NEWS-FINANCE -QUOTE-EDUCATIONAL AND MOTIVATIONAL
Environment secretary to intervene earlier on environmental challenges to major schemes
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news from Westminster (and beyond) throughout the day.
We start with news that environment secretary Steve Reed has ordered direct oversight of major transport, energy and housing schemes, enabling the government to intervene early to prevent projects being set back by environmental concerns.
Ministers plan to step in earlier on developments, such as the expansion of Heathrow airport in London, to resolve issues earlier and avoid spiralling costs, according to a report this morning in The Times.
Reed will set up a new board to track more than 50 major infrastructure projects, “covering roads, railways, airports and power stations”, a nod to the fact that the likes of Hinkley Point C and the Lower Thames Crossing are two schemes which have been blighted by years of delay.
The move is likely to concern environmental campaigners, with the board aiming to spot potential challenges such as the £100m HS2 ‘bat tunnel’, developed to protect wildlife and nature, but criticised by senior government figures including the prime minister and chancellor Rachel Reeves as an example of over-regulation.
Senior Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) officials will meet with civil servant colleagues from the transport and energy departments on a monthly basis to discuss various infrastructure projects, flagging potential roadblocks to ministers at an earlier stage.
Reed told The Times that “complex planning rules” had blocked the development of new homes and businesses, while direct ministerial oversight would “cut through the delays and get development moving faster”.
In other developments:
Sadiq Khan said Labour supporters would be “delusional” if they did not recognise the difficulties the party had had since winning power in July 2024, as he admitted its first year in office has been difficult. The London mayor told an audience at the Edinburgh festival fringe that Labour needs to “really pick things up”.
Keir Starmer has been urged to recall parliament to “impose immediate sanctions” on Israel in a joint letter signed by politicians in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The letter urges the prime minister to “act now” to exert pressure on Israel to end its war in Gaza and for an end to arms sales to Israel.
Downing Street has suggested that Keir Starmer would back a Ukraine peace deal without a ceasefire as a precondition as the UK’s prime minister and other European leaders join Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington for Ukraine talks with Donald Trump.
The watchdog that monitors government ministers’ professional appointments after leaving office has been criticised for clearing Grant Shapps, a former Conservative defence secretary, to join Cambridge Aerospace as long as he promises not to work on defence matters.
Alex Salmond’s niece has accused Nicola Sturgeon of tarnishing her uncle’s reputation when he is no longer able to defend himself in order to promote her memoir.
More than £300m given to English councils to help Ukrainian refugees into accommodation has not been spent, while thousands of them face homelessness.
Patients in England now have greater access to important tests such as MRI scans and endoscopies in the evenings and weekends, the government has said, after increasing the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) offering out of hours services.
Key events
‘Absolutely essential’ for US to be part of Ukraine security guarantee, says minister
It is “absolutely essential” for the US to be part of European security guarantees for a potential Ukrainian peace deal, but there is “lots more work to be done” on what they will entail, a minister has said.
“The really important progress yesterday was on the security guarantees, these issues that the prime minister and president Macron have been leading on within Europe, with 30 countries involved in planning with a coalition of the willing to make sure we can provide those guarantees.
“And the important news yesterday is that the United States will be part of those guarantees. That’s absolutely essential, because the people of Ukraine can’t be expected to rely on the word of president Putin,” pensions minister Torsten Bell told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
He added:
Those guarantees are really important. You’re right to say that there’s now lots more work to be done on the nature of those guarantees. That’s what is now under way.
You’ve seen that happening immediately. It was already under way, as I say, across 30 countries, and now the United States is going to be involved in that.
He said it was “premature” to talk about whether British troops could be on the ground as part of a Nato force to guarantee security.
Davey is also calling for a review of the law which has seen Palestine Action supporters arrested at demonstrations across Britain in recent weeks.
He said that, while Palestine Action have committed criminal acts and “are a very worrying organisation”, people are being arrested “en mblocke”.
The Lib Dems have written to the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation “to try to see if there are changes that can be made … so that it doesn’t happen again”.
He told BBC Breakfast:
In the House of Commons, we abstained [from the decision to make Palestine Action a proscribed organisation] because we didn’t think the government had made that case.
We absolutely accept that criminal acts have happened against British military blockets and that is deeply worrying.
The prime minister has “done a good job” to help keep Europe united in its support for Ukraine, according to the Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning, Davey praised Keir Starmer’s approach along with fellow European leaders but said the UK needs to do more to strengthen Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s negotiating position, ahead of a potential one-to-one meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
He said:
We need to make sure that European alliance is holding and, to be fair to the prime minister, he has done a good job in keeping that coalition of the willing together with European allies.
But … we are not doing enough to help Ukraine and strengthen its negotiating hand.
Further support would be providing British Typhoon jet fighters and for frozen Russian blockets to be seized and used to “support the Ukrainian defence effort”. He also said US president Donald Trump’s reversal on calling for a ceasefire is a major concession to the Kremlin.
Asked whether last night’s White House meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy could be considered a success, he said:
We have this idea of some sort of security guarantee with American involvement, it’s a little bit vague but I fear with what they are talking about with land deal is a price that we cannot let Ukraine pay. Ukraine won’t want to pay it.
I think if you appease an aggressor like Vladimir Putin, we know in history that it ends in a bad way.
I just hope the media, here in the UK and internationally, don’t fall for any of the spin coming out of the Trump White House and really blockyse what actually has been achieved or not achieved.
Readers will recall that this is not the first time Davey has pleaded for better media scrutiny of right-wing politicians on the BBC.
Last month, he told the same show: “The BBC needs to do a better job, needs to hold Nigel Farage to account and if I have to come on your programme to do that, I’ll do just that … you cover the tittle tattle around Reform, you don’t cover their policies.”
Environment secretary to intervene earlier on environmental challenges to major schemes
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news from Westminster (and beyond) throughout the day.
We start with news that environment secretary Steve Reed has ordered direct oversight of major transport, energy and housing schemes, enabling the government to intervene early to prevent projects being set back by environmental concerns.
Ministers plan to step in earlier on developments, such as the expansion of Heathrow airport in London, to resolve issues earlier and avoid spiralling costs, according to a report this morning in The Times.
Reed will set up a new board to track more than 50 major infrastructure projects, “covering roads, railways, airports and power stations”, a nod to the fact that the likes of Hinkley Point C and the Lower Thames Crossing are two schemes which have been blighted by years of delay.
The move is likely to concern environmental campaigners, with the board aiming to spot potential challenges such as the £100m HS2 ‘bat tunnel’, developed to protect wildlife and nature, but criticised by senior government figures including the prime minister and chancellor Rachel Reeves as an example of over-regulation.
Senior Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) officials will meet with civil servant colleagues from the transport and energy departments on a monthly basis to discuss various infrastructure projects, flagging potential roadblocks to ministers at an earlier stage.
Reed told The Times that “complex planning rules” had blocked the development of new homes and businesses, while direct ministerial oversight would “cut through the delays and get development moving faster”.
In other developments:
Sadiq Khan said Labour supporters would be “delusional” if they did not recognise the difficulties the party had had since winning power in July 2024, as he admitted its first year in office has been difficult. The London mayor told an audience at the Edinburgh festival fringe that Labour needs to “really pick things up”.
Keir Starmer has been urged to recall parliament to “impose immediate sanctions” on Israel in a joint letter signed by politicians in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The letter urges the prime minister to “act now” to exert pressure on Israel to end its war in Gaza and for an end to arms sales to Israel.
Downing Street has suggested that Keir Starmer would back a Ukraine peace deal without a ceasefire as a precondition as the UK’s prime minister and other European leaders join Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington for Ukraine talks with Donald Trump.
The watchdog that monitors government ministers’ professional appointments after leaving office has been criticised for clearing Grant Shapps, a former Conservative defence secretary, to join Cambridge Aerospace as long as he promises not to work on defence matters.
Alex Salmond’s niece has accused Nicola Sturgeon of tarnishing her uncle’s reputation when he is no longer able to defend himself in order to promote her memoir.
More than £300m given to English councils to help Ukrainian refugees into accommodation has not been spent, while thousands of them face homelessness.
Patients in England now have greater access to important tests such as MRI scans and endoscopies in the evenings and weekends, the government has said, after increasing the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) offering out of hours services.
