Andrew Sparrow 

Rachel Reeves says cutting winter fuel payments was ‘right decision in circumstances we inherited’ – Labour conference live

Chancellor says £22bn gap in current spending budget and state pension rise meant she had to make decision on means-testing fuel payments
  
  

Rachel Reeves behind a lectern reading 'change begins'
Rachel Reeves speaks during the Labour party conference Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

No 10 confirms single person council tax discount won't be cut in budget

Last night Genevieve Holl-Allen in the Telegraph said the government would not be getting rid of the council tax discount for single people in the budget. Earlier this month, at PMQs and again in a briefing with reporters, Keir Starmer refused to rule out the discount being axed.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning (it still takes place in No 10, even when almost all political reporters are at party conference), the spokesperson in effect confirmed the Telegraph story. “I would not steer you away from those reports,” the spokesperson said.

Facebook used to have a motto about wanting to “move fast and break things”. Louise Haigh told conference in her speech that her approach was not quite the same. She said:

I know I stand on the shoulders of some giants of our Labour movement in assuming this office.

Our first female transport secretary, the incomparable Barbara Castle. Who famously said ‘in politics, guts is all’. And she came under horrendous attack for it - even receiving death threats for introducing those disgracefully woke anti-driver measures - the seatbelt and the breathalyser.

Barbara understood that transport wasn’t about the roads or the tracks, but about the people and the opportunities it can create or deny them. What was true then is true today.

From the woman I met on the campaign trail who had to move house because her local bus route was cut – she couldn’t get to work, to the doctor, to see her parents.

To the young person who is always late for work, because they can’t afford the car insurance or even book a driving test in the first place.

And the businesses who want to invest but choose to go elsewhere. Because they can’t get their people of their produce to where they want to be. Keir has set us on a mission. Our mission is to get Britain moving. And that is why we have not wasted a single second in getting to work.

My ministerial team and I – Peter Hendy, Simon Lightwood, Lillian Greenwood, Mike Kane – we told our department that our new motto is to move fast and fix things, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Peter Kyle, the science secretary, used his speech to the conference to say the government would embrace the opportunities offered by new technologies like artificial intelligence. He warned about the “opportunity cost of conservatism”.

I totally understand the concerns people have about the impact of these changes on their jobs, children, communities, and the whole of society.

Our task is to recognise these concerns: mitigate where possible; upskill where necessary; reskill where appropriate; and regulate when essential.

Every industrial revolution challenges the traditional structures of the society it impacts.

In the 1860s and 70s, MPs’ concerns about the speed of locomotives, meant they introduced a 2 mile an hour speed limit, and someone to walk in front waving a red flag;

In 1896 the National Anti-Vaccination League opposed the introduction of vaccines for public health;

In the early 20th century, the Horse Association of America opposed the introduction of the tractor.

Some opposed the development of nuclear energy in the 1960s, as they do with solar and wind power today.

Some of these concerns might seem silly now but, they were real and substantial then.

If those generations had decided that the price of progress was too high, society would have remained poorer, slower, dirtier and sicker.

Today we need to harness these opportunities, they need not be a threat, any more than the train or the tractor.

From vaccines to clean power, resisting the opportunity cost of conservatism is the real price of progress.

Jeremy Hunt accuses Reeves of undermining business confidence

Jeremy Hunt, Rachel Reeves’ Tory predecessor, has accused her of undermining business confidence.

In its reponse to her speech, the Conservative party issued a statement from Hunt, now shadow chancellor, saying:

The last few months - and today’s speech - were a big opportunity to set out plans to grow the economy. The chancellor once again wasted it with discredited attacks on the opposition.

That is not governing - and business confidence is now vanishing as a result.

Hutn seemed to be referring to consumer confidence figures out last week.

Reeves says rollout of plan for all English primary schools to have breakfast clubs to start from April

Rachel Reeves used her conference speech to announce that Labour’s plan for free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England will start to roll out in April next year.

The rollout will begin with a pilot involving up to 750 schools who are being invited to put themselves forward as early adopters to help the Department for Education (DfE) work out how best to build on what is already happening in schools, how best to meet the needs of parents and ensure children start the day ready to learn.

Giving her keynote speech, the chancellor said the “work of change has begun” and confirmed £7m of funding to the get the rollout under way. The clubs are intended to help break down barriers to opportunity, improve pupil behaviour and support families.

She said:

I joined this party because of three words spoken in a conference hall in Blackpool 28 years ago: education, education, education.

I don’t want kids to succeed ‘against all odds’. I want them to succeed because they deserve it, because the odds weren’t stacked against them. That’s the Britain I want to live in - just like every other parent who wants the best for their kids.

Schools wishing to find out more can register their interest in becoming an early adopter with the DfE.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, called for a more comprehensive strategy to tackle child poverty. He said:

Ensuring every primary school pupil can start the day with a nutritious meal will bring health, wellbeing and attainment benefits.

It’s for this reason that many schools already operate breakfast clubs, but the commitment to working collaboratively with the profession to build on this work and support universal provision is very welcome.

The high rate of child poverty only makes it more important that this policy is funded and implemented successfully. Our hope is that this policy is just the start of a more comprehensive strategy to tackle child poverty and ensure all young people have a chance to thrive in education and beyond.

The National Trust’s director general has criticised a “breathtaking” level of misinformation in sections of the media as she implicitly rebuked the last government for fuelling so-called culture wars.

Hilary McGrady also appealed to the new government end politicised appointments in civil society, while insisting that the country’s largest conservation charity saw it as its duty to continue campaigning on a range of issues.

McGrady was addressing a fringe event at the Labour conference on whether Labour could bring about “an end to culture wars”. The Trust has been targeted by conservative politicians, media and campaign groups taking it to task over its policies on net zero, diversity and the research into colonial history. McGrady and others were also subjected to death threats.

“Civil society also needs to be comfortable about scrutiny and it’s really important that we be held to account,” she said, while appealing that it needed to be respectful and for public figure to set an example.

She also gave a candid assessment of the apparent tension between the often younger, more liberal make-up of charity workforces and the different demographics of their users.

“I would say 70% of my staff and volunteers would be regarded as progressive activists so I have a workforce of people who are really wanting to push on this,” she said, contrasting that with the trust’s membership base.

I wouldn’t’ want to characterise our members as particularly conservative. They are actually not, but there is a dynamic that I as a DG need to be aware of - that my organisation is pushing very hard on one side while I need to be aware of how the public are receiving that that.

In relation to coverage of the National Trust in recent years, she said:

It’s beyond me what to do about our media to some degree because the misinformation is just breathtaking.

Here are some more takes on Rachel Reeves’ speech.

George Eaton in the New Statesman says Reeves was emulating Gordon Brown.

If there was a former chancellor who Reeves echoed it wasn’t George Osborne but her hero Gordon Brown (who recently visited the Treasury). Her rhetorical refrain – “that’s the Britain we’re building” – was adapted from Brown’s famous 2009 conference peroration. Reeves, a more tribal politician than Keir Starmer, also emulated the Labour’s chancellor’s favoured dividing line: cuts vs investment. “If the Conservative Party wants a fight about who can be trusted to make the right choices for our public services and those who use them. Then I say bring it on,” she boomed, setting the terms of debate for the next election.

Robert Peston from ITV makes the same point, saying Reeves was offering a version of Brown’s “prudence with a purpose’.

And Katy Balls in the Spectator says Reeves’ most important audience was outside the hall.

Reeves was given a lengthy standing ovation. However, the audience she has to win over is largely outside the hall. The government is quickly losing support even before it has hit the 100-day mark, partly down to a pensioner backlash. Reeves faces critics to the left of her, amongst some backbenchers and unions. But the audience she really wants to speak to – and the one much of this speech was aimed at – is business. Reeves spoke of stability and a plan that would bring prosperity to the UK. She is trying to calm business concerns, amid worries that some of the doom and gloom narrative of the past month is starting to hit investor confidence. It’s this that Reeves wants to correct, with her investment summit around the corner. Today she made the right mood music – but the real test will be next month’s Budget and whether the measures offer any further reasons for alarm.

Steve Howell, who was deputy director of strategy and communications for Labour when Jeremy Corbyn was leader in 2017, says Rachel Reeves’ reply to the protesters (see 1.48pm) was nonsensical.

For years, the likes of Reeves have told us we need power to change things.

So now Labour is NOT a party of protest but the government...

How about stopping arms going to Israel?

Reeves’ reply is nonsensical - and those who aplauded it should be embarrassed as well as ashamed.

Climate Resistance defends interrupting Reeves' speech, saying Labour should put people before profit

Two men have been ejected from the Labour party conference after disrupting the chancellor’s speech with a protest about pollution and arms exports to Israel, PA Media reports. PA says:

The activists from protest group Climate Resistance were led from the conference centre in handcuffs and placed in a police van before being driven away.

Shortly after Rachel Reeves began her speech, the pair unfurled a banner reading “Still backing polluters, still arming Israel – we voted for change” and shouted slogans before they were escorted from the hall by security.

In response, Reeves said: “This is a changed Labour party, a Labour party that represents working people, not a party of protest.”

Climate Resistance spokesperson Sam Simons said: “Labour promised us change – instead we’re getting more of the same. The same pandering to the fossil fuel industry; the same arms licences that are fuelling a genocide in Gaza, and the same austerity that sees the poorest hit hardest.

“It’s time for Labour to start putting the needs of people before the interests of profit. That means immediately stopping arms licences to Israel, blocking new oil and gas, and standing up for the communities already being devastated by the climate crisis.”

RCN nurses vote to reject pay offer, as Reeves she's proud of offering public sector workers 'meaningful' increase

Here is an extract from the Royal College of Nursing’s news release about the nurses voting against the government’s pay offer. It said:

Members of the Royal College of Nursing, the union and professional body for nursing staff, have voted to reject the UK government’s NHS pay award for 2024/25 in England.

Two-thirds of nursing staff voted against the current year’s pay award on a record high turnout for the RCN, with 145,000 members casting a vote.

The RCN is the largest trade union in the NHS in England and the only NHS union whose members voted not to accept the award.

The pay award was announced by the chancellor on Monday 29 July and the 5.5% increase is expected to be paid next month. The pay of an experienced nurse fell by 25% in real terms under the Conservative governments of 2010 to 2024.

The high turnout in this consultation surpassed the level seen in two statutory ballots for industrial action held by the union in 2022 and 2023, the first of which permitted six months of strike action by nursing staff.

The number of nursing students starting university courses this month is 21% lower than three years ago, despite the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, and the NHS in England is officially 32,000 nurses short.

And in a letter to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN general secretary and chief executive, said:

We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the determination of nursing staff to stand up for themselves, their patients and the NHS they believe in …

Our members do not yet feel valued and they are looking for urgent action, not rhetorical commitments. Their concerns relate to understaffed shifts, poor patient care and nursing careers trapped at the lowest pay grades – they need to see that the government’s reform agenda will transform their profession as a central part of improving care for the public.

The announcement came as Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, told the Labour conference she was proud the government had offered public sector workers “a meaningful, real pay rise”. (See 12.39pm.)

Reeves' speech - snap verdict

After 24 hours of speeches from cabinet ministers which have mostly been content-lite, news-free and presentationally bland (David Lammy’s was the only one with a bit of rhetorical oomph), Rachel Reeves finally delivered an address full of passion and grit, something genuinely stirring.

The delegates seemed to like it. The passage on the Covid corruption commissioner went down best (see 12.24pm), but there were plenty of other passages were Reeves was getting loud and long applause. Structurally, this caused a problem, because she kept delivering lines where she was rising to a crescendo and it felt the speech was about to end. She was also smiling more than usual, and not always naturally (a Gordon Brown trait). But it was optimism, not pessimism. (The Times, not the Telegraph called this one right – see 8.10am.)

If the Covid corruption passage got the most applause, the one that mattered most was the one about the “sights and sounds of the future”. (See 12.36pm.) It is not enough for Labour to say all the pain in the budget will be worth it if it delivers a better future; ministers need to explain what that future will look like. That paragraph was the best answer to this essay question heard so far at the conference.

But there was nothing very new about how the government will get there (not a problem if you think the planning overhaul already announced will do the trick, but a big flaw if you don’t). In fact, there was nothing very new policy-wise at all. That may be because it is all being held back for the budget, and some key decisions may not have been taken.

Reeves was also unfortunate in that, more or less at the moment when she was defending the public sector pay increases, the Royal College of Nursing announced that it is rejecting the pay award for 2024-25. More on that in a moment.

Reeves ended with a peroration about the need to change the country.

We changed our party. Now let us change our country.

This is our moment, our chance to show that politics can make a difference, that Britain’s best days lie ahead, that our families, our communities, our country, need not look on while the future is built somewhere else, that we can and we will make our own future here, a Britain trading, competing and leading in a changed world, a Britain founded on that talent and the effort of working people.

That is the Britain we’re building. That is the Britain I believe in. Together, let’s go and build it.

Reeves is now talking about Labour being on the side of working people.

The British people have their trust in us, and we will repay it.

And when someone asks you, does this government represent me, when they ask, whose side are they on, you can tell them when you work hard, Labour will make sure you get your fair reward.

When barriers obstruct opportunity and investment is constricted, Labour will tear down those barriers.

When working people have paid the price for the Tory chaos … Labour will act and when the national interest demands hard choices, Labour will not duck them.

Reeves defends the pay rises for public sector workers announced by Labour.

I am proud to stand here as the first chancellor in 14 years to have delivered a meaningful, real pay rise to millions of public sector workers we make.

We made that choice not just because public sector workers needed a pay rise, but because it was the right choice for parents, patients and for the British public, the right choice for recruitment and retention, and it was the right choice for our country.

Reeves promises more building - 'the sounds and sights of the future arriving'

Reeves says the government is committed to promoting housebuilding. The government did more on this in 72 hours than the Tories did in 14 years, she says.

I have promised this hall before, but what you will see in your town, in your city, is a sight that we have not seen often enough in our country – shovels in the ground, cranes in the sky, the sounds and the sights of the future arriving.

We will make that a reality.

Jobs in the automotive sector of the future in the industrial heartland of the West Midlands, jobs in life sciences across the north-west, clean technology across South Yorkshire, a thriving gaming industry in Dundee and jobs in carbon capture and storage on Teesside, Humberside and right here on Merseyside too.

Reeves says she wants Treasury to be more positive about benefits of investment

Reeves says she is “calling time” on the Treasury’s previous approach to investment.

It is time that the Treasury moved on from just counting the costs of investment to recognizing the benefits too.

So we are calling time on the ideas of the past, calling time on the days when governments stood back, left crucial sectors to fend for themselves, and turned a blind eye to where things are made and who makes them.

The era of trickle down, trickle out, economics is over, and so I can announce, that next month, alongside our business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, I will publish our plans for a new industrial strategy for Britain.

The line about the benefits of investment is important. See 9.58am for more on this.

Reeves says, if the UK had grown at the rate of the OECD average under the Tory years, the economy would be £140bn larger than it is today. That would mean the government having £58bn a year more for public services “without raising a single tax rate by a single penny revenue to invest in our schools, our hospitals, our police and all our public services”.

Reeves says her ambition knows no limits.

The British capacity for inventiveness, enterprise and old-fashioned hard work has not gone away.

So believe me when I say my optimism about Britain is brighter than ever.

My ambition knows no limits, because I can see that provided that we make the right choices now, stability is a crucial foundation on which all of our ambitions will be built, the essential precondition for business to invest with confidence and for families to plan for the future.

The Liz Truss experiment showed us that any plan for growth without stability leads to ruin.

Reeves says she 'won't turn blind eye to fraudsters', as she confirms Covid corruption commissioner being appointed

Reeves gets a round of applause for saying she has cancelled the government contract for a VIP helicopter ordered by Rishi Sunak.

And she delivers the passage about the Covid corruption commissioner. (See 10.35am.) She says:

I have put a block on any contract being abandoned or waived until it has been independently assessed by that commissioner.

I won’t turn a blind eye to rip off artists and fraudsters. I won’t turn a blind eye to line their own pockets. I won’t let them get away with that. That money belongs in our police, it belongs in our health service, and it belongs in our schools.

This gets perhaps the loudest round of applause so far.

Reeves says cutting winter fuel payments was 'right decision in circumstances we inherited'

Reeves is now restating the assessment of the public finances, and the £22bn black hole in the current spending budget for this year, that she outline to parliament in July.

When she took office, she was told that failure to act quickly would undermine the UK’s fiscal position, “with implications for public debt, mortgages and prices”.

She says she decided to means-test the winter fuel payments.

I know that not everyone in this hall or in the country will agree with every decision that I make. I will not duck those decisions, not for political expediency, not for personal advantage.

But she says, given the £22bn black hole, and the fact the triple lock will lead to the state pension rising by an estimated £1,700 over the course of this parliament, she judged cutting the winter fuel payment “the right decision in the circumstances that we inherited”.

Updated

The protest is over, and Reeves is getting back into her stride again.

She attacks the Tories.

Where will the Conservatives go next? For what a clash of the titans their leadership contest has become.

The former home secretary who called the Rwanda scheme batshit and is, of course, now pledging to bring it back.

The former immigration minister who found himself too right wing to work with Suella Braveman.

The moderate candidate, the security minister, former security minister, who says that he acts on his principles previously demonstrated by backing Liz Truss to be prime minister.

And then there’s the former business secretary, who claims that she became working class at the age of 16.

Updated

From Sky’s Beth Rigby

Reeves speech interrupted by a protester (as Starmer’s was a couple of years back) shouting about Lab “selling arms to Israel”. She delivers a line similar to that Starmer used back then: “We are a changed Labour party that represents working people not party of protest”

Here is video of the protest.

Reeves gets going again, but there is at least one more shout.

She does not seem too bothered by the protest. Most people in the hall are on her side, it seems.

Updated

Protesters opposed to arms sales to Israel disrupt Reeves' speech

The speech is now being interupted by protesters saying Labour should not be selling arms to Israel.

Reeves says Labour is not the party of protest any more. And she says the party has changed.

Updated

Reeves says she wants to put work of all women 'back into our economic story'

Rachel Reeves starts her speech by saying, after 14 years, she is ready to deliver on the pledge to get Britain building.

(She is smiling a lot.)

Labour is back, she says. She lists some of the seats the party one, including several in Scotland. “Labour is back in Scotland too,” she says.

She pays tribute to Labour members who helped the party achieve this.

One year ago she says she told the conference she wanted to be the first female chancellor of the exchequer. That is a promise fulfilled, she says.

She says every women watching will know that, however hard they climb, “there will always be moments when you are reminded some people still do not believe no woman can get the job done”. But she says her appointment has disproved that.

And she says this is because of the work of women before her.

I’m here because of thousands of women, many of you in the hall today, who broke down barriers and defeated low expectations to pave the way for the rest of us. I am a Labour chancellor because of that collective endeavor. I am the first woman Chancellor because of that collective endeavor.

And that collective endeavor does not stop here. It falls to me and to our generation of Labour women to follow in the footsteps of those who went before us, to write the work of all women back into our economic story.

At the conference they are now playing a Reeves promo video.

Reynolds has finished. Alex Depledge, a tech entrepreneur, is now introducing Rachel Reeves.

She praises Reeves for saying she wanted to make sure wealth creation is not a dirty word in the UK.

Reeves know there is no silver bullet to having a thriving economy. But she carries on regardless. She says Reeves is the sort of “smart person” she would choose to run this nation’s spreedsheets. She is also the sort of builder she would choose to rebuild Britain. And she is the kind of leader she would choose champion high growth and balance the books.

Reeves also “took a wrecking ball” to the glass ceiling, she says.

Updated

Reynolds says the government will extend workers’ rights. He goes on:

You may have seen the Conservative party. They don’t like our plan to make work pay. And whilst it’s ironic to hear the same people who have been asleep on the job for the last 14 years complain about other people’s working practices, didn’t we hear the same arguments against the minimum wage?

So when they stand up in a few years time trying to claim credit for the work the labour movement did to advance the rights of working people, don’t you let them forget which side of history they were on.

Unions fought harder for British industry than Tory ministers, says Jonathan Reynolds

Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, is addressing the conferene now. He is the warm-up act for Rachel Reeves, and he says when he arrived in government, it was a mess. Tory ministers had ceased to govern, he says.

People ask me for an example of what a poor worker-business agenda looks like. I point out to them that, over the last decade, the unions in this room have actually fought harder for British industry than the Conservative party did.

According to Dan Bloom from Politico, Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, has also criticised the decision to delay the vote on the winter fuel payments cut.

Unite’s Sharon Graham furious at winter fuel vote being kicked to Wednesday (as revealed by Playbook)

“Labour leaders have tried to silence the voice of pensioners … in this blatant manoeuvre to block debate on winter fuel cuts and the departure towards Austerity Mark 2.“

Liz Truss defends mini-budget, as Reeves says it show growth plan without stability 'only leads to ruin'

Labour never miss an opportunity to remind voters what a disaster the Liz Truss mini-budget was, and in her speech today Rachel Reeves will do this again. According to extracts released in advance, she will say:

I can see the prize on offer, if we make the right choices now. And stability is the crucial foundation on which all our ambitions will be built.

The essential precondition for business to invest with confidence and families to plan for the future. The mini-budget showed us that any plan for growth without stability only leads to ruin.

(This seems to be the line that led to the Daily Telegraph splashing this morning with a headline saying Reeves will warn about the risk of the UK facing “ruin”. See 8.11am.)

By happy coincidence, today is the second anniversary of the mini-budget. You might assume that Truss herself would want to forget all about it, but no – she has posted a message on X today claiming her proposals were good ones, but that she was sabotaged by the “economic establishment”.

Truss says:

If the mini-budget hadn’t been undermined by the economic establishment, things would be different now.

The economy would be growing. People would be paying lower energy bills thanks to getting on with fracking. Corporations would want to locate in the UK, because of our relatively low tax rates. The self-employed could be doing more business thanks to improvements in IR35 and we would see a more dynamic, go-getting.

That didn’t happen because the mini budget was undermined by the establishment.

John Healey signals Labour will set date for defence spending to rise to 2.5% of GDP

At the last election the Conservatives were committed to raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade. Tory leadership candidates are now saying 3% of GDP should be the target. Labour has said that it would like to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, but it has not given a timetable for this, meaning that this does not count as a commitment. It is little more than a wish.

In his speech to the conference this morning John Healey, the defence secretary, signalled that at some point a timetable will be announced.

Security will be the foundations on which our Labour missions are built. And we will set out a path to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP – a level not matched since 2010, when Labour was last in government.

He also insisted that Labour has strong links with the armed forces.

Labour has deep roots defending this country. The party that established Nato and the nuclear deterrent. The party of working men and women who built the warships, who made the missiles and served on the frontline to protect us all. And at this historic election, we had. A record number of people who served in the frontline forces, elected as Labour MPs.

Record wins in military towns and cities right across the UK. Wycombe, home of the RAF air command , Labour gain. Portsmouth, home of the Royal Navy, Labour gain. Aldershot, home of the British army, Labour gain. Labour, Labour is the party of defence.

Healey also used the speech to confirm an announcement press released yesterday about “outdated” entry requirements being removed to encourage more people to apply to join the armed forces.

The Conservative party is this morning claiming that Rachel Reeves “may well have broken parliamentary rules by not properly declaring a holiday gifted by Labour donor and West Midlands mayor Richard Parker”.

In a news release, the Tories say Reeves declared the use of a holiday home in Cornwall for a week, worth £1,400, but “did not declare if anyone else” went with her. Asked about it this morning, Reeves told LBC it was a family holiday. The Tories are arguing that her declaration should have mentioned the holiday home was used by her family, not just her.

This is worth quoting not because this is a serious allegation – it’s not, it’s trivial, people reading the register don’t assume MPs always holiday alone – but because it’s an example of how the opposition are trying to keep the freebies story in the news.

Delegates protest about decision to delay vote on winter fuel payments cut, calling it 'outrage'

The Labour leadership’s attempt to postpone the debate and vote on the winter fuel allowance cut (see 9.05am and 9.36am) has been described as “an outrage”. As PA Media reports, the issue came up this morning, at the start of the conference, when the conference arrangements committee (CAC’s) report was being discussed.

Referring to the fact that the vote has not been scheduled for today, even though it was assumed that it would be included with the other economic composite motions being debated, Unite’s Andy Green said:

This is simply an attempt to take out the debate on the winter fuel allowance. Today is economy day at conference and we have the chancellor speaking and a composite motion on the growth mission, which is scheduled for this morning.

So, it is more of a surprise, in fact an outrage, to us that the composite motion from Unite and the CWU on economy for the future is not listed on the agenda for today.

It is disrespectful to our members and every single delegate here and conference itself, who voted for the priorities ballot.

As PA Media reports, Lynne Morris, who chairs the CAC, was heckled and booed by some delegates as she said:

This is a really busy conference and we are trying to accommodate as much as we can, and I’m going to take this back straight to CAC and I’ll come back to you with an answer ASAP.

Labour's Covid corruption commissioner not getting full support they need to do job, campaigner claims

As we reported overnight, Rachel Reeves will use her conference speech this afternoon to confirm the government is appointing a Covid corruption commissioner to recover money lost on dodgy PPE contracts.

Jolyon Maugham, who runs the Good Law Project, a campaigning group that has done much to expose favouritism and malpractice in the awarding of Covid contracts through the legal battles it has been fighting, is not impressed.

Given the complexity - and number - of suspect contracts, I don’t see how this job gets delivered 2-3 days a week for one year.

Tragically it shows all the signs of being set up to fail.

Multiple sources say Cabinet Office was opposed to the appointment of a Commissioner - yes, the same Cabinet Office as ran the VIP lane during the pandemic - and from the job ad it looks like Cabinet Office won that fight.

The truth is that the system is rigged to power - civil servants knew who they were servants to, Ministers expected no accountability, and Judges suspended disbelief - and no insider (Labour is said to want a retired High Court judge) will understand or tell that vital story.

I hope David Conn won’t mind me saying that to him I compared it to Hillsborough: another rare opportunity for us to understand who we are as a country, what our institutions are capable of, and to learn. Genuinely tragic to see a Labour Government throw that opportunity away.

Henry Newman, a former Tory aide, gave a different take in a post on his Whitehall Project Substack blog earlier this month.

Some may wonder why - beyond an attempt at political point-scoring - Rachel Reeves is establishing this Commissioner. There has already been a National Audit Office ‘investigation into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic’ in November 2020. Then in 2021, there was the Boardman Review of Government Procurement in the COVID-19 pandemic. And the actual judge-led UK Covid Inquiry, under Baroness Heather Hallet, has an entire module - Module 5 - on procurement, which will cover PPE and Covid contracts.

[Personally, I have always had little time for Rachel Reeves on this topic, given the absurdly embarrassing missive she sent Michael Gove in Spring 2020 when he was running the Cabinet Office. She asked him to consider buying PPE from, amongst others, a sole trader specialising in bespoke clothing, and suggested a football agent could secure ventilators. Do have a read.]

Of course it’s right to address fraud and to recover taxpayer money. But I think it’s clear that a better way to address fraud is, firstly, to focus on improving bodies like the National Crime Agency, and, secondly and more generally, to implement the recommendations from a series of Government reports into Fraud, Error and Debt. See for example this annual report produced by the Government which details various actions that have been taken to deal with Covid fraud. Or this announcement detailing action by the last Government on fraud, including in Covid support schemes.

Newman used to work for Michael Gove, who has been questioned as a witness as part of the investigation into Michelle Mone and her PPE contracts because he helped her access the VIP lane for contracts.

Here are two different takes on Rachel Reeves’ interview round this morning.

This is from Kate McCann from Times Radio.

Complete change of tone - literally - from
Chancellor Rachel Reeves on @TimesRadio. Explaining she’s “excited” about the future of the country even her voice is different. You can hear her smiling as she talks (which makes a huge difference on radio) - clear effort to lift mood

And this is from my colleague Peter Walker.

If this is Rachel Reeves sent out to send a message of optimism on R4, you wouldn’t want to hear her when she was being downbeat. I’m not sure this will cheer many Labour MPs either, who are worried about the continued gloom and caution.

Reeves says she won't fill black hole in spending plans by cutting investment

In her Today programme interview Rachel Reeves said that, even though she needed to address a black hole in the spending plans left by the last government, she would not cut investment.

She said:

We have to [make sure] … that we make the right decisions to ensure that we balance tax receipts and day to day spending, and, crucially, that we can continue to invest in our economy, in the infrastructure that is needed, so that the Treasury counts not just the costs of those investments, but also the benefits as well.

Because the previous government always cut back on investment, and that made growing our economy even harder. I won’t make those false economies, because we’ve got to return growth to our economy.

Faisal Islam, the BBC’s political editor, thinks this is significant.

NEW Reeves promises to increase investment spending to NickR on Today “Continue to invest in our economy in infrastructure needed so Treasury counts not just costs of those investments but the benefits as well… the previous Govt cut back, I won’t make these false economies”

That would be a change as she inherited cuts in net investment spending as a percentage of GDP and plans involved slower cuts - she seemed to imply that wouldn’t be cut… which might be a consequence of a tweak to fiscal rules

Reeves defends accepting clothing donations

In interview this morning Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, defended her own decision to accept clothing donations worth £7,500 when she was in opposition.

Speaking on the Today programme, she said:

I can understand why people find it a little bit odd that politicians get support for things like buying clothes.

Now, when I was an opposition MP, when I was shadow chancellor of the exchequer, a friend of mine who I’ve known for years [Juliet Rosenfeld] – she’s a good personal friend – wanted to support me as shadow chancellor and the way she wanted to support me was to finance my office to be able to buy clothes for the campaign trail and for big events and speeches that I made as shadow chancellor.

She went on:

It’s never something that I planned to do as a government minister, but it did help me in opposition.

In a separate interview, with BBC Breakfast, Reeves also defended opposition MPs taking donations to help run their offices. Referring to £98,500 she was given to fund her office, she said:

It’s rightly the case that we don’t ask taxpayers to fund the bulk of the campaigning work and the research work that politicians do, but that does require, then, donations – from small donations, from party members and supporters, from larger contributions, from people who have been very successful in life and want to give something back.

We appreciate that support. It’s part of the reason why we are in government today, because we were able to do that research work, and we were able to do that campaigning.

According to PA Media, unions are still trying to stop the debate and vote on the winter fuel payments being moved to Wednesday. PA says:

Unite and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have put forward motions which were due to be debated on Monday afternoon, with strong support expected from other unions.

Sources said unions were told late on Sunday that the debate is being moved to Wednesday morning.

CWU officials will not be at the conference on Wednesday as they will be attending the funeral in Scotland of the union’s former assistant general secretary Andy Kerr, who used to be on Labour’s national executive committee.

Unite and the CWU are opposed to changing the day of the debate and are trying to get the decision reversed.

“It is weak politics and shows a lack of leadership. It should be debated today,” said one union official. Another official described Labour as being “tin-eared”.

Scores of retired members of Unite will stage a protest outside the conference centre at lunchtime as part of the union’s campaign against the winter fuel allowance cut.

Reeves defends Angela Rayner over criticism her department has in-house photographer

The Daily Mail has splashed today on a story claiming that Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, has hired a government-funded “vanity photographer”.

The government says the story is referring to the fact that Rayner’s department has a photographer in the communications teams, just like many other government departments.

Asked about the story on her interview round, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said:

We have committed to reducing the size of the government communications budget, but all government departments have media officers and photographers.

Not for individual politicians but to support the policy work, the campaigning work, the initiatives of government departments, to help government departments do their jobs.

This is not to support Angela Rayner as a Labour party politician. This is to support the ministry for housing, communities and local government.

Reeves confirms delegates will vote on winter fuel payments cut - as debate reportedly postponed until Wednesday

Most political parties publish a detailed conference timetable in advance. But Labour only publishes a skeleton schedule before the conference starts, and the exact time when certain debates and votes will happen often only gets decided the night before (by the conference arrangements committee).

Yesterday people were expecting the vote on the winter fuel payments cut to happen today. Now it looks like it will be on Wednesday. But no one has said for sure, and in an interview with LBC Rachel Reeves said even she did not know.

Asked if the vote had been moved to Wednesday because Labour was “running scared of this vote taking place prior to the prime minister’s address [on Tuesday afternon]”, Reeves replied:

I don’t know the situation about when votes take place, but if delegates want to vote on this, they will get a vote on this.

I don’t know the timing of the vote, but we’ve already had a vote in parliament where it was overwhelmingly passed.

This isn’t the decision that I wanted to make. It wasn’t a decision that I expected to make, but given the state of the public finances that I inherited, I think it was right to restrict the winter fuel payment to the poorest pensioners, and to make sure that all of the pensioners entitled to it are getting it.

Updated

By mistake, the blog got launched this morning with the opening post incomplete, and a bit garbled. Sorry. That has been fixed now.

Reeves defends MPs accepting free tickets, reminding Nick Robinson that she attended Proms with him as BBC guest

Q: Did you buy the suit you are wearing?

Yes, says Reeves.

But she confirms that she has accepted clothing gifts. They came from a lonstanding friend who wanted to help out.

Q: Should ministers accept free tickets?

Reeves says she does not mind ministers, or shadow ministers, going to a concert. She points out that she has been to events like the First Night of the Proms with Robinson himself, and Chris [presumably Chris Mason, the BBC political editor] as a guest of the BBC.

Reeves refuses to rule out council tax revaluation, saying she won't announce budget now

Q: Are people right to be saving now, because the budget will cost them more.

Reeves says the government will protect working people. That is why income tax, national insurance and VAT won’t go up.

Q: You used to back a wealth tax. You don’t now. But you also said council tax bands should be revalued.

Reeves says she wrote that seven years ago. Since then the economy has been going through difficult times.

Q: Do you still believe that?

Reeves says there won’t be a wealth tax.

Q: So you are not ruling out a council tax.

Reeves says she is not writing her budget now. She will take decisions in the round.

Reeves claims there will be no return to austerity, but refuses to say all departments will avoid real-terms cuts

Q: You have to raise another £16.5 or £17bn this year in spending cuts or tax rises to fill the black hole in the budget, based on the figures you presented to parliament in July.

Reeves says the figures do move around, but she does not contest the broad point Robinson is making.

Q: Can you say no department will have its budget cut in real terms?

Reeves says she is going through the figures now.

We’re doing the spending review in two parts. There will be the settlement for next year, made on October the 30th at the budget, and then next spring, we’ll be doing the settlements for the next two years.

Robinson says, if Reeves is not ruling out real term cuts to departments, then that suggests a return to austerity.

Reeves says there will be no return to austerity.

Q: But what does that mean, if departments face real-terms cuts?

Reeves says overall government won’t be cut in real terms.

UPDATE: Reeves said:

There won’t be a return to austerity, there will be real terms increases to government spending in this parliament …

What I’m saying is there will not be real terms cuts to government spending, but the detailed department by department spending will be negotiated.

Updated

Reeves interviewed on Today programme

Nick Robinson is interviewing Rachel Reeves on the Today programme.

Q: It’s been doom and gloom. Have you cheered up?

Reeves said she found a £22bn black hole cover up when she became chancellor. The Tories lost because the economy was in bad shape. People get that, she said.

But she said today she would be setting out the “prize” on offer if the economy revives.

Q: But businesses are saying they are not investing because you are talking the economy down.

Reeves said she was being “honest” about the scale of the challenge. But she was also setting out policies to reform the economy.

Reeves says she has 'never been more optimistic' ahead of conference speech intended to dispel gloom

Good morning. Britain has a competitive national newspaper market which has many flaws but at least one advantage; with papers presenting wildly different takes on the same news every morning, readers get a daily reminder that life is complicated and that there are always alternative ways of interpreting the same events.

There is a good example. Yesterday the Labour party sent out some advance extracts from Rachel Reeves’ speech to the Labour conference today. The Times also got an article from Reeves, which said more or less the same thing, but with slightly different language.

The Daily Telegraph today is splashing on a story saying Reeves is delivering a message of pessimism.

But the Times is saying the opposite.

Both interpretations are defensible, although the Times’s is more in line with the message Reeves wants people to take away from the speech. At the Guardian we avoided this choice by focusing on a different aspect of the speech – Reeves’ confirmation that she will appoint a Covid corruption commissioner to recover money lost because of dodgy PPE contracts.

In interviews this morning Reeves has been focusing on the optimism. On BBC Breakfast, defending her decision to cut winter fuel payments, she said:

I think it’s important to level with people about what governments have to do to get a grip of the public finances.

But, by getting that grip, by bringing stability back to our economy, because we have been plagued by chaos and instability these last few years, along with the reforms we are making – reforming the planning system to get Britain building, creating a national wealth fund to support homegrown industries and jobs here in Britain, reforming the pension system to unlock money for startup and scale up businesses and get better returns for pension savers – if we can do these things, I know that the prize on offer is immense: more money in people’s pockets, more good jobs paying decent wages, more money to invest in our front line public services, particularly our national health service.

So stability, combined with the reform to get Britain building and get Britain growing, is the prize that is on offer for governments that are willing to take the decisions to get our economy on a firmer footing.

And she was even more positive in the Times article.

None of this will come easy. I would be doing a disservice to the British people if I did or said otherwise. However, I have never been more optimistic about our country’s fortunes. Britain lost confidence in the Conservative party, but it has never lost confidence in itself. The prize on offer is immense. The future has never had so much potential. It now falls on all of us to seize it.

But will that be enough? In their Guardian splash, Kiran Stacey and Peter Walker quote a minister saying, in private, the government has not done enough to explain what the bright future it wants to create will look like. They report:

One minister said the party had spent too much time in government talking about its inheritance and not enough about what it will do with power.

“There’s a sense that there has been a bit much blaming the inheritance and not enough of anything else,” they said. “It’s all very well to say we need to fix the foundations, but people also want to know what the house will look like at the end of it all.”

Will the minister ever find out what the house will look like? On the basis of Reeves’ interviews so far, they will be none the wiser, but we might learn more from the speech.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.15am: The conference opens.

9.30am: John Healey, the defence secretary, opens a “Britain Reconnected” debate

10am: Bev Craig, the leader of Manchester city council, and Richard Parker, the West Midlands mayor, speak.

11.50am: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, speaks.

Noon: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, gives her speech.

1.45pm: Conference reconvenes after lunch. Peter Kyle, the science secretary, opens a session on “Growth for Higher Living Standards”, followed by Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, at 1.50pm.

2.50pm: Ian Murray, the Scottish secretary, and Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, speak in a session on Scotland.

3pm: Eluned Morgan, the Welsh first minister, and Jo Stevens, the Welsh secretary, speak in a session on Wales.

3.10pm: Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, speaks.

3.15pm: Steve Reed, the environment secretary, opens a session on the clean energy mission, followed by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, at 3.25pm.

4.30pm: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, speaks at an ‘in conversation’ event at a fringe meeting run by the Institute for Government thinktank.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) 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.

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Updated

 

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