UK News

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 has concluded. The head of the National Audit Office said that the home secretary’s policies, which are meant to accelerate case decisions and reduce appeals, would require “effective action on the bottlenecks” ...

Angela Rayner has told MPs “now is not the time to blink or buckle” as she pushed for Labour’s flagship Employment Rights Bill to finish its passage through Parliament. The former deputy prime minister was speaking in the Commons on Monday for the first time since the government abandoned its pledge in the bill to give workers protection against unfair ...

European leaders have said there is more work to be done to obtain security guarantees for Ukraine as pressure mounts from Washington on Kyiv to reach a peace deal with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz in London on Monday to discuss the latest version of a peace ...

The formerly Conservative-supporting boss of the supermarket Iceland is to be made a Labour peer when the party appoints another 25 representatives to parliament’s upper house later this month. Keir Starmer will appoint Richard Walker to the House of Lords, the Guardian understands, the culmination of an unusual and rapid political transformation for someone named as a prospective Tory MP ...

Zarah Sultana, who co-founded Your Party with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over the summer, said “there has to be conversations around electoral alliances” as she suggested this could help stop Nigel Farage, the Reform UK party leader, from becoming prime minister at the next general election. Young people on benefits will be offered job opportunities in construction and hospitality ...

Sir Keir Starmer has hit back at criticism from several backbench Labour Members of the Senedd (MSs) by saying he’s a “big believer in devolution”. On a visit to Ely in Cardiff on Friday, the prime minister denied claims made in a letter that he was rolling back devolution by bypassing ministers in the Senedd to make decisions for Wales. ...

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is backing an inquiry into pre-Budget leaks from the Treasury which knocked business and consumer confidence and moved markets. The chief secretary to the Treasury told the Commons on Wednesday an inquiry into pre-Budget leaks was under way, led by top Treasury civil servant James Bowler and had “the full support of the chancellor”. Policies such as ...

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will give his backing to the chancellor’s Budget in a speech on Monday, and commit the government to going “further and faster” on pro-growth measures. He will say Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s statement will help to alleviate cost of living pressures, lower inflation and ensure economic stability. It comes as the Treasury faces questions over whether ...

Zarah Sultana has accused leading figures in the new party she is founding with Jeremy Corbyn of carrying out a “witch hunt” to purge left-wing activists. Sultana boycotted the first day of the founding conference of the project, currently operating under the name Your Party, after several members who also belonged to the Socialist Workers Party were expelled. Party officials ...

Asylum seekers will be banned from taking taxis to medical appointments after it was revealed the Home Office spends about £15.8m a year on the service. From February they will have to use alternative transport such as buses, no matter how urgent their medical needs. The government, however, has so far rejected pleas to give asylum seekers free access to ...