No 10 says Starmer and Trump spoke last night as minister calls for ‘clear thinking’ on tariff threat – as it happened | Politics

• Downing Street has issued a read-out of a meeting that prime minister Keir Starmer held last night with Donald Trump’s special envoy to the UK, former television producer Mark Burnett, during which, it says, Starmer spoke to the US president on the phone

• Ukraine remains on “an irreversible path” towards Nato membership, Starmer has told Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a phone call Friday morning that underlined the divide between Europe and the US over the future of the country

• Foreign secretary David Lammy held a bilateral meeting with US vice-president JD Vance in Munich at the sidelines of the Munic Security Conference. Afterwards Lammy said “there was an agreement that Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians have to be part of that negotiated deal”. Trump’s sudden push for peace has caused concern at what concession Ukraine might be forced into, with Emmanuel Macron saying a peace deal would amount to “capitulation”. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said Starmer should “seize the moment and ensure that Trump’s plans to lock Ukraine, the UK and European allies out of decisions about our shared future do not succeed”

• Science secretary Peter Kyle said the UK needs “cool, clear thinking” over the threat of new trade tariffs being imposed by the Trump administration in the US

• Rachel Reeves has said that the British public will judge her on her performance, not on what is on her LinkedIn CV, as well as repeating that there had been no complaints about her expenses during her time at a commercial bank. Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch claimed Reeves had “some very, very serious questions to answer”. Science secretary Kyle accused the BBC of “totally inaccurate” reporting on the matter

• The Liberal Democrats have said that the water regulator, Ofwat, is not fit to hold privatised water companies in England and Wales to account after it emerged that Thames Water is to appeal to the UK’s competition regulator to be allowed to raise customers’ bills over the next five years even higher than previously granted

• Badenoch has launched a formal bid to keep local elections scheduled for some areas of England this May, as shadow cabinet member Kevin Hollinrake warned cancelling them was “entirely wrong”. Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner announced the delay to elections across nine areas earlier this month, telling the Commons: “We’re not in the business of holding elections to bodies that won’t exist”

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for today. Thank you for all your comments. I will be back with you next week.

Richard Adams

Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor

Staff at Newcastle University staff will strike for 14 days next month, unless the university’s managers back down over proposed job cuts, the University and College Union (UCU) has announced.

The strike days will mount up each week across March, culminating in five consecutive days between Monday 24 March and Friday 28 March, in protest at the university’s efforts to cut £20m from its staff budget, which the union says would be equivalent to losing 300 jobs.

This week 83% of UCU staff at Newcastle voted in favour of strike action, from a turnout of 64%.

Matt Perry, UCU’s Newcastle branch chair, said:

Our members are angry that Newcastle university’s vice-chancellor [Prof Chris Day], the chair of the Russell Group of “research-intensive” universities, is increasing the university’s carbon footprint during a staff travel ban with talk of a new campus halfway across the world. He should be sat with us at the negotiating table.

He now has two weeks to protect jobs and resolve this dispute to avoid sustained strike action across campus. Vice-chancellors’ copycat playbooks must be met with resistance across higher education so we can stop this unprecedented crisis.

Strike ballots have recently been passed by UCU members at the University of East Anglia, Sheffield Hallam and Brunel University, with ballots to come at Cardiff, Coventry and Durham universities.

Rachel Reeves has said that the British public will judge her on her performance as chancellor, and not on what is on her LinkedIn CV, as well as repeating that there had been no complaints about her expenses during her time at a commercial bank.

Speaking to the media while on a visit to a housing development site in Nottinghamshire, she said:

I worked as an economist at the Bank of England between 2000 and 2006 before going to work in financial services for Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS).

And I’m really proud of the work that I did before I became an MP, but in the end, people are going to judge me on the job that I’m doing now as chancellor of the exchequer to grow the economy and put more money in the pockets of working people.

A BBC report yesterday suggested her time working at the Bank of England was nine months shorter than she claimed on LinkedIn and that her use of expenses while working at HBOS was subject to an internal investigation. No conclusion of wrongdoing appears to have been reached. Science secretary Peter Kyle accused the BBC of “totally inaccurate” reporting over the issue during the media round. Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor has “very, very serious questions to answer.”

Asked about claims she was the subject of an expenses investigation at the bank, PA Media reports the Chancellor told broadcasters:

Noone ever raised any concerns about my expenses when I worked for HBOS. I submitted, had processed and had my expenses signed off in the proper way as you would expect, and no issues were ever raised during my time at HBOS.

Reeves added that nobody had gone on the record to suggest there had been concerns, and said: “I was never questioned, never asked to pay back any expenses.”

Yesterday prime minister Keir Starmer said he had full confidence in Reeves and said she dealt with “any issues” that arose from her career in retail banking.

Jayne Wayper, a former HR business partner for HBOS, told the media yesterday: “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.”

In response to the news that Thames Water is to appeal to the UK’s competition regulator to be allowed to raise customers’ bills over the next five years even higher than previously granted, the Liberal Democrats have said that the water regulator, Ofwat, is not fit to hold privatised water companies in England and Wales to account.

Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson Tim Farron MP said:

It is outrageous that companies like Thames Water continue to plunge themselves into billions of debt, whilst demanding bill hikes for customers.

Ofwat is not up to the task and has failed to hold water companies like Thames Water to account. The government cannot continue to dither and delay whilst companies get away scot-free, polluting British seas and rivers.

The Liberal Democrats have spearheaded the campaign to end the sewage crisis and protect customers, and will continue to hold the government’s feet to the fire until they crack down on failing water companies.

Thames Water, which is on the verge of financial collapse, had wanted to raise bills by 59% over the next five years. It said on Friday morning its board had concluded that Ofwat’s final determination – a raise of 35% – would not allow the investment and improvement needed to improve its services. The water industry in England and Wales was privatised in 1989. Thames Water serves 16 million customers in London and south-east England, and is believed to be about £19bn in debt.

Ed Davey has responded to the Downing Street read-out of prime minister Keir Starmer’s meeting with the US special envoy to the UK, Mark Burnett, at Downing Street last night, during which he had a call with US president Donald Trump.

The Liberal Democrat leader said:

Keir Starmer must be clear with Donald Trump that his proposals on Ukraine are unacceptable.

There is not a moment to lose. It is critical that the prime minister joins the gathering of global leaders taking place this weekend at the Munich Security Conference, and does all he can to bolster support for Ukraine.

Keir Starmer must seize the moment and ensure that Trump’s plans to lock Ukraine, the UK and European allies out of decisions about our shared future do not succeed.

Peter Walker

Peter Walker is senior political correspondent for the Guardian

Downing Street could become a notably less appealing place to work in the coming weeks, with cleaners and catering staff at No 10 scheduled to begin a month-long continuous strike over pay and conditions.

The strike, scheduled to last from 24 February to 25 March, is an extension of a wider dispute that has already taken place in a series of government departments, but will now be extended to No 10 and the Cabinet Office.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents the workers, is seeking a pay rise and improvements to conditions in areas such as holiday entitlement, and, more widely, is trying to persuade the Labour government to bring staff currently employed by an outsourcing company into official roles.

The involvement of No 10 cleaners is particularly resonant given the focus on their role during coverage of repeated lockdown-breaking parties in and around No 10 during Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister.

Read more from Peter Walker here: No 10 cleaning staff to begin month-long strike over pay

In another bout of UK-US diplomacy today, foreign secretary David Lammy and recently installed US vice-president JD Vance have held a bilateral meeting in Munich at the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Reuters is carrying some quotes from the pair, with Lammy saying he looked forward to discussing support for Ukraine and European security, stating that the relationship between the UK and the US was “more than just an alliance, it’s a covenant between two partners”.

Lammy continued, saying “We are committed to increasing defence [spending] and encourage our friends across Europe to do the same, and of course we have got important issues to discuss on Ukraine and how we support Ukraine at this difficult moment, and also broader issues of UK-US security.”

For his part, Vance said:

Honestly, we have a lot in common, and the special relationship between the UK and the US will remain very strong. We are going to talk about something that he and I spoke about a couple of years ago, which is our shared belief that Europe really should take a big role in its own security, and I’m glad the foreign secretary agrees with me on that. I think there are other issues of common agreement. I’m sure we will talk about Russia-Ukraine.

My colleague Jakub Krupa is following the Munich Security Conference closely on our Europe live blog, which you can find here.

Downing Street has issued a read-out of a meeting that prime minister Keir Starmer held last night with Donald Trump’s special envoy to the UK, former television producer Mark Burnett, during which, it says, Starmer spoke to the US president.

In the read-out, No 10 says:

The prime minister was pleased to host president Trump’s special envoy to the UK, Mark Burnett, at Downing Street last night, during which he took a call from president Trump and discussed his forthcoming visit to the US.

Burnett and the prime minister agreed on the unique and special nature of the UK-US relationship, the strength of our alliance, and the warmth of the connection between the two countries.

Burnett reflected on his personal connections to the UK, and his mother’s experience working part-time in Downing Street as a waitress over 30 years ago.

They emphasised the huge potential for even stronger collaboration on trade, tech and cultural matters between the US and the UK, and looked forward to working together.

Today science secretary Peter Kyle said the UK needs “cool, clear thinking” over the threat of new trade tariffs being imposed by the Trump administration in the US.

In an earlier diplomatic read-out from a phone call with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Starmer’s spokesperson said the prime minister had assured the government in Kyiv that the UK was committed to Ukraine being “on an irreversible path to Nato”, putting the UK seemingly at odds with recent statements coming out of Washington about talks to end the war there, which has been ongoing for nearly three years.

Trump announced Burnett’s appointment as his special envoy in December. The 64-year-old British television producer helped produce Trump’s show The Apprentice, and as former chair of MGM Worldwide Television Group, Burnett has won 13 Emmys.

At the time the then-president-elect said of Burnett “With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a unique blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition to this important role. Mark will work to enhance diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities, and cultural exchanges.”