Government has today announced that it is boosting legal aid rates for housing, debt, immigration and asylum, after almost three decades of stagnation.

The £20 million per year injection of extra funds will add at least 10% on current rates.

The increase equates to a new hourly rate of £69.30 for London lawyers and £65.35 for non-London lawyers.

The government’s decision to raise legal aid rates follows a legal challenge to the very low legal aid rates for civil matters, after which the government agreed to conduct a consultation about legal aid fee levels

While legal aid lawyers and their representative bodies such as Immigration Law Practitioners Association, welcome today’s announcement, they have warned that the changes do not go far enough and only relate to housing and immigration legal aid at a time when they say the entire civil legal aid system is in crisis.

Toufique Hossain (corr) of Duncan Lewis solicitors who worked on the legal challenge against the government, arguing that legal aid rates need to increase, said: “The right to access justice has long been held to be an important constitutional right for all, especially those who are vulnerable. For years, investment in legal aid has been woeful.

“We welcome this decision, in response to our legal challenge and hope the changes will go some way to improve the dire state of legally aided immigration and housing advice.”

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said former Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris, who has joined Reform, previously used “abhorrent language”.

She said that Nigel Farage’s welcoming of a politician who had previously used racist language had exposed his “hollow claims of dragging his party into the mainstream”.

She said: “That Reform is embracing someone who has used such abhorrent language speaks volumes: they are the company they keep.”

The battle to lead the Greens has been confirmed as a straight fight between a joint ticket comprising two of the party’s MPs, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, and the more insurgent offering of Zack Polanski, the deputy leader.

A final list of nominations to head the party in England and Wales has resulted in a two-way battle for the leadership, while nine candidates are vying to be deputy leader.

Since 2021 the party has been led by Ramsay and Carla Denyer, two of the Greens’ record haul of four MPs elected to Westminster a year ago. In May, Denyer announced she would not stand again, with Ramsay opting to stand again alongside Chowns.

The leadership race is broadly a competition between two contrasting styles: the more organised and elections-led approach of the two MPs, versus Polanski’s aim to make the Greens a radical, mass-membership “eco-populism” movement.

Polanski, who has been deputy leader since 2022 and serves as a London assembly member, said the party had to meet the challenge of Reform UK, which has a membership about four times the size of the Green party and won nearly 700 councillors in May’s local elections, against 79 for the Greens.

Ramsay and Chowns have dismissed this implicit criticism, saying their record in winning rural, Conservative-dominated seats a year ago – Chowns won South Herefordshire from the Tories while Ramsay took the new seat of Waveney Valley on the Norfolk-Suffolk border – showed they could win over new supporters.

The former head of the UK’s civil service has described the Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a “dictator” and said Donald Trump had put “helpful pressure” on Europe to increase defence spending.

Simon Case, who served as the cabinet secretary until December, when he stepped down on health grounds, said China had sent a clear message to “prepare for serious conflict” in Taiwan.

The UK has committed to spend the equivalent of 2.6% of GDP in 2027, and it and other Nato members have signed up to increasing spending to 5% by 2035 on militaries and related security.

The increased defence spending came after years of Trump raising questions over the future of the Nato alliance – and whether the US would come to allies’ defence – if other countries did not increase spending.

Case argued for the UK and mainland Europe to increase the pace of increased defence spending. He was speaking at an event in London paid for by Britain’s biggest weapons maker, BAE Systems. The manufacturer of artillery, fighter jets and nuclear submarines is expected to be one of the biggest corporate beneficiaries of increased spending on weaponry.

Responding to the news that former Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris has joined Reform UK (see 3.06pm BST), Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said:

The mask has slipped, exposing [Nigel] Farage’s hollow claims of dragging his party into the mainstream. That Reform is embracing someone who has used such abhorrent language speaks volumes: they are the company they keep.

Ms Morris’ constituents already made their views clear when they ejected her at the general election in favour of a hardworking local Liberal Democrat champion. The public will view Farage’s decision to elevate someone with such an appalling track record to the core of the Reform party with similar contempt.

Morris had the Conservative whip suspended twice during her time in the Commons, including once in 2017 for using racist language, for which she later apologised.

The Guardian’s economics editor, Heather Stewart, has written an explainer on where the welfare bill climbdown leaves UK public finances:

Cuts to the personal independence payment (Pip) announced at Rachel Reeves’s spring statement in March were meant to save the Treasury £5bn a year.

Ministers’ changes to the welfare bill last week to try to avoid a Commons defeat – reversing some cuts to universal credit and applying the stricter Pip eligibility rules only to new claimants – had already reduced that saving to about £2bn.

After stripping the Pip changes out of the bill completely on Tuesday, the Resolution Foundation estimates there will be no savings in five years’ time – leaving a £5bn hole in the chancellor’s plans.

Reeves also faces a £1.25bn cost from her decision to restore the winter fuel allowance to most pensioners – having stripped it away last year.

Between them, these U-turns will swallow most of the £10bn headroom the chancellor created for herself against her fiscal rules at her spring statement.

You can read the full piece here:

Responding, Stephen Doughty told the Commons he was “disappointed by the tone” of Patel’s comments, reports the PA news agency.

“I don’t know who writes this stuff,” the Foreign Office minister said. He added:

I don’t know whether it’s just performative politics or rhetoric, I don’t know what. But I should point out that I have received and answered over 100 written parliamentary questions from [Priti Patel], I’ve answered over 250 questions on this deal and the process in total.

We’ve had no less than six urgent questions in this house. We have had two statements from this government by the foreign secretary [David Lammy] and the defence secretary [John Healey].

I personally briefed [Priti Patel] and answered many of her questions in my office just a couple of weeks ago in good faith and in detail, and indeed, I was subjected – quite rightly – to robust scrutiny not only from the Foreign Affairs Committee of this house, but also from the International Relations and Defence Committee in the other house, and indeed the International Arrangements Committee in great detail on these issues.

Doughty said a bill would follow “in due course” but added the deal with Mauritius, presented to parliament in May, “secures” the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, “secures our national security and that of our allies”.

Priti Patel has urged ministers to “have the courage” to trigger a vote on the Chagos Islands deal, reports the PA news agency.

The government won a vote in the House of Lords on Monday, when 205 peers struck down a Tory attempt to reject the treaty which cedes control of the archipelago to Mauritius.

But the Conservative party’s shadow foreign secretary Patel has called for a similar vote in the Commons.

“With the 21-day Crag (Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010) process about to conclude, it is a disgrace that Labour have breached the parliamentary conventions and denied this house a meaningful debate and vote on ratification,” she told MPs.

To accompany the treaty, MPs will need to sign off on a bill to wind up the current governance of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). The treaty will only come into force once the legislation is “in place”, according to the government.

Patel added:

Having a vote on the bill is not the same as voting on the treaty under Crag. Earlier this week, the House of Lords – the other place – had a debate and vote where the Lib Dems sided with Labour in backing this £30bn surrender treaty, which is subsidising tax cuts in Mauritius.

So, why can’t we have a debate and vote in this house? What are ministers afraid of?

Are they afraid that their backbenchers, now worried about benefit cuts and the impact of unpopular tax rises, will question why so much money is being handed over for a territory that we own and force them into another embarrassing U-turn?

Patel urged ministers to “scrap this treaty or at least have the courage to bring it here for a proper debate, full scrutiny, and finally, a vote in this house”.

Treaties are laid before parliament before they are ratified, but there is no requirement for a debate or vote.

Peers in their vote, which Conservative shadow Foreign Office minister Martin Callanan triggered, agreed not to reject the treaty by 205 votes to 185, majority 20.

During Wednesday’s PMQs, SNP leader in Westminster Stephen Flynn took a swipe at Keir Starmer and his promise to “end the chaos” after the events of the Welfare bill’s second reading on Tuesday.

Flynn said:

In his victory speech last year, the prime minister promised to end the chaos. Does he think that the public still believe him?

Responding, Starmer said:

We’ve delivered more in the first year of a Labour government than they’ve [the SNP government in Scotland] delivered in 20 years.

Let me give him one example. We had waiting lists, we said we’d do two million extra appointments. We’ve done four million for the NHS in England.

What a contrast – where they’ve been in charge for that 20 years, Scotland’s doctors now saying, in the past week I think, and this is their quote, that the Scottish NHS is ‘dying before our very eyes’. They should be ashamed …

Scotland needs new direction, so it can bring waiting lists down in Scotland, just like we’ve done in England.

Bereaved families have previously called this “protective ring” phrase a “sickening lie” and a “joke”, reports the PA news agency.

Nicola Brook, a solicitor representing more than 7,000 families from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK (CBFFJ), said Hancock’s claim that the discharge policy had been the least-worst decision available was “an insult to the memory of each and every person who died”. She added:

He knew at the time that many care homes did not have the ability to isolate the people who would be discharged from hospital and that Covid was airborne.

It’s frankly ridiculous and insulting that he says they tried to throw a protective ring around care homes when his department’s policies caused Covid to spread like wildfire amongst society’s most vulnerable loved ones.

Mr Hancock claims the decision to discharge people into care homes was driven by Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS, yet the inquiry is not calling him. We would call for this decision to be urgently reviewed.

The CBFFJ group had already written to inquiry chair Heather Hallett, to express their concern at some “key decision-makers” not expected to be called in this module, including former prime minister Boris Johnson.

Outlining the state of the adult social care sector at the outbreak of the pandemic, Hancock said it “was badly in need of, and remains badly in need of, reform”, but rejected the suggestion of it being a “Cinderella service to the NHS”.

He said pandemic contingency plans, prepared by local authorities for adult social care, had been “as good as useless” at the time, and described a “hodge podge of accountability” between local councils and government departments.

He claimed the situation has “got worse not better” for care homes in the event of another pandemic hitting, and suggested a series of recommendations, including having isolation facilities in care homes and ensuring a stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Module six of the inquiry is focused on the effect the pandemic had on both the publicly and privately funded adult social care sector across the UK. Public hearings for the care sector module are expected to run until the end of July.

Hancock went on:

We were trying to do everything that we possibly could, we were in bleak circumstances.

Counsel to the inquiry Jacqueline Carey KC highlighted anonymous evidence given to the inquiry, saying:

One person in particular said he [Matt Hancock] blatantly lied about the situation with care homes, there was no blanket of protection. We were left to sail our own ships. He wasn’t heartfelt. He had no understanding or appreciation of the challenges care homes face, pandemic or not, it felt like we were the sacrifice, a cull of older people who could no longer contribute to the society.

Hancock said it was “not helpful” for the inquiry to “exchange brickbats”, but went on:

I’ve been through everything that we did as a department, a big team effort, and we were all pulling as hard as we possibly could to save lives – that’s what I meant by saying that we tried to throw a protective ring around.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect. It was impossible – it was an unprecedented pandemic, and the context was exceptionally difficult.

What I care about is the substance of what we did, the protections that we put in place, and most importantly, what we can do in the future to ensure that the options available are better than they were last time.

Pressed further, Hancock said he had both agreed with and defended the decision at the time, reports the PA news agency.

The high court ruled in 2022 that government policies on discharging hospital patients into care homes at the start of the pandemic were “unlawful”. While the judges said it was necessary to discharge patients “to preserve the capacity of the NHS”, they found it was “irrational” for the government not to have advised that asymptomatic patients should isolate from existing residents for 14 days after admission.

Asked about 17 March 2020 when NHS bosses were instructed to begin the discharge process, Hancock said officials were “pushing very hard” to get more PPE into care homes. He said not advising care homes to isolate returning residents without symptoms was a “mistake”, but it was in line with clinical guidance at the time.

In 2023, appearing for a separate module of the inquiry, Hancock admitted the protective ring he said had been put around care homes early in the pandemic was not an unbroken one, and said he understood the strength of feeling people have on the issue.

At a Downing Street press conference on 15 May 2020, Hancock said:

Right from the start, we’ve tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes.

Hancock told the inquiry:

I would stress in that piece of rhetoric, what I said is that we had ‘tried’ – it was not possible to protect as much as I would have wanted.

He added:

The protection, what at the time, was clearly not as much as we would have liked, but the alternatives were even worse.

We were trying to put as much protection in place as possible.

All I can do is take you back to the actual decisions and the resources that we had at that moment.

The speculation about Rachel Reeves’s future, sparked by her demeanour at prime minister’s questions and Keir Starmer’s apparent refusal to back her, spooked government bond markets.

Jittery investors dumped gilts – UK government bonds – as the idea caught hold that Reeves didn’t have the prime minister’s full confidence. The yield on ten year gilts was up 0.2 percentage points on the day – on course for the biggest one day move since Liz Truss’s mini-budget.

Kathleen Brooks, research director at City broker XTB, said:

The sharp rise in bond yields happened during PMQs … the prospect of political turmoil is causing bond yields to rise. The market is pricing in the possibility of a replacement chancellor with a more left-leaning agenda.

Starmer’s press secretary subsequently insisted Reeves had the prime minister’s full backing.

Downing Street said Keir Starmer would “plough on” with his “very busy agenda” when asked if the prime minister was planning for a course correction after the welfare vote.

Asked whether Starmer would be changing anything about the way he operates after the fallout, a Number 10 spokesperson said:

The prime minister is fully focused on the job at hand.

You’ve heard … the number of achievements this government has secured in its first year in office. You can expect him to plough on with the very busy agenda.

The Tories have said “we need to know what’s going on” with Rachel Reeves after the chancellor was seen visibly upset during prime minister’s questions, which a spokesperson has since said related to a personal matter.

Kemi Badenoch’s spokesperson said “personal matter doesn’t really clear it up” and “you normally tell people what the personal matter is”.

Asked whether politicians should disclose all personal matters in their lives regardless of what they are, he said: “That’s an absurd question.” He added:

I’m not going to speculate … I think we should find out what’s going on.

Downing Street also said that Keir Starmer “absolutely” has confidence in his own judgment.

Asked the question by reporters, the prime minister’s press secretary said:

Yes absolutely. This is a prime minister who in the opposition picked the Labour party off the floor, turned it around and secured the mandate that we received last year.

This is a prime minister who … is taking a phased approach to government. The first phase is fixing the foundations, including the £22bn black hole the Tories left, invested record amounts in the NHS and delivered double the amount of appointments that we committed to in the election, frozen fuel duty … and now we’re delivering fairness and security through our plan for change.

However, Labour MP Kim Johnson accused the government of planning to table a bill that is “watered down” and “doesn’t deserve to be named Hillsborough law”.

The Liverpool Riverside MP said:

The prime minister visited my constituency in 2022 and told families, and I quote, ‘One of my first acts will be to put the Hillsborough law on the statute book’, repeated the same promise at conference last year that the bill would be published at the anniversary in April. That didn’t happen.

However, the government are now planning to table a watered-down version that doesn’t deserve to be named Hillsborough law.

After PMQs, the member for Liverpool West Derby [Ian Byrne] will introduce the real Hillsborough law. So can the prime minister finally honour his promise and back the law in full? If not, why not?

Responding, Keir Starmer said:

I’m grateful to her for raising this and remember well the visit that we had. This is a really serious issue, it is important that we get it right. I am fully committed to introducing a Hillsborough law, including a legal duty of candor for public servants and criminal sanctions for those that refuse to comply.

It is important we get it right. I have been personally engaging with some of the founders on this because I’ve been involved and seen first-hand what they’ve been through for over 10 years. I first met them when I was a director of public prosecution.

We will bring this forward, I just want to take the time to get it right and then put it before the house.

Keir Starmer has confirmed that his Hillsborough law will include a legal duty of candor amid fears the government is “watering down” its proposals.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey challenged Starmer in prime minister’s questions, saying:

From Hillsborough to Grenfell, Primodos to Horizon, the contaminated blood scandal to nuclear test veterans, the bereaved and survivors of some of our country’s most appalling scandals have come together to call for a legal duty of candour and the secondary duty needed to make it practical and effective for investigations and inquiries.

Now they’re frightened the government is watering down these proposals to such an extent that they would be toothless.

So, after months of delay, can the prime minister reassure campaigners that his Hillsborough law will include a real legal duty of candour, as he promised?

Responding, Starmer said:

Yes, it will. And as he may know, I’ve known some of the families from Hillsborough for many years now.

I met them over a decade ago and know exactly what they have been through, and various other groups that have suffered similar injustices with similar follow up, which is an additional injustice on top of the original injustice.

And that’s why we will bring forward a Hillsborough law. It’s a commitment I’ve made. I have been talking to families in recent weeks personally myself to make sure that we get this right and it is important we get it right, but it will have a legal duty.

Keir Starmer failed to say whether he has “changed his mind” on the government’s plans for reform of personal independence payments (Pip) after a question from Liberal Democrat Ed Davey.

During PMQs Davey said:

Yesterday, the government was asking this house to vote for a law that would mean someone with a condition like Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis would qualify for a personal independence payment (Pip) today, but someone diagnosed with the same condition with very same symptoms in a few months time would not.

We all know that the cost of welfare needs to come down, but that was not a fair way to do it. Until he lost control yesterday, the prime minister was arguing for that approach. Has he changed his mind on this or not?

Responding, Starmer said:

The Stephen Timms review will take place, a very important review to look into this issue.

But what we did do last night was end mandatory reassessments for those with severe disabilities. I thought that he and his party cared about things like that. It’s the right thing to do, and they voted against it.

We rebalanced Universal Credit, long overdue. I think he believes that, but what did he do last night? He voted against it. We set out a pathway to reform, something he argues for every week, but what did he do when he had the chance? He voted against it.

Davey replied:

The house and his backbenches will note that he didn’t answer my question.

PMQs has now ended. The PA news agency reports that Labour minister Ellie Reeves appeared to be holding her sister’s hand as she left the chamber on Wednesday, after chancellor Rachel Reeves appeared to be crying during PMQs.

During PMQs (which has now ended), Adrian Ramsay asked whether the government would scrap the two-child benefit cap after the welfare bill climbdown.

Starmer replied:

I don’t think I’ll be listening to him or his party.

Labour’s first year in government has been labelled “mistake after mistake” by Badenoch.

She said:

The fact is his own MPs are saying this government is, and I quote, incoherent and shambolic, that’s Liverpool Wavertree [Paula Barker] that said that. I could go on, and on, but the fact is it’s been mistake, after mistake after mistake. There is no plan to get people into work, there is no plan to cut the welfare budget, there is no strategy, there is just a series of humiliating U-turns like winter fuel, like grooming gangs.

What’s really shocking is that every other party in this House voted for even more welfare spending yesterday. Yes, those MPs behind him, and the Lib Dems, and Reform. The Conservative party believes that this country needs to live within its means.

We know what we believe, but this is a prime minister who has U-turned on everything he has done in office, including his own speeches. Because he doesn’t know what he believes. With left-wing Labour MPs now running the government, isn’t it working people who will now pay the price?

Starmer replied, recalling a list of “promises made, and promises delivered”, including extra NHS appointments, improving workers’ rights, increases to the minimum wage, extending free breakfast clubs, creating GB energy and stopping bonuses for water bosses.

He said:

We’re only getting started, the chancellor has led on all these issues and we’re grateful to her for it.

Harriet Cross asks when it will be farmer’s turn for a U-turn on the famer’s inheritance tax?

Starmer replies by saying the Labour government had the most significant funding for farmers in the latest budget.

Responding, Keir Starmer told the Commons:

I’ll tell them what they did to the welfare system – they broke it. And it’s the same as the NHS. What did they do? They broke it. Same as the economy, what did they do?

Labour MPs chimed in as the prime minister continued:

They broke it.

Starmer continued:

They broke everything that they touched, and now she describes the broken system that we are trying to fix. And what did she do?

She voted against fixing the system that they broke. And I’ll tell you and spell that out, they voted last night for the system that is keeping one million young people not learning or earning, that is a disgrace of their system.

They voted for a system where we have three million people out of work on ill health, and they voted for that system.

Kemi Badenoch has asked whether prime minister Keir Starmer is “too weak to get anything done”.

The Conservative leader told the Commons:

I’ll tell him what we did on welfare.

When Labour MPs laughed, she added:

Why are they laughing? They don’t know. My party delivered the biggest reform of welfare in government. We got record numbers of people into work including millions of disabled people, and we cut the deficit every year until Covid.

Badenoch continued:

What he forgets is that since the election, since he became prime minister, an additional 1,000 people a day are signing on to incapacity benefits. That is 50% more than under us.

And astonishingly, because of the mess they made yesterday, because there’re no more savings, sickness benefits alone – alone – are set to rise to £100bn on his watch. He cannot reduce that now.

Badenoch described the universal credit and personal independence payment bill as being “completely gutted” and asked:

He said that he would take the difficult decisions, but isn’t the reality that he is too weak to get anything done?

Keir Starmer is the first prime minister to “propose a bill to save money, who ended up with a bill which costs money”, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said.

Badenoch said:

I don’t think the prime minister actually watched what happened in the house yesterday. His bill was completely gutted, a U-turn in the middle of the debate removing clause five. Where on earth was he?

The reason why he can’t answer the question is because he knows it doesn’t save any money. It’s going to cost millions. This is the first prime minister in history to propose a bill to save money, who ended up with a bill which costs money. So if the bill does not cut welfare spending, can the prime minister tell the house how many people it will get into work?

Starmer replied:

We have already started changing the job centres and investing in support back into work.

He added:

The bill last night will help people back into work, and of course, the Timms review is ongoing. But I tell you what won’t help people back into work, what … won’t help control the costs, and that is voting to keep the broken system. And that is what they did last night.

Everybody in this house accepts the current system is broken. It invites the question, who broke it? They broke it, and last night, they voted for the status quo. The broken system is their policy, that won’t help individuals, taxpayers, certainly won’t help the economy.

The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, is standing behind the speaker’s chair during PMQs instead of on the frontbenches alongside Starmer.

Badenoch refers to a series of “humilating u-turns” from the Labour government. She says the country needs to learn to live within its means.

Starmer replies by listing promises he says his government has made and delivered. Again, he brings up the “£22bn black hole” left by the Tories.

Unemployment has risen every month since Labour have taken over, says Badenoch.

Starmer says he’s really proud of Labour’s work on free school meals, affordable housing, trade deals and much more.

Badenoch says Starmer can’t confirm that the chancellor will stay in her job.

Labour’s Paul Waugh (Rochdale) asks about child poverty and free school meals.

Giving children the best start in life is important to him, replies Starmer.

Keir Starmer starts by saying thanking the NHS staff for their services as the NHS celebrates its 77th anniversary this Saturday. He says tomorrow the government’s 10-year health plan will be announced.

The House of Commons is filling up in anticipation for today’s PMQs. Both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch can be spotted. Northern Ireland questions is just finishing up.

A live stream of today’s PMQs has been added to the top of the blog. You may need to refresh the page to see it.

More urgent and bolder action is needed to improve Scotland’s diet and tackle growing obesity rates, the nation’s food standards experts have said, reports the PA news agency.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) said recent moves towards a preventive approach have helped but progress remains too slow and Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the UK in some areas.

Results from the latest Scottish health survey, which was conducted in 2023, showed 32% of adults were living with obesity, up from 24% on 2003.

According to the PA news agency, FSS welcomed plans for restrictions on the promotion of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) food, but said a more fundamental change is needed.

The agency will be writing to health secretary Neil Gray to call for a more joined-up approach – including on areas reserved to Westminster such as the sugar levy and food labelling.

FSS board chair Heather Kelman said:

We welcome the direction of travel, but action must be stronger, faster, and better resourced.

Public health cannot continue to take a back seat to commercial interests. Delays and compromises only serve to deepen existing health inequalities with a continuing increase in dietary-related health costs.

She noted that Scotland faces some of the worst diet-related health outcomes in Europe, including on obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Kelman continued:

Without urgent and coordinated action, Scotland risks missing its ambition to halve childhood obesity by 2030, and allowing diet-related illness to continue placing unsustainable pressure on the NHS.

Clinical solutions can help but are not a panacea and preventing dietary related ill-health conditions is still a much better solution.

We need a bold strategy to reshape the food environment. The intent is there.

Now we need delivery, leadership, and the political will across all UK administrations to follow through.

And the prime minister is on his way to the House of Commons for today’s PMQs.

Keir Starmer has said that the Labour government is “delivering the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in decades”. In a series of posts on X on Wednesday, the prime minister wrote:

‘I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get our own place’. I heard that constantly after 14 years of Tory failure on housing. I don’t want to hear it again. My Labour government is delivering the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in decades.

The Tories snatched the dream of home ownership away from an entire generation. With the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in decades, my Labour government will make it a reality for families across Britain.

When ministers announced major changes to welfare, many were left in shock that such deep cuts would be enacted by a Labour government, despite the urgent need to address the spiraling cost of benefits. But thanks to strong opposition from disabled people, organisations and rebel Labour MPs, many of the proposals were amended or removed before the bill passed through parliament.

The Guardian spent time with dissenting voices in the run-up to the vote, to learn what was at stake for disabled people, already disproportionately affected by rising poverty in the UK. You can watch the video report here:

Frances Ryan has spoken to disabled people to get their reactions to the passing of watered-down welfare bill. You can read the news feature here:

The chief executive of a miscarriage of justice watchdog for England, Wales and Northern Ireland has resigned after serious failings in the case of Andrew Malkinson.

Karen Kneller, who had held the position since 2013, has left her job at the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) after one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history, it was announced on Wednesday.

Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape in Greater Manchester that he did not commit, was cleared in July 2023. His case was knocked back twice by the CCRC until his legal team carried out crucial DNA testing that was then repeated by the commission and led to his release.

A report on the CCRC’s handling of the case in July last year laid bare “a catalogue of failures”, finding that Malkinson could have been exonerated almost a decade earlier. Thousands of cases are now being reviewed as a result of the botched process.

The welfare bill passed, but it was chaos, writes John McDonnell. In his latest Guardian opinion piece, McDonnell warns that “a party this dysfunctional and divided cannot escape the wrath of voters at the next election”.

You can read it here:

On Wednesday, Angela Rayner sought to reassure people who had been “scared” about the proposed benefits changes, reports the PA news agency.

Speaking to ITV’s Lorraine, the deputy prime minister said:

Anyone listening to your show today, they know that there will be no changes to their welfare.

I want to make sure that people are reassured by that, because a lot of people have been scared about what’s going to happen.

Helen Miller, the new head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, said the lack of savings from the personal independence payments (Pip) changes made tax rises “increasingly likely” at the budget and that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, now had “very little wriggle room”.

The welfare bill as it stood would now not create any savings, she told Today:

By the end of this parliament the government will save nothing.

With the £5bn gone, and about £1bn extra going on the recent U-turn over winter fuel payments, much of Reeves’s fiscal headroom had gone, Miller said, particularly if growth forecasts were scaled back.

The overall handling of the bill, which involved a sequence of climbdowns over Pip as ministers faced the prospect of the first defeat for a government bill at second reading since 1986, has led to fingers being pointed at the Downing Street political operation, Labour whips and Keir Starmer himself.

Co-leader of the Green party Carla Denyer has said that “it’s time” for the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to “look for fairer and more sensible ways to raise money – like a wealth tax on multimillionaires and billionaires”.

Posting on X on Wednesday morning, Denyer wrote:

After govt’s 11th hour 59th minute climbdown over Pip it’s time for Reeves to go back to the drawing board and look for fairer and more sensible ways to raise money – like a wealth tax on multimillionaires and billionaires to raise up to £24bn a year.

Ministers should be looking at measures around wealth taxes or capital gains tax, a leading backbench rebel has suggested.

Rachael Maskell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “we need to look at those with the broader shoulders”.

Asked what she would say to those who are worried about public finances, Maskell said:

As am I worried about the state of the public finances, and of course, we know what we inherited a year on, we have still got to keep our focus there.

And that’s why I think we heard very much in the debate, including from myself, that we need to look at those with the broader shoulders, as the prime minister said, contributing more into our system, but never pushing down on the poorest.

And that was what the dynamic was yesterday, that we do need to look at things like a wealth tax, £24bn, or equalisation of capital gains tax.

Here is our news story on the welfare bill being voted through yesterday:

And our interactive which shows how your MP voted:

How did your MP vote on welfare bill?

Ministers’ concessions on the welfare bill signalled a “change in power between the prime minister” and disabled people, one of the leading backbench rebels has suggested, reports the PA news agency.

Rachael Maskell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Tuesday saw “the bill disintegrating before our eyes”.

“Even in the last moments of the debate, when the minister was winding up, we heard that other sections of the bill will be removed that’s appertaining to Northern Ireland,” she said, adding:

And I think throughout the day, what we saw was a change in power between the prime minister and his government and disabled people across our country, they having their voice at the heart of parliament, and that’s why I put the reasoned amendment down.

The York Central MP also said that she is “glad” that the debate was “had in public” and “now disabled people should feel empowered to have their voice at long last in an ableist parliament”.