Keir Starmer delivers speech on ‘rooting out years of rot’ left by Conservatives – UK politics live | Politics

Starmer said “things are worse than we ever imagined” after discovering a £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances. The prime minister is using this argument to warn that the budget – on 30 October – will be “painful”.

“We have no other choice, given the situation that we’re in, those with the broader shoulders should bear the heavier burden,” he said in his speech.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is planning to raise taxes, cut spending and make changes to benefits in October’s budget. Reeves will receive the OBR’s initial assessment of the state of the economy early next month, but she believes there is nothing to suggest the government’s underlying financial position is getting any better.

Starmer says that his new Labour government have “done more in seven weeks than the last government did in seven years”.

“These are just the first steps towards the change that people voted for, the change that I’m determined to deliver,” the prime minister said.

He adds that change will not happen “overnight” and issues need to be tackled at the “root”.

Keir Starmer has said that “things will get worse before they get better”. He said that he didn’t want to release some prisoners early (to avoid overcrowding), especially given his history as the CPS’ chief prosecutor, but that it was necessary.

“It goes against the grain of everything I’ve ever done,” the prime minister said in his speech.

“But to be blunt, if we hadn’t taken that difficult decision immediately, we wouldn’t have been able to respond to the riots as we did, and if we don’t take tough action across the board, we won’t be able to fix the foundations of the country as we need.”

“I didn’t want to means test the winter fuel payment. but it was a choice that we had to make,” Starmer continued.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, revealed plans last month to introduce a means test for the winter fuel payment, where only those on pensions benefits would qualify, as part of a push to plug what she said was a £22bn black hole in the public finances left by the previous Conservative administration.

Keir Starmer said the riots this summer exposed the state of a “deeply unhealthy society”, adding that a “mindless minority of thugs” thought hey could get away with criminality because of the broken justice system.

He said:

A mindless minority of thugs who thought that they could get away with causing chaos, smashing up communities and terrifying minorities, vandalizing and destroying people’s property, even trying to set fire to a building with human beings inside it, and as if that wasn’t despicable enough, people displaying swastika tattoos, shouting racist slurs on our streets…

Now they’re learning that crime has consequences, that I won’t tolerate a breakdown in law and order under any circumstances, and I will not listen to those who exploit grieving families and disrespect local communities. But these riots, didn’t happen in a vacuum. They exposed, the state of our country, revealed a deeply unhealthy society. The cracks in our foundations laid bare.

He said the rioters exploited the cracks in the society left by the Conservative government.

“They saw the cracks in our society after 14 years of failure, and they exploited them. That’s what we’ve inherited, not just an economic black hole, a societal black hole, and that’s why we have to take action and do things differently,” Starmer said.

Keir Starmer has begun his first major speech as prime minister. He is expected to outline the government’s plans and priorities moving into the autumn. Starmer is due to warn that change will take a decade – not a parliamentary term – to implement, given that the damage that the Conservatives did to the country was so great.

SNP ministers considering limiting universal benefits amid spending cuts in Scotland

Severin Carrell

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor

Scottish National party ministers are considering cutting or limiting universal benefits on which its electoral successes were built, including free prescriptions, free bus travel and free school meals, in a concerted drive to cut public spending.

With some of these measures seen as middle-class subsidies, ministers have already ordered cuts to flood defence spending, the Scottish arts budget, council spending on nature restoration and, it has emerged, free iPads for some school children.

The Times reports that Caroline Lamb, the director general for health and social care in the devolved government, has told civil servants there is a £1.1bn spending gap in her department, driven in large part by public sector pay deals recently agreed by ministers.

She told her staff they needed to save £750m this financial year, and prepare for the additional cost pressures of £357m more next year to cover pay increases. The Times reports that free tuition for Scottish university and college students is also under scrutiny.

Shona Robison, the Scottish finance secretary, issued an order to all her department heads earlier this month to implement “emergency controls” on spending driven by the warning from Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, that the UK government had a £22bn spending gap to bridge.

The chancellor’s cuts to spending for English or pan-UK departments will directly affect Scotland’s grant from the Treasury.

Robison’s instructions have led to officials cancelling some projects, curtailing others or cutting heavily on in-year spending. She is preparing for an emergency spending statement when Holyrood resumes in early September.

These cuts raise significant political risks for the SNP: much of their popularity has been based on the higher per capita spending for Scottish public services than the UK average, and the SNP’s willingness to fund universal benefits, including free bus travel for all over-60s and under 22s; a council tax freeze; abolishing bridge tolls and hospital parking fees; a temporary suspension of peak rail fares and subsidised ferry fares.

Lamb, also the chief executive of NHS Scotland, told her officials “we have been experiencing a worsening, overall, underlying, financial deficit over a number of years”.

“[We’ve] managed to almost limp over the line over the last year or two but we’ve now got to the point where it’s actually a bit of a tipping point,” she told civil servants.

Simon Goodley

Simon Goodley is a Guardian business reporter

The UK government has awarded KPMG a £223m contract to train civil servants despite pledging to slash state spending on external consultants.

Under the 15-month deal with the Cabinet Office, which is reportedly the second-largest public sector contract ever won by KPMG, the firm will manage training and development services across the civil service.

This includes overseeing courses on policymaking, communications and career development, as well as training for assessed or accredited qualifications run by universities, business schools and specialist providers.

News of the contract, which was first reported by the Financial Times, comes after the new Labour government announced last month it would take immediate action to stop all non-essential government consultancy spending in 2024-25 as part of a move to halve the government consultancy bill in future years.

The cost-saving initiative will save £550m in 2024-25 and £680m in 2025-26, according to Treasury estimates. The government said the civil service headcount cap would be lifted to help departments achieve the target.

The KPMG contract was awarded just days before the government set out its cost-saving proposals, the official record of the contract award sets out. Its maximum value represents nearly 8% of KPMG’s annual UK revenues, making it the second-biggest public sector contract awarded to the firm, according to the data provider Tussell.

Cabinet Office minister Ellie Reeves has been speaking on Sky News. She has been asked about the decision to start means-testing pensioner’s winter fuel allowance, which would limit payments to people who receive pension credits or other means-tested benefits (here is a useful explainer on pension credit eligibility). Labour MPs have warned that the decision could lead to a “cruel winter” for the most vulnerable people in the country.

Reeves blamed the Tories’ “economic mess” for the restrictions on winter fuel payments and denied claims that Cabinet members are split on the policy.

Speaking to Sky News, she said:

This is an incredibly tough decision, and not one that the Chancellor wanted to be taking, but it’s because of the economic mess that we’ve inherited from the previous government.

The Cabinet are behind the chancellor on this. This is a decision that’s been taken by the chancellor, with the support of the Cabinet, there aren’t splits on this.

It’s a decision that no one wanted to be in the position to have to make, it’s not something that we wanted to do, but it’s something that is the responsible thing to do because of that £22 billion black hole in the country’s finances.

Good morning and welcome back to our rolling coverage of UK politics.

Keir Starmer will deliver a heavily briefed speech in the gardens of Downing Street ahead of parliament’s return next week. The prime minister will vow to “reverse a decade of decline” and to “fix the foundations” of the UK economy.

The prime minister will promise that his government will do the “hard work” to “root out 14 years of rot” under the Conservatives.

Ministers have already been heavily criticised for ending winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners. Starmer is also under pressure to end the two-child benefit cap and extend the £1bn household support fund, which is due to end in September.

The prime minister will use his speech – due to be delivered at 10am – to warn that “frankly – things will get worse before we get better” as the Labour administration tries to deal with “not just an economic black hole but a societal black hole”.

He is expected to say:

The riots didn’t just betray the sickness, they revealed the cure, found not in the cynical conflict of populism but in the coming together of a country the morning after and cleared up their community.

Because that is who we are, that is what we stand for. People who cared for their neighbour.

Communities who stood fast against hatred and division. Emergency services who did their duty – even when they were in danger. And a government that put the people of this country first.

Writing in The Times, Starmer said that “once trust is broken, it is difficult to get back”, saying he stood on the steps of Downing Street after the general election and promised to lead a government that would “return politics to public service, to rebuild that hope and trust”.

Reacting to details of the prime minister’s speech, Tory party chairman Richard Fuller said:

This is nothing but a performative speech to distract the public from the promises Starmer made that he never had any intention of keeping.

In fewer than 100 days, the Labour Party has dumped its ambition of public service and become engulfed in sleaze, handed out bumper payouts to its union paymasters with ‘no strings’ attached and laid the groundwork to harm pensioners and tax working people.

In other news:

• A £40m VIP helicopter contract used extensively by the former prime minister Rishi Sunak is to be cancelled. Starmer and his defence secretary, John Healey, have decided not to renew a contract for helicopter transport which is due to expire at the end of the year after it was extended in 2023 at Sunak’s personal insistence.

• The Scottish government has been told to “take responsibility” for fixing the country’s economic issues. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has sought to capitalise on dire financial news in recent months by releasing what the party is calling a dossier laying out the extent of Scotland’s “economic decline and financial mismanagement” that can be laid at the foot of ministers.

• Rachel Reeves could raise at least £10bn a year through a radical shake-up of pensions that would make tax relief less generous to better-off earners, a leading left-of-centre thinktank has said. The report by the Fabian Society says tax breaks for pensions have become markedly more expensive for the government and its proposed changes would fill half the £22bn shortfall the chancellor has identified in the public finances. You can read more on this story here.

It is Yohannes Lowe here with you today. Please do email me on [email protected] if you spot any typos or omissions.