emma Haddad, chief govt of St Mungo’s, stated:

Many individuals depend on these advantages to handle complicated well being situations as a part of their restoration from homelessness and pay for important utilities. With already eyewatering rents, these advantages assist folks cowl their extra prices.

With out them, we concern folks can be more and more unable to afford to safe someplace secure to dwell.

Homelessness has already pushed these folks to the sting. We must be supporting them to rebuild their lives, not creating extra challenges for them to beat.

A authorities spokesperson stated:

We’ll by no means compromise on defending individuals who want our assist, and our reforms will imply the social safety system will all the time be there for individuals who won’t ever have the ability to work.

On the coronary heart of the federal government’s reforms is a £1bn scheme to assist the long-term sick or disabled out of poverty and into good, safe jobs.

We now have additionally raised the nationwide dwelling wage, elevated advantages and given extra assist to the poorest households, as a part of our Plan for Change.

Colleges minister Catherine McKinnell stated the federal government will make “substantial progress” in rebuilding colleges, however was unable to offer a goal for the way a lot of the upkeep backlog can be handled.

Catherine McKinnell instructed BBC Breakfast on Friday:

We’ll make a considerable progress on rebuilding our colleges throughout the subsequent few years.

We now have slightly below 600 colleges within the rebuilding colleges programme, we’re actually accelerating it truly.

Requested whether or not she may present a determine for the way a lot of the £14bn upkeep backlog can be eradicated or how when colleges can be freed from Raac (strengthened autoclaved aerated concrete), she couldn’t.

She added:

We’re working very exhausting, however you may’t simply change a change and repair all the things in a single day.

Requested once more about Raac in an interview on Friday with LBC, McKinnell stated:

We’re not over that hurdle but, and we’re not over it within the NHS both.

In keeping with the PA information company, she went on to say that “we have identified all the Raac” and there are plans for buildings to both be fastened or rebuilt “because [ …] the fact that they have Raac in them means that they’re probably a substantial age as a building”.

Keir Starmer is braced for a significant rebel in opposition to his makes an attempt to chop advantages once they come to a vote subsequent month, with dozens of Labour MPs getting ready to vote in opposition to the measures.

Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, has been setting out her causes for rebelling in opposition to the federal government this morning, telling the As we speak programme the plan is predicated on “very weak” proof.

“How does cutting people’s benefits help? No one can answer this question,” she stated. “The government hasn’t provided any evidence of that and is expecting MPs to vote on it without providing that evidence.”

She added:

We are able to cut back the welfare price range in the long run, however that requires spending within the quick time period on our public providers – on the NHS, on good high quality social housing, higher wages, and many others. Slicing folks’s advantages does nothing to assist folks.

Whittome’s backbench colleague Jake Richards defended the federal government, nevertheless, telling the programme:

The established order isn’t working, the advantages system is just not match for goal.

Kemi Badenoch has accused the Labour and Reform leaders of asking folks to “fund unlimited child support for others” by scrapping the two-child profit cap, experiences the PA information company.

Her feedback come after Nigel Farage introduced his occasion would abolish the cap as a part of a collection of spending guarantees together with reinstating the winter gasoline allowance and altering guidelines on tax-free allowances for married {couples}.

On the similar time, Keir Starmer stated his authorities was “all options” to drive down little one poverty, however has not dedicated to eliminating the cap.

Writing within the Every day Mail, the Tory chief accused Starmer and Farage of partaking in a “race to the bottom” on welfare.

She stated:

Apparently, Starmer and Farage now imagine in getting taxpayers – a lot of whom are struggling to lift their very own kids or selecting to not have them within the first place – to fund limitless little one assist for others.

That’s not honest, it’s not sustainable and it’s not even compassionate. Welfare traps folks, builds dependency and it drives up prices for everybody.

Badenoch stated each leaders’ feedback on the cap confirmed they had been “content to make promises they can’t keep”, arguing the Conservatives had been “going to be the party of sound money and fiscal responsibility again”.

The cap, launched by the Conservatives in 2017, prevents common credit score claimants from receiving extra advantages for a 3rd or subsequent little one born after 5 April 2017.
Campaigners say the cap exacerbates little one poverty and has had a minimal influence on birthrate or family-size.

The Youngster Poverty Motion Group has stated abolishing the cap would elevate 350,000 kids out of poverty and imply one other 700,000 had been in much less deep poverty.

Rachel Reeves is getting ready to announce billions of kilos’ price of additional spending for areas outdoors south-east England at subsequent month’s spending overview, after rewriting Treasury funding guidelines.

Reporting on the story, the Guardian’s political correspondent, Kiran Stacey writes:

The chancellor will unveil the additional capital spending after a overview of the Treasury’s “green book”, which determines how officers calculate the prices and advantages of a scheme.

Critics say the principles are biased in favour of extra economically productive areas of the nation, and Reeves has promised a overview to be printed on the identical day because the spending overview.

The announcement, which was first revealed by the Instances, comes as ministers search for methods to fight the specter of Reform UK within the “red wall” of seats within the north and Midlands, which had been gained by the Conservatives in 2019 and brought by Labour final 12 months. These areas are more likely to be hit by lowered departmental spending, which Reeves can even lay out on the spending overview.

In different information at the moment, the federal government is setting out funding allocations for constructing repairs, with ministers saying kids and sufferers need to be secure and comfy in colleges and hospitals throughout England.

Colleges minister Catherine McKinnell and shadow paymaster normal Richard Holden are on morning media spherical, so we’ll be listening to from them quickly. And, Farage has introduced Reform UK at the moment are accepting donations in bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies.

Extra on all the above in a second, however first, listed here are another developments:

• The UK is on the point of signing a £1.6bn commerce settlement with Gulf states, amid warnings from rights teams that the deal makes no concrete provisions on human rights, trendy slavery or the atmosphere. The cope with the Gulf Cooperation Council – which incorporates the nations Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is inside touching distance, making it a fourth buying and selling settlement by Keir Starmer after pacts had been struck with the US, India and the EU.

• Andrew Bailey has urged the UK authorities to deepen ties with the EU, as he warned a breakdown in international commerce would make it more durable for the Financial institution of England to manage inflation. In a speech in Dublin on Thursday, the Financial institution’s governor stated a stronger relationship between London and Brussels may “minimise negative effects” of Brexit on commerce.

• Kemi Badenoch has accused the Labour and Reform leaders of asking folks to “fund unlimited child support for others” by scrapping the two-child profit cap. Writing within the Every day Mail, the Tory chief accused Starmer and Farage of partaking in a “race to the bottom” on welfare.

• Nigel Farage has launched a second assault video aimed toward Anas Sarwar and accused the Scottish Labour chief of being “obsessed about race”, escalating the more and more private row earlier than a key Holyrood byelection. The marketing campaign for the central Scotland seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse is quickly evolving right into a head-to-head contest between the 2 occasion leaders. A Reform UK advert that incorrectly claims Sarwar has promised to prioritise Pakistani communities is now topic to formal complaints to Meta from Scottish Labour and the SNP.

• “Millionaires” mustn’t get “subsidy for their energy bills from the government”, a Treasury minister has steered. Darren Jones has stated that winter gasoline funds will “still be targeted to those that need it the most”.

• The therapy of autistic people who find themselves referred to the federal government’s deradicalisation scheme could possibly be in breach of equality legal guidelines, a human rights charity has claimed. In a pre-action letter to the House Workplace, Rights & Safety Worldwide (RSI) stated it was “deeply concerned about a potential ongoing failure to collect and analyse data on the protected characteristics of those referred to Prevent and that this constitutes an ongoing failure to comply with their public sector equality duty”.