Minister defends Rachel Reeves’ China trip amid market turmoil – UK politics live

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As part of her interview round this morning, Culture secretary Lisa Nandy was asked whether her own department would be a prime target for any further spending cuts the chancellor deemed necessary. Nandy was defensive of her brief, saying on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

I really want to push back on this idea that this government sees arts, culture, media and sport as a nice to have.

We’ve put it at the heart of the industrial strategy, one of eight industries that we are going to put rocket boosters under, because we believe that offers the best chance for growth, jobs and living standards across the UK.

She also defended closing the National Citizen Service (NCS) for young people, saying it was a “very difficult decision” but adding:

It’s been a programme that has benefited a lot of young people, but at a time when there is a crisis afflicting the young generation, we do not believe that we can justify spending money on a four week programme over the summer for a variety of young people, rather than gripping the challenges that they face.

The NCS was launched in 2011 by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, and was heavily supported by David Cameron, who later served on the NCS Trust’s patrons’ board after leaving No 10. It has been subjected to repeated criticism of the way funding was allocated and the number of teenagers it managed to involve.

The Liberal Democrats have gone on the attack this morning against the Conservatives over suggestions that Conservative-held areas may request delays to local elections in England.

Local elections are due to take place in 21 county council areas in England in May, but at least 12 of them are poised to ask ministers for a delay.

Angela Rayner, the local government secretary, has given councils until Friday to request that their elections be delayed so that they can explore the potential for restructuring their local authority as part of devolution plans.

Liberal Democrats have accused the Conservatives of “running scared”, pointing out that councils apparently bidding for delays are in places where the party made gains against the Tories in the general election last year.

Deputy leader Daisy Cooper said:

The Liberal Democrats made sweeping gains against the Conservatives at the general election, from Devon to Surrey. Now Conservative councils are running scared and attempting to delay these local elections, to avoid voters appalled with their record of failure.

This attempt to silence the voice of millions is a scandal. Democracy delayed is democracy denied. The Liberal Democrats will keep fighting to ensure these elections go ahead in May as planned.

The party also made a dig at opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, with a Liberal Democrat source accusing her of sitting on her hands, saying “Kemi Badenoch is bottling it and trying to cancel these local elections because she’s terrified of more Lib Dem gains and a Conservative collapse that would threaten her leadership.

“She could step in and ask Conservative councils not to delay, instead she’s sat on her hands. It’s sad to see this so-called defender of free speech now refusing to give voters a voice.”

The opening of the UK’s first safer drugs consumption room will be a “significant step forward” in efforts to tackle drug problems in Scotland, John Swinney has said.

The First Minister was speaking as he toured the Thistle Centre in Glasgow’s east end, which is due to open on Monday.

PA Media reports Swinney said that while the “first of its kind” centre will not be a “silver bullet”, it will complement other action being taken to tackle the problem of deaths from drug misuse.

The SNP leader said:

Every death related to drug misuse is one too many, and drug deaths in Scotland remain far too high.

Scotland’s public health and human rights-based approach to tackling drug misuse means we’re focused on ensuring our healthcare services are not only listening to people, but also drawing on their experiences as we work to support them.

Earlier today my colleague Libby Brooks had this report on the opening of the centre, where some of the most vulnerable addicts will be able to take their own drugs in a clean and safe environment under the supervision of health professionals.

Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor

The Department for Education has described as “extraordinary” the National Education Union’s call for a strike ballot over teacher pay in England.

On Thursday the NEU announced it was polling its members over holding a formal strike ballot in the wake of the government’s proposal for a 2.8% pay rise from September.

In response a DfE spokesperson said:

“This is an extraordinary decision. In three years, teachers have had a combined pay increase of over 17%.

“As schools and families continue doing everything they can to improve attendance, and after the millions of school days lost through both the pandemic and recent industrial action, union leaderships need to think long and hard about whose interests they are putting first. For the government and the education secretary [Bridget Phillipson], it is always children who come first.”

The NEU’s indicative ballot opens on 1 March, ahead of the union’s annual conference in April, where a decision on a formal strike ballot will be taken.

Kiran Stacey

Kiran Stacey is a political correspondent based in Westminster

England should be allowed to play next month’s cricket game against Afghanistan, the UK culture and sport secretary has said, despite calls for a boycott over the Taliban government’s treatment of women.

Lisa Nandy on Friday backed a decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to allow the game to go ahead, saying that cancelling it would “deny sports fans the opportunity that they love”.

There is growing pressure from MPs for the game to be called off after the Taliban disbanded the Afghanistan women’s cricket team and banned women from public spaces including gyms, parks and hairdressing salons.

Nandy told BBC Breakfast: “I do think it should go ahead. I’m instinctively very cautious about boycotts in sports, partly because I think they’re counterproductive.

“I think they deny sports fans the opportunity that they love, and they can also very much penalise the athletes and the sports people who work very, very hard to reach the top of their game and then they’re denied the opportunities to compete. They are not the people that we want to penalise for the appalling actions of the Taliban against women and girls.”

England are due to play Afghanistan next month in Pakistan as part of the Champions Trophy. The ECB has said it will not schedule a bilateral series against Afghanistan, but that participation in an international competition such as the Champions Trophy is a matter for the International Cricket Council.

Read more from Kiran Stacey here: Lisa Nandy rejects calls for England to boycott Afghanistan cricket match

The reason that Culture secretary Lisa Nandy was on the media round today was to promote the government’s consultation on tackling online ticket touting.

On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme she said:

People will no longer go on to a website and find that the tickets have been bought up by touts in mass numbers as part of an industry that fleeces fans and leeches money out of the music industry and are then sold on at vastly inflated prices

Over £1,000 pounds, for Coldplay tickets, for Bruce Springsteen tickets. I don’t know a single person who could afford that sort of thing. And that’s what we’re bringing an end to today, the time is up for ticket touts.

If you have strong views on the issue, you can find the consultation documents here. In a government press release the move has been backed by the general secretary of the Musicians’ Union, the chief executive of UK Music, and Fatboy Slim among others.

Yesterday my colleague Andrew Sparrow reported Andy Burnham’s comments that the Greater Manchester mayor thinks there is a case for a “limited national inquiry” into child abuse by gangs. Burnham said:

In my view the government was right to reject that form of opportunism [the Tory amendment that was voted down this week].

But I did hear last night coming out of that debate ministers saying they are open to discussing issues now with survivors.

I will add my voice into this and say I do think there is the case for a limited national inquiry that draws on reviews like the one that I commissioned, and the one we have seen in Rotherham, the one we have seen in Telford, to draw out some of these national issues and compel people to give evidence who then may have charges to answer and be held to account.

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy was asked about this on ITV’s Good Morning Britain earlier today, and she told viewers:

I get the point that Andy’s making. He said that there was a case for a smaller, more limited national inquiry into the specific issues that the inquiry that he instigated could not pick up.

I do understand that because the inquiry that we had here in Greater Manchester, astonishingly, some of the Greater Manchester police officers refused to even take part, and the local inquiry couldn’t compel them to do so.

But I do disagree with Andy actually. The reason that the Theresa May government set up a national inquiry, which ran for seven years and took evidence from thousands of victims, is precisely because of the points that Andy made.

That inquiry found what every inquiry has found, that young girls weren’t believed because they were young, they were female, and they were working class, and that the systems that were supposed to protect them protected themselves instead of protecting those brave young victims.

Nandy was asked whether Labour were cross with Burnham’s intervention, to which she replied “It’s impossible to be cross with Andy Burnham,” adding “this is the whole point of devolution, is that we want to make sure that people’s views are heard from across the country.”

She commended the Conservatives for setting up the 2015 national inquiry, and did not rule out a future inquiry being commissioned, saying:

The reason I think that that people have heard from us that there may at some point in the future be another inquiry is because child abuse by its very nature is hidden, it’s secretive, and at various points, I’m sure that more will come out about the scandals that we’ve heard. We are not going to rule out an inquiry ever.

She said the government has its focus on delivering the recommendations from the 2022 Prof Alexis Jay review.

As appears to be compulsory at the moment, while being interviewed this morning the Culture secretary was asked about her views on Elon Musk. At least responsibility for social media is actually in Lisa Nandy’s remit.

On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme Nick Robinson asked her “is Elon Musk’s idea of free speech a threat to democracy?”, citing the FT story that the US-based billionaire is seeking ways to oust prime minister Keir Starmer.

Nandy said “Elon Musk, like everybody else in this country, is free to say whatever they like, but our job is not to respond to social media, our job is to represent the British people.

“And when it comes to things like tackling child abuse, we are absolutely crystal clear. We’ve had a seven year inquiry. We’ve had 20 recommendations …”

At this point Robinson let out a long audible exasperated sigh, and interrupted saying “If you’ll forgive me I’ve asked you a slightly different thing … will you regulate social media differently? Are you going to say, look, the world has changed. Elon Musk’s view of free speech is very different. Mark Zuckerberg appears to be adopting it. It’s the job of politicians in a democracy to say, we’ll regulate.”

Nandy replied:

Of course, the online space, like the real world, is a place where people have to feel free safe to be able to interact, and we’ve heard a lot from people, including young people, who feel that that is no longer the case.

That’s why the Online Harms Act, which we are implementing, will introduce requirements on social media companies to take down harmful content.

We’re taking a different approach here in the UK [to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg], we make no apology for that. It’s our job to protect people and support people to be able to have a decent democratic debate, and we fully intend to continue with those reforms.

Mark Sweney has news on how current market turmoil might affect the housing market:

About 700,000 homeowners are facing an increase in mortgage costs when their fixed-rate deals end this year, as a sell-off in the UK government debt market plunges the financial markets into turmoil and threatens to push up household borrowing costs.

Mortgage rates had been predicted to ease this year, as analysts projected multiple cuts to the Bank of England base interest rate, which was expected to feed into the lowering of mortgage rates for homeowners and buyers.

However, the sell-off in government bonds, or gilts, fuelled by concerns over inflation and heavy public borrowing, could keep borrowing costs higher for longer.

You can read more from Mark Sweney here: UK debt market sell-off threatens to push up mortgage costs

Scottish Greens yet to make 'final decision' on backing SNP budget

The co-leader of the Scottish Greens, Patrick Harvie, has said his party was yet to make a “final decision” on whether to back the draft Scottish budget, and that they were continuing to “negotiate constructively” with the SNP-led government on it.

Speaking on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme, PA Media report he told listeners:

The government has, I think, a great deal more … work to do, to answer the questions and to respond to the proposals that we put forward.

I hope that we hear constructive answers. But as you know, there have been budgets in the past where we have voted in favour. In recent years, we’ve got a strong track record of delivering change through the budget that makes the lives of people in Scotland better and addresses the climate emergency.

Harvie also said he regretted the decision by former first minister Humza Yousaf to end the Bute House agreement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens. He said:

I still regret the decision that Humza Yousaf made to end the cooperation agreement. Not just because I think Greens were successful at delivering a number of policies, and that there were some issues coming up that we had got the ball rolling on, which are still really, really important.

But Greens, before we were in government – it was only two-and-a-half years that that agreement lasted, after all, which is a shame – but before we were in government, we had a strong track record of delivering change by doing constructive politics.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, Culture secretary Lisa Nandy said “I’m not, for a moment, saying it’s all going swimmingly” when asked about Labour’s first few months in government.

However, she continued by setting out what she said was the party’s ambition for the term of government, saying:

I think there wasn’t a single person in this country who could say that they really felt better off after 14 years of Tory government.

And our ambition and our intention is that in the next few years, people will start to feel significantly better off in their own lives and for the prospects for their children.

On the economic news front, Graeme Wearden is on our business live blog today, and has this:

All eyes are on the UK government bond market today, where the current bond market selloff has been particularly acute.

And in early trading, bond yields are nudging slightly higher, although it’s a small move.

The pound is a little weaker this morning, but higher than the lows touched during Thursday’s choppy trading.

One worrying aspect of the market turmoil this week is that both UK government bonds and the pound have fallen.

In more normal times, a rise in government borrowing costs (caused by a fall in the value of bonds) tends to lead to a stonger currency.

When both fall together, it can be a sign of fiscal de-anchoring, and potentially capital flight out of the UK.

This last happened in the 1970s crisis, a point another former Bank official Martin Weale made yesterday.

You can follow all the latest business and economic news with Graeme Wearden over on his live blog: Reeves may need to consider ‘very severe’ spending cuts, as bond sell-off continues – business live

Lisa Nandy says chancellor's visit to China is 'right and proper'

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy has defended chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to visit China amid turbulence in the economy as being “right and proper”.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Nandy said fluctuations affecting the bond market and the pound were part of “a global trend that we’ve seen affecting economies all over the world.”

“Rates rise and fall,” she said. “We’ve seen it, most notably in the United States.”

Nandy continued:

We are confident that we’re taking both the short term action to stabilise the economy, but also the long term action that is necessary to get the economy growing again.

That’s why, from my point of view, and I think many others, it is absolutely right and proper that the chancellor is taking seriously our relationship with the world’s second largest economy, and is in China this weekend.

Nandy: Labour has worked very hard to 'restore economic credibility' and is 'on track' with growth

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy has said she believes that the Labour government is still “on track” with its ambition for the UK to be “the fastest growing economy in Europe.”

Conceding that the budget decision to increase national insurance contributions on employers was “a difficult one for many companies”, she told listeners of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that the government was not going back to the “bad old days” of Tory budgets. She said:

We inherited an economy where it was hard to see who had confidence, both to invest, and particularly for consumers to be able to feel that they could spend, given the huge fluctuations that we’d seen, particularly after the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng mini-budget.

The chancellor has been absolutely clear that we are not going back to those bad old days. We have had two interest rate cuts since she became chancellor, and we have worked very hard to restore economic credibility.

Boasting that Labour’s attempts to attract investment had seen “a huge vote of confidence” in the UK economy, she continued:

We are not only confident that we’re on track, but the OECD is confident that we’re on track to become the fastest growing economy in Europe.

Welcome and opening summary …

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling politics coverage for Friday. Here are your headlines:

• Culture secretary Lisa Nandy has defended chancellor Rachel Reeves’ visit to China amid economic turbulence

• Reeves is reported to be considering imposing steeper cuts to public services to repair the government’s finances after a bruising week in which investors drove up the cost of UK borrowing and pushed the pound to a 14-month low

• Health secretary Wes Streeting has defended the growing use of the private sector to help tackle long waiting lists in England for treatment, but said providers must “pull their weight” and not take resources away from the NHS

• The co-leader of the Scottish Greens, Patrick Harvie, has said his party was yet to make a “final decision” on whether to back the draft Scottish budget

• A committee of MPs has criticised the Ministry of Defence for being behind the times on the use of artificial intelligence in the military]

• The number of people in England and Wales who sought help with energy bills jumped by 20% last year, according to Citizens Advice

In the diary today Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey is out and about in Cambridgeshire, and we can expect stunt photos. There is also another Reform UK regional conference event this evening. It is the turn of the south-east, and Nigel Farage is speaking at Sandown Park Racecourse. You can insert your own punchline about runners, riders, odds and gambling etc.

It is Martin Belam with you today. You can get in touch with me at [email protected], which is especially useful if you have spotted errors, typos or omissions.