Some people on sickness and disability benefits ‘taking the mickey’, says Liz Kendall – UK politics live

Lord Hermer, the attorney general, must be getting used to bad publicity, but there is an article in the Times today that ought to worry him more than others.

A long-standing friend and barrister colleague of Keir Starmer (Hermer was Starmer’s junior in countless cases), Hermer was a surprise choice for attorney general. Emily Thornberry thought she was lined up for the job. But Starmer appointed Hermer, who became the first person to be appointed attorney general in more than 100 years who was not already an MP or peer.

Hermer has been under constant attack from the Tories. One of his past clients was Gerry Adams, the former Sinn Féin president (and former IRA leader in the eyes of almost everyone – although he denies it), and this has been a major source of criticism. The Conservatives have also complained about Hermer for not saying when he has had to recuse himself from government decisions over conflicts of interest. And they condemn him for his leftwing views. Only today the Telegraph is running a story with figures criticising him for describing the British empire as racist (which it was). The story is based on Hermer telling a Matrix Law podcast in 2022 that: “Racism impacted almost every element of [the British Empire].” He also said that Britain was a country where empire was assumed to be a good thing and that this was premised on a “deeply racist assumption” that the other nations are “not as good as us”. The Telegraph quotes Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, as saying Hermer has a “classic, nasty, leftwing view of life”.

Much more difficult, though, is what Patrick Maguire is saying about Hermer in his column in the Times. Maguire has impeccable Labour contacts (although he is probably in the dog house at the moment because of some of the revelations in his new book about Starmer, Get In, written with Gabriel Pogrund). Expanding on concerns reported by the Times last week, Maguire says ministers are unhappy with Hermer because he is holding up decisions. He says:

On Chagos, the popular critique is simple. Hermer, an actual lefty lawyer who would wear that pejorative as a badge of honour, is putting international law — already an ephemeral and often disregarded thing even before the return of Donald Trump — before domestic politics …

One puts the case against the attorney-general like this: “Richard seems to be under the impression that the government needs objective legal advice.” Another senior figure now butting heads with Hermer adds: “He genuinely doesn’t realise that he is our lawyer.” Trying to govern for voters who would otherwise be drawn to the radical right is proving much harder with Hermer laying down the law: pushing back, warning that this or that initiative can’t go ahead for fear of judicial reviews ministers would happily fight to prove a political point.

Maguire says Starmer is expected to hold a government reshuffle around May. Because of the close friendship between Starmer and Hermer, it was generally assumed his position was safe as long as Starmer remained PM. Maguire argues that is not a safe bet.

This week I asked a minister who knows Starmer well whether he might one day move Hermer if the politics of the moment demanded it. They answered yes, without hesitation. If my co-author and I have learnt anything about the PM from studying his leadership in often microscopic detail, it is that he is capable of moving hard and fast when political reality changes …

The legal architecture he and his radical contemporaries helped to build — Starmer at Doughty Street, Hermer at Matrix Chambers — is beginning to look distinctly old-fashioned. If it no longer serves his government, is this shapeshifting prime minister really prepared to lash himself to the mast of a sinking ship?

The EU will not let the question of fishing rights derail a pact with the UK on security and defence, António Costa, the president of the European Council has said. Jennifer Rankin has the story.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has said the government will “consider” fast-tracking a carbon capture and storage project in Scotland that he says could help secure a future for workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery.

As PA Media reports, the site, which is Scotland’s only oil refinery, is due to close in the coming months, with owners at Petroineos having already sent out redundancy notices to some of the 400 workers there. But with a pipeline connecting the site there to the proposed Acorn carbon capture and storage project in Aberdeenshire, fast tracking that development could help secure a future for Grangemouth.

This would take climate damaging CO2 emissions from Grangemouth’s industrial processes, and transport them to Acorn – from where they would be sent to be stored in subsea rock formations underneath the North Sea.

The UK government has already provided funding for two similar carbon capture clusters, in Merseyside and Teesside – with Scottish first minister John Swinney criticising ministers in London for their lack of support so far for the Acorn scheme, PA says.

In an interview on Times Radio, asked if he would commit to fast-tracking the project to help secure “some sort of future for Grangemouth”, Miliband said he would “obviously look” at such a proposal. He said:

We are determined to have a future for that Grangemouth site and for the Grangemouth community.

That’s what we’re working on, actually, alongside the Scottish government, something called Project Willow, which is a whole project which will be published later this month or early next, on looking at how we can … make the most of the potential resources at Grangemouth.

Carbon capture and storage could be part of it, sustainable aviation fuel could be part of it.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, reportedly argued against the government’s decision to back a third runway at Heathrow at a cabinet meeting the day before Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, confirmed the move in a speech.

In an interview this morning, he said he would abide by “collective responsibility” with regard to the decision – but he would not say he was personally in favour.

Asked if he backed the plans, or if he was just “going along with the crowd”, Miliband told BBC Breakfast:

I’m part of a government that has said it wants to invite applications from Heathrow for a third runway and it’s got to pass strict environmental conditions and meet our carbon budgets.

Obviously I’m part of the government and I abide by collective responsibility.

Asked again if he was in favour of the plans, Miliband said:

I’m part of a government that has that position …

I was part of the decision-making process and the decision is as Rachel Reeves set it out, that’s the collective decision of the government.

In all administrations there are some ministers who, on some issues, don’t agree with what the government is doing. Normally they don’t make it quite as obvious as this, but there was nothing improper or disloyal in what Miliband was saying.

Asked to defend the Heathrow decision in the Commons earlier this week, Miliband said:

Any aviation expansion – this is the point the chancellor made last week – has to take place within carbon budgets and within environmental limits.

What I would just say to her also is that in six months, this government has achieved certainly more than the last government did in 14 years.

We’ve lifted the on-shore wind ban, we’ve consented nearly 3GW of solar, GB Energy, the National Wealth Fund, the most successful renewables auction in history. This government is delivering on clean power.

Some Labour MPs strongly committed to the net zero agenda are not speaking out strongly against the Heathrow decision because they believe in practice the third runway will never be built.

Landlords will have to meet decent energy efficiency standards in homes they rent out by 2030, under plans put out for consultation by the government, PA Media reports. PA says:

All private landlords in England and Wales will be required to meet Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C or above by the end of the decade, up from the lower EPC E level currently required.

The government said the proposals could save renters £240 a year on average on their energy bills, and lift up to half a million households out of fuel poverty, as they will not have to spend so much heating cold, draughty homes.

Under the plans, landlords will have the choice of how to meet energy efficiency standards, with options such as loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and double glazing.

They will also then have further options such as solar panels, batteries and smart meters, or low carbon heating such as heat pumps.

The government is proposing a maximum £15,000 cap beyond which landlords will not have to spend to meet the EPC C rating, with potential for a lower £10,000 cap if renters are charged lower rents or homes are in a lower council tax band.

Officials pointed to support for heat pumps from the boiler upgrade scheme and the warm homes: local grant programme which will provide funding for measures including insulation, solar panels and air source heat pumps.

And with 48% of rented properties already meeting the EPC C grade, the government wants to see the standard introduced across the board, and believes the move will not lead to increased rents for tenants.

It is estimated that the average cost to landlords of complying with the proposals will be £6,100 to £6,800 by 2030.

Previous proposals requiring landlords to meet EPC C standards for private rented homes by 2028 were axed by then prime minister Rishi Sunak when he watered down a series of green policies in September 2023.

Then the move was welcomed by landlords, but drew criticism that it was locking in tenants to years of higher bills.

Commenting on the plans in interviews this morning, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said: “If you rent a home and you pay your rent, you have a right to live in a properly insulated home”.

He also said:

I think landlords are going to have to foot at least some significant part of this bill.

We think that’s fair and right to ask landlords to do that.

Boris Johnson was “one of the most damaging prime ministers in this country’s history”, according to Zia Yusuf, chair of Reform UK. Jamie Grierson has the story.

Good morning. Keir Starmer is chairing an extended meeting of cabinet today. There will be a normal cabinet meeting, and then a political cabinet, where ministers will discuss the many challenges facing the government in a party political context. They won’t be in Downing Street, and it has been described by some people as an away days, but it is not one of those away days that involves a spa hotel in the countryside. They will be somewhere in Whitehall apparently, but being out of Downing Street should provide a change of scene.

One of the problems the government needs to address soon is what to do about the rising cost of working-age people on sickness and disability benefits. A recent inquiry by the Lords economic affairs committee found that that there are 3.7m, people of working-age on health-related benefits – up 1.2m on the figure five years ago – and that incapacity and disability benefits are costing almost £65bn, more than the government spends on defence.

The Department for Work and Pensions is due to publish a green paper on plans to reform this soon and, in an interview with Anushka Asthana from ITV News, Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, fleshed out some of the thinking behind what she is planning. Kendall was at pains to stress that she wanted to help more people into work, but some of her language is likely to alarm some of those currently claiming these benefits.

• Kendall said that some people on sickness and disability benefits who think they could not do a job probably could work with the right support. Asked about a DWP survey saying 49% of people on these benefits think they will never be able to work, Kendall said:

I don’t blame people for thinking that they can’t, because they’re stuck on a waiting list for treatment. They haven’t had the proper support that they might need from the job centre or the skills that they need to get the jobs, we’ve also got to create more jobs in the areas that need them most. So I’m under no illusions about the scale of the challenge that we’ve got.

I believe more of those people could work. But even if we just start with those who say they can, we need to do more to get them back into work.

When 2 in 5 of people on sickness and disability benefits are stuck on an NHS waiting list, we’ve got to drive those down. That’s why health secretary Wes Streeting has got a big plan to drive down that backlog, get people the help they need.

• She said there were some people claiming sickness and disability benefits who were “taking the mickey”. Asked if she agreed with people who think that too many claimants are just pretending they cannot work, she replied:

If you speak to people here today, you will know that many of them have either just lost jobs that they desperately miss, or really want to get back into to work once they’ve got their health condition under control. So I think that there are many more people who want to work.

I have no doubt, as there always have been, there are people who shouldn’t be on those benefits who are taking the mickey and that is not good enough – we have to end that.

• She suggested that some young people might have to adjust more to having to work. Asked if she agreed that some conditions were being over-medicalised, and that people were taking time off for anxiety when in the past that might just have been regarded as normal worry, she replied:

I think there is genuinely a problem with many young people, particularly the Covid generation. But we can’t have a situation where doing a day’s work is in itself seen as stressful.

But she also accepted the situation was not straightforward.

I went to visit one of my local supermarkets recently to see the brilliant work they’re doing with the charity to get young people into work. And we saw two things.

One was young people with genuine mental health problems who the supermarket was doing great stuff to help them get work and stay in work.

But also the managers saying there were some young people who felt just turning up on time or working the day that they needed to, not always taking breaks – they had to understand that that was the world of work, that was just the nature of life and that isn’t stress or pressure.

So I think there’s no easy headline about it’s all one or all the other. And as ever, life is more complex.

It is not clear yet how much we will learn about what was said at the extended cabinet, but there will be a lobby briefing at 11.30am. Also, at some point today the government is expected to confirm that Grenfell Tower will be demolished.

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