Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, has sent a letter to council leaders, mayors and local authority chief executives telling them to limit the number of consultations they carry out when considering planning applications.

In a move that follows government policy announced earlier this week, she says:

I would urge you to read the written ministerial statement in full but in particular I wanted to draw your attention to the position it sets out with respect to local authorities. The government is clear that consultation of statutory consultees should be limited only to those instances where it is necessary to do so. Where there is relevant and up to date standing advice published with respect to the relevant category of development, then consultation is not required. Routine and blanket referrals to statutory consultees outside the statutory requirements should not take place, as this creates unnecessary administrative burdens for both local planning authorities and the statutory consultee. Decisions should not be delayed in order to secure advice from a statutory consultee beyond the 21 (or 18) day statutory deadlines unless there is insufficient information to make the decision or more detailed advice may enable an approval rather than refusal. The National Planning Policy Framework sets out that significant weight should be placed on the need to support economic growth, and timely decision making is in line with this objective.

Trinidad and Tobago has described Britain’s new visa requirement for tourists from the twin island state as a disproportionate and disappointing response to the issue of false asylum applications, Natricia Duncan and Kejan Haynes report.

Britain said it would revoke accreditation for a Russian diplomat in response to a similar move by Russia earlier this week against British diplomats.

A government spokesperson said in a statement that Russia’s accusations made against the British diplomats were “entirely false” and “fabricated in order to justify their increasing harassment of UK diplomats”.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said:

During the past twelve months, Russia has pursued an increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats, pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work.

Russia’s expulsion this week of a British diplomat and diplomatic spouse is yet another escalation.

The accusations made against these individuals are entirely false, fabricated in order to justify their increasing harassment of UK diplomats.

Moscow has been angered by Britain’s continued military support for Ukraine and by prime minister Keir Starmer’s recent statements about putting British boots on the ground in Ukraine as part of a potential peacekeeping force, Reuters reported.

Britain said it had summoned the Russian ambassador in London on Wednesday and made clear that it would not stand for the “intimidation” of its diplomats and staff.

The spokesperson added:

It is clear that the Russian state is actively seeking to drive the British embassy in Moscow towards closure and has no regard for the dangerous escalatory impact of this.

Summoning the Russian ambassador today, a senior Foreign Office official made clear that the UK will not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families.

Consequently, we are taking immediate reciprocal action, revoking accreditation for a Russian diplomat and a diplomatic spouse.

John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has paid tribute to Nicola Sturgeon following her announcement that she will stand down as an MSP at the Scottish parliamentary election next year.

Swinney told PA Media:

I’m very sorry that Nicola Sturgeon has decided to stand down from the Scottish parliament.

She’s made an extraordinary contribution to the work of the Scottish parliament, and particularly to the Scottish government, as our longest serving first minister …

She’s got so many different policy achievements to be proud of in changing the lives of people in Scotland for the better. And I wish her well for the future.

But Rachael Hamilton, the deputy Scottish Conservative leader, said that while she wished Sturgeon well on a personal level, her party could “not forget the deep divisions in our country that Nicola Sturgeon created, fostered and encouraged”. She went on:

By any objective analysis, her record as first minister is one of failure.

Scottish education standards collapsed on her watch and the poverty-related attainment gap, which she promised to eradicate, widened.

She presided over a drugs death emergency, a ferries scandal, a crisis in our NHS, crumbling roads – and all while raising taxes on hard-working Scots, which stifled economic growth.

Her reckless gender self-ID policy betrayed women, her soft-touch approach to justice betrayed victims, and her shameful deletion of Covid WhatsApp messages denied bereaved families answers and highlighted the secrecy and cynicism that characterised her government.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said:

Nicola Sturgeon has been a leading figure in Scottish politics for 20 years, but I have known her in local politics in Glasgow for almost 30 years.

This is a significant announcement that marks the end of an era in Scottish politics.

Whilst I have many disagreements with her, I never doubted her passion for Glasgow and Scotland. I wish her well for the future.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said while Sturgeon’s impact on politics was “undeniable”, the departure of another senior figure from the SNP was “further proof of their decline”.

Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said that when she and her co-leader Patrick Harvie served in government with the SNP under Sturgeon, “it was the first time anywhere in the UK that Greens had been in a government role, and we are proud of the change we delivered.”

Tom Ambrose is taking over the blog for a bit. I will be back later.

The equalities watchdog has raised concerns about the Sentencing Council’s new guidelines which allegedly favour minority ethnic groups.

In an interview with Times Radio, Lady Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said she had written to the council questioning whether the new advice complies with the public sector equality duty.

The government and the Conservartive have both claimed that the new rules amount to “two-tier” justice and Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is meeting the council tomorrow to ask them to think again. But so far the council is refusing.

Under the new guidelines, judges are advised that they should get pre-sentence reports before sentencing offenders in certain categories. These categories include young adults, women and people from an ethnic, cultural or faith minorities.

Since a pre-sentence report often leads to a reduced sentence, the Tories have claimed this makes the system biased against people like white Christians. But the Sentencing Council says minority ethnic offenders regularly get harsher punishments than equivalent white offenders and it argues that the guidance (which does not stop judges asking for a pre-sentence report for offenders not in the designated categories) is intended to make the overall system more fair, not less fair.

Falkner, who was appointed EHRC chair when Boris Johnson was PM, said she sympathised with the Sentencing Council’s desire to preserve its independence.

The EHRC is an independent body and we guard our independence very jealously indeed. We do not bow to government interference and I feel a lot of sympathy with the Sentencing Council in their current position.

But she also suggested on this issue it had made a mistake.

I do wonder whether it might benefit from another look. I wrote yesterday to the Sentencing Council because we do have some concerns from an Equality Act perspective in terms of the public sector equality duty and we’ve offered to assist them in ascertaining whether there might be some discrimination by leaving out some groups and elevating others. So we’re waiting to see whether they would like to avail of our assistance, but we stand ready to assist.

If having a pre-sentencing report is an advantage, then you run the risk of positive discrimination for those groups that are in the list and not for other groups. The correct constitutional position would be ... that a judge already has tools at their disposal to seek pre-sentencing reports and that they should do so based on an individual case on a case-by-case basis, rather than categorising certain groups.

Justin Madders, the business minister, has described the employment rights bill as a “significant step forward” in modernising Britain’s industry and workers’ rights.

Opening this afternoon’s report stage debate on the bill, Madders said the government was intending to introduce a number of changes to the originally drafted bill, covering trade union communications, access to workplaces and recognition processes.

As PA Media reports, the new Fair Work Agency will also get new powers, including the ability to fine employers who have underpaid their staff.

Madders said: “As a result the Fair Work Agency may be able to help workers get money they are owed more quickly than if they had to go through an employment tribunal.”

Another change will stop the requirement for unions to hold a vote every decade on whether to have a political fund, which can then be used to give money to political parties, including Labour. Madders said:

Instead unions will provide reminders about members’ right to opt out every 10 years, ensuring transparency without imposing costly and time consuming ballots.

There are many people eager to speak in the debate today which will ensure workplace rights are fit for a modern economy, empower working people and contribute to economic growth. I urge members to support this bill and the amendments we are moving today, which will show that we are pro-business, pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-growth.

Daniel Zeichner, the rural affairs minister, has told MPs that the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme because it is “fully subscribed” and the government cannot afford to keep it open.

In response to a Commons urgent question about the sudden closure of the scheme yesterday, Zeichner said:

The fact is the high uptake of the scheme means it is now fully subscribed. Now, I’m afraid, as a Government, we inherited SFI with no spending cap despite a finite farming budget and that cannot continue.

So we will continue to support farmers to transition to more sustainable farming models, including through the thousands of existing SFI agreements over the coming years and a revamped SFI offer. But this is an opportunity to improve how we do that under a fair and just farming transition.

Ziechner said a revised version of the SFI would open after the spending review, which is due to be announced in June.

Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, accused the government of “Orwellian doublespeak” in how it made the announcement yesterday. She said:

The statement issued by the government last night was a masterclass in Orwellian doublespeak. It says the SFI scheme has, I quote, ‘reached completion’. Well, what criteria has the government used? Because it hasn’t set those criteria out before. The government’s own website stated that up to six weeks’ notice would be given for the withdrawal as SFI. Why was this disregarded last night?”

Zeichner replied:

It’s not a complicated thing to say that when the budget is spent a responsible government responds to that. The budget has been spent.

In response to a later question from the Tim Farron, the Lib Dem spokesperson, Zeichner said that the fact that the budget for the SFI had been used up was something that “should be celebrated”.

Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, has been appointed as the new Home Office permanent secretary, the Cabinet Office has announced.

She will replace Sir Matthew Rycroft, who is leaving after a 35-year career in the civil service, including five years as the top official at the Home Office.

Romeo, who was permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade before moving to justice, was one of the last four civil servants shortlisted to be cabinet secretary at the end of last year, but lost out to Sir Chris Wormald.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said:

I am delighted to announce Antonia Romeo’s appointment as permanent secretary at the Home Office. Antonia has huge experience delivering transformation across a range of government departments, as well as a track record of delivery and strong systems leadership, both of which will be vital to lead the Home Office to deliver its mission on safer streets and border security.

In our Guardian story today about Keir Starmer’s plans to slim down and reform central government (see 11.55am), Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Eleni Courea say that “No 10 and the Treasury are understood to be taking a close interest in proposals drawn up by Labour Together, a thinktank with close links to the government, to reshape the state under plans dubbed ‘project chainsaw’.”

At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, No 10 was very keen to reject the nickname, used by some at the thinktank.

The PM’s spokesperson told journalists that Keir Starmer would not be adopting a chainsaw approach. The spokesperson said:

We are not taking an ideological approach to this. There is no approach here where we are taking a chainsaw to the system.

The focus that we are taking is making the state more effective, we are making the state more agile in a way that delivers for working people.

Part of that will obviously mean that the state must be delivering value for money for people and … that will be at the heart of the spending review, but also we want to see a state that is more effective at delivering for people.

A Labour spokeperson went even further, describing the phrase as a “juvenile characterisation” and saying that Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, told broadcasters at the weekend that the government’s plans were about reshaping the slate, not about slashing it.

The chainsaw reference comes from Javier Milei, the radical right Argentinian president, who deployed a chainsaw when he was campaigning to illustrate his commitment to slashing public spending. Since his election, Milei has implemented what he promised, curbing inflation but sending poverty soaring.

In the US Elon Musk has enthusiastically embraced chainsawism, brandishing one at a Republican conference last month with Milei looking on approvingly.

But President Trump himself may be less enthusiastic. Last week he told his cabinet that he wanted departmental cuts to be carried out with a scalpel, not a hatchet.

“The truth is that the PM should prevail in PMQs,” Boris Johnson wrote in his memoirs. “You are the one driving the agenda. You have the initiative and the policies.”

Unlike many other things he said in that book, that particular comment happens to be accurate, and it is always worth remembering when trying to assess PMQs. It is not a level playing field. The leader of the opposition is kicking uphill.

Today was a particularly good example. There is a lot of proper news around at the moment and, in his responses to questions, Keir Starmer was more interesting and newsy than usual. We got a clear threat of retaliatory tariffs against the US (see 12.20pm) – although you would be unwise to expect them to happen any time soon (for reasons the former chancellor Jeremy Hunt explained in a Guardian inteview last month). We got to hear Starmer describe the current benefits system as “indefensible”, after reading on Monday that that was what he was telling Labour MPs behind closed doors. There were also interesting replies on Ukraine, Gaza, wealth taxes and the poor couple who got fined for reporting a stowaway migrant in their motorhome.

By comparison, the exchanges with Kemi Badenoch were not that interesting, and easily forgettable. It was not so much a clear Starmer win; it was more a case of Badenoch not really showing up in the first place.

To be fair to the Conservative, she had identified the right pitch. There is little or nothing that matters more to voters than the cost of living and the economy, and she focused all her questions on that. She is also right to say that business confidence is low, and that part of this is because last year’s budget hammered employers more than they were expecting.

But, given the economic record of her own party in office, it is quite hard to get past the obvious whataboutery that Starmer will be deploying for years to come and none of her questions today properly landed. She came closest when she asked about the spring statement taking place two weeks today, and argued that it will end up looking like the sort of emergency budget that at one point Rachel Reeves was ruling out. She is probably right. But she could not convert that into a hostile question. She would have done better asking Starmer to rule something out (like extending the freeze in tax allowances). Starmer would probably have refused to answer, but at least she would have got a headline in papers prepared to put a negative interpretation on his evasion.

Zara Sultana (Ind) asks if Starmer still thinks Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza, even though it has cut off aid supplies to Gaza for the past 11 days, and cut of electricity supplies affecting water production.

Starmer says he is “really appalled by Israel blocking aid when it is needed at greater volume and speed than it ever been needed”.

John Whittingdale (Con) asks about his constituents who were fined £1,500 for reporting an asylum seekers who entered the country illegally after hiding in the bike rack on their motorhome. He says they should have been thanked for reporting this, not punished. If people are fined, they will have no incentive to alert the police, he says.

Starmer says he has seen some of the details of this, and is “concerned” about the story. He says the Home Office will look into this. He will update Whittingdale on what they conclude, he says.

Richard Burgon (Lab) says when politicians talk about tough choices, that normally means they are going to do something to penalise the poor. He says the government should introduce a wealth tax instead of cutting disability benefits.

Disabled people in my constituency are frightened. And they are frightened because they are again hearing the language of: ‘tough choices.’

And they know from bitter experience that when politicians talk about tough choices, it means the easy option of making the poor and vulnerable pay.

“So instead of cutting benefits for disabled people, wouldn’t the moral thing to do, the courageous thing to do, be to make a real tough choice and introduce a wealth tax on the very wealthiest people in our society.

Starmer says getting people back into work is a “moral imperative”.

On the subject of a wealth tax, he says the government has put a windfall tax on energy companies, taxed non-doms and put a new tax on private jets.

But there is no “bottomless pit”, he says.

We must kick start growth to get the economic stability that we need.

Davey uses his second question to ask about President Trump, and he says Starmer should fly to Canada as soon as possible to show solidarity with the new PM, Mark Carney, in his dispute with the US.

Starmer says Canada is an important ally.

On tariffs, he says:

I am disappointed to see global tariffs in relation to steel and aluminium, but we will take a pragmatic approach.

We are, as he knows, negotiating an economic deal which covers and will include tariffs if we succeed.

But we will keep all options on the table.

That means he is not ruling out retaliatory tariffs – even though the UK has not announced them now.

John Slinger (Lab) asks about disability benefits, and says the government is right to want to get more people into work.

Starmer replies:

I come from a family that dealt with disability through my mother and brother over many years, so I do understand the concerns that have been raised by him, but we inherited a system which is broken.

It is indefensible, economically and morally, and we must and we will reform it.

We will have clear principles. We will protect those who need protecting. We will also support those who can work back to work. Labour is the party of work. We are also the party of equality and fairness.

Mike Martin (Lib Dem) says the ICC has issued arrest warrant for President Putin and some of his allies over the abduction of Ukrainian children to Russia. Will a peace deal have to involved the return of the children and Putin’s prosecution?

Starmer says a “lasting, just” peace must involve dealing with the issue of the children. He says he is raising this with allies.

He avoids the point about Putin being prosecuted.

PMQs is about to start.

The overnight Downing Street announcement about getting rid of the Payment Systems Regulator (see 11.18am) may look a bit under-powered, but it is part of a much bigger, more ambitious project. As Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Eleni Courea report, a radical blueprint for reforming the state is being drawn up by government officials, including a crackdown on quangos and thousands more civil service job cuts. They report:

Proposals to restructure NHS England, with entire teams axed to save money and avoid duplication, could be replicated across a range of arm’s length bodies that spend about £353bn of public money.

Separately, No 10 and the Treasury are understood to be taking a close interest in proposals drawn up by Labour Together, a thinktank with close links to the government, to reshape the state under plans dubbed “project chainsaw”.

The project’s nickname is a reference to Elon Musk’s stunt wielding a chainsaw to symbolise controversial government cuts for Donald Trump’s administration.

Keir Starmer told his cabinet at their weekly meeting on Tuesday that they should stop “outsourcing” decisions to regulators and quangos and take more responsibility for their own departments.

The full story is here.

As director of public prosecutions, before he became an MP, Starmer was a permanent secretary-grade civil servant and he attended regular meetings in Downing Street with other permanent secretaries. You have to go back at least to Harold Wilson to find a prime minister arriving in office with Whitehall, establishment credentials as strong as Starmer.

But increasingly he seems keen to lead a “disruptor” government, and there are two texts worth reading to fully understand this.

The first is the memo that Starmer send to cabinet ministers recently setting out his thoughts on all this. “If governments are not changing the system in favour for working people, then voters will find someone else who does,” he says. Despite being potentially the most interesting thing Starmer has said or written recently, the only copy available seems to be on Laura Kuenssberg’s Twitter feed.

You can read it for yourself here.... pic.twitter.com/UEIAi9GdNj

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) March 8, 2025

And the second is Get In, Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund’s book about how Starmer led Labour to power. It is a superb book, which has had glittering reviews (like this one), and is an essential read of anyone who wants to understand this government. Maguire and Pogrund describe Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, as the person pushing Starmer towards “disruptor” politics. They say even before the general election McSweeney was railing against deliverism, “the idea that leaders of the centre left could wave statistics at voters who felt their lives were darker and meaner and expect to be congratulated at elections”. And they have this account of McSweeney having a private dinner with Michael Gove before the election, organised by a mutual friend.

As they ate, Gove offered him a crash course in government. Notionally the two men were rivals. But they shared a dislike of the conservatism and caution they had diagnosed in Britain’s ruling class. Gove told McSweeney how ministers succeeded, the ‘revealed preferences’ of the individual permanent secretaries with whom Labour would soon be working, and the impediments they might face to radical policy. McSweeney spoke, as he would more widely as polling day approached, of his desire to lead an ‘insurgent government’. To the rest of the table the subtext was clear: even if Starmer was a model technocrat, the Irishman would infuse his administration with the confrontational, iconoclastic politics he had pursued in opposition.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, and Rupert Lowe, who was one of the party’s five MPs until he was suspended last week over misconduct allegations that he claims are confected, have been continuting their war of words on social media this morning.

Lowe posted a message this morning claiming that one of the reasons why the party was out to get him was that “my language on the rape gangs was too strong, too robust, too tough”.

Farage replied:

I have fought against the rape gangs for over a decade.

For Rupert Lowe to say that I tried to prevent him talking about it is monstrous.

He told Lee Anderson he would ‘slit the throat of the Reform party’.

Lowe is out to cause damage & should be ignored by our supporters.

And Lowe replied:

Desperate.

I said that Reform leadership was slitting its own throat by launching this horrific smear campaign against me, with zero credible evidence.

I raised questions of Reform policy, communication and structure. The day after, you kicked me out.

That’s your real motive.

Yesterday Keir Starmer told cabinet ministers that the government should be taking more responsibility for decisions, and not outsourcing them to regulators. Overnight Downing Street followed that up with an announcement saying “the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) will be abolished as the latest step in reducing the burdens on business”.

It is not quite a full “bonfire of the quangos”. Many people won’t have even heard of the Payment Systems Regulator, and the small print of the announcement says that the PSR is not going immediately, and that when it does get wound up, its responsibilities will be taken over by the Financial Conduct Authority, which operates out of the same east London HQ anyway.

The Conservatives say Labour is not serious about cutting back quangos. In a statement Mike Wood, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said:

This announcement isn’t worth the paper it is written on, given the regulator that the government is supposedly abolishing is instead just being merged with another regulator – that it is already a subsidiary of.

Since taking office this government has created 27 new quangos and regulators – including Rachel Reeves’s Office for Value for Money, a pet project that has been slammed as a total waste of taxpayer’s cash.

Here is the list of 27 quangos that the Tories claim Starmer’s government has created, as supplied by CCHQ.

1. Regulatory Innovation Office (DSIT, Press release, 8 October 2024, link)

2. National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (HM Treasury, News story, 10 October 2024,link)

3. Great British Energy (DESNZ, Policy paper, 25 July 2024, link)

4. Mission Control (DESNZ, Press release, 9 July 2024, link)

5. National Energy System Operator (DESNZ, Press release, 13 September 2024, link)

6. Solar Taskforce (DESNZ, Press release, 2 October 2024, link)

7. Border Security Command (HO, News story, 7 July 2024,link)

8. Jet Zero Taskforce (DfT, Press release, 25 November 2024, link)

9. British Infrastructure Taskforce (HMT, News story, 18 October 2024, link)

10. Creative Industries Taskforce (DCMS, Press release, 25 November 2024, link)

11. Circular Economy Taskforce (Gov.uk, Circular Economy Taskforce, accessed 11 March 2025, link)

12. Tree Planting Taskforce (DEFRA, Press release, 28 November 2024, link)

13. Child Poverty Taskforce (PMO, Press release, 17 July 2024, link)

14. Flooding Resilience Taskforce (DEFRA, Press release, 12 September 2024, link)

15. Motor Insurance Taskforce (DFT, Press release, 16 October 2024, link)

16. New Towns Taskforce (Gov.uk, New Towns Taskforce, accessed 11 March 2025, link)

17. Onshore Wind Industry Taskforce (Gov.uk, Onshore Wind Industry Taskforce, accessed 11 March 2025, link)

18. Skills England (DfE, Press release, 22 July 2024, link)

19. Industrial Strategy Council (DBT, Press release, 17 December 2024, link)

20. Passenger Standards Authority (DfT, A Railway Fit for Britain’s Future, 18 February 2025, link)

21. National Jobs and Careers (DWP, Press release, 26 November 2024, link)

22. Ethics and Integrity Commissioner (Independent Adviser on Ministerial Ethics) (Hansard, 25 July 2024, Ethics and Integrity Commission, link)

23. House of Commons Modernisation Committee (PMO, King’s Speech, 17 July 2024, link)

24. School Support Staff Negotiating Body (DfE, Press release, 10 October 2024, link)

25. Independent Football Regulator (DCMS, Impact assessment, 25 October 2024, link)

26. Fair Work Agency (DBT, Press release, 10 October 2024, link)

27. Defence Innovation Agency (HMT, Press release, 3 March 2025, link)

The Liberal Democrats have been repeatedly attacked Keir Starmer and his government for not taking a more robust stance with President Trump, and Washington’s decision to include the UK in the tariffs it has imposed on steel and aluminium imports has provoked another Lib Dem intervention. Daisy Cooper, the deputy Lib Dem leader and Treasury spokesperson, said today Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, needs to “toughen up”. She said:

Being repeatedly kicked by the other side and doing nothing is not an effective negotiating position. The business secretary needs to toughen up.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives would roll over and beg Trump for a bad trade deal that sells out British farmers and our NHS.

Enough is enough. We must act from a position of strength, standing up for British steel and the UK economy through retaliatory measures.

Nicola Sturgeon, the former Scottish first minister, has announced that she will stand down from the Scottish parliaement at next year’s election.

In a letter to her Glasgow Southside constituents, the former SNP leader said:

I am writing to let you know that I have decided not to seek re-election to the Scottish parliament next year.

Reaching this decision has been far from easy, however, I have known in my heart for a while that the time is right for me to embrace different opportunities in a new chapter of my life, and to allow you to select a new standard bearer.

Whoever you choose will have my full support and I look forward to campaigning alongside you to ensure that Glasgow Southside remains an SNP-held constituency ..

To my constituents, past and present: thank you for the trust you have placed in me. Being your MSP has been my privilege and I will continue to represent you to the best of my abilities until I step down next year.

To Southside SNP members: your support, loyalty and friendship, through thick and thin, has meant more to me than you will ever know. You are the best of the best.

To SNP members across the country: I may be leaving parliament, but I will be by your side every step of the way as we complete our journey to independence.

Kemi Badenoch has this morning accused the government of treating farmers “with contempt”. She has been attacking Labour repeatedly over its decision to extend inheritance tax to cover some farms, but this morning she is commenting on the government’s surprise announcement yesterday that it was closing applications for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) – a grant scheme for sustainable farming initiatives.

In a post on social media, Badenoch said:

The Labour government treats farmers with contempt.

First the #FamilyFarmTax, now withdrawing an important scheme without warning.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not care about rural communities.

In a statement yesterday Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union, said this was a “shattering blow”. He explained:

We have had major concerns for years about whether there was the capability within Defra to deliver the agricultural transition post-Brexit. We have warned time and time again that large parts of the SFI were poorly designed and that the department was consistently failing to deliver it.

Today’s terrible news was delivered with only 30 minutes warning to us before ministers briefed the press, leaving us unable to inform our members. There has been no consultation, no communication; there has been a total lack of the ‘partnership and co-design’ Defra loves to talk about. It is another example of the growing disregard for agriculture within the department.

The fact that ministers are actually trumpeting this as good news shows how desperately detached they are from the reality on the ground and how little they understand this industry.

Good morning. Much of Keir Starmer’s time at the moment is spent dealing with the latest outbursts from the White House. It is not easy, partly because the tone and policy tend to flip 180 degrees hour by hour, and this morning there are developments on the two issues at the top of Starmer’s in-tray.

On the Ukraine war front, with the US and Ukraine agreeing potential ceasefire terms, things are looking up. Jakub Krupa has all the latest on this on his Europe live blog.

But, on the trade war front, it’s not looking so good, because Starmer’s White House charm offensive, and the state visit invite, have not spared the UK from steel and aluminium tariffs that came into force earlier today. Julie Kollewe has the latest on this on the business live blog.

Both of these topics are likely to come up at PMQs today.

But there is another issue in Starmer’s in-tray that is potentially more problematic. Labour MPs and supporters are broadly very supportive of how Starmer is handling Trump. However dozens of government MPs are said to be deeply unhappy about the proposed cuts to working-age sickness and disability benefits that are due to be announced next week, and overnight there are have been two developments in this story that won’t help the PM.

• Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, has denounced the proposed cuts, saying they will push people into hardship, alienate the public and repeat the mistakes of Tory austerity. The Mirror has the story, and Ashley Cowburn has the full quote. Nowak said:

A major lesson from the Tory years is that austerity damaged the nation’s health. We must not make the same mistake again. Pushing disabled people into hardship with cuts to support will only make the current challenges worse and will not win public support.

Trade unions share the government’s ambitions to improve the nation’s health and to help more people into good quality work. After 14 disastrous years of Tory rule - including massive failures to provide the health services and employment support people need - there is much that can be done to improve public services. And the government’s plan to Make Work Pay will ensure more better jobs. But cutting Pip [the personal independence payment] is not the solution - not least because it enables many disabled people to access work so that they do not have to rely on out of work benefits.

Reforms to Pip are needed. The assessment process has too much of a one- size-fits all approach. The assessors lack medical expertise. And it’s a missed opportunity to identify support that could transform the lives of people with a wide variety of impairments. The government should prioritise fixing these problems, with input from trade unions and organisations led by disabled people.

The government is reportedly planning to cut Pip by £5bn. The TUC does not have a vote on these cuts. But Starmer can’t easily ignore what it says. Nowak is a moderate, who is normally supportive of the government, and if he is speaking out like this, it is because his concerns are widely shared.

• And the Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a report saying that more people are claiming disability benefits because more people are suffering from mental health problems. That might sound obvious. But it undermines claims made by supporters of the planned cuts that the main reason why the disability benefit caseload is rising so sharply is because the system incentivises people who are able to work to claim sickness or disability benefits instead because they are worth a lot more than standard unemployment benefit. Summarising the report, Eduin Latimer, an economist at the IFS and one of the report’s authors, said:

The rise in the number of people on disability benefits is a key motivation for the government’s upcoming green paper. A range of evidence suggests that mental health across the population has worsened, and – consistent with this – more than half of the rise in disability benefit caseload comes from claims for mental health and behavioural conditions. As well as obviously bad news on their own terms, mental health problems may also be contributing to the rising benefits bill.

Anna Bawden has a story on it here.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

After 12.30pm: MPs resume the report stage debate on the employment rights bill.

5.30pm (UK time): John Healey, the defence secretary, and other European defence ministers are due to hold a press conference after talks in Paris about Ukraine.

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