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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow and Kevin Rawlinson

Commons rejects Labour's amendment to Queen's speech - as it happened

Labour's amendment defeated in the Commons

That concludes our live coverage. Here is a summary of the evening’s events:

  • MPs voted to reject Labour’s proposal to amend the Queen’s speech to call for an end to the public sector pay cap. Jeremy Corbyn said ministers had missed an opportunity to “put their money where their mouth is”, while Tim Farron accused DUP MPs of “cheering” while they withheld pay from public servants.
  • No DUP or Conservative MP voted with the Labour party to include the amendment.
  • In a debate on the issue before MPs voted, the health secretary Jeremy Hunt accused Labour of using the NHS as a “political football”. In a direct appeal to those Tory MPs who are uncomfortable with the prospect of a continued public sector pay freeze, his shadow Jonathan Ashworth said they had the power to hand a pay rise to public servants tonight.

You can read about the day’s earlier events in the afternoon summary.

The Lib Dems have now released a statement on the defeat of the amendment. The party’s leader, Tim Farron, said:

This evening, the DUP have stood alongside their Tory paymasters cheering at the fact that they have withheld more pay for our police, our firefighters, our nurses and our teachers. Shame on them.

After Theresa May’s disastrous missteps this shows nature of the government we have been left with.

This U-turn on a U-turn will stick in the throat of million of hard working public servants, many of whom recently ran towards danger, be it Manchester, Grenfell or London Bridge. These people go above and beyond and yet the government snubs them.

Following the defeat of Labour’s amendment, the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn has said:

Tonight, the Conservatives had an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is, by ending cuts to our police and fire service and lifting the public sector pay cap.

“Although government ministers said they had learned the lessons of the general election and were listening to voters, it is clear that nothing has changed.

They had the perfect opportunity to walk the walk, but instead they marched through the lobby to show Tory austerity is business as usual.

While the money is there when the Conservatives need it to keep themselves in office, the rest of the country now face more devastating cuts to our emergency and other vital services.

The Conservatives clearly plan to keep working for a privileged few. Only Labour is ready to form a government that will work for the many.

Amid the confusion over the government’s public sector pay plans, the Conservative MP, John Penrose, tells the BBC there is cross-party consensus that more money needs to be spent on public services.

He was asked what the government’s position was on the pay freeze. Perhaps hinting that he believes it should end, he says the government should pay heed to the general election result.

Here’s where to find out how individual MPs voted on the amendment.

And Ian Jones of the Press Association has a more general breakdown. Note that, as was perhaps expected, no Conservative MPs voted with the Labour party.

Updated

MPs have defeated a Labour amendment to the Queen’s Speech which called for an end to the public sector pay cap by 323 votes to 309, a majority of 14.

Updated

Hunt is pressing his point that Labour want to use the NHS “as a political football” and as a way to “milk votes”. He calls the “Conservative party the party of the NHS”.

With that, the Speaker, John Bercow, calls for the lobby to be cleared for MPs to vote on the amendment:

A result is expected in about 15 minutes.

Referring to public sector pay, Hunt says that whichever party is in power must do the right thing for the economy as a whole and blames the Conservative-led governments’ decisions to restrict wages on the financial crash.

We will not make our decision on public sector pay until the pay review body has reported and we will listen to what they say, and what people in this House say, before making a decision.

Updated

Hunt accuses the Labour party of “trying to turn the election into a referendum on the NHS”, before giving way to Labour’s Yvette Cooper, who asks whether or not the health secretary will make it free for women from Northern Ireland to have abortions in England on the NHS. Hunt says he believes it is important that the “voices of the women of Northern Ireland are listened to”.

Responding, the health secretary Jeremy Hunt pays tribute to NHS workers, whose work he calls a “vocation”, not a job.

Hunt also hints that the Tories are still committed to low taxation after Oliver Letwin, a key figure in setting up austerity under David Cameron, suggested ministers must consider tax rises and increased spending on public services.

The Conservatives “can’t even competently do a U-turn”, the shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth has told MPs as they debate the Queen’s speech. He moves the party’s amendment and appeals directly to those Tory MPs who have called for an easing of the government’s pay freeze to vote with Labour, telling them they can hand a pay rise to public sector workers tonight if they do so.

Updated

My colleagues, Jessica Elgot and Peter Walker, have a full report on the confusion surrounding the government’s public sector pay freeze:

The Lib Dems have accused Conservatives of performing two U-turns in a single day amid the confusion over ministers’ plans for the public sector pay cap. The party’s current leader, Tim Farron, said:

The Tories are in utter chaos. They have U-turned on their own U-turn within the space of a few hours. This is not strong and stable, it is a government that is spinning out of control.

The Treasury can find £1bn for the DUP so Theresa May can cling on to power, but can’t find the cash to properly pay our teachers, nurses and police.

Public sector workers deserve a pay rise now, not for this decision to be kicked into the long grass.

Updated

Afternoon summary

  • Downing Street has re-affirmed the government’s commitment to the public sector pay cap, only about three hours after senior government sources strongly hinted at a briefing for journalists that the policy might be abandoned or relaxed. (See 4.59pm.)
  • Dame Rosie Winterton, the former Labour chief whip, has been elected as a deputy speaker. Labour’s Lindsay Hoyle and the Conservative, Eleanor Laing, have also been re-elected as deputy speakers.

That is all from me for today.

A colleague will be picking up the blog later to cover the vote on the Labour amendment to the Queen’s speech. The vote comes at 7pm. It will be the first proper vote of this parliament and the first test of the Tory/DUP deal. But the DUP are voting with the Tories, and there is no evidence that Labour will win the backing of any of the Conservative MPs who share Labour’s unhappiness about the public sector pay cap, and so Theresa May is expected to win. With the DUP supporting her, and all government and opposition MPs voting in line with expectations, May has a working majority of 13.

My colleague Alan Travis was written a very good analysis assessing which of the claims made by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs about how policy decisions impacted on Grenfell Tower are well founded.

In the Queen’s speech this afternoon Sir Nicholas Soames, the Conservative backbencher, said he could not understand why the government could not come up with a “sane national plan” for social care. He said:

What is it in our system that seems to mean that we cannot arrive at a sane national plan - like Denmark, the Netherlands or Japan - that deals effectively, humanely and decently with care for the elderly in all its complexity?

I say to the government, just get on and do it - and work across all parties and with all the considerable expertise that this country has to get this done.

In the Commons Joanna Cherry, the SNP’s justice and home affairs spokeswoman, confirmed that the SNP will vote for the Labour amendment tonight. She said:

The SNP has consistently opposed the [Conservative party’s] austerity agenda and the manifesto on which we won the General Election in Scotland indicated that in these times the pay cap is no longer sustainable and they would be looking at it very closely.

So I’m very happy to lend our support to [Labour] on this matter.

The seeming government U-turn over lifting the public sector pay cap saw faintly farcical scenes at the regular afternoon Downing Street media briefing, where Theresa May’s spokesman was asked for clarification about the policy only to insist there was nothing to see.

“The policy has not changed,” the spokesman said, again and again – by my reckoning he said this, or variants of it, 16 times.

These variants included, “I can keep saying the policy has not changed, but the policy has not changed,” and finally, a slightly weary, “I hate to do this but the policy has not changed”.

Baffled journalists at the briefing, most of whom had only a few hours earlier been briefed by a Conservative source that the cap would be reviewed at the next budget, asked again and again but received the same answer.

The door has arguably been left ajar for possible pay rises above the 1% cap, with May’s spokesman noting that when the various independent public sector pay review bodies report to ministers, they have some scope to not accept their findings.

He said:

In the past the government has accepted recommendations, and on other occasions it has not accepted recommendations. The government always sets out the reasons for doing so.

However, he also stressed the need for continued fiscal discipline. Asked about the words of the Conservative source who said people were “weary” after years of pay restraint, the spokesman said:

There is a recognition that it has required hard work and sacrifice, including from public sector workers, but we also have to ensure that, that sacrifice having been made, we continue to protect jobs and deal with our debts.

Asked by one journalist what a teacher or nurse could make of all this in terms of a future pay rise, he would say only: “I’m not going to pre-empt the findings of any pay review body, or how we respond to it.”

Here is some more comment from political journalists on what is being described by one as a U-turn on a U-turn.

From ITV’s Robert Peston

From Sky’s Beth Rigby

From BuzzFeed’s Alex Spence

The Daily Mail’s Jason Groves says the Treasury was responsible for restoring the government’s commitment to the public sector pay cap.

This is from his Mail colleague John Stevens.

Updated

No 10 backtracks on public sector pay and now says 'policy has not changed'

The afternoon Downing Street lobby briefing has now finished. And, having signalled earlier that the public sector pay cap might be lifted, Number 10 is now insisting that the policy has not changed. This is from the Mirror’s Jack Blanchard.

Sometimes reporters do read too much into a briefing, where the language might be open to interpretation, but colleagues who were at both briefings insist that that was not the case this time. Number 10 really has stepped back from what they were saying at lunchtime, they say.

There was no mention of the Heathrow third runway in the Queen’s speech. But on Radio 5 Live this morning, Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, said the government was still committed to the project and that, even without a majority, the government would get it through parliament. He said:

There is wide support for expanding Heathrow across the parties in Westminster. We’re most of the way through the consultation process. We’ve now got to go through the period of parliamentary scrutiny. There is a set process in law which takes us through to effectively the outline planning permission early next year.

Andrew Gwynne, the shadow communities secretary, has said that if the Tories are serious about lifting the public sector pay cap, they should vote of the Labour amendment tonight. In a statement he said:

The British people denied Theresa May a majority in the general election. The Conservatives have no mandate to carry out their damaging cuts to vital public services and attacks on the British people.

They have already been forced to drop some of their most damaging policies, such as taking winter fuel payments away from more than 10 million pensioners or removing the triple lock guarantee on pensions.

Now, it appears, the dramatic increase in Labour’s vote at the general election and the strength of feeling among the British people may force the government to U-turn and stop cutting public sector workers’ pay.

If this change of heart is real, I look forward to seeing Conservative MPs supporting Labour’s amendment to the Queen’s speech today, which would end cuts to the police and fire service and lift the public sector pay cap.

One of the reasons why the national parties at Westminster regard the Democratic Unionist kingmakers in parliament as toxic is their consistent opposition to gay marriage equality in Northern Ireland.

The DUP has constantly vetoed legislation in the Stormont Assembly that would legalise LGBT marriages in the region. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK were gay marriage is still not legal.

Regardless of what happens at the talks in Stormont, which are running towards a deadline tomorrow morning, gay marriage campaigners are planning a huge rally in Belfast this Saturday.

Ahead of the demonstration by the Love Equality coalition a range of locally born stars from film and popular music have issued statements in favour of gay marriage in Northern Ireland. They include Holywood actor Liam Neeson who was born in the DUP heartland of Ballymena, and Bronagh Waugh, best known for her role alongside Jamie Dornan in the TV series, The Fall.

The Conservative MP Johnny Mercer says he wants to lift the public sector pay cap. But he says he won’t be voting with Labour tonight.

Labour MPs in the Commons have been wearing these badges, referring to the public sector pay cap. This is from Labour’s Julie Cooper.

Rosie Winterton elected deputy speaker

John Bercow’s deputies in the speaker’s chair have been chosen by MPs, with Labour’s former chief whip among those elected, the Press Association reports.

Dame Rosie Winterton is the newest member of the Speaker’s team and joins Lindsay Hoyle in the role, a fellow Labour nominee who was re-elected.

The pair defeated Labour colleague Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) in a secret ballot.

Eleanor Laing was also returned to the deputy speaker role unopposed after being the sole Tory candidate nominated.

Laing first became one of the three deputy speakers in October 2013 and Mr Hoyle in June 2010.

Rosie Winterton.
Rosie Winterton. Photograph: Ian Nicholson/PA

Updated

Lunchtime summary

  • Number 10 has hinted that the 1% cap on public sector pay increases may get lifted in the budget later this year. Downing Street sources briefed journalists that effect after PMQs and ahead of a Commons vote this afternoon on a Labour amendment saying the pay cap should go. (See 1.16pm.) Earlier Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, and Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, both said the cap should be reviews. Sir Oliver Letwin, head of government policy under David Cameron, went even further on the Today programme, saying taxes should go up to fund better public services.

Fewer inspectors, fewer building control inspectors, fewer planning inspectors - we all pay a price.

And those cuts to the fire service have meant there are 11,000 fewer firefighters, the public sector pay cap is hitting recruitment and retention right across the public sector.

What the tragedy of Grenfell Tower has exposed is the disastrous effect of austerity

This disregard for working-class communities, the terrible consequences of deregulation and cutting corners, I urge the prime minister to come up with the resources needed to test and remove cladding, retrofit sprinklers, properly fund the fire service and the police so that all our communities can truly feel safe in their own homes.

This disaster must be a wake-up call.

May said the cladding of tower blocks did not start under her government, or under the coalition.

The cladding of tower blocks began under the Blair government. [Corbyn] talks about local authority resources and talks about changes to the regulation.

In 2005 it was a Labour government that introduced the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order which changed the requirement to inspect a building on fire safety from the local fire authority - which was usually the fire brigade - to a responsible person.

The legislation governing fire safety in tower blocks, and this was commented on by the Lakanal House report into that fire, it criticised that 2005 order that was put in place by a Labour government.

  • May has said the cladding on Grenfell Tower was “not compliant with the regulations”. She also told MPs during PMQs that 120 tower blocks have now failed cladding fire safety tests. That represents a failure rate of 100%, she said.
  • SNP MPs have criticised the Tory deal with the DUP. During Northern Ireland questions the SNP MP Alison Thewliss said:

We’re now in the slightly odd position where each DUP MP is worth more than Ronaldo. Does the secretary of state agree with Jonathan Powell that it is now impossible for the UK Government to be even-handed in Northern Ireland?

James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland secretary, said he did not accept this. Later, at PMQs, May refused to say whether she received representations on the DUP deal from David Mundell, the Scottish secretary.

Here is more on the hint from Number 10 about the public sector pay cap being lifted, from my colleague Heather Stewart.

PMQs - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat

This is what political journalists and commentators are saying about PMQs on Twitter.

There is praise for both Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May. Mostly people were impressed by the tone of the exchanges, although there were also complaints about the two leaders politicising the Grenfell Tower.

(I’ve included those complaints, but not because I agree with them. Public policy clearly has an impact on fire safety and whether people are safe in their homes, and it would be foolish to pretend that public policy decisions don’t affect lives. Corbyn was right to make the point, and he did so without using the “murder” rhetoric used by John McDonnell at the weekend that many felt was too simplistic and emotive. May was also entitled to point out that governments of both parties are implicated in these matters.)

From ITV’s Robert Peston

From the Daily Mirror’s Ben Glaze (who gives it 3-1 to Corbyn)

From the Daily Telegraph’s Christopher Hope

From the Independent’s Tom Peck

From the FT’s Sebastian Payne

From the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush

From the Spectator’s James Forsyth

From the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire

From the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn

From HuffPost’s Owen Bennett

From the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman

From 5 News’s Andy Bell

From the Independent’s John Rentoul

From Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan

From the Mail on Sunday’s Dan Hodges

No 10 says public sector pay cap under review

The public sector pay cap of 1% is under review because the general election showed people are “weary”, Number 10 sources said.

It follows calls from the transport minister Chris Grayling and the defence secretary Michael Fallon that Theresa May should look again at lifting the pay of public sector workers.

Labour will claim the move to be a victory after they tabled amendments to the Queens’ Speech calling for the cap to be dropped.

A Downing Street source said the government “will listen to evidence of the pay review bodies” this summer and is expected to deliver its findings in the autumn.

In previous years, the recommendations have been ignored on the basis that a cap had been imposed by the government.

The Press Association’s Ian Jones says that was almost the longest PMQs on record, but not quite.

Ian Blackford, the new SNP leader at Westminster, used his two questions at PMQs to ask about the Tory/DUP deal. He starting by asking if David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, was consulted.

The Scottish secretary insisted that Scotland would see increased funding if the DUP secured increases money for NI as part of a confidence and supply deal. Did the prime minister receive any representations from her Scottish secretary on the DUP deal – either before or after it was signed?

May dodged the question. She told him:

Of course when we look at what has happened in terms of funding for the rest of the UK ... the chancellor set aside an infrastructure fund of £23bn, we’re putting more money into our NHS, more money into schools and of course there is an impact on Scotland ... As the result of that Autumn Statement £800m extra is going to Scotland, as a result of the budget £350m is going to Scotland.

Blackford tried again.

The prime minister’s failure to give a straight answer to that question speaks volumes and has only succeeded in piling more pressure on the Scottish secretary whose position now looks less secure with every day that passes ... I will give the prime minister one more opportunity: did she receive any representations from the secretary of state for Scotland about the DUP deal?

May again refused to answer.

I regularly receive representations from the secretary of state for Scotland ... including regular representations which point out that if the Scottish Nationalists have the interests of Scotland at heart they will want to remain part of the UK.

I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.

Labour’s Rachel Reeves says there are 9m people in the UK facing loneliness. She says that loneliness can be as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Will she attend a Jo Cox commission event later today to consider this?

May praises the work of the Jo Cox commission on this issue.

And that’s it. A 50-minute PMQs, which may be a record.

Updated

Peter Bone, a Conservative, says that NatCen report today says 75% of people want to leave the EU. He says people take the view that the referendum decided the issue.

May agrees. People want the government to deliver Brexit, she says.

Nigel Dodds, the DUP leader at Westminster, says Northern Ireland has a high suicide rate. The money for mental health in the Tory/DUP deal is very welcome, he says.

May agrees.

Bob Neill, a Conservative, asks if the people of Gibraltar will be covered by the proposals on EU nationals. The Spanish disagree, he says.

May says the government’s commitment to Gibraltar remains unchanged.

Labour’s Barry Sheerman asks May to listen to Europeans who fear we are sleepwalking to a disastrous Brexit deal and who have no confidence in the three Brexit ministers.

May says the Brexit talks have started. She says she has a plan for Brexit; Labour doesn’t.

Ben Bradley, a Conservative, asks what May thinks an opposition leader saying one thing to remain voters in London and another to leave voters in a constituency like his.

May says Bradley is right. She says she will deliver on the EU referendum vote.

Labou’s Angela Smith asks if May agrees with David Davis that it will be simple to agree a trade deal with the EU.

May says it will be possible to agree one, because the UK and the EU are starting from the same point.

Kevin Hollinrake, a Conservative, says some care charities are at risk of closing because of the extension of the national living wage to sleep-in shifts.

May says the department of health and other departments are looking at this carefully.

Labour’s Rupa Huq thanks May for visiting her Ealing constituency. She says her majority went up.

Philip Davies, a Conservative, says spending more money on aid does not make the government seem compassionate to the public. Will May cut spending on aid and spend the money here. That would be popular, he says. He says he hopes May is not against popular policies.

May disagrees. She says aid money can be used to help reduce the terrorist threat to the UK.

Labour’s Paula Sheriff says May visited her constituency recently. May said people worried about the closure of the A&E provision at Dewsbury were scaremongering. Will it stay open?

May says it is not closing. It will stay open, and most patients will see no change to their service.

The SNP’s Marion Fellows says it is “outrageous” that in Scotland the police and fire services have to pay VAT. Will May extend VAT exemptions to Scotland now she has found the magic money tree?

May says the Scottish government was told Police Scotland would have to pay VAT when it proposed creating it through the merger of police forces. But it went ahead with the merger anyway.

Marcus Fysh, a Conservative, asks if May is aware of the crisis in Venezuala. And are there lessons to be learnt from that?

May say she hopes Corbyn has followed that. She sometimes thinks the only trade deals Corbyn is interested in are with Cuba, Venezuala and North Korea.

Leo Docherty, the new Conservative MP for Aldershot, asks May what she thought of Corbyn saying at Glastonbury that he would scrap Trident.

May says people were shocked by this. With Corbyn, it appears “he says one thing to the many and other thing to the few.)

(Corbyn says he was quoted out of context.)

Labour’s Ian Austin says police chiefs wrote to the government last week saying counter-terrorism budgets were being cut.

May says she does not accept this. She says counter-terrorism budgets are being protected. And the government will give the police the laws they need.

May tells Suella Fernandes, a Conservative, that the Tories got more seats and votes at the election. That is why they are a stable government.

Labour’s Jo Stevens asks about the suffering caused by reckless gambling. (That triggers laughter.) Will May legislate against fixed-odds betting terminals?

May says a consultation is under way. The conclusions will be announced in due course.

PMQs - Snap verdict

That was one of the most solid and impressive PMQs we’ve seen for quite some time. Corbyn hit exactly the right note, and May inadvertently gave him an opening for a very powerful final answer (when he said he could help May as to why building regulations were not being complied with). He had the edge over May quite easily, but she looked more robust than you might have expected in the light of the last three weeks and she made the case that political responsibility for Grenfell Tower was long-term, and complicated, quite effectively. But these weren’t arguments that damaged Corbyn. She was criticising decisions taken by Tony Blair and the last Labour government. Corbyn, of course, is about the last person who can be held responsible for anything that happened under the Blair regime.

(I will post on Ian Blackford’s questions at the end.)

Updated

Corbyn says there have been two coroners’ reports. They have not been acted upon. And councils have had their budgets cut by 40%.

Will May guarantee that further cuts planned for the fire service will be halted?

May says Corbyn has missed the point. It is not just what laws you have; it is how they are being applied. Why are we seeing building materials put up that do not comply with building regulations? We need to get to the bottom of that, she says.

Corbyn says he can help. When you cut local authority expenditure by 40%, you end up with fewer building control inspectors.

Tories start to jeer. John Bercow asks for silence.

Corbyn repeats his point. When you cut local authority budgets by 40%, “we all pay a price in safety”. Those cuts have resulted in 11,000 fewer firefighters. The tragedy of Grenfell Tower has exposed the disastrous effects of austerity. This disregard for working class communities, the consequences of deregulation and cutting corners - May should properly fund the retrofitting of sprinklers.

Mr Speaker, this disaster must be a wake-up call.

May says the cladding of tower blocks began under the Blair government. In 2005 it was a Labour government that introduced the regulatory reform fire safety order that stopped the fire brigade being in charge of fire safety checks. The Lakanal House inquest criticised that. And laws that took effect in 2006 ended routine fire service inspections, giving that responsibility to councils. These problems have occurred over decades, she says. She says politicians should come together and get to the bottom of what happened.

Corbyn says May said on Thursday she would make the results of the test on the Grenfell Tower cladding public. He is not sure she has done that.

When will the tower block tests be finished?

And will cladding on other buildings be tested?

May says on Thursday she was speaking about the police making the results public.

She says landlords should work on the assumption that tower blocks will fail the cladding tests, because there has been a 100% failure rate.

Corbyn says only a third of new schools have sprinklers.

The Lakanal House fire inquest recommended the retrofitting of spinklers.

What did the government do to promote that?

May says the government did publicise that recommendation.

There are a number of issues to consider, she says. In Camden, where tower blocks have been evacuated, it is not just the cladding that is the problem.

That raises the issue of why residents’ voices are not being heard.

Corbyn says he hopes May will be able to meet her aim of putting families in temporary accommodation within three weeks.

He asks May if the cladding on Grenfell Tower was legal.

May says building regulations specify what is compatible. This cladding was not compliant, she says. But she says she has to be careful what she says because there is a criminal investigation.

There is a wider issue here, she says.

There are real questions about the sort of cladding that has been put on building.

The inquiry will have to look at this, and at how over decades non-compliant cladding has been put on buildings.

May says 120 tower blocks, from 37 council areas, have now failed cladding fire safety tests

Jeremy Corbyn says we should pay tribute to those who campaigned for justice for Hillsborough.

He says 79 people died at Grenfell Tower. On Thursday May said a judge would be appointed soon. When will that come? And what is the timetable for the inquiry?

May starts by paying her own tribute to the Hillsborough campaigners.

She says she would like to update MPs.

As of this morning, some 120 tower blocks, from 37 council areas, have been failed cladding fire safety tests. That is a 100% failure rate, she says.

  • May says 120 tower blocks, from 37 council areas, have now failed cladding fire safety tests.

She says 65 offers of temporary accommodation have been made to families.

Nearly £1.25m has been paid to families.

And another £1m is being given to charities to help them help families.

She says she hopes to be able to name a judge for the inquiry soon.

Sheryll Murray, a Conservative, talks about the abuse she suffered during the election. It was hardly kinder, gentler politics. What can be done to stop this?

May says this sort of intimidation was experienced particularly by women. It could put people off going into politics. She mentions the new Commons plaque for Jo Cox, and says Cox was right about us having more in common than what divides us.

Theresa May starts by saying the CPS have announced charging decisions in relation to Hillborough. This will be a day of mixed emotions for relatives of the victims, she says. She says she cannot comment further.

From my colleague Heather Stewart

From PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield.

This is from the Times’ Patrick Kidd.

This is from the Independent’s Tom Peck.

Theresa May has arrived in the chamber, to some cheering.

May and Corbyn at PMQs

PMQs starts in 10 minutes.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, is now being interviewed by Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics, and it is not going well. Asked about taxation, Grayling made the point he made earlier (see 11.26am) about the wealthy paying a higher share of tax. That was because of fiscal drag, said Neil (more people paying higher rates of tax because pay rises are taking them into high tax brackets). He asked Grayling if he could give examples of the government actually raising taxes for the wealthy. Grayling dodged the question, saying the government had introduced a range of tax measures.

Earlier I mentioned the National Centre for Social Research report (NatCen) report saying support for increasing taxes and spending is higher than at any time since 2004. Here is the Guardian’s write-up, and here is the report.

This is the key chart.

How support for taxing more and spending more has changed since 1983.
How support for taxing more and spending more has changed since 1983. Photograph: NatCen

Grayling says government must 'learn lessons' from election when considering public sector pay

On BBC News a few minutes ago Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, was asked if the government would carry on with the public sector pay cap. He gave a non-committal answer, although he did imply that a shift might be coming. He replied:

Philip Hammond has said we obviously have to learn lessons from the general election. We will have a budget later this year. He will set out our ongoing plans in that budget. Now is not the time or the place, in the Queen’s speech debate, to start setting out plans for the economy. That is what budgets are for.

Grayling was also asked if he favoured putting up taxes, but, annoyingly, he did not engage with the argument put by Sir Oliver Letwin this morning. (See 9.14am.) Instead he just criticised Labour’s tax proposals, saying that the wealthy were already paying a higher share of tax and that higher business taxes would drive away investment.

Fallon says government has to 'consider' lifting public sector pay cap

Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has also hinted that he favours lifting the public sector pay cap, PoliticsHome reports. Fallon was asked about pay at the end of his speech to the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) this morning and he replied:

That is obviously a huge question.

It’s partly a matter for the pay review bodies but it also involves a forecast of where you expect inflation to be. I think we expect inflation to start falling back again from the autumn onwards.

But it is obviously something we have to consider not just for the army but right across the public sector as a whole.

On the Today programme this morning Peter Ammon, Germany’s ambassador the UK, said that he was “unnerved” by talk about Brexit amounting to a divorce. He said that he hoped the UK and Germany would remain close after Brexit.

I am unnerved about this debate about a divorce. This is as if the two countries would be separated forever and not talk to each other after Brexi.

I think this overlooks the fact that we have so much in common. Even after Brexit we will, of course, trade, we will have exchange of students, of culture, of the arts.

We share the same values in a very difficult and aggressive world around us, so we will not be separated.

Ammon said that Brexit was not “top of the agenda” for people in Germany.

But he also played down the significance of the lukewarm reception given by EU leaders to Theresa May’s proposals regarding the rights of EU nationals after Brexit at the EU summit last week.

We are at the beginning of negotiations. I have never seen a negotiation starting with total agreement, where we could simply go home and probably you have made the wrong offer if that was the case. I think both sides have to come together.

There was “strong will” to do that, he added.

The Liberal Democrats have said they will back the Labour amendment (see 10.15am) tonight. Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem chief whip, said:

The government must listen to the overwhelming tide of public opinion and give our police, firefighters and nurses a pay rise.

But Labour must be honest and admit we won’t be able to pay for strong public services by crashing the economy through an extreme Brexit.

Labour MPs who want to protect funding for our police, schools and hospitals should back amendments calling for Britain to stay in the single market.

Two of David Cameron’s former Number 10 aides have welcomed what Sir Oliver Letwin said in his interview.

This is from Sir Craig Oliver, Cameron’s communications director.

(Note the proliferation of knighthoods - Cameron was generous to his allies.)

And this is from Daniel Korski, who was deputy head of Cameron’s policy unit.

And this is from Tim Montgomerie, the founder of ConservativeHome.

For the record, here is the Labour amendment to the Queen’s speech that will be put to a vote at 7pm tonight.

At end add ‘but respectfully regret that the Gracious Speech fails to end cuts to the police and the fire service; commend the response of the emergency services to the recent terrorist attacks and to the Grenfell Tower fire; call on the government to recruit more police officers and fire-fighters; and further call on the government to end the public sector pay cap and give the emergency and public services a fair pay rise.’.

The main vote on the Queen’s speech is coming tomorrow. Normally votes on amendments take place at the same time as the vote on the main motion (which, in this case, is just proposing that a “humble address” be presented to the Queen for the Queen’s speech - a thank you letter, in other words).

But there is provision in the rules for amendments to be put to the vote on the penultimate day of the day.

This does not normally happen, and so why is it happening today?

It seems to be because the speaker wants to free up time for more votes tomorrow. Normally he only puts two amendments to the Queen’s speech to a vote (the main opposition one, and the one from the second biggest opposition party, at the moment the SNP). But, under the rules, up to four amendments can be put to a vote, and at the moment 11 have been tabled, including backbench amendments on issues like Brexit and abortion in Northern Ireland. We will find out in due course which other ones he intends to call.

You can read the order paper, with the full text of all amendments tabled so far, here (pdf).

Updated

Oliver Letwin's interview - Summary

Here are some more quotes from Sir Oliver Letwin’s Today interview, with a summary of the key points.

  • Letwin said taxes should go up “in a careful way” to allow more money to be spent on public services. This should involve many people paying more in personal taxes, not just higher-rate taxpayers, he suggested. (See 9.14am.)
  • He said the election showed that people were fed up with spending cuts. He said Tory colleagues had told him they had picked up this message from voters, and he said his own conversations with around 3,000 voters in his constituency had given him the same impression.

People were much more concerned at this election than they had been at the previous two about spending on schools, spending on health, spending on social care, crucial public services which now seem to be under strain.

  • He said the cap on public sector pay increases should soon be lifted.

I think sooner or later there will need to be some movement on the rate of increase of public sector pay because we are getting close to the point at which the huge increase in public sector pay compared to private sector pay which we inherited in 2010 is levelling out. And I have no doubt that at some point or other we will need to look at that.

  • He said people wanted more spending on the NHS, schools and social care.
  • He said he still believed it was important to get rid of the budget deficit. The UK had to do this to maintain credibility with investors, he said. Asked if he was saying the age of austerity was over, he replied:

I find these catch phrases very deeply misleading because if you want to get a quote from me which enables some newspaper to say that I or others are saying that we should go easy on deficit reduction, you won’t get it. I think we do need for the sake of the whole country to keep reducing the deficit and balancing budgets eventually so that we are well protected against the next downturn.

  • He ruled out backing the Labour amendment to the Queen’s speech saying the public sector pay cap should be scrapped. Asked about this, he said:

The Labour amendment is playing politics. Obviously they want to amend the Queen’s speech so the government falls. So we are not going to fall for that kind of party game.

Updated

Top Tory says taxes should go up to fund better public services

Politics can often seem superficial. In the Commons and in the TV studios MPs often fling around partisan and exaggerated claims, character and appearance count, and the debate often fixates on relatively narrow problems or gaffes.

But, ultimately, what matters is who is winning the big arguments. And this morning, on the Today programme, in a remarkable interview, a key plank in the Conservative party worldview just gave way. A senior Tory said taxes should go up so that more money can be spent on public services.

And it was not just any old Tory. It was Sir Oliver Letwin, one of the party’s leading thinkers, a member of Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit in Number 10 in the 1980s and, in David Cameron’s administration, the minister in charge of co-ordinating all government policy. Letwin did not have a high profile as a minister, but that was not because he was not important; it was because he could not be trusted to go on the radio without blurting out an awkward truth. On the basis of his performance this morning, you can see why.

Effectively this morning Letwin was conceding that Labour has won the argument for higher taxation. Here are the key quotes

[Getting back to balanced budgets] is compatible with easing up a little, not a great splurge, but easing up a little on spending on key public services if one is prepared to bite the bullet of carefully judged and carefully presented tax increases ...

I think there is a recognition that, while some taxes are extremely difficult to live with for some people, other taxes, if you get it right, can be raised in a careful way without provoking massive problems for families ...

The principle that we’ve worked on over the past many years now, since 2010, has been that the better off should bear the bigger part of whatever strains the economy suffers. And that is what’s happened over the past few years, despite much rhetoric to the contrary. And that will need to go on being the case. There’s no doubt that those of us who are lucky enough to have higher incomes will have to bear, in one way or another, a larger share of the cost of any increases in public service expenditure. But I’m not at all pretending that you can restrict the chancellor to only dealing with whatever Mr Corbyn or somebody else defines as the very rich.

Then, asked whether he was saying that taxes should go up generally, not just for higher-rate tax payers, he replied:

It may well be that, in one way or another, a large number of people will have to pay a little more tax if we are going to maintain the trend towards reduced deficits, and yet spend a bit more on the crucial public services that do need more spent on them.

It is worth pointing out that Letwin has not gone the full Jeremy Corbyn. He said he still believed it was important to reduce the deficit. (Labour is more relaxed about maintaining borrowing.) Letwin explained that he favoured some increase in taxation because he accepted that more money should be spend on public services, and he did not want that to come from extra borrowing.

There is another key difference. Labour said their plans for higher taxes at the election would only result in big businesses and the richest 5% paying more. Letwin was making the case for many people paying higher personal taxes.

Letwin’s interview coincided with a report from the British social attitudes survey showing that support for higher taxes and spending is now higher than at any time since 2004. And austerity will be at the heart of the debate when MPs vote on the Labour amendment on the Queen’s speech tonight.

I will post more from Letwin’s interview, and reaction to it, shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, gives a speech to the Rusi land warfare conference.

10am: Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish culture secretary, gives a speech on Scotland-EU relations in Glasgow.

12pm: Theresa May faces Jeremy Corbyn at the first PMQs of the new parliament.

7pm: MPs vote on the Labour amendment to the Queen’s speech.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary after PMQs and another in the afternoon.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.

Updated

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