In the Commons MPs have been debating amendments to what is still called the universal credit (UC) and personal independence payment (Pip) bill – even though all the Pip elements of the bill were removed last week, when No 10 realised that without a massive concession the government might lose the vote.

Dozens of Labour MPs are still unhappy about what’s left of the bill, which will raise the standard rate of universal credit by more than inflation, while reducing the health element of UC for people unable to work as a result of an illness or disability for new claimants. Ministers claim the current system incentives people to switch to the UC health element because it is a lot more generous than the standard rate.

Some government MPs are expected to rebel in votes later, but as a result of the concessions last week the government’s majority is now longer at risk.

Here are some of the key points from today’s debate.

• The Green party is calling for the bill to be amended to make the increase in the standard rate of UC more generous than currently planned. This plan is set out in amendment 39, tabled by Siân Berry from the Greens, which was selected as the lead amendment for today’s debate. All the amendments are here.

• More than 40 MPs have signed an amendment tabled by Labour’s Richard Burgon that would block the cut to the health element of UC. The health element is set to be cut from £97 per week to £50 per week. Burgon said:

The halving of the universal credit health element is an especially cruel cut - targeting disabled people already assessed as too sick to be able to work.

• Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP who led the revolt against the bill last week, described the bill, even in its amended form, as “a stain on our great party, founded on values of equality and justice”.

• Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and the disabled, has claimed the bill will protect people with fluctuating conditions. In her speech Maskell said:

If someone has a fluctuating physical or mental health condition like multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, cystic fibrosis, or other recurring muscular-skeletal condition, if following a period of remission and work then relapse and returning to universal credit, unless unequivocally stated, they will return onto the pittance of £50-a-week for their health element.

But Timms intervened to say “the bill protects people in exactly the situation that she describes”. He said that if a pre-2026 claimant slips out of being eligible for universal credit but meets the eligibility criteria again within six months, the bill would demand that they be considered “continuously entitled to an award”. It would mean that they could go “straight back onto the position they are in at the start”, Timms said.

• Debbie Abrahams, Labour chair of the work and pensions committee, urged the government to delay its reform of health benefits until November 2026. She said:

This is to allow for the NHS capacity to ramp up and to ensure funding follows health need, so that people with newly required conditions or impairments can receive early treatment and a better aligned labour market that will enable them to return to work quickly.

• Zarah Sultana, the independent MP who last week said she was leaving Labour to set up a new party with Jeremy Corbyn, said the bill showed the government was “not out of touch, but also morally bankrupt”.

Downing Street has issued a statement about Keir Starmer’s talks with Emmanuel Macron over lunch today. It says the PM and the president agreed that “a new deterrent” was needed to stop the small boat crossings.

This seems to be a reference to the idea of a “one in, one out” returns scheme, which would involve migrants arriving illegally in the UK being swiftly returned to France, but with the UK also agreeing to take in an equivalent number of migratns based in France who are claiming asylum in the UK. Starmer is said to be urging Macron to accept a deal of this sort, but Macron has reportedly been resisting, and the idea is unpopular with some other European countries. Last month Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta wrote to the European commission complaining that such a scheme could incentivise even more irregular migration into southern Europe.

Starmer and Macron are attending a more formal summit tomorrow, and further details on what has (or has not) been agreed should emerge when they speak to reporters tomorrow afternoon.

The No 10 statement said:

[Starmer and Macron] reflected on the state visit of the president so far, agreeing that it had been an important representation of the deep ties between our two countries.

Moving on to discuss joint working, they shared their desire to deepen our partnership further – from joint leadership in support of Ukraine to strengthening our defence collaboration and increasing bilateral trade and investment.

The prime minister welcomed the news that EDF would take a 12.5% stake in Sizewell C leading to lower bills, more jobs and better energy security for the UK.

The leaders agreed tackling the threat of irregular migration and small boat crossings is a shared priority that requires shared solutions.

The prime minister spoke of his government’s toughening of the system in the past year to ensure rules are respected and enforced, including a massive surge in illegal working arrests to end the false promise of jobs that are used to sell spaces on boats.

This paragraph seems to amount to an acknowlegement that Macron was seeking assurances on this issue, as the Telegraph reported this morning. See 9.31am.

The statement goes on:

The two leaders agreed on the need to go further and make progress on new and innovative solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model of these gangs.

Finally, they looked ahead to the 37th UK-France summit taking place tomorrow and agreed to aim for concrete progress on these areas.

President Macron has suggested that King Charles was instrumental in helping to persuade France to send the Bayeux Tapestry on loan to London. In his speech at the British Museum, he said that for decades the French used to come up with reasons why sending such a precious object abroad was not possible.

We found the best [reasons] to explain, in perfect detail, why it was totally impossible to make such a loan. And, believe me, we found them. And, believe me, we could have found them again.

But, Macron said, seeing Charles’s “attachmment, his willingess to assist the project” helped to persuade him to approve the loan.

(The normal story was that the tapestry was in too frail a condition to be moved.)

A loyalist bonfire in Northern Ireland with an effigy of a migrant vessel and about a dozen lifesize mannequins with lifejackets has been condemned as sick and racist, Rory Carroll reports.

Dale Vince, the green entrepreneur and Labour party donor, has issued a statement saying that he favours higher taxes on the wealthy. Responding to the exchanges on this at PMQs (see 12.11pm and 12.26pm), Vince said:

We do need to cut welfare, welfare for the rich. Tax breaks, allowances, loopholes - there’s an abundance of them, and it results in people with money paying half the rate of tax of people with a job.

It’s right that those with the deepest pockets, who’ve taken the most from our economy, pay their fair share. It’s why calls are growing for a wealth tax.

It’s about fairness - we tax money made with money at half the rate of money made with a pair of hands - it’s just not right. Our tax code was written by people with money for people with money - it needs to serve us all.

While Starmer did not rule out a wealthy tax at PMQs, his answer to Adrian Ramsay, the Green party’s co-leader, made it clear that he is quite negative about the concept. (See 12.26pm.)

But a lot depends on what you mean by “wealth tax”. The Green party favour a purist version, a 1% tax on assets worth more than £10m, and a 2% tax on assets worth more than £1bn. This would fit the literal definition of a wealth tax. Starmer is very unlikely to embrace this version – not least because the experts say it would not work.

No 10 has been keen to point out that it is in favour of taxes on the wealthy – as it has made clear over the last 12 months by announcing policies that actually do raises taxes for the wealthy. Their briefing implies the UK already has a plethora of wealth taxes.

Vale’s position seems to be somewhere in between. In his statement, he is not explicitly backing the Green party version of a wealth tax. But he points out that taxes on capital gains are lower than taxes on income, and he is calling for significant reform of the tax system to address this. In this, he has the support of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, which yesterday proposed “reforming capital income taxes in order to properly tax high returns”.

Keir Starmer described the Anglo-French relationship as being “as strong as its ever been” when he met Emmanuel Macron in Downing Street.

Speaking with the media present, Starmer told the president:

It’s such a privilege and pleasure to welcome you here to Downing Street and the visit yesterday, the summit tomorrow and the meeting here today are so hugely symbolic of the closeness between our countries and our personal relationship and I’m so delighted to have you here, and I think you can see from last night, from today and tomorrow, just how much this means to everybody across the United Kingdom.

And I’m really proud of the fact that we have a strong history together as two countries …

Whether it’s on defence and security, whether it’s on Ukraine, whether it’s on trade and economy, business opportunities, capabilities, we think alike, we work together, and I feel this relationship is as strong as its ever been.

Macron said the partnership between the UK and France was “a game changer” for Europe and beyond.

At the Downing Street post-PMQs lobby briefing, the No 10 spokesperson was asked about French suggestions that the UK is not doing enough to stop illegal migrants working in the economy – cited as one of the “pull factors” encouraging thousands of people to cross the channel in small boats. (See 9.31am.)

Asked about this, the spokesperson said:

We’re toughening every part of the system to finally ensure the rules are enforced, in respect of illegal working, for example, which undermines honest businesses and undercuts local wages. The British public won’t stand for it, and neither will this government.

There’s always more that can be done, and the prime minister has been clear that we have to go further and faster to tackle that very issue.

This is the statement the Conservative party put out after the Starmer/Badenoch exchanges at PMQs. A party spokesperson said:

The prime minister emphatically ruled out any rises in income tax, NI or VAT. But he wouldn’t repeat the promise his chancellor made in the autumn to lift the freeze on income tax thresholds. He also refused to rule out a retirement tax and wealth taxes. The only reasonable conclusion is that a toxic cocktail of Labour tax rises are coming in the autumn budget.

Adrian Ramsay, the Green party’s co-leader, says there is growing support for a wealth tax. So will Starmer stand by his call for those with the broadest shoulders to pay the heaviest burdern?

Starmer says he won’t take lectures from a party proposing unfunded spending commitments worth £80bn. And he says “we can’t just tax our way to growth”.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, says people voted for Brexit ..

“Because they were lied to,” another MP shouts.

Farage goes on. He says people wanted to stop illegal migration.

Starmer says the government is fixing the mess it inherited.

He has serious proposals for serious problems. He goes on:

He goes on:

[Farage’s] proposal, for 10 years, wagging the Tory dog, has been to break everything and claim that’s how you fix things, to stick two fingers up at your neighbours and then expect them to work with us. And he votes against the borders bill, which gives more powers to our law enforcement.

UPDATE: Farage said:

Does the prime minister understand that [the demand to take back control] today is even greater than it was back in 2016 and that we demand, the country demands, that you say to the French president we will not accept undocumented migrants across the English Channel and that you are not dictated to by an increasingly arrogant, anti-Brexit French president?

And Starmer replied:

We are fixing the mess that we inherited. We are working with other countries to ensure that we take the measures necessary to stop people crossing the Channel. They are serious answers to serious problems.

His proposal, for 10 years, wagging the Tory dog, has been to break everything and claim that’s how you fix things, to stick two fingers up at your neighbours and then expect them to work with us. And he votes against the borders bill which gives more powers to our law enforcement to deal with security at our borders.

The reason for that is he has no interest in fixing the problem because he wants to milk it and exploit it. That is the truth about him and his party.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system has been neglected. But Labour MPs are planning another rebellion over the reform plans.

He says the Lib Dems have “72 votes to help”.

He asks Starmer to consider the five tests of Send reform published by the Lib Dems today.

Starmer says the government wants a new system that helps every child.

Here are the five tests set out by the Lib Dems in a press release.

1.⁠ ⁠Putting children and families first

Children’s rights to SEND assessment and support must be maintained and the voices of children and young people with SEND and of their families and carers must be at the centre of the reform process.

2.⁠ ⁠Boosting specialist capacity and improving mainstream provision

Capacity in state special provision must be increased, alongside improvements to inclusive mainstream provision, with investment in both new school buildings and staff training.

3.⁠ ⁠Supporting local government

Local authorities must be supported better to fund SEND services, including through:

-The extension of the profit cap in children’s social care to private SEND provision, where many of the same private equity backed companies are active, and

-National government funding to support any child whose assessed needs exceed a specific cost.

4.⁠ ⁠Early identification and shorter waiting lists

Early identification and intervention must be improved, with waiting times for diagnosis, support and therapies cut.

5.⁠ ⁠Fair funding

The SEND funding system must properly incentivise schools both to accept SEND pupils and to train their staff in best practice for integrated teaching and pastoral care.

We would welcome the chance to discuss these principles and priorities with you further. Together with our Liberal Democrat colleagues, we are eager to work with you on a cross-party basis, to make sure that the forthcoming reforms truly deliver for children with SEND and for their families.

UPDATE: In response to Davey, Starmer said:

It’s telling that when he raises the question of the broken Send system, they laugh at the back of the Tory [benches]. They laugh. That’s how seriously they take their responsibility. Absolutely shame …

Everyone knows the system is broken. Again, guess who broke it, along with everything else? It doesn’t work for parents, and it lets down children, so we do need to reform and change it. That’s not about saving money, we’ve already invested an additional £1 billion into Send, but it is about creating a new system that truly supports every child.

And we’re developing proposals, want to work with parents and teachers to get this right, and I would expect him to welcome that.

Badenoch says the chancellor used to oppose the freeze on tax and national insurance thresholds. Is that still her position?

Starmer says no government will write its budget in advance.

The BMA strike decision must be a tempting topic for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs, which is starting very soon. The Conservatives have repeatedly criticised the government for the way they swiftly settled public sector pay disputes when they took office; they argue that Labour was too generous to the unions, thereby encouraging them to threaten further strikes.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

The Department of Health and Social Care has released the text of a letter sent by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to the BMA resident doctors committee about its proposed strike action. In it, Streeting is marginally more conciliatory than we was when he was talking to the Times (see 11.27am) – he offers to meet them for talks to avert the strike, he does not use the “will not forgive” line – but not by much.

Here are the key points.

• Streeting says he is “disappointed” by the proposed strike, and he insists resident doctors have had a relatively good outcome on pay. He says:

I remain disappointed that despite all that we have been able to achieve in this last year, and that the majority of resident doctors in the BMA did not vote to strike, the BMA is continuing to threaten strike action.

I accepted the DDRB’s recommendation for resident doctors, awarding an average pay rise of 5.4%, the highest across the public sector. Accepting this above inflation recommendation, which was significantly higher than affordability, required reprioritisation of NHS budgets. Because of this government’s commitment to recognising the value of the medical workforce, we made back-office efficiency savings to invest in the frontline. That was not inevitable, it was an active political choice this government made. Taken with the previous deal I made with the BMA last year, this means resident doctors will receive an average pay rise of 28.9% over the last 3 years.

• He says the NHS is “finally moving in the right direction” and that a strike will “put that recovery at risk”.

• He offers to hold meet the BMA to hold talks to avert the strike. He says:

I stand ready to meet with you again at your earliest convenience to resolve this dispute without the need for strike action. I would like to once again extend my offer to meet with your entire committee to discuss this.

As I have stated many times, in private and in public, with you and your predecessors, you will not find another health and social care secretary as sympathetic to resident doctors as me. By choosing to strike instead of working in partnership to improve conditions for your members and the NHS, you are squandering an opportunity.

Ultimately, we are all public servants. The public won’t see why, after a 28.9% pay rise, you would still walk out on strike, and neither do I.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has said that the government will not give resident doctors more than the 5.4% pay rise they have been offered this year and that he will not forgive them if they go on strike.

In an interview with the Times, which has provided the paper with its splash this morning, he said a strike would be “a disaster for [BMA] members and a disaster for patients, just as we are finally moving the NHS in the right direction”.

He went on:

The public will not forgive strike action in these circumstances and nor will I.

He also said:

Patients do not support the proposed strike action and it doesn’t even command majority support among BMA resident doctors, less than half of whom actually voted for industrial action. There are no grounds for strike action now. Resident doctors have just received the highest pay award across the entire public sector. The government can’t afford to offer more and it wouldn’t be fair to other NHS workers either, many of whom are paid less.

Some 90% of resident doctors voted for strike action in the recent ballot, but the turnout was only 55%.

Resident doctors in England – hospital medics below consultant grade who used to be called junior doctors – will go on strike from 7am on July 25 to 7am on July 30, the BMA has announced.

In a statement, BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said:

We met Wes Streeting yesterday and made every attempt to avoid strike action by opening negotiations for pay restoration. Unfortunately, the government has stated that it will not negotiate on pay, wanting to focus on non-pay elements without suggesting what these might be. Without a credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay, we have no choice but to call strikes.

No doctor wants to strike, and these strikes don’t have to go ahead. If Mr Streeting can seriously come to the table in the next two weeks we can ensure that no disruption is caused. The government knows what is needed to avert strikes. The choice is theirs.

As Haroon Siddique reports in his story on the Leveson recommendations, the Bar Council and the Law Society are both opposed to restricting access to jury trials. But the Magistrates Association is in favour.

Here is some more reaction to the plans.

Andy Slaughter, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons justice committee, said the government should think “very carefully” before changing the jury system. He said:

Juries are central to our constitutional right to a fair trial. We should think very carefully before altering a system that has served us well for centuries.

But that does not mean the ambit of the jury system can never change. Sir Brian makes a compelling case for radical change and the need for more than extra resources to restore the reputation of the criminal courts.

The justice committee will consider the recommendations on jury trial in the independent review with an open mind, alongside the series of further changes to the operation of the crown courts which the review recommends.

But Katie Kempen, chief executive at Victim Support, was more supportive. She said:

This review puts a much needed spotlight on the crisis in our courts. Sir Brian Leveson is right to call it unacceptable. The reality is the justice system is at crisis point with many victims waiting years for their case to come to trial. This causes immense suffering – victims’ lives are on hold whilst they are denied access to justice.

We are glad to hear that the government will carefully consider this review and recognise that some recommendations will make uncomfortable reading for victims. Whilst it’s essential that we see an end to long and painful delays this cannot come at any cost. Victims’ views need to be at the centre of all future changes.

The Conservatives have said that preventing access to jury trials for suspects charged with certain offences would be “a big, backward step”.

Responding to the Leveson report (see 10.35am), Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, told Times Radio:

[Leveson] can see no limit to the type of case that can be taken out of jury trials. So this is a slippery slope. If you begin to take away jury trials for these cases, the relatively limited number of cases that he’s proposing, where will it end? It could just keep rising and rising and rising. And you see a serious diminution over the years in jury trials. And I think that’s a big, backward step because we should trust the public. We should trust our system that has served us well for generations.

However, Jenrick did say that he agreed with Leveson’s call for the number of court sitting days to increase.

Thousands of defendants in England and Wales could lose the right to a jury trial under plans designed to save the criminal justice system from collapse, Haroon Siddique reports. Here is his story about the proposals, which are set out in a report by Sir Brian Leveson, a retired senior judge. It was commissioned by Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, and she is expected to accept most or all of the recommendations, which are seen as necessary to deal with the very lengthy delays clogging up the courts system.

The 388-page report has been published here. The front page is full of quotes all saying the same thing – that justice delayed is justice denied.

Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the infected blood inquiry, is today publishing a report on how the compensation payment process is working for victims. When he published his main report into the scandal last year, he reserved the right to come back and monitor progress on compensation and, at a hearing in May, he heard evidence about victims being been “re-traumatised” by delays to – and flaws in – the scheme.

In his interview on the Today progamme, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, insisted the government was not causing delays.

“We’re not dragging our heels,” he said, pointing out that more than 2,000 people have been invited to start their claims process by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority. He went on:

Over 600 have been paid, and we’ve paid out over £488m … My priority is to ensure that we’re not creating even further delay after decades of injustice.

He also said he was “open” to ideas about how the scheme might be improved.

Good morning. Yesterday Emmanuel Macron, the French president, enjoyed the best ceremonial aspects of his state visit – being hosted at Windsor Castle, addressing MPs and peers in the Royal Gallery at parliament, a state banquet. But today he is getting down to proper talks with Keir Starmer and, although they are expected to agree some new measures relating to curbing the number of small boats crossing the Channel, there are signs that the final deal might not be as wide-ranging as the UK government might have liked.

In their story about Macron’s address to parliament, Kiran Stacey and Morgan Ofori report:

The British government has been hoping to use the trip to show that its “EU reset” had borne fruit, including on the traditionally difficult subject of migration.

British officials have been hoping to sign a new deal that would involve Britain accepting asylum seekers who have a genuine family connection with the UK in return for being able to send others back to France. However, they had warned in recent days that it might not be ready in time for this trip.

And this morning the Daily Telegraph has splashed on a story saying Macron wants Britain to do more to reduce the “pull factors” the encourage migrants to cross the channel. In their story, James Crisp and Charles Hymas say:

The Telegraph understands that Mr Macron wants Sir Keir to crack down on the UK’s black market for labour and welfare payments and make family reunification for genuine asylum seekers easier as conditions for the deal.

An Elysée source warned that Mr Macron expected measures “addressing the root causes of the factors that attract people to the United Kingdom”, adding: “These causes must also be addressed by the British.”

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for post-Brexit relations with the EU, has been doing an interview round this morning. He sounded a bit more defensive than usual for a minister talking about small boats, and he was not talking up the chances of a ‘one in, one out’ deal. Here are the main points.

• Thomas-Symonds insisted that the UK is already addressing the “pull factors” affecting small boat crossings. Asked about Macron’s supposed views, as set out in the Telegraph splash, he told the Today programme:

Addressing pull factors is exactly what we have been doing. That is why there’s been over 7,000 arrests here in the United Kingdom dealing with things like, for example, illegal working which this government has been cracking down on.

• He claimed that policy was moving “in the right direction” on small boats. The number of crossings is at a record level for this time of year. But Thomas-Symonds told Today the numbers would have been even higher if it had not been for action taken by the British and the French. He said:

We have prevented, working together with the French authorities, and indeed beyond across Europe, 12,000 people from crossing the Channel who otherwise would have done.

We have seized 600 boats that otherwise would be being used in the channel.

When Emma Barnett, the presenter, said that having crossing numbers at a record level was nothing to boast about, Thomas-Symonds said he was not boasting. But he went on:

Preventing 12,000 people from crossing is most definitely something that is in the right direction …

To your point about numbers, we’ve seen, yes, over 21,000 have crossed so far this year. There was a 10-week period in 2022 when we had 20,000 people who crossed in that intense period.

But nobody, nobody, is boasting about those numbers.

There is no simple solution to that issue.

It is about it’s not about gimmicks, it’s not about performative politics, it is about doing the hard yards of solving this.

• He claimed that cooperation with the French was already paying off. He said:

We obviously want to see, in the bilateral relationship with France, which is crucial, but also around Europe, more people smugglers being arrested. We want to see more people prevented from attempting that dangerous crossing, more prosecutions of people smugglers.

And you do that by deepening your intelligence sharing. That’s what we’re doing in Dunkirk, for example. I’ve been down to Dover, I’ve been across to France, I’ve literally seen this work happening, and it yields results. Just the last couple of weeks, we saw nine people in Lille sentenced nine people to 64 years in total for people smuggling offences. That’s work between our National Crime Agency and the French authorities.

• And he rejected claims that, by abandoning the Tories’ Rwanda policy, the government had removed the deterrent for people tempted to cross the channel. When it was put to him that there was no deterrent, he replied:

Sorry, but we do have a deterrent, and the deterrent has been the 30,000 people who’ve been removed by this government who have no right to be here.

Knowing and having that in place, that people who have no right to be here will be deported, is a far more effective deterrent than spending £700m pounds on a gimmick that sent four volunteers to Rwanda.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.15am: Mark Wild, HS2 chief executive, and Lord Hendy, rail minister, give evidence to the Commons transport committee about HS2.

10.40am: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, is on a visit to Falkirk community hospital to announce a further £85m for initiatives that improve the flow of patients through the health service.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

12.30pm: Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the infected blood inquiry, publishes a report on how the compensation payment process is working.

After 12.45pm: MPs resume their debate on the universal credit and personal independent payment bill. They will vote on amendments at 6pm, and the vote on third reading will take place at 7pm.

1.15pm: Emmanuel Macron, the French president, arrives in Downing Street for talks with Starmer.

1.30pm: Pat McFadden, Cabinet Office minister, and Douglas Alexander, trade minister, give evidence to the Commons business sub-committee on economic security, arms and export controls.

2.30pm: Jo Stevens, Welsh secretary, gives evidence to the Commons Welsh affairs committee.

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