Responding to Tony Blair’s meeting at the White House with the Trump administration discussing the war in Gaza, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called on the former UK prime minister to give evidence in parliament about his discussions.

In a statement on Thursday, Davey said:

Tony Blair needs to come before parliament to give evidence about his discussions with the Trump administration about the ongoing war and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

If he has special insight into Trump’s intentions, it’s only right that parliament and the government are made privy to this.

Trump has a unique power to help end this war, get the hostages out, and get the desperately needed aid in to relieve the horrendous human suffering in Gaza. We must leverage all the information and resources at our disposal to make him do the right thing.

Immigration minister Seema Malhotra has dismissed Reform’s plans to tackle immigration numbers as “gimmicks” that have “unravelled on basic facts and figures”.

The MP for Feltham and Heston said that she would not comment on Nigel Farage’s proposed deal with Afghanistan’s Taliban or “individual countries”.

Speaking in Portsmouth, Malhotra told the PA news agency:

I’m not commenting on individual countries in this way.

What I will say is that we have a policy of returning people to their countries where they are safe or, as we’ve seen in the agreement with France, to safe third countries.

What’s also the case is that we’ve seen Reform’s plan unravel after just two days, and if that’s their specialist subject to see their plans unravel on the basic facts and figures, one has to ask the question about what other plans they might have.

Whether it’s for our NHS or any other areas of our public services, what we are committed to is taking the serious action that we need and not gimmicks.

To make sure that we are stepping up the action we’re taking to disrupt the activity of these evil criminal gangs to make sure that we are returning those with no right to be here – over 35,000 since the last election.

To make sure that we’re bringing in new powers for law enforcement and intelligence sharing with other countries through legislation we’re bringing forward in parliament that both the Tories and Reform have voted against, and to make sure that we are urgently speeding up the processing of asylum cases, a backlog that the last government left behind in a system that was utterly chaotic.

She continued:

Through these steps, I think what people will see is that we’re taking the action we need, and that we will see a closure to asylum hotels and to this evil criminal trade.

When asked if the government had alternative plans to hotels for housing asylum-seekers, Maholtra said:

What we are doing is making sure that we’re reducing the need for hotels. That’s the critical bit of this and we’ve got to do that by working with communities across the country, making sure that what we’re doing is processing asylum cases much more quickly, making sure that we’re returning those with no right to be here, and making sure that we are delivering on our commitment that we made in our manifesto to see a closure to all asylum hotels in this parliament.

We’ve already seen a drop from the 400 asylum hotels that we saw open at their peak under the previous government, and seeing that now almost halved to just over 200, this is really important that we continue the work that we’re doing to make sure that we see a closure of all asylum hotels in line with our manifesto commitment in this parliament. That’s what we’re determined to do.

When asked if the government was reliant on hotels, she said:

Well, we’re also reliant on making sure that we’re clearing the backlog, because the number of people in hotels is as a result of the asylum cases that are open.

What we need to do is to continue that step change that we’ve seen processing asylum cases much more quickly, making sure that we’re seeing those returns for people who have no right to be here as a result also of the returns agreements that we have been signing, whether that’s with Iraq, whether that’s with France. Whether that’s also in relation to the agreements and cooperation agreements we’ve got with other countries like Vietnam.

When we see the results of all of those actions, when we see the new powers that are going to be coming in as a result of new legislation that we have brought in to parliament to increase intelligence sharing, to make it an offence to even supply criminal gangs, we are going to be doing much more than the previous government.

We’re seeing the arrests step up of those involved in criminal gangs, and we’re seeing that this evil criminal trade is disrupted that we are seeing put lives at risk and undermine our border security.

Becca Jones, director of asylum support in the Home Office, said it would be “significant” to lose 152 bedspaces from the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex.

The PA news agency reports that in a witness statement referenced in the court of appeal hearing on Thursday, Jones said there were 103,684 accommodated asylum-seekers as of 31 March, higher than in 2024. She said:

In this context, and at this time, the loss of 152 bedspaces is significant when considering the Home Office’s legal duty.

The availability of the hotel is also important in enabling the secretary of state to meet her duty to accommodate future asylum seekers going forward, in circumstances where the pressure on available properties is significant and increasing.

Jones continued in her witness statement that the interim injunction would risk “encouraging other local authorities” to seek similar injunctions. She said:

The Home Office is aware that there have been a series of protests in the local area about the use of the hotel, including some disorder in previous weeks. However, following appropriate police intervention, the situation is now understood to be one of managed, peaceful protest.

Jones continued:

The Home Office understands that local residents have concerns about the use of the hotel, which have been heard. However, those concerns must be viewed in the context of demands on the accommodation estate.

She concluded:

Granting the interim injunction sought risks setting a precedent which would have a serious impact on the secretary of state’s ability to house vulnerable people, both by encouraging other local authorities to seek such interim injunctions pending the outcome of substantive planning law complaints and those who seek to target asylum accommodation in acts of public disorder.

Further to the previous post, the Foreign Office has confirmed that it summoned the Russian ambassador after strikes on Kyiv overnight killed civilians and damaged the British Council building in the Ukrainian capital.

Foreign secretary David Lammy posted on X:

Putin’s strikes last night killed civilians, destroyed homes and damaged buildings, including the British Council and EU delegation in Kyiv.

We have summoned the Russian Ambassador. The killing and destruction must stop.

Children and young people are being overdiagnosed with mental health conditions in a society that has lost sight of the reality that child development is “messy and uneven”, the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said.

He is the latest senior figure to add his voice to calls for a radical overhaul of the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system in England.

Hunt said in his half decade as health secretary, he witnessed “an alarming escalation” in the prevalence and severity of mental ill-health among young people, as well as significant increases in diagnoses of neurodevelopmental conditions.

In a foreword to a new report by the centre-right thinktank Policy Exchange, Hunt said:

Mental ill-health and neurodiversity now accounts for more than half of the post-pandemic increase we have seen in claimants of disability benefit. Spending on Send provision has sky-rocketed and risks the financial sustainability of local government.

Rather than assuming that more money or more of the same is the answer, we need to ask more fundamental questions. Is a cash transfer – or a label that means young people are treated and come to see themselves as different – the right way to help them?

He added:

Across the political spectrum, and amongst a growing range of practitioners, it is now recognised that there is a level of ‘overdiagnosis’ [in] our system. We need to cut through the complexity to better understand the drivers of demand we are seeing.

Hunt, who is Conservative MP for Godalming and Ash, and has also served as chancellor and foreign secretary under the Conservatives, said:

As a society, we seem to have lost sight of the fundamental reality that child development is a messy and uneven process.

Our laudable desire to ensure young people are happy and well-supported is at times manifesting in excessive impulses to medicalise and diagnose the routine in a manner that can undercut grit and resilience.

The government is expected to publish a white paper later this year detailing how it plans to reform the Send system. Parents are concerned that education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – legally enforceable documents that detail a child or young person’s needs, and the support they require – will be targeted.

Keir Starmer has begun a shake-up of No 10, including replacing an aide whose appointment had been a key battleground amid the departure of Sue Gray last autumn.

Nin Pandit, the prime minister’s top civil service aide, is to leave her role after less than 10 months. Sources at No 10 denied she had quit and said she would step into a new policy delivery role and the prime minister would now take more direct control of delivery.

The Guardian understands that Pandit, once praised by Dominic Cummings as one of “the brilliant women around the table” who would have done the job of prime minister “10 times better” than Boris Johnson, will be replaced by Dan York-Smith as Starmer’s principal private secretary.

York-Smith’s appointment will be taken as a sign of No 10’s need to beef up economic expertise. It has long been rumoured that Starmer wanted to appoint more economic and infrastructure experts to his policy unit but no appointments have been announced. York-Smith is an experienced Treasury official, who has led economic strategy for six chancellors and oversees tax and welfare at the Treasury.

Downing Street sources said there were more changes to come but said they believed the cabinet secretary, Chris Wormald, was safe in his role, despite briefings that several colleagues believe he has been ineffective.

A No 10 source denied Pandit was being sacked or demoted and said she had the full confidence of the prime minister and would remain a key part of the operation. Her new role has not yet been named.

A former Labour councillor in Glasgow who quit the party after being accused of making racist remarks has joined Reform UK, making her the seventeenth Scottish councillor to defect to them.

Reform UK announced on Thursday morning that Audrey Dempsey, who now sits as an independent on Glasgow city council, had become its latest elected member.

Dempsey resigned as a Labour councillor in April last year after she was suspended for allegedly making racist remarks, and claiming that racist attacks on white children and teachers were rising in the city’s schools.

She claimed at the time she had been raising concerns about the party’s directions for some time. “Instead the reaction of some has been to attack my character and reputation with cowardly leaks that have deliberately been twisted to fit a narrative,” she said in a statement on X.

Dempsey, who runs a charity focusing on poverty among families in north Glasgow, is now the second Reform UK councillor in Glasgow and the second ex-Labour councillor to defect.

She said Keir Starmer, the prime minister, and Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, ran the party as a “self-serving clique”. Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, was different, she said.

Reform UK and Nigel Farage aren’t just challenging the status quo; they’re ripping it apart. They’re focused on tackling illegal migration, standing up for women and girls’ safety and transforming working people lives for the better. That’s what I’ve always done in my professional life and specifically designed my charity to put Glasgow’s people first.

Unlike Reform’s electoral successes in England and Wales, none of its 17 Scottish councillors has yet won an election for Reform UK; most have defected from the Conservatives or as independents. Those 17 representatives make up 1.4% of the 1,226 councillors sitting in Scotland.

On Tuesday, Nigel Farage, the party’s UK leader, unveiled a Scottish Conservative MSP, Graham Simpson, as its latest recruit.

Simpson is the party’s sole MSP at Holyrood, but recent polling suggests Reform UK could win a number of seats at the next Holyrood election in May 2026 after leap-frogging the Tories and edging close to Labour’s level of support.

Government funding for a programme which offers children from low-income families free meals and activities during the school holidays will be extended, reports the PA news agency.

The Department for Education (DfE) has said working families on free school meals could save more than £800 a year thanks to its investment into holiday clubs. According to the PA news agency, £600m is being invested to extend the holiday activity and food (HAF) programme – which funds councils to provide holiday childcare, activities and food for children eligible for free school meals – for another three years.

It comes as working parents in England will be able to access 30 hours a week of funded childcare for children older than nine months from Monday. With just days to go until the full rollout, education secretary Bridget Phillipson has called on eligible parents in England to “take up” the offer.

The expansion of funded childcare – which was introduced by the Conservative government – began being rolled out in England in April last year for working parents of two-year-olds. Working parents of children older than nine months are now also able to access 15 hours of funded childcare a week during term time, before the full rollout of 30 hours a week to all eligible families from next week.

The HAF programme – for school-age children from reception to year 11 – helps parents to make savings of more than £300 a year, the DfE said.

In July, the Coram Family and Childcare charity called for the HAF programme to be maintained after March 2026 to ensure disadvantaged children have childcare during school holidays.

Andrew Forsey, national director of Feeding Britain, said:

Today’s news will be welcomed by hundreds of thousands of parents across England. The support provided to children from lower incomes through the holiday activities fund eases the pressure on family budgets during the school holidays, enhances their access to enriching and physical activities, and gives them a healthy meal each day during the school holidays.

This delivers a raft of benefits for children and their families, so it is excellent news that the government is extending this provision for a further three years.

Phillipson said:

Giving every child the best start in life is my number one priority, which is why we are delivering on our commitment to provide hundreds of thousands of children with 30 hours government-funded early education.

Whether it’s to save up to £7,500 a year, support parents to get back to work or reduce the pressure on grandparents who so often have to step in, the benefits are widespread.

The offer is just around the corner, and so I’m urging every eligible parent who wants it, to take it up.

A Reform council leader’s decision to ban his councillors from engaging with a prominent local newspaper is a “massive attack on local democracy” and a sign of things to come should the party form the next government, the outlet’s editor has warned.

In an unprecedented move, Nottinghamshire county council’s four-month-old Reform administration has said it will no longer deal with the Nottingham Post, its online edition and a team of BBC-funded local democracy journalists that it manages.

Nigel Farage is already facing calls to intervene in the row, with local MPs accusing Reform of “rank hypocrisy” over its previous claims to support free speech and transparency. Lee Anderson, the Reform MP for Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, has said he will join in the boycott.

In an interview with the Guardian, Natalie Fahy, the editor of the Nottingham Post and Nottinghamshire Live, said the ban had come from Mick Barton, the county council’s leader, after a story about plans for a restructuring of local government. She said it was a worrying sign of Reform’s approach to the free press.

“It’s a massive attack on local democracy,” she said.

I’ve been a journalist for 20 years. We have had our ups and downs with all kinds of councils. We managed to get along fine, because most elected officials accept this is par for the course. You are going to get some negative press. What you don’t do is shut the shop up.

This is a worrying sign of potentially things to come if Reform wins the next election. What you’re seeing here in Nottinghamshire is probably a microcosm of how it will be across the whole of the UK if Nigel Farage becomes prime minister. You are just going to see this kind of shutting down of questioning.

They need to be answerable to the people who elected them. We don’t take a political stance. We’re not anti-Reform. We’re just trying to find out what’s going on.

The move has already caused concern among other parties. The Lib Dems have written to Farage to demand that he step in to reverse the “dangerous and chilling” decision. They also suggested that the move may have breached local government’s code of conduct, which calls on elected officials to “submit themselves to the scrutiny”.

Keir Starmer has appointed the outspoken founder of Octopus Energy as an adviser, with a remit to challenge government thinking.

Greg Jackson has joined the Cabinet Office board, an influential core of government advisers, as a non-executive member.

The announcement comes weeks after ministers ruled out his plan to split the national energy market into regional zones, which would have meant users in different areas would pay different rates for their electricity.

The tech entrepreneur, who has long had links to the Labour party, responded to that decision by saying he would “respectfully disagree”.

Jackson failed to win over ministers after a long and controversial campaign, in part because zonal pricing would have meant higher energy prices in the south-east of England and lower prices in Scotland.

He claimed that electricity prices that reflected local supply and demand dynamics would encourage heavy electricity users to relocate to areas that have more renewable energy generation such as Scotland and encourage renewables developers to base their projects closer to where their energy was needed.

Jackson is now expected to play an influential role in shaping how future government policies are implemented. His non-executive role is one of a number that are understood to have been introduced to bring in expertise from outside government to help civil servants gain a strategic perspective on policy decisions.

Jackson is expected to use his three-year term on the Cabinet Office board to push the government to modernise. The tech founder, who set up Octopus in 2015, has won respect in Westminster after building the energy supplier’s global reach to secure a valuation of £9bn for the company in less than a decade.

Speculation that the chancellor could announce new property taxes in her autumn budget is likely to slow down an already price-sensitive housing market, estate agents have said.

Rachel Reeves is reportedly considering a tax on the sale of homes over £500,000 and the removal of the capital gains tax exemption on primary residences above £1.5m as ways to boost income for the government.

The property website Zoopla said changes to the taxation of homes over £500,000 “may make some buyers consider a wait-and-see strategy. This covers those who may possibly save money on purchases under £500,000 and concern those buying over this level as well”.

It said a third of homes for sale were priced at more than £500,000, with London and the south-east of England in line to be most affected by a change.

The website’s latest monthly snapshot of the property market showed the number of sales agreed was up by 5% year on year in July and that average prices had risen by 1.3%.

One in 10 homes listed had been reduced in price, above the five-year average of 6% of homes. Homes that have been reduced are typically on the market for almost two and a half times longer than those that are priced well when they go on the market, Zoopla said.

Richard Donnell, an executive director at Zoopla, said:

Sellers need to understand local market conditions when considering how to market their home, setting the right price and how quickly they would like to sell. The risk of being too ambitious on price is your home taking more than twice as long to find a buyer, or not selling at all.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, will boycott King Charles’s state banquet held in honour of Donald Trump to protest against the US president’s failure to intervene decisively to end the war in Gaza.

Davey, who is invited to the dinner for Trump’s state visit to the UK, said to turn down an invitation from the king went against all his instincts and that it was a deeply serious move to refuse to attend.

But he said he feared unless he took a stand over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the lack of pressure on Israel from the US government, no one would raise the issue during the president’s visit in late September.

Davey said:

Boycotting the state banquet is not something I ever wanted to do, but I believe it is the only way I can send a message to both Donald Trump and Keir Starmer that they cannot close their eyes and wish this away.

Trump’s state visit is an honour that has never previously been extended for a second time to a US president. Davey said he believed Keir Starmer was right to engage with Trump, but said it was vital that someone raised the issue of Gaza in a way that could not be ignored.

In a Guardian piece explaining his decision, Davey wrote:

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza must stop. The famine must end. The hostages must be returned home. There is one man, more than anyone else, who has the power to make it happen.

Donald Trump could do those things today if he chose to. He has more power than anyone else finally to force a ceasefire and put Israel and Palestine on the path to a lasting peace, with a two-state solution. But so far, he’s decided not to. Instead, he’s given Netanyahu his full support.

A Government minister refused to be drawn on reports the Treasury is considering a tax increase on landlords for Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget.

Stephen Morgan, education minister, told Times Radio and Sky News he was unable to comment on speculation which was reported in the Times on Wednesday that national insurance will be imposed on rental income.

According to the PA news agency, Morgan instead said he wanted the budget to be rooted in “Labour values”.

He told Times Radio:

Obviously taxation policies are a matter for the chancellor of the exchequer, and she will set out more detail in the budget later this year. I want to make sure that our budget is based on our Labour values, and that is what Rachel Reeves will deliver.

It’s not for me to comment on speculation. Our focus is on driving growth in the economy and delivering for working people up and down the country.

Speaking later to Sky News, Morgan said:

We’re focused on growing the economy. Fixing the foundations of the country, restoring public service and that decade of national renewal.

I’m afraid you will have to wait until the budget later this year.

It was reported on Tuesday that the cost of UK government borrowing had jumped to near a 27-year high, piling pressure on Reeves to reveal how she will tackle the deficit in the public finances before the autumn budget.

In other developments, the court of appeal will hear applications for permission to appeal against the Epping Bell hotel ruling from the hotelier and the Home Office from 10am.

Here is a short summary of other key events:

• Keir Starmer has appointed the outspoken founder of Octopus Energy as an adviser, with a remit to challenge government thinking. Greg Jackson has joined the Cabinet Office board, an influential core of government advisers, as a non-executive member.

• The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, will boycott King Charles’s state banquet held in honour of Donald Trump to protest against the US president’s failure to intervene decisively to end the war in Gaza. Davey, who is invited to the dinner for Trump’s state visit to the UK, said to turn down an invitation from the king went against all his instincts and that it was a deeply serious move to refuse to attend.

• Children and young people are being overdiagnosed with mental health conditions in a society that has lost sight of the reality that child development is “messy and uneven”, the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said. He is the latest senior figure to add his voice to calls for a radical overhaul of the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system in England.

• A Reform council leader’s decision to ban his councillors from engaging with a prominent local newspaper is a “massive attack on local democracy” and a sign of things to come should the party form the next government, the outlet’s editor has warned. In an unprecedented move, Nottinghamshire county council’s four-month-old Reform administration has said it will no longer deal with the Nottingham Post, its online edition and a team of BBC-funded local democracy journalists that it manages.