Shabana Mahmood’s intervention to halt new guidelines on sentencing is “dangerous” and a “deliberate step backwards”, according to senior legal figures and prison campaigners, Rajeev Syal reports.

This morning the Commons work and pensions committee held a session in Manchester town hall, where it took evidence from witnesses in relation to jobcentres and pensioner poverty.

Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, gave evidence, and, as the Daily Mirror reports, he argued that jobcentres should be renamed live well centres, in line with Greater Manchester’s Live Well initiative to promote wellbeing that links healthcare with employment support.

As Ashley Cowburn reports, Burnham said:

I would like Jobcentre Plus to be renamed Live Well centres. In the name it should be positive - it should say to the public ‘you are going to be helped when you come in here.

It’s not just the name. It’s what happens when you go inside. What’s the atmosphere like? What’s it like to be in there? I just think there’s a huge opportunity.

As Steve Robson reports in the i, Burnham also also said that Westminster governments put too much emphasis on punitive sanctions when reforming welfare. He said:

From my time in Westminster, and I was probably guilty of it at the time, I think benefits policy in this country has too much, under all governments, been written to create headlines to please certain newspapers and not actually to do the job of encouraging the recovery of people back to a better position in their lives.

I think once you leave as a minister and become a mayor, you just don’t think ‘will this please that paper? It’s a completely different, bottom-up offer that you give to people

If you really want to help people, if you really want to save money and get more people into work, I think you have to come at it a completely different way.

Yesterday, in his speech to the Organised Immigration Crime conference, Keir Starmer announced that 24,000 migrants have been removed from the UK since Labour took office. This included the four biggest return flights ever, he said.

If you are a Labour activists, you can now buy leaflets from party HQ making the same point.

The Green party says it is horrified. Carla Denyer, the Green’s co-leader, said:

Labour’s recent leaflet boasting about deporting more people than the Tories is sickening.

Labour are failing to provide safe and legal routes into the UK while seemingly revelling in turning people’s lives upside down.

Any claim the Labour party may have once had to be a party of compassion or principle has well and truly gone.

The controversy is reminiscent of what happened in 2015, when the party produced official mugs with the slogan “Controls on immigration”. This was one of the party’s five election pledges, and so it was understandable that the party wanted to publicise it. But the mugs were very unpopular with some Labour activists who felt they sounded rightwing.

A deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is being “finalised” after winning approval from Donald Trump’s US, Downing Street has said. PA Media says:

The plan will see the UK give up sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory but pay to lease back the strategically important Diego Garcia military base, which is used by the US.

Discussions are ongoing between the UK and the Mauritian government over the terms of the deal.

“The finalisation of the deal is ongoing,” the PM’s spokesperson said.

US President Trump indicated his backing for the deal during Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington in February, saying: “I have a feeling it’s going to work out very well”.

The PM’s spokesperson said: “You will have seen from the president that he recognised the strength of the deal.

“I think we are now working with the Mauritian government to finalise the deal and sign the treaty.

“My understanding is it’s now between us and the Mauritian government to finalise the deal, following the discussions with the US.”

Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said: “Labour should have the courage to come to the House of Commons and face scrutiny over their deal to surrender the Chagos Islands and pay for the privilege.

“This remains a very bad deal for British taxpayers – and we now know money is going to be frontloaded to Mauritius, at a time when Labour is stripping vulnerable pensioners of their winter fuel payments and whacking family farms and businesses with punishing taxes.”

Kemi Badenoch has given credence to a conspiracy theory about the Netflix hit Adolescence being based on a real story, but involving a black boy not a white boy.

This has been described as wholly untrue by Jack Thorne, the writer and co-creator of the series, which has been praised by Keir Starmer for the way it has opened up a debate about the radicalisation of young men.

Starmer met Thorne, and some of the shows other creators, in Downing Street this week, along with charities engaged in child protection, and the PM said he would like as many pupils as possible to watch the series.

The four-part drama is about a 13-year-old boy arrested for the murder of a girl at his school. The Guardian’s reviewer described it as “the most devastating and immaculately scripted and played series I have ever seen – as close to televisual perfection as you can get”.

In an interview with GB News, asked if she has seen it, Badenoch replied:

Well, I think Adolescence is a fictional story. It’s based on a real story, but my understanding is that the boy who committed that crime was not white.

So, people can do whatever they like in fiction. The prime minister should not be building policy on fiction. He should be building policy on reality. What is the reality? Phones are disrupting schools and not enough schools have effective bans.

Badenoch went on to talk about the Tory policy to ban mobile phones in schools. In an earlier LBC interview this morning she said that she had not actually watched the programme, because “I don’t have time to watch anything these days, to be honest.”

Speaking to LBC, Badenoch also stated her belief that Adolescence was based on a true story. She said:

The story which it is based on has been fundamentally changed and so creating policy on a work of fiction rather than on reality is the real issue.

But, in an interview last week on the News Agents podcast, Thorne said there was no truth in the claim that he had adapted a real story involving a black boy. He said:

They’ve claimed that Stephen [Graham] and I based it on a story and so they’re saying that we race swapped it, because we were basically here and then ended up there, and everything else, and nothing is further from the truth.

I have told a lot of real-life stories in my time. I know the harm that can come when you take elements of a real-life story, and you put it on screen, and the people aren’t expecting it. There is no part of this that’s based on a true story, not one single part.

Asked about critics who complained about the main character being white, Thorne said:

It’s absurd to say that this is only committed by black boys, it’s absurd, it’s not true. And history shows a lot of cases of kids from all races committing these crimes.

We’re not making a point about race with this. We are making a point about masculinity. We’re trying to get inside a problem. We’re not saying this is one thing or another. We’re saying this is about boys.

The claim that Adolescence was based on a real story involving a black boy has been circulated on social media, including by people claiming that the colour of the main character was changed to conform with an anti-white agenda.

Ian Miles Cheong, a prominent rightwing commentator on X, floated this argument last month in a post that has attracted 4.8m views saying:

Netflix has a show called Adolescence that’s about a British knife killer who stabbed a girl to death on a bus and it’s based on real life cases such as the Southport murderer.

So guess what. They race swapped the actual killer from a black man/migrant to a white boy and the story has it so he was radicalized online by the red pill movement.

Just the absolute state of anti-white propaganda.

This attracted a comment from Elon Musk, the X owner, billionaire Trump ally and far-right provocateur, saying: “Wow.”

Badenoch has been accused, including by Keir Starmer at PMQs, of spending too much time reading social media.

Jarvis is responding to Philp.

He says he can understand why Philp is asking about China.

Countries will be considered separately, he says.

He says he won’t speculate on what countries may or may not be included in the Firs (foreign influence registration scheme) enhanced tier in future.

On China, the government’s policy is to “coperate where we can, compete where we need to, and challenge where we must”.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, is responding to Jarvis.

He welcomes the decision about Russia.

But he says Jarvis ignored “the elephant in the room”, China. Why was he silent?

Philp goes on:

We know China engages in industrial scale espionage, seeking to steal technology from government, universities and from industry.

They repress Chinese citizens here, and have sought to infiltrate our political system. In 2022 it was exposed by MI5 that China sought to infiltrate this very parliament via their agent, Christine Lee.

China has set up undeclared and illegal police stations in the UK and in December China placed a bounty on the head of three Hong Kong dissidents living in the UK.

He says MI5 and the FBI have both warned about the “epic threat” posed by China.

Dan Jarvis, the security miniser is now making a Commons statement about the foreign influence registration scheme, an initiative to allow the government to monitor people lobbying on behalf of foreign governments in the UK. It is part of the National Security Act 2023.

Jarvis says it will go live in July.

The scheme imposes routine requirements for people lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, but it also has an enhanced tier, covering hostile countries, where the rules are much tighter. If a country is in this tier, anyone carrying out activity in the UK on behalf of the country, or an entity linked to it, will have to register. Failure to comply will be an offence.

The government has already said that Iran will be in the enhanced tier.

Today Jarvis says Russia will also be in the enhanced tier.

The Green party has also criticised the government’s decision to introduce the sentencing guidelines (pre-sentence reports) bill. In a statement, the Green MP Siân Berry said:

It has been chilling to witness the government pile pressure on an independent body which has been nothing but clear about the importance of these guidelines for passing effective sentences.

The new guidelines, which were publicly consulted on, would have helped create safer sentencing for many women, parents, pregnant and young people, for whom extreme custodial sentences can compound the harm that led to their offending in the first place. This delay will condemn too many people to unjust punishment while we wait for new plans.

Pre-sentencing reports offer judges information, they do not determine sentences. Politicians’ wilful misunderstanding of these processes is dangerous and will cause irrevocable harm for many if this bill is passed.

Diane Abbott, the Labour MP and a former shadow home secretary, told Mahmood she did not know why she was so “triumphant” about introducing legislation to interfer with the independence of the Sentencing Council. She said there have been many reports saying black and brown people are treated unfairly by the courts, and she said the judiciary was independent for a good reason.

There is a reason why the Sentencing Council is independent. It was made a statutory independent body to avoid even the appearance of ministerial interfering in sentencing. This is not the United States. Our political system, our judicial system, are entirely separate.

The emergency legislation introduced by the govenrment is a direct result of Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, denouncing the Sentencing Council’s guidelines as “two-tier justice”. Until then, the guidelines had been accepted as reasonable by the government and almost everyone else (including the last Tory government).

In response to Mahmood, Jenrick claimed she had “completely lost control of the justice system”.

He said there were other guidelines in the legal system that amounted to two-tier justice.

And he suggested the chair of the Sentencing Council, Lord Justice William Davis, and another council member, Johanna Robinson, should resign. He claimed Davis had called for short sentences to be abolished, and he said Robinson has described the Tory Illegal Immigration Act as appalling.

Mahmood says how to make the justice system fairer is a policy matter for parliament. It is for politcians to decide policy, she says, and for judges to apply policy.

She says today she is introducing a sentencing guidelines (pre-sentence reports) bill. It is a tightly-focused bill, she says.

The bill adopts a targeted approach. It does not prevent [Sentencing Council] guidance from advising in general terms that pre-sentence reports should be requested when judges need more information about an offender’s personal circumstances.

But it does prohibit the council from making guidelines about pre-sentence reports with specific reference to the offender’s personal characteristics, such as their race, religion or belief or cultural background.

Mahmood says this raises further question about what the role of the Sentencing Council should be. She says this is something the government will consider going ahead. If further legislation is needed, the government will include it in the forthcoming sentencing bill, she says.

Mahmood explains how the new guidelines were drawn up.

She says she is in favour of the use of pre-sentence reports.

But the new guidances would have encouraged judges to get them for some offenders, but not others. Judge would have been told that they would normally have been needed for people from ethnic, cultural or faith minorities.

She says pre-sentence reports can lead to people getting lower sentences, and so this would have created the “perception of differential treatment before the law”.

She says the intention behind the guidelines was to address real inequalities that exist in sentencing. She goes on:

There is no doubt that more must be done to understand the problem we face and to address it. There are some measures already taking place across our justice system to make it more representative of the public that it serves, such that it can deliver outcomes in which we can all have confidence.

And I note that the proportion of ethnic minorities within the judiciary has risen from just 7% 10 years ago to 11% today.

While change can feel slow and must accelerate, my view is that despite the noble intentions behind them in attempting to address inequalities in our justice system, these guidelines sacrifice too much.

They raise a serious question of policy; in the pursuit of equality of outcome for different religions and races, should we treat them differently before the eyes of the law, and move so far away from an ideal that has underpinned justice in this country for centuries? On this I am clear all must be equal before the law.

In the Commons Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is making a statement to MPs about the Sentencing Council.

She says the recent guidelines proposed by the council raise the issue of whether everyone is equal before the law.

Following constructive talks with the council, the guidelines have been put on hold, she says.

For the record, here is the extract from the Downing Street readout from cabinet this morning, saying what Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds told colleagues about the impending US tariffs. Starmer said talks with the US on an economic deal were at an “advanced stage”.

A No 10 spokesperson said:

The prime minister then turned to US tariffs and trade. He set out the latest position to cabinet on the announced US plans on steel, aluminium, and automotive tariffs, with further details of ‘reciprocal’ global tariffs expected this week. He said the UK’s approach is to progress ongoing talks with the US on an economic deal, which are at an advanced stage, while keeping all options on the table.

He said a calm and pragmatic approach best served UK national interests, not a knee-jerk reaction. The UK has a balanced trading relationship with the US, supporting millions of jobs both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a deeply important security and defence relationship.

He said nobody wants to see global tariffs, but the UK would continue negotiations, continue engaging with British industries, prepare for all scenarios, and double down on delivering a modern industrial strategy that supports jobs and grows the economy.

The chancellor said that global tariffs will have an impact on the UK as an open trading economy, that securing a deal could mitigate some of those effects, and updated on discussions she had with the US Treasury yesterday.

The business secretary updated on the progress of his discussions in recent days and weeks, and said that the UK was well placed to agree an economic deal with the US and that those talks would continue beyond tomorrow’s announcement. He underlined that the business community wants to see the government take a calm, cool-headed, and pragmatic approach to discussions with the US, and that would guide our approach.

Helena Horton is a Guardian environment reporter.

Keir Starmer has been asked to retract false claims he made about spiders by a group of leading conservation charities.

The prime minister claimed in a recent article that plans to build over 15,000 homes near the Swanscombe Peninsula in Kent were blocked due to the presence of the distinguished jumping spider.

However, the nature charities have said this is “fake news” in a scandal they are branding “spidergate”.

Starmer has been asked to visit the peninsula to see the nature for himself, in the letter signed by the Wildlife Trusts, Campaign for Protecting Rural England, Buglife and Wildlife and Countryside Link.

The letter reads:

The vast majority of the 15,000 homes are still progressing, with thousands already built. The only area affected by wildlife concerns is part of the Swanscombe Peninsula, a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), where 1,300 homes were proposed.

Contrary to your claim, the distinguished jumping spider was not found in the area earmarked for these homes but in other parts of the SSSI. The Swanscombe Peninsula supports an extraordinary range of rare and endangered species, including over 1,700 species of invertebrates, nationally scarce botanical species such as the man orchid, and UK Red List bird species like the nightingale, grasshopper warbler, cuckoo, and breeding marsh harrier. It was designated an SSSI for its national importance in terms of plants, geology, birds, and invertebrates - a wealth of biodiversity that deserves protection.

The suggestion that conservation protections are blocking necessary housing development is misleading and unhelpful. We must stop framing nature and growth as opposing forces. Sustainable development can and should integrate environmental considerations, ensuring that new communities are liveable and ecologically sustainable.

The asylum system risks “damaging social cohesion” with homeless refugees putting “unprecedented pressure” on Glasgow services, the city council has warned. Libby Brooks has the story.

Vine says the UK is not exempt from the US tariffs.

Q: All that charm offensive hasn’t worked. We have not got leverage. We will have to change our approach?

Rayner says the government has put “foundations” in place that will help relations in the future.

Q: Why don’t we cancel the state visit?

Rayner says this is not about being nice to President Trump. It is about recognising that the UK and the US have a fair and balanced trading relationship.

Q: Should we cancel the state visit?

Rayner replies:

I think that’s ridiculous. I don’t think that’s where we’re at at all.

It’s not about who visits the king or not. It’s about putting the British interest first, and that’s what our government is doing.

Q: Have you encouraged JD Vance or any senior Republicans to spare the UK from tariffs?

No, says Badenoch. She says it is not right for her to cut across what the government is doing.

Q: Would you support a trade deal allowing US chlorinated chicken to be imported into the UK?

Badenoch says she does not believe the obstacles to a US trade deal are standards. They are quotas, she says. She goes on:

Nobody is going to be forced to eat chlorinated chicken. I don’t even think most chicken in the US is actually washed with chlorine, because it’s a myth that has expanded quite a lot over the years. Things have changed. We need to focus on what’s actually in a trade deal.

Q: Why have you reportedly told your MPs not to criticise President Trump?

I haven’t, says Badenoch.

Kemi Badenoch is holding a press conference now.

She is criticising the government over the impact of the rise in employer national insurance contributions (NICs), which the Tories call the “jobs tax”.

She says the average family will lose £3,500 by the end of this parliament as a result, because firms will respond to this by reducing wages (or not increasing them by as much as they otherwise would, to be more precise, although Badenoch does not spell that out).

It is hard for small parties to get in the papers, but the Liberal Democrats have had many years of practice and one of their solutions is to respond to a crisis by either calling for the recall of parliament (during recess), or calling for a meeting of Cobra (the Whitehall emergency committee). Their requests are normally ignored, but they do count as news (sort of) and trend has become a Westminster lobby in-joke.

So, when a press release arrived this morning from the Lib Dems calling for a Cobra meeting to discuss the US tariffs, there was a debate in the office about whether this was a self-deprecatory April fool’s day joke.

But it’s not, the Lib Dems tell us. They really do want Cobra (which normally deals with natural disasters and terrorist incidents) to discuss the Trump tariffs. Calum Miller, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokersperson, said:

The prime minister should call a Cobra meeting today to coordinate Britain’s response to Trump’s trade war – including plans for Tesla tariffs and emergency measures to boost demand in the hardest hit sectors.

The government needs to pull out all the stops to protect businesses and families from Donald Trump’s destructive and needless trade war.

We can’t kowtow to Trump any longer. That is why we’re urging the government to urgently start talks on a new trade deal with our European neighbours, so we can negotiate with Washington from the strongest position possible.

Prof David Miles, a member of the OBR’s budget responsibility committee, told the Treasury committee that a very limited trade war triggered by US tariffs could have positive effects for the UK economy. He explained:

Let’s suppose there’s a very limited tariff war. So it’s China, Mexico, Canada, countries [where] already it’s pretty clear what Trump is going to do, and that’s it. And the UK stays out of it, so does most of the rest of the world.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that could be, if anything, very, very mildly positive. There’s a bit of trade that will get diverted to the UK. And some of the exports from China, for example, that would have gone to the US, they’ll be looking for a home for them in the rest of the world. And stuff will be available in the UK a bit cheaper than otherwise would have been.

Miles said this was not the most probable scenario.

All the other scenarios, which did involve the UK facing tariffs, would be negative for the economy, to different degrees, he said.

At the Treasury committee Richard Hughes is now being asked about tariffs.

John Glen (Con) says the US announced car tariffs last week. If that had come before the OBR’s report was written, would that have used up all the chancellor’s headroom?

Hughes says there were elements of that included in the “downside forecasts”.

Q: Why did you not explicitly include tariffs in your forecasts?

Hughes says the OBR is not as big as the IMF or the OECD. It does not have the capacity to produce its own economic model for the global economy. So it relies on the IMF’s, he says.

And he says there is a second reason why tariffs were not included.

The other reason to not take account of us tariff policy is it was changing every day, depending on what phone call the president had with one or another head of state.

And so in that sense, it was very hard to choose what day’s tariff policy in the US to really reflect on our forecast.

But he also points out that the OBR report included a section giving three scenarios for how US tariff policy could affect the UK.

In his Sky News interview this morning (see 9.53am) it was put to Keir Starmer that, even though he says all options are on the table in relation to retaliatory tariffs, his reference to not wanting a trade war implies he will not impose tariffs on US imports.

As Sky reports, Starmer replied:

I’m not going to go ahead of myself. But I am talking to the sectors most impacted, and I think what they want most is a calm and collected response to this, not a knee-jerk response.

In her LBC interview this morning Kemi Badenoch said she would be opposed to the UK imposing retaliatory tariffs on the US. She said:

A trade deal is the best way but it has to be something significant and comprehensive, not just a deal that tinkers at the margins in easy areas.

Some people will want us to have trade retaliation – that just makes everyone poorer.

This is a time for significant diplomacy and showing that actually, if you put tariffs on, the people who will suffer aren’t just our exporters but also the American consumer who will have to pay more.

Unlike the European Union, the UK has not yet announced any retaliatory measures in response to the tariffs President Trump has already unveiled, and Keir Starmer does not seem keen to go down this route. But he has not ruled it out, saying all options are on the table.

As Rupert Jones reports, today is when millions of people face price rises because 1 April is the day when many routine bills go up.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Keir Starmer said he accepted that the cost of living crisis was ongoing. But he insisted that government policies, such as the rise in the national living wage coming into effect today, would provide people with help. He said:

I think for most people, they would say the cost-of-living crisis is ongoing, and they feel the pressure financially.

That’s why it’s so important we make good on our pledge that people would feel better off and the national living wage going up today by an average of £1,400 is going to affect millions of people, so in their pay packet this month, and obviously for months to come, they will now be getting more money,

That’s alongside the other work we’ve done – interest rates have been cut three times since we’ve had a Labour government, so anybody with a mortgage knows that the rates are coming down, and of course, on average, wages going up now more quickly than prices.

I acknowledge that with bills coming in, people see that rise and that is a pressure. That is why it’s so important we deliver on the national living wage, to make sure people are better off – £1,400, quite a significant amount of money for millions of workers.

Making sure that interest rates are coming down not going up, that makes a big difference, wages going up higher than prices.

Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, is giving evidence to the Treasury committee. There is a live feed here.

Hughes started by telling the committee that he wrote to the chancellor earlier this year to say that, when his five-year term ends later this year, he would like to have a second term in office.

He said he had not yet had a reply.

Keir Starmer has dismissed claims that he has been “played” by President Trump over tariffs.

In an interview with Sky News this morning, echoing what Jonathan Reynolds said in his morning interview round (see 8.58am), Starmer said that a future trade deal with the US might lead to the UK getting some exemptions from the tariffs coming tomorrow. He said:

We are of course negotiating an economic deal which will, I hope … mitigate the tariffs.

Asked if he had been “played” by US President Donald Trump, Starmer replied:

The US is our closest ally. Our defence, our security, our intelligence are bound up in a way that no two other countries are.

So it’s obviously in our national interest to have a close working relationship with the US, which we’ve had for decades, and I want to ensure we have for decades to come.

He said talks on an economic deal would normally take “months or years” but “in a matter of weeks we have got well advanced in those discussions”.

Starmer also confirmed that it was likely the UK would be affected by the tariffs being announced tomorrow.

We are obviously working with the sectors most impacted at pace on that.

Nobody wants to see a trade war but I have to act in the national interests.

That means that “all options remain on the table” in response, he added.

Q: Nigel Farage says you are lazy, and that you only work hard for a few hours in the afternoon.

Badenoch asks how he would know. She says he has never met her. He throws abuse at politicians to get attention, she says.

Q: Since you became leader, the Tory poll ratings have gone down. Are you failing?

Badenoch says polls are just a snapshot. She says it took the opposition 14 years to get back to power last time a party lost office, 13 years the time before that, and 18 years the time before that. She has just been in office for five months, she says.

But she says the local elections will be hard for Tories.

We’re going to have very difficult local elections. These local elections are not going to be fun for the Conservative party, because the last time we fought them was in 2021 with Boris Johnson, when there was a vaccine bounce just after Covid. So we are going to have a tough time.

Kemi Badenoch is being interviewed on LBC now.

Asked about the Telegraph story (see 9.20am), she says she thinks we do have free speech in this country. But the scope of laws is being expanded.

She says she thinks the UK has “the right balance” on abortion laws. She says she does not want abortion to become as divisive an issue in the UK as it is in the US.

Asked if the prosecution of the woman referred to in the Telegraph story should have been prosecuted, Badenoch say she does not know the details of the case. But she is opposed to draconian interpretions of the law on this, she says.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

I think that we’ve found a right balance. I do, however, think that we should not be persecuting for people for expressing themselves.

I remember voting against certain bits of legislation that would penalise people like that woman … but I still think that, on balance, we are in a good place in our country.

We should not talk the UK down. We do have freedom of expression but it is at risk in some places if we’re not paying attention.

This morning the Daily Telegraph has splashed on a story claiming that the prosecution of an anti-abortion campaigner in the UK could be an obstacle to a trade/tariff deal with the US. The paper reports:

In a highly unusual step on Sunday night, the US state department issued a statement saying it was “concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom” in relation to the case of an anti-abortion campaigner.

It said it was “monitoring” the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt, who was prosecuted for holding a sign near a Bournemouth abortion clinic reading: “Here to talk if you want.”

A verdict in the case is due on Friday …

Asked about the comments, a source familiar with trade negotiations told The Telegraph there should be “no free trade without free speech”, a stance thought to have become a point of contention between the two nations.

Asked about the story in his interviews this morning, Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said this was not an issue that had been raised with him in his talks with the Trump administration about a trade deal, which could be linked to potential tariff exemptions. He told Times Radio:

Obviously, there are things from different people in the administration that they’ve said in the past about this, but it’s not been part of the trade negotiations that I’ve been part of.

Good morning. So much for the “unprecedented” state visit invite. The real spring statement, the one that is likely to have most impact on the UK tomorrow, is coming tomorrow, when President Trump announces global tariffs, and the government expects that the UK will not get an exemption. As Nick Robinson put it to Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, in the opening question of his Today programme interview this morning: “Sucking up to Donald Trump didn’t work, did it?”

On the Today programme, and in his other interviews this morning, Reynolds’s response was essentially: Not yet. He argued that the UK still has a good chance of winning tariff exemptions, but just not tomorrow. Or that the sucking up might still pay off – not that Reynolds put it quite like that.

Instead, Reynolds told Robinson:

We have engaged with the US on the potential for a deal, because that is in the UK’s national interest, and actually would be mutually beneficial to the US and the UK …

Only the president will himself know exactly how the US is going to take tomorrow. And you’re right to say it might not be possible for any country in the world to be exempted from the initial announcements.

But I do believe the work we have done means the UK is in the best possible position of any country to potentially reach an agreement.

I do believe UK businesses support our approach. They support the calm-headed approach, the desire to engage, to remain at the table, while we can potentially secure an agreement.

In the interview Reynolds also did not challenge the assertion that the tariff announcement tomorrow will have more impact on the British economy than last week’s spring statement. Tomorrow would be ‘“a very serious and significant moment”, Reynolds said.

I will post more from his interviews soon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit to promote the rise in the national living wage coming into effect today.

9am: Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee on reforming jobcentres.

9.20am: Kemi Badenoch is interviewed on LBC.

Morning: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet

10am: Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and colleagues give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the spring statement.

11.30am: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

11.30am: Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, hold a press conference on “Labour’s jobs tax”.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Also, at some point today Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is set to unveil the emergency bill she is introducing to block the Sentencing Council guidelines that she described as implementing “two-tier justice”.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.