Lammy dismisses Trump’s Greenland threats but sidesteps question over whether Musk comments are incitement to violence – UK politics live

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Truss sends legal letter to Starmer saying he should stop saying she crashed economy because it's defamatory

Given what Darren Jones was saying during the UQ on borrowing costs (see 10.51am), Liz Truss’s lawyers might be writing another letter. As the Telegraph reports, the former Tory PM has “sent a cease and desist letter to Keir Starmer demanding that he stops claiming she crashed the economy”.

Truss says that the claim is untrue and defamatory. She does not explicitly threaten to sue Starmer for libel (perhaps because she realises that such an action would have very little chance of success). But she does ask him to stop making the claim.

In their story Ben Riley-Smith and Tim Wallace explain:

The lawyers even suggest that the assertions from Sir Keir before the July general election [that Truss did crash the economy] contributed towards Ms Truss losing her battle to be re-elected as the MP for South West Norfolk.

At the core of the row are the weeks after Ms Truss’s so-called mini-Budget in September 2022, when financial markets reacted negatively to its major tax cuts funded by borrowing.

The legal letter argues that the financial movements did not amount to an economic crash, since there was no fall in economic output or rise in unemployment – the usual signifiers of such an event.

The lawyers back up their claim by quote a report from Andrew Lilico, a rightwing economist who advised Truss when she was running for the Tory leadership. The report says the “financial volatility” of 2022 did not amount to the economy crashing, and that the mini-budget was only one component of that volatility anyway.

The Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson, who has interviewed Lilico on a podcast, has posted the letter on X.

Hospital waiting list figure for England at lowest level for 18 months, figures show

NHS England has published its monthly performance figures. Here are the main points, from PA Media.

• The waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has fallen to its lowest level for 18 months. PA says:

An estimated 7.48m treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of November, relating to 6.28m patients – down from 7.54m treatments and 6.34m patients at the end of October. These are the lowest figures since May 2023. The list hit a record high in September 2023, with 7.77m treatments and 6.50m patients.

Waiting list figures Photograph: NHS England

• A total of 221,889 people in England had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of November, down from 234,885 at the end of October and the lowest number since November 2020. PA says the previous government and NHS England set the ambition of eliminating all waits of more than a year by March 2025.

• The NHS situation report also shows that 42.2% of patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England last week waited at least 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams – the highest figure so far this winter. PA says this is up from 32.1% the previous week, and higher than in the equivalent week last winter, when the proportion stood at 30.9%.

• Some 21.3% of ambulance handovers last week, or 19,554 patients, were delayed by more than an hour, again, the highest figure so far this winter, up week-on-week from 12.9% and higher than this point a year ago (13.4%), PA says.

• The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted stood at 54,207 in December, up from 45,791 in November. PA says the record high for a calendar month is 54,573, which occurred in December 2022. Some 71.1% of patients in England were seen within four hours in A&Es last month, down from 72.1% in November.

Half of England’s county councils due to hold elections reportedly planning to ask for delay

Half of the county councils due to have elections in England this spring could ask to have them postponed, Eleni Courea and Jessica Murray report.

Meg Hillier, the Labour chair of the Commons Treasury committee, asked Jones if Reeves would be making a “fiscal statement” to MPs in March, when the next OBR forecast is due.

Jones said, between the OBR update in March and the spending review in June, the Commons would be “updated in the normal way”.

Replying to Stride, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said the fiscal rules were non-negotiable.

On the subject of the debt burden, he said the last govenrment had to borrow so much because it failed to promote growth. That is why debt has risen so much, he said.

This government was offering economic stability and clarity of public spending, he said.

Mel Stride claims rise in government borrowing costs show people having to 'pay price for socialist government'

Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said that Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, should have been replying to the UQ herself.

He said government borrowing costs had hit a 27-year high in the past 48 hours.

He said Labour promised before the election it would get debt down, not raise taxes and grow the economy. But that is not happening, he said.

As a result of the budget, business confidence “simply evaporated”, he said.

Higher debt and lower growth are understandably now causing real concerns among the public, amongst businesses and in the markets. And despite what [Darren Jones] says about international factors, the premium on our borrowing costs compared to German bonds recently hit its highest level since 1990.

With these rising costs, regrettably, the government may now be on course to breach their fiscal rules.

Stride said there were media reports saying Reeves would have to make an “emergency intervention” to sooth the markets. If that did happen, it should happen in the Commons, he said. And he asked what the impact would be on people’s mortgages.

He ended:

The government’s decision to let rip on borrowing means that their own tax rises will end up being swallowed up by the higher borrowing costs, so that no benefit to the British people.

Far from this government laying the foundations for a stronger economy, the chancellor is squandering the endeavours of millions of hard working people up and down our country who are now having to pay the price for yet another socialist government, taxing and spending their way into trouble.

Treasury minister plays down concerns about rising borrowing costs, saying demand for UK debt 'strong'

Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, is responding to the UQ about borrowing costs.

He says there is a long-standing convention that the government does not comment on movements in the financial markets, and that will not change today, he says.

He says there are a range of factors explaining changes in bond or gilt yields. It is normal for them to vary, he says.

The gilt markets continue to function “in an orderly way”, he says. And there is still “strong” demand for UK debt, he says.

The Debt Management Office’s gilt sales operations continue to see strong demand, with the latest auction held yesterday receiving three times as many bids as the amount on offer.

There will be an update from the Office for Budget Responsibility on 26 March, he says.

He goes on:

There should be no doubt of the government’s commitment to economic stability and sound public finances. This is why meeting the fiscal rules is non negotiable.

And he ends with an attack on the Tories, saying they “crashed the economy with unfunded tax cuts, unrealistic public spending cuts and clear disregard for the consequences for family finances”.

Darren Jones responding to a UQ this morning. Photograph: HoC

A Treasury minister will reply shortly to an urgent question about the rise in government borrowing costs. It has been tabled by Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor.

Lammy sidesteps question about whether Musk calling Jess Phillips 'rape genocide apologist' was incitment to violence

Here are some more foreign policy lines from David Lammy’s interviews this morning.

• Lammy, the foreign secretary, welcomed signs that Donald Trump is backing away from claims that he would be able to negotiate peace in Ukraine within a day of taking office. This was something he said when he was campaigning, but not a claim he has repeated recently. Lammy told the Today programme:

Donald Trump is not yet in power. I think the indications are, from what I’ve seen over the last few days, a slight pushback on this sense that somehow a deal will be achieved on January 21, I think that’s now unlikely. And we’re hearing this actually the timetable’s moved down somewhat … towards Easter.

• He said the UK government agreed with Trump about the need for Nato members to spend more on defence. But he refused to commit to the target of getting defence spending to 5% of GDP, which Trump says should be a goal for Nato members. The UK is currently at 2.3%, but Lammy said the government would set out the roadmap to 2.5% in the spring. Asked about the 5% goal set by Trump, Lammy said the US is only at 3.38%. “So [Trump] would have to set out his own rhetoric of how they were going to get to 5%”, he said.

• He sidestepped questions about whether Elon Musk’s description of Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, as a “rape genocide apologist” was an incitement to violence. Asked on the Today programme if he thought this went beyond legal free speech, and amounted to incited to violence, Lammy said he disagreed with Musk and thought Phillips had done as much as any MP to protect women from violent men. But, despite Amol Rajan, the presenter, putting it to Lammy that he was a laywer by training, Lammy continued to sidestep the question. He said there was “a fine line between free speech and hate speech”. But he did not say wherer or not Musk had crossed that.

The number of people in hospital with flu in England is continuing to increase and is nearly five times the level it was at the start of December, PA Media reports. PA says:

An average of 5,408 flu patients were in beds in England each day last week, including 256 in critical care, according to NHS England.

This is up 21% from 4,469 the previous week, when 211 were in critical care.

It is also nearly five times the number on 1 December, when the total stood at 1,098.

The figures have been published in the latest weekly snapshot of the performance of hospitals in England this winter.

Pound falls to 14-month low as bond sell-off piles pressure on Rachel Reeves

The pound has fallen to a 14-month low against the US dollar as the sell-off in the bond market fuelled investors’ anxiety over UK assets and piled further pressure on the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, Julia Kollewe and Graeme Wearden report.

Reed accepts farming sector facing difficulties, but says problems started 'many, many years' before inheritance tax plan

At the Oxford Farming Conference Steve Reed, the environment secretary, has just finished his speech. He is now taking questions.

Q: It is hard to express the anger, disappointment and despair felt by farmers about the inheritance tax changes. How will you restore confidence?

Reed says it is important for the government to “keep listening”.

Referring to the first question, he says he has spoken to protesters. He was struck by how many of them said this was the final straw. There was a sense “these straws had been piling up for far too long”.

The anger was not “just over that one issue”, he says.

He says he wants to help farmers make a profit.

On the inheritance tax rise, he says he knows this is very unwelcome. It is not something the government wanted to do.

For most farmers, the first £3m will be exempt. And after that they will pay inheritance tax at half the normal rate.

He repeats the point about how the problems facing farmers go beyond this one issue.

In response to a further question, Reed makes the same point, saying:

The problems in farming have mounted up over many, many years.

Steve Reed speaking at Oxford Farming Conference Photograph: Oxford Farming Conference

Lammy says plan to use sanctions against people smuggling gangs can be 'significant' part of solution

In his interviews this morning David Lammy, the foreign secretary, defended the proposals he is formally announcing in a speech later to use economic sanctions to target the gangs organising people smuggling.

On the Today programme, when it was put to him that these sanctions would not affect assets held outside the EU, or people operating outside the banking system, Lammy accepted that there was “an informality” to the cash networks they were using. But he said there were companies behind the people smugglers. We know who those companies are. We can go after those value chains and those supply chains,” he said.

In an interview with Sky News he said that, while this was not the whole solution, it could be a significant part of the solution.

You can freeze their bank accounts, you can deploy travel bans, you combine with other partners, particularly European allies, the United States and others. This is the first set of designations using migration specifically.

Of course it’s not the whole solution, but I think it can be a significant part of the solution particularly for the value and supply chains that people are using as a means to get people across borders.

David Lammy being interviewed on Sky News this morning. Photograph: Sky News

Steve Reed faces protest from farmers over inheritance tax plan at Oxford conference

Farmer have been protesting in Oxford outside the Oxford Farming Conference where Steve Reed, the environment secretary, is giving a speech. They are campaign against the government’s plans to impose inheritance tax on farms. Mo Metcalf-Fisher, a spokesperson for the Countryside Alliance, said:

Until Labour are serious about … rethinking this policy, most people aren’t really willing to listen to any other plans they have for the countryside. A pre-rehearsed speech that barely touches on inheritance tax is not going to be enough to calm us down.

Farmers taking part in a protest today outside the Oxford Farming Conference, where Steve Reed, the environment secretary, is speaking this morning. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Farmers taking part in the protest in Oxford today.
Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Farmers protesting in Oxford today. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Shamima Begum not returning to UK, says Lammy

The Times has splashed this morning on an interview with Sebastian Gorka, who is going to be director of counter-terrorism in Donald Trump’s new administration. Gorka told the paper that Trump would expect the UK to take back British members of Islamic State who are currently in camps in north-east Syria.

Gorka said there was a commitment for countries like the UK to repatriate their extremists. He implied this would cover Shamima Begum, who went to Syria as a 15-year-old schoolgirl and who has had her citizenship revoked on national security grounds, preventing her return. Gorka said:

Any nation which wishes to be seen as a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment. That is doubly so for the UK, which has a very special place in President Trump’s heart, and we would all wish to see the ‘special relationship’ fully re-established.

In an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning, David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said Begum would not be allowed to return to the UK. Asked about the Times story, he said:

Shamima Begum will not be coming back to the UK. It’s gone right through the courts. She’s not a UK national.

We will not be bringing her back to the UK. We’re really clear about that.

We will act in our security interests. And many of those in those camps are dangerous, are radicals.

If some of them were to return, they would “have to be, frankly, jailed as soon as they arrived,” Lammy said.

This is what Dan Sabbagh and Eleni Courea wrote about the situation facing Begum and the dozens of other Islamic State-linked Britons in Syria last month, following the fall of the Assad regime.

Lammy says 'unpredictability' of Trump's rhetoric can be destabilising but he does not always do what he threatens

Good morning. For the first time in six months, David Lammy, the foreign secretary, was put up by No 10 to do the morning broadcast interview round – ahead of a speech he is giving later. At PMQs yesterday, perhaps surprisingly, Keir Starmer was not asked about Donald Trump’s suggestion that he might invade Greenland, an autonomous territory that belongs to Denmark. The French and German governments have both condemned Trump’s comments. But, in an interview with the Today programme, Lammy was rather more diplomatic.

• Lammy said that, although Trump’s language could be “destabilising”, he did not always do what he threatened. Asked about Trump’s comments, Lammy said:

I think that we know from Donald Trump’s first term that the intensity of his rhetoric, and the unpredictability sometimes of what he says, can be destabilising. He did it with Nato. But in fact, in practice, he sent more troops to Europe under his administration. He sent the first Javelins [anti-tank weapons] and weapons to Ukraine under his administration.

• Lammy said that Trump would not use military force to seize Greenland – despite suggesting he might. Asked if the UK should be following France and Germany in saying this would be unacceptable, Lammy replied:

Let’s be serious … It’s not going to happen because no Nato allies have gone to war since the birth of Nato which Ernest Bevin, my great predecessor, was part of.

• Lammy said Trump’s comments should be understood as reflection of his concerns about Arctic security. He explained:

Here, I suspect on Greenland, what he’s targeting is his concerns about Russia and China in the Arctic, his concerns about national economic security. He recognises, I’m sure, that in the end, Greenland today is a Kingdom of Denmark. There is a debate in Greenland about their own self determination. But behind it, I think, are his concerns about the Arctic. Of course, the US has troops and a base on Greenland. So it has got a stake in that Arctic region.

There is a lot more from the Lammy interviews. I will post the highlights shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.25am: Steve Reed, the environment secretary, speaks at the Oxford Farming Conference.

Morning: Keir Starmer is visiting a police station in London.

9.30am: NHS England publishes its monthly performance figures.

9.30am: Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 10.30am: Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, takes questions in the house on next week’s business.

11.30am: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, gives a speech on using sanctions to target people smugglers.

Morning: Kemi Badenoch is visiting a school in London.

After 11.30am: Alex Davies-Jones, the victims minister, opens a general Commons debate on violence against women and girls.

Morning: Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, is doing visits in Glasgow where she will be talking about employment rights.

Noon: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions at Holyrood.

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