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Key events
Asylum overhaul in UK could lead to rise in homelessness and backlogs, says report
Shabana Mahmood’s radical plans to overhaul the asylum system could cause “unintended consequences” such as increased homelessness among people seeking refuge and growing case backlogs, Whitehall’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has concluded. Rajeev Syal has the story.
Here is the NAO’s report. And here is its eight-page summary.
Rachel Reeves faces Treasury committee before Tory censure motion in Commons saying she misled voters about budget
Good morning. It is PMQs today, but Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is also facing intense scrutiny in the Commons today. She is giving evidence to the Treasury committee at 10am and then, from about 4pm, she will face a rare censure motion in the Commons.
Anyone who listens to Commons debates regularly will have heard an MP accuse another member of “misleading” people, only for the speaker to intervene to say they must have meant “intentionally misleading”. Under rules intended to maintain decorum in debates, MPs are not allowed to accuse each other of lying, or anything similar. But there is an exception if whether or not a particular MP has lied is the actual subject of the debate.
And that is what is happening today. It is an opposition day, meaning the Conservative party can decide the motions to be debated, and it has tabled a censure motion urging Reeves “to apologise for misleading the country about the state of the public finances, rolling the pitch for raising taxes, breaking her promises and increasing welfare spending”. There is no chance of the motion passing, but it does mean that for about three hours in the Commons in it will be open season on the chancellor.
Commenting on the motion, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said:
Rachel Reeves has repeatedly misled the British public. She promised she wouldn’t raise taxes on working people – and then she did. She insisted there was a black hole in the public finances – and there wasn’t.
Rachel Reeves has put party before country, so today the Conservatives are giving MPs the chance to formally censure the Chancellor and call on her to apologise to families across the country.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The ONS publishes annual life expectancy figures.
Morning: David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary, and Lord Hermer, the attorney general, attend a Council of Europe summit in Strasbourg to discuss migration and the European convention on human rights.
10am: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the budget.
Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
After 12.30pm: MPs debate two Tory opposition days motions: first, one criticising the employment rights bill, and accusing the government of “making seasonal, flexible and part-time work more difficult”; and then another urging Reeves “to apologise for misleading the country about the state of the public finances, rolling the pitch for raising taxes, breaking her promises and increasing welfare spending”.
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