Starmer confirms Labour could keep basic rate income tax cut to 19%, but reinstate 45% top rateQ: In government would you reinstate the 45% rate of tax?Yes, says Starmer. He says he would reverse the decision the government took on Friday. He is “absolutely clear” on that.Q: And would you reverse the basic rate tax cut to 19%?Starmer says he would not reverse that. He goes on:I’ve long made the argument that we should reduce the tax burden on working people. That’s why we opposed the national insurance increase earlier this year, which of course the government is now reversing.
Keir Starmer Photograph: Keir Starmer/Keir Starmer on Sunday with Laura KuenssbergUpdated at 10.23 BSTKey eventsFilters BETAKey events (19)Keir Starmer (13)Andy Burnham (8)Liz Truss (8)Laura Kuenssberg (7)Kwasi Kwarteng (7)Ken Clarke slams Kwarteng’s mini budget as like something ‘usually tried in Latin American countries without success’Ken Clarke, the former chancellor and Conservative peer, has condemned the mini-budget as the sort of plan “usually tried in Latin American countries without success”. In an interview on Radio 4’s the World this Weekend, he also said he was expecting a serious recession this winter.He said:I don’t accept – I never have, the Conservative party never has – the overall premise of the budget, which is that you make tax cuts for the wealthiest 5%, and it makes them work so much harder, and [there’s a] rush to invest. I’m afraid that’s the kind of thing that’s usually tried in Latin American countries without success.
I do not think you stimulate growth by cutting taxes on the better-off, or taxes on business. If it was so simple, we would have got rid of taxes all together some time ago.
What the increased spending power … is going to do, is run the risk of further stimulating inflation. And we’re going into a serious inflationary recession this winter.He also said there was nothing Thatcherite about what Liz Truss was doing. We’re going into over 100% debt [of GDP]. We’re heading in the Italian direction. That is going to be a problem, a very great problem, in the short term if it leads to a collapse in the pound and the loss of confidence in our economy. We’re going to drive investment away, not attract it.
I don’t think anybody I was ever in government with would have contemplated a budget like this.
Kenneth Clarke. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The ObserverPeter Mandelson, the former Blairite cabinet minister, told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday this morning that the mini-budget had created an opportunity for Labour. He explained:Liz Truss, in effect, and the Conservatives, in effect, are taking their own policy direction off the centre ground, the middle ground of British politics. Now that creates an opportunity for Labour to occupy that centre ground. That’s where the swathe of voters exist in the country who are going to determine the outcome of the next election and they are focused both on economic competence and fairness and social justice. Those are the two sides of the coin – the policy coin, the political coin – that the broad mass of voters right across the centre ground of British politics are focused on. That’s what they want to vote for and that’s what Labour needs to offer.Lord Mandelson also said he speaks to Keir Starmer and his team “from time to time”, but he said he did not advise Starmer in the way he used to advise Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and Neil Kinnock earlier.Updated at 13.21 BST
Angela Rayner speaking at the conference earlier. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPAOn Wednesday the Labour confererence is due to hear a fraternal address from an international speaker. Tom Harwood from GB News may have the name. He posted this on Twitter earlier, before the conference proceedings got under way.Labour Party conference hall currently testing a video message from Australian Labor leader and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.— Tom Harwood (@tomhfh) September 25, 2022
Updated at 13.08 BSTThese are from ITV’s Robert Peston on the Sunday Times’s story about Mark Fullbrook, the PM’s chief of staff, being paid via his lobbying company. (See 10.04am and 10.18am.)The disclosure in the Sunday Times that the PM’s new chief of staff Mark Fullbrook is being paid through his lobbying company shows quite how much Whitehall standards have changed. In 2005 I wrote in @Telegraph that the then cabinet secretary Turnbull… pic.twitter.com/aU3ekyz8XD— Robert Peston (@Peston) September 25, 2022
instructed Tim Allan he had to sever ALL links with his lobbying firm Portland, including his ownership, if he wanted to take an offered job in Downing St. Allan in the end decided to stick with Portland rather than return to working for Blair. In those days there was…— Robert Peston (@Peston) September 25, 2022
a much simpler understanding in the Cabinet Office of potential conflicts of interest that had to be avoided.— Robert Peston (@Peston) September 25, 2022
Updated at 12.55 BSTA Labour government would force perpetrators of domestic violence to be included on a register, like sex offenders, PA Media reports. PA says:Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed said the plan would help tackle an “epidemic of violence” against women and girls.
The domestic abuse register would mean those convicted of serial offences and stalking would have to give personal information to the police and notify of any change in circumstances.
The register would allow for better police and law enforcement monitoring of perpetrators and help to identify offending patterns more quickly.
Reed said: “Under the Conservatives, criminals are repeatedly let off while victims are being let down. Labour will get a grip of the Tories’ failure to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls – with improved monitoring of domestic abuse perpetrators, longer jail terms for rapists, and more rights for victims.”Updated at 12.56 BSTUnison general secretary says it does not matter whether Labour figures join picket linesChristina McAnea, general secretary of Unison, the UK’s biggest union, has defended Keir Starmer in the ongoing row about whether he was right tell Labour frontbenchers not to join RMT picket lines as the union started strike action earlier this year.Speaking on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, McAnea said it did not matter where Labour figures were on picket lines. What mattered was having a Labour government in office, she said: She told Ridge:I don’t think it makes a difference whether Labour is on picket lines or not.
Labour is there to, I think, hopefully work with us and I think if there’s a Labour government in place, I would hope that we wouldn’t be just about to ballot 400,000 NHS workers by the end of this year.
I would hope that they would talk to us. I wrote to Liz Truss the day she got elected and congratulated her and said we’d be happy to work with her but they obviously see unions as part of the problem.In his interview this morning with Laura Kuenssberg, asked if Labour should be backing unions in strike disputes, Starmer replied:My job as leader of the Labour party is not the same job as the leader of a trade union. My job is to make sure that we get the Labour party from opposition, where we can just say things but not do things, into power, where we can do things.Updated at 12.42 BST
Anti-Brexit campaigners outside the Labour conference. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPADavid Evans, Labour’s general secretary, told the conference in his speech that when he was appointed in 2020 “some confided that they doubted we would ever win again”. But now the party has “a real chance to do something never done before and turn a defeat of that scale [the 2019 result – 163 seats behind the Tories] into a victory in a single term”, he said.As the New Statesman’s Freddie Hayward points out, help was available for any Labour delegates who did not know the words of the national anthem.And here is Rayner’s peroration.Our plan for Britain means we’ll rise to the occasion – just as we did in 1997.
Because the Conservatives have made their choice. They’ve chosen their side. But we are on yours.
And are ready to lead this country to better.
A Labour government to unite this country through the dark times ahead. A Labour government to hand power back to the people and the places that once powered Britain. And a Labour government that will always be on the side of working people.
The Tories have broken Britain – but together we’ll rebuild it again.Updated at 12.23 BSTRayner says Labour would establish fair work standard setting benchmark for employment conditionsRayner says Labour would establish a fair work standard for the public sector.Building on our new deal for working people, I can today unveil Labour’s fair work standard.
Inspired by Labour in power across the country – in Wales, in London, West Yorkshire, the North of Tyne, Greater Manchester and here in Liverpool,
It will underpin a new fair work code for the public sector, guaranteeing fair conditions, job security, wellbeing, proper training, rights at work, and union access. It will also apply to the private sector, she says.We will also create a fair work gold standard to champion the very best of employers.
And a Labour government will be on the side of the self-employed too.
We will give genuinely self-employed workers the right to a written contract and timely payment by law – so they aren’t left out of pocket and chasing invoices. Because our fair work standard will raise standards for all. Rayner says Labour would only allow outsourcing if public bodies can show work could not be done better in-houseRayner is now addressing outsourcing.Conference, the Tories have become too dependent on handing away our public services on the cheap, and now we are paying the price.
We will oversee the biggest wave of insourcing for a generation.
Today I can announce that before any service is contracted out, public bodies must show that work could not be better done in-house.
And we’ll reinstate and strengthen the two-tier code, created by the last Labour government and scrapped by the Tories, to end the scandal of outsourced workers getting second class pay and conditions.
Angela Rayner delivering her speech. Photograph: Phil Noble/ReutersUpdated at 12.14 BSTRayner confirms a plan to reform government procurment rules that was briefed to the media before conference started. LabourList has a good summary. She described it as a value for money guarantee. Rayner says Labour is on the side of the people.And so, I ask Liz Truss today – whose side are you on?
When you boost bankers’ bonuses but force working people to carry the can for the energy crisis, whose side are you on?
Using a pandemic to pile billions into the bank accounts of cronies while nurses wore bin bags. Whose side are you on?
When you say the working people of this country need more graft then deprive them of fair pay. Whose side are you on?
Conference, I’ll tell you who was on my side when I needed it.
A Labour government was on my side when I had my first baby and had nowhere else to turn.
A Labour government was on my side when I didn’t have a home – let alone enough money to heat it.
A Labour government was on my side when I wanted to be a good mum to my kids and improve their lives. And I promise you now, that when I am deputy prime minister a Labour government will be on your side. Rayner says the Tories will undermine workers’ rights, while Labour will defend them. She says:Be in no doubt – they are coming after the most basic things we expect.
Decent work, fair pay. The foundations of a family life.
Conference, so long as I have a breath left in my body I will defend those rights.
Including the right to strike.
And when in power we will repeal all the anti-worker and anti- trade union laws this Conservative government has enacted. All of it. Rayner says Tory record is ‘catalogue of sleaze, waste and lies’Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, is addressing the conference now.,She also starts with a tribute to the late Queen.And then the tone shifts sharply as she attacks the Tories, saying their record is “a catalogue of sleaze, waste and lies”.Just look at this government’s record since we last gathered in Liverpool just four years ago. Three different leaders, a catalogue of sleaze, waste and lies, Cummings, Paterson and Pincher backed to the hilt.
Chris Grayling. Grant Shapps. And too much Matt Hancock. Far too much Matt Hancock.
Green Cards and Non-Doms, treehouses and even Tractor Porn.
Breaking the law – in a specific and limited way.
Queues at the airports. Chaos at the borders.
Mountains of PPE unfit for use. Billions in fraud written off.
Sewage in the rivers. A Prime Minister hiding in a fridge.
Three sleaze watchdogs out in the cold.
The Barnard Castle eye test.
The Downing Street crime scene.
Broken swings, wine stains, sick on the walls.
126 fines – more than anywhere else in the UK.
Rules made. Rules Broken.
Partygate. Wallpapergate. Too many gates. Too little, too late mate.
And now a prime minister who says people don’t work hard enough.
Well, enough is enough. Starmer pays tribute to late Queen as someone who embodied ‘value of service’In his speech at the opening of the conference Keir Starmer paid tribute to the late Queen as someone who embodied “the value of service”. Here is an extract from his speech.Hardly any of us have ever known anything else. For us, the late Queen has always been simply the Queen, the only Queen. Above all else, our Queen. And I am proud to lead our party’s tribute to her today.
Because our Queen’s devotion to Britain was underpinned by one crucial understanding – she knew that the country she came to symbolise is bigger than any one individual or institution.
Between the history we cherish and the present we own she was the thread. A reminder that our generational battle against the evil of fascism and the emergence of a new Britain out of the rubble of the second world war don’t belong only to the past but are the inheritance of each and every one of us.
An example that taught us that whatever challenges we face, the value of service endures. And a reminder that the creativity, the hard work, the enterprise that defines this nation is as abundant now as it ever was.One line in Starmer’s speech seems to have been inspired by Emmanuel Macron’s much-praised tribute.
Keir Starmer paying tribute to the late Queen. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/ReutersSummary of Kwarteng’s پراکسی interview about mini-budgetHere are the main points from Kwasi Kwarteng’s interview with Laura Kuenssberg.
- Kwarteng, the chancellor, hinted that he wants to follow Friday’s mini-budget with further tax cuts. He said:
Looking at the Friday statement, we’ve actually put more money into people’s pockets. That’s why we reversed the national insurance increase, which I think was not a good policy and we’ve reversed that. And also we’re bringing forward the cut in the basic rate. And there’s more to come.
We’ve only been here 19 days. I want to see it over the next year people retain more of their income.This is a line that has also been briefed to several Sunday newspapers. See 10.04am.
- He rejected claims that the mini-budget overwhelmingly favoured the rich, saying it favoured people right across the income scale. (See 9.52am.)
In fact, by any reasonable definition, the mini-budget does overwhelmingly favour the rich.We are not going to relax environmental rules at all. What the prime minister and I have focused on is the process. Too often in this country there’s the process just takes too long. That doesn’t mean that you change the standards. But the actual process of the paperwork and actually getting consents is taking too long. And that is an obstacle to growth.Kwarteng and his colleagues face a tough battle on this front. Today Hilary McGrady, director general of the National Trust (a body that has more than 5 million members – more than five time as many as all the UK political parties combined) has today released a statement saying the investment zones promised in the mini-budget represent “a free-for-all for nature and heritage”.I will be setting out plans for the medium-term fiscal plan, as we are calling it, that will show that we are committed to net debt to GDP to be falling over time.
- He sidestepped a question about whether the government would abandon the rules limiting the ability of bosses to ask staff to work longer hours. He said as business secretary he had shown a commitment to workers’ rights, but he said ministerial colleagues would be making further statements about government plans in the coming weeks.
I’ve been focused on the longer term and the medium term, and I think it was absolutely necessary that we had a long-term growth plan.
What was unacceptable and unsustainable was the idea that we were going to have a 70-year tax high … and that we could continue simply raising taxes.
- He said the home secretary, Suella Braverman, would be making a statement about immigration policy. But he dismissed claims (see 10.04am) that immigration policy was being relaxed. He said:
It’s not about relaxing the rules. The whole point about the Brexit debate, if we want to go down there, is that we need to control immigration in a way that works for the UK.
Kwasi Kwarteng in London being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg from the Labour conference in Liverpool. Photograph: Jeff Overs/پراکسی/PAUpdated at 11.32 BST
