Keir Starmer urged to ramp up defence spending – UK politics live

Government must increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, say Lib Dems

Hello and welcome to our rolling coverage of UK politics.

The Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has said the government must swiftly ramp up defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP).

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he said:

I’ve never known a time like this, it is probably one of the most alarming times for Britain’s defence and security since the second world war, with our closest ally changing their position. So we have to debate it, it is going to be difficult.

I don’t think there’s an easy solution, but we have put some ideas on the table. One idea we have put is to increase the digital services taxes, a tax on about 20 multinational companies with turnovers of over £500m and we would raise it from the current 2% to 10%.

That would raise the vast bulk of what you’d need to move quickly to the 2.5% of national income spending on our defence and our country’s defence.

Davey also said he wanted to see Russian assets, frozen across Europe since the war began, used to support Ukraine and build up Britain defences.

In other news:

Foreign secretary David Lammy is in South Africa for the second day of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has pledged to do “whatever it takes” to tackle the “waiting times emergency” in the NHS.
The Scottish Labour party conference runs until Sunday. Today’s speakers include Scottish secretary Ian Murray and Labour party leader Anas Sarwar

Key events

Ben Quinn

Labour MPs, trade union leaders and members of the Ukrainian community in Britain are to protest outside the Russian embassy in London tomorrow to make the third anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They will include John McDonnell MP, the former shadow chancellor, who said they would be calling for a “just peace determined by the Ukrainian people and not imposed upon them by either [Donald] Trump or Putin.”

The demonstration has been called by a coalition of Ukrainian community organisations, trade unions and civil society organisations. It is supported by the Trade Unions Congress, along with national unions GMB, ASLEF, PCS, UCU, UNISON and the NUM. Others will speak include Joe Powell, the Labour MP for Kensington & Bayswater.

Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress said: “The TUC stands in solidarity with our sister unions in Ukraine and the people of Ukraine. They have the right to live in peace and that has to start with an end to Putins aggression.”

Those taking part will gather at noon at St Volodymyr Statue in Holland Park, before marching to the Russian embassy for a rally an hour later.

Alex Salmond planned new Scottish town

Chris McEleny, a candidate for the Alba party’s deputy leadership has said he and former first minister Alex Salmond planned a new Scottish town called Independence.

McEleny said:

Alex Salmond and I had a vision for a new Scottish town and we could think of no better name than Independence.

Scotland has an abundance of renewable energy potential. At the moment the Westminster plan is to cable most of that energy south with no benefit to Scotland.

What we should be doing is using that energy to attract the industries of today and tomorrow to Scotland by using the incentive of cheaper energy anywhere else in Europe.

He added it was now time to see the plan come to fruition:

A new Scottish town has not been designated since not long after the Second World War, now is the right time to begin a discussion to make a town called Independence a reality.

Alba is currently choosing a new leader following the death of Salmond last October, PA Media reports.

McEleny is Alba’s general secretary, though he was suspended earlier this month over claims of “gross misconduct”.

We are now moving now to the Scottish Labour Party conference in Glasgow.

Paul Blomfield, who served as a Labour MP for Sheffield Central, and is chairman of campaign group Dignity in Dying spoke of how his father, who had terminal lung cancer, took his own life alone.

Speaking at a fringe event organised by Dignity in Dying, Blomfield said it “hadn’t crossed my mind” he would end his life.

The lack of assisted dying laws, he said, meant his father “died alone and he died earlier than he would have done”. Dignity in Dying, backs changing the law in this area.

He added:

He had less life because assisted dying wasn’t available. I am convinced he acted while he had the capacity to do so, rather than fear if he lost that capacity.

He said his father “was at a fairly early stage of the disease”, however he said he had seen “too many of his friends die badly”, PA Media reports.

Bills aiming to legalise assisted dying are currently being considered at both Westminster and Holyrood, put forward by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur respectively.

Referring to McArthur and Leadbeater Blomfield said:

Both Liam and Kim are trying to fix that problem that we face as a society. My father wasn’t alone, more than 600 people a year take their own lives with a terminal diagnosis.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.

Pilot of domestic abuse experts helping in 999 call rooms begins in England

Jessica Murray

The campaigner Nour Norris (centre) and Jess Phillips (right) visit the West Midlands police control room in Birmingham. Photograph: Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

Domestic abuse specialists embedded in control rooms receiving 999 emergency calls will help “create force-wide cultural change”, said Jess Phillips as the first phase of “Raneem’s law” was rolled out across England.

The new law is named in memory of Raneem Oudeh, who was killed alongside her mother, Khaola Saleem, in Solihull by Oudeh’s ex-husband, whom she had reported to the police at least seven times, as well as making four 999 calls on the night she was murdered.

An inquest found police failings “materially contributed” to their deaths.

The new policy, which will involve domestic abuse specialists working in 999 control rooms to give feedback on responses to emergency calls, is being piloted in five police forces, and could be rolled out across the whole of England and Wales by the end of the year.

You can read the full report here:

Thirty English councils granted exceptional financial support packages

Patrick Butler

A record 30 English local authorities have been granted effective “bailouts” enabling them to borrow money to avoid bankruptcy, as ministers advised them against selling off prized local assets such as historic buildings, parks and allotments.

The councils, all of whom were experiencing “unmanageable” financial pressures, were given the green light by ministers to collectively borrow £1.5bn to plug significant budget gaps caused by underfunding and soaring demand for social care and other services.

Three councils – Birmingham, Bradford, and Windsor and Maidenhead – will each be allowed to borrow more than £100m this year to stay afloat, while also being allowed to issue cap-busting council tax bill increases of up to 10%.

Six councils who are in special measures after declaring effective bankruptcy in recent years – Birmingham, Croydon, Nottingham, Slough, Thurrock and Woking – have again been granted special financial help.

The exceptional financial support (EFS) packages enable councils to take out capital loans to fund revenue spending, on the basis they will pay down the debt in future by disposing of assets and cutting back on frontline services.

Read the full report here:

Ed Davey has urged the prime minister to ‘speak frankly’ to Donald Trump when he meets him next week. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

We have more from Ed Davey’s interview on the Today programme.

He said the prime minister would not be reflecting the views of the British people if he did not speak frankly with Donald Trump during an upcoming a visit to Washington.

He challenged Keir Starmer to confront the US President on the US’s sharp shift in foreign policy on Ukraine, and his recent remarks about the war, PA Media reports.

He said:

It is a very difficult visit there’s no doubt about that, but I do think you have to speak to your friends honestly and openly.

The threat that Donald Trump poses to our economy and security is as serious as I can ever remember.

Whether it’s the threat of terror to our country, indeed to our friends in the Commonwealth and Europe, or whether it’s what he’s saying with president Putin and Russia and Ukraine, I think we’re all astonished and deeply alarmed, and if the British prime minister doesn’t reflect that, he’s not reflecting the views of the British people.