Keir Starmer suspends seven Labour MPs after rebellion over two-child benefit cap in crunch vote – live

Home secretary Yvette Cooper has been accused of running for the hills after ditching a TV interview on Sky News.

The Labour minister was due to be scrutinised over the party’s decision to suspend seven MPs after rebelling against Sir Keir Starmer during the two-child benefit cap vote yesterday.

Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty posted on X: “Sky News not impressed at Yvette Cooper MP’s no-show on the media round this morning.

“Barely three weeks in and Labour’s front bench are already running from media scrutiny around their decision to suspend 7 MPs.”

Lawlessness “characterises” pornographic websites, an MP has said, while a minister has agreed there is “much work to do” to tackle illegal behaviour online.

Labour backbencher Tonia Antoniazzi labelled the laws which govern pimping and pornography a “fudge”, during a House of Commons adjournment debate she secured to discuss the prevention of commercial sexual exploitation.

Victims minister Jess Phillips told the Commons that she has been unable to get images depicting her taken down from pornographic websites, weeks after Channel 4 News found more than 400 digitally altered pictures of more than 30 high-profile UK politicians online.

“Lawlessness characterises the online pornography trade with films featuring child sexual abuse, rape and trafficking victims found on some of the UK’s most heavily visited sites,” Ms Antoniazzi said.

“Illegal content is freely accessible on mainstream pornography websites.”

Gower MP Ms Antoniazzi referred to a 47-page All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Commercial Sexual Exploitation report from 2023 which featured a testimony from Alia Dewees.

David Lammy will push to reset the UK-India partnership on his first trip to the country as Foreign Secretary.

He will travel to New Delhi on Wednesday, where he tell his Indian counterpart, minister of external affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, that he wants to “drive forward greater growth” for both countries and reinforce the UK’s commitment to securing a free trade agreement with India, the Foreign Office said.

He will reiterate the contribution of British Indians to the UK, saying that they enrich the UK’s social and economic landscape and are the epitome of modern Britain.

The previous Conservative government had been seeking to nail down a deal, which they saw as a major post-Brexit prize, but negotiations have dragged on for two years.

Mr Lammy said: “Our free trade agreement negotiations are the floor not the ceiling of our ambitions to unlock our shared potential and deliver growth, from Bengaluru to Birmingham. We have shared interests on the green transition, new technologies, economic security and global security.

“I am travelling to India in my first month as Foreign Secretary because resetting our relationship with the global south is a key part of how this government will reconnect Britain for our security and prosperity at home.”

University tuition fees in England should be reduced to £6,000 a year to make post-18 education “more equitable” for students, a think tank has said.

The Government should remove the “distortions and biases” in the funding and oversight of post-18 education that favour full-time degrees over other routes, according to an EDSK report.

It comes as Labour has pledged to create a “secure future” for higher education as it recognises that the funding settlement “does not work” for the taxpayer, universities, staff or students.

University leaders have been calling on the new Government to raise the annual tuition fee for domestic students in line with inflation to help institutions struggling financially.

The previous Government raised the cap on university tuition fees in England to £9,000 a year in 2012 but it has been fixed at £9,250 since 2017.

The paper from the education think tank said many colleges and independent higher education providers are only allowed to charge around £6,000 a year for university-level courses.

“It is a clear indication of how provision within HE (higher education) settings has been prioritised above alternative options to date,” the report said.

The paper also highlights that students in higher education can access more financial support than their peers on higher-level further education courses.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, ex-business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Zarah Sultana have been suspended from the parliamentary party.

The move will be seen as a show of strength by the new prime minister after he easily saw off the first rebellion of his premiership, by 363 votes to 103, a majority of 260.

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin has the full story:

Zarah Sultana, one of seven Labour MPs suspended for backing an SNP motion to scrap the two-child benefit cap, said she slept well after the vote.

“I slept well knowing that I took a stand against child poverty that is affecting 4.3 million people in this country and it is the right thing to do and I am glad I did it,” she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

She said she saw the email on the way home from the vote last night saying she had had the whip removed.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, she said: “I look forward to many bills that will be coming forward in this Government including nationalising rail, the new deal for working people, but I was also very honest that we should go further, we can make a real difference to people’s lives.

“And when you’ve got anti-charity campaigners, think tanks, trade unions saying that the key driver for child poverty in this country – which is the sixth largest economy in the world – is the Tories’ two-child benefit cap, then it is a moral imperative on the Labour Party to scrap that and do everything that they can to make sure that not a single child has to live in unnecessary hardship and poverty.”

A first-of-its-kind set of guidelines for the care of transgender people before and after general surgery has recommended gender-inclusive language and consideration of whether a patient should be accommodated in a single room rather than on a ward.

The guidance, created independently of the NHS, is said to have been put together amid a “dearth of knowledge and confidence amongst anaesthetists when caring for transgender and gender-diverse patients”.

Published in Anaesthesia – the journal of the Association of Anaesthetists – it was produced by a working group of experts including those from the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge, and sets out 15 recommendations.

It states there is “currently no existing guidance covering the scope and focus of this document”, and that it covers “the specific clinical care required for this cohort of patients when attending for either elective or emergency surgery or anaesthetic care”.

The recommendations include confirming and using a patient’s preferred name and pronouns, with a suggestion that digital pre-assessment questionnaires can allow the person to “privately and safely disclose both their sex at birth and gender”.

The guidelines advise that someone’s transgender identity “need only be shared with the patient’s consent and if it is deemed important for the safety of their care”, and should be given the same level of confidentiality as “any other sensitive personal information”.

Transgender and gender-diverse patients should be cared for in an environment that “respects their gender identity”, the guidelines state, adding that “in some circumstances, this may involve providing a single room”.

Sir Keir Starmer faces a Commons grilling in his first Prime Minister’s Questions amid backbench unease over a vote on the two-child benefit cap that saw him suspend seven Labour MPs.

The PM will be quizzed from the Government benches by MPs for the first time since entering Number 10 after stripping Labour rebels of the whip for backing an SNP motion to scrap the welfare measure.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, ex-business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Zarah Sultana have been suspended from the parliamentary party.

Although the rebellion was small and the motion comfortably defeated by Government, opposition to the cap within Labour is not limited to the seven who lost the whip.

The House of Commons voted 363 to 103, majority 260, to reject the amendment tabled in the name of SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn.

More than 40 Labour MPs recorded no vote, with some of those listed spotted in the chamber throughout the day, while others will have had permission to miss the vote.

The decision to remove the whip from the seven who defied the Government over the amendment is an early show of ruthlessness from the new administration, and sends a message that dissent will not be taken lightly.

Ahead of the vote, Sir Keir had said there is “no silver bullet” to end child poverty but acknowledged the “passion” of MPs who were considering opposing the continuation of the Tory measure.

Children are being failed in “dual crises of poverty and mental health”, according to charities which have ramped up calls for the Government to scrap the two-child benefit limit.

The groups said money and mental health are “inextricably linked” and that those children growing up in families facing financial hardship face a knock-on impact throughout their lives.

The report from the Centre for Mental Health, Save the Children UK and the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition recommended the new Labour Government should scrap both the two-child limit and the benefit cap “to ensure all children receive their benefit entitlements”.

The cap, introduced in 2013 under the then-Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government as a way of “restoring fairness to the welfare state”, sees the amount of benefits a household receives reduced to ensure claimants do not receive more than the cap limit.