UK should have ‘robust but constructive’ talks with Beijing, says David Lammy – UK politics live | Politics

• Keir Starmer has angered the farming lobby by suggesting the public would prefer the government to spend money on the NHS than on “tax breaks for farmers”. (See 4.55pm and 5.30pm.) He was speaking after farmers disrupted a visit he was making to publicise the government’s plans for new towns (see 11.11am).

I do not recognise any of the accusations or claims that have been made against Rachel Reeves.

In my role, I would have been made aware of any investigation which concluded there was a case to answer. I would have been required to organise and oversee a disciplinary process. This did not happen. Under the Financial Conduct Authority’s rules, any such accusations would have to have been properly investigated.

Under the company’s then expenses policy, birthday gifts and Christmas presents could be purchased using motivation cards. Indeed, staff were encouraged to do so for their teams.

• David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said the UK will continue engage in “robust and constructive” talks with Beijing as he met his Chinese counterpart in London. (See 3.26pm.)

Keir Starmer has responded to the farmers who disrupted his visit this morning. In an interview with Sky News, he said that the government had to make a choice in the budget last year and he suggested that the public at large would rather spend money on the NHS than on “tax breaks for farmers”. He said:

These are political choices, but what you can’t have is interest rates coming down, the growth we need in the economy, your waiting lists coming down, and maintain the tax break for farmers.

People watching this will understand that that is a choice. They will know what they would prefer.

Do they want their waiting lists to come down, do they want their mortgages to come down, the economy to start working for everyone? That is what we are trying to achieve.

Or do we want to give tax breaks for farmers? We can’t have both.

The Reform MP Rupert Lowe installed solar panels on his farm to save money on energy bills, despite his party pledging to tax solar energy and claiming renewables are more expensive, Helena Horton and Peter Walker report.

Ministers have accepted the need for an overhaul in the way public inquiries in the UK are carried out.

In a statement this week to a Lords committee, the government said that public inquiries cost the country more than £130m in the 2023/24 financial year and that there is growing criticism of the process. It said:

The government recognises … that there is serious and growing criticism of their cost, duration and effectiveness. In the financial year 2023/24, the direct public cost of live UK inquiries was more than £130m.

Statutory inquiries that have produced their final report in the last five years took on average nearly five years to complete their work. Too often, there has been insufficient transparency and accountability for implementation of inquiry recommendations that have been accepted by previous governments.

The government was responding to a report from the Lords statutory inquiries committee published last year. The committee said that the system “must be improved” and the government said it agreed.

In a statement issued alongside the government response, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, said that he would hold “a wider review of the policy and operational framework around public inquiries” and that an update would be issued in due course.

The government has accepted many of the committee’s recommendations, including in part the proposal that ministers should set deadlines when they announce inquiries. The government said it agreed “in some circumstances, including an indicative deadline in the terms of reference may be appropriate”.

Lord Norton of Louth, chair of the Lords committee, said:

Calls for new public inquiries have grown louder and more frequent in recent years, and while these demands are entirely understandable, the current system is increasingly seen as being unfit for purpose.

In particular, he welcomed the fact that the government was “committed to exploring changes that will enable inquiries to deliver outcomes more quickly and at a lower cost, all while preserving public trust”.

The UK will continue to engage in “robust and constructive” discussions with China, David Lammy said as he welcomed Beijing’s foreign affairs minister to London. As PA Media reports, Wang Yi met with the foreign secretary in central London, as the Government seeks a warmer relationship with China in order to drive investment into the UK.

Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, was said to have joined part of the meeting to discuss economic growth.

Speaking as he welcomed Wang, Lammy said:

Since my visit to Beijing, the prime minister and President Xi met at the G20, of course, and the chancellor travelled to China for a wide-ranging visit including an economic and financial dialog and conversations which have brought tangible benefits and progress to both of our countries.

I look forward to a broad set of discussions today including following up on areas of bilateral economic co-operation as well as important issues for UK national security.

Lammy aslo addressed British concerns about China as he met his counterpart, saying:

We will also discuss issues where the UK and China do not always see eye to eye. In some cases the UK does have significant concerns.

It is important that we use channels such as this for robust but constructive discussions, as we are both members of the UN security council.

We will be better able to understand each other and each other’s perspectives.

The Commons modernisation committee has said it wants to give MPs more certainty about when they will have to be in parliament to vote.

It has identified this as one of three areas where it wants to draw up plans for reform, after it received almost 400 responses to a wide-ranging consultation asking for suggestions as to how parliament can be modernised.

In a “next steps” memorandum published today, it says it is going to focus in particular on: making the Commons more accessible, particularly for disabled people; changing the way time is allocated in the Commons; and giving MPs more certainty about the timing of votes and debates in the chamber.

It says:

Among MP responses [to the consultation], in particular, there was a sense that the lack of certainty made it hard for them to use their time as effectively as they might otherwise be able to do.

The nature of being an MP has changed. Demands on their time are arguably greater and more varied than they have ever been, with MPs balancing their roles as legislators with increased casework and constituency commitments. This makes providing certainty where possible more crucial than ever.

Multiple responses called for more to be done to encourage a family friendly culture in the House of Commons. This was cited as an important part of encouraging a wide variety of people to become MPs.

Uncertainty about parliamentary business was regarded as particularly difficult for those with caring responsibilities and smaller parties who are outside the formal communication channels.

The committee is already looking at the issue of whether the rules on MPs having second jobs need to be tightened.

Kemi Badenoch is facing a call to apologise for filming part of a Conservative party political broadcast in parliament.

The Commons leader Lucy Powell said the Tory leader should issue a “full and speedy apology” after she heard allegations the Tory leader also used a government-funded car in the four-minute video.

The broadcast, which aired on BBC One yesterday, features a brief clip of Speaker’s Court, part of the Palace of Westminster.

During business questions in the Commons Labour’s Julie Minns said the Tory PPB “not only extensively featured the use of a taxpayer-funded ministerial car but also was filmed in part on the parliamentary estate in Speaker’s Court, in direct contravention – as I understand it – of the rules of this house”. She asked Powell for an investigation.

Powell replied:

She’s absolutely right. This is against protocol. It is against protocol of this House to speak without permission, particularly in Speaker’s Court, and I think the leader of the opposition, if she is hearing this today, should offer Mr Speaker a full and speedy apology for that.

But also we have high standards that we’re all judged by, and using ministerial, Government-paid-for, publicly paid-for cars for party political campaigning purposes is not allowed, and rightly so because our constituents wouldn’t expect that to be the case.

So, I hope the leader of the opposition has heard this question today and takes action to put this right.

In the video, Badenoch, who gets the use of a government-funded car as leader of the opposition, described Westminster as a “bubble”, adding:

I find that people end up just talking about themselves, talking about Westminster – who’s up, who’s down, who did this, who did that – rather than people out in the country. It’s very easy to be in Westminster and lose touch.

The Conservative Party has been contacted for comment

Keir Starmer has told broadcasters that it is “really important that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position, whether that’s in discussions or whether its continued fighting”. That was why the UK had to “ramp up the money, the capability that we are putting into Ukraine”, he said.

He also said any discussion about Ukraine’s future had to be done “with Ukraine”.

Keir Starmer has defended Rachel Reeves, saying she has “dealt with” any questions raised about career before she became an MP.

Asked if he was “comfortable that she exaggerated her relevant experience”, Starmer replied:

Rachel Reeves has dealt with any issues that arise.

She delivered a really important budget for the country that balanced the books, gave us stability, that is beginning to see those interest rates come down, those mortgages coming down as a result; beginning to see some of the growth we need.

She is determined that we go further with that.

So she can deal with the issues that arise out of this report many years ago.

What I am concerned with – what she is concerned with, we get up every day to do – is to make sure that the economy in our country, which was badly damaged under the last government, is revived and we have growth, and that is felt in the pockets of working people across the country [so] they feel better off.

Downing Street has defended Rachel Reeves following the publication of the BBC stories about allegations she approved excessive expenses when she worked at HBOS before she became an MP, and overstated how long she worked for the Bank of England. (See 12.48pm.)

Asked whether Keir Starmer thought Reeves was someone who could be trusted, the PM’s spokeserson replied:

Yes, the chancellor is working with the whole of cabinet deliver the Plan for Change.

Figures out this morning showed growth numbers coming in higher than expected.

Asked whether it would be right to say the PM did not have any concerns about Reeves’, he said: “Correct.”

The spokesperson said that he could not answer questions about ministers did in previous jobs before they joined the government, but he pointed out that the chancellor’s team had responded to questions from the BBC.

The spokesperson also confirmed the PM has confidence in Reeves.

This morning the BBC has published two lengthy articles on its website which are the result of a long investigation into what happened when Rachel Reeves was working for Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) before she became an MP.

The investigation may have been prompted by the revelation that Reeves had overstated her role at HBOS in her profile at HBOS. She said that she had worked there as an economist, even though she was doing a management job. Given that she had worked as an economist at the Bank of England, and that she has a master’s degree in economics from the LSE, the controversy did not cause serious reputational damage because no one seriously argued that she was not qualified to be chancellor, or that she only got the job in the first place by over-stating her skills.

Reeves was also critcised for saying at various points that she had spent a decade working at the Bank of England when in fact it was more like six years, including almost a year studying.

The BBC has two new revelations.

It has written a news story saying that Reeves’ “online CV exaggerated how long she spent working at the Bank of England” because she had been there for even less time than previously acknowledged. The BBC says she left the bank in March 2006 not December 2006, as it said on her LinkedIn profile, meaning she only spent five and a half years at the bank, including almost a year at the LSE.

This is just a slightly stronger version of one of the criticisms made last year. Reeves said a member of her team had put the dates on her LinkedIn profile, and that they had made a mistake.

The second allegation is potentially more serious. But it is also contested by Reeves, and it relies on information from sources who mostly have not gone on the record, and the BBC has written it up as an investigation feature.

It says that, when Reeves was working at HBOS, she and two other managers (one of whom was her immediate boss), were investigated over allegations of excessive expense claims.

At the time HBOS managers could use a “motivation card” to pay for items to reward people for good work. They were meant to pay for items like flowers, or wine. The allegation is that Reeves and her colleagues used them to pay for items like birthday and Christmas presents when they were not meant to, and that they paid for items worth more than £25, which was the limit for some expenses. But the BBC report also suggests there was some uncertainty at HBOS about what exactly was allowed.

According to the BBC, there definitely was an investigation.

We have learnt that there was an expenses investigation into Reeves and two other senior managers.

A detailed six-page whistleblowing complaint and dozens of pages of attached evidence, which we have seen, raised concerns that the three managers were using the bank’s money to “fund a lifestyle” with allegedly inappropriate spending on dinners, events, taxis and gifts, including for each other.

We have not been able to establish what the final outcome of the investigation was. Indeed it may not have concluded.

A spokesperson for Reeves told the BBC that the chancellor had no knowledge of the investigation when she was at HBOS, that she always complied with expenses rules and that she left the bank on good terms.

In one respect, the story just implies that Reeves was a generous manager who may have been a bit free-and-easy with the company’s money. We’d all like a boss like that, and that happened a lot in the corporate world pre-financial crash, especially in banking. If Reeves was found to have deliberately broken the rules, that would be different. But she denies that, and the BBC is not directly making that claim.

Kemi Badenoch has posted a message on social media within the last hour claiming the investigation “raises serious questions” for Reeves and that she needs to come clean about the circumstances in which she left HBOS. But in the message Badenoch does not directly accuses Reeves of any wrongdoing.

The BBC’s investigation raises serious questions for Rachel Reeves.

Keir Starmer said “restoring trust in politics is the great test of our era”.

Until she comes clean – not just about her CV but about the circumstances in which she left HBOS, no one will take him seriously

During the urgent question on Ukraine, Maria Eagle, the defence minister, said the UK remains committed to Ukraine joining Nato in the long term.

Yesterday Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, said: “The United States does not believe that Nato membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.” President Trump said he agreed with Hegseth, adding:

[The Russians have] been saying that for a long time, that Ukraine cannot go into Nato, and I’m OK with that.

In her reply to Johanna Baxter (see 11.40am), Eagle said:

We’ve always said that Ukraine’s rightful place is in Nato, and our position is that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to Nato membership. But we’ve also always been clear that this is a process which takes time.

During the Commons urgent question on Ukraine, President Trump was accused at least twice of adopting an appeasement-type policy towards Russia, by Conservative and Labour MPs.

Julian Lewis, a former chair of both the defence committee and the intelligence and security committee, said:

Will the government impress on President Trump at every possible opportunity that the reason why appeasement led to world war two was that it left a vacuum in Europe? Whereas the reason why the occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of that war did not lead to world war three was the United States filled any possible vacuum and contained further aggression.

So if he is going for a settlement against the wishes of the Ukrainian people, the least he can do is to guarantee directly the security of that part of Ukraine which remains unoccupied.

And the Labour MP Johanna Baxter said:

If reports of the call between President Trump and Moscow are to be believed, then this is less the Art of a Deal and more a charter for appeasement. So can the minister state whether we will be working with Nato allies to establish a clear roadmap with defined timeframes for Ukraine’s membership, ensuring long-term deterrence against further, inevitable Russian aggression.