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Here is a summary from today’s blog:

• The Home Office will seek to appeal against the high court’s refusal to allow it to intervene in the case of a hotel used to house asylum seekers in Epping, security minister Dan Jarvis said. Jarvis said closing hotels housing asylum seekers must be done “in a managed and ordered way” as he unveiled government plans to challenge the high court’s decision related to the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex.

• On Friday, Yvette Cooper said ministers are working to close hotels housing asylum seekers “as swiftly as possible” as part of an “orderly” programme that avoids creating problems for other areas. Cooper reiterated Labour’s manifesto commitment to end the use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers. She also accused the previous Conservative government of presiding over a “chaotic and disorderly situation” in 2022 that saw “140 extra hotels were opened in the space of six months because they lost control of the system”.

• Heather Whitbread, Conservative councillor for the Epping West and Rural ward, hit back at Yvette Cooper’s warning, saying that the court ruling was “a decision on a planning point”, accusing the hotel owner of breaking planning law and insisting it was the council’s job to enforce regulations.

• The Home Office’s plan to appeal against the high court’s Epping asylum hotel ruling “is completely wrong”, Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp has said. He accused the government of not “listening to the public or to the courts”.

• Foreign secretary David Lammy has described the declaration of famine in Gaza City as “utterly horrifying” as he accused the Israeli government of causing a “man-made catastrophe”. Lammy also repeated calls for “an immediate ceasefire, to enable aid delivery at maximum speed and at the scale required”, including a halt to military operations in Gaza City.

• Lammy has joined 20 other foreign ministers around the world in condemning Israeli plans to build an illegal settlement on the West Bank, with the Foreign Office summoning the Israeli ambassador to communicate the government’s displeasure. The foreign secretary co-signed a joint statement on Thursday criticising the so-called E1 plan, a 3,400-home settlement that critics say would divide the West Bank in half.

• Dozens of protests outside hotels used as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers are expected over the weekend across England amid mounting tensions over the issue. Anti-migrant protests and counter-demonstrations held by Stand Up to Racism are expected on Friday outside hotels believed to be used to house asylum seekers, including in Bournemouth, Cardiff and Leeds, with more expected on Saturday.

• Workers at the UK’s third-largest steelworks in South Yorkshire have been assured they will receive their pay for August as well as unpaid pension contributions, after a government-appointed special manager took over the collapsed company. Liberty Steel’s main British business, Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), collapsed into administration on Thursday afternoon after a high court judge ruled that it was insolvent and that its owner, the metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, had no prospects of repaying debts of several hundred million pounds.

• The Conservatives have lost overall control of Surrey county council after losing out to Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats in two separate byelection results. The Lib Dems gained the Hinchley Wood, Claygate, and Oxshott seat from the Tories, while Reform took the Addlestone seat in yesterday’s byelections.

• Scottish Conservative MSP Jeremy Balfour has resigned from the party and will sit as an independent. In his resignation letter to party leader Russell Findlay, Balfour said the Scottish Conservatives had “fallen into the trap of reactionary politics” and that a “positive, proactive agenda for real change” had been rejected. A Scottish Conservative spokesperson said: “We are disappointed to read these comments but grateful for Jeremy’s service and wish him well.”

• Deep problems at the UK’s statistics agency with the quality of its data are piling pressure on officials in the run-up to the autumn budget, sources have told the Guardian. Staff at the Treasury and its independent spending watchdog are struggling to get a clear picture of the economy because of troubles at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) with producing reliable numbers.

• GMB has urged the government to “take a stake” in the future of Liberty Steel after assuming control of its Speciality Steels UK (SSUK) division. Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national officer, told BBC Breakfast that recent developments show why public ownership or greater government control is needed. Separately, the mayor of South Yorkshire said the government taking control of the UK’s third-largest steelworks was “good news” but that a conclusion should not be rushed.

• Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, should have its application to supply energy to UK homes blocked on national security grounds, Ed Davey has told ministers. The Liberal Democrat leader argued that giving the electric car manufacturer a foothold in the British energy market would be “a gravely concerning move considering Elon Musk’s repeated interference in UK politics”.

• Baby food manufacturers have been given 18 months to improve the quality of their products in England, amid mounting concerns that leading brands are nutritionally poor. The new voluntary guidance from the government calls for a reduction in sugar and salt levels in food for infants and toddlers.

• Nick Gibb, the former Conservative education minister, defended resits for students who fail to pass their maths and English GCSEs after the policy came under fire following new data showing that just 17% of those forced to retake had managed to achieve a grade 4 or above this year. The policy for pupils in England dates back to Gibb’s time as education minister.

• Ministers have announced a clampdown on people who continue to claim child benefit payments even though they have moved abroad, in measures that could save the taxpayer £350m over five years. The government said 2,600 people who had left the UK but still claimed the benefit had already been removed from the welfare system.

• Diane Abbott has said she advised her longtime friend Jeremy Corbyn not to launch a new political party because she believed it would struggle to make inroads under the first-past-the-post system. Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said last month she would not be leaving Labour in favour of Corbyn’s as yet unnamed party, despite the pair having worked closely together in the past.

• A professor of public policy has said managing relationships between the UK government and Holyrood has to be a priority in the upcoming Scottish election – especially if it results in a minority administration. Speaking at a Festival of Politics event at the Scottish parliament about expectations and concerns for the Holyrood poll next May, Prof Nicola McEwen said that relationships across parties have become increasingly strained.

• Civil servants in a government department are to strike in a dispute over office closures, recruitment and attendance policies. The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said more than 1,100 of its members in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) will take industrial action on 1 September. Smaller groups of union members will strike from 2 to 25 September.

• Scots are being urged to use water more efficiency in a bid to protect resources and maintain normal water levels. Scottish Water said August was drier than normal, and it followed the country’s driest spring in 70 years. It said reservoir levels across Scotland are down by 2% to 73% this week, 9% lower than the average of 82% for this time of year.

Closing asylum hotels must be “orderly” rather than through “piecemeal court decisions”, the home secretary has said as the government plans to appeal against a court ruling blocking the use of an Epping hotel.

The Home Office will seek to appeal against the high court’s refusal to allow it to intervene in the case, and to then further appeal against the temporary injunction.

On Friday, Yvette Cooper said ministers are working to close hotels housing asylum seekers “as swiftly as possible” as part of an “orderly” programme that avoids creating problems for other areas, reports the PA news agency.

Cooper said:

We agree with communities across the country that all asylum hotels need to close, including the Bell hotel, and we are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme that avoids simply creating problems for other areas or local councils as a result of piecemeal court decisions or a return to the kind of chaos which led to so many hotels being opened in the first place.

That is the reason for the Home Office appeal in this case, to ensure that going forward, the closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way right across the country – without creating problems for other areas and local councils.

Cooper reiterated Labour’s manifesto commitment to end the use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers. She also accused the previous Conservative government of presiding over a “chaotic and disorderly situation” in 2022 that saw “140 extra hotels were opened in the space of six months because they lost control of the system”.

Foreign secretary David Lammy has described the declaration of famine in Gaza City as “utterly horrifying” as he accused the Israeli government of causing a “man-made catastrophe”, reports the PA news agency.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said on Friday that famine is occurring in Gaza City and could spread farther south. It comes after weeks of warnings by aid groups that restrictions on aid were leading to starvation among Palestinians.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Lammy said:

The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable.

The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage.

The IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) report makes clear the sickening consequences, especially for children.

The government of Israel can and must immediately act to stop the situation deteriorating any further. It must immediately and sustainably allow unhindered food, medical supplies, fuel, and all types of aid to reach those who so desperately need them.

It is the first time that the IPC has confirmed a famine in the Middle East. The IPC report said that more than half a million people in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger, and many are at risk of dying from malnutrition-related causes.

Lammy also repeated calls for “an immediate ceasefire, to enable aid delivery at maximum speed and at the scale required”, including a halt to military operations in Gaza City. He added:

The UK reiterates its condemnation of this military action, which will only worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation and endanger the lives of the hostages held by Hamas.

We urge the Israeli government to change course and halt its plans. This terrible conflict must end. An immediate and permanent ceasefire is the only way to stop the suffering, secure the release of the hostages, achieve a surge in aid and deliver a framework for lasting peace.

Dozens of immigration protesters have faced off with anti-racism demonstrators in Portsmouth.

According to the PA news agency Rita, a Portsmouth resident who joined the Stand Up to Racism counter-protest said:

I feel ashamed [at the protest] and I say this as a white British elderly lady who has been spat upon, verbally abused and had things thrown at me, just for being on this side of the road.

I am angry that my Christianity is being used as a weapon by the right and to be used in the name of fascism.

Baby food manufacturers have been given 18 months to improve the quality of their products in England, amid mounting concerns that leading brands are nutritionally poor.

The new voluntary guidance from the government calls for a reduction in sugar and salt levels in food for infants and toddlers.

It also requests clearer labelling of products to address misleading marketing claims that make baby foods seem healthier than they are.

This will cover products with labels such as “contains no nasties”, which are high in sugar. Others are labelled as snacks for babies, which goes against government recommendations that children aged six to 12 months do not need snacks between meals, only milk.

It comes after researchers found that leading brands, such as Ella’s Kitchen and Heinz, were making sugar-heavy, nutritionally poor baby food that failed to meet the needs of infants.

A report by the University of Leeds school of food science and nutrition, published in April, found that some brands also carried misleading marketing claims, and urged the government to impose the same traffic light system found on chocolate bars and ice-cream.

The report’s authors said the new voluntary guidelines were disappointing and would have limited impact. Dr Diane Threapleton, the lead author of the Leeds study, said:

They’re quite narrow in scope, only looking at sugar and salt. But salt is not a major concern in UK baby food.

The public health minister, Ashley Dalton, said the guidelines would help parents who were often “bombarded with confusing labels, disguising unhealthy foods packed with hidden sugars and salt”.

Prof Simon Kenny, NHS England’s national clinical director for children and young people, said:

These new guidelines alongside clearer labelling will help empower busy parents to make nutritious choices that give their children the best possible start in life.

Last year a House of Lords report found commercial infant foods “are routinely high in sugar and marketed misleadingly”. It called on the government to introduce mandatory legal standards for commercial infant foods, without input from manufacturers.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said it expected manufacturers to meet the labelling guidelines within 18 months, adding: “If businesses fail to act, we will consider tougher measures.”

Deep problems at the UK’s statistics agency with the quality of its data are piling pressure on officials in the run-up to the autumn budget, sources have told the Guardian.

Staff at the Treasury and its independent spending watchdog are struggling to get a clear picture of the economy because of troubles at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) with producing reliable numbers.

Such is the concern that insiders at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) believe it may have to again highlight “significant uncertainty” in its forecasts because of poor official data, as it did publicly in March. Economists have also warned that the problems risk the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, making tax and spending “missteps”.

The OBR forecasts are key to the budget process, as they are used to judge the headroom the chancellor has against her self-imposed fiscal rules, and form the basis for her tax and spending decisions. Its work is also closely watched by financial markets. This can affect the cost of borrowing the government needs to help fund public services.

The ONS, which produces figures on a range of indicators including economic growth, inflation and unemployment that are used by financial markets and government agencies, is struggling with mounting problems as it has delayed or cancelled several of its releases.

Its labour force survey (LFS) – the official measure of employment in the UK – has been beset with problems amid a collapse in response rates. Only this week, it postponed the release of retail sales data due on Friday for two weeks “to allow for further quality assurance”. Household wealth data has also been downgraded and is no longer treated as “official” because of quality concerns.

The longer the data quality problems persist at the ONS, the more acute the challenge becomes, sources familiar with the matter told the Guardian. One said:

We are, to a significant extent, flying blind on major areas such as the jobs market.

They added that while other datasets might offer indications of the health of employment in the UK, nothing could replace the fundamental role of the LFS.

Dan Jarvis has vowed the Labour government will meet its 2024 manifesto commitment to “end asylum hotels”.

Asked whether he was “worried about any copycat protests” after the high court’s decision this week, the security minister told broadcasters:

We’ve made a very clear commitment that we’re going to close all of the asylum hotels. That was a manifesto commitment that we stood on and we will honour.

We’re clearing up the legacy that we inherited from the previous government but the closures of these hotels need to be done in an ordered and managed way.

The Home Office will seek to appeal against the high court’s refusal to allow it to intervene in the case of a hotel used to house asylum seekers in Epping, security minister Dan Jarvis said.

Jarvis has said closing hotels housing asylum seekers must be done “in a managed and ordered way” as he unveiled government plans to challenge the high court’s decision related to the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex.

He told broadcasters:

This government will close all asylum hotels and we will clear up the mess that we inherited from the previous government.

We’ve made a commitment that we will close all of the asylum hotels by the end of this parliament, but we need to do that in a managed and ordered way. And that’s why we’ll appeal this decision.

David Lammy has joined 20 other foreign ministers around the world in condemning Israeli plans to build an illegal settlement on the West Bank, with the Foreign Office summoning the Israeli ambassador to communicate the government’s displeasure.

The foreign secretary co-signed a joint statement on Thursday criticising the so-called E1 plan, a 3,400-home settlement that critics say would divide the West Bank in half.

Officials then summoned Tzipi Hotovely to the Foreign Office in a rare public rebuke for the Israeli ambassador. The actions marked a further intensification of recent international criticism for Israel over its tactics in Gaza and the West Bank.

The statement, which was signed by 21 countries including the UK, Australia, Canada and France, said:

The decision by the Israeli higher planning committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law. We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms.

In a separate statement, the Foreign Office confirmed it had summoned Hotovely in a display of public criticism. “If implemented, these settlement plans would be a flagrant breach of international law and would divide a future Palestinian state in two, critically undermining a two-state solution,” the department said in a statement.

It did not say which minister or official had met Hotovely or what was said in the meeting. The Israeli embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

Workers at the UK’s third-largest steelworks in South Yorkshire have been assured they will receive their pay for August as well as unpaid pension contributions, after a government-appointed special manager took over the collapsed company.

Liberty Steel’s main British business, Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), collapsed into administration on Thursday afternoon after a high court judge ruled that it was insolvent and that its owner, the metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, had no prospects of repaying debts of several hundred million pounds.

The judge approved an application by the government’s official receiver, a representative tasked with winding up insolvent companies, to appoint special managers from the advisory company Teneo. A Teneo senior managing director was present in court on Thursday, and made contact with Liberty Steel executives immediately after the hearing.

Concerned union leaders representing SSUK’s 1,450 workers met the special managers last night, seeking assurances particularly on pay and pensions, as well as when operations could restart at sites including Rotherham and Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire, after a year without work.

Roy Rickhuss, the general secretary of Community, the biggest steelworking union, said that he had “received firm assurances” on pay and pensions.

The court heard on Thursday that SSUK had only £650,000 left in its bank account, with the August payroll of £3.6m due on Friday. Gupta’s counsel had argued that he was ready to cover the payments via another company, Liberty Capital UK, although the judge, Mr Justice Mellor, said Gupta’s assurances that he could pay “are at best questionable”.

The special managers have committed that workers will receive their August pay packets before the bank holiday weekend. They also said that they will fill in unpaid employer pension contributions for the past year. That will remove a major source of concern for workers, who had feared losing national insurance protections next month if the company were to close.

It remains unclear when the plants will restart production, although a person briefed on the talks said that the special managers had given positive signals that it could happen soon. Restarting production and trying to generate cash after four years in which it lost £340m will be crucial to limiting the costs of the administration, which will be borne temporarily by the government.

The Conservatives have lost overall control of Surrey county council after losing out to Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats in two separate byelection results. The Lib Dems gained the Hinchley Wood, Claygate, and Oxshott seat from the Tories, while Reform took the Addlestone seat in yesterday’s byelections.

Responding to the news that the Conservatives have lost overall control of Surrey county council for the first time since the 1990s, a Lib Dem source said:

Kemi Badenoch has presided over a Surrey shambles. The Conservatives are sliding to defeat – it’s no wonder they ran scared and delayed the elections until next year.

If the Conservatives cannot keep control of Surrey, nowhere is safe for them. Voters in Surrey are backing the Liberal Democrats’ community politics over the Conservatives, just as they did in the general election.

The results of the byelections are:

Hinchley Wood, Claygate and Oxshott byelection results – Thursday, 21 August 2025

• Andy Burton (Liberal Democrats): 38%

• Andrew Burley (Local Conservatives): 31%

• Mary Susan Marshall (Independent): 15%

• Nicholas David Wood (Reform UK): 13%

• Sarah Coomes (the Green party): 2%

• Irene Threlkeld (Labour): 1%

Addlestone byelection results– Thursday, 21 August 2025

• Scott Michael Kelly (Reform UK): 34%

• Shannon Saise-Marshall (Conservative): 24%

• Mike Smith (Liberal Democrats): 17%

• Steven Lee Ringham (the Green party): 16%

• Arran Richard Neathey (Labour and Co-operative): 8%

Diane Abbott has said she advised her longtime friend Jeremy Corbyn not to launch a new political party because she believed it would struggle to make inroads under the first-past-the-post system.

Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said last month she would not be leaving Labour in favour of Corbyn’s as yet unnamed party, despite the pair having worked closely together in the past.

Speaking at the Edinburgh international book festival in conversation with the campaigner and commentator Talat Yaqoob, Abbott confirmed she had spoken to Corbyn before the party’s launch to warn him against it. She said:

There were people around Jeremy encouraging him to set up a new party and I told him not to.

It’s very difficult under the first-past-the-post system for a new party to absolutely win. If it wasn’t first past the post then you can see how a new party could come through, but I understand why he did it.

Abbott described Zarah Sultana, the independent MP launching the new party with Corbyn, as a “lovely person who is full of energy”. She said the party could get votes and support from people who were “not necessarily leftwing” but were “disappointed about the way [Labour has] gone in the past year”.

Abbott, who as the longest-serving female MP has the honorary title of mother of the house, is suspended by Labour. She lost the party whip in April 2023 after she wrote a letter to the Observer in which she argued that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experienced prejudice but not racism, and likened their experience to that of people with red hair.

She said the letter published was a draft version and that her comments had been taken out of context. She was readmitted to the party in time to hold her seat at the general election. But she was suspended again last month after telling the BBC in an interview that she did not regret the remarks.

Abbott said in Edinburgh:

I think she and Jeremy are a great combination but at this point in time, it’s difficult to see how a brand new party wins. However, I think Jeremy’s party is going to do a lot better than people think, because a lot of people are not necessarily terribly leftwing. People are a tiny bit disappointed about the way we’ve gone in the past year.

Asked whether she thought she would ever be accepted at the heart of the Labour party, Abbott said:

I think I am at the heart of the Labour party, it’s other people who aren’t.

Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, should have its application to supply energy to UK homes blocked on national security grounds, Ed Davey has told ministers.

The Liberal Democrat leader argued that giving the electric car manufacturer a foothold in the British energy market would be “a gravely concerning move considering Elon Musk’s repeated interference in UK politics”.

Tesla has a clean energy arm and applied in July for a licence to supply power to British homes.

If the licence is granted by the regulator, Ofgem, the US company could be competing with big UK domestic energy suppliers such as British Gas and Octopus as soon as next year.

In a letter to the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, Sir Ed cited comments by Musk on social media appearing to encourage violent riots in the UK last summer, and accused the Tesla CEO of “peddling misinformation to millions”.

Musk, in a series of posts after last summer’s riots that followed the deadly mass stabbing in Southport, wrote that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK, which he labelled a “tyrannical police state”.

He has expressed sympathy with the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

The Daily Mirror reported in January that the Home Office’s homeland security group was monitoring social media posts by Musk as a possible security risk.

Thousands of people living abroad will have their child benefit stopped as the government clamps down on people wrongly claiming the payment, reports the PA news agency.

People who leave the UK for more than eight weeks are no longer eligible for the benefit, other than in exceptional circumstances, but some continue to claim it incorrectly.

According to the PA news agency, ministers have announced that a specialist team scouring international travel data and 200,000 child benefit records to find wrongful payments will be significantly expanded in an attempt to save more money.

It follows a successful trial in which 15 investigators stopped 2,600 people receiving the benefit after moving abroad, saving around £17m over the past year. That team will now be increased to more than 200 investigators, with the Cabinet Office suggesting this could see “tens of thousands” of people lose the benefit and save £350m over the next five years.

Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould said:

From September, we’ll have 10 times as many investigators saving hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. If you’re claiming benefits you’re not entitled to, your time is up.

Child benefit is the most widely accessed benefit in the UK and is paid to more than 6.9 million families, supporting 11.9 million children.

The government has made cracking down on wrongful benefit payments a significant part of its efforts to cut costs, with overpayments estimated to have cost £9.5bn in the year to March. These efforts include the public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) bill currently making its way through parliament.

Ministers have billed the legislation as delivering the “biggest ever crackdown on fraud against the public purse”, including measures that allow the government to recover money directly from fraudsters’ bank accounts.

GMB has urged the government to “take a stake” in the future of Liberty Steel after assuming control of its Speciality Steels UK (SSUK) division.

The PA news agency reports that Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national officer, told BBC Breakfast that recent developments show why public ownership or greater government control is needed. She said:

What has happened at Liberty Steel is again another example of when the government does not have a stake in these important national assets, they are at the whim of often international owners that have profit above people and don’t have a stake in the UK national infrastructure.

GMB would like to see government take a stake in the ownership of Liberty Steel and ultimately have a say in its future.

Brumpton-Childs said staff faced “huge uncertainty” in the aftermath of the government taking control of the UK’s third-largest steelworks and that court cases meant workers had been left in limbo for months.

She told BBC Breakfast:

It’s been a yo-yo, where we’ve never been really sure what the court decision was going to be.

We’ve sort of expected this insolvency decision several times over the last couple of months and I think it’s been really hard for everyone because you can’t predict what a judge is going to say.

Scottish Conservative MSP Jeremy Balfour has resigned from the party and will sit as an independent, reports the PA news agency.

In his resignation letter to party leader Russell Findlay, Balfour said the Scottish Conservatives have “fallen into the trap of reactionary politics” and that a “positive, proactive agenda for real change” has been rejected.

Balfour said he intends to continue to represent his constituents in the Lothian region for the remainder of the parliamentary session as an independent MSP.

In his letter, also posted on social media, Balfour said he has made the decision to resign with immediate effect with a “heavy heart”. However he said:

I no longer feel that the party has a positive platform to offer the people of Scotland.

Dozens of protests outside hotels used as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers are expected over the weekend across England amid mounting tensions over the issue.

Figures released on Thursday showed there were more than 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels, marking a rise of 8% during Labour’s first year in office.

Anti-migrant protests and counter-demonstrations held by Stand Up to Racism are expected on Friday outside hotels believed to be used to house asylum seekers, including in Bournemouth, Cardiff and Leeds, with more expected on Saturday.

Meanwhile, councils across the country controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK are investigating whether they could pursue legal challenges against asylum hotels.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said on Thursday that people had “every right” to protest over asylum hotels in their areas. While the number of asylum seekers rose in Labour’s first year, the new data shows they are still far below the 2023 peak, when the Conservatives were in government.

Labour has pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this parliament in 2029.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, insisted Labour had taken “crucial steps” in the past year towards this by cutting the asylum backlog and money spent on the asylum system, increasing returns of asylum seekers whose applications had failed, and overhauling appeals.

We will update this blog with any news from the protests and counter-protests. Elsewhere, shadow home office minister Katie Lam has been on the morning media round for Conservatives and Labour mayor Oliver Coppard has been speaking to reporters about Speciality Steel, a steelworks that has been taken over by the government in an attempt to save jobs. More on this in a moment.

In other developments:

• David Lammy has joined 20 other foreign ministers around the world in condemning Israeli plans to build an illegal settlement on the West Bank, with the Foreign Office summoning the Israeli ambassador to communicate the government’s displeasure. The foreign secretary co-signed a joint statement on Thursday criticising the so-called E1 plan, a 3,400-home settlement that critics say would divide the West Bank in half.

• Protesters at the next mass demonstration against the ban on Palestine Action will withhold their details from officers to force en-masse processing at police stations in an effort to make it “practically impossible” to arrest everyone. On Friday, Defend Our Juries, the pressure group behind the protests, will open sign-ups for its next demonstration to be held in London on 6 September.

• Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, should have its application to supply energy to UK homes blocked on national security grounds, Ed Davey has told ministers. The Liberal Democrat leader argued that giving the electric car manufacturer a foothold in the British energy market would be “a gravely concerning move considering Elon Musk’s repeated interference in UK politics”.