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Home secretary Yvette Cooper has said an additional £75 million for the Government’s border command is new funding from the Budget.Ms Cooper was pressed on Labour’s plans to tackle people smuggling ahead of the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow on Monday (4 November).The home secretary told BBC Breakfast: “It’s part of the Budget settlement. It’s in addition to the £75 million we’d already talked about, which is only just starting to be invested now.”The further amount doubles the border command’s funding to £150 million over two years.The money will be used to fund high-tech surveillance equipment and 100 specialist investigators who will target criminals engaged in people smuggling. More

Kemi Badenoch dismissed the furore over Partygate, describing the scandal as “overblown” in her first television interview as the new Tory leader on Sunday, 3 November.The MP for North West Essex criticised the then-government for fining people for what she described as “everyday activities” during coronavirus lockdowns.She declined to be drawn into a “post-mortem” of the previous government but said there had been “serious issues” under Boris Johnson’s premiership — though she added that the Partygate scandal was not one of them.Partygate saw Mr Johnson fined for attending a party in Downing Street, one of several that took place under his tenure in breach of Covid lockdown regulations. More

Rachel Reeves has admitted she was “wrong” to say during the election campaign that she would not need to raise taxes but insisted further increases will not be needed.On June 11, the chancellor said she would not need to raise taxes beyond the increases already set out in the Labour Party’s manifesto.However, in Wednesday’s Budget, she announced £40bn of tax rises including increases to employers’ national insurance contributions and changes to inheritance tax and capital gains tax.Ms Reeves told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips she had been “wrong” because she did not “know everything” about the state of public finances. More

Kemi Badenoch dismissed Rachel Reeves’ historic position as the first female Chancellor, describing her milestone as smashing through “a very, very low glass ceiling” and “nowhere near as significant as what other women in this country have achieved.”Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg in her first television interview since being elected Tory leader, the MP for North West Essex described how she found it astonishing Ms Reeves kept talking about her achievement.”She’s the first female chancellor which in my view is a very, very low glass ceiling in the Labour Party,” Ms Badenoch added. More

Kemi Badenoch’s husband appeared emotional as his wife was announced as the new Tory leader on Saturday, 2 November.The North West Essex MP beat Robert Jenrick with 53,806 votes over her rival’s 41,000, out of a total electorate of 131,680.She became the first black woman elected to lead a major British political party, and the fourth woman to lead the Conservative Party.In a speech following her victory, Ms Badenoch thanked her husband Hamish Badenoch and acknowledged that her partyhad to be “honest” about the “fact we made mistakes” and “the fact that we let standards slip”. More

Labour’s Budget tax increase on employers could hit workers’ pay, Rachel Reeves has admitted.Asked whether the move is a jobs tax which will take money out of people’s pockets, the chancellor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday (31 October): “This will have an impact in wage growth, for example.“Look, what alternative was there? We had a £22 billion black hole in the public finances.”She later added: “I did not want to increase the key taxes that working people pay: income tax, VAT and employee national insurance. So we have increased national insurance on employers.” More

Robert Jenrick accused Rachel Reeves of “telling packs of lies for months” following Labour’s Budget announcement.Speaking to Sky News on Thursday (31 October), the Tory leadership candidate accused the chancellor of acting “like a compulsive liar” and “inventing a black hole” in public finances.“They’re making it up to justify immense tax rises,” Mr Jenrick added.Ms Reeves announced an increase in employer national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, and changes to inheritance tax.In its general election manifesto, Labour promised not to increase taxes on working people.“She’s been telling a pack of lies for months now,” Mr Jenrick went on. More