Jenrick says Reform would make long-term benefits claimants clean up high streets – UK politics live

The contest for the leadership of the Labour party in Scotland will be between Michael Marra and Joe Fagan, after Monica Lennon was unable to secure enough backing to advance to the final run-off.

Lennon accused the party of being “stuck in the past” in a statement, saying:

Scottish Labour is stuck in the past. We are not listening to all of our members, the wider movement that built us or the millions of Scots who won’t vote for us.

This leadership contest should have been a wide debate, rooted in courage, humility and the imagination to become a modern political party for workers and working class communities in Scotland.

Our values mean nothing without vision, conviction and committed action. We must be a party where people can believe in fair work and a healthy planet; where women’s rights and LGBTQ rights are a shared struggle; where engaging in debate about Scotland’s place in the UK and the global community is a strength, not a weakness.

Marra and Fagan will take part in a month-long contest to replace Anas Sarwar after he was made a UK government minister and sent to the House of Lords.

When asked if climate change is real during the Q&A section of the press conference, Reform UK’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, sought to downplay the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis, including to crops, animal habitats and human health, that we saw amid the extended period of hot and dry weather this summer. Tice suggested that we should adapt to the “changing” climate rather than actively pursue policy intervention.

Tice told journalists at the Reform UK press conference:

Of course climate change is real. But where is the evidence that net zero is going to stop it. Where is the evidence? There isn’t any.

Climate change has always happened – it always will. Maybe the smarter thing to do is to adapt to it than think arrogantly that you can stop it.

I am old enough to remember ۱۹۷۶ this feels a bit to same. That was ۵۰ years ago. I think when it is a bit warm, let’s enjoy it.

And if it means that English wine and sparkling wine gets better and better – fantastic! That means we can take on the French, fantastic! Lets celebrate some of things rather than just be sort of doom and gloom about it.

Jenrick says that councils that fail to implement “work placements” properly and “in full” will risk cuts to their funding. He claims Reform UK’s plans to remove disability benefits from millions of people and almost all benefits from foreign nationals will save about £۵۰bn in total.

He said without the changes, the cost to the welfare system will rise further, culminating in what could be a “genuine national debt crisis”.

According to a ۲۰۲۴ report by the Resolution Foundation, pensioners were the only group to benefit from radical changes to the welfare system made by the Tories since ۲۰۱۰. The Conservatives’ ۱۴-year overhaul of social security shifted spending away from children and housing to supporting elderly people.

A huge chunk of the ‘welfare bill’ comes from spending on pensioners, mostly due to the largely politically uncontested triple lock on the state pension and the growing pensioner population. Reform UK has said it would cut the benefits bill by billions of pounds in order to keep the triple lock on state pensions if the party came into power.

As a reminder, before his high-profle defection to Reform earlier this year, Jenrick held senior positions in the Conservative governments he now regularly criticises.

He was immigration minister as part of Rishi Sunak’s government before his resignation from the post in late ۲۰۲۳, served as health minister between September and October ۲۰۲۲, the housing secretary between July ۲۰۱۹ and September ۲۰۲۱, and was the exchequer secretary to the Treasury between January ۲۰۱۸ and July ۲۰۱۹.

Robert Jenrick said staying on benefits is consigning claimants “to a life on welfare”, which he argues wastes people’s “potential” and places a huge burden on the taxpayer.

A high number of benefit claimants are in work and many people are unable to find work despite trying hard to land job. There are also deeper problems in the economy like worsening health and a dysfunctional housing market that Jenrick misses in his analysis.

Reform’s treasury spokesperson went on to say that the party will introduce a new system of “return to work cover” which he says will cut disability claims by ۴۰%.

Explaining the proposal, which he claims will not come at any extra cost to businesses, Jenrick said:

For the first two years of an employee being signed off sick they will remain on their employer’s books, receiving payments based on welfare rates.

Employer’s national insurance contributions will be cut nationally to offset those costs, giving the employers who know their workers best an incentive, firstly to look after them well when they are in work and then to help them back into work if they are off sick – rather than just passing the bill to the taxpayer and forgetting about their workers.

Speaking about those unable to return to work, Jenrick said: “Cash support above standard universal credit rates will be reserved for severe cases and those who need additional help beyond living costs will receive it in-kind through disability support accounts, and the most vulnerable will continue to be supported through personal independence payments.” He said people unable to return to work will go through a single disability- needs assessment, replacing the more complicated existing system.

Robert Jenrick went on to say that long-term benefits claimants will be made to clean up their local high street and do charity work or face having their benefits taken away.

He said as part of the party’s “welfare to work” policy, long-term claimants, who are fit to work, will be forced to do ۲۰-hours of work a week in the community.

The scheme would be run by their local councils and those who do not put work placements in will have their funding cut, he said.

Speaking at the event in central London, the former Conservative cabinet minister said:

They’ll work to clean up high streets and parks, to beautify neglected places, to carry out minor repairs, to staff libraries and community centres to perform many other tasks from the list that we’ve published today.

We’ll also embrace local charities and community groups and ask them to help us and take part. If claimants refuse to participate or fail to show up, they’ll face penalties.

Let me speak very plainly. If people who are capable of work refuse, then they’ll get nothing. That’s fair.

Robert Jenrick, the party’s treasury spokesperson, told journalists that the “most vulnerable” people will continue to be supported through “personal independent payments” which he says will be “reformed and enhanced” as “Pip health security allowances”.

He says other changes, including reforming child disability living allowance, clamping down on fraud and the reinstatement of the two child benefit cap, would save £۴۹bn. Jenrick did not provide a breakdown of how much eat benefit cut would save.

Reform projects that ۲.۸۹ million people would have their disability payments’ removed or changed under plans to abolish the Personal Independent Payments (Pip) system in its current form for working age people, according to the BBC.

Robert Jenrick, Reform’s finance spokesperson, is giving a press conference about the party’s proposed welfare changes. You can watch it live here.

In this insightful briefing, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has explained some of the reasons behind the slump in housebuilding:

Higher mortgage interest rates are constraining affordability for first-time buyers and home movers, reducing the number of transactions and playing a key role in slowing house price growth. The impacts of this are most pronounced in the south of England (including London), where higher loan to income ratio lending is required, and therefore the impact of higher rates is greatest.

This has had an impact on the demand for housing generally, and on the demand for new-build homes specifically, and is reflected in estimates of the number of mortgages issued for new-build purchases …

In addition to higher interest rates, the end of Help to Buy, which had previously targeted significant support to first-time buyers to purchase new homes, has also played a role in softening demand. These trends away from new-build homes appear to be continuing, despite an overall increase in transactions, including from first-time buyers, to levels similar to those prior to the spike in interest rates (JRF analysis of Nationwide transactions data), suggesting that more residential buyers are purchasing existing homes.

At the same time as prices have softened, inflation in building costs has continued to increase. This has led some to argue that housebuilding is becoming unviable in an increasing number of places, as the cost of building a home outstrips the price that a developer can command in the market.

The shadow housing secretary, James Cleverly, has told Sky News that the loosening of planning rules in England – that will allow more new homes to be built near stations – are a “smokescreen to disguise the fact that they (Labour) have catastrophically failed to get stuff built”.

Cleverly said “housebuilding in the UK has collapsed” in part because Labour made the process “prohibitively expensive”.

He said: “You need building professionals, you need building materials, you need to be able to raise the capital.” Cleverly failed to mention that housebuilding targets were repeatedly missed under previous Conservative administrations.

Rowena Mason

Robert Jenrick, Reform’s finance spokesperson, will detail the plans for £۲۰bn of cuts to disability benefits overall, as well as another £۲۱bn from stopping foreign nationals – including EU citizens with settled status – claiming almost any benefits, among other cuts.

The party said the plans were aimed at reducing the welfare bill by a quarter, with personal independence payments (Pip) replaced by another cash benefit that would be restricted to only the “gravely ill and severely challenged”.

It said “lower level conditions” would get support overseen by councils and mayors.

In relation to foreign nationals, the plans extend proposals set out by Nigel Farage last year in which he claimed that banning migrants from claiming some benefits and scrapping indefinite leave to remain would save £۲۳۴bn over several decades.

Jenrick claimed paying benefits to non-British people was “plain immoral” – even though many would have paid into the tax system through working. He also wrote in the Telegraph over the weekend that the amount spent on disability benefits was “not generosity … it is suicidal empathy”.

However, Jenrick was accused by campaigners of making life harder for disabled people and of not understanding that it would not save money. You can read more here:

Reform UK has said foreign nationals would be banned from claiming almost all kinds of benefits in the UK if the party came into power following the next general election.

The affected welfare payments include housing benefit, pension credit, jobseeker’s allowance, child benefit, free childcare and disability benefits. There would be only a small number of exemptions, including the War Widows Pension and Armed Forces compensation.

The ban would cover EU nationals with settled status in the UK, something that would require the party to renegotiate Britain’s EU withdrawal agreement and potentially mean British expatriates in the bloc losing equivalent rights.

Reform claims the policy would save up to £۲۱bn a year by its fifth year, but Labour highlights the fact that the “vast majority” of migrants have no access to benefits.

A Labour spokesperson said:

These plans would mean ripping up the UK’s withdrawal agreement with the EU, plunging the UK back into years of Brexit renegotiations and stripping support from potentially millions of people who have lawfully lived, worked and paid taxes in Britain for years, and in many cases decades.

That includes people with settled status who are part of our communities, raising families, working and contributing to our economy.

Robert Jenrick, Reform’s finance spokesperson, is expected to outline £۵۰bn of cuts to benefits for disabled people and foreign nationals at a Westminster press conference today at ۱۱am. Mothin Ali, the deputy leader of the Greens, said:

Once again, the establishment parties are all trying to outdo each other when it comes to who can be the most xenophobic, who can punch down the hardest to the most vulnerable in our country, and who can cut the most support from disabled people.

It is cowardly to take from the most defenceless when we should be taxing the super wealthy including those who are in the privileged position of accepting £۵m donations.

Andy Burnham exchanged messages with someone impersonating Donald Trump’s chief of staff, according to reports. According to Politico’s Playbook, the prime minister talked with someone posing as the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, before he became suspicious and concerns were raised about the incident.

Downing Street sources have downplayed the significance of the messages. But the incident prompted serious concern at the British embassy – so much so that officials raised their concerns with their counterparts in the US.

Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI had launched an investigation into efforts to access Wiles’ phone after an unknown person contacted prominent Republicans and business chiefs while pretending to be her.

In March, the Atlantic reported that the White House had been told Donald Trump’s contact details had been offered for sale to people seeking influence. “It’s honestly just wild,” one of them told the outlet. “I’ve heard of CEOs offering money for his number. I’ve heard of crypto bros offering cryptocurrency for it.”

Rowena Mason

The new national planning policy framework is aimed at providing clearer national policies for plan-making and decision-making, meaning that conflicting local policies will carry less weight when they are inconsistent with national policies.

Other changes will include:

• Stronger support in principle for development, meaning a more explicit presumption in favour of building in sustainable locations.

• Pubs will get protection from being turned into housing or offices with developers having to prove there is no reasonable prospect of keeping a pub as a going concern, including evidence that it was marketed for sale for at least a year.

• A requirement for at least ۴۰% of homes to be accessible on bigger developments and stronger protections for community facilities.

• Stronger support for growth and infrastructure including support for AI growth zones and datacentres.

You can read more on the planning changes in this story by the Guardian’s Whitehall editor, Rowena Mason, here:

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. Thousands more homes could be built within ۱۰ minutes of transport hubs, including on green belt sites, as part of changes to government planning rules in England.

Under the government’s new National Planning Policy Framework, which you can read in full here, there will be default approval for homes being built around railway stations in a bid to increase housebuilding numbers. There will also be new minimum expectations for how much housing should be built in these areas.

Ministers have pledged to build ۱.۵m new homes by ۲۰۲۹ – but this target will fall short on the current trajectory, with the government about a quarter of the way to its target, two years into a five-year parliament. We have not been told what areas will be targeted in the new housebuilding drive, but the i reports that one key criteria is that nearby rail stations can run a minimum of four trains per hour into a large urban area.

The plans risk a backlash from campaigners who want to see greenbelt areas protected.

Asked whether the “default yes” approach to planning approval would apply to greenbelt land, the housing minister, Matthew Pennycook, confirmed to Sky News this morning: “For well-connected stations outside of settlements, including the greenbelt, that default policy applies.”

Asked about concerns this may raise, he said:

It may cause some concern, but as I’ve said many, many times, we know there is not enough land on brownfield land registers across the country, so previously developed land, to deliver the volumes of homes our country needs each year, at least those that are viable and in the right location.

So, in exceptional circumstances, greenbelt land should be developed on. We’ve got a sequential approach for how we judge the lower quality land to come forward in the first instance.

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice said the changes, which come into effect from today, undermine the government’s devolution agenda.

“Far from empowering local councils who actually know their communities, they strip power from the people who live there and hand it to Whitehall so ministers can ram through major housing developments while sidelining residents and ignoring the infrastructure that already can’t cope,” he said.

James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, said: “To try to fix their own mess, Labour are planning a power grab, seizing control from local communities and forcing them to accept development in the wrong areas because Labour won’t build in the right areas. Labour’s planning power grab is exposing our green belt and countryside to unauthorised Traveller sites, and ministers are turning a blind eye.”