Reeves’s pledge to save firms £6bn by cutting red tape dismissed as not ‘remotely serious’ by Tories – UK politics live

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Peter Kyle, the business secretary, has been giving interviews this morning. When it was put to him on LBC that today’s borrowing figures implied Britain was going bankrupt, he replied:

No, because when you look at the debt to GDP ratio, we are stable as this country, and we are doing what it takes to invest our way out of the of the challenge that we have inherited from the from the Tory government.

Bear in mind that when we came into office, we inherited a growth emergency. We had no growth, high taxation, low growth or no growth, and we have to break out of that cycle. What Rachel Reeves has done is restored stability to our economy.

Starmer joins other European leader in statement of solidarity with Ukraine ahead of Trump/Putin talks

Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leaders from across Europe have said the current front line in Ukraine “should be the starting point of negotiations” for a peace deal, PA Media reports.

The leaders – including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and European commission chief Ursula von der Leyen – said: “We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.”

The joint statement follows reports that US President Donald Trump had tossed aside maps of the front line in Ukraine and suggested Mr Zelensky surrender the entire eastern Donbas region to Vladimir Putin during tense White House exchanges last week, PA reports

In the statement, the leaders of Ukraine, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, the European Commission and European Council, said:

We are all united in our desire for a just and lasting peace, deserved by the people of Ukraine.

We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.

We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.

Trump is expected to meet Russian leader Putin in the coming weeks for talks on ending the war.

Reeves’s pledge to save firms £6bn by cutting red tape dismissed as not ‘remotely serious’ by Tories

Good morning. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, and Peter Kyle, the business secretary, are today addressing 350 business leaders and mayors at a regional investment summit in Birmingham. The event is a relatively big deal – Keir Starmer held cabinet a day earlier than usual to avoid a diary clash – and the Treasury claims that it is tied to £10bn in private sector investment being “committed to regions across the UK, alongside public investment, in onshore and offshore wind projects”.

As Richard Partington reports, Reeves is announcing plans to cut administration (“red tape”) for business which she claims will save firms £6bn a year by the end of this parliament.

And Kyle is announcing the next stage of the government’s initiative to get regulators to give greater priority to promoting growth. He said:

By stripping back unnecessary rules and pointless paperwork we will free business to grow while ensuring vital protections are enforced. Creating a stronger growth a duty for regulators is a key part of this while greater transparency will ensure that they can be held to account.

But the summit is taken place as the overall economic outlook continues to look gloomy. Government borrowing figures out this morning show that the government borrowed £20bn in September – the highest September figures since 2020, when the government was grappling with Covid. Graeme Wearden has more on his business live blog.

Almost every government at some point announces a “blitz on red tape” and the opposition parties are not impressed by Reeves’ announcement today. Andrew Griffith, her Tory shadow, said:

It is just embarrassing when this government talks about cutting red tape whilst simultaneously imposing an extra 120,000 words of new employment and union rules and layering on green energy levies which are crippling British business. If they were remotely serious that is where they should start.

Unlike the Conservatives who have many experienced business people in their shadow cabinet, not a single person in the Labour cabinet has ever run a business - and it shows.

And Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson, said:

If the chancellor was serious about cutting red tape she would tackle the mind-blowing two billion extra pieces of business paperwork created by Brexit by pursuing an ambitious tailor-made UK-EU customs union.

On its own, simply cutting unnecessary paperwork rules will do precious little to buck the trend of shops shutting and jobs taking a hit.

According to Politico’s London Playbook briefing, Reeves is expected to mention Brexit in her speech as one of the reasons why the economy is performing poorly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Boris Johnson, the former PM, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry as part of its module looking at the impact of the pandemic on children and young people. Martin Belam is covering that on a separate live blog.

10am: Peter Kyle, the business secretary, and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, speak at the regional investment summit. There is a live feed here.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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

After 12.30pm: MPs debate amendments to the sentencing bill.

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