UK Politics

Reform UK’s Doge team has been accused of doing little more than “photocalls” at councils that it vowed to “save a lot of money” for when it was set up four months ago.The Elon Musk-inspired cost-cutting team, set up by Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf, pledged to work with Reform-controlled councils across the UK after the party’s big wins at local elections in May.The party promised councils a free team of software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors to “visit and analyse” their finances to “identify wasteful spending and recommend actionable solutions”.Doge has not identified specific targets but Reform has pledged to cut spending on things such as diversity and inclusion programmes.However, The Independent has found that the unit has only visited three of the 12 councils since the May elections – and has been met with barriers preventing them from making much progress.Of the 12 Reform-controlled councils, only Kent, West Northamptonshire and Worcestershire have hosted Mr Yusuf and his team for talks.The cost-cutting team, set up by Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf, pledged to work with Reform-controlled councils across the UK More

Sir Keir Starmer is personally intervening to contact victims amid growing turmoil in the national grooming gangs inquiry, after a former Labour minister joined growing calls for safeguarding minister Jess Phillips to resign. Tony McNulty, who served as a minister under Gordon Brown, said “the inquiry is more important than the minister and the minister should go”.It comes after the four women who resigned from the inquiry’s victims liaison panel called for Ms Phillips to resign, in a letter to the home secretary accusing her of labelling some of their claims “untrue” and saying they had provided evidence to the contrary.But in a sign of growing divisions, five survivors who have been invited onto the panel have said they will only continue working with the probe if Ms Phillips remains in post, the Guardian reported on Thursday. The women contacted the PM and home secretary saying the safeguarding minister has “devoted her life to hearing and amplifying the voices of women and girls who would have otherwise been unheard”.A group of grooming gang survivors have called for Jess Phillips to resign (Jordan Pettitt/PA) More

Downing Street has appeared to dismiss the idea of MPs being given time for a Commons debate on Prince Andrew, with the prime minister’s spokesperson saying that the royal family “would not want to take time” from other parliamentary business. Pressure has been mounting on the King’s brother over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and his rent-free mansion in Windsor. On Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer said he would support “proper scrutiny” of the Crown Estate arrangements, but on Thursday Downing Street suggested that the government is not planning on making time for MPs to debate the matter. Asked if the government would be making time, a No 10 spokesperson said: “Prince Andrew has already confirmed he will not use his titles. We support the decision made by the royal family, and we know the royal family would not want to take time from other important issues.”Meanwhile, a committee of MPs will be “seeking more information” on the prince’s lease arrangements for the Royal Lodge property. Chair of the public accounts committee Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said on Thursday that he will be writing to the crown estate commissioners and the Treasury in the coming days. Sir Geoffrey added: “In the correspondence, our cross-party committee will be raising a number of questions with the crown estate and HM Treasury. This forms part of our long-standing remit, on behalf of parliament and the British public, to examine the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of public spending, and ensure the taxpayer is receiving best value for money.”Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said on Thursday that “there are ways for the House to properly consider the matter”. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey asked earlier this week whether “given the revelations about Royal Lodge” the prime minister believed that MPs should “properly scrutinise the Crown Estate to ensure taxpayers’ interests are protected”.Prince Andrew announced last week that he would stop using his Duke of York title More

A migrant who returned to Britain after being deported as part of a one in, one out deal is being “fast-tracked” back to France, Keir Starmer has said. The prime minister vowed that the UK would remove him again “very, very swiftly” as he denied his government’s approach to stopping small boats crossing the channel was “in tatters”. Sir Keir saidthe Iranian man was already in detention and “he will now be fast-tracked back out of the country, because we obviously have his details”.“We know he hasn’t got a claim to make, therefore we’ll remove him very, very swiftly. So his return journey back to the United Kingdom is completely pointless, and it’s really important I make that absolutely clear.”He said no when asked whether the government’s approach to stopping small boats was “in tatters”. The man returned to the UK in a small boat, marking a humiliating blow for Sir Keir and his pledge to take back control of Britain’s borders.The news emerged on the same day that the number of migrant arrivals via the English Channel so far this year passed the total for the whole of 2024. But the deputy PM has claimed the identification of the man was a sign of “progress”.David Lammy said that it “actually reveals that the individual, who spent thousands of pounds trying to get into this country, as a result of his biometric data can be sent back and that is progress”.An Iranian man who was returned to France under the ‘one-in-one-out’ deal has been detained after entering the UK a second time More

The use of artificial intelligence can boost trust in the state and tackle problems with the “bloated” public sector, David Lammy said.The Deputy Prime Minister said the AI “revolution” would cut through Whitehall bureaucracy.He said parts of the public sector had become “too expensive” and productivity was still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels but AI had the potential to change that.In a speech at OpenAI’s Frontiers conference in London, Mr Lammy said: “Governments and corporations who seize AI faster and more robustly will surge ahead and those that hesitate will fall very quickly behind.“I’m also convinced that if used well – emphasis on used well – AI can help to rebuild trust in the state, badly needed trust in our politics, delivering what people really want: shorter waits, fewer errors, lower costs and better outcomes.”He added: “Parts of our bureaucracy have become bloated, they have become too expensive, they have become too unproductive, to the point that too often they fail to meet the needs of the people that they’re meant to serve.“And, let’s be frank, public sector productivity is still lagging, certainly behind pre-pandemic levels, and that’s not good for anybody. It’s certainly not good for the people of our country.”He said AI was already being used to transform public services, from analysing responses to consultations to helping triage patients with cancer.“If we get this right, if we embed AI across government, across every system, across every service, I believe that we can rejuvenate 150 years of British state enterprise in the next 15 years, possibly even sooner,” he said.Mr Lammy said more than 1,000 probation officers will now be equipped with an in-house AI tool that records and transcribes conversations with offenders to cut administrative work.ChatGPT-maker OpenAI will store data on British soil for the first time under a new Government deal aimed at bolstering security for businesses in the face of mounting global cyber threats.The Government hopes the agreement will help to unlock investment from companies by providing them with the confidence that their data is being managed securely in the UK.It comes after a wave of cyber attacks targeting major UK businesses over the past year, including Jaguar Land Rover and retailers such as Marks & Spencer and the Co-op. More

Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has said the Home Office is “not yet fit for purpose” after a secret damning report on the government department emerged.Ms Mahmood promised to radically overhaul her department’s staff, structures and culture, saying the findings, reported by The Times, were “all too familiar”.The report identified a catalogue of failings across the Home Office, claiming it was beset by a “culture of defeatism” on immigration and “a sense that high failure rates are an unavoidable fact of life in the system”.The “hand-offs between immigration enforcement and other parts of the immigration system are poor, as are the hand-offs with the police and criminal justice system”, the dossier said.Written by former Home Office special adviser Nick Timothy, who is now a Tory MP, the report was kept secret by the department for more than two years before it was obtained by The Times following a legal challenge. Too much time was wasted on identity politics and social issues, Mr Timothy wrote – such as “listening circles” in working hours in which civil servants discussed their feelings about social and political issues, including policies they were responsible for implementing.The report says the Home Office’s failings exacerbated the small boats crisis and left ministers unable to implement their own policies.The Times says the document reported how the immigration system consisted of “several confused and conflicting systems working to contradictory ends” and that as a result “the enforcement of immigration laws is poor and has grown considerably worse in recent years”.Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has promised to overhaul the Home Office More

Reversing the two-child benefit cap would be among the most cost-effective ways to reduce child poverty, a leading think tank has stated. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) delivered this assessment ahead of a Budget where the Chancellor is widely expected to announce changes to the contentious limit.The cap, introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, restricts universal or child tax credit to the first two children in most households.A full reversal, the IFS estimates, would cost around £3.6 billion and lift some 630,000 children out of poverty.The IFS also outlined options for a partial reversal, allowing the government to avoid the full cost by prioritising specific groups. Rachel Reeves has faced increasing calls to lift the cap.Exempting working families from the limit would reduce the bill to £2.6 billion and reduce child poverty by 410,000.A payment for third and subsequent children at half the rate paid for the first two would cost around £1.8 billion.Tom Wernham, a senior research economist at the IFS, said: “Reversing the two-child limit is one of the most cost-effective options the government has to achieve a quick reduction in child poverty.“There are ways to partially undo the policy that would cost less than the full £3.6 billion needed for its full removal.”Chancellor Rachel Reeves has faced increasing calls to lift the cap More

Keir Starmer is facing increasing pressure over his pledge to “smash the gangs” after it emerged that a man deported under his flagship “one in, one out” deal with France has returned to the UK on a small boat.In a double blow for the prime minister, the number of small boat migrants who have arrived in the UK so far this year has also passed the total for the whole of last year. Just 42 people have been returned so far under the agreement, announced with great fanfare by the prime minister and French president Emmanuel Macron. Under its terms, for each small boat migrant sent back across the Channel an asylum seeker will be allowed to enter the UK from France under a legal route.At the time, Sir Keir said it was a “breakthrough moment” which would “turn the tables” on the people smugglers – but a Downing Street spokesperson on Wednesday said the policy was not a “silver bullet” to tackle the problem. People thought to be migrants wait in the sea to board a small boat in Gravelines, France More