Keir Starmer has described the compromise welfare bill proposals announced overnight as “common sense” and as striking “the right balance”.Speaking to reporters on a visit, he said:It’s very important that we reform the welfare system, because it doesn’t work and it traps people, and therefore we’re going to press ahead with the reforms.And the principles are if you can work, you should work.If you need help getting into work, you should have that help and support.But if you can’t work or there’s no prospect of work, then you must be protected.

We need to get it right.That’s why we’ve been talking to colleagues and having a constructive discussion.We’ve now arrived at a package that delivers on the principles with some adjustments, and that’s the right reform, and I’m really pleased now that we’re able to take this forward …For me, getting that package adjusted in that way is the right thing to do.It makes the right balance.It’s common sense and we can now get on with it.

The claim that the current system “traps people” on benefits infuriates some campaigners because Pip (the personal independence payment) is paid to people who have extra costs because they have to cope with a disability and it does not just go to people out of work.Some Pip claimants are working.Starmer, though, believes Pip incentivises people not to find work.Asked how the government would pay for the concessions, which will cost about £3bn a year, Starmer replied:The funding will be set out in the budget in the usual way, as you’d expect later in the year.Keir Starmer still faces a four-day battle to persuade Labour MPs to back his UC and Pip bill after the £3bn-a-year concessions announced overnight failed to fully quell the backbencher rebellion over the issue.

Although Meg Hillier, who tabled the reasoned amendment that would kill the bill, has welcomed the U-turn, many MPs remain unconvinced,At least 50 MPs are still determined to oppose the bill, the Labour MP Cat Eccles told the World at One,(See 2pm,) Disability rights campaigners have also urged MPs to continue opposing the bill,(See 1.

03pm.)Rachel Reeves is expected to extend a freeze on income tax thresholds to raise fresh funds after the government’s U-turn on welfare cuts left her with a growing budget hole.Keir Starmer has said he “deeply regrets” a speech in which he described the UK as being in danger of becoming an island of strangers without tough curbs on immigration.The family of Alaa Abd el-Fattah have expressed cautious optimism that progress is being made to secure the British-Egyptian dissident’s release from jail in Cairo after Keir Starmer managed to secure a long-delayed phone call with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, in which the two leaders discussed improving UK-Egypt trade relations.Here are comments from two more Labour MPs who say they remain opposed to the welfare bill, despite the concessions announced by Keir Starmer.

These are from Bell Ribeiro-Addy,These proposed concessions to the Welfare Bill don’t go far enough,No consultation with disabled peopleNo government impact assessmentNo OBR analysisNo publication of PIP or Mayfield ReviewThe Reasoned Amendment was clear,Disabled people are being ignored,A two-tier welfare system is not a concession, it’s discrimination.

Even with new proposals, this £3bn cut will deepen poverty and hardship for disabled people.No tweaks can justify this assault on welfare.MPs are being asked to vote on billions in cuts, based on a last-minute new draft or verbal promises.The Govt plans to cram the rest of the Bill into 1 day.No real scrutiny or consultation.

The debate around this Bill has become too toxic.It should simply be scrapped.And this is from Simon Opher.The government has shifted their position on the welfare reform bill, which is welcome.I’m glad they are listening.

It could go some way to help disabled people stay in the jobs they have, and helps take the pressure of those who were most anxious about the potential impact of the reforms on their lives.However, legislating inequality into our benefits system is not the way to solve this.It will condemn younger disabled people, and those yet to become disabled, to lives of worsening health and needless hardship.The support that disabled people receive is, at best, limited.The ‘concessions’ look more like an attempt to sort a political problem, rather than a serious review of how best to support disabled people and those with long term health issues in their lives and at work.

The support you get should depend on need, not when you applied for it.The changes do not tackle the eligibility issues that are at the heart of many of the problems with PIP.The bill should be scrapped and we should start again and put the needs of disabled people at the centre of the process.Amanda Akass from Sky News says Labour MPs planning to rebel on the welfare bill next week have set up their own WhatsApp group.She said it already has 50 members.

One rebel tells me a 50 strong Whatsapp group has already been created for Labour MPs who are still planning to vote against the welfare bill - “so it’s perfectly plausible we’ll get back to bill killing numbers over the weekend” @SkyNewsIn January there was a controversy when a government minister seemed to rule out the UK joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (PEM), a Europe-wide customs arrangement.The minister may have been influenced by reporting that described the little-known arrangement as a customs union, when it’s not.(Its actually a deal relating to how cumulation is enforced when rules of origin regulations apply to imports.) Pro-Europeans found it depressing that the government seemed petrified of something technical and benign just because it might alarm the Brexiters.Eventually No 10 said the idea was not being ruled out.

Now, as Politico reports, the government has said it is going to actively consider joining.Tom Baldwin, Ed Miliband’s communications chief when Miliband was Labour leader, has a good claim to be the writer who best “gets” Keir Starmer.He got good access to the PM for the biography he published last year and his new interview for the Observer is definitely worth a read.The main news line is probably what Starmer said about his “island of strangers” comment in an immigration speech earlier this year being a mistake.(See 12.

40pm.) Starmer hinted at this in an interview with the New Statesman’s Tom McTague recently, but Baldwin got him to admit that it was a big error.Starmer said he was distracted by the arson attack on his home that had just happened, and that as a result he should have “held [the speech] up to the light a bit more” before he delivered it.Starmer also told Baldwin that there were “problems with the language” in his foreword to the immigration white paper published the same day.In the document Starmer said the damage done to the UK by net migration soaring under the Tories had been “incalculable”.

(The document reads as if what he was trying to say was that it was just the damage done to political trust by high migration that was incalculable, but that is not what he said; in the Observer, Starmer does not elaborate on what exactly the “problems” were.)When Sky’s Beth Rigby asked Starmer recently what his biggest mistake was in his first year in office, all she got was the admission that he should have communicated what he was doing better.Speaking to Baldwin, Starmer was forthcoming about other errors too.Starmer said that what became known as his “things can only get worse” speech in Downing Street last summer was a mistake.It “squeezed the hope out”, Starmer said.

“We were so determined to show how bad it was that we forgot people wanted something to look forward to as well,”He said he was to blame to appointing Sue Gray as chief of staff,He said:Not everyone thought it was a good idea when I appointed her,It was my call, my judgment, my decision, and I got that wrong,Sue wasn’t the right person for this job.

He said his response to the controversy about accepting clothes donations was not as good as it might have been because his wife was implicated, and he was angry about how she was being attacked.This clouded his judgment, he suggested.Part of the problem is that I got emotionally involved.One thing I’m reasonably good at usually is staying calm.But when they dragged Vic into it through no fault of her own, that made me angry.

There was another interesting line about Reform UK,Starmer defended treating Reform UK, not the Tories, as the main opposition, saying Labour needed to start fighting Nigel Farage’s party now,He said:If we’re going to have a battle with Reform – a battle for the heart and soul of the country – we’re better off having it now,If we’re to win that battle, we have to be the progressives fighting against the populists of Reform – yes, Labour has to be a progressive political party,For many people, though, the most memorable passage may be where Baldwin describes Starmer going to Leeds after his brother died on Boxing Day last year to clear out his house.

Starmer had always been protective of his brother, who had learning difficulties, and this was a job he did not want to delegate to anyone else.Baldwin writes:Starmer asked his armed police bodyguards to wait behind and opened the glass-fronted door.Once inside, he filled black bin liners with rotten food from the fridge and dirty clothes from the floor.Then the prime minister got to work cleaning the bathroom and toilet …Couldn’t he just have got cleaners to sort the house out?“No,” he says, “I didn’t want anyone else there.He was my brother – I didn’t want to let him down.

”Nick “hadn’t kept the place very clean”, explains Starmer, suddenly gulping for words before describing how “I was putting what he’d left of his life in a bag”.The prime minister forces himself back into his more familiar and less expressive form before continuing.“But – but – there you go, I suppose.”Keir Starmer has described the compromise welfare bill proposals announced overnight as “common sense” and as striking “the right balance”.Speaking to reporters on a visit, he said:It’s very important that we reform the welfare system, because it doesn’t work and it traps people, and therefore we’re going to press ahead with the reforms.

And the principles are if you can work, you should work.If you need help getting into work, you should have that help and support.But if you can’t work or there’s no prospect of work, then you must be protected.We need to get it right.That’s why we’ve been talking to colleagues and having a constructive discussion.

We’ve now arrived at a package that delivers on the principles with some adjustments, and that’s the right reform, and I’m really pleased now that we’re able to take this forward …For me, getting that package adjusted in that way is the right thing to do.It makes the right balance.It’s common sense and we can now get on with it.The claim that the current system “traps people” on benefits infuriates some campaigners because Pip (the personal independence payment) is paid to people who have extra costs because they have to cope with a disability and it does not just go to people out of work.Some Pip claimants are working.

Starmer, though, believes Pip incentivises people not to find work.Asked how the government would pay for the concessions, which will cost about £3bn a year, Starmer replied:The funding will be set out in the budget in the usual way, as you’d expect later in the year.Geneva Abdul is a Guardian reporter.The UK’s exemption of F-35 components from suspended arms exports to Israel may be incompatible with international law, the chair of the international development committee has warned.In a letter to business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, committee chair Sarah Champion raised questions over the government’s contentious decision to exempt parts for F-35 jets to Israel, and whether the carve out decided in September 2024 is compatible with the Arms Trade Treaty, the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions.

The letter comes after MPs, lawyers and human rights organisations have for months argued against the continued exports which they describe as a serious violation of humanitarian law.In September, the government suspended 30 arms export licenses, but carved out the supply of components for F-35 jets, warning an embargo could disrupt the global programme and Nato’s peace and security.The UK government, which faces court action over the decision, has justified the continued export of components on reasons of international peace and security.The government has also acknowledged, in court documents, that the supply of F-35 components for potential use in Israel is in breach of its own arms export control laws.Britain supplies 15% of the value of the F-35 jet, mainly through BAE systems.

Champion said in her letter:If there is the ‘potential’ for an ‘overriding’ risk of serious violations of IHL/IHRL [international humanitarian law/international human rights law], then the UK must not authorise the export.In circumstances where there are prolonged blockades of humanitarian aid including food, water and medicine, as well as evidence indicating the mistreatment of detainees by Israel, there are clearly risks of serious violations of the right to life, health, food security, and the prohibitions on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and torture.The clear risks of serious IHL and IHRL violations are undisputable.Concerns from the international development committee come days after the UK announced the expansion of its nuclear deterrent by buying 12 F-35A jets, which are capable of carrying conventional munitions and also the US B61-12 gravity bomb.The letter also asks the government several questions including whether the government accepts it has knowledge that Israel is committing internationally wrongful acts and that the export of F-35 components is aiding or assisting these wrongful acts