Leading Labour rebel backs welfare bill amid sustained defiance
Downing Street has “listened” and “honoured” the promises it made on changes to the welfare bill, one of the key rebels, Meg Hillier, has said, saying she would vote for the bill on Tuesday,The Treasury select committee chair, who authored the original amendment that would have killed off the government’s flagship welfare changes, offered her support amid a continued backlash over the bill from dozens of MPs,Hillier suggested she disagreed with the work and pensions select committee chair, Debbie Abrahams, who said on Monday that the government had not held up its side of the bargain over the timing of a promised review into disability benefits, co-produced with disabled people,“I’ve not always been happy about how No 10 has engaged with MPs in general, but on this they acted in good faith: listened, made an offer and honoured it,” Hillier said, confirming she would vote for the bill,She said the key concession that had been secured was that no current claimant would be affected by the changes to universal credit and personal independence payments (Pip).
“The key issue is that over 300,000 disabled people have ongoing support and are less worried about their future.That’s good for them and the right thing to do,” she said.Hillier will not proceed with her amendment, which was signed by 126 Labour MPs before the government was forced to back down.A second amendment rejecting the bill has been put forward by another Labour MP, Rachael Maskell, written with the backing of 138 disability groups.The amendment has been signed by 39 Labour MPs with dozens more expected to abstain.
The rebellion is likely to fall short of the 83 that would be needed to defeat the government, though about 50 MPs are still expected to vote against the bill.Maskell said the number signing the amendment would be smaller than those voting against.“I engaged with so many people yesterday that were saying: ‘I’m not signing the recent amendment but I am voting down the bill,’” she told BBC Breakfast.On Monday, 86 disability and human rights groups put out a joint statement urging MPs to vote down the bill despite the protections for existing claimants, including Scope, Mind, the Trussell Trust, Sense, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Oxfam.The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said on Tuesday it was right to start moving on the overhauls rather than wait for the review.
“I think making sure that you are doing changes that are future-facing, not changing people’s existing entitlement, is quite a sound set of principles,” he told Sky News.“There’s an urgency for reform.If people think governments will dodge difficult issues, spend a lot of money even on outcomes they don’t think are very good and the public don’t support, and if that chance to reform the system is seen to have been lost entirely, that undermines public support.”Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionAlongside the promise that the changes would only apply to new claimants, the government promised a review led by the welfare minister, Stephen Timms, as a co-production with disability groups into the criteria used to assess people for Pip.But the terms of reference from the review made clear that there would still be a higher bar for obtaining Pip – new claimants would need a high score of four in at least one of the categories for assessment in order to qualify.
However, the review will look again at what abilities and conditions might meet certain scores,Abrahams said the terms of the review meant it was impossibly constrained, and on that basis she would vote against the bill,The timing of the review is also a cause for concern,It will report in autumn 2026 – the same time that the Pip changes are scheduled to take effect – which MPs said risked a “three-tier” system, which would include claimants assessed pre- and post-Timms review,Ministers are understood to have stressed to MPs that the review could report sooner – but the timing was in the hands of the disability groups involved in the review.
Speaking in the chamber on Monday, a number of other MPs who had signed an amendment opposing the bill also said they remained concerned, including Vicky Foxcroft, Sarah Owen, Marie Tidball, Yuan Yang, Derek Twigg and Chi Onwurah.
AstraZeneca boss ‘wants to shift stock market listing to US’
AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has reportedly said that he would like to shift the company’s stock market listing from the UK to the US.The boss of Britain’s most valuable listed company has spoken privately about a preference to move the listing to New York, the Times reported. It added that he had also considered moving the company’s domicile.The FTSE 100 company’s share price rose by 2.8% on Tuesday, with most of the increase happening after the story was published
Macquarie digs deeper for redemption at Southern Water. There was no alternative | Nils Pratley
Many took the view in 2021 that Macquarie should have been run out of town, rather than be allowed to own another English water company.The giant Australian financial outfit’s former outing, remember, was at Thames Water from 2006 to 2017, which was when the absurd games of financial leverage began at the UK’s biggest water company. The then-chair of Ofwat later told MPs he asked himself the question “What do we do here, with that reputation?” when Macquarie made the best financial offer to rescue Southern Water.The deal was done eventually with Ofwat’s blessing. Macquarie-managed funds injected £1bn to take control and its infrastructure boss declared in an open letter that the firm would be “a responsible long-term steward of Southern Water and believes it can help the company deliver the transformation it requires”
Whitehall’s ambition to cut costs using AI is fraught with risk
A Dragons’ Den-style event this week, where tech companies will have 20 minutes to pitch ideas for increasing automation in the British justice system, is one of numerous examples of how the cash-strapped Labour government hopes artificial intelligence and data science can save money and improve public services.Amid warnings from critics that Downing Street has been “drinking the Kool-Aid” on AI, the Department of Health and Social Care this week announced an AI early warning system to detect dangerous maternity services after a series of scandals, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he wants one in eight operations to be conducted by a robot within a decade.AI is being used to prioritise actions on the 25,000 pieces of correspondence the Department for Work and Pensions receives each day and to detect potential fraud and error in benefit claims. Ministers even have access to an AI tool that is supposed to provide a “vibe check” on parliamentary opinion to help them weigh the political risks of policy proposals.Again and again, ministers are turning to technology to tackle acute crises that in the past might have been dealt with by employing more staff or investing more money
Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s sweeping spending bill
Elon Musk has vowed to unseat lawmakers who support Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, which he has criticized because it would increase the country’s deficit by $3.3tn.“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” he wrote on his social media platform, X.A few hours later he added that if the “insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day”.With these threats, lobbed at lawmakers over social media, the tech billionaire has launched himself back into a rift with the US president he helped prop up
England v India: second women’s T20 cricket international – as it happened
Raf Nicholson has filed her report from Bristol, so it’s time for us to shut up shop. It was more competitive than the first game but ultimately India were emphatic winners. Goodnight.Nat Sciver-Brunt’s verdictWe started really well by taking three wickets in the Powerplay. There was a big partnership after that and we probably didn’t adapt as quickly as we’d like
Coco Gauff knocked out of Wimbledon in first round by nerveless Dayana Yastremska
“Yeah, this definitely sucks,” said a tearful Coco Gauff. She was trying, and struggling, to put her finger on why she had become the most high profile casualty of a typically consequential first round at Wimbledon. “I don’t know, I just feel a little bit disappointed in how I showed up today.”The question before the tournament was whether Gauff could cement her standing at the top of the game by adding Wimbledon to this year’s French Open title for a “Channel Slam”. The answer turned out to be a rather decisive “no”
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