Separate figures out today show the number of children in temporary accommodation in England hit a record high of 164,040 as of the end of September, PA Media reports. PA says:

The number has risen 15% in a year and is the highest since records for this measure began in 2004.

The number of households in temporary accommodation was also at a record high of 126,040, having increased 16% in a year.

There were 5,400 households with children living in bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) by the end of September last year – a rise of 15% in a year.

Some 3,470 households with children had been in B&Bs for more than the six-week limit.

By law, B&Bs are meant to be used only for families in an emergency, and for no longer than six weeks.

The charity Shelter said children were being “robbed of stability in temporary accommodation, crammed into B&Bs and hostels without any space to sleep, play or do their homework” while Crisis said the figures show young people are “growing up in unsafe conditions, restricting life chances and trapping people in poverty across generations”.

Jane Clinton is taking over the blog now. I will be back later this afternoon.

Rough sleeping in England has risen by a fifth in a year, according to new snapshot estimates branded “devastating and shameful”, PA Media reports. PA says:

There were an estimated 4,667 people sleeping on the streets on a single night in autumn last year, according to annual government statistics.

This was an increase of 769 people – or 20% – on the previous year’s snapshot estimate of 3,898.

The latest figure is more than twice the number since the estimates – the latest of which are based on a single date in October or November chosen by local authorities – began being recorded in 2010, when it was 1,768.

While the latest figure remains just below the peak in 2017- when it stood at 4,751 – it is the third year in a row the number has risen.

Commenting on the figures, Rick Henderson, CEO of Homeless Link, which represents homelessness charities, said in a statement:

It is beyond devastating and shameful that our society has allowed thousands upon thousands of people to face the trauma of sleeping rough across this country. In recent memory we almost halved rough sleeping (from its 2017 peak). We know what works and yet once again the situation is getting worse every year. More and more lives are being irreparably damaged, failed by the systems that meant to support them.

We can see the causes of homelessness wherever we look. A welfare system unfit for purpose, an acute shortage of truly affordable housing, extremely over-stretched homelessness, health and social care services and a disconnect between government policies – from hospitals and prisons discharging people onto the streets to people leaving the asylum system with nowhere to live.

This must end here. The Labour government must do what its predecessor failed to – to put the right funding and support in place to prevent and end homelessness for good.

And Josh Nicholson, senior researcher at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a centre-right social justice thinktank, said:

The progress made towards ending rough sleeping during the pandemic has been squandered. Today’s figures point to a tidal wave of need among Britain’s rough sleepers.

This is why the CSJ has today launched a campaign calling on the government to roll out a proven solution to ending rough sleeping, Housing First. Housing First provides ordinary settled housing alongside intensive, person-centred support for people whose homelessness is compounded by multiple and complex support needs. Housing is offered without conditions other than an individual’s willingness to maintain a tenancy. This contrasts to the traditional approach which requires people to prove their ‘tenancy readiness’ before accessing mainstream housing.

The Conservative party has criticised the government for only giving qualified approval to the expansion of Gatwick airport, and not allowing it to go ahead immediately. In a statement Gareth Bacon, the shadow transport secretary, said:

Labour promised to go ‘further and faster’ on growth, but once again they are failing to deliver.

Increasing aviation capacity would hep to deliver economic growth. Labour’s decision to kick the can down the road, extending the deadline for the final decision on Gatwick to October, shows this promise wasn’t worth the paper it was written on …

Under new leadership, the Conservatives would drive airport expansion forward to support a thriving economy.

Reuters has posted some snaps from a briefing given by an official in the Trump administration.

Senior Trump administration official: Very pleased with UK’s increased defense spending

Senior Trump administration official: Pleased with Starmer’s discussions of committing British troops to help enforce peace

Senior Trump administration official: Economic partnership with Ukraine does not include specific guarantee of funding for future warfighting

Senior Trump administration official: Trade to be part of trump-starmer discussions

Senior Trump administration official: US wants reciprocal, equal trade with UK

None of this is very new, but the news that the White House is “very pleased” about the increase in UK defence spending (as opposed to just being “pleased” with the commitment about troops for Ukraine) is noteworthy. It is a bit stronger than the comment from Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, welcoming the budget uplift on Tuesday.

New figures revealing almost one million young people are not in education, employment or training have been described as “shocking”, PA Media reports. PA says:

The number of so-called NEETs aged 16 to 24 increased from 877,000 to 987,000 in October to December compared to the same quarter the previous year.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said an estimated 13.4% of all people aged 16 to 24 in the UK were not in education, employment or training in the final quarter of last year, an increase of 1.3 percentage points compared with October to December 2023.

An estimated 14.4% of young men and 12.3% of young women were NEET, said the ONS.

The increase was caused by both young men, with an increase of 56,000 on the year, and young women, with a rise of 53,000.

Of the total number of young people who were NEET, 542,000 were young men and 445,000 were young women.

Comment on the figures, the TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:

Every young person deserves a decent start to their working life but under the Tories, more and more young people became stuck out of work or training, which comes with huge consequences for future opportunities.

The government is now rightly prioritising change but with close to one million young people outside of employment or education the situation is stark.

The Youth Guarantee is the right step but it must be part of a comprehensive plan to ensure all young people across the country can access high-quality training and decent, well-paid work as well as timely and effective healthcare.

Stephen Evans, chief executive at the Learning and Work Institute, said:

Today’s worrying rise may signal further trouble ahead in the absence of economic growth, and highlights the importance of implementing a youth guarantee so all young people are offered a job, training place or apprenticeship.

Ben Harrison, director of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said:

Today’s data shows that young people not in employment education or training is at the highest level for 10 years, which could be cause for concern for the government’s plan to boost employment levels.

With falling vacancies and a sluggish labour market, estimates appear to show that young people are being hit hardest as a further 110,000 young people are not in education, employment or training compared to a year ago.

Keir Starmer may be the first British prime minister ever to fly to Washington unable to be 100% confident that he has more influence over the US president than his counterpart in the Kremlin. The other president, Vladimir Putin, has been speaking to the media today and, as Reuters reports, Putin implied that his own talks with Washington were going quite well. He also implicitly warned Trump not to let himself by swayed by “Western elites” – which presumably means people like Starmer.

Reuters says:

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the FSB security service on Thursday that initial contacts with the administration of US President Donald Trump gave grounds for hope.

Putin said in televised comments that Russia and the United States were ready to establish cooperation but some Western elites would seek to undermine the dialogue between them.

UPDATE: According to the BBC, Putin said:

We understand that not everyone is happy with the resumption of Russian-American contacts. Some Western elites are still determined to maintain instability in the world. These forces will try to disrupt or compromise the dialogue that has begun.

We need to take it into account and use all the possibilities of diplomacy and special services to prevent such attempts.

Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury, has in effect confirmed a Guardian report saying ministers are considering exempting parents with children under the age of five from the two-child benefit cap.

Speaking on BBC Wales, Jones said child poverty was a “significant problem” and that the government will set out a report “later in the year about all the different things we’re going to do” to tackle the issue.

Asked specifically about the Guardian story and whether the under-fives exemption had been ruled out, Jones said the UK government’s child poverty taskforce was looking at all “viable options”. He added:

We have to go through the spending review, we have to work with colleagues on a whole range of issues.

The Unite union has welcomed the government’s decision to give qualified approval to a £2.2bn plan to expand Gatwick airport. Sharon Graham, the union’s general secretary, said:

Unite welcomes the announcement of the expansion of Gatwick but it needs to come with guarantees of well paid, unionised jobs and proper facilities for workers.

It is also ever more urgent with every airport expansion that we ensure domestic production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to offset carbon emissions and meet the government’s own targets on net zero.

But environmental campaigners and other experts have been highly critical. In his story Gwyn Topham quotes reaction from the Gatwick Area Conservative Campaign, Friends of the Earth and the climate charity Possible.

Here are some more voices saying the decision is wrong.

From the Green MP Siân Berry

The Labour government is trashing its climate credentials one absurd decision at a time. Only one day after receiving critical advice from its own climate advisors on the need to lower flying demand, ministers decide to support yet more unnecessary expansion for the benefit of wealthy investors.

Pushing through these damaging plans shows such poor economic judgement. Over 100,000 extra flights a year won’t deliver for our communities. Labour should listen to the public who think airport expansion is the wrong priority. Most of us fly once a year if at all and would rather see cheaper train tickets and more bus routes instead to help with our daily journeys and create jobs where we live, in contrast with frequent flyers leaching money out of the economy.

From Alex Chapman, an economist at the New Economics Foundation, a leftwing thinktank

Growing Gatwick will not magic up the economic growth the government so desperately wants. Business air travel has collapsed while expansion will see three times as many tourists leave the country as come in.

Voters living outside London and the south east will not thank the government for this decision. Expanding airports like Gatwick doesn’t create new jobs - it displaces jobs from the wider UK regions, and particularly the domestic tourism industry which is a key source of spending outside London and the south east.

From Hannah Lawrence, a spokesperson at Stay Grounded, a network representing groups campaigning to reduce air travel

Encouraging Gatwick’s expansion in the middle of a climate crisis is irresponsible. Allowing such a polluting industry to expand in the name of supposed ‘economic growth’ would actually create further inequality, suffering and a lack of prosperity in years to come. All while those who have never set foot on a plane suffer the worst consequences.

There is no such thing as green flying which is why we need an immediate end to airport expansion and an urgent reduction in the number of flights that take off each day.

From Colin Walker, head of transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a non-profit organisation promoting informed debate on climate issues

For a government focused on clean economic growth, there are plenty of projects they can support that will achieve their goals, but airport expansion is not one of them. Were the government to approve expansion of both Gatwick and Luton airports, emissions would increase to such an extent that all the CO2 savings that the government hopes to achieve from its Clean Power Plan would be wiped out by 2050.

The former Labour MP Mike Amesbury has had his 10-week prison sentence for assault suspended for two years following an appeal at Chester crown court, PA Media reports.

This decision is unlikely to prevent a byelection going ahead in Amesbury’s constituenmcy, Runcorn and Helsby. Under the Recall Act, campaigners can start collecting signatures for a recall petition if an MP gets a custodial sentence, even if it suspended. In the past this process has almost always resulted in the 10% of the electorate threshold being met, and a recall byelection going ahead.

Pornography depicting strangulation should be made illegal along with other kinds of “legal but harmful” sexual material, according to an independent government review. Dan Milmo has the story.

Although Ukraine, tariff policy and the Chagos Islands are likely to be three of the topics of most interest to British journalists at the Trump/Starmer press conference later, Downing Street says the prime minister wants to make tech policy on of the main subjects for discussion when he visits the White House.

In its news release about the visit, Downing Street says the two leaders will joint tech initiatives. It says:

Both countries are world leaders in AI and advanced technologies, and the prime minister will be looking to build on these strong foundations to create jobs and economic growth.

The discussion will have a particular focus on the opportunities that further technology and AI partnerships could deliver. These include a proposal of high-ambition shared moonshot missions across top technologies including quantum and AI, and a deeper partnership on space.

The US and UK are the only two allied countries with trillion-dollar technology eco-systems, and the prime minister will make the case for further integration between the two countries’ tech sectors to make them the most efficient, ambitious technology sectors in the world.

In October, US tech firms announced a £6.3bn package of investment to support UK data centres – a central pillar of the government’s plan to ramp up the country’s AI capacity. In January a further £12bn investment from Vantage Data Centers created over 11,500 jobs as the government published its AI Opportunities Action Plan.

More than 108,000 people applied for asylum in the UK last year – the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001, PA Media reports. PA says:

The total of 108,138 asylum seekers is up 18% from 91,811 in 2023, according to data published by the Home Office.

The previous record was 103,081 in the 12 months to December 2002.

Migrants who made the journey to the UK across the Channel in small boats accounted for 32% of the total in 2024.

The data shows 38,079 asylum seekers were being housed temporarily in hotels at the end of December, up 2,428 from 35,651 at the end of September.

This is the second quarterly rise in a row, although the figure is still some way below the recent peak of 56,042 at the end of September 2023.

Asylum seekers and their families are housed in temporary accommodation if they are waiting for the outcome of a claim or an appeal and have been assessed as not being able to support themselves independently.

They are housed in hotels if there is not enough space in accommodation provided by local authorities or other organisations.

The rise comes as the government plans to close nine more asylum hotels by the end of March.

Responding to the figures, Marley Morris, from the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, said: “If the Home Office wants to end the use of hotels, it will need to double down on efforts to improve the speed and quality of decision-making. Applications should be triaged early and decisions for high-grant nationalities should be streamlined. Crucially, the government must take care that its efforts to accelerate decision-making do not result in these cases simply shifting over into appeals.”

There were 124,802 people waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application at the end of December – down 6% from 133,409 at the end of September.

The total peaked at 175,457 at the end of June 2023, which was the highest figure since current records began in 2010.

The number of people waiting more than six months for an initial decision was 73,866 at the end of December, down from 83,888 at the end of September and well below the recent peak of 139,961 in June 2023.

The data also shows that the most common nationality among asylum applicants in 2024 was Pakistani, accounting for 10,542 people or 9.7% of the total.

Afghan was the second most common nationality (8,508 people, 7.9% of the total), down from 9,710 (10.6%) in 2023, when it was the most common.

Along with Pakistan, the largest increase in asylum claims in 2024 came from Vietnamese nationals, at 5,259 (4.9% of the total), up from 2,469 (2.7%) in 2023.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to London this Sunday to take part in an informal meeting on Ukraine and European security, the European Commission has just confirmed. Jakub Krupa has more on his Europe live blog.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has confirmed that President Trump has the ability to veto the deal that the UK has negotiated transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Isands to Mauritius. Speaking on ITV’s Peston last night, Lammy said:

If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward.

The reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States, and of course they’ve got to be happy with the deal, or there is no deal.

The government says the deal is necessary because otherwise there there is a risk that an international court will soon issue a binding ruling saying the islands belong to Mauritius. This would make it harder for the UK to maintain its joint airbase with the US on Diego Garcia, the main island in the Chagos archipelago.

But the Conservative party, and some American rightwingers, argue that the deal costs too much (it will reportedly involve the UK paying Mauritius £90m a year for the lease on Diego Garcia) and that the UK should just stay put and face down attempts to contest sovereignty.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to visit Ireland today on his way to the US to seal a controversial deal with Donald Trump on the country’s rare earth minerals. Lisa O’Carroll and Jakub Krupa have more on our Europe live blog.

Gatwick has been given a qualified green light to operate a second runway after the government “set out a path to expansion” for London’s second biggest airport, Gwyn Topham reports.

Keir Starmer also spoke at the reception at the ambassador’s residence last night, and he used his speech to suggest that the Labour government and the Trump administration have more in common than people might assume.

Referring to Elon Musk, and his recent appearance alongside the Argentinian president Javier Milei and a chainsaw, Starmer said:

My message is really simple, that there is no more important relationship for the United Kingdom [than the US], in defence, in security, in trade, in tech, in finance, and so much more.

So we want to strike a new partnership. We share the view that our best days lie ahead.

And you know, taking out a chainsaw isn’t quite my style. But we are stripping away red tape and bureaucracy.

We are reforming permitting [planning rules], getting things built, reducing barriers to investment and growth. And we’re open for business, open for investment, and we’re determined to help US innovators thrive in the United Kingdom.

So my message is we want to work with you, we want to welcome you to Britain, we want a new partnership, because our history shows that when we work together, great things happen.

Starmer also cracked a joke about Peter Mandelson. Starmer said:

I’ve only just arrived but already I can feel there’s real buzz around Washington right now. You can sense that there’s a new leader. He’s a true one-off, a pioneer in business, in politics. Many people love him. Others love to hate him. But to us, he’ s just … Peter.

Keir Starmer attended a reception at the British embassy in Washington last night, where Peter Mandelson, the new UK ambassador, predicted that Donald Trump would be a “very consequential president”.

In his speech, Mandelson this was a “very significant moment for our lives, between our two countries and indeed for all the freedom-loving democracies in the world”. He told his guests:

The US and the United Kingdom, we basically share everything together.

We share people, we share cultures, we share a lot of intelligence, we share technologies, and … we also share some of the fighting of our adversaries as well.

And of course one thing we don’t need to fight over is trade, because we have this fantastically fair and balanced trade relationship when we reciprocate so much – that’s just a little thing for you to remember in the coming weeks.

Trump has not yet said whether or not the UK will be exempt from the tariffs he says he will impose on the rest of Europe, and the UK government is arguing that its exports should be tariff-free because trade between the two countries is broadly balanced.

Referring to Trump, Mandelson also said:

You have a leader in this country in the president who in my view is going to be a very consequential president for this country indeed.

Mandelson intended his American guests to take that as a compliment. But even Trump’s fiercest critics probably would not quibble with Mandelson’s description.

Good morning. Keir Starmer is in Washington where later today he will have his first meeting with President Trump since the inauguration. With Trump aligning with Moscow even more explicitly than he did during his first administration, and threatening to wind down the Nato guarantees that have underpinned the security of western Europe since the second world war, the stakes could not be higher. Starmer, despite leading a party whose activists mostly loathe Trump and everything he represents, has managed to establish a warm relationship with the president and today will give some clues as to what extent he can sustain that, and protect the UK from the tariff warfare that Trump is threatening to unleash on the EU. But Starmer is one of three European leaders in Washington this week (Emmanuel Macron was there on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is there tomorrow) and today’s meeting is also part of a wider story about the fracturing of the US/Europe alliance. It is definitely in trouble; what is not yet clear is whether after four years of Trump it will still be fully functional.

Starmer spoke to reporters on his flight to the US yesterday. Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, was on the plane and, as she reports, Starmer said he wants Trump to agree that, in the event of a peace settlement in Ukraine, the US will offer security guarantees that will make it durable. The PM has already said that Britain would contribute troops to a European so-called “tripwire” peace-keeping force, there to defend Ukraine and deter Russia. But European soldiers would need US air and logistical support to be effective, and Starmer is looking for assurances that Washington will provide this level of support.

But the backdrop is not promising. As Starmer was flying across the Atlantic, Trump was holding a televised cabinet meeting where, Soviet-style, his ministers laughed heartily at his jokes as they all congratulated each other on how brilliantly they were doing. In the course of the meeting, on the subject of Ukraine, Trump said:

I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We’re going to have Europe do that.

Starmer is due to arrive at the White House shortly after 5pm UK time and the press conference is meant to start at 7pm. We will, of course, be covering it live. It should be fascinating. During Trump’s first term, Theresa May managed to get the first foreign leader invite to the White House and her visit, during which she offered the president a state visit, was deemed a success. But it did not stop Trump treating her very badly later during the presidency, regularly patronising her when they spoke in private, and sometimes in public too, and openly suggesting at one point that Boris Johnson would make a better replacement.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The Home Office publishes its latest asylum, resettlement and returns figures.

9.30am: Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 10.30am: Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, makes a statement to MPs about next week’s parliamentary business.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Around 5.15pm (UK time): Keir Starmer is due to arrive at the White House for his meeting with President Trump.

Around 7pm (UK time): Starmer and Trump are due to hold a press conference.

And at some point today Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, is expected to announce that she is approving a decision to expand Gatwick.

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