UK

Rachel Reeves has said she will not accept future ‘freebie’ concert tickets after her decision to accept a seat in a box to watch Sabrina Carpenter reignited a furious row. The chancellor came under fire from MPs – including government ministers – for receiving the hospitality as she prepared to slash £5 billion from the welfare bill.Now Ms Reeves has said she will not accept free tickets again in an attempt to draw a line under the issue. She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I do recognise how it looks to people.( More

Rachel Reeves’s personal and political credibility is on a knife edge after a hostile reaction to her spring statement.Economic experts said she could be forced to announce “blockbuster” tax rises in six months to make her sums add up.Critics claimed her future as chancellor is under threat as a result of “errors” she has made since taking charge of the economy last year.They said her decision to increase employers’ national insurance contributions, which takes effect in April, combined with taking freebies to pop concerts, has dealt a further blow to her reputation.The chancellor unveiled a £14bn package to repair the UK economy in her spring statement on Wednesday More

Sir Keir Starmer is in Paris with Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky as he fends off a litany of challenges to keep his so-called coalition of the willing afloat.The prime minister is meeting his French and Ukrainian counterparts, as well as representatives from as many as 30 other countries, to hash out exactly what a peacekeeping force would look like following a deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.Chief among the challenges for the PM is to flesh out exactly what members of the coalition are willing to contribute in the event of a permanent ceasefire in Ukraine. But Sir Keir will also have to win the support of Donald Trump for the coalition, and convince him in turn that the force must form a part of the ceasefire after Putin ruled out accepting Nato troops in Ukraine.Macron awaits world leaders More

Donald Trump has announced 25 per cent tariffs on all motor vehicle imports to the United States, in a move that will inflict another blow on the UK economy.During a press conference in the Oval Office, the US president announced that cars and light trucks imported into the US would be subject to the levy in the latest escalation of the Trump administration’s far-reaching trade war.“What we’re going to be doing is a 25% tariff for all cars that are not made in the United States,” Trump said.The announcement raises fears of greater economic pain in the UK, whose largest vehicle export market is the US, having sold £6.4bn in motor vehicles to the country in 2023, according to the Office of National Statistics.Rachel Reeves announced a series of cuts to benefits on Wednesday to balance the budget amid economy uncertainty More

Rachel Reeves has denied her own government’s findings that her welfare reforms will push 250,000 people into poverty while refusing to rule out further cuts.The chancellor wants to save £5 billion from the UK’s ballooning welfare bill by making it harder to claim Personal Independence Payments and cutting Universal Credit.An impact assessment, published today by the Department of Work and Pensions, said 3.2 million families – including current and future benefit claimants – will lose an average of £1,720 a year as a result of the changes.It added: “We estimate there will be an additional 250,000 people (including 50,000 children) in relative poverty after housing costs in 2029/30 as a result of modelled changes to social security.”But in an interview with HuffPost UK, the chancellor rejected those findings, claiming they did not take account of what the government is doing to get people back into work.”Those numbers are based on not a single person moving from welfare into work and we are, alongside this package of welfare reforms, putting in £1 billion of targeted, personalised and guaranteed support for anybody on sickness and disability benefits to help them find work that’s appropriate for the situation that they are in,” Ms Reeves said.Rachel Reeves has rejected DWP findings that 250,000 people will be plunged into poverty More

Tackling online child abuse requires a “collective effort by all” including governments and technology companies, the Duchess of Edinburgh has told senior European politicians.Sophie and safeguarding minister Jess Phillips joined forces to highlight the need to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation online.They met in Brussels on Wednesday, where European politicians gathered to draw attention to the harms children face in the digital world.In her role as the patron of the NSPCC and Plan International UK, two charities that are raising awareness about the dangers, the duchess addressed senior European politicians at an event hosted by the European Parliament intergroup on children’s rights.Delivering the keynote speech, Sophie said: “The last time I addressed policymakers here in Brussels was in 2021 when, sadly, the world was already far behind the curve in generating the tools needed to prevent the explosion in the abuse of children online.“Today children everywhere in the world are not only falling victim to adults wishing to groom them but are exposed to an enormous amount of dangerous, harmful and inappropriate content including materials on suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, violence, and pornography, all with consequences which can prove devastating, and can even lead to them taking their own lives.”More than 300 million children have been affected by online child exploitation and abuse in the past year, she said, citing the Global Child Safety Institute.The duchess said 79% of teenagers are using generative AI (artificial intelligence) to learn but they also receive “misleading or dangerous information from chatbots on topics including mental health, suicide and grooming”.“It is a challenge we need to tackle urgently, particularly given the emergence of generative AI”, she added.She noted the introduction of Britain’s Online Safety Act, but added that “neither the UK’s Government nor that of any one country can do it alone.”Sophie said the victim, perpetrator and tech company hosting the online platform may all be in different countries, adding that protecting children “will take a collective effort by all, including governments, technology companies, regulators and legislators, civil society and law enforcement”.Sophie concluded: “Therefore I implore you now, on behalf of the children of today and tomorrow, to redouble your efforts in prioritising their safety and well-being”.The joint visit between the Royal and a Government minister came amid an uptick in the number of the most extreme images online.The Internet Watch Foundation, a charity that monitors child sexual abuse images and urges companies and governments to work to remove them, recorded a 22% increase in category A images – its most serious classification – between 2022 and 2023.This was the worst year on record for child sexual abuse online, according to the IWF.Ahead of the visit, Ms Phillips, said: “Child sexual abuse is a horrific crime that is impacting more and more children, victims and survivors in all of our communities across the world and the effects can last a lifetime.“This most devastating of crimes transcends international borders – victims are often exploited in their homes by offenders across the globe using platforms that are headquartered in many different countries.“It is therefore crucial that we drive forward a global response and improve global capacity to tackle this crime. Enough is enough. We must act now and urgently see strong action from governments, tech, frontline professionals, police and law enforcement.”Ministers plan to introduce stronger laws to clamp down on online child sexual abuse as part of domestic efforts to tackle its spread.Measures in the Crime and Policing Bill currently making its way through Parliament will make it illegal to create or own AI tools designed for making child sexual abuse images, among other new offences. More

The chief inspector of Ofsted has said smartphones should be banned in schools in England.Sir Martyn Oliver said the watchdog will back headteachers who take the “tough” decision to ban phones as he warned that exposure to online content on devices can be “harmful” and “damaging” to children.Sir Martyn, who used to be chief executive of a large academy trust, said he had walked into schools in the past in “utter chaos” where phones were “rife”.In a Q&A with parents in London, the Ofsted boss said: “Headteachers already have the power to ban them and they should ban them.“Ofsted will support schools in banning phones.”Speaking at an event run by charity Parentkind on Wednesday, Sir Martyn said children with developing brains do not need to be “bombarded by non-human algorithms that might be preying upon them”.He added: “It’s harmful and it’s damaging. So I do believe they should be banned.”Schools in England were given non-statutory guidance under the former Conservative government in February last year intended to stop the use of mobile phones during the school day.Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch questioned why the Government opposed a Tory amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to require schools to ban the use of phones.In the Commons on Wednesday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described the proposal as “completely unnecessary” as he claimed “almost every school” already bans phones.When asked about phone bans in schools, Sir Martyn said: “I think it’s crucial that Ofsted doesn’t ask schools to do beyond what the Government asks them to do, but I would absolutely support headteachers to take that tough decision even if it led to a spike in behaviour, for example, in the first instance.”He added: “I’ve walked into – I can’t remember exactly how many – special-measures schools in utter chaos, but it’s an awful lot.“Some of them you could easily describe as in some of the most challenging circumstances in the entire country when I went in to sponsor them and there were phones rife everywhere.“And within those schools, within days of banning phones, and as hard as that is initially, you get an immediate sense of calmness across the school.”In a speech on Wednesday, the Ofsted chief called on parents to engage with schools “in the right way” rather than joining a social media “pile-on”.He warned that social media can “hand a microphone to the pub bore, a megaphone to the bully and help the rabble-rouser find his or her rabble without leaving their armchair”.Sir Martyn said: “The world seems to be getting more antagonistic and adversarial. So you can understand why a school leader might be wary of engaging with parents.“But I always found that the way to defuse tensions, tackle rumours and build common purpose with parents is more communication, not less.“More openness, not less. And more information sharing, not less.“So I say join the PTA, don’t join the pile-on.”Earlier this month, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she had tasked officials with exploring how to “more effectively monitor” what is happening in schools in England around the use of smartphones.In a speech to school and college leaders in Liverpool, Ms Phillipson said: “The Government’s position is clear, you have our full backing in ridding our classrooms of the disruption of phones.” More