Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK Treasury spokesperson, gave more details of his proposal to cut government spending by more than £100bn a year (see 3.28pm) at an event at the party’s conference today. He was speaking at a fringe event where he was being interviewed by Allister Heath, the Sunday Telegraph editor. Here are the main points.

• Jenrick said that quangos like Natural England could have their funding taken away within days of a Reform UK government taking power. Stressing the need for Reform UK to show that it could cut spending quickly, Jenrick argued that, while abolishing some quangos might take time because it would require legislation, defunding them could happen swiftly. He said:

It will be tough, it will mean going through quangos and saying that some just cannot continue.

And to the point about 100 days, this is going to happen fast. Even if you can’t abolish, I don’t know, Natural England within the first 100 days, you can stop funding it, you can turn the tap off and the tap will be turned off a lot of these quangos, and that will drive savings.

So, it’s a much more, maybe say unorthodox, it’s a much more radical attitude to the way it’s been done in the past.

• He said he would like to see “greater diversity of thought” on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee. Asked if he had potential MPC members in mind, he said:

There are people I have in mind, but it’s also the type of person. It’s quite a closed institution, the Bank, maybe it’s always been that way, but I think that it is still today.

If you look at who is on the monetary policy committee, there’s a lot of essentially academic economics who have perhaps less experience of the real economy and that is something that would be useful to change.

Asked whether this meant more people from the private sector, Jenrick said:

More people from the private sector, people with a slightly broader view of the role of money within the economy.

• He suggesting cutting inheritance tax would not be a priority for his party because cutting income tax would help more ordinary workers. He explained:

I do think you have to think, if you have some headroom and you want to deploy it, what has the greatest effect, what will help the people who are finding life toughest at the moment?

And, if you were looking at income tax, there’s 40 million income tax payers in this country, versus inheritance tax, where there’s 36,000 estates a year.

It’s a bold chancellor to say I would rather privilege 36,000 families than 40 million taxpayers.

• He claimed the Conservatives were becoming a “regional party” focused on the rich. Referring to the Tory obsession with cutting inheritance tax, he said they were turning into a “regional party” that could focus on “the sectional interests of the asset rich, the older, those who have got lucky in life” while Reform UK focused on “the interest of everyone and the national interest”.

• He said he “would like to believe” there would be tax cuts in his party’s first budget – but he stopped short of guaranteeing it.

Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, has announced plans to boost building on brownfield sites, in part by axing environmental requirements.

He announced the measures in a speech at ‘business day’ at the party’s conference in Birmingham. The main conference proceedings start tomorrow.

Under the proposals, set out in a consultation paper, Reform UK would loosen or abandon various planning regulations in a bid to encourage development on brownfield sites.

Tice, who had a successful career in the property industry before he entered politics, said:

We all want to be sustainable and to look after the environment. But do you really need to do BNG (biodiversity net gain) issues, nutrient neutrality in town centre sites. Do you really need to do bat surveys in town centre sites?

I’m going to have the courage to say no.

All of this costs time, it takes time, and of course it consumes money, and that reduces the viability of schemes, so we have to have the courage to say that we need to remove a whole load of these impediments to town centre and brownfield development, and we need to make permitted development much more permissive in these these brownfield areas.

Here is Reform UK’s summary of its proposals.

The party will launch a consultation on the following proposals:

-Affordable housing requirements will be lifted for brownfield developments in most areas, but large developments (20+ homes) in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Bristol must include 5% on-site affordable housing or pay for 10% off-site.

-Brownfield housing plans approved by default unless there is an exceptional, unresolvable reason to say no, regardless of local housing shortages.

-Developers would no longer need to prove there is a local demand for brownfield commercial projects.

-Environmental statements would no longer be required for brownfield developments.

-Biodiversity net gain (BNG) would be scrapped for brownfield sites and replaced with a simplified set of rules for greenfield (undeveloped) land.

-Habitats regulations will be repealed for brownfield land and replaced with a less strict regime for greenfield sites.

-Affordable housing requirements will be lifted for brownfield sites, outside of major cities, with a reduced requirement for greenfield sites

Downing Street has released its readout of the talks between Andy Burnham and Emmanuel Macron. As usual, it is not especially revealing. But here it is for the record.

The prime minister began by thanking President Macron for France’s loan of the Bayeux Tapestry, which he said symbolised common bonds between the UK and France, and was a statement of unity in an increasingly divided world.

Turning to small boats, the prime minister said the cooperation between both countries was clearly working and operational teams were making headway on driving down numbers and reducing crossings.

It was now vital to ensure that success was scaled up across Europe to deter illegal migration, the leaders agreed.

The leaders also discussed the UK’s drive to get closer to Europe, and the prime minister set out how the Made in Europe agenda could pose significant challenges for UK industry. The leaders agreed it was vital to work together to find a way forward to protect shared interests.

On Ukraine, they discussed next steps on establishing local assembly lines in Ukraine for the long-range missile, SCALP, which uses British technology, and reflected on the successful coalition of the willing meeting in Kyiv last week.

The two leaders also reflected the situation in the Middle East, including the need to ensure de-escalation in the strait of Hormuz. The prime minister also raised Israel’s latest move on the E1 settlement, adding that it was unacceptable and only served to undermine the prospect of the two-state solution.

The leaders agreed to step up work across the full spectrum of shared challenges to deliver for people in both countries and looked forward to speaking again soon.

Burnham also raised the threat posed by the EU’s Made in Europe plan at PMQs yesterday. The scheme is designed to ensure bids for public projects in the EU require parts to be made in the EU. Burnham told MPs this could cause particular problems for the steel industry in the UK. His comments made the FT splash today.

As Jessica Murray writes, a report from the Common Wealth thinktank today says that private equity companies now own or partly own 11 of the 20 largest providers of fostering and children’s homes in England.

Andrea Egan, general secretary of Unison, has said the report highlights the need to remove profit from the child social care sector.

In a blog about its findings, Egan, a former social worker, says:

The government has announced tougher measures against dodgy providers and introduced caps on profits – but it has essentially accepted an ongoing role for profit-making companies in childcare and foster homes. That’s not good enough. Anyone who cares about vulnerable children should be opposed to private equity and landlords being anywhere near children’s homes.

Wales has already taken the step of banning profit from childcare, meaning that it is now only provided by public sector, charitable and not-for-profit organisations. This is essentially the same approach that the current children’s minister, Josh MacAlister, advocated as part of his Independent Review of Children’s Social Care in 2022, which concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”.

So my message to the government is clear: the challenges we face as a society are structural. We have spent decades privatising services that profit-seekers have no business running or owning, and they need to be taken under public ownership if we are serious in doing anything about them.

In Unison, we call for insourcing: bringing services back into the public sector, making them genuinely accountable and ensuring taxpayer money is used to deliver the best outcomes, rather than profits for wealthy shareholders. This is a priority across public services, which is why we have teamed up with the RMT union for the new Insource Now! campaign.

Labour has condemned Reform UK’s plans to cut government spending by £100bn (see 3.28pm) as “half-baked”.

Commenting on Robert Jenrick’s proposals in a Telegraph interview, Bridget Phillipson, the Labour chair, said:

Reform have provided no detail on how or where these enormous cuts would fall. It’s incredibly reckless and could mean vital public services like hospitals, schools and law enforcement are put at risk.

Instead of drawing up half-baked plans on the public finances, Farage should come clean about the scandals he and Reform are facing over their own finances. The truth about his secret £5m “gift” will come out – it’s time he finally took responsibility for his actions and proved he’s not just in it for himself.

Anas Sarwar, the former Scottish Labour leader, has taken his seat in the unelected House of Lords.

Sarward was supported by two former Scottish Labour MPs, Helen Liddell and George Robertson, as he swore the oath of allegiance.

Speaking in the chamber in a debate later, in his maiden speech, he said:

I played my part in helping the Labour Party succeed at the last general election, but our new prime minister must succeed, this government must succeed, and most importantly of all, our country must succeed. I am determined to play my part in making that happen.

There is also, in my view, a bigger fight that I can’t walk away from, and I’m determined to play my part in.

That’s what I believe is the fight for the heart and soul of our nation – it’s about who we are as a people and who we are as a country, and for me, it actually goes beyond the usual mainstream political divide.

And that is: who are we as a country? Do we continue to look out for and love our neighbour, or do we treat them with suspicion?

Are we a country that succumbs to the politics of division and hate, or are we going to make sure that we have a country and a politics that believes in unity and hope?

Sarwar announced he was resigning as Scottish Labour leader and taking a peerage in July so that he could take a job in the UK government as a trade minister.

Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK Treasury spokesperson, is claiming that a Nigel Farage-led government could save the exchequer almost £30bn a year by cutting UK government borrowing rates. He says this is part of a Reform UK plan to cut spending by more than £100bn.

He set out this plan in an interview with the Daily Telegraph where he said:

If the cost of servicing our debt was comparable to France, we would save £28bn a year [on interest repayments]. The message from the markets is very clear: we have got to cut spending and have a credible path to cutting taxes.

The Telegraph says that the interest rate on government borrowing hit a 30-year high of 5.91%, compared with 4.1% in France.

Jenrick said Reform UK would also cut £50bn from welare, and another £20-30bn from other departments. Combined with the savings on debt interest, this would amount to savings of more than £100bn, he said. And he claimed this could happen very quickly.

In his report of the interview, Gordon Rayner says:

[Jenrick] promises he would provide that clarity – and cut the cost of borrowing to French levels – in his first 100 days as chancellor.

He plans to reassure the markets, and the public, by setting out in detail how he would reduce welfare spending by £50bn and save another £20-30bn through a combination of cuts to net zero policies, axing quangos, reducing foreign aid and trimming the number of civil servants to pre-Covid levels.

Jenrick is speaking about these plans at an event this afternoon at the business day at the Reform conference.

Labour has criticised the Reform UK Lee Anderson for saying that Ukraine is corrupt.

In an interview with the Sun, Anderson, whose partner is Ukrainian, said:

I think we should support Ukraine. But I’m very dubious where the money goes, it’s a corrupt country. I’m just very, very mindful of where the money goes.

[President] Zelenskyy, he’s always coming cap in hand. Don’t blame him. He’s the leader of a country. He’s got to do that.

It’s awful what the Ukrainian people have been through. Dreadful.

A Labour party spokesperson said:

The Labour government’s support for Ukraine in the face of appalling Russian aggression is unwavering. Reform’s top team seem to spend more time undermining Britain’s support for Ukraine than calling out Putin’s despicable war.

Labour stands with President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people. The UK has proudly done so on a cross party basis since Putin’s full-scale invasion started. Lee Anderson should stop the side swipes at our allies and give Ukraine our full support to bring this war to an end.

Yesterday the Resolution Foundation published a report saying taxes would probably have to go up to pay for higher defence spending.

In an interview on the World at One, Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said she thought “we’re going to need to raise taxes” in the budget because of the “huge strains on the economy”.

Asked if taxes would have to go up, she replied: “I think that in the end we’re going to need to do that.”

She also claimed that “people will understand”.

In its report, the Resolution Foundation backed higher taxes partly on the grounds that current tax rates for workers are, by international and historic standards, relatively low. It said:

The UK remains in the bottom third of [33 comparable OECD countries] for the level of tax on an average worker, and the effective tax rate on a typical earner is still lower than it was before the financial crisis. Indeed, no country raises more in total tax as a proportion of GDP without also asking more of single average earners …

Looking over a longer time horizon, as previous RF analysis has shown, personal taxes remain low by historical standards. Figure 3 [see below] shows effective tax rates in the UK, at multiples of the median salary for all employees, which stood at £33k in April 2025.

The overall effective tax rate for the median employee in 2025 was still lower than before the financial crisis, despite rising in recent years – including the impact of the increases in employer NICs. Those recent rises have been particularly rapid for lower-paid employees, as shown by those at half the median, where there has been the sharpest increase. Tax rates for higher earners, those at two or ten times the median, are somewhat higher than they were in the 2000s or 2010s, but still below levels seen historically.

Care workers, chefs and others in danger of losing their migration status under post-Brexit rules if they leave an exploitative employer will be helped by new visa changes, the Home Office says. Chris Osuh has the story.

Q: Nigel Farage said in a BBC interview yesterday that he would not give peerages to people donating to Reform UK. Is that a policy that you will follow?

Badenoch replied:

We don’t give people peerages based on donations, or government contracts. I am someone who believes in meritocracy.

We give people peerages because we think they’re going to do a good job.

You look at the peerages that I have given: Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the former head of the British Army, he has joined our benches. We have people that are serious and that are credible joining conservative benches.

Who did Keir Starmer put in? That Matthew Doyle guy and another person whose credentials turned out to be out to be completely fake.

So I’m not worried about the people who I’m putting in the House of Lords.

As Badenoch delivered this answer, some journalists reacted with astonishment. While Badenoch has tended to favour her ideological allies when nominating people for the Lords, there is a very long history of major donors to the Conservative party getting peerages. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have also given plenty of peerages in the past to major donors.

And, in the most recent honours list, just two months ago, where Sanders was one of three Tories getting a peerage, another was David Ross, an entrepreneur, philanthropist and Tory donor who has given more than £1m to the party in recent years.

Q: [From Emilio Casalicchio from Politico] Reform UK have banned seven reporters from their conference, including the one who revealed Nigel Farage got a £5m donation he did not declare. What do you think of that in terms of free speech? And would you do something like that?

Badenoch replied:

Absolutely not … Conservatives believe in free speech, where people are welcome to criticise us as much as they like.

If you look at Nigel Farage’s attacks on the press, some of them very personal … you look at the things that Zia Yusuf says about journalists constantly, you know what kind of government they would be – authoritarian and using state power to pursue opponents. [That is] what they’ve effectively been threatening.

We do not do that. It’s absolutely not something that we believe in. We believe in free speech. We believe in a free press. And yes, of course, that might be painful for us as politicians, but public scrutiny is part of the gig.

If Nigel Farage can’t handle difficult questions about his dodgy £5m, then he shouldn’t be a politician.

But that comes with, working as an MP and standing to be leader of the country.

Badenoch has not always been comfortable with press scrutiny herself. As a minister in the last government, she was criticised for her aggressive response to journalists reporting on her. But as Conservative leader she has been more tolerant of criticism, and while the Tories don’t exactly welcome negative press coverage, they are more pro-media than Reform UK.

UPDATE: A reader points out that two Byline Times journalists were banned from the Conservative party’s conference last year.

Back to what was said at Kemi Badenoch’s press conference.

Q: [From Jonathan Walker from the Express] Are you ready to lead the country into war if necessary?

Badenoch replied:

If you want a peace, you have to prepare for war. And I believe that strong countries don’t get attacked. It’s countries that look weak that get attacked.

And I look at what Poland is doing. Why are they increasing their army to 300,000? Why are they withdrawing from all these treaties that would stop them from fighting a war?

I was in Rome last week speaking to Giorgia Meloni about defence. I spoke to Prime Minister Mitsotakis in Greece about defence. Everybody is worried.

So why are we pretending that nothing’s happening? That’s what should concern us, that we have a government that’s talking about things that are not to do with national security, just their pet projects and hobby horses.

Yes, we all want cheaper bus fares, but if anything happens to a Nato country, so much damage will be done we’re not going to be getting any growth.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, is meeting Andy Burnham in Downing Street.

In public remarks at the start of their meeting, Burnham said:

I’m very pleased today to welcome my first overseas visitor as prime minister, and it’s so fitting that it is our nearest neighbour and close friend Emmanuel.

On behalf of everyone here, Mr Le President, can I thank you for your huge personal gesture of goodwill, trust and friendship with Britain in allowing the Bayeux Tapestry to be displayed here.

Burnham said the exhibition would “lift so many lives”.

He added:

It shows what collaboration can achieve, just as we are also showing on Ukraine, on small boats, and also on strengthening the UK-EU relationship. So I look forward to discussing those themes further with you today.

Q: If Diane Abbott was a Tory MP, would you sack her over her tweet saying the threat from Russia is a Nato fiction.

In a post on X now removed, Abbott said:

The imminent threat from Russia is a Nato fiction to justify their complete capitulation to Trump’s demands for more military spending. The increase should not go ahead.

Badenoch said there was “only so much diversity of opinion that I think that we will tolerate”. Being against Nato was not a Conservative position, she said.

She went on:

So I fundamentally disagree with Diane Abbott.

That is the Labour party. That’s the Labour party view. She’s not the only one who thinks that. There are very many other Labour MPs who think that; they’re just not saying it.

I want people to know the Conservatives believe that the defence of the realm is the first duty of government.

As Kevin Schofield reports at Huffpost UK, Labour is not going to remove the whip from Abbott over her comment.

Helena Horton is a Guardian reporter.

The investigative journalist Sam Bright, who has contributed to the Guardian and focuses his reporting on climate denial and the hard-right, has also been banned from Reform conference.

Bright, who writes for Desmog as well as his own newsletter, was informed he was banned from the conference shortly after reporting that fossil fuel lobbyists and anti-abortion campaigners would be hosting events at the conference, which kicked off today.

He points out that Reform leader Nigel Farage boasted to the US Congress last year that he would never ban journalists from events. He said:

Nigel Farage insisted in Congress last year, during a session about free speech, that he never bans journalists from his events. His appearance in front of US lawmakers was orchestrated by an anti-abortion group, the Alliance Defending Freedom.

It’s therefore deeply ironic, on many levels, that Reform banned me from attending its conference just hours after I reported that three anti-abortion groups are due to speak at this year’s event. Farage should practice what he preaches on free speech and stop running away from scrutiny.

Other journalists who have been banned from the Reform UK conference include the Guardian’s City editor, Anna Isaac, the investigative reporter Peter Geoghegan and the broadcaster and biographer Michael Crick (who published a book about Nigel Farage praised for its fairness).

The Electoral Commission has released political donation figures for the second quarter of 2026. They show that Reform UK continues to rake in far more than other parties. Nigel Farage’’s party had declared donations worth £5.3m. Labour got £3.6m, and the Conservatives £2.8m.

Most of Reform UK’s money came from Ben Delo, who gave £4m. As Rowena Mason reported earlier this year, Delo is a British billionaire convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate anti-money-laundering controls in his cryptocurrency business.

In an interview yesterday Farage was complaining that UK anti-money laundering rules are too strict.

Kemi Badenoch will this morning be giving a speech saying the Conservatives would raise defence spending by £10bn a year, allowing the UK to reach the 3% of GDP target for defence spending by 2030. This is the target Andy Burnham has not committed to meeting.

In a news release explaining where the Conservatives would find the money for this, they say:

The uplift, worth £10bn per year, will be funded by further cuts to the spiralling welfare bill, building on the party’s existing pledges to cut welfare by £23bn, and by reprioritising funding from other areas. This represents the largest real-terms increase in defence spending in a generation …

We will:

· Save at least £4bn through reforms to housing benefit

· Save £3.1bn by reimposing the two-child benefit cap

· Stop the £1bn annual increase in the British Business Bank’s industrial strategy capital

· Save £1bn by ending VAT exemptions for Motability vehicles

· Allocate £2.75bn from the National Wealth Fund to the National Defence and Resilience Bank as part of the party’s Sovereign Defence Fund

· Move £2bn of the civil research and development budget into defence

· Scrap Labour’s Chagos surrender deal, raising £0.2bn per year

Labour claims these costings are not credible because the Tories have already ‘spent’ these notional savings. A Labour spokesperson said:

Dodgy Tory economics won’t fund Britain’s defences. The British people won’t forget Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives hollowed out our armed forces and blew holes in the UK’s proud international reputation.

This proposal uses the same money they’ve already spent on other things and appears to break the Tories’ so-called golden economic rule. This is just days after Kemi Badenoch promoted a key architect of the Liz Truss mini-Budget as her shadow chancellor. It’s the same old Tories – they haven’t listened and they haven’t learned.

Under their “golden economic rules”, the Tories say half of all the money they raise by cutting spending would go towards deficit reduction.

Zack Polanski has confirmed that he wants to be the Green party’s candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection in an interview with the Camden New Journal – the local paper where Keir Starmer also announced he was standing down as the constituency’s MP.

He said:

I have lived and worked in this community over many years, I know it well and I love it

It represents so many of the things that make London so special. I am so excited by the prospect of representing this place in parliament.

Holborn and St Pancras has everything that’s the best of our country and so much potential.

But for too long now it’s been held back by governments who have failed to make the changes to improve people’s lives.

We know that the Greens can win here, and by electing me, voters will have someone who will always fight their corner – never scared of big donors or the party whip. Too often Labour has stood up for corporations and big money. I will stand up for people struggling to pay their bills.

Starmer had a majority of 11.572 at the last election and polling figures, and the results of the May local elections, suggest Labour should win the byelection. But Polanski has shown he is a formidable campaigner, and with him as the Green party’s candidate, Labour will face a much tougher challenge holding the seat.

Polanski said he would put “making life more affordable” at the heart of his campaign.

It’s a clear fight between Labour and the Green party. We know that people are struggling – that the things we used to afford are increasingly out of reach – and this is a chance to send a very clear message that we won’t sit by as we get poorer and extreme wealth is concentrated at the very top.

What voters in Holborn and St Pancras will get with me as their MP is someone totally dedicated to standing up for them. Put simply I will use my place in parliament to force the current Labour government into making life more affordable for the people who live here.

Before Polanski officially becomes the Green party’s candidate, he has to be selected by the local party. But it is not expected that this will be a problem for him. Polanski is hugely popular with party members, and last year won the leadership contest with 84% of the vote.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski has said he will stand in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election which was triggered when Keir Starmer announced he was quitting as an MP.

Good morning. Nothing is new in life or politics, and the concern that people feel about small boats crossing the Channel now is minimal compared to the alarm that Britons must have felt in 1066 as the Duke of Normandy’s invasion force arrived in England. Almost 1,000 years later, the horror is long forgotten and Andy Burnham was with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, at the British Museum last night to celebrate the Bayeux Tapestry as “the best possible symbol” of the “entente amicale” between France and the UK, as King Charles put it in a speech last night.

This morning Burnham is hosting Macron for political talks in Downing Street and another fleet of small boats will be on the agenda. As Rajeev Syal reports, ahead of the meeting No 10 has announced that the UK and France have increased the number of police on the French coast to stop so-called “mega dinghies” from launching across the English Channel. Rajeev says:

While the combined total number of boat crossings over the summer months has dropped to its lowest since 2019, smugglers appear to have started loading more people onto fewer, larger vessels. Dinghies are now being launched as far as 150 miles southwest of Calais.

Downing Street said measures to counter the trend include deploying a surge team of 45 officers to France’s western beaches in the coming weeks, almost tripling resources in the area.

A specialist French intelligence and judicial team seeking to root out and prosecute smuggling networks has grown from 18 to 30 officers.

And a new 75-strong unit focused on curbing crossings has begun operations in northern France, taking the total number of officers to nearly 1,050.

Home Office officials have recently claimed that 15-metre boats which can carry 230 people are being launched because hardline tactics used by French police and funded by the UK are working.

The BBC reported on Thursday that people smugglers are being forced to work together and use larger boats, and have increased their prices for a Channel journey from €1,300 to €1,700 (£1120 to £1460) over the last year.

Critics are saying both governments should be doing more.

There are other important issues on the agenda for the talks too. Kiran Stacey has a preview here.

We will also be hearing a lot today from the Conservatives and Reform UK. Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech on defence, and how the Conservatives would fund a rise in defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030.

11am: Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK Treasury spokesperson, speaks on a panel at the Reform conference’s ‘business day’. Suella Braverman, the education spokesperson, is also speaking at an event. The main conference starts tomorrow.

Around 11am: Emmanuel Macron, the French president, arrives at Downing Street for talks with Andy Burnham.

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