The House of Commons has spent more than £20m on refurbishment and improvement works since the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, according to the SNP.

Figures obtained by the party under a freedom of information request showed a total of £20,107,400 has been spent on the estate since the 2014 referendum.

The SNP said the 2024/25 figures were the highest on record at £2.5m, which it equated to 74 nurse salaries in Scotland.

SNP MP Brendan O’Hara said:

This damning data reveals the true cost of Westminster – a system where, in the midst of a UK government-induced cost-of-living crisis, taxpayers must foot the bill for millions of pounds of refurbishments each year …

If Westminster has splashed £20m on refurbishment costs alone since the independence referendum, just think of the money drained by the broken system overall since 2014 – it’s clear that Scotland can, and will, do better with the right to decide our own future, delivering a fresh start with independence.

Tory deputy chair Matt Vickers was asked by Sky News’ Trevor Phillips about the councils that have said they will request a delay to elections next year (see post at 09.59 for more details).

He said:

Most Conservative councils have said no … In fact, we voted against the legislation that was being brought forward to move these things.

Some of these people are going to see a delay of two years in their elections, like the five-year term, a seven-year term, even for a councillor.

That’s wrong. That is democracy denied. It’s the wrong thing to do.

Vickers was asked this morning about doing a pact with Reform days after his boss, the Conservative party chair, Kevin Hollinrake, told the Telegraph he would agree to form a coalition government with Nigel Farage’s party “if there was no other choice”.

Asked if he would prefer an alliance with Reform or the Lib Dems, he said: “Of course I would choose Reform. We are the only parties who believe in controlling our borders.”

During a debate on the Daily T podcast, Hollinrake added: “I am no Lib Dem and Kemi Badenoch is no Lib Dem.

“If that was my only choice, of course I would choose Reform.”

According to a report in the FT earlier this month, Farage told donors he expected a deal or merger between his Reform UK party and the Conservatives before the next general election (Farage later denied the report but said he would like to in effect absorb the Conseravtive party by winning over defectors and replacing it). Badenoch, for her part, has poured cold water on the idea of a national electoral pact or merger between the Tories and Reform.

In an interview with The Observer newspaper this weekend, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, insisted Starmer has his “absolute support”.

He was forced to deny in November that he planned to unseat the prime minister, after a briefing war at the heart of government. Streeting at the time condemned “self-defeating” attacks on him coming from Downing Street and said they were indicative of a toxic culture inside No 10.

In his Observer interview, he also shrugged off suggestions of a joint leadership ticket with Angela Rayner, the former housing secretary and deputy prime minister, and told the newspaper:

The closer I see that job and the pressure on Keir and the demands of that job, the more I wonder why anyone would want it.

Sixty-three council areas could opt to postpone elections until 2027 after some were already delayed until May 2026 as two-tier authorities are being combined into single unitary councils.

The Electoral Commission has raised concerns about the prospect of more delays to council elections in England, saying capacity constraints are not a legitimate reason to postpone long-planned polls.

Polls in several council areas were cancelled this year, in East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex and Thurrock, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk and Surrey.

Anna Turley told Sky News that the government is undertaking the biggest change in local government in 50 years.

“This is a huge programme of local government reform, and it’s right that we do it sensibly and calmly, and that takes time to deliver,” the Labour party chair said, confirming there is no “change to a plan” for a general election, which must be held by 15 August 2029.

Trevor Phillips points to Labour’s dire poll numbers (Reform is consistently the top party and Labour seems to be shedding votes to the Green party to its left, which is gaining momentum under its leader Zack Polanski).

Turley said people are “rightly” impatient for change but insisted it takes time for the government to deliver this.

She points to the employment rights bill, which finally become law at the end of last week, 18 months on from Labour’s landslide election victory.

The bill, which applies to England, Scotland and Wales, will give workers access to sick pay and paternity leave from the first day they start their job and includes extra safeguards for pregnant women and new mothers.

As my colleague Jessica Elgot notes in this story, the struggle to pass the law, which faced significant opposition from the Conservatives and business groups, meant the government made a number of concessions to secure its passage.

Trade unions agreed earlier this month to remove day-one rights to unfair dismissal from the package of reforms, in return for the lifting of the compensation cap, to get the bill through parliament in time to start implementing new rights from April.

Turley said Labour has delivered five million extra NHS appointments in its first year in government but admitted that public services have been on “their knees” so tangible change will take time to filter down to the members of the public.

“Next year, [people] will really start to see and feel more money in their pockets, better public services when they’re looking for an appointment with the doctor, the streets and the neighbourhoods looking better and better. And that change takes time,” Turley said.

We have some comments given by the Labour party chair Anna Turley to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips this morning. He asked her if Keir Starmer is incapable of taking “tough decisions until it’s too late”, something the prime minister said to Boris Johnson in 2020.

Turley defended the government’s record, saying it has “stabilised” the economy after “inheriting an absolute wreck” from the previous Conservative administration.

Turley also pointed to giving wider access to free school meals in England.

The government announced expanded FSM eligibility from September 2026, allowing all children from households receiving universal credit benefits to receive free lunches. Currently those with a net earned household income of below £7,400 a year are eligible.

But the expansion of free school meals will initially benefit far fewer children in England than claimed, according to analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In this analysis piece, the Guardian’s health policy editor, Denis Campbell, looks at the history of these strikes and considers how likely it is for a settlement to be reached after the 14th walkout by resident doctors in a long-running pay dispute. Here is an extract:

Streeting says the British Medical Association is being unreasonable; the BMA, the doctors union, blames him for not rewarding medics properly for their vital work.

After eight strikes under the Tories and now three under Labour, the prospects of a settlement look as distant as at any point in the last 33 months. “At this rate, this is going to drag on and on and on all next year unless something changes. It’s never-ending,” said one NHS official.

His comments reflect the beleaguered mood in a service that yet again has had to cancel tens of thousands of appointments and operations, ask senior doctors to cover more junior colleagues’ shifts and plead with the public to come to A&E over the next five days only if absolutely necessary.