The mayor of London is the most high-profile figure to weigh into the debate over electric vehicle targets
British prime minister Andy Burnham poses for a photograph with mayor of London Sadiq Khan Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenBritish prime minister Andy Burnham poses for a photograph with mayor of London Sadiq Khan Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty ImagesFrom 4h agoKiran Stacey is the Guardian’s policy editor.
Sadiq Khan has become the most high-profile Labour figure to weigh into the increasingly fractious debate over what the government should do with its electric vehicle targets.
Ministers are meeting today in Downing Street to decide whether to cut legally binding requirements for carmakers to ensure 80% of the vehicles they sell in 2030 are electric.
Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, is pushing for the target to be reduced to 50%, but Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, wants to keep it as close to 80% as possible.
But as ministers wrangle among each other, City Hall officials have made clear that the London mayor is on Fahnbulleh’s side.
Khan’s position was laid out in a letter from his deputy mayor for transport Seb Dance to Oliver Lord, the UK director of Clean Cities, which has been seen by the Guardian.
We and Transport for London share your view that the ZEV [zero-emission vehicle] mandate must not change. We outlined in our submission to the government’s consultation that London supports a strong and credible ZEV mandate.
We do not support any weakening of the current trajectories to 2030 or beyond, which risks damaging the case for investment in the ZEV and charging infrastructure industries, slowing down the pace of change, and the associated reduction in harmful emissions.
Department for Transport officials insist that no decision has yet been made but with the government likely to announce a cut to the 2030 target in the next two
weeks, this is likely to leave Khan opposed to official government policy.
Some young people with disabilities will lose their personal independence payments and will have to apply instead to a local fund for short-term expenses and equipment, Alan Milburn’s review will recommend.
Andy Burnham said he and Ursula von der Leyen would use their meeting in Dublin to work to get a deal “over the line” for next week’s UK-EU summit. As the Press Association reports, the PM met the European Commission president at the European Political Community summit today, and they will see each other again in Brussels to sign agreements on food and farming, emissions trading and a youth mobility scheme. Burnham said at the start of the bilateral meeting:
Obviously, we have a UK-EU summit seven days away now, a week tomorrow, and our teams – who are working very well – and we’re really grateful to you and your colleagues.
We have potentially a deal that can be good for businesses in the UK in terms of cutting red tape, reducing costs on business, but also good for consumers as well in terms of lowering prices. Good for young people potentially.
But we’ve got to try and get this deal over the line, and that’s what today is about.
Sadiq Khan has become the most high-profile Labour figure to weigh into the increasingly fractious debate over what the government should do with its electric vehicle targets. (See 1.54pm.)
Nigel Farage appeared on Russell Brand’s US podcast nine months after the comedian was investigated by police over allegations of sexual assault, the Guardian has learned.
The UK government has appointed the world’s first special representative for climate security, in the strongest sign yet of fears that climate breakdown will bring chaos to the country.
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
View image in fullscreenAndy Burnham with Ursula von der Leyen at the EPC summit in Dublin. Photograph: WPA/Getty ImagesEd Balls has said that he warned Ed Miliband not to do an interview with Russell Brand during the 2015 election campaign. Miliband was Labour leader at the time, Balls shadow chancellor, and the interview – which was controversial at the time – was quoted by Kemi Badenoch this week in the light of Brand’s conviction for rape as evidence of Miliband’s flawed judgment.
Speaking on his Political Currency podcast, Balls said he had a dim view of Brand at the time of the interview.
I actually only met him once in the green room on the Andrew Marr programme […] he behaved really weirdly and was sort of trying to come up and kind of prod me and get in my face and I was concentrating on my interview and never engaged.
Balls said Brand had also insulted him during a Channel 4 show.
Describing what happened when he found out that Miliband was going to do an election interview with him, Balls said:
At the time, the feedback from my office back to them was what are you doing with this guy? I mean, he’s weird, and he’s untrustworthy, and he’s already been removed from the BBC for his behaviour. And do we really want this?
But they decided to go ahead because they thought it would solve a political problem.
I ended up having to go on the television, in which I have to defend this because I’m the shadow chancellor. So I say, well, you know, I guess they think it will connect with the young people, and so be it.
But, although he defended the move in public, privately he thought doing the interview was “ridiculous”, he said.
Reform UK is seen as a rightwing party. But that does not mean it is automatically pro-business. In his speech this afternoon, at a rally where the party unveiled its “industrial strongholds” policy (a revamped version of enterprize zones), Robert Jenrick, the party’s Treasury spokesperson, launched a strong attack on the owners of Poundland.
A father and a son. A market stall in this city. One shop by 1990. Six hundred shops today, and twelve thousand people on the payroll.
That is the Black Country story. Start small. Work hard. Build something that lasts.
It was sold abroad. Then it was sold again, to an American corporate raider, for a pound. The whole company. For a pound. They don’t even sell the products for that anymore.
Poundland is on course to make eighteen million quid in profit this year. Yet, its owners have filed for administration, despite buyers at the door offering to keep it whole. Why? So they can sell it off for parts and fat fees.
Think about that. A business that makes money. That employs twelve thousand people. That sells what families can actually afford. And the system’s answer is: break it up.
That isn’t capitalism. These aren’t titans of industry. They’re shysters.
These people are organ harvesters masquerading as doctors.
They don’t want the patient to live. They want him on the table, still warm, so they can sell him off a piece at a time.
Capitalism is the father and the son on the stall. This is something else. A model where it pays better to strip a British business than to build one.
Alan Milburn says in his Times interview today that he thinks it is worth cutting benefits to young people because the long-term advantages of getting them into work outweigh potential short-term financial disadvantages they will face. (See 12.44pm.)
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which campaigns to reduce poverty, disagrees. Responding to the Milburn interview, Iain Porter, a senior policy at the JRF, said:
Cutting someone’s income when they’re already struggling to afford food or the bus to college makes it harder for them to stay in education or find work.
The government can and should invest in supporting people back into employment. Young disabled people shouldn’t have to trade financial security for better employment support. They need both.
Young people with disabilities will lose their personal independence payments and will have to apply instead to a local fund for short-term expenses and equipment, Alan Milburn’s review will recommend. Jessica Elgot has the story.
Andy Burnham has promised Volodymyr Zelenskyy his “complete support” in the latest efforts to end the Ukraine war and said he would push for European representation in the US-brokered talks, the Press Association reports.
The PM co-chaired a group meeting on Ukraine with the country’s president at the European Political Community (EPC) summit in Ireland this afternoon.
Burnham was using the Dublin gathering to urge leaders from some 50 nations to ramp up pressure on Vladimir Putin to take peace talks seriously.
Speaking at the start of the meeting when journalists were present, Burnham said:
I’m sure I speak for everybody in saying you have our complete support, both in terms of resisting the aggression that you continue to face, but also in the negotiation process that has started.
He added that allies will try to support Ukraine “in every way possible through that process”, and “we will obviously continue to press for European representation in that process”.
Burnham and Zelenskyy sat side by side at the head of the table at the meeting attended by more than a dozen leaders, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Ireland’s Micheál Martin and Canada’s Mark Carney, as well as the presidents of the EU Commission and Council and the chief of Nato.
View image in fullscreenLeft to right: Italy's PM Giorgia Meloni, Denmark's PM Mette Frederiksen, EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, Canada's PM Mark Carney, France's president Emmanuel Macron, Andy Burnham Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European council president Antonio Costa and European commission president Ursula von der Leyen (both obscured) at the European Political Community summit. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty ImagesThe latest episode of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly UK is out, and it features Kiran Stacey and Jessica Elgot discussing some of the concerns starting to be raised by Labour MPs about Andy Burnham’s policies.
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
Reform UK has pledged to create “industrial strongholds” that would get tax breaks and other incentives aimed at spurring reindustrialisation, with the Black Country identified by the party as the first area for one.
The West Midlands area encompassing Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Cannock Chase – all Reform UK targets in any upcoming general election – was identified by the party as its first proposed “stronghold” zone.
Each zone would be a place where employer national insurance on net new hires would be halved, along with “streamlining” of planning policy and 100% first-year tax relief on new brownfield residential buildings and extensions.
Four more areas are to be unveiled by Reform UK in the months ahead, a rally in Wolverhampton was told by Reform’s economics spokesperson, Robert Jenrick.
Gordon Brown’s controversial 2007 pledge to create “British jobs for British workers” was also repurposed by Jenrick in a speech in which he spoke of plans for new visa sponsorship rules. He said:
Under Reform, jobs in Britain go to British workers first. Advertised here, to our people, before an employer can look anywhere else. And no sitting out the clock to fly somebody in on a visa.
Cheaper to hire from Bilston. Dearer to hire from abroad. British jobs for British workers. It’s about time you came first.
In a briefing explaining how the policy would work, Reform UK said:
Each Industrial Stronghold will be a defined geographical area, within which businesses will benefit from significant incentives for growth. These will include:
-Employer national insurance contributions reduced by 50% for the first £50,000 of earnings for net additional employees for five years.
-100% first-year tax relief on new brownfield residential buildings, extensions and substantial improvements.
-10-year exemptions on the extra business rates that result from new investment, from improvements, and from establishing a business in a high street retail unit that has been vacant for more than two years.
-Streamlining planning policy by creating a presumption in favour of development according to an updated local plan, with a strictly limited set of circumstances in which planning applications can be refused.
View image in fullscreenRobert Jenrick speaking at a Reform UK rally at the Grand Station in Wolverhampton today. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PAAndy Burnham said he had been “really looking forward” to meeting Italian premier Giorgia Meloni for the first time face to face, the Press Association reports. PA says:
The pair highlighted close UK-Italian ties and joint projects – including the Global Combat Air Programme (Gcap) to build the next generation fighter jet – as they met on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Dublin.
Speaking to the media ahead of private talks, the prime minister said: “It’s a real pleasure for me to meet the prime minister of Italy, Giorgia, for the first time.
“Italy, one of the UK’s biggest trading partners, we have such a close relationship on so many levels, not just trading partners, security partners, because working together on the next generation fighter jet Gcap.
“Working together closely on security, particularly on Ukraine, and we really salute your strong stance on Ukraine.”
Meloni told Mr Burnham “it’s a pleasure to know you personally”, and also referenced the two countries’ co-operation on migration.
EU relations minister Hamish Falconer and national security adviser Jonathan Powell also attended the meeting.
View image in fullscreenAndy Burnham with Giorgia Meloni at the European Political Community (EPC) summit in Dublin. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PANigel Farage appeared on Russell Brand’s US podcast nine months after the comedian was investigated by police over allegations of sexual assault, Rowena Mason reports.
Fox Style News Syndicate. Sourced from broadcast reporting: Read Full Source Coverage.