Rachel Reeves will raise taxes in October as Angela Rayner faces Labour rebellion on housing plan – UK politics live

The head of the junior doctors’ union has suggested there could be fresh strikes next year despite securing a 22 per cent pay deal this week, LBC reports.

Co-chairman of the junior doctors committee of the British Medical Association (BMA) Robert Laurenson claimed the “window of opportunity [for strikes] is about 12 months away” because Labour is in a “honeymoon period”.

The BMA recommended that members should accept Wes Streeting’s offer, which included a pay rise of 4.05 per cent and an increase between 8.8 and 10.3 per cent.

But Mr Laurenson said that the union could consider a “long sustained” strike in the next months.

He said: “Now the last two years the strategy was based on a general election and trying to extract a deal from a desperate chaotic government in decline.

“I think the only way to extract a better deal would be to take long sustained action for probably the next 12 months.”

He added the BMA’s strategy was “based on a general election and trying to extract a deal from a desperate chaotic government in decline.”

The union leader said: “I think the only way to extract a better deal would be to take long sustained action [strikes] for probably the next 12 months.”

Defence secretary John Healey has called for the de-escalation of the conflict in Israel, Lebanon and Iran.

In a statement, Mr Healey said: “De-escalation must be our primary focus as this region stands at a crossroads. The loss of innocent life in recent weeks and months is unbearable. This has to end.

“All sides must step back from conflict and step-up diplomacy. We will work with important partners like Qatar as our government leads a renewed push for peace.”

It comes as Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil as clashes with Hezbollah escalate in Lebanon.

Rachel Reeves has said she is unable to have a urinal removed from her office toilet because it is listed and cannot be altered.

After the general election it was reported that work was set to take the urinal out of the Ms Reeves’s private office in Whitehall. But weeks later the chancellor, the first woman to hold the post since its creation a thousand years ago, said the facility is “still is in there” and cannot be replaced.

Appearing on an episode of the News Agents podcast, Ms Reeves invited host Emily Maitlis into the bathroom to see the urinal still standing.

Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell has the full story:

Lord Hammond has claimed Rachel Reeves had “boxed herself in” on tax rises by ruling out hikes to income tax, VAT or National Insurance. 

The senior Tory told Sky News: “The problem Rachel Reeves has got is that she has boxed herself in by ruling out changes to the big taxes.

“That will leave her looking at secondary taxes like inheritance tax and capital gains tax. I think everybody expects that an incoming Labour government will make some changes in those areas.”

He said there would not be any “no-go areas” for raising taxes but he advised Ms Reeves to “tread extremely lightly and carefully around the taxes that impact on investment and entrepreneurship”.

Reform UK’s deputy leader has urged ministers to reconsider “from the sedentary position of our sunbeds” their move to ditch the Commons European Scrutiny Committee.

Richard Tice suggested the committee should be kept in place to scrutinise UK-European Union (EU) negotiations which take place in the future.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to “reset” relations with the UK’s European allies, while also noting negotiations on trade arrangements will not involve re-joining the EU or freedom of movement.

On Tuesday evening, MPs agreed to scrap the European Scrutiny Committee which was previously tasked with assessing the legal or political importance of EU documents and directives lodged with the Westminster Parliament pre and post-Brexit.

Before the vote, Mr Tice said: “We’ve heard from the Government before the election, during the election and since the election about the importance of our relations with our friends in the European Union and how negotiations may take place on a whole range and raft of important issues.

“And surely the whole point of our debate about our relationship with the European Union, people will remember – do you remember that slogan, ‘take back control of our borders, our money and our laws’?

“And this, of course, is the place where we debate and legislate for laws on behalf of the people.

“So if we’re going to take back control of our laws, then surely, those laws, those negotiations proposed by this Government on behalf of the people, should be scrutinised in detail and in earnest.”

He urged the government to reconsider its proposal to scrap the committee and “to reflect on it from the sedentary position of our sunbeds over the next month, and then bring it back to the House in September”.

Former Tory minister Lord Hammond has suggested Rachel Reeves’ attack on Jeremy Hunt that he lied about the £22billion black hole in public finances was paving the way for tax increases.

The ex-chancellor said Ms Reeves’ fierce accusations on her predecessor could be “preparing the pitch” for ditching Labour manifesto pledges.

It comes as the chancellor admitted she will have to raise taxes in the October Budget.

Asked about Ms Reeves claiming Mr Hunt had “lied” about the state of the public finances, Lord Hammond told Sky News: “Firstly, Labour has won a huge victory and the first golden rule is usually magnanimity in victory.

“I don’t really see the point of attacking the outgoing chancellor unless Rachel Reeves is preparing the pitch for some manifesto commitment breaking tax increases in October.”

A “new approach” to legal migration aimed at boosting the UK workforce’s skills before recruiting abroad will be taken by the incoming government, Yvette Cooper has said.

In a swipe at the previous Conservative government, the Home Secretary said rising levels of legal migration in recent years reflected a “failure over many years to tackle skills shortages and other problems in the UK labour market”.

In a ministerial statement published as MPs left Westminster for the summer, she pointed to a rise in non-EU long-term migration from 277,000 in the year to December 2022 to 423,000 in the year to December 2023.

The number of work visas in the 12 months to March 2024 was, meanwhile, 605,264, or “over three times that of 2019”, she said.

“That reflects a failure over many years to tackle skills shortages and other problems in the UK labour market, meaning too many sectors have remained reliant on international recruitment, instead of being able to source the skills they need here at home,” Ms Cooper said.

Yvette Cooper added: “This is why we are setting out a different approach – one that links migration policy and visa controls to skills and labour market policies – so immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems here at home.

“This approach will be important to enabling delivery of the government’s broader agenda.”

Under Labour, the Migration Advisory Council – which provides advice to the government on where skills shortages can be filled by migration – will work alongside Skills England and other bodies as part of a new “coherent approach to skills, migration and labour market policy”.

The agencies will also work alongside the devolved governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales towards the same end.

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said cabinet colleagues at the Foreign Office are undertaking a “concerted effort” to reduce tensions after Israel targeted a Hezbollah commander in a strike on a Beirut suburb.

Mr Pennycook told Sky News: “I know our Foreign Office ministers are engaged in a concerted effort to do what the UK can do to reduce tensions in the region. You’re right that they are at a very high level.

“We’ve advised British nationals in Lebanon to leave now on commercial flights and for British nationals not to travel to the region. It’s extremely tense.

“All the effort has to be on de-escalating the situation and getting both parties, the Israelis and the Lebanese, to engage with that US-led process on the diplomatic front and reduce tensions.”

Former minister Lord Hammond has accused Michael Gove of allowing “Nimbys to temporarily own the pitch” on the housing issue.

The ex-chancellor told Sky News this morning: “There has been a lot of politics for sure. There are a lot of Conservative supporters and indeed others, not just Conservatives, who are very much opposed to development in their own backyards.

“Many of them understand the principle that we need to build homes somewhere and somehow this logjam has to be broken.

“And I am afraid that the last communities secretary decided to bow out from that debate and allow the Nimbys to temporarily own the pitch.”

Lord Hammond has warned Labour’s plan to build 1.5million more houses will not be materialised unless the government allows more builders to come to the UK.

The Tory former chancellor said there is “social pressure for new housing” as well as an “urgent economic need to regenerate the housebuilding sector”.

He told Sky News: “But I think it is not just about planning reform. You can’t build houses without builders and if the government thinks relaxing the planning rules while tightening the migration rules is going to get houses built I think they are going to have another thing coming.”