At a glance
• Sir Keir Starmer is facing a headache as he flies back to the UK from Cop30 in Brazil, with the party’s deputy leader Lucy Powell urging Rachel Reeves not to break a manifesto pledge on tax hikes in the upcoming Budget
• Questions are swirling about Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy’s handling of a mistaken prisoner release
• Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has apologised after being found to have “unknowingly” breached the governance code on public appointments by failing to declare she had received £2,900 in donations from her pick to chair the new football watchdog
Sir Keir Starmer faced extraordinary Cabinet infighting over David Lammy’s handling of the scandal over prisoners being wrongfully released and a Labour revolt on an expected manifesto-busting increase in income tax.
As he flew home from the COP30 summit in Brazil, the Prime Minister’s grip on his Government and his party looked increasingly shaky.
Ahead of the Budget on November 26, a split has erupted at the top of Labour over breaking its manifesto promises on tax hikes,.
Labour’s new deputy Lucy Powell warned the Government “should be following through” on its pledge to voters not to raise the rate of income tax, national insurance or VAT.
Communities Secretary Steve Reed said the Government was “delivering” on its manifesto, citing housing and the NHS, but shied away from directly commenting on the Budget.
The Chancellor has told the Office for Budget Responsibility, according to The Times, to draw up figures for the impact of an income tax rise, in a clear sign that she is veering towards taking this controversial step.
Ms Reeves is set to make a new tax grab, totalling tens of billions of pounds, despite saying after her first Budget last year, when there was a £40 billion tax raid, that she would not repeat the scale of it.
Ms Powell’s warning that a break could damage “trust in politics” is causing a headache for the Prime Minister and Chancellor.
Sir Keir will return to the UK from Cop30 in Brazil with questions also swirling about Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy’s handling of a mistaken prisoner release.
Mr Lammy has faced scrutiny over his refusal to answer questions in the House of Commons about the wrongful release of Algerian national Brahim Kaddour-Cherif.
The sex offender was finally found and returned to custody on Friday.
Mr Lammy has also been accused of potentially misleading the public by claiming the error happened before new security checks were implemented, while previously indicating the measures had been in place two days prior to the release.
It later appeared he had misspoken and had been referring to the “error” that led to the convicted sex offender being freed, rather than his actual release.
Mr Lammy came under fire from Cabinet colleagues, with The Times quoting anonymous senior ministers as saying he was “cowardly” and guilty of “rank incompetence”.
But the Prime Minister, while at the Belem summit, backed his deputy by saying it was “right” he was “setting out the facts to the best of his knowledge”.
Mr Reed sought to defend Mr Lammy, stressing that prison governors would have felt “hauled over the coals” in a meeting with him on Thursday to try to bring in better checks on the release of prisoners.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy apologised after being found by a probe to have “unknowingly” breached the governance code on public appointments by failing to declare she had received £2,900 in donations from her pick to chair the new football watchdog.
The commissioner for public appointments Sir William Shawcross ruled that the Government’s appointment of Labour donor David Kogan made three breaches of the code.
As well as Ms Nandy’s failure to disclose his donations to her 2020 leadership campaign, the potential conflict of interest arising from that was not discussed with Mr Kogan at interview, and his links to the Labour Party were not revealed, the report said.
The Prime Minister told Ms Nandy in a written reply that she had “acted in good faith”, but reprimanded her by saying “the process followed was not entirely up to the standard expected”.
It came after Sir Keir last week cleared Ms Reeves over her failure to obtain a rental licence for her south London family home, and Angela Rayner’s resignation as deputy prime minister, housing secretary and deputy Labour leader following a row about her tax affairs.
Ms Powell was sacked from Sir Keir’s Cabinet in September before winning the race to succeed Ms Rayner as deputy party leader last month after a campaign based on a call for the party to change course.
The former Commons leader told BBC Radio 5 Live: “We should be following through on our manifesto, of course.
“Trust in politics is a key part of that because if we’re to take the country with us then they’ve got to trust us and that’s really important too.”
Ms Powell said the highly-anticipated Budget should be about “putting more money back into the pockets of ordinary working people”.
She added: “That’s what that manifesto commitment is all about. And that’s what this Budget will be about, I’m sure.
“It’s really important we stand by the promises that we were elected on and that we do what we said we would do.”
The challenge comes after a speech by Ms Reeves on Tuesday was widely seen to have set the stage for tax hikes.
