UK politics live: Badenoch admits Tories made mistake on Brexit as Reeves fire continues over weak economy growth

The recent turmoil in the UK government bond markets does not seem to be UK specific, hedge fund analysts have suggested.

Comparing the current situation with the Liz Truss Budget debacle, when UK gilt yields soared above US Treasury yields, the Man Institute said, as per the FT: “In contrast, the current episode doesn’t seem UK-specific at all – gilt and Treasury yields are largely moving in tandem. So, can we really blame Rachel Reeves?

“Our lesson here is to be careful of what the media are saying.”

Responding to the latest figures showing the economy grew just 0.1 per cent in November, Tory shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: “Labour inherited the fastest-growing economy in the G7, but this is the third month in a row of disappointing growth figures.

“The chancellor seems content with burying her head in the sand, but this is a crisis made in Downing Street. We need an urgent change of course.”

Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: “The chancellor has put the handbrake on the economy with her misguided jobs tax and the consequence is this pitiful rate of growth. Every month this persists means less money in struggling families’ pockets and public services without the funding they need.

“After years of the Conservatives’ economic vandalism, the public was crying out for change but this new government is falling well short of fixing this mess.

“Rachel Reeves needs to see sense and scrap her foolish jobs tax, and pursue a real strategy for growth like fixing our broken trade relationship with our European partners and replacing the broken business rates system.”

A former SNP MP has suggested that today’s admission that the Tories were mistaken to pursue Brexit without a plan for growth was not the first time Kemi Badenoch displayed scepticism over the economic case for leaving the EU.

Angus Brendan MacNeil – who was among the SNP’s longest-serving MPs and chaired the Commons international trade committee for more than six years – said the now-Tory leader “certainly didn’t like the numbers” on Brexit when they were discussed several years ago.

Rachel Reeves has been warned that farmers should not be “punished” further as she searches for spending cuts following her inheritance tax raid in the Budget.

The Chancellor has already prompted fury in the countryside with the ‘farming tax’ hike, which critics warn could sound the death knell for family firms in England.

Now fears have been raised that they could be hit by a double whammy if Ms Reeves makes cuts to the Environment Land Management (Elm) scheme.

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

Sir Keir Starmer told broadcasters during a visit to Ukraine that the government would be “unrelenting” in its pursuit of economic growth.

He said: “It was always going to take time to turn around 14 years of economic failure under the last government. That was always going to take time.

“The figures out today are a step in the right direction, but there’s much, much more we’ve got to do and that we will do. We’re going to be unrelenting when it comes to driving our economy forward – changing the planning rules, changing regulation.

“The chancellor’s having a session today with the regulators. We’re unrelenting on this because we intend to turn this around, to get back economic growth.”

The business secretary has said upcoming talks in Downing Street with regulators about how to boost growth were not about scrapping important safeguards.

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “On regulation, I talk to business people every day, as you would expect, and this is the biggest thing that they raise. And it’s not a request for for deregulation, for taking away these important things. It’s for regulators balancing those in the correct way against what needs to happen on growth.”

He gave the cost of Consumer Duty, which sets higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services, as an example.

“An insurance company told me last week that the Consumer Duty, that’s part of what we put on to financial services … cost 20 times the impact assessment of what that would mean. And that is money that could have gone into jobs, to investment.”

He said the issue is “how we balance growth against security and making sure we’re not keeping people safe by stopping whole areas of economic activity together”. Countries such as Australia and Singapore “do this better”, he added.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has insisted that it will take time to revive the UK economy.

Asked if she had snuffed out growth since taking office, she said: “The truth is the British economy has barely grown for the last 14 years and that’s why we’ve had a cost-of-living crisis and why British people are worse-off.

“This new government has come in with a determination, a number one mission, to grow the economy. That takes time.”

She defended her Budget decisions, insisting “the most important thing to grow the economy is returning stability” which she had done by addressing the public finances.

“We saw that under the last Conservative government, when they played fast and loose with the public finances, it is ordinary working people that pay the price,” said Ms Reeves.

“So, I’ve drawn a line under that instability and ensured that the sums now add up. Combined with investment and reform, I’m determined – and I’m confident – that we can grow our economy and make people better-off.”

Sir Keir Starmer has visited wounded Ukrainians at a Kyiv hospital specialising in treating burns.

After a private tour of the intensive care unit, he met two patients on a rehabilitation ward that receives support from the British Red Cross.

The prime minister said the injuries he saw at the hospital were “a grim reminder of the heavy price that Ukraine is paying”.

One patient called Petro, a civilian from Kyiv with burns across both hands and arms, warned Sir Keir: “If Ukraine falls, so does Europe.”

The “mood music is not great” with the UK economy stagnating, HSBC’s senior UK economist has warned.

Liz Martins told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We had zero growth in the third quarter of this year, a bad start to the fourth quarter, and this number hasn’t done enough to offset that bad start.

“So it does suggest that we’re going to have very low or zero growth for the final quarter as well. We’re not in recession but we’re not doing much growing either.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to hold a meeting with regulators in No 11 on Thursday as she attempts to cut red tape and remove barriers to investment to kickstart sluggish growth.

The chancellor and business secretary Jonathan Reynolds will gather the bosses of the Competition and Markets Authority, Ofcom, Ofwat, Ofgem, the Office of Rail and Road, the Environment Agency and the Civil Aviation Authority to look at reforms to the way they work.

Reacting to the latest sluggish economic growth figures, Ms Reeves said: “After 14 years of economic stagnation, this government’s number one mission is to grow our economy. I will fight every day to deliver that growth and put more money into working people’s pockets.”