Keir Starmer has responded to the Robert Jenrick speech.Referring to Jenrick’s commitment to bringing back the two-child benefit cap in full (see 11.45am), Starmer said in a post on social media:Shameful.I’m incredibly proud that this government has scrapped the cruel two child limit.Reform wants to push hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

UPDATE: And, speaking to reporters in South Wales, Starmer said:This is shameful from Reform – a total disregard for the lives of young people,I hope that they absolutely never get to be in power, because this is an indication of the sort of Britain that they want to see, a Britain which plumbs its children back into poverty,I do not think that’s what this country needs and I don’t think it’s what this country deserves,Reform UK would restore the two-child benefit cap in full, Robert Jenrick has announced, in a major U-turn for the party that critics said would plunge hundreds of thousands of children into poverty,Ministers are considering a slower rise in the minimum wage for younger workers, amid fears over rising youth unemployment.

UK inflation tumbled to 3% in January, giving a boost to hopes of an early cut in interest rates by the Bank of England.Labour figures in the county with the highest number of reinstated council elections, following the government’s recent U-turn, have said they fear the party will be “annihilated” when voters go to the polls in May.Reform UK has been criticised for withdrawing all Lancashire libraries from a scheme supporting refugees because it was not value for money – despite being free.For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, said today that in goverment he would strip the Bank of England of the obligations that it has relating to net zero.

The bank is not in charge of advising on whether net zero targets will be met.But it is required to assess how climate-related risks could affect financial stability, and to take climate risks into account when setting interest rates.The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a thinktank, says Jenrick should think again.Christian Jaccarini, an analyst at the ECIU, said:Climate change is already having significant impacts on the British economy and cost of living with foods liked beef and coffee impacted by climate extremes responsible for around 40% of UK food price inflation.The Bank of England has an important role to play in managing the inflationary pressures and financial risks created by climate change, and removing these functions would risk their ability to limit climate impacts on the cost of living and prevent future financial crises.

This is from Luke Tryl, the More in Common pollster, on the YouGov research on tactical voting.Some reflections:- Most obviously tactical voting is going to really matter as is the information environment.- Tactical paralysis could become a real thing.Reform’s 30% (ish) will be enough if left remains split, but not otherwise- The right bloc is less willing to switch between itself than the left.- Whoever becomes ‘stop reform’ party on left stands to benefit a lot (why Gorton matters so much)- Tories best pitch maybe tactical voting will block reform if you want labour out we’ve got a *better* shot.

- Liberal Democrat voters are highly transactional, less of a glue than other parties.Progressive voters are more likely to engage in tactical voting than rightwing voters, according to YouGov polling that tested how different groups of voters would vote in multiple hypothetical contests where their preferred party was not likely to win.And Reform UK supporters are particularly averse to tactical voting, the research suggests.Plaid Cymru was not impressed by the government’s announcement about rail investment for Wales today.(See 11.

50am and 11.53am.) Liz Saville Roberts, its leader at Westminster, said:Today’s announcement will feel like déjà vu to many people in Wales.These stations were already announced in last year’s Spending Review, with funding spread over a decade.Reheating old promises is not the generational transformation Wales was promised.

While investment in any part of our rail network is welcome, large parts of western and rural Wales remain overlooked, with slow and infrequent services and poor north-to-south connectivity continuing to hold communities back,Wales has been systematically short-changed on rail for decades, not least through the misclassification of HS2, which has deprived us of billions of pounds in consequential funding,Without correcting that injustice and devolving rail infrastructure powers in full, Wales will continue to be reliant on short-term funding cycles and overhyped announcements from Westminster,Keir Starmer has said that Labour remains committed to its manifesto pledge to get rid of the lower, youth rate for the minimum wage,The Times today says ministers are looking at dropping this pledge because of its potential impact on youth unemployment.

(See 9,14am,) As Jessica Elgot and Tom Knowles report in our story, ministers are not minded to drop the commitment for good, but they are considering slowing the pace at which the lower rate gets equalised with the full, adult rate,Asked about the story during his visit to South Wales today, Starmer said:We’ve made commitments to young people in our manifesto, and we will keep to those commitments, including the commitment that we would make sure that the living wage would go up this April, which I can absolutely confirm to you will happen,Starmer did not comment on when equalisation would happen.

In its manifesto, Labour said:Labour will also remove the discriminatory age bands, so all adults are entitled to the same minimum wage, delivering a pay rise to hundreds of thousands of workers across the UK.Labour figures in the county with the highest number of reinstated council elections, following the government’s recent U-turn, have said they fear the party will be “annihilated” when voters go to the polls in May, Hannah Al-Othman, Josh Halliday and Jessica Murray report.Robert Jenrick’s first speech as Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson was more substantial than the usual Reform UK press conference speech.Some of it has been covered here already but, for the record, here is a fuller summary.The full text has been sent out to journalists, but it does not seem to be available on the party’s website yet.

Jenrick said that Britain is in economic decline and a “30-year-long eonomic consensus” is to blame.He said:For too many people right now, those same opportunities are fading.Victims of a 30-year-long economic consensus which has failed …… and mismanagement by a Westminster class who bet that because Britain was a rich and powerful country, it always would be.They were wrong.In 1997, our people’s living standards were closing the gap with America.

Today, incomes are closer to Romania’s than the US.There is nothing particularly new about this observation; Rishi Sunak also claimed that the UK had been led down by a failed, 30-year “status quo”.There are plenty of serious theories as to what went wrong, but Jenrick did not reference them in his speech.He just blamed high debt, high taxes and net zero.Jenrick said Reform UK would respect the bond markets, because the risk of not being able to borrow forced governments to act responsibly.

Now … Andy Burnham recently said the government shouldn’t be in hock to the bond markets and should ignore this flashing red light,I say the opposite,If you need to borrow money to fund your spending, then you need to convince the lender you have the wherewithal to repay it,I say the bond markets force the government to face up to trade offs,Reform respects and welcomes that.

Jenrick pitched this as a dig at Burnham, but in some ways it was also aimed at Nigel Farage; ditching Farage’s threat to abolish the OBR (see 10.34am) is also about respecting the bond markets.Jenrick claimed Reform UK already has plans to get £25bn by cutting benefits and overseas aids, with savings of another £5bn from civil service cuts.Reform will make £25bn in annual savings through measures including ending universal credit for foreign nationals, raising the Immigration Health Surcharge and capping foreign aid at £1bn.Because under a Reform government, the interests of the British people will always come first.

Additionally, Danny Kruger’s plan to streamline the civil service will generate £4bn in immediate savings from averted salary costs, plus £1bn in averted pension liabilities for future taxpayers.Jenrick gave some detail of the proposed benefit cuts.See 11.45am.He said Reform UK would reform the Office for Budget Responsibility, but not abolish it.

(See 10.34am.)He said Reform UK would hire ‘“superforecasters” to help the OBR predict the impact of Treasury decisions.This sounds like a Dominic Cummings wheeze.He claimed Reform UK could revive the economy with stability, tax cuts and deregulation.

On deregulation, he said:A Reform government will leave you to run your business and to innovate.Rather than forcing the lanyard class to run it for you.They do not understand innovation and only stymie it.That means no more mandates for HR or judges setting wages.It means a return to meritocracy and the pursuit of excellence - so no more diversity targets on company boards.

We will scrap red tape, and take every effort to make life easier, no matter how small, from allowing shops to open late to allowing cafes and bars to offer outdoor seating without endless form-filling for officialdom.He also called for more planning reform, saying his party would legislate for a third runway at Heathrow if it is not being built at the time of the next election.Jenrick said that he agreed with the “subordination” argument that Mark Carney made in his speech at Davos about the rupture in the world order.Last month, the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, argued that globalisation had been weaponised by larger powers, becoming a source of weakness for dependent countries.One line stuck out to me.

He said “You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination,”We agree,Yes, free trade with our friends and allies is advantageous,But we must respond robustly when our rivals consistently cheat the system and leverage dependencies to our disadvantage,A government led by Nigel Farage will never display the weakness Keir Starmer has towards China.

Jenrick ignored the fact that, in his speech, Carney was talking as much, or more, about the US as about China when he made this point,As for whether Farage would “never display weakness” towards Trump, on this Jenrick was silent,As Jessica Elgot points out (see 3,20pm), overall this was a very Tory speech,This was even apparent in Jenrick’s references.

At various points, he quoted approvingly Disraeli, Peel and Rab Butler.He said Peel was “his inspiration”, describing him as the “architect of the Victorian age of stability and prosperity”.But Peel was also the prime minister who split the Conservative party for a generation (over repealing the Corn laws – the 19th century equivalent of joining the EU customs union, which wasn’t a Faragist cause).A similar split is already under way.In the late 1910s and early 1920s, after the Liberal party split, people would talk about the Lloyd George Liberals and the Asquith Liberals.

Jenrick’s speech took us one step closer to the world where it makes sense to talk about Badenoch Tories and Farage Tories.Although Reform UK had mostly dropped its plan to lift the two-child benefit cap before Robert Jenrick became its Treasury spokesperson (see 2pm), it was only today that the party committed to restoring it in full.This is also the Conservative policy, and Anna Turley, the Labour chair, has “united the right” on this issue.In a statement, she said:Robert Jenrick has united the right behind a cruel child poverty pact that would see nearly half a million kids pushed into poverty.Farage’s party is stuffed full of former failed Tories who are now hell bent on continuing their damaging legacy, with working people and their children set to pay the price.

Labour chooses the other road – lifting almost half a million kids out of child poverty – and that’s what we’re doing this year.It’s the right thing to do for them, their families and our economy.It’s appalling that Reform and the Tories would undo that change and leave a lost generation of kids in every corner of Britain.These are from my colleague Jessica Elgot on Robert Jenrick’s speech this morning.Robert Jenrick announces Reform UK will keep the OBR and Bank of England independence, with an emphasis on fiscal discipline, signified by restoring the two child benefit cap.

The speech is essentially the same as every Tory chancellor’s conference speech in the last 10 years,Feels like we are going to watch the Tory-fication of Reform over the next couple of years as an effort to reassure middle England voters, especially working people,But will lead to some inevitable tensions,,