YouGov has released some new polling from Scotland, in a thread on X starting here.

The polling, which was carried out before Humza Yousaf resigned, also found that by a margin of more than two to one, Scottish voters wanted MSPs to vote to remove him in the no confidence debate being planned. Some 55% of all Scots, and 40% of people who voted SNP in 2019, wanted him out, the poll suggests.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, has said he is “reassured” over proposed Irish legislation on returning asylum seekers from Ireland to the UK, PA Media reports. PA says:

The Irish justice minister Helen McEntee is to bring a proposal to cabinet on Tuesday around “returning” asylum seekers who had arrived in Ireland from the UK.

Ireland’s deputy premier Micheál Martin said he had briefed British officials at the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London today.

He moved to assure them that the legislation would deal with the repercussions of a decision by Ireland’s high court, which found that the basis for designating the UK a “safe country” for asylum purposes was contrary to EU law.

Martin said that the decision related to an agreement on “returning” asylum seekers to the UK – and vice versa – that was struck between the two governments after Brexit.

“So basically, it is restoring the situation to where it was before the high court case of last March. That’s, in essence, what has been proposed,” Martin said at a joint press event in London with Heaton-Harris.

Heaton-Harris said: “If this legislation is, as I believe it is and I’ve been assured it is, just setting us back in time to where we were and what we were dealing with, then I’m comfortable with that. But we are fully behind implementing our Rwanda scheme.”

The two governments have been involved in a row over a reported increase in recent months in the number of people applying for asylum in Ireland who had crossed the Northern Ireland border.

Martin said that Ireland’s attorney general had advised that legislation would be needed “to create a proper statutory basis for an agreement that we earlier had”.

Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Wesminster, has told the News Agents podcast that John Swinney is the only candidate to replace Humz Yousaf “with the experience to do the job and unite the party”.

“There’s only one person with the experience to do the job and unite the party - I would encourage John Swinney to stand.”

SNP’s Westminster leader @StephenFlynnSNP rules himself out as First Minister Humza Yousaf’s replacement

MPs have just started debate on an e-petition signed by more than 200,000 people saying parliament should legislate to allow assisted dying. The petition says: “Terminally ill people who are mentally sound and near the end of their lives should not suffer unbearably against their will.”

The debate will not have any practical impact. It is taking place in Westminster Hall, and MPs are not debating legislation, or even a substantive motion. If there is a vote, it will only be on whether or not MPs have debated the petition. (Sometimes MPs push for a no vote, on the grounds that that is a means of registering opposition.)

But the debate, which could run for three hours, will allow MPs with strong feelings on the topic to say what they think, and it may give some indication as to whether or not there is a majority in the Commons for change. When the Commons voted a proper assisted dying bill in 2015, MPs voted against by 330 votes to 118.

There is a live feed of the debate here.

Ahead of the debate, supporters and opponents of assisted dying staged rival demonstations outside parliament.

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, has said that, if John Swinney becomes the next SNP leader, he won’t represent change. Ross told Times Radio:

John Swinney served in Alex Salmond’s cabinet and Nicola Sturgeon’s cabinet and was one of the strongest supporters of Humza Yousaf. It will be absolute continuity again, with more focus on independence than improving public services that have suffered year after year …

John Swinney voted for all of these policies. He was deputy first minister when Nicola Sturgeon introduced her gender recognition reform bill. He also supported Humza Yousaf when he was justice secretary and introduced the Hate Crime Act. John Swinney has been at the heart of the SNP and nationalist governments since he was first elected in 2007. All of these policies that are rightly being challenged across Scotland have his hallmark all over them.

This is what John Swinney told Sky News about how he was actively considering standing to replace Humza Yousaf as first minister. (See 1.40pm.)

I’m giving very careful consideration to standing to be the leader of the SNP.

I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by the requests that have been made for me to do that, with many, many messages from many colleagues across the party. So I’m giving that issue very active consideration.

And it’s like they’ll have more to say about that in the days to come.

When it was put to him that it sounded as if he would be standing, Swinney replied:

I’m going to give it consideration. I’ve got lots of things to think about. There’s the whole question of my family and I have to make sure that I do the right thing by my family, they are are precious to me. I have to do the right thing by my party and by my country. So there’s lots to be thought about. And I’ll give all of that consideration in the days to come.

Alex Salmond, the Alba leader and former Scottish first minister, told Radio 4’s World at One that he thought Humza Yousaf wanted to do a deal with his party to win the proposd no confidence vote, but that he was blocked by colleagues in the SNP.

In his resignation statement Yousaf implied a deal with Alba would be against his principles. (See 12.33pm.)

But Salmond told the programme:

This idea that Humza Yusuf didn’t want to do a deal with Alba is simply untrue.

At 7.30 this morning he was trying to do a deal with Alba and complimented the proposals we’d made as very reasonable.

The reason he didn’t do a deal with Alba is there were forces within his own party who stopped them doing it. Let’s call them the old guard.

See, the ultimate problem for Humza is he wasn’t actually in control of his own party, which is why he wasn’t able to survive over the next week.

Salmond said Yousaf called Alba this morning at 7.30am and said that he was trying to carry on as first minister. Ash Regan, the Alba MSP, was waiting for a meeting with Yousaf, Salmond said.

John Swinney, who led the SNP between 2000 and 2004 (in a four-year gap in the 24-year period during which the party was otherwise led by Alex Salmond) and who served as deputy first minister under Nicola Sturgeon, has told Sky News he is “very actively’ onsidering standing for the leadership. This is from Connor Gillies from Sky News.

Ian Blackford, the former SNP leader at Westminster, has said that he would like to see John Swinney take over from Humza Yousaf. Blackford told the BBC:

[Swinney] certainly is an individual that I believe carries widespread respect in the party across the parliament, and indeed the country, a long experience. [He is] someone that has operated right through the period of the SNP being in government, of course, as deputy leader under Nicola Sturgeon.

If anyone has the qualities, the capabilities to lead us not just in the short term, but right through the electoral cycle, then John has these characteristics.

In terms of where we are here, and the leadership that we need to show, showing that we can win in the Scottish parliament, get our legislative programme through, fight the Westminster election and then go into the Scottish election in 2026, John is the man that, I think, has what it takes to lead us.

Humza Yousaf implied in his resignation statement that he was resigning because he was not willing to strike a deal with the Alba party that could have led to him winning the no confidence vote due later this week. (See 12.33pm.) Ash Regan, the only Alba MSP in the Scottish parliament, said it was odd that some in the SNP were so opposed to a party also committed to independence. She told Sky News:

The irony will not be lost on many that the event that has cost Humza Yousaf his job was removing the Greens from government- something most people in Scotland agreed with.

Alba party were willing to work in the best interests of Scotland to put independence back at the heart of government, protect the rights of women and girls, and to get the government back onto a competent footing.

The Greens were willing to vote with the Tories and bizarrely some forces in Humza Yousaf’s own party would rather see him resign than deal with a party who really want to advance independence.

However, a new SNP leader and a new first minister will not change parliamentary arithmetic. I continue to stand ready to work in the best interests of Scotland and to advance the cause of Scottish independence.

Regan’s comment overlooks the fact that there is reason why SNP MPs distrust Alba, and it has nothing, or almost nothing, to do with independence. It is because Alba is run by Alex Salmond, the former first minister who quit the SNP as a result of allegations that led to him going on trial accused of serious sexual offences. Salmond was acquitted of all charges. But he remained furious about how Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP government dealt with the allegations, and the feud led to acrimonious legal proceedings, some of which remain unresolved.

The Scottish Green party has indicated that it wants to continuing supporting an SNP government at Holyrood under a new leader committed to a “progressive” agenda. In a statement on Humza Yousaf’s resignation, Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Greens’ co-leader, said:

The Scottish Greens could no longer have confidence in Humza Yousaf after he chose to unilaterally end the Bute House Agreement …

Now though is the time to return to some stability.
The SNP is still the largest party in parliament by some distance, and has the right to form a minority government. The Scottish Greens have a long track record of working constructively from opposition and will do so with any first minister who shares our progressive values and who can secure our confidence.

This is what Humza Yousaf said in his resignation statement about why he quit.

Last week I stood here to announce the ending of the cooperation agreement between the SNP, and the Greens, the Bute House agreement, and that the SNP would seek to government as a minority government.

I made that decision as leader of the SNP because I believed ending the Bute House agreement was the right one for the party I lead, and I still do believe that to be the case. But most importantly, I believe it was the right decision for the country.

My hope was to continue working with the Greens in a less formal agreement as the SNP moved into a new phase of minority government.

Unfortunately, in ending the Bute House agreement in the manner that I did, I clearly underestimated the level of hurt and upset I caused Green colleagues.

For a minority government to be able to govern effectively and efficiently, trust when working with the opposition is clearly fundamental.

And while a route through this week’s motion of no confidence was absolutely possible, I am not willing to trade my values and principles, or do deals with whoever simply for retaining power.

Therefore, after spending the weekend reflecting on what is best for my party, for the government and for the country I lead, I’ve concluded that repairing our relationship across the political debate can only be done the someone else at the helm.

I have therefore informed the SNP’s national secretary of my intention to stand down as party leader and ask that she commences a leadership contest for my replacement as soon as possible.

Yousaf did not give details of how how might have been expected to trade his values or principles to win the no confidence vote this week. In a news conference on Friday, Yousaf said he was willing to compromise with opponents. But clearly the price being asked was too high. In an interview with the Sunday Times Alex Salmond, the Alba party leader, hinted that Yousaf might have to offer Alba an electoral pact to get the support of Ash Regan, the Alba MSP who held the swing vote in the confidence debate. The SNP said that proposal was unacceptable.

Humza Yousaf has arrived.

He thanks journalists for coming and says last week he was here to announce the ending of the Bute House agreement, the power-sharing deal with the SNP. He says he still thought that was the right decision, for his party and for the country.

He says he hoped to continue working with the Scottish Greens in a more informal.

But he under-estimated how much hurt that decision caused, he says.

He says, while a route to winning the no confidence motion was possible, he was not willing to compromise his principles.

(That implies he was not willing to offer Alba the concessions it was demanding for Ash Regan’s vote).

Yousaf says that is why he is resigning.

After spending the weekend reflecting on what is best for my party, for the government and for the country I lead, I’ve concluded that repairing our relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm.

I have therefore informed the SNP’s national secretary of my intention to stand down as party leader.

Keir Starmer has described the government’s plan to restrict the personal independence payment (Pip) as “slightly farcical”. While stressing his support for welfare reform schemes “that support people back into work”, the Labour leader told broadcasters.

The scheme they [the government] now say isn’t working is their scheme. They designed it and put it in place and now 14 years later they say it’s not working so there’s an element of farce to it but obviously we’ll look at the details when they come.

Starmer was reflecting a criticism being made by commentators on social media. This is from Paul Lewis, presenter of the BBC’s Money Box programme.

DLA was a straightforward benefit to help with inevitable extra costs of disability. Govt replaced it by PIP to save money. Instead record numbers now qualify for PIP. So Sec of State says many who do should work instead to cure their condition

And this is from Jonathan Portes, an economics professor.

PIP was introduced in 2014.

The Government said it was redesigning the PIP process to move away from a “one size fits all” approach..

.. in 2015.

Perhaps @MelJStride should spend less time tweeting and more on understanding why things went wrong.

Labour has stressed that the proposals being announced today are just a consultation (which means the party is under less pressure to say whether it is in favour or opposed). In interviews this morning Ellie Reeves, Labour’s deputy national campaign coordinator, said Labour wanted to incentivise disabled people to get a job, including by reforming access to work and by allowing people to try a job without immediately losing all their benefits.

Charities have criticised the proposals to restrict the personal independence payment (Pip), a disability benefit, being announced today. (See 10.33am.)

This is from Iain Porter, a senior policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

This is clearly an opportunity for the government to sound tough, but it is on the backs of people who are already facing huge challenges financially as well as with their health. The reality is that most people in receipt of Pip are unable to work, with more than a third of Pip recipients in workless households unable to keep their home warm and over 40% experienced food insecurity, worse levels than other workless households, in a benefits system this government designed.

Almost two thirds of people in destitution - the most severe form of hardship and one which has risen to nearly four million people in recent years - have a chronic health condition or disability. People in this position should not be used as a political football. Even if there is no prospect of these changes coming in ahead of the general election, this rhetoric leaves many facing an uncertain future compounded by misinformation and stigma.

Reform of disability benefits has been tried before and it has failed before. The government would do better to focus on tackling the causes of ill health affecting the population - such as deep poverty that means millions of people going without essentials needed to keep them warm, clean and fed.

And this is from James Taylor, executive director of strategy at Scope, a charity supporting disabled people.

It’s hard to have any faith that this consultation is about anything other than cutting the benefits bill, no matter the impact.

Life costs a lot more for disabled people, including people with mental health conditions. Threatening to take away the low amount of income Pip provides won’t solve the country’s problems.

Many of the current issues the prime minister speaks about are due to our crumbling public services, poor quality jobs and increasing rates of poverty. Not because of a so-called ‘mental health culture’ that’s gone too far.

The government needs to end this reckless assault on disabled people and focus on how to fix the real underlying issues.

John Swinney, the former Scottish deputy first minister, who is being encouraged by some in the SNP to stand for first minister after Humza Yousaf quits (see 9.41am), has not ruled out the prospect. Swinney is in London for a Resolution Foundation event and he said the SNP was facing a difficult day.

Asked about the leadership crisis, he said:

We face a difficult day today.

The first minister is going to make a statement later on today, I think it is best if I let the first minister speak for himself.

Asked if we would want to be first minister, Swinney said it was a “very demanding role”. He went on:

I will consider what the first minister says and reflect on that. I may well have more to say at a later stage during the week.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) says it is proposing three changes in particular to the personal independence payment (Pip), the benefit for disabled people, under the plans announced today. (See 9.05am.) It has set them out in its news release.

1) Changing eligibilty criteria. The DWP says it wants to PIP to be “fairer and better targeted”. It says:

We will consider whether the current thresholds for entitlement correctly reflect the need for ongoing financial support. This includes considering if current descriptors - such as the need for aids and appliances - are good indicators of extra costs.

We will also look at changing the qualifying period for PIP in order to ensure the impact that people’s conditions will have on them over time is fully understood and consider whether we should change the test used to determine if a condition is likely to continue long-term.

2) Allowing some people to qualify for Pip just on the basis of a medical diagnosis, without the need for a full assessment (a process that involves people answering numerous questions about exactly what help they need in almost all aspects of their life). But this might be in particular for people with severe or terminal conditions, the DWP implies. It says:

We will consider whether some people could receive PIP without needing an assessment by basing entitlement on specific health conditions or disabilities supported by medical evidence.

This includes looking at whether evidence of a formal diagnosis by a medical expert should be a requirement to be assessed as eligible for PIP. This will make it easier and quicker for people with severe or terminal conditions to get the vital support they need.

3) Replacing ongoing cash payments with one-off payments or vouchers. Currently Pip claimants receive a specific amount per month, with the exact amount decided by the level of disability and the amount of help needed. But this could change. The DWP says:

We are considering options including one-off grants to better help people with significant costs such as home adaptations or expensive equipment, as well as giving vouchers to contribute towards specific costs, or reimbursing claimants who provide receipts for purchases of aids, appliances or services.

This reflects the fact that some claimants will have significant extra costs related to their disability, and others will have minimal or specific costs.

While these alternative models help people with the extra costs of their disability or health condition, we know other forms of support including health care, social services care provision and respite are also important to help people to realise their full potential and live independently.

We are also considering whether some people receiving PIP who have lower, or no extra costs, may have better outcomes from improved access to treatment and support than from a cash payment.

Ellie Reeves, the UK Labour party’s deputy national campaign coordinator, told Sky News this morning that the SNP leadership crisis meant there should be a new election for the Scottish parliament. She explained:

No-one voted for Humza Yousaf and given all of the chaos I think there should be an election up in Scotland so that people in Scotland can have their say on what’s happening up there.

At the moment they are being failed by an SNP government in Holyrood and a Conservative Government in Westminster.

In Scotland parliamentary elections are held every five years – the next one is due in 2026 – and it is not easy for the Scottish government to trigger an early one. But Scottish Labour has tabled a no confidence motion in the government as a whole. That would lead to an early Scottish election if the government resigned, and MSPs could not elect a replacement, but Scottish Labour does not have the votes to get its motion through.

Yousaf is expected to resign because he is likely to lose a second no confidence motion, tabled by the Scottish Conservatives, into his personal position as first minister.

The two motions are likely to produce different outcomes because the Scottish Greens and Alba, which has one MSP, are both pro-independence, and they don’t want an election that would (on the basis of current polling) see Holyrood lose its pro-indepedence majority. But they are both unhappy with Yousaf’s leadership. The Scottish Greens have said they will definitely back the Tory no confidence motion, and Alba has threatened to back it too unless Yousaf makes a range of policy concessions.

The Department for Work and Pensions issued a news release this morning about the green paper on changes to disability benefits being published later today. The plans affect the personal independence payment (Pip), a non-means tested benefit paid to disabled people to help cover the extra costs they incur because of their disability.

In the news release, which is not available online yet, the DWP says:

The Modernising Support green paper will explore how our welfare system could be redesigned to ensure people with disabilities and long-term health conditions get the support they need to achieve the best outcomes, with an approach that focuses support on those with the greatest needs and extra costs.

The UK’s health landscape has changed since personal independence payment (PIP) was introduced in 2013 with the intention that it would be a more sustainable benefit that would support disabled people to live independently by helping with the extra costs they face.

However, the caseload and costs are now spiralling. There are now 2.6 million people of working age claiming PIP and DLA [disability living allowance]– with 33,000 new awards for PIP each month which is more than double the rate before the pandemic. This is expected to cost the taxpayer £28bn a year by 2028/29 – a 110% increase in spending since 2019.

This is in part fuelled by the rise in people receiving PIP for mental health conditions such as mixed anxiety and depressive disorders, with monthly awards doubling from 2,200 to 5,300 a month since 2019.

Since 2015, the proportion of the caseload receiving the highest rate of PIP has increased from 25% to 36%. And many more people being awarded PIP now have mental health conditions than when it was first introduced.

In a statement included in the release, Rishi Sunak said:

It’s clear that our disability benefits system isn’t working in the way it was intended, and we’re determined to reform it to ensure it’s sustainable for the future, so we can continue delivering support to those who genuinely need it most.

BBC Scotland is reporting that Humza Yousaf will resign as early as today.

Good morning. This here is intense speculation that Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, will resign, perhaps as early as today, ahead of a no confidence vote scheduled for later this week. On Friday, when there were also reports that Yousaf was considering resigning after his decision to collapse the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Greens backfired, Yousaf gave a series of interviews insisting that he was not quitting and that he was confident of winning the vote. This morning, though, the situation seems to have changed.

Kieran Andrews, the Scottish political editor of the Times, ignited the latest round of Yousaf resignation speculation with a report last night saying:

Senior SNP figures have been told the nationalist leader decided over the weekend that there is no way for him to survive this week’s vote of no confidence and he may stand down on Monday …

A close friend said: “Humza knows what’s best for the country and the party. He is first party activist and a party man, and that’s why he knows it’s time for someone else.

In her report this morning my colleague Libby Brooks says no final decision has yet been taken, but it could come soon.

In an interview with the Today programe this morning Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, restated his view that Yousaf had to go. He said:

I don’t think Humza Yousaf any more is in a position to be able to lead … I don’t think there is anything that Humza Yousaf will be able to say to restore the trust he has broken.

Asked about Yousaf’s position, the SNP MSP Michelle Thomson told BBC Radio Scotland that she expected clarification within hours. She said:

I’m hearing the same rumours [that the first minister is considering stepping down] and I think we’re all waiting to see what the actual position is.

I guess the rumours suggest that something is afoot, but I honestly can’t clarify because I’ve had no update nor, as I understand, have my MSP group, so I guess we’ll all hear definitively one way or another this morning.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.15am: Rishi Sunak is due to take part in a PM Connect Q&A in Essex.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12.50pm: Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, is due to host a press conference following a meeting with Micheál Martin, the Irish foreign minister and deputy PM. The two are meeting at the latest British Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIC) summit in London.

2pm: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, is giving a speech on growth at a World Economic Forum session in Saudia Arabia.

4.30pm: MPs are holding a debate in Westminster Hall prompted by an e-petition, signed by more than 200,000 people, saying the Commons should get a vote on legalising assisted dying. But there will be no vote in today’s Westminster Hall debate, which could run until 7.30pm.

Also, the Department for Work and Pensions is today publishing a green paper on plans to reform disability benefits. And Keir Starmer is on a visit with Dan Poulter, the MP who defected from the Conservatives to Labour at the weekend.

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