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A set of new dossiers published by the National Audit Office have revealed the real state of government after 14 years of Tory rule.
According to a NAO report, the NHS is at an “unprecedented” breaking point with health workers “working at the limits” of the system.
It has also revealed Rishi Sunak’s decision to scrap the second phase of HS2 will cost up to £100m and it could take three years to shut down sites where work has begun, an official report has revealed.
Sir Keir Starmer will close down the controversial Bibby Stockholm migrant barge after the Home Office announced the contract will not be renewed.
The three-storey vessel, housing hundreds of refugees, will be shut in an effort to “clear the backlog and fix the asylum system”.
The prime minister is facing a major Labour rebellion after several MPs pressured him to scrap the two-child benefit cap and suspend arms sales to Israel.
Today’s King’s Speech debate will end up with a vote on the matter as the Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle selected the SNP’s amendment to scrap the cap, with veteran John McDonnell confirming he will vote against the policy.
Rollout of payment schemes causing ‘widespread uncertainty’ for farmers – report
The rollout of new payment schemes for farmers is causing “widespread uncertainty and risks” for the sector, the National Audit Office has warned.
The Farming and Countryside Programme aims to transition the UK’s agriculture sector post-Brexit to ensure profitable farms, food security and environmental health by 2028.
Under the scheme, the Environment Department (Defra) is phasing out EU direct payments to farmers, which were based on land area, and replacing them with agri-environment schemes, based on delivering environmental outcomes alongside food production, such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI).
The changes have come at a time when extreme weather, market conditions and sudden rises in input costs are putting farms under immense pressure.
Defra has been taking an iterative approach, making changes and improvements to the new subsidy schemes over time.
But the National Audit Office (NOA) released a 56-page report on Tuesday warning that chopping and changing has made it difficult for farmers to plan their businesses to remain viable, produce food and achieve the programme’s environmental goals.
The spending watchdog said the take-up of the new schemes is rapidly increasing with 40,700 farmers signing up as of April 2024.
Listen: Suella Braverman told to hang her head over Rwanda in shame by angry LBC listener
Listen: Suella Braverman told to hang her head in shame by angry LBC caller
Suella Braverman has been told she should be “hanging your head in shame” over the Tory party’s approach to immigration. The former home secretary, who was a guest presenter on LBC on Tuesday morning (23 July), took a call from a listener called James in Glasgow. James told her: “You should be hanging your head in shame. The Tory party has exacerbated this problem for political gain.” James also urged her to apologise for the £700 million Labour claimed she spent on the scheme. Ms Braverman asked: “What is your solution, James? “We promised and failed and for various reasons we didn’t succeed. Do you think they [Labou] are going to fix the problem?”
Tory MP: Crime is ‘not an illness to be treated’
Conservative former minister Sir John Hayes has argued that crime is “not an illness to be treated, it’s a malevolent choice made by those who are careless of the harm they do”.
Referring to the early release from prison scheme, Sir John said he was “shocked” that the Government intends to “let more of those dangerous people on to our streets” after they’ve served 40% of their sentence.
The South Holland and The Deepings MP argued that “punishment is not a dirty word”, adding: “I hope the new Government will recognise that in order to crack down on crime we really need do have to restore public faith, as I said, that justice will be done.”
He said the Government can’t rely on “wishful thinking”, adding: “The guilty must be punished and the innocent must be protected”
During Sir John’s contribution in the Commons, Labour MP Sarah Champion (Rotherham) intervened and said: “So does that mean you believe people are born wicked? Because I believe if there’s good education at a very early age, and early intervention, crimes can be prevented.”
Farage calls for a referendum to leave ECHR
Nigel Farage claimed the European Court of Human Rights has “now completely outlived its usefulness” and called for a referendum to leave the body.
During his maiden speech in the Commons, the Reform leader said: “We will only stop this if we start deporting people that come illegally. Then they won’t pay the smugglers. But we will only do that by leaving the ECHR.
“But I have got a fun suggestion that I think would liven up politics, engage the public and see a massively increased turnout. Why don’t we have a referendum on whether we continue to be members of the ECHR?”
Farage claims ‘migrant a minute’ arrives to the UK
Nigel Farage has claimed a “migrant a minute” arrives to the UK and the “sheer level of population means we have to build a new house every two minutes”.
The Reform leader said that even if Labour accomplished its pledge to build 1.5 million new homes it would make “no dent at all” on the housing crisis.
He added: “The population crisis is the biggest impact affecting people’s lives, damaging their quality of life and virtually nobody in this place even wants to talk about it.”
Home Office figures show more than 1,000 people have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister.
The total number of crossings for 2024 to date is 12% higher than the number recorded this time last year (13,200) and up 1% on the same period in 2022 (14,554), according to Government data.
Nigel Farage: I have joined a ‘Remainers Parliament’
Nigel Farage has suggested many MPs favour the UK re-joining the European Union, as he claimed Brexiteers are outnumbered in the new Parliament.
The Reform UK leader noted Westminster is “very different” to the European Parliament, where he spent nearly 21 years as an MEP.
Making his maiden speech, the Clacton MP told the House of Commons: “It’s smaller, there is not a chauffeur-driven Mercedes available for each member, no large lump sums of money which you don’t have to spend on anything and show no receipts for and I wonder whether perhaps that’s why so many in the British political system seem to adore the European Union so much, because it is a rather wonderful place to work.
“What I perhaps didn’t expect was to come here and to find I’m more outnumbered with my Reform team, more outnumbered here than we were in the European Parliament.
“Because there are more supporters of Brexit in the European Parliament than I sense there are in this Parliament of 2024.
“This is very much a remainers Parliament, I suspect in many cases it’s really a re-joiners Parliament.”
Tory MP claims Labour will ‘regret’ scrapping Rwanda scheme
MPs will “regret” scrapping the Rwanda scheme and removing its deterrent effect, a Conservative former minister has claimed.
Sir Desmond Swayne told the Commons: “I do think the House will ultimately come to regret not having such a deterrent to hand, and I think had it been allowed to develop, it could have been such a deterrent. It was never a silver bullet, but it was always part of a complex jigsaw of measures.”
He argued that agreements with third countries are “extraordinarily hard to achieve”, adding: “We can’t take everybody and we certainly needed somewhere else where they could have gone, and Rwanda struck me certainly as something that would have blossomed as such a possibility.”
Sir Desmond (New Forest West) also said that he “had some difficulty in coming to terms” with the Tories defeat at the General Election.
Elsewhere in the debate, Labour MP Zarah Sultana urged the Government to go further on employment rights by “making sure that it bans all zero hours contracts, totally ends fire and re-hire, repeals all anti-trade union legislation and rolls out sectoral collective bargaining across the economy”.
The Coventry South MP also urged the Government to ban arms sales to Israel adding that “the legal threshold for these sales has clearly been met”.
SNP urges ‘all MPs from Scotland’ to support bid to scrap two-child benefit cap
SNP’s leader in Westminster Stephen Flynn has urged “all MPs from Scotland” to back his amendment to the King’s Speech urging for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped.
An amendment tabled by Labour rebels calling for the policy to be abolished was not selected by Sir Lindsay Hoyle, which means the SNP amendment is their only chance to lift the cap.
Councils spending half their budgets on homelessness as problem hits record high, damning report finds
In 2022/23, £2.4 billion was been spent on homelessness services, more than twice the amount spent in 2010/11, including £1.6 billion on temporary accommodation alone. The huge sums are putting a massive strain on local authority finances, according to the report published by the National Audit Office (NAO) on Tuesday.
The NAO said there was a £204.5 million gap in the funding local authorities received to cover the cost of providing temporary accommodation and the actual costs needed in 2022-23, up by more than £150 million in a decade.
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Reeves warns ‘difficult decisions’ needed on public spending
Chancellor Rachel Reeves told the Cabinet that “difficult decisions” would be needed on public spending.
Her comments came as the Labour government faced its first potential rebellion over demands to scrap the two-child benefit limit.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The Chancellor provided an update on the exercise the Treasury is undertaking to audit the public spending pressures the Government has inherited.
“The Chancellor said that there are significant financial pressures facing departments because of decisions taken by the previous government and that difficult decisions will be needed to fix the foundations of the public finances.”
