MPs call for greater criticism of Israel’s policies over Gaza – UK politics live

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At the housing committee Lee Dillon, a Lib Dem, says Labour committed to having multi-year funding settlements for councils. He asks why the government has not started that yet.

Angela Rayner says the government wants have multi-year funding. But when the government came into office, there was a black hole in the budget, she says. It had to stabilise funding. And she says the situation for councils in particular was “quite dire”. She says the priority was to stabilise funding for this year.

Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, has just started giving evidence to the Commons housing committee. There is a live feed here.

People in Gaza trapped in 'doom loop of hell', MPs told

People in Gaza are trapped in a “doom loop of hell”, MPs were told today, as a minister faced criticism from all main parties over the government’s reluctance to be more critical of Israel’s policy in the war.

Layla Moran, the Lib Dem MP, used the phrase as she asked an urgent question on the situation in Gaza.

Moran, who is of Christian Palestinian heritage, asked what the UK government was doing to stop Palestinians being killed. She referred to Mohammad, a surgeon living in the UK who operated on her, whose family are trapped in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. She told MPs:

I am sorry to report that this weekend, death didn’t come knocking, but rather it was dropped by a precision drone as Mohammad’s brother and his son walked 10 metres to get aid.

The son died of a brain injury. Two 13-year-old girls and their mother have shrapnel wounds and Mohammad’s elderly father, who was already ill, is in hospital. That three-year-old, her mother and his mother are alone in a house with no one to help them get food.

These were obviously not militants. They were sick. They are not legitimate targets of war. There is no excuse for this. Mohammad told me it feels like they’re living in The Hunger Games, dodging drones, scavenging for the basics, even if they wanted to leave, how can they?

Moran asked the Foreign Office minister, Hamish Falconer, what the UK was doing to stop the killing. She said:

People in Gaza are trapped in a doom loop of hell. Hospitals decimated, ceasefires promised and never delivered. And so I press the government again, is this really everything the UK has got?

Have we deployed everything to make this stop? When will we recognise Palestine? Why haven’t we stopped arms trade to Israel? And when will the government ban trading with illegal settlements? The frustration is palpable. Our grief is fathomless. People across the UK are looking on in horror, and the horror in Gaza must stop now.

Kit Malthouse, a former Conservative cabinet minister, also criticised Israeli policy. He said:

I was going to ask about the freezing babies, the babies that are freezing to death while blankets are being denied entry into Gaza, but I don’t think we are going to be doing much about that. Or indeed the denial of access for cancer medication, anaesthetic, or crutches or the bombing of every single hospital.

The minister said he and his team are frustrated. But given the partial application of international law and the government’s unwillingness to take any significant steps to either compel the imposition of the ceasefire, or compliance with international law, rather than frustrated, isn’t he ashamed? That millions of people in this country and around the world believe there is an inherent racism at the heart of British foreign policy in this regard? That says that Palestinian lives matter much less than any other lives, or indeed than Israeli lives.

And John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor, said the UK should expel the Israeli ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely. He explained:

I think this government could take a leading role in that isolation of Israel to bring it some form of negotiated settlement, but can I just say one thing that grates with me in particular? It’s that we have an Israeli ambassador who’s an advocate of ‘Greater Israel’, refuses to recognise the Palestinian state, defies all the UN resolutions that have been passed about how we can secure that peace, and she still remains in this country. Why aren’t we expelling the Israeli ambassador?

In his opening statement, Falconer said:

The UK condemns Israel’s restriction on aid in the strongest terms. The scale of human suffering is unimaginable. We have been clear this is a man-made crisis, and Israel must act immediately to address it.

Air strikes within the designated humanitarian zone show there are no safe spaces left for civilians. Reports of up to eight children having died from cold weather conditions are unconscionable.

Responding to McDonnell and his point about the ambassador, Falconer said it was a mistake to think “if only we had representatives more to our tastes politically, then things would be easier”.

But he was more critical of Malthouse. Responding to the Tory MP, he said:

If the benches opposite me want to give me a hard time about what is being done in relation to the people in Gaza, I would turn to your own record, whether it is in relation to aid into Gaza, whether it’s in relation to the ICC, the ICJ.

Urgent questions normally last about 45 minutes, but today responses went on for more than an hour and a half.

MPs from the south-west, south and west of England have called for the resignation of South West Water boss Susan Davy, citing the company’s ongoing failures to address sewage dumping, rising water bills, and poor service delivery.

Ben Maguire, the Lib Dem MP for North Cornwall said the calls follow reports of Christmas swims being cancelled across the south-west due to sewage pollution.

The letter says:

The scale of the crisis under your leadership is now intolerable. In North Cornwall, blue flag beaches, some of the most beautiful in the country, were subjected to more than 2,700 hours of sewage discharges across 148 separate incidents last year. Every single incident of sewage dumping, in the eyes of our constituents, is one too many – and each represents a real harm to families, local businesses, and the natural environment.

The letter has also been signed by Lib Dems Andrew George (St Ives) and Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) and the Labour MP for Poole, Neil Duncan-Jordan.

Davy is the chief executive of Pennon Group, which owns South West Water.

Scottish Lib Dems says they are hoping for concessions that could persuade them to vote for SNP budget

Cole-Hamilton said Scottish Labour’s confirmation earlier today (see 9.40am) that it would not block the budget made it clear there would be no crisis, and therefore no risk of an early election – despite Swinney’s theatrics.

He indicated the Lib Dems would abstain on the budget at the very least, but were still angling for more concessions:

The Labour MP Diane Abbott, a former shadow home secretary, has also criticised Robert Jenrick for his recent comments about race. (See 12.32pm.) In an article for LabourList, she cites them as evidence “the debate on migration and asylum in British mainstream politics has never been more toxic”. She says Keir Starmer should intervene by starting to make a postive case for immigration.

Sadly, the new Labour government led by prime minister Keir Starmer is offering little or nothing to counter the anti-migrant drift in worldwide public discussion …

In the current rightward shift in the international discussion on migration it has never been more important that British political leadership makes the case for immigration policy based on fairness and the facts rather than fear and scapegoating. It is not too late for the Labour government to take that path.

Plaid Cymru claims Labour can no longer give Wales leadership it needs

At the start of its centenary year, Plaid Cymru is arguing it has the alternative vision needed to win power from Labour, which has dominated politics in Wales for more than a century.

Speaking at a press conference to mark the start of a crucial – and potentially very exciting – year for Plaid, its leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, said Labour was failing Welsh citizens, citing NHS waiting lists and crises such as the Welsh ambulance service declaring a critical incident at new year.

Ap Iorwerth said:

We will be making the case for new leadership and the fresh start that I believe Wales urgently needs with Plaid Cymru at the helm. Over the next three months, we’ll give more detail about our ambitious offer of change for the people of Wales, better public services and improved NHS, an economy that creates good jobs, a government that will be unrelenting and fighting for fairness for our communities.

Plaid believes it can make dramatic gains at the 2026 Senedd elections. Ap Iorwerth said:

We’ll be starting next week by publishing our plan to bring down NHS waiting lists. And we’ve got a clear message. If people in Wales want to see Wales put first, if they feel let down by Labour, if they’re looking for an alternative, and crucially in these times of uncertainty and division, looking for a driven government that will be focusing on turning the corner for Wales.

The Plaid leader said the Labour government in Cardiff was unwilling to challenge its “masters” in Westminster to call for more for Wales.

He referred to a blog by the former Labour minister Lee Waters who suggested his party needed to shake off the perception it was managing the status quo.

Ap Iorwerth said his sense was that there is a realisation that Labour governing Wales was not inevitable. “There’s an opportunity for change,” he said. “The Labour establishment is not as good as it gets for Wales.”

In her Today programme interview this morning Prof Alexis Jay, chair of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, said that the controversy generated by Elon Musk “may well have given [the government’ some kind of impetus to move forward” with its announcement about implementing some of her reports recommendations.

But at the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning, the PM’s spokesperson did not accept that the announcement about been rushed forward because of the Musk row. He said:

The government has been working since it came into office on measures to protect children, to halve violence against women and girls.

On mandatory reporting, the prime minister and home secretary called for these changes 10 years ago. Work on the mandatory reporting criminal offence, the write-round for that kicked off last year and obviously has just concluded ahead of the announcement, so obviously that work’s been ongoing for some time.

Lib Dems call for Robert Jenrick to be sacked from shadow cabinet for 'divisive' comments on race

At the end of last week Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary and runner-up in last year’s Tory leadership contest, said the child abuse grooming scandal started with “mass migration” and “importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women”. In response Samuel Kasumu, a former Tory adviser on race issues, said that comments like that could lead to people being killed, while Kemi Badenoch defended her colleague.

In an inteview on the Today programme this morning, asked if Kasumu’s comments made him reconsider his views, Jenrick replied:

That’s complete nonsense. MPs have been killed in this country in recent times by a jihadist and by a neo-Nazi. They were killed because of the views of those individuals, not what anything an MP has said. We have to fight extremism in this country, wherever we find it, and you fight that by standing up to the extremists, you don’t fight it by shying away, by turning a blind eye, by looking the other way.

I’m not going to tiptoe around this issue. Millions of people in our country are listening to your programme this morning, and they are appalled by what is happening to young girls, and they are shocked that there might be girls in that situation today. We have to stop this.

Jenrick rejected claims that the last government was not implementing the recommendations from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, saying that work on this was under way when the general election was called. And he defended the Tory call for a new inquiry, referring to the GB News report (see 11.06am) saying there are 50 towns where child exploitation gangs have operated which have not been covered by “proper inquiries”.

Asked by the presenter, Nick Robinson, who he was referring to when he spoke about “alien cultures who possess medieval attitudes towards women”, Jenrick said British Pakistanis were over-represented in the rape gangs. It was important to be honest about that, he said.

Asked if he was saying people from Pakistan had an alien culture, Jenrick replied:

I think some people who come from that country do. I’m not saying everybody.

The exchange went on:

NR: Did Sajid Javid’s family [the former Tory chancellor] come with a medieval culture to this county?

RJ: I’m saying some people do.

NR: Do Sadiq Khan’s family [the Labour mayor of London]?

RJ: I’m saying some people do, Nick.

NR: How are you going to identify those you think acceptable and those who are not?

RJ: Are you disputing the evidence, outlined by the report you have cited, and the testimonies of the victims – in fact the testimonies of the perpetrators themselves – that many cases were Pakistani men, some born in this country …

NR: I’m asking you what you would do as a result of it. Would you stop immigrants from those countries?

RJ: I’ve always said, that’s the point made by Kemi Badenoch, the leader of my party, that not all cultures are equal. We should be very careful about who is coming into this country and the scale of immigration.

Robinson then pointed out that immigration from Pakistan increased after Brexit, and while Jenrick was a Home Office minister.

After the interview, the Liberal Democrats called for Jenrick to be sacked from the shadow cabinet. Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said:

Robert Jenrick’s attempt to exploit this appalling scandal for his own political gain is completely shameless. He didn’t lift a finger to help the victims when a minister, now he’s jumping on the bandwagon and acting like a pound shop Farage.

Kemi Badenoch should sack him as shadow justice secretary and condemn his divisive comments, instead of letting him run a leadership campaign under her nose.

There will be two urgent questions in the Commons after 12.30pm. Foreign Office ministers will reply to both; the first is about the situation in Gaza, and the second is about “Hong Kong police offering rewards for the arrests of pro-democracy campaigners including BNOs [British national (overseas) visa holders] resident in the UK”.

Plaid Cymru criticises Mark Drakeford for 'threatening' it with 'day of reckoning' if it doesn't back Welsh budget

The Plaid Cymru leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, has strongly criticised former first minister Mark Drakeford for warning that his party will soon face a “day of reckoning” over the Welsh government’s budget.

The Labour-led government needs the support of another party to get its spending plans through in March and Plaid is making it clear it is not going to help, as it has previously done.

Drakeford, who is now cabinet secretary for finance, has called Plaid’s stance “baffling” and said it is playing “political games” and its day of reckoning would come in March.

Speaking at a press conference in Cardiff, ap Iorwerth confirmed there had been no secret negotiations over the budget. He said:

There are no negotiations. It’s Labour’s budget to pass. And I assume they will be busy thinking how they’re going to get it passed, but no negotiations have taken place.

We’ve shown in recent years our willingness to get government to do things that otherwise wouldn’t by entering into a cooperation agreement. That came to an end. But now we have Labour putting together its own budget and its responsibility to get it through.

We have heard what the finance cabinet secretary said. I don’t think it’s particularly good look for a government to be threatening an opposition party in that way, when really they have to be focused on getting their own budget through. It’s not our budget.

Asked about the suggestion that Plaid wasn’t a serious party, he said:

That sounds to me like a governing Labour party feeling they are entitled to have their budget passed in whatever form it’s put forward. I don’t believe that that’s how budgets work in parliaments around the world.

Rhun ap Iorwerth speaking at a press conference this morning. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

Here are some more line from Nigel Farage’s LBC phone-in.

• Farage, the Reform UK leader, defended his decision not to support the far-right activist Tommy Robinson. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was jailed last year for contempt of court. Elon Musk has portrayed him as a political prisoner and a hero, and he said that Farage was not the right person to lead Reform UK after Farage said that, unlike Musk, he was not backing Robinson. Speaking on LBC today, Farage said:

Look, if I was to embrace, as it looks like I was being urged to do, the sort of violent thuggish people like [Tommy] Robinson, that would do our party immense harm, and probably rightly so.

So the fact that I’ve stood up on a point of principle, even if in the short term its to my detriment, in the long run may even work in our favour.

• He said he hoped to “mend any broken fences” with Musk when he went to Washington for President Trump’s inauguration.

Of course I want his support, of course I will talk to him in America in a few days’ time, of course I want to mend any broken fences that might exist. I’m sure we can do it.

• He said Musk was popular with young people, which was one reason his endorsement might help Reform UK.

Not having Elon’s support would damage us with that younger generation because he kind of makes us look cool, so I’m being frank about that, and I am confident that whatever has been said, we can mend. I really think we can.

• He said he did not know who would be paying for his flight to the US, but that he might be going on a private plane. Donors were keen to support him, he said.

• He said that he has bought a house in Clacton, where he is MP, and that he meets constituents there “on a regular basis”.

Alex Davies-Jones, the justice minister, was doing an interview round this morning. Asked how the government would vote on the proposed Tory amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill calling for a new public inquiry into child abuse by gangs, she told Sky News:

I won’t vote for it because we’ve already had a national inquiry into child sexual exploitation and abuse.

In response, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said:

The Labour party announcing they will whip their MPs to vote against a national inquiry into this scandal is total moral cowardice from Keir Starmer and his Labour party. The victims of these heinous child rape gangs deserve honesty, and they deserve the truth.

Many towns – like Keighley – have not been looked at and local Inquiries don’t have the legal powers to compel production of evidence. Labour’s decision risks perpetuating the cover-up of the rape gangs.

The Tories are basing their claim that child abuse by gangs in many areas has not been properly investigated on a GB News report saying there are 50 towns where child exploitation gangs operated. Some of the evidence to back this report comes from court cases. But GB News says that in most of these towns there have not been “proper inquiries” into the gangs.

I have added an update from Severin Carrell to the post at 9.40am with more about why the SNP government’s budget is likely to pass comfortably. You may need to refresh the page to get it to appear.

Farage refuses to condemn Musk for calling Jess Phillips 'rape genocide apologist'

Yesterday, in his lengthy attack on Elon Musk and the Conservative party for what they have said about the child abuse scandal, Keir Starmer focused on one point in particular: the Conservative party’s refusal to condemn Musk for saying that Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, was a “rape genocide apologist”. Musk’s tweet saying this has now had almost 43m views and many MPs believe a comment this extreme could amount to an incitement to violence. Starmer said that a line had been crossed, and that decent politicians would condemn this unequivocally.

In his LBC phone-in Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, was asked if he would condemn Musk for what he said. He refused, replying:

If he was inciting violence, then that would be going beyond the line at which free speech is acceptable.

Nick Ferrari, the presenter, said that using language like “rape genocide apologist’ was very close to this point. Farage replied:

It’s very, very strong language, and it offends many, but then free speech should be able to offend many.

Asked if it was OK to knowingly cause offence, Farage replied:

Of course. That’s what free speech is. You should be allowed, I should be allowed, to say things that others find offensive.

Farage also said that his friends in America had read some of the online accounts of what happened in the child abuse scandals in British towns. They were “horrified”, he said. He went on:

That perhaps explains some of the strong language [from Musk]. You may find it offensive. I don’t think it goes beyond the line.

During the phone-in, Farage also said that he believed that he would be able to repair relations with Musk, even though Musk declared at the weekend that he did not think Farage had “what it takes” to be leader of Reform UK. Farage said he expected to meet Musk when he went to Washington for President Trump’s inauguration.

Scottish Labour won't vote against SNP government's budget, Anas Sarwar says

We, at this current stage, will abstain from this budget, because this budget is going to pass anyway. It has the votes of another political party, at least one of the opposition political parties, so we are not going to vote against this budget.

Labour is in a delicate position: the budget uses several billion pounds of extra spending provided by the UK Labour government, and will reverse the chancellor’s cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners in Scotland – a policy Sarwar supports.

He told Good Morning Scotland Labour might even vote for it if Swinney enacts his pledge to scrap the two-child payment cap this year rather than next year – another measure which goes against UK Labour policy.

If they actually put the ending of the two-child benefit cap into this budget and lift it on the first of April, we will vote for the budget.

UPDATE:

Both the Scottish Greens and Liberal Democrats are said to be in constructive talks with the Scottish government, and the Greens are hopeful of winning more concessions to gain their votes. But neither party will confirm for reporting purposes what they plan to do, with things still to play for, because that lessens their bargaining power. The belief is that at least one of those parties will do so, because the political gains for a small party in showing to its target voters they’re able to influence the government are real.

It is possible both parties will do so and one should not forget Alba and its sole MSP, Ash Regan; if Sarwar was being cynical, he may have been referring to Alba, though her single vote doesn’t greatly change the parliamentary arithmetic.

Reform UK will set up its own national inquiry into sexual abuse by gangs if government doesn't, Nigel Farage says

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is doing a phone-in on LBC. He has just said that, if the government does not hold a new national inquiry into sexual abuse and rape by gangs, his party will organise its own version. He said:

If [the government] won’t do it, we at Reform will do it. I will have no difficulty in raising the money to do this whatsoever. We’ll appoint independent ex-judges and experts.

Farage said that he would press ahead with this plan within the next few weeks, if the government continued to refuse to set up its own inquiry.

When Nick Ferrari, the presenter, put it to him that a party-led inquiry would not have the power to compel witnesses to give evidence, Farage replied:

I think this would garner such massive public support that anybody asked to appear that didn’t appear would look terrible.

Farage also said he was encouraged by the Times coming out in favour of a new inquiry in an editorial today. The Times, which has published much investigative reporting on this topic, said:

Grooming gangs were only one element of Professor Jay’s inquiry — Rotherham garners a sole mention in her 468-page report and the gangs in Telford are not referenced. A new national inquiry is needed to explore where and how these gangs operated.

Child abuse inquiry chair attacks ‘politicisation’ of issue and says new investigation would delay reforms

Good morning. Keir Starmer is basking in praise from liberal, progressive Britain today for the way he hit back at calls for a new inquiry into child sexual abuse scandals, and the way they are being driven by inflammatory and false claims by Elon Musk and other rightwingers on X. But Tory Britain has yet to be persuaded, and the rightwing papers are promoting the Conservative party’s (very dubious) claim that Starmer was smearing anyone opposed to child rape as far-right.

This morning Prof Alexis Jay stepped into this argument. As the main chair of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA), the eight-year, all-encompassing inquiry into child sexual abuse in Britain, she has as much authority on this subject as anyone. Today she clearly came out against calls from Musk, Reform UK, the Tories and others for a new national inquiry focusing specifically on rape or grooming gangs.

When it was put to her on the Today programme that Robbie Moore, the Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, told MPs last night that the scale of sexual abuse in Bradford could “dwarf” what happened in Rotherham, and that this showed why a new inquiry might be useful, she replied:

No, I don’t agree with that, in the sense of requiring further and more detailed national inquiries into child sexual exploitation. We have learned quite a lot from those reviews that have already been undertaken.

Jay said she did not believe that there are many areas where officials are still trying to cover up sexual abuse allegations. It might be happening in some places, she said. “But in general terms we believe that people are well intentioned in their local efforts to address any known problems about child sexual exploitation,” she said.

Asked if she thought a new national inquiry would be counter-productive, she replied:

I think that the time has passed for more inquiries. We’ve had enough of inquiries, consultations and discussions, and especially for those victims and survivors who’ve had the courage to come forward …

They clearly want action, and we have set out what action is required, and people should just get on with it, locally and nationally.

Asked if a new inquiry would hinder the implementation of the recommendations from the final IICSA report, which came out in 2022, she replied: “It would certainly cause delays.”

Asked if she thought people calling for a new inquiry were politicising the issue, she replied:

I would not attribute that to everyone, but I’ve certainly been very unhappy about the politicisation of child sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse in the way that many people, sometimes in a very uninformed way, have waded into the argument.

This sounded like a clear reference to Musk. But, asked if she thought “billionaires in America” knew what was happening in places like Oldham, Jay said she did not want to talk about individuals.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, holds a phone-in on LBC.

9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

9.30am: Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, holds a press conference at the Senedd in Cardiff.

10am: Vijay Rangarajan, chief executive at the Electoral Commission, and colleagues give evidence to the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee about the 2024 election.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

11.30am: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

2.30pm: Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary, gives evidene to the Commons housing committee.

2.30pm: Executives from McDonald’s, Tesco and the British Retail Consortium give evidence to the Commons business committee about the employment rights bill.

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