Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has rejected suggestions that he has been urging Donald Trump to use the threat of sanctions to get US companies exempted from the Online Safety Act.

But he was quite careful about the words he used. In an interview with Sky News, when the reporter asked about Farage urging Trump to “sanction countries” (the reporter was referring to tariffs), Farage replied: “I have not used that word in any way.” (See 3.11pm.) Later he told the House judiciary committee: “I’ve not suggested sanctions, at all in any way.” (See 5.17pm.)

But sanctions are not the same as tariffs. (Rather, the word ‘sanction’ can be used generally, to mean a punitive measure, but it also has an explicit meaning in international law.) Farage may not have been proposing tariffs, but he was suggesting that the US might use tariff threats as leverage.

In his Sky interview, Farage said:

I’ve said that I hope that American political parties, leaders and businesses have a frank conversation with the British government and say, if you don’t sort this out, it’s going to have serious trade implications for both of us.

And Harry Cole from the Sun has posted this on social media defending his Sun story saying Farage was urging Trump to use the tariff threat.

Farage will also recommend the Committee “Declare as U.S. policy that foreign speech restrictions have no effect on Americans acting in the United States and on U.S.-hosted services even if accessed abroad, and instruct the Executive to defend this position in diplomacy and trade fora.”

Commenting on Farage’s Sky interview, Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said:

Jetting off to another country and hyping up the prospect of the UK’s trade with our closest allies being hit is about as anti-British as you can get. Labour negotiated a deal with the US that secured tens of thousands of jobs and Farage is advocating putting that at risk.

This just shows the risk Farage’s Reform pose if they ever got close to power. He waves our flag, but he represents anything but the best interests of the British people. And it’s working people who would be left to pay the price.

While Farage’s “Talk Britain Down” tour ramps up a gear, this Labour government is delivering the second phase of our Plan for Change, making sure we get more money back into working people’s pockets as quickly as possible and bring about the national renewal Britain needs.

At another committee hearing earlier today, Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretarty, said she was not sure the UK has “the line in the right place” in the way it applies the European convention on human rights.

Giving evidence to the Lords constitution committee, Mahmood ruled out withdrawing from the ECHR. She said:

If you withdraw, you’re in a club that currently has two members [Russia and Belarus], and then we would be a third. The position of our government is the direct opposite of that.

But she confirmed that the government is committed to changing the way article 9 – the right to family life – is applied in the UK. She said:

Interestingly, if you talk to colleagues across Europe, there is a view that Britain is maybe more at the maximalist end of the spectrum when it comes to interpreting how we might comply with our international obligations.

I think it’s perfectly fine for us to question whether we have drawn the line in the right place, and the work that the home secretary is doing has both, you know, fresh guidance, secondary legislation or primary legislation all on the table as potential options.

But as I say, the Home Office have done their immigration white paper, where this work was a part of that and they will be seeing more a little later in the autumn about progress on that front.

Back to the House judiciary committee, and Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, asked Nigel Farage why he banned journalists from his events if he was committed to free speech.

Farage contested this. He said, at his press conferences, he took up to 25 questions.

He said he was the “most open person” to any journalists.

And Farage was also “the most handsome person in the world”, Raskin said sarcastically.

Raskin again asked why Farage banned journalists from his conferences.

Farage said he had not. But he said he did not know what other people might have done.

Raskin may have been referencing this report about journalists critical of Reform being banned from the party’s conference last year.

The British Election Study, the most authoritative study of voting behaviour in the UK, has published new research today looking at how support for Labour has declined since last summer. “Labour’s collapse in support since the 2024 General Election has been remarkable,” it says.

Though Reform has taken Labour’s place at the top of the polls, it is not the case that the two parties are simply trading voters. Reform’s rise has for the most part come from the Conservatives and non-voters, whereas Labour’s support has splintered between indecision and other left-liberal parties. Labour’s efforts to attract support on the right have brought little reward and have potentially alienated much of their base (who make up most of Labour’s losses), and there is a lot of work to be done to convince voters that they can make a difference on the economy. Labour have a large majority in Parliament and four years until they need to hold a new general election, but they have a difficult task to turn things around.

And here is one of the charts from the report.

Back to Angela Rayner, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has told Radio 5 Live that it would be a “travesty” if she had to resign.

When it was put to him that Nadhim Zahawi had to resign as a Tory cabinet minister over his tax affairs, Streeting said:

What Angela was doing was not thinking how do I pay as little tax as possible. What she was thinking in terms of her housing situation was, how do I make sure there is provision for my kids long after I’ve gone

When she was growing up, she had nothing. And she grew up with that kind of insecurity and fear that she does not want for her children, especially her boy who’s got his disability. And she is doing what any parent in that situation would want to do …

I genuinely think she’s done the right thing for the right reasons. She’s held her hands up, and she’s working right now to put it right.

At the committee Nigel Farage is speaking now.

He starts with a jibe about Jamie Raskin’s “delightful” introduction to him.

He says he accepts parents are concerned about what their children access online.

He thinks hardware changes might be the solution.

But instead the UK has gone down an “awful, authoritarian” direction, he says.

He says JD Vance did everyone a service by criticising Europe’s record on free speech at the Munich security conference.

He says Lucy Connolly put out an “intemperate” tweet last year. She was sentenced to 31 months in jail. She is now out. Farage said he wanted to bring her with him to Washington, but he could not because of the restrictions she is under.

(She posted a message on social media saying about asylum seeker saying “set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards”.)

And he turns to the arrest of Graham Linehan.

He was arrested at Heathrow for tweets posted months before, Farage says. And he was not even a British citizen; he is Irish. The same thing could happen to Americans at Heathrow, he suggests.

This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow that has said things online that the British government and British police don’t like. It is a potentially big threat to tech bosses, to many, many others.

He says the Online Safety Act could damage trade between the US and the UK, and threaten free speech. He goes on:

So I’ve come today, as well to be a klaxon, to say to you, don’t allow, piece by piece, this to happen here in America. You will be doing us and yourselves and all freedom-loving people a favour if your politicians and your businesses said to the British government, you’ve simply got this wrong.

At what point did we become North Korea? Well, I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow Airport.

This is a genuinely worrying, concerning and shocking situation, and I thank you for the opportunity to come here today.

Farage was referencing today’s Daily Mail splash.

Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, says they do have free speech in the UK. He says Keir Starmer has not shut down GB News, even though Farage has a show on that station in which he criticises the government and calls for bans on peaceful protests.

He says Farage is able to parrot “Putin’s absurd talking points” on TV. He goes on:

For a man who fancies himself to some kind of a free speech martyr, Mr Farage seems most at home with the autocrats and dictators of the world who are crushing freedom on earth.

He says Farage wants to get rid of the Online Safety Act. But if he wants to do that, he should be advancing those arguments in the UK parliament, which is meeting today, Raskin says.

He goes on:

To the people of the UK who think this Putin-loving, free speech impostor and Trump sycophant will protect freedom in your country, come over to America and see what Trump and Mega are doing to destroy our freedom, kidnap college students off the street, ban books from our libraries, militarise our police and unleash them against our communities, take over our universities … You might think twice before you let Mr Farage “make Britain great again”.

The Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has issued a statement supporting Angela Rayner in the controversy about her underpaying stamp duty. Like Rayner, Davey has a disabled child, and he says he is prepared to accept that in this case Rayner was acting in the best interests of her son.

(Rayner did not pay the full stamp duty owed when she bought a flat in Hove because, having put her stake in her previous family home in a trust on behalf of her son, she thought that it no longer counted as her property for stamp duty purposes.)

Davey said:

I understand it is normally the role of opposition leaders to jump up and down and call for resignations – as we’ve seen plenty of from the Conservatives already.

Obviously if the ethics advisor says Angela Rayner has broken the rules, her position may well become untenable.

But as a parent of a disabled child, I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son’s care after we have gone, so I can completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here.

Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has rejected claims that he is encouraging the US to use the threat of tariffs against the UK as a means of protecting American tech companies from British internet safety laws.

Keir Starmer made this claim at PMQs (see 12.25pm), based on a Sun report about the written evidence that Farage has submitted to the House judiciary committee (see 9.15am).

In an interview with Sky News, Farage claimed that he had “not suggested that [tariffs] for one moment”. He had not used that word, he said. He claimed Starmer had misinterpreted his views.

Kemi Badenoch has posted a message on social media restating her call at PMQs for Angela Rayner to be sacked.

At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson also ducked most questions about the inquiry into Angela Rayner not paying the right amount of stamp duty that will be carried out by Sir Laurie Magnus, the No 10 ethics adviser.

Asked what the terms of reference would be, the spokesperson said that was “up to the independent adviser to determine”.

Asked how long the inquiry would take, the spokesperson said that was up to Magnus.

Asked if Rayner would have to resign if Magnus says she broke the ministerial code, the spokesperson replied:

As you’d expect, we’re not going to get ahead of the process.

As she’s set out in her statement today, she’s referred herself to the independent adviser. She will provide him with her fullest co-operation and access to all the information he requires.

It is now up to the independent adviser to conduct that process.

The independent adviser will advise the prime minister on next steps. He will provide information to the prime minister as part of that process. But I’m not going to get ahead of that.

Downing Street declined to say when Keir Starmer was told about Angela Rayner’s realisation that she had underpaid stamp duty on her second home, PA Media reports.

At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson referred reporters to Rayner’s statement when pressed on the timeline of when she found out she had not paid enough tax or informed her boss.

The spokesperson declined to say whether Starmer had seen the legal advice obtained by his deputy.

Angela Rayner is unlikely to get moved or demoted over her stamp duty error. That is probably the key takeaway from PMQs. Keir Starmer cannot sack her as deputy Labour leader, a position to which she was elected by party members, but he could remove some or all of her ministerial positions, or she could resign herself. But judging by his very robust words defending her (see 12.05pm), Starmer is in no mood to take action against her. And, if Rayner was going to resign, she would have done so already. She won’t be quitting voluntarily after that PMQs.

We still don’t know what Sir Laurie Magnus, the PM’s ethics adviser, is going to conclude when he reports on this case, following Rayner’s decision to refer herself to him. But Magnus will have been watching PMQs just like the rest of us and, like all the Whitehall standards enforcers, he operates in a political context, sensitive to the concerns of his political boss. I may be wrong, but it hard to imagine that he will be demanding resignation-style sanctions on the basis of what we know so far.

Kemi Badenoch asked about Rayner in her opening question, but she did not pursue it and instead she stuck to a script about the economy. Should she have piled in more aggressively on the stamp duty story? Perhaps. But it is much easier to attack a minister who hasn’t admitted they have made a mistake than one who has, and the public are probably more sympathetic to Rayner than they would be to a lot of other ministers in this sort of predicament. Ultimately, the economy is what counts, and so Badenoch probably stuck to the right topic.

But she did not manage much more than a score-draw. I will beef up the earlier posts in the blog covering their exchanges with full quotes shortly, but it was a relatively routine ding-dong. Rather than focus on one particular issue, Badenoch tried various questions: why is government borrowing so high, will the self-employed pay more in tax, would a tax on pensions contributions be a tax on working people? None of it really landed. At times Starmer sounded under pressure – when he accuses her of talking the economy down, you always know he is on the defensive – but he mocked her effectively with his jibe about the Stanford story, and he came out quite unscathed.

Jack Rankin (Con) asked Starmer about the Graham Linehan story.

Starmer said the Met have put out a statement about this this morning.

He said he had been clear he wanted the police to focus on the most serious issues.

There was a long history of free speech in this country, he said. He said he would “always defend it.”

Starmer was referring to this statement from Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner. Rowley said this morning:

While the decision to investigate and ultimately arrest the man was made within existing legislation, which dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offence, I understand the concern caused by such incidents given differing perspectives on the balance between free speech and the risks of inciting violence in the real world.

Most reasonable people would agree that genuine threats of physical violence against an identified person or group should be acted upon by officers.

Such actions can and do have serious and violent real-world implications.

But when it comes to lesser cases, where there is ambiguity in terms of intent and harm, policing has been left between a rock and a hard place by successive governments, who have given officers no choice but to record such incidents as crimes when they’re reported.

Then they are obliged to follow all lines of inquiry and take action as appropriate.

I don’t believe we should be policing toxic culture wars debates and officers are currently in an impossible position.

Here is Vikram Dodd’s story about this.

Ellie Chowns (Green) asks Starmer to rule out letting the Rosebank development in the North Sea go ahead.

Starmer starts by attacking Kemi Badenoch for her speech on oil and gas in Aberdeen yesterday.

And he says the Green party has now got a leader, Zack Polanski, who favours withdrawal from Nato and who has made “some very strange comments about women”.

That is a reference to the story about Polanski performing hypnotherapy to enlarge a woman’s breasts 12 years ago, before he became a politician. (More recently, Polanski has apologised for this.)

Lola McEvoy (Lab) asks about the Online Safety Act, and invites the PM to join her in asking Nigel Farage to pick a side – is he supporting the UK or the US?

Starmer says Farage is not here. He goes on:

[Farage has] flown to America to bad mouth and talk down our country.

Worse than that, if you can believe it, he’s gone there to lobby the Americans to impose sanctions on this country to harm working people. [See 9.15am.]

You cannot get more unpatriotic than that. [Its a] disgrace.

Starmer says that, when he was asked what he would to do replace the Online Safety Act, Farage replied: “There needs to be a tech answer. I don’t know what that is.”

Starmer goes on: “You can’t run a country on don’t know answers.”

Davey asks Starmer to rule out withdrawing from, or suspending, the European convention on human rights.

Starmer says the UK will not withdraw from it.

But he defends looking at how it is interpreted.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks about Gaza. We have all seen the horrifying images, he says. The PM wants to stop this. He says Donald Trump is “the one man in the world” who can stop this. Will the PM urge him to do that when Trump visits the UK for the state visit.

Starmer agrees the situation in Gaza is “horrifying”. It is a “man-made famine”, he says. He will talk to all leaders about that.

He says, if Davey had not refused the state banquet invitation, he could have spoken to Trump about this himself. It is not an act of leadership not to attend, he says.

Kemi Badenoch asks why Angela Rayner is still in office. There is a crisis for the cabinet. But also for the country. When was government borrowing last this high?

Starmer says Rayner has explained her circumstances in detail. And she asked the court to lift a confidentiality order relating to her son. That was difficult, but she did it to make sure all the information is in the public domain.

But Starmer says he is “proud” to sit beside Rayner, who is building 1.5m homes and has come from a working class background to be deputy PM.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

I also welcome the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister has referred herself to the ethics adviser. She has admitted that she underpaid tax. So why is she still in office?

And Starmer said:

[Rayner] has explained her personal circumstances in detail. She’s gone over and above in setting out the details, including yesterday afternoon asking a court to lift the confidentiality order in relation to her own son.

I know from speaking at length with the Deputy Prime Minister, just how difficult that decision was for her and her family, but she did it to ensure that all the information is in the public domain.”

I can be clear, I am very proud to sit alongside a Deputy Prime Minister who is building 1.5 million homes, who is bringing the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights for a generation, and has come from a working class background to be Deputy Prime Minister.

In her Sky News interview, asked if she had considered resigning over the stamp duty error, Angela Rayner said she had discussed this with her family.

Asked if she thought about “packing it in”, Rayner replied:

I spoke to my family about it. I spoke to my ex-husband, who has been an incredibly supportive person because he knows that all I’ve done is try and support my family and help them.

Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, has given an interview to Sky News following her admission, in a statement to the Guardian, that she underpaid stamp duty on the £800,000 flat she bought in Hove. Here are the main points.

• She admitted that she underpaid stamp duty, but she denied setting up a trust (for the ownership of her stake in her original family home) to avoid tax. Asked whether the accusations that she had underpaid stamp duty were correct, she said:

They are accurate. Yes. Accurate in a different sense. I think the accusations were that I set up a trust and I flipped it to try and avoid paying it.

But actually the complex area of the trust which the advice that I relied upon didn’t pick that up. The leading tax counsel who has subsequently looked at it has gone into that and said that actually, because of that, it did remain my sole property and the trust wasn’t set up as accusations have been made for me to try and flip.

• She said she had made a mistake. She said:

People make mistakes, but I conducted myself in trying to do the right thing, and I hope that people can see that.

• She said she was “in shock” over the discovery that she had not paid the proper amount of stamp duty.

I’ve been in shock, really, because I thought I’d done everything properly, and I relied on the advice that I received and I’m devastated because I’ve always upheld the rules and always have done.

And always felt proud to do that. I feel, you know, that it is devastating for me and the fact that the reason why those confidential clauses were in place was to protect my son, who, through no fault of his own, he’s vulnerable, he’s got this life-changing, lifelong conditions and I don’t want him or anything to do with his day-to-day life, to be subjected to that level of scrutiny because it’s his and my ex-husband that is… it’s not fair on them.

Often my family dragged in because of what my role is and what I do.

But I try to uphold the high standards, and that’s why I’ve referred myself so that the independent advice can look at everything.

• She sidestepped questions about whether she would be able to carry on as a minister. Asked by Beth Rigby if she could stay in her job, “particularly as housing minister”, Rayner replied:

Well, I made a mistake based upon the advice that I relied upon that I received at the time, and a leading expert has now said that advice was wrong. I think hopefully most people can see, if you take, if you rely on advice given to you by lawyers and you follow that process and then you find out that that process is wrong and that advice is wrong, I’m rectifying it at the earliest opportunity. People make mistakes, but I conducted myself in trying to do the right thing, and I hope that people can see that.

Kemi Badenoch is probably hastily redrafting her PMQs script in the light of Angela Rayner’s statement about underpaying her stamp duty. She has got less than half an hour to craft the right questions. And she will probably want to ask about the economy, and hate speech laws, too.

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

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has said the economy is “not working well enough for working people”. She made the comment in a video she posted on social media, after the Treasury announced that the budget will take place on Wednesday 26 November.

Reeves said:

Britain’s economy isn’t broken. But I know it’s not working well enough for working people.

Bills are high. Getting ahead feels tougher. You put more in, get less out. That has to change.

Reeves said “fixing the foundations” has been her mission for the past year, and seh cited government action including trade deals with the US, India and the EU and making a start on tearing up planning rules to reach the target to build 1.5m homes. She went on:

But I’m not satisfied. There’s more to do. Cost-of-living pressures are still real.

We must bring inflation and borrowing costs down by keeping a tight grip on day-to-day spending through our non-negotiable fiscal rules. It’s only by doing this can we afford to do the things we want to do.

If renewal is our mission and growth is our challenge, investment and reform are our tools. The tools to building an economy that works for you – and rewards you. More pounds in your pocket. An NHS there when you need it. Opportunity for all.

Those are my priorities. The priorities of the British people. And it is what I am determined to deliver.

Angela Rayner has admitted that she underpaid stamp duty on her £800,000 seaside flat, after coming under intense pressure to be more transparent about her property arrangements, Pippa Crerar reports.

And the Daily Mail is reporting that Keir Starmer is exploring the case for digital ID cards, as a means of making it harder for migrants who entered the UK illegally to work. In his story Jason Groves reports:

Downing Street confirmed ministers are examining proposals for a digital ID scheme 15 years after the idea was abandoned following an outcry about the impact on civil liberties.

Under one option, anyone applying for a new job would be required to produce their digital ID to demonstrate that they have the right to live and work in the UK.

Similar provisions could also be introduced for those moving to new accommodation, making a benefit claim or accessing public services.

This morning LabourList has released the results of a poll suggesting a majority of Labour party members would back a move of this kind. In his write-up, Daniel Green says:

The poll, conducted by Survation, found that 57% of members surveyed want to see the government introduce such a scheme, while 30% said the government should not roll out digital ID cards.

Members who joined the party before 2010 were most likely to support the policy (65% in favour with 23% opposed), while those who have been members since 2015 were the most against (45% in favour with 38% opposed).

Almost three-quarters (74%) of those who backed Keir Starmer in the 2020 leadership election supported digital IDs (with 16% against), while almost two-thirds (62%) of those who backed Rebecca Long-Bailey were opposed, while one in five (20%) were in favour.

The Liberal Democrats have urged Kemi Badenoch to expel Liz Truss from the Conservative party after the former PM called for a Trump-style “revolution” in the UK.

In an interview with Sky’s Wilfred Frost for his Master Investor podcast, Truss said:

There’s no doubt we’ve lost our way. But I think what is happening now in Britain – the people are now realizing how bad the situation is, and I think there is going to be massive pressure for institutional change in this country, and what we need [is similar] to Trump delivering the revolution in the US. That is what we need, and I think that will happen.

In response, Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said:

We already know what a Liz Truss revolution looks like, and people are still paying for it every month in their mortgages.

We should be taking no lectures on what our country needs from a former PM who crashed the economy in 44 days, leaving families paying the price in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

Kemi Badenoch should show some leadership and revoke Truss’s membership from the Conservative party for wanting to turn Britain into a Trump tribute act.

Under-16s in England will be banned from buying energy drinks such as Red Bull and Monster because they fuel obesity, cause sleep problems and leave them unable to concentrate, Denis Campbell reports.

Here is the press release on this from the Department of Health and Social Care.

Talking about the proposal on BBC Breakfast this morning, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said one high caffeine energy drink can contain as much sugar as four cans of Coke. He went on:

You can see the impact on the health, the concentration, the learning, and that is why we are acting.

And … to make sure that this works not just in principle but in practice, we’re doing a short, sharp, 12-week consultation with businesses, learning from those retailers that are already doing it about how it’s working in practice, so that we can expand to all retailers doing this with them, rather than to them …

We promised to do this by the end of this parliament, but in practice, this will come in a lot sooner.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing yesterday the PM’s spokesperson was reluctant to comment directly on the arrest of Graham Linehan. But he did say that Keir Starmer thought the police should be focusing on “antisocial behaviour, shoplifting, street crime, as well as reducing serious violent crimes like knife crime and violence against women”. The Daily Telegraph has interepreted that as an attack on the Met.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, was on the media round this morning and in some respects he adopted the same line. Asked about the arrest, he told Times Radio:

I think the prime minister and the home secretary have been very clear that with the law and order challenges we’ve got in our country, we want to see people being kept safe by policing streets, not just policing tweets.

But Streeting also made a different argument, pointing out that the police were only enforcing laws passed by parliament and that, if MPs felt their actions were excessive, they needed to change the law. He told Times Radio:

One thing I would say, because it’s always easy for people to criticise the police, the police enforce the laws of the land that we as legislators provide. So if we’re not getting the balance right then that’s something that we all have to look at and consider … If the police are enforcing things that we think are a waste of time or a distraction from more important things, that’s on us to sort out.

On the Today programme, about an hour later, Streeting went even further, implying that hate speech laws were too strict. He said they had “unintended consequences” and that MPs were “quite anxious” about how they were being enforced.

He told the programme:

I’m very glad that we live in a country where we come down like a tonne of bricks on racism and discrimination. That is the right thing to do … There have always been legitimate boundaries when it comes to hate speech, which is about protecting others from harm.

Sometimes those boundaries and those lines are blurred, and we are talking shades of grey, rather than black and white. That’s why this is complicated. It’s complicated for legislators, and it is hard for the police sometimes, because they they have to apply the law as it is written, not the law as sometimes it was intended.

And honestly, this is why sometimes when we have debates in parliament, it can be quite tricky when campaigners are saying vote for this clause or that clause, because often people legislate with good intentions, but they also have to be mindful of unintended consequences.

And I think we are all, let’s be honest, quite anxious about some of the cases we’ve seen in the media, or proceed through the courts, of what people have said online where you think, was that really what parliament intended when they passed these laws?

Streeting may have been referring to the Lucy Connolly case, which Nigel Farage is expected to discuss when he testifies on Capitol Hill later.

It was not clear from Streeting’s interview whether the health secretary was reflecting concerns felt more widely in government, or whether he was just freelancing. Quite possibly it was the latter. Streeting is much more inclined than other ministers to actually answer questions in interviews, and say what he thinks. Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper (who as home secretary, unlike Streeting, is actually responsible for law and order policy) have not talked about the need to revise hate speech laws.

But Streeting also has a good feel for where the political debate is heading. If ministers were not thinking about revising hate speech laws, they might be a bit more inclined to have that debate now.

Richard Partington is the Guardian’s senior economics correspondent.

Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget will take place on 26 November, the Treasury has announced, amid mounting speculation over tax increases.

With the government under pressure on the economy, the chancellor has previously said measures designed to reboot growth would form the basis of her highly anticipated tax and spending plans.

The late November budget date will give Reeves time to prepare the ground for potential tax changes, raising the prospect of a high-stakes party conference season as Labour heads to Liverpool at the end of September.

Reeves is understood to have been exploring several revenue-raising measures over the summer months amid concern that rising borrowing costs, a sluggish growth outlook, higher inflation and welfare U-turns could expose a shortfall in the government finances worth up to £40bn.

The chancellor and the prime minister have, however, committed to sticking to Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise taxes on “working people”, including through income tax, national insurance and VAT.

Reeves has come under pressure from leftwing Labour MPs and campaigners to consider introducing a wealth tax. While the chancellor has privately ruled out such a step, she has been exploring options for raising more money from wealthier taxpayers, including changes to capital gains tax, as well as inheritance and property levies.

Announcing the date of the budget, the Treasury said Reeves had commissioned the Office for Budget Responsibility to prepare forecasts for the economy and public finances. The chancellor must give the independent watchdog 10 weeks’ notice.

There are hopes in the Treasury that news from Britain’s economy could improve before budget day, helping the chancellor to strike a more upbeat tone after a difficult first year in power for Labour.

Reeves could benefit from updated International Monetary Fund forecasts at its annual meeting in Washington in mid-October.

Good morning. It is the first PMQs since July, and with the government set to announce the date of the budget today (Wednesday 26 November, if HuffPost UK is right), you would expect Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch to get stuck into a debate about the economy, and taxation.

But it might end up as a free speech day at Westminster, as a result of the conflation of two related issues.

First, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is in Washington where he is giving evidence to the House judiciary committee on “Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation”. The committee wants to talk about the Online Safety Act, which is opposed by American tech companies who fear it will lead to them facing excessive fines, or even jail sentences, for not complying with UK content regulations deemed unnecessarily strict in the US.

And, second, the arrest yesterday of Graham Linehan, the Irish comedy writer, by five police officers at Heathrow over anti-trans posts on social media has reignited the debate about hate speech laws in the UK, and whether they are being enforced too rigorously by the police.

Linehan was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence – which is nothing to do with the Online Safety Act – but the two issues are bound to be linked, not least by Farage.

According to a report by Harry Cole in the Sun, in written evidence to the House judiciary committee ahead of today’s hearing Farage argued that Britain is now subject to an “illiberal and authoritarian censorship regime”. Farage said:

On the question of civil liberties, Britain has, unfortunately, now lost her way.

I will do my part, as a participant in UK democracy, to help our country find its way back to the traditional freedoms which have long bound together our two countries in friendship. In the meantime, Congress should draw bright lines: British free speech rules, applicable to Britons, are made in Britain, and American speech rules, applicable to Americans, are made in America.

Somewhere on this planet of ours, innovators must remain free to build the next generation of platforms without being hamstrung by illiberal and authoritarian censorship regimes that are alien to both American and traditionally British values. Right now, that place is America. Those of us in the UK will do what we can to make Britain such a place as well.

Cole says Farage has also suggested that the US should use “diplomacy and trade” (ie, the threat of sanctions) to resist UK and EU laws that threaten American tech companies. This could open Farage up to the charge of acting against the national interest, but it is not clear yet how far he will push this in the hearing.

Obviously, if the House judiciary committtee is really worried about threats to “American speech”, you could argue that it would do better investigating a White House administration that deports students who criticise Israel, insists on checking people’s social media posts before it allows them into the country, uses bogus legal challenges to extort money from media organisations that have criticised the president and bans journalists from the press pool for calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico. But the Republican-led committee does not seem too bothered about all that.

And, if Reform UK is serious about free speech, it would be nice to hear Farage asked about Reform-led Nottinghamshire county council refusing to talk to the Nottingham Post because of its critical media coverage. That is not likely to be on the agenda in Washington either. But it may get a mention at PMQs.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.30am: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, gives evidence to the Lords constitution committee on the rule of law.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

Afternoon: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, makes a statement to MSPs at Holyrood about Gaza.

Afternoon: Stamer has a meeting with his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, in Downing Street.

3pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, gives evidence to the House of Representative’s judiciary committee in Washington about freedom of speech in the UK.

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