UK has ‘no issues’ with Trump’s Nato challenge, says minister – UK politics live

Scrutiny arrangements for Britain’s spy agencies are “fundamentally flawed” and the existing system “isn’t viable operationally,” the chair of the watchdog intelligence and security committee (ISC) has said this morning in a rare public statement.

Insufficient staffing and resources mean that “we cannot provide” the intelligence community “with its licence to operate” warned Labour peer and former MP Lord Beamish – while new parts of the intelligence apparatus are not being scrutinised at all.

“When it comes to resources, the committee is on the brink,” Beamish wrote in Intelligence Online. Spending on MI5, MI6 and GCHQ has doubled in the last 12 years, he said, while 20 new intelligence teams have been created across government.

A plan for an emergency increase of 15 staff, agreed under the last government in May 2024, has not been implemented, leaving its staff struggling to oversee spending of £3bn on spies with a budget of less than £2m.

“The problem has been steadily getting worse but we are now at the point where the organisation isn’t viable operationally,” Beamish said, and he argued that as well as extra resources a comprehensive restructuring was needed.

Negotiations had begun with Downing Street to resolve the crisis, which Beamish described as “very positive” and he added he believed that national security adviser Jonathan Powell agreed that reforms were urgent.

The body, which was created by special legislation and unlike a normal Commons committee, plans to move out of the Cabinet Office and “link into” parliament. “The parliamentary oversight body tasked with holding the UK’s national intelligence community to account cannot be seated within, and therefore beholden to an organisation it oversees,” Beamish concluded.

Liz Kendall says getting people into work is best way to cut benefits bill

Heather Stewart

The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has said helping more people back into a job is the best way to cut the benefits bill, as the chancellor looks for savings ahead of the 26 March spring statement.

With Rachel Reeves zeroing in on welfare as a source of potential cuts as she prepares to take action to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules, Kendall said the starting point must be getting people back into work – not numbers on a spreadsheet.

“I think the only way that you get the welfare bill on a more sustainable footing is to get people into work. And you know, we will be bringing forward big reforms that actually support people into work, that get them on a pathway to success,” Kendall said.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is due to publish a green paper on welfare in the coming days, before Reeves’s statement.

With the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expected to downgrade its growth forecasts against the backdrop of a deteriorating global economy, the chancellor is preparing to make spending cuts to ensure she can still meet her fiscal targets.

Kendall refused to comment on specific policy changes. “I want to be really clear about our objective: it’s reforming the system, changing the system to provide people with the support that they need because that’s the only way,” she said.

However, she repeatedly declined to deny reports that the Treasury is seeking up to £5bn in cuts.

With the OBR unlikely to pencil in uncertain future savings from supporting people into employment, analysts believe cuts on such a scale will be impossible to achieve without making it harder to claim benefits, or reducing their value.

One senior government source hinted at radical change, describing the current system as “completely busted”, adding: “You don’t need the OBR to tell you it’s not working.”

UK Treasury ‘plans funding cuts at GB Energy’ in blow to Ed Miliband

Mark Sweney

The UK government is making plans to cut the funding for GB Energy, the state-owned company set up by Labour to drive renewable energy and cut household bills, in June’s spending review.

Cuts to the £8.3bn of taxpayer money promised over the five-year parliament would be another blow for Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, after he was overruled by the government when the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, backed the expansion of Heathrow’s third runway.

GB Energy, a vital cog in Keir Starmer’s plans to “supercharge” Britain’s clean energy revolution, was only given an initial £100m in October’s budget to cover its first two years.

Ministers are carrying out a “zero-based review” of all government spending, which has been given additional impetus after Starmer’s pledge to boost investment in defence.

One option under consideration by the Treasury is to cut the £3.3bn earmarked for GB Energy to fund low-interest loans via local authorities, for projects such as solar panels and shared-ownership wind projects, according to the Financial Times.

Despite Labour making the £8.3bn funding for GB Energy a pledge in its general election manifesto, neither the Treasury nor the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has said that it is guaranteed.

“We are fully committed to GB Energy, which is at the heart of our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower and to ensure homes are cheaper and cleaner to run,” a government spokesperson said.

Last month, GB Energy admitted that it could take 20 years to meet its pledge to employ 1,000 people, as the chair, Jürgen Maier, also refused to put a date on when it would bring down energy bills.

UK to continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine after US cutoff

Dan Sabbagh

Britain will continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine, though the more limited capabilities on offer from London and other European countries will make it difficult to replace the flow halted from the US earlier this week.

The UK will also continue to supply its analysis of the raw data, sources said on Thursday, though in line with normal intelligence practice it will not simply pass on US information obtained via long-established sharing arrangements between the two countries.

“They are not as far reaching as US capabilities, not at the same scale and not able to take their place,” a former Whitehall insider said. But they will allow Ukraine to maintain some early warning from attack and a degree of deep strike capability into Russia.

Reconnaissance data collected from satellites, ground stations, surveillance aircraft such as Rivet Joint, and even covertly deployed ground forces is accumulated and shared with Ukraine in conjunction with open source material to enable damaging deep missile and drone strikes into Russia.

France also said publicly that it would continue to provide intelligence to Ukraine. Sébastien Lecornu, the country’s armed forces minister, said that while the US decision would have a “significant operational impact” Paris would continue to help with its “sovereign intelligence”.

The French minister said the UK’s position was “more complicated” because its intelligence apparatus was more closely bound up with Washington – though British sources emphasised there had been a long history of competition as well as cooperation between the UK and US.

One expert suggested the US decision to halt its intelligence could make it easier for Russia to renew a stalled offensive towards Ukraine’s second city. The Kremlin could “move everything inside its borders near Kharkiv and attack again”, Dr Jade McGlynn, of King’s College London, said.

Council tax in Scotland to reach record high with 15% rise in some areas

Severin Carrell

Council tax costs in Scotland will hit record levels next month after local authorities agreed to raise rates by up to 15%, with some planning new levies on tourists and cruise ships.

All of Scotland’s 32 local authorities have announced council tax increases from April of at least 6%, with the majority raising them by about 10%, after years of successive cuts to their grant funding.

Bills for people living in Falkirk will rise by 15.6% at the start of next month, taking their band D rate to £1,576.77, while islanders on Orkney face a 15% increase. Water bills in Scotland will rise too from April, by 9.9%, although 50% of households receive discounts.

The Accounts Commission, a spending watchdog, warned earlier this year that Scottish local authorities faced “severe financial pressures” because of government funding shortfalls that forced them to borrow more and eat into their reserves.

The Scottish government has offered councils £1bn extra this year, but councils argue that remains insufficient.

The councillor Laura Murtagh, who pushed through Falkirk’s increase to bridge a £33m budget gap, said she felt “physically ill to the pit of my stomach where we are having to make these impossible decisions”.

Councils also cite the rising costs of Scotland’s above-inflation public sector pay awards, the £100m cost of the Treasury’s decision to increase employer national insurance contributions and the increasing costs of inflation and energy.

Figures compiled by the BBC show rates will rise by 7.5% in Glasgow; by 8% in councils such as Edinburgh, East Ayrshire and Dundee; by 10% in Aberdeenshire, East Lothian, Scottish Borders and Shetland; and by 11% to 13% in Angus and Clackmannanshire.

Advice Direct Scotland, which runs the moneyadvice.scot debt advisory service, said these increases will push more households into “heartbreaking” financial distress.

Rowena Mason

Reform UK is facing a split at the top after Nigel Farage called one of his most prominent MPs “utterly completely wrong” for calling him the “messianic” leader of a protest party.

Farage hit out at Rupert Lowe after the Great Yarmouth MP and former Southampton FC chair criticised his leadership publicly in an interview.

Lowe, who was touted as a replacement leader by Elon Musk earlier this year, had said Reform needed a “proper plan”, more policy and spokespeople. He also suggested he could leave the party unless it was centred less around Farage’s “messianic” leadership.

The MP’s criticism comes after internal Reform speculation about tensions with Farage, especially after Musk’s intervention.

Asked by the Daily Mail if Farage would make a good prime minister, Lowe said:

It’s too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods. He can only deliver if he surrounds himself with the right people.

Nigel is a fiercely independent individual and is extremely good at what we have done so far. He has got messianic qualities. Will those messianic qualities distill into sage leadership? I don’t know.”

Farage responded to Lowe in an interview on TalkTV saying he was “utterly, completely wrong” about Reform being a protest party. He also pointed out that Lowe was already on the frontbench of the party, adding:

Perhaps he wants to be prime minister, half the House of Commons do.”

“We’re not a protest party and he’s on the frontbench. What is he talking about? With only five people, you can’t really have a shadow cabinet, can you? We’ve got a lot of development to do but we’re absolutely not a protest party,” he said.

Asked if Lowe had been told to wind his neck in, Farage said there was “no point telling him what to do or what not to do … the fact is, we are making huge strides”. Pressed on whether Lowe would be an MP at the next election, Farage said:

I hope so, he seems to be taking a tone that suggests he won’t accept us.”

People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found.

Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas.

Sadiq Khan had faced severe opposition to the 2023 expansion of Ulez to outer London boroughs. But on Friday as the report was published, the mayor of London said the scheme had driven down pollution, taken old polluting cars off the roads and brought cleaner air to millions more people.

He said:

When I was first elected, evidence showed it would take 193 years to bring London’s air pollution within legal limits if the current efforts continued. However, due to our transformative policies we are now close to achieving it this year.”

Several outer London councils mounted unsuccessful legal challenges to the Ulez rollout, and Keir Starmer blamed it for Labour’s defeat in the Ruislip and Uxbridge byelection and called for Khan to “reflect” on his plans.

But Friday’s report, published by the Greater London Authority with findings extensively reviewed by an independent advisory group of experts, said Ulez had had a positive impact and that London’s air quality had improved across the board and at a faster rate than that of the rest of the country.

The report covers the first year since the zone’s expansion and is the fullest analysis of its impact yet conducted.

Khan said:

The decision to expand the Ulez was not something I took lightly, but this report shows it was the right one for the health of all Londoners. It has been crucial to protect the health of Londoners, support children’s lung growth and reduce the risk of people developing asthma, lung cancer and a host of other health issues related to air pollution.”

The report found London’s air quality was improving at a faster rate than that of the rest of England. It said this was particularly notable in outer London, where concentrations had improved more rapidly over recent years and were now similar to the average for the rest of England.

Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees.

Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.

Despite the government’s promises to clamp down on abusive practices by rogue employers and agencies, the RCN says it continues to receive more than 100 calls a year from nurses who say they are being mistreated.

Ranger said in her letter:

The RCN is deeply concerned by reports of exploitative workplace practices that many international educated nursing staff in the care sector face. Our members report a range of issues from long working hours, excessive repayment fees to exit contracts, substandard and crowded accommodation, and illegal work finding fees.”

Cooper promised last June to hold an investigation into the experiences of people coming to the UK to work in the social care sector, after the Guardian uncovered widespread allegations of mistreatment.

The investigation showed how dozens of migrant nurses had been induced to pay tens of thousands of pounds for their visas on the promise of a job, only to find little or no work when they arrived.

Some were sharing rooms, and even beds, with other migrant workers, to make ends meet.

The problems stem from the decision by the previous government to relax the rules around sponsoring care worker visas, which ministers took in response to a staffing crisis in social care.

Cooper said at the time the Guardian’s revelations were a “disgrace”, adding:

There must be a full investigation into these reports to ensure standards are upheld, and exploitative employers are prosecuted.”

Keir Starmer will speak to European leaders on Friday as he presses on with a diplomatic push over Ukraine. The prime minister and French president Emmanuel Macron are seeking countries willing to supply troops for a peacekeeping force to defend a potential deal – an idea that Russia has rejected.

Defence secretary John Healey said Donald Trump has “asked Europe to step up, and we are” as he started talks in Washington with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth on Thursday.

Hegseth said it was “very encouraging” to see France and the UK say they are prepared to take a leading role. He also said suggestions that the US had moved to a “pro-Russia” stance were “all garbage” and that Trump is “working with both sides in a way that only President Trump can”.

Speaking to US news channel Newsmax after the meeting, Healey said the UK and Europe were on a “push for peace” in Ukraine, reports the PA news agency. He said:

It’s a lasting, secure peace that we all want to see. We’ve got a big role to play in Europe and we are determined to do that.”

Negotiations between the US and Ukraine could be getting back on track as Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed talks will take place in Saudi Arabia next week, after a Trump administration envoy earlier said they were in the works. But the fate of the minerals deal that Trump and the Ukrainian president were due to sign before a dramatic Oval Office row last week remains unclear.

Since then, the US has paused military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
The US president is “very encouraged by the signs we’re seeing” from Ukraine, Hegseth said.
Rachel Reeves said the government will work with Ukraine for “as long as it takes”. She said:

The world is changing and that’s why this government is stepping up to take defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, funded by a reduction in the aid budget. And we’ve just signed off the extraordinary revenue acceleration loan agreement, to be repaid by the profits on sovereign Russian assets, to unlock £2.26bn additional for Ukraine to help them fight this war after Russia’s illegal invasion.”

Kinnock has also been speaking to Sky News this morning about Trump’s comments on defence spending.

The health minister told Sky News:

Donald Trump’s not actually the first president to say that the European arm of Nato needs to step up. More needs to be spent on defence, military capability needs to be made fit for purpose.

Sadly, in our country, we’ve seen our armed forces hollowed out by 14 years of Conservative neglect and incompetence, and it’s about now rebuilding our military capability to look after our own back yard.

And, you know, I think that’s fair enough – the challenge has been laid and we must now show that we are equal to that challenge.”

Donald Trump’s comment that he would not defend Nato countries that do not spend enough on defence presents “no issues”, a government minister has said.

Asked about Trump’s comments overnight, health minister Stephen Kinnock told Times Radio on Friday that even before Trump took office the US “has been challenging the other Nato members to step up and boost defence capability and be ready to defend our own back yard”.

According to the PA news agency, he added:

I think it’s absolutely right that we are now seeing, particularly through the leadership of our prime minister, the European arm of Nato coming together and meeting that challenge.

So I think there’s no issues really around the challenge that the United States has set for us as European nations, what’s vitally important now is that we step up and do that.”

Asked whether the UK could trust the US, Kinnock said:

Donald Trump has never said that he thinks the United States should leave Nato, he has never said that he doesn’t believe in article 5, and I think that we absolutely have to hold together as an alliance in defence of freedom and democracy and the values that we cherish.”

Keir Starmer will speak to European leaders on Friday as he presses on with a diplomatic push over Ukraine. Yesterday, Starmer said it would be a “big mistake” to think that Ukraine no longer needs military help because a peace deal is inevitable.

More on that in a moment, but first, here is an roundup of some of the latest developments in UK politics:

• Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees. Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.

• The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has said helping more people back into a job is the best way to cut the benefits bill, as the chancellor looks for savings ahead of the 26 March spring statement. With Rachel Reeves zeroing in on welfare as a source of potential cuts as she prepares to take action to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules, Kendall said the starting point must be getting people back into work – not numbers on a spreadsheet.

• Britain will continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine, though the more limited capabilities on offer from London and other European countries will make it difficult to replace the flow halted from the US earlier this week. The UK will also continue to supply its analysis of the raw data, sources said on Thursday, though in line with normal intelligence practice it will not simply pass on US information obtained via long-established sharing arrangements between the two countries.

• People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found. Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas.

• Tens of thousands of children in migrant and refugee families in the UK are being denied access to government-funded childcare because of benefit restrictions linked to their parents’ immigration status, a report says. Having “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF) means parents are not entitled to 30 hours of free childcare and are having to stay home to look after their young children instead of working. This is pushing families into poverty and denying their children the benefits of the early years education available to their peers, the report finds.

• Reform UK is facing a split at the top after Nigel Farage called one of his most prominent MPs “utterly completely wrong” for calling him the “messianic” leader of a protest party. Farage hit out at Rupert Lowe after the Great Yarmouth MP and former Southampton FC chair criticised his leadership publicly in an interview.