Labour turns fire on Farage ahead of Reform UK leader’s speech – UK politics live

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Mel Stride: Nigel Farage wheels out policies 'without any thought about how they can be delivered'

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride has also been on the media round this morning, and also been attacking Reform UK.

Appearing on Times Radio, and with it pointed out to him that the Conservatives were currently fourth in national polling, Stride said “Look, where we are is in a multi-party system at the moment, under first past the post. So things are indeed quite volatile. But these polls will move around.”

He continued by saying:

Rather than reaching for these quick, popular policies that you’ll see Nigel Farage wheel out left, right and centre, without any thought about how they can be delivered or indeed funded.

We’ve got to do the hard, serious, grown-up thinking over the next months and years to get together that policy platform that can truly address the big challenges that our country faces, to put to the British people. And that’s exactly what under Kemi’s leadership, we’re doing.

In another section of the interview talking about the Reform UK leader, Stride said “don’t get carried away with this idea that the Nigel Farage is a party of the right, OK? He is about big government.”

Stride claimed the Reform UK manifesto at the last election contained “£140bn of giveaways in it, both tax and spending.”

The shadow chancellor continued:

[Nigel Farage is] now, today, standing up, he’s going to say something about winter fuel payment and the two-child benefit cap, meaning that people can continue to have more children, and that will be funded and covered by the state.

That is a left wing position, and it also comes with a price tag of £5bn between those two measures. He has not got a clue as to how any of that is going to be funded. And we’ve seen that playbook before, and it doesn’t lead to a good place.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced new foundation apprenticeships, which she claimed “will make a really big difference to the lives of young people.”

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, she told viewers:

I’m announcing today a big step change that is really good news for young people across our country. 120,000 new opportunities to get on into trades like construction. So announcing foundation apprenticeships that are an earlier step in the career for young people.

But we know we’ve got to go further, because I hear from apprentices how amazing that opportunity is, how optimistic they are about their future. I met with some bricklaying apprentices recently, really optimistic, wanting to start their own business, get on in construction.

It’s a brilliant career, but under the Conservatives, too few young people had those opportunities. And we’re refocusing the system, the apprenticeship system, and our training system overall to better support young people and those starting out in this, right at the start of their careers.

This government takes skills seriously. It’s time we took skills as a country far more seriously than we’ve done in recent years, and give young people the chance to get on.

The shadow business secretary, Andrew Griffith, is unimpressed however. Seizing on the fact that Labour’s new apprenticeship policy also sees government funding cut for some apprenticeships for those aged 22, he described it as “another prejudiced Labour policy which will actively harm businesses, the economy and ladders of opportunity for young people.”

Education secretary defends removal of tax breaks after 'scaremongering' by private schools

The education secretary has defended the removal of tax breaks for private school, saying “the vast majority of parents in our country, what they want is a fantastic state education for their children.”

Asked on Sky News about figures suggesting there had been a slight fall in private school students over the last year, and therefore the policy might have costs as well as benefits. She said:

I back parents to make decisions about what’s right for them. For some parents that will involve sending their child to a private school, but actually for the vast majority of parents in our country, what they want is a fantastic state education for their children.

That’s what we’re delivering. That’s what we’re investing in. And the money that we’re raising by ending the tax breaks the private schools enjoy is being put towards investing in a fantastic state education for children in our country.

I think we’ve heard a lot from the private schools over an extended period, scaremongering about the impact. It’s never come to pass. What I’m determined to prioritise is investing in our state schools.

And we’ve taken that decision to in to impose VAT on private school fees, to deliver free breakfast clubs, to deliver more teachers, to deliver more investment into our state schools. That’s what a Labour government believes in.

Bridget Phillipson: removing two child benefit cap is 'not off the table'

The education secretary has said that removing the two-child benefit cap is “not off the table”.

Asked on Sky News if it was something the government was considering, Bridget Phillipson said it was “not off the table – it’s certainly something that we’re considering.”

She continued, telling viewers “we’ve always been clear that social security measures are an important part of what the child poverty taskforce is looking at.

“What I think your viewers will also appreciate is that we inherited a really difficult situation where it comes to the public finances. These are not easy or straightforward choices.”

The MP for Houghton and Sunderland South went out of her way to say that the two-child benefit cap was “not something a Labour government would have introduced. It was a Conservative measure.”

She said:

We had to make some difficult decisions early on in order to stabilise the economy, because it’s working people who lose out when you see the kinds of terrible impact that we saw under Liz Truss.

But we know that we have to take action on child poverty. It is the moral purpose of Labour governments to ensure that everyone, no matter their background, can get on in life, and child poverty holds back far too many of our children and young people, and we are absolutely determined to tackle it

Phillipson said “it’s personal to me, because, you know, for part of my childhood, I experienced what too many children right now in our country are experiencing, and I know the damage it does.”

She said that the government were expanding childcare provision and had raised the minimum wage, adding:

That’s the kind of commitment that you get from a Labour government on the side of working people putting more money back into their pockets. The child poverty taskforce will report later on in the autumn. But we’re not waiting for that to take action. We’re already taking serious action to support families right now.

Bridget Phillipson: Reform UK are 'just not serious people'

Bridget Phillipson has said Reform UK are “just not serious people” when asked about the expected announcement from Nigel Farage later today that it would be their policy to make winter fuel payments universal.

She told viewers of Sky News that “I don’t think anybody would seriously believe that millionaires should be getting it.”

Broadening her attack on Reform UK, which has been leading in recent polls, the education secretary said:

On the wider question of Reform, look, they’re just not serious. They’re just not serious people. It’s not credible.

This is a party, after all, that doesn’t believe in the NHS. That would dismantle the NHS as we know it.

That has consistently opposed the measures that Labour has brought in to back workers through the employment rights bill, making sure, for example, that more workers can have access to sick pay. Those are the kinds of decisions that Reform are interested in making.

The one policy that they have in education is to reintroduce tax breaks for private schools, which would massively undermine our ability to deliver free breakfast clubs, the kinds of measures that working families are benefiting from right now.

That’s Reform. That’s who they are. They’re not on the side of working people. They’re not serious about how they deliver change. And every time they get the opportunity to back working people, for example, with better rights at work, they oppose it.

Ellie Reeves: Farage 'has only ever cared about his own self-interest and personal ambition'

Labour party chair Ellie Reeves has launched an attack on the “self-interest” of Nigel Farage ahead of the Reform UK leader making a speech today in which he is expected to label prime minister Keir Starmer “unpatriotic”.

Reeves said:

Nigel Farage, a private-educated stockbroker and career politician, has only ever cared about his own self-interest and personal ambition, never about what is good for working people in this country.

Farage wants to abolish the NHS, praised Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-budget, opposed Labour’s landmark employment reforms and said Jaguar Land Rover, a huge employer, deserves to go bust.

His Reform manifesto included billions of pounds worth of unfunded spending pledges but did not commit to the triple lock. Farage must urgently clarify whether he will cut the state pension to pay for his reckless tax cuts.

Keir Starmer’s Labour government is delivering real improvement to working people’s lives through our plan for change that has seen NHS waiting lists fall, wages rising faster than prices, and four interest rate cuts in a year, turbo-charged by a trio of trade deals that are good for jobs, bills and borders.

Nigel Farage is expected to give his speech at 11am today.

Welcome and opening summary …

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of UK politics for Tuesday. Here are the headlines …

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said that removing the two-child benefit cap is “not off the table” as she defended Labour’s record on introducing measures to tackle child poverty
Labour party chair Ellie Reeves has said that Nigel Farage cares only about his own “own self-interest” ahead of the Reform UK leader giving a speech this morning in which he is expected to call Keir Starmer unpatriotic
Nearly half of all “red wall” voters disapprove of the way Starmer’s government has dealt with benefits-related policy, a poll has found, as ministers faced continued pressure over winter fuel and disability payments, and the two-child benefit cap
More than 100 of the UK’s most high-profile disabled people have called on the prime minister to abandon “inhumane and catastrophic plans to cut disability benefits”