‘More clowns than Billy Smart’s circus’ – Reform UK under fire as Kent council holds first full meeting since video leak – live | Politics

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Starmer says global consensus on climate change ‘gone’, but UK ‘all in’ on net zero transition

Keir Starmer will admit the “consensus is gone” on climate change but insist Britain is “all in” on net zero in a speech to the UN Cop30 summit, PA Media reports.

Addressing the climate change conference in Belém, the city gateway to the Brazilian Amazon basin, Starmer is expected to say:

Ten years ago, the world came together in Paris … united in our determination to tackle the climate crisis. A consensus based on science that is unequivocal.

And this unity was not just international – it was there within most of our countries too. There was cross-party consensus in the UK. The only question was how fast we could go.

Today however, sadly that consensus is gone.

But Starmer will also challenge sceptics calling for a slowdown on climate action, telling the summit:

Can energy security wait too? Can billpayers wait? Can we win the race for green jobs and investment by going slow? Of course not.

He will describe green policies as a “win-win”.

The greater our collective ambition, the more progress we make in tackling the climate crisis, and the greater the opportunities we create.

Just for UK businesses … providing goods and services for the global net zero transition could be worth £1tn by 2030.

So look – my message here is that the UK is all in.

Because we know, you don’t protect jobs and communities by sticking with the status quo, you don’t meet a challenge like climate change by standing still.

You do it by embracing change, embracing the opportunities, and doing so together.

As PA reports, Starmer is travelling to Belém on Thursday along with energy secretary Ed Miliband and the Prince of Wales on Thursday, having attended William’s Earthshot Prize ceremony last night.

The PM is expected to have more than one bilateral meeting with counterparts, though it was unclear on Thursday morning who he would come face to face with as teams seek to carve out time during the one-day visit.

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Tories accuses Reeves of treating drivers as ‘cash machine’ as government hints EV pay-per-mile tax coming in budget

The Conservatives have responded to reports that Rachel Reeves may introduce a pay-per-mile tax for electric vehicles (EVs) in the budget by accusing Labour of treating motorists “as a cash machine”.

Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, said:

We now have the grotesque chaos of a Labour government – that came to power without a plan – now using taxpayers’ money on the one hand to subsidise people to buy foreign made electric cars and on the other hand now wants to tax them for doing so as well as hit all other drivers with a fuel duty increase.

Britain cannot afford a spineless government that rather than standing up to its own backbenchers to stop the exponential growth in welfare payments instead treats motorists as a cash machine to plug the holes Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer are creating.

Families are not an ATM for Rachel Reeves, yet under Labour, everyone who relies on a vehicle is being lined up for another shakedown.

There has been speculation about the government introducing a new tax on electric cars for some time because, as people switch from petrol cars to EVs, the government is expected to lose about £15bn a year by 2050 in lost fuel duty.

But today the Telegraph has splashed on a detailed report by Ben Riley-Smith saying Reeves is due to announce a plan to charge EV users 3p per mile, on top of other taxes. He says:

The scheme, set to kick in from 2028 after a consultation, will mean the average driver faces paying an extra £250 a year.

The Treasury will make the move amid falling fuel duty revenue as people move from petrol to electric cars. Up to six million people are set to be driving EVs by the time the tax comes in.

Ministers will frame the move as one of fairness, as drivers of petrol cars currently pay £600 a year on average in fuel duty.

They will also argue that it is different from traditional pay-per-mile schemes, with a fee taken each year on estimated travel and no mass electronic monitoring of movements.

The government has not confirmed the details of the report, but it has said in a statement that it believes the way drivers are taxed needs to be made “fairer” to account for the fact the EV drivers don’t pay fuel duty.

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‘More clowns than Billy Smart’s circus’ – Reform UK under fire as Kent council holds 1st full meeting since video leak

Ben Quinn is a senior Guardian reporter.

The embattled Reform UK leader of Kent county council, Linden Kemkaran, was in combative form during a full meeting of the party’s ‘flagship’ council today, likening her experience to that of her son, who she said had just finished phase one of military training and had been “beaten up and ambushed.”

She compared the drop-out rate among his fellow recruits to the axing of former Reform councillors in Kent, telling the meeting:

Along the way some had quit because they couldn’t hack it. Others had been thrown out for bad behaviour or were simply unwilling to accept discipline.

“It did make me reflect on my own troops,” said Kemkaran, who had earlier answered with single word “yes,” when an opposition councillor asked if she believed her own behaviour was in line with the Nolan principles setting out recognised standards in public life, and Kent’s own code of conduct.

This morning Reform also faced repeated pressure from opposition councillors over the question of whether it would be raising council tax after promising savings in leaflets to voters in the local elections. A senior member of Reform’s Kent team let slip earlier last month that rates may have to rise by the maximum of 5%.

Brian Collins, a member of the Reform cabinet, said no decision had been made on council tax as the local authority was awaiting the outcome of a government funding review. Last month, a fellow cabinet member had said she believed Kent would raise council tax by 5% – the maximum permitted – as councils try to honour their legal duty to make sure spending adds up before budgets are set for next year.

“You are running away from residents when it comes to the question of what you will do on council tax,” said Alister Brady, a Labour councillor. While he did not agree with previous Tory administration of what is one of Britain’s largest county councils, which has a £2.5bn annual budget, Brady said that at least the Conservatives had managed to get together spending plans by this point.

Harry Rayner, the Tory leader, said the Reform council was now “mired in the consequences of self-inflicted damage” and he had seen nothing to rival it in 40 years of local government experience. He said:

This council has been made a laughing stock with more clowns on display since I saw Bill Smart’s last circus.

This was the first full meeting of the council since the ruling Reform UK group was thrown into chaos by a video leak to the Guardian of a meeting revealing bitter internal tensions.

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Updated at 07.47 EST

Latest suspension means Reform UK has now lost 9 of its 57 Kent county councillors elected in May

Ben Quinn is a senior Guardian reporter.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has suspended yet another member of its ‘flagship’ county council in Kent as it held its first full meeting since the party’s councillors were thrown into crisis by a leaked meeting revealing bitter internal tensions.

The departure of Isabella Kemp, who has also been working as a data protection officer at Reform’s HQ, means that Reform has lost nine of the 57 councillors elected during the local elections in May.

The latest turmoil comes after the Guardian published a recording of an incendiary internal meeting in which the council leader, Linden Kemkaran, told dissenting Reform UK colleagues they had to “fucking suck it up” if they didn’t like her decisions.

Four Reform councillors were suspended shortly after the leak, while one of those and another who had been suspected over separate allegations have now formed an “Independent Reformers” group on the council.

Kemkaran faced questions at a full meeting of the council on Thursday about the real-world impact of the suspension of Kemp, who had been chair of the adult social care and public health cabinet committee.

The Liberal Democrats, who are the second largest group with 12 councillors, appealed to Kemkaran to restore Kemp, who now sits as an independent, as chair of the important committee.

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Updated at 07.36 EST

Spike in prison release mistakes linked to new rules for jails and early release scheme, Prison Service says

Here is a Ministry of Justice chart illustrating the “spike” in prison release mistakes that David Lammy was referring to.

And this is what the HM Prison and Probation Service’s annual digest says about these figures.

In the 12 months to March 2025, 262 prisoners were released in error. This is a 128% increase from 115 the previous year, and the highest in the time series. Of the 262 releases in error, 233 of these releases in error occurred from prison establishments, while 29 were released in error at the courts. Releases in error from establishments could also be a result of errors by the court.

Releases in error remain infrequent. The rise is believed to be linked to the requirement on Offender Management Units to digest and implement a range of operational and legislative changes. The rise in this year also partly reflects a number of offenders who were released in error in the first tranche of SDS40 due to an issue with a repealed Breach of Restraining Order offence, which was swiftly identified and corrected with legislation. These offenders were all rearrested and returned to custody.

SDS40 is the early release scheme introduced by the government in September last year, in response to the prison overcrowding crisis.

In a footnote to this passage, the HMPPS report says;

Due to the relatively low numbers, year-on-year changes should be interpreted with caution. The number of releases in error should be considered in the context of the number of releases in the same time period and changes in the operational environment.

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Updated at 07.22 EST

Lammy says spike in prison release mistakes ‘unacceptable’, as he welcomes return of Billy Smith to jail

David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary, has welcomed the fact that Billy Smith is back in custody, but described the spike in release mistakes as “unacceptable”.

According to PA Media, Lammy said:

William Smith is back in custody. The spike in mistaken releases is unacceptable.

We’re modernising prison systems – replacing paper with digital tools to cut errors.

We’re working with police to recapture Brahim Kaddour-Cherif.

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ITV News has broadcast footage of Billy Smith handing himself back in. (See 11.35am.)

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Surrey fraudster Billy Smith hands himself in following release from HMP Wandsworth in error on Monday

Billy Smith, 35, who was mistakenly released from Wandsworth prison on Monday, has handed himself back in, PA Media reports. The release of someone like Smith, a convicted fraudster, would not normally make the news, but he was let out of Wandsworth prison only a few days after the Algerian sex offender referenced at PMQs yesterday, which is why his return to jail gets the PA snap news alert treatment.

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Referrals to Prevent up 27% on previous year, reaching record high of 8,778, Home Office figures show

There have been a record number of referrals to the government’s counter-terror programme Prevent in a year since data began in 2015, PA Media reports. PA says:

There were 8,778 referrals of individuals to the anti-extremism scheme in 2024/25 – up 27% from 6,922 in the previous year, according to Home Office data.

The figures come as counter-terrorism officials said earlier this week there has been a significant increase in referrals since the Southport murders at a children’s dance class in July 2024.

Prevent is the government’s anti-extremism scheme that is designed to divert people from terrorism.

Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana was referred to Prevent three times, but his case was closed due to a lack of distinct ideology.

The 3,287 referrals in January-March 2025 is the highest number in a single quarter since data began.

Home Office figures published on Thursday show that referrals in the “no ideology” category made up 4,917 (56%) – the largest proportion of referrals of the 8,769 cases where a type of concern was logged.

Where an ideology was identified, extreme right-wing ideology was the most common concern among referrals – accounting for 21% (1,798) of the total, higher than those related to Islamist extremism (10% or 870).

Of the 8,759 referrals to Prevent where the age of the individual was known, 11 to 15-year-olds accounted for the largest proportion (3,192 or 36%), followed by 16 to 17-year-olds (1,178, or 13%).

There were 345 referrals (4% of the total) for children aged 10 or under.

For the first time, data on mental health and neurodiversity (MHND) has been published for individuals referred to Prevent.

These figures show that just over a third of referrals in the year to March 2025 (2,955 of 8,778, or 34%) had at least one MHND condition recorded.

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was the most common condition, which was recorded in 14% (1,226) of all referrals.

Around two-thirds of referrals (5,823 or 66%) had no MHND information listed, either because no concern was identified or the relevant information was not captured.

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Yesterday I posted reaction from Labour leftwingers, and from Wes Streeting, suggesting the party could learn something from Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York.

The Labour MP Luke Akehurst has a different view. He posted this on social media this morning, in response to a tweet on this from Clive Lewis.

Can assure Clive I’m one MP who has no desire to be associated with Mamdani at all. The politics that appeals to NYC would go down like a cup of cold sick in US Rust Belt states or in UK equivalents like North Durham.

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Large Scottish estates could be broken up under land reform bill passed by Holyrood

Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.

Land reform legislation passed by the Holyrood parliament marks a “watershed moment”, according to the Scottish government, after MSPs voted last night to back a series of measures which aim to reduce the concentration of rural land ownership, where small numbers of people own large areas of Scotland’s countryside.

The new law will increase opportunities for community buyouts of land, and also proposes that when large estates are put on the market these could be broken up into smaller areas – in a process known as lotting – if certain conditions are met.

Scottish Land and Estates, which represents landowners, branded the moves “junk law”, warning that parts of the bill were badly drafted (to be fair this is an ongoing criticism of Holyrood bills) and likely to be challenged in the courts.

But the result was welcomed by the Revive Coalition, which campaigns for fairer ownership across Scotland. Max Wiszniewski said:

It’s a stark reminder that roughly the same number of people – just 421 – own more than half of Scotland’s private rural land. This extreme concentration of ownership is why land reform remains so crucial and why the land reform journey must continue.

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Prison Governors Association criticises Tories for exploiting release errors, saying long-term underfunding to blame

The Prison Governors Association has just issued a lengthy statement about prisoners being released in error. Without discussing particular cases, it argues that these mistakes are happening because the system is in crisis and underfunded.

Here are the main points.

The PGA says releases in error (RiEs, in prison jargon) have happened under every government and “most practitioners, informed commentators, and impartial experts recognise this”.

It says “unprecedented” pressures have made the problem worse. The system is “running hot, and under constant strain”, it says.

The prison system, like the wider criminal justice system, is under unprecedented and sustained pressure. This is not pressure felt in isolation — prisons are interconnected. While some establishments may be coping better than others, the strain is systemic. Decisions made to stabilise one prison — such as reducing capacity or increasing staffing — often have unintended, negative consequences elsewhere. Today, it feels as though every move to ease pressure in one part of the system simply shifts the burden to another …

Despite a recent reduction in the overall prison population, overcrowding remains acute. Around 10,000 people are still held in overcrowded conditions. Crucially, the available space is not in reception prisons like Chelmsford or Wandsworth, which are among the most overcrowded and experience the highest levels of prisoner movement. According to the Howard League for Penal Reform, HMP Wandsworth is operating at 167% of its safe capacity, Chelmsford is at 133% of its safe capacity.

The scale of releases in error (RiEs) is deeply concerning. In the last full reporting year, 262 prisoners were released in error, averaging around 65 incidents per quarter. These errors include individuals released either too early or too late from their sentence, both scenarios carry serious consequences and undermine public confidence.

RiE numbers have increased sharply in the past year.

But only around 0.5% of prisoners are released on the wrong date, the PGA says. It says, while this figure sounds small, it amounts to “a significant operational failure”. But “the conditions required to reduce this figure to zero simply do not exist”, it says.

It says stopping all errors would require “substantial investment in staff training, modern IT infrastructure, and recruitment, all within a system already stretched by competing priorities”.

Successive governments have accepted this level of risk for decades. In that context, it feels disingenuous to see politicians attempt to extract political gain from a prison system in crisis …

While political parties showboat and grandstand, the real risk to the public is not being effectively managed — despite the relentless efforts of those working within HMPPS.

This is clearly a reference to the Tories.

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Updated at 05.37 EST

Any manifesto-busting tax rises in budget should be ‘temporary and conditional’, Tony Blair’s thinktank says

Rachel Reeves should make it clear that any big tax rises in the budget will only be temporary, Tony Blair’s thinktank has said.

The Tony Blair Institute has published a paper saying that the budget measures should focus on delivering growth, and it says, if Reeves does break Labour manifesto promise not to raise any of the three main taxes, she should say this won’t be permanent.

In a speech on Tuesday, Reeves came close to confirming that income tax will go up.

In its report, the TBI says:

Tax rises are … widely expected at the budget, with early indicators pointing to a collection of smaller measures to plug the gap. Yet bond markets are signalling that something more decisive may be needed to restore confidence and avoid another round of fiscal firefighting next year.

If the chancellor opts for a larger revenue-raising step – particularly a manifesto-breaching increase in income tax or value-added tax (VAT) – she should make clear that it is temporary and conditional: a short-term measure to stabilise the public finances, not a permanent shift in direction.

The message should be that today’s discipline creates tomorrow’s dividend; once growth strengthens and public-service reforms deliver results, the gains should be returned to taxpayers through targeted tax cuts before the election.

As prime minister, Blair tried hard to stop Labour being seen as a high-tax party. But in 2002 he allowed Gordon Brown, the chancellor, to raise national insurance by 1p in the pound. Brown had spent months trying to persuade the public that the NHS needed more funding, and the NI rise was explained as being need to raise money for health, and – to the surprise of some in politics – the move turned out to be popular with voters.

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Rachel Reeves ‘planning pay-per-mile tax for electric vehicles in budget’

Rachel Reeves is drawing up plans for a new pay-per-mile tax for electric vehicles to announce in this month’s budget worth an extra £250 a year on average, Julia Kollewe reports.

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David Lammy set to face media as Tories accuse him of ‘dereliction of duty’ over prisoners released by mistake

Good morning. Except it isn’t if you are David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary. Or Alex Davies-Jones, a junior justice minister, who has been doing the morning media round. Lammy took PMQs for the first time yesterday, but the coverage is a nightmare, partly because it coincided with news about two more prisoners being released by mistake, even though Lammy recently required governors to do extra checks to stop this happening, and partly because he dodged questions about this in the chamber.

The overnight Guardian version of the story is here.

For the Conservatives, this is like Christmas has come early (even though their spokesperson, James Cartlidge, who was deputisting for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs, messed up his questions, as John Crace explains here). Crudely put, their assumption is: people don’t like criminals, people don’t like migrants, so migrant criminals are doubly bad, and Labour are letting them out. As they have been commenting on this over the past 24 hours, Kemi Badenoch, Chris Philp, Robert Jenrick et al have found it hard to conceal the glee.

As ever, the reality is a bit more complicated. Of all public services, the Prison Service is probably the most dysfunctional, and has been for years. The accidental release of prisoners, though deplorable, is not that unusual; Lammy told the Commons recently that under Tories they were happening at a rate of 17 per month. Under Labour, the numbers have gone up sharply, but that has coincided with the government implementing a huge early release scheme because, when it came into office, the Prison Service was days away from not being able to take any more inmates because of over-crowding. The Algerian released by mistake from Wandsworth prison last week was not an asylum seeker, as the Tories originally claimed. He is a sex offender – on the basis of an indecent exposure conviction, for which he got an 18-month community order. He reportedly has other convictions too. A few days after he was mistakenly released, a white man from Surrey who had been jailed for almost four years for fraud offences was also let out by mistake, but the Tories don’t seem so interested in that error.

Here is a round-up of the latest developments on this story this morning.

Prison governors in England have been summoned to an urgent meeting with ministers to discuss release errors, Davies-Jones has revealed. Here is our story, by Eleni Courea.

The Ministry of Justice has said that Lammy did not tell MPs about the accidental release of the Algerian offender in the Commons yesterday because he did not have full information about it. In a statement released last night, an MoJ spokersperson said:

The crisis in the prison system this government inherited is such that basic information about individual cases can take unacceptably long to reach ministers.

On entering the house, facts were still emerging about the case and the DPM had not been accurately informed of key details including the offender’s immigration status. No media story about the individual case was yet in the public domain and it was and remains subject to a live police investigation.

The DPM was asked questions about the release of an asylum seeker. As was confirmed after PMQs by the Home Office, the individual was not an asylum seeker.

The DPM waited until after PMQs and further facts had emerged before making a statement.

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has accused Lammy of a “total dereliction of duty” over this affair. Referring to the accidental release of the Algerian, Jenrick told the Today programme:

It took six days for the Prison Service supposedly to even become aware that this had happened and inform the Metropolitan police, who are now a week behind in the manhunt to find him.

Then the justice secretary is informed about this on Tuesday night, didn’t come clean.

He spent the next morning, we’re told, going out shopping for a suit, rather than taking charge of his department.

He then comes to parliament and doesn’t answer five straight questions about this. I think it’s a disgrace. It’s a total dereliction of duty.

Lammy will be speaking to the media later today, Davies-Jones has said. In her Today interview, she said that Lammy was visiting a prison this morning, “doing his day job”, and that he would be “speaking to the media”. When it was put to her that Lammy should be answering questions, she said he would be.

Here is the agenda for day.

Morning: Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, gives a speech on child poverty at Somerset House.

Morning: David Lammy is due to speak to the media during a prison visit.

Noon: The Bank of England releases its latest interest rates decision. Graeme Wearden is covering this on his business live blog.

Lunchtime: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Staffordshire.

And Keir Starmer is in Brazil for the Cop30 summit.

The Commons is not sitting because there is a mini recess.

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Updated at 07.21 EST