Wes Streeting defends Starmer’s non-antagonistic handling of Trump ahead of PM giving evidence to liaison committee
Good morning. It is the last day the Commons is sitting before the Easter recess, and Keir Starmer is giving evidence to the liaision committee, the body made up of all the other committee chairs. He will take questions on growth, on international affairs and defence, and on welfare reforms and health. These sessions are often better at producing the anticipation of news than they are at generating actual headlines, but we always live in hope. It is not as if theren’t lots of topics to ask him about.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has been giving interviews this morning. Many commentators (including the Guardian’s John Crace) are increasingly exasperated by Starmer’s willingness to talk about how the government will respond to the crisis that has hit the world trading system without appearing to say anything remotely critical about the person responsible. Streeting spent quite a lot of time this morning defending the PM’s non-antagonistic approach. On the Today programme, Nick Robinson put it to Streeting that Starmer was “taking us for fools” by not saying that world trade was working perfectly well until Trump, “the man [Starmer’s] been sucking up to”, ripped it up. Streeting replied:
We’ve made no bones about the fact that we disagree with the decisions being taken by the Trump administration in relation to tariffs. We don’t want to see a trade war. The tariffs, even being at the best end of the tariff regime, [are] still harmful to British interests, which is why we’re working to secure an economic partnership …
But what the prime minister has been doing, contrary to those who preferred that he would take to Twitter or pick up placards, is showing the cool, calm, level-headed leadership required, both to get the best possible trading relationship we can with the United States, as well as with our other trading partners.
Graeme Wearden has the latest on the economic reaction to the tariffs on his business live blog. European markets are up a bit this morning.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
9.30am: Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, holds a press conference ahead of the NEU’s annual conference.
11am: Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the Green party’s co-leaders, launch the party’s local elections campaign at an event in Kenilworth, Warwickshire.
11.30am: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, Sir James Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, and Sir Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, give evidence to the Commons health committee about NHS England.
Lunchtime: Kemi Badenoch is due to give interviews during a local elections campaign visit.
2.30pm: Starmer gives evidence to the Commons liaision committee.
3.30pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, Richard Tice, his deputy, and Andrea Jenkyns, the party’s candidate for mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, visit the Scunthorpe steelworks.
I’m afraid that, for the next few weeks or months, on most days staff shortages mean that comments will only be open on the blog between 10am and 3pm.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line, when comments are open, or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
In the Commons Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said the Conservatives would do whatever they could to help the government lower the US tariffs imposed on the UK. He said:
Free trade has been the bedrock of prosperity for our country, and many countries around the world, for decades. It has raised billions out of poverty. Tariffs are the enemy of free trade, and we on this side of the house will do whatever we can to assist the government in getting those tariffs down.
Reeves tells MPs Bank of England governor has assured her ‘markets functioning effectively’ despite tariffs crisis
In the Commons Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is taking questions. Unusually, she opened with a mini statement about the Trump tariffs. It largely echoed what Keir Starmer said in his speech yesterday, with Reeves saying the government would respond in a calm, pragmatic manner, focusing on the national interest but also keeping “nothing off the table” in terms of possible retaliation.
But Reeves also said she had spoken to Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, this morning. She said:
The United States’ decision to impose tariffs has had and will continue to have huge implications for the world economy.
These implications have been reflected in the reaction that we’ve seen in global markets in recent days, which the financial authorities have of course been monitoring closely.
This morning I spoke to the governor of the Bank of England, who has confirmed that markets are functioning effectively and that our banking system is resilient.
Half of Britons back retaliatory tariffs against US, poll suggests
Half of Britons (51%) think the government should impose retaliatory tariffs on imports from the US, according to polling by More in Common, a campaign group. Last week, just before the Trump tariffs were announced, YouGov published figures suggesting 71% of Britons would favour retaliatory tariffs against the US.
Yesterday YouGov also released polling suggesting that only around a third of voters think Keir Starmer and the government played a significant role in ensuring the US tariffs imposed on the UK are relatively low.
More in Common has asked the same question with slightly different wording, and produced a result more favourable to Starmer and the government. Its figures suggest that almost half of people think the PM and his team were at least somewhat responsible for the UK getting a lower tariff rate.
Denyer says Reform is “throwing everything” at the local elections because they think they can take advantage of people feeling let down by the Tories and Labour. She goes on:
But we are here to say that voters have another choice, a positive choice, instead of one of the tired, old parties, or worse, a party that is divisive, dishonest, in disarray, that wants to tear things down, not build communities up, and has no track record of delivering.
Labour ‘are making choices that increase poverty’, says Green at local elections campaign launch
The Green party local election launch is taking place now.
Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the two co-leaders, are speakign.
Ramsay says Labour have had nine months to prove themselves, “but they have failed at every turn”.
Denyer says postive change “just isn’t happening”. She says by cutting the winter fuel payment, refusing to get rid of the two-child benefit cap, and cutting disabiltiy benefits, Labour “are making choices that increase poverty”. She goes on:
Voters are telling us that this Labour government has been a crushing disappointment, unwilling to equip councils with what they need to actually support our communities.
So we know that in these local elections, where they’re still happening, many people are looking for something different.
Court of appeal starts hearing Prince Harry’s challenge over Home Office decision about taxpayer-funded protection
The Duke of Sussex’s appeal against the dismissal of his legal challenge over the level of protection he is given while visiting the UK has begun at the court of appeal, PA Media reports. PA says:
Harry is challenging the dismissal of his high court legal action against the Home Office over the decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) that he should receive a different degree of taxpayer-funded protection when in the country.
Last year, retired high court judge Sir Peter Lane ruled that Ravec’s decision, taken in early 2020 after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex quit as senior working royals, was not irrational or procedurally unfair.
The Home Office, which has legal responsibility for Ravec’s decisions, is opposing the appeal, with its lawyers previously telling the high court that decisions were taken on a “case-by-case” basis.
Harry was in attendance as the hearing began on Tuesday at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London.
The appeal, before Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Bean and Lord Justice Edis, is due to conclude tomorrow, with a decision expected in writing at a later date.
There is a live feed here.
Sir Philip Green loses legal case against UK over use of parliamentary privilege
Retail tycoon Sir Philip Green has lost a legal case against the UK government after complaining about being publicly named by Labour’s Peter Hain in the House of Lords as facing misconduct allegations. Simon Goodley has the story here.
Greens urge people disillusioned with ‘old, tired parties’ to back them in local elections
The Green party says it is offering “positive change” at the local elections to people fed up with the “old, tired parties”.
It is formally launching its campaign later this morning and, according to extracts released in advance, Adrian Ramsay, the party’s co-leader, will argue that his party is doing well because it is offering voters something different.
He is expected to say:
We know that politics in this country isn’t providing people with what they need – that disillusionment is high and morale is low. But up and down the country Greens are making a difference. We are smashing through records getting more and more hard-working councillors elected.
We are taking votes from the old, tired parties to offer something different – the positive change so desperately needed.
Meanwhile, Reform is trying to make gains on the back of a weak and lacklustre political old guard. It’s a party that uses the politics of fear to divide our communities. And whose policies are explicitly designed to only benefit a small number of the very richest people. Importantly for these local elections, Reform has no track record of delivering at any level of government.
The launch is taking place near Warwick, where the Greens run the council with Labour. Carla Denyer, the other Green co-leader, is expected to say:
The over 800 Green councillors across England and Wales between them already represent millions of people in this country. They are working hard every day to make a difference for their communities, working all year round on practical solutions, not just turning up on the doorstep when it’s election time.
Here in Warwick where we lead the council, we have invested millions into making council housing warmer and cheaper to run. In Mid Suffolk, another Green run council, in one year we have prevented hundreds of people from becoming homeless.
The Green say they lead 14 councils in England and Wales, and are part of running more than 40.
More than 100,000 certificates that formally recognise baby loss have been issued since the service was introduced, the Department of Health and Social Care has revealed. PA Media says:
Campaigners said they are “deeply moved by the overwhelmingly positive response” to the baby loss certificate scheme.
The voluntary service launched in February last year, allowing parents in England who had lost a baby before 24 weeks of pregnancy to acknowledge their baby existed.
It initially only included losses since September 2018, but was expanded in October to include any parent who has experienced a loss before 24 weeks, or 28 weeks if the loss occurred before October 1992.
Streeting says he hopes process for getting GP appointments to be ‘wildly different and improved’ by next election
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has been giving interviews this morning partly to promote an announcement about the NHS in England hiring more than 1,500 new GPs since October. In a news release, the Department of Health and Social Care says this has happened because of a rule change introduced by the government. It says:
When the government came into office, unnecessary red tape was preventing practices from hiring newly qualified GPs, meaning more than 1,000 were due to graduate into unemployment. At the same time, there were also 1,399 fewer fully qualified GPs than a decade prior, showing how years of underfunding and neglect had eroded GP services.
The government cut the red tape and invested an extra £82m to allow networks of practices to hire the GPs, with the funding continuing past this year thanks to the extra funding announced at the budget.
In a bid to end what it describes as the “8am scramble” on the phone to make a GP appointment, the DHSC says it has also told GP surgeries to allow patients to request appointments online, “freeing up the phones for those who want to book over the phone, and making it easier for practices to triage patients based on medical need”.
In an interview with LBC, asked when the “8am scramble” would end, Streeting said:
It is going to take time. We’ve just actually done a deal with GPs with a new contract, the first time that’s happened since the pandemic, and that will ensure that everyone in every part of the country can access services online, including appointment booking. So I think that will help.
But, ultimately, this is going to be a case of step by step, year on year, seeing an improvement.
Asked again when patients would notice the difference, Streeting replied:
Let’s certainly hope that, by the next general election, people feel that their experience of accessing general practice is wildly different and improved compared to when we came in.
Trump’s tariffs could hit UK medicine supply, Streeting warns
US tariffs could adversely affect the supply of medicines to the UK, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has warned. Jamie Grierson has the story.
Wes Streeting defends Starmer’s non-antagonistic handling of Trump ahead of PM giving evidence to liaison committee
Good morning. It is the last day the Commons is sitting before the Easter recess, and Keir Starmer is giving evidence to the liaision committee, the body made up of all the other committee chairs. He will take questions on growth, on international affairs and defence, and on welfare reforms and health. These sessions are often better at producing the anticipation of news than they are at generating actual headlines, but we always live in hope. It is not as if theren’t lots of topics to ask him about.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has been giving interviews this morning. Many commentators (including the Guardian’s John Crace) are increasingly exasperated by Starmer’s willingness to talk about how the government will respond to the crisis that has hit the world trading system without appearing to say anything remotely critical about the person responsible. Streeting spent quite a lot of time this morning defending the PM’s non-antagonistic approach. On the Today programme, Nick Robinson put it to Streeting that Starmer was “taking us for fools” by not saying that world trade was working perfectly well until Trump, “the man [Starmer’s] been sucking up to”, ripped it up. Streeting replied:
We’ve made no bones about the fact that we disagree with the decisions being taken by the Trump administration in relation to tariffs. We don’t want to see a trade war. The tariffs, even being at the best end of the tariff regime, [are] still harmful to British interests, which is why we’re working to secure an economic partnership …
But what the prime minister has been doing, contrary to those who preferred that he would take to Twitter or pick up placards, is showing the cool, calm, level-headed leadership required, both to get the best possible trading relationship we can with the United States, as well as with our other trading partners.
Graeme Wearden has the latest on the economic reaction to the tariffs on his business live blog. European markets are up a bit this morning.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
9.30am: Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, holds a press conference ahead of the NEU’s annual conference.
11am: Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the Green party’s co-leaders, launch the party’s local elections campaign at an event in Kenilworth, Warwickshire.
11.30am: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, Sir James Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, and Sir Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, give evidence to the Commons health committee about NHS England.
Lunchtime: Kemi Badenoch is due to give interviews during a local elections campaign visit.
2.30pm: Starmer gives evidence to the Commons liaision committee.
3.30pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, Richard Tice, his deputy, and Andrea Jenkyns, the party’s candidate for mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, visit the Scunthorpe steelworks.
I’m afraid that, for the next few weeks or months, on most days staff shortages mean that comments will only be open on the blog between 10am and 3pm.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line, when comments are open, or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
