Unite leader Sharon Graham accuses Labour of ‘walking us into austerity mark 2’ – Labour conference live | Politics

The government is getting rid of what it calls “outdated and unnecessary entry requirements” to encourage more people to join the armed forces, John Healey, the defence secretary, has announced.

And he is creating a new “cyber track” for recruits, with different selection and training requirements, to boost the armed forces’ cyber resilience.

In a statement Labour said:

Labour has pledged to address the dire Tory inheritance on armed forces recruitment and retention. Recruitment targets were missed every year in the last 14 years under the Conservatives, allowing UK troop numbers to fall below target levels and more people to leave the forces that joining …

These new measures will help unblock the bottlenecks in armed forces recruitment which sees high-quality applicants turned away or abandoning the process due to avoidable delays.

Healey is due to say more on this in his speech to the conference later.

As as an example of what it describes as unnecessary entry requirements for recruits, Labour say it will get rid of “measures blocking some sufferers of hay fever, eczema and acne, and some injuries that have fully healed”.

Allies must show “guts” and “nerve” in their support for Ukraine, David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has said.

Speaking at a Labour fringe event alongside Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Lammy said:

This is a critical time for nerve and for guts and for patience and for fortitude on behalf of allies who stand with Ukraine.

I am not going to, as foreign secretary, of course, comment on operational detail, because that can only aid Putin.

But there is a very real-time discussion across allies about how we can support Ukraine as we head into the winter.

As PA Media reports, at the same event Zaluzhnyi insisted that lifting restrictions on the weapons would be crucial to Kyiv’s defence. He said:

Modern weapons with long-range air and ground abilities are critically important.

Lifting restrictions on use of weapons against military targets in Russia is critical. This would help protect civilians from Russian missiles and … bombs.

This winter in Ukraine will be the most difficult. As we know, I believe in the resilience of the Ukrainian people, but without additional help the price will be very, very high.

Rayner is now talking about another of her responsibilities – local government and devolution.

She says she has recently announced new devolution deals.

And she goes on:

And today, I’m proud to announce the next step in our devolution revolution. This government will change the future of the north of England so northerners will no longer be dictated to from Whitehall.

Put like this, it sounds like Rayner is proposing independence for the north of England – which definitely would be a story big enough to overshadow the donations controversy. But Rayner is talking about metro mayors.

We will be the government to complete the devolution in the north, the change will be irreversible, and I will get it done.

Here is the news release about the devolution deals recently agreed by Rayner’s department. And here is an extract.

Mayors will be elected in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire – the last part of Yorkshire to be covered by a devolution deal – in May 2025 and will have control over transport, housing, skills, and investment to shape the future of their area.

For Devon & Torbay and Lancashire, combined county authorities will be established in early 2025 handed the responsibility for adult education. Ministers are encouraging local leaders to deepen these devolution deals and take strides towards mayoral devolution as a gold standard …

The government is also minded to progress with the four non-mayoral ‘Level 2’ Single Local Authority devolution agreements with Cornwall Council, Buckinghamshire Council, Warwickshire County Council, and Surrey County Council, subject to further statutory tests being met.

The press release also confirms that Labour has abandoned a plan from the last government for a single local authority mayoral deal covering Norfolk and Suffolk.

Rayner says the government cannot wish its problems away.

But “things can get better if we make the right choices”, she says.

She says, although it has only been in office for 80 days, the government is already delivering.

Eighty days in government, and we’ve been busy: a devolution revolution, a bill to deliver new rights and protections for renters, planning reform to get Britain building and a review to fix our NHS, a child poverty taskforce, 100 new specialist officers to tackle criminals, an end to one-word Ofsted inspections, ending the ban on onshore wind and fines for bosses who pollute our waters, bills to kickstart Great British energy and to prevent another Liz Truss disastrous mini budget, put busses in local hands and bring rail into public ownership. Conference change has begun.

In the conference hall Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, is starting her speech.

She starts by thanking the British people for entrusting Labour with the task of change.

You kept faith with us, and we will keep faith with you.

Labour won because it changed, she says.

We won because we had the courage to change our party, the discipline to make hard decisions and the determination to remain united. And now change begins.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said that the imposition of VAT on private schools should not lead them to cut bursaries.

A report in the Sunday Times today claims that is happening. It says:

Heads said they fear the new tax, which comes into force in January, means schools will become “more exclusive” and that local children whose place might have been paid for with a bursary will lose out.

The incoming leader of the Heads’ Conference (HMC), which represents top private schools such as Eton and Harrow, said that “additional bursary places that could have been open to children … will now not be open [because of VAT]”. Philip Britton, the head of Bolton School, warned that “the rise in fees, however it is managed, will make [private] schools more exclusive”.

Asked about the story, Phillipson said the VAT policy should not have this effect. She said:

That list in the Sunday Times had some very wealthy schools with significant assets and big levels of income who aren’t putting a huge amount of that money towards bursaries and support in terms of partnership working with the state sector.

Changes around VAT should not and must not impact on the work that they are doing around bursaries. There is an expectation of course that that would continue.

Private schools are under pressure to offer bursaries to help to justify their charitable status.

Labour has made no contact with other parties over new talks to resolve England’s social care crisis, amid fresh demands for a workable plan that secures cross-party support, Michael Savage reports.

Labour is today announcing plans for what it describes as “planning passports” to enable homes to be build more easily in urban areas. Toby Helm has written up the story for the Observer.

The Labour party has now sent out a news release. There are two features to the announcement.

First, they will involve an assumption that, in some areas, there will be a default assumption that planning applications will be approved if standards are met. Labour says:

The proposals, set out in a call for evidence, aim to accelerate urban densification by setting high standards for design and quality, which, if met, will mean then the default answer will be yes.

This sounds like what is called “zoning” in other countries. Potentially, it could make a big difference.

Second, they involve a preference for densification in urban development. Labour says:

Only by building denser cities can we drive growth and prosperity across the country, because denser cities mean people are closer to work, have better transport infrastructure, and business has the widest talent pool. This sort of gentle density, with multi-storey townhouses built in a style that is loved by local residents, already exists in pockets of UK cities, like Kensington and Chelsea in London, Manchester’s Northern Quarter or Edinburgh New Town, and is commonplace across European cities.

In a statement with the release, Keir Starmer said:

Working alongside our mayors and local leaders, the new planning passports will put rocket boosters under housebuilding. They mean that where development proposals meet design and quality standards, the default answer will be yes, not no. Because I mean what I said before the election: Labour are the party of aspiration, security and growth. We don’t shy away from tough decisions. We are the builders, not the blockers.

Vicky Spratt, the housing journalist and campaigner, says that in theory this sounds great, but that a lot will depend on what standards are imposed.

New ‘planning passports’ for developments that meet high design and quality standards will mean the default answer is ‘yes’ not ‘no’. Sounds great, but who is deciding what is and isn’t high quality? Given the crisis in building control, this is a key Q about this announcement

Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, has accused the Labour government taking the country towards “austerity mark 2”.

In interviews ahead of the conference, Keir Starmer specifically rejected this. (See 8.25am.) But, in an interview with Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Graham said:

The mood music here is that they are taking away from the poorest in our society now. And actually the conversation they’re having is walking us into austerity mark 2. Nobody wants to see that. Workers don’t want to see it, communities don’t want to see it. And I can tell you, the pensioners don’t want to see it either.

Graham also restated her call for the government to abandon the winter fuel payments cut.

In an article for the Observer, Graham argues taxing wealth more could avoid the need for austerity.

In her BBC interview this morning, Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, defended the right of politicians to accept donations, but she said could understand why people were “angry” about the stories they were reading. She said:

I get that people are angry, I get that people are upset.

I think the transparency is there so people can see that. Now, if there is a national debate about how we fund politics and how we do that, and I hear that people are frustrated with that, but we have a system at the moment that says if you get donations, that has to be declared and the rules have to apply to everybody.

I think that is correct so people can see where you’ve had donations and where that potential influence is so that people can see the transparency.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, have both given long interviews this morning which ended up being largely dominated by Sunday newspaper stories about donations, and claims that they had full details of what they entailed in the register of members’ interests.

Both of them insisted that they had complied with the rules – but both of them looked as if they would rather have been talking about something else. In her interview on Sky, Phillipson admitted that having to talk about donations was “a distraction”. She said:

The reason that we can have this conversation is because colleagues have followed the rules. I followed the rules.

I’ve set out in the register of interests what donations were for, who they were from, and that’s there for the public to see.

What I would say is that, of course, it is frustrating to be having this conversation with you this morning, not talking about the wider agenda that we’re setting up here in Liverpool, because we have delivered an awful lot in the very short space of time that we have been in government.

And of course, this is a distraction.

Last night, after the Sunday Times story about Rayner dropped (see 9.22am), the Conservative party put out a statement saying: “This is a shocking revelation. Not only has Rayner been living the high life with a free holiday paid for by a donor it appears she has breached the rules by failing to be transparent with her declaration.” The Mail on Sunday story about Phillipson includes a quote from Henry Newman, a former Tory adviser in No 10, saying: “Donors have a legitimate role but Labour’s leadership seems freebie-addicted.”

For the Tories, this is a godsend, because these stories, and the prominence they get on TV news, fuel the impression that political parties are “all the same” and that Labour’s record on donations is just as bad as the Conservative party’s.

But it is worth pointing out that these stories are relatively low-grade. No wrongdoing has been proved. The Phillipson and Rayner stories are both about claims that donation declarations could have included more detail, but the same can be said about most items in the register of members’ interests. On another day, these revelations would struggle to make the headlines. They are only dominating the news today because Labour donations have become a big media talking point.

By comparison, in the Conservative years, there were proper donation scandals. For example, the Tories accepted donations from Frank Hester after they knew had had made horribly racist comments about Diane Abbott in private. And Boris Johnson (Neman’s boss) even managed to provoke the resignation of his own ethics adviser by in effect lying to him about a donation to cover wallpaper that originally was not declared. None of the Labour stories are remotely in this league.

Q: Will Sue Gray still be in her job at Christmas?

Rayner says she does not accept that way Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, is presented in the media. (Gray has been accused of holding up decisions in No 10.) Rayner says Gray has been “incredibly supportive” of ministers.

Q: So will she still be in her job at Christmas.

Rayner replies: “I think so, absolutely.”

She says Gray has been doing “an incredible job”.

As a former union rep, she does not like the way Gray has been demonised in the media.

Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, is being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC. Normally Keir Starmer gets this slot at Labour conference, but he was on the show a few weeks ago.

Q: Starmer says he would return politics to the service of the people. Why does that involved accepting donations?

Rayner says MPs have been accepting donations for years. But it is important to be transparent about it. She says Labour, and Keir Starmer, have been transparent.

She says she comes from a working class background. She could not have stood for parliament without people helping to fund her campaign.

Q: Why did you need to accept a holiday in New York?

That is a reference to this Sunday Times story. It says:

Angela Rayner appears to have breached parliamentary rules by failing to declare that a friend joined her on a “personal holiday” funded by Lord Alli, the multimillionaire peer at the heart of the Downing Street donor scandal.

The deputy prime minister did not report that Sam Tarry, then the Ilford South MP, stayed with her at a $2.5 million apartment in Manhattan over the festive period. He paid for flights but benefited from free accommodation.

The rules say MPs must declare foreign trips which they, or anyone connected to them, undertake if a donor pays for “part or all” of it as a result of their “parliamentary or political activities”.

Rayner’s team felt she would not ordinarily need to declare even her own use of the flat because Alli is primarily a personal friend. She chose to report it, however, noting that he was also a donor to her political activities, having given her more than £50,000 over the previous four years.

Rayner says she paid for her own flight to New York. But a friend offered to lend her the use of his flat. She she that is what friends do; she has done that herself.

But she says, because the friend had also given political donations, she felt it was right to declare that too.

Q: Shouldn’t you also have declared that Alli paid for Sam Tarry to be there too. Did you break the rules?

Rayner says she does not think she broke the rules. It was a personal holiday; she was not there on parliamentary business. She says, if anything, she was “overly transparent”.

Q: People will think Alli is getting something in return for these gifts.

Rayner says she promised nothing to him and gave him nothing. She says people have donated to her because they see her as someone coming from a working class background.

UPDATE: Rayner said:

I don’t believe I broke any rules.

I had the use of the apartment and I disclosed that I had the use of the apartment.

In fact, I think I was overly transparent because I think it was important despite it being a personal holiday because that person, as a friend, had already donated to me in the past for my deputy leadership.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is being interviewed on Sky’s Sunday with Trevor Phillips.

Phillips asks about a story in the Mail on Sunday about donations that Phillipson received from Lord Alli, a longstanding donor to the Labour party who has been in the news all week because he paid for clothing for Keir Starmer and his wife.

Phillipson declared receiving two donations from Alli worth a total of £14,000 “to host a number of events, including on behalf of the shadow education team”. The Mail on Sunday says one of these events was a party to celebrate Phillipson’s 40th birthday.

Phillips puts it to the minister that people would read the story and conclude that Phillipson should have paid for her own birthday party.

Phillipson says she held two receptions around the time of her birthday. One was primarily with politicians, and another was for journalists, she says. She says these were work receptions, where education was discussed. They weren’t her birthday party, because her family were not even invited. She said her proper birthday celebration involved going out for a pizza with her kids.

She says they were declared properly. Alli is a long-standing Labour supporter, she says. She says he is not a lobbyist trying to influence policy.

Good morning. The last time Labour held a conference after a summer general election was in 2017. The party lost, but because Jeremy Corbyn did much better than expected, conference ended up feeling like a victory party. This time Keir Starmer won a landslide. But early messaging from the government has focused on the dire economic inheritance, and the need for tough decisions in the budget, Starmer’s approval ratings have plunged, and the past week has been dominated by controversy caused by unforced errors (freebies, and feuding about Sue Gray). It is too early to assess the mood of Labour, holding its conference in Liverpool as a party of government for the first time in 15 years, but no one is describing it as pure celebratory.

In an interview with the Observer ahead of the conference, Starmer said he would protect public services from further austerity.

He had a similar message for the Sunday Mirror, telling them:

I was running a public service when the coalition government went down the austerity route. It did a huge amount of damage to our public services and we are still feeling the damage even now. So we are not going down the road of austerity.

But Starmer also told the Mirror that he wanted to use the conference to give people “hope” that Labour could deliver “a massively different and better country”. He said:

We’ve got to deal with the problems we’ve inherited, that’s what we are doing. What we’ll set out at conference is the why. What do you get for this? The hope, the changed Britain.

Starmer referred to goals like driving up living standards, fixing the NHS, delivering clean energy, improving opportunities for young people and cutting crime. He said:

This would be a massively different and better country, real sunny uplands stuff. But to get there we have to do the tough thing to start with.

Normally Starmer would do a big interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on the first day conference. But he was on the show earlier this month, and so today Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, is in that slot.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.30am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is interviewed on Sky News’ Sunday with Trevor Phillips. Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, is also being interviewed.

9am: Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, is interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

11.10am: The conference formally opens. Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, speaks at 11.25am and Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, speaks at 12.05. The business is focused on Labour party reports.

Lunchtime: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, and Anneliese Dodds, the development minister, are among the ministers speaking at fringe meetings.

1.30pm: Conference resumes, with a policy plenary. The speakers included Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury at 2pm; Lucy Powell, leader of the Commons, at 2.05pm; and Lammy, at 2.30pm.

Afternoon: Lammy, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, and Stephen Doughty, the Foreign Office minister, are among the people speaking at fringe meetings. The fringes include a Labour Movement for Europe rally.

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