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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Jedidajah Otte and Andrew Sparrow

Government narrowly wins vote on social care cap with majority of 26 – as it happened

And here the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg again on tonight’s narrow government win on the social care cap, despite an 80 seat majority in the Commons:

This blog will close now, thanks for following along, goodnight.

It appears the PM thought his Peppa Pig lines from his CBI speech earlier so delightful that he recycled them at two other events hours later, according to the FT’s Sebastian Payne:

Updated

The Conservative former cabinet minister Damian Green, who said he abstained on the key vote on social care changes, said it was unclear whether the alteration to the cap for care costs is fair.

He told BBC’s Newsnight:

The party wants to see a proper fair solution to social care that is fair around the country and in all areas of the country.

And to put it as politely as I can, it’s not yet clear that this solution achieves that.

This just in from PA’s Richard Wheeler:

This from my colleague Jessica Elgot:

18 Tory MPs voted against the government tonight on NC49, including Esther McVey, MP for Tatton and former minister for housing, Mark Harper, the former Conservative chief whip who had said before the vote he would vote against the proposal, and Kevin Hollinrake, who had challenged the health and social care minister Edward Argar earlier in the Commons on the government’s social care cap proposals.

69 Tory MPs abstained, including Theresa May, Robert Buckland, the previous Secretary of State for Justice, Sir Ian Duncan Smith, David Davis, Jeremy Hunt, and Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

25 Labour MPs abstained as well.

Updated

I’m A Celebrity presenters Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly aimed a jibe at Boris Johnson, making fun of the PM’s much criticised speech he gave to the Confederation of British Industry earlier.

Appearing live from Gwrych Castle, McPartlin asked his co-host where they had bought a cake that featured in a recent challenge.

Donnelly flipped through sheets of paper for more than 10 second saying “Forgive me!” until finding the correct page and exclaiming: “We got it in Poundland in Rhyl”.

Johnson had stumbled through parts of a speech to the CBI and said “forgive me” while he tried to find the correct place in his notes.

This from Angela Rayner:

And this from Neil Coyle, Labour MP for Bermondsey & Old Southwark:

The division list on the NC49 vote isn’t out yet, but it seems there were some Tory rebels:

A Labour amendment that would have banned private health care firms from being appointed to NHS decision-making boards or local integrated care boards was just defeated. Ayes 192, noes 300.

There is some outrage about the Tories hosting a winter fundraising ball tonight that auctioned off time with cabinet members for donations.

This from Kevin Maguire, associate editor of the Daily Mirror:

And this from the Sun’s Jack Elsom:

Updated

Here my colleague Jessica Elgot’s summary on tonight’s vote:

This from ITV’s Robert Peston:

This from Paul Waugh, the ipaper’s chief political commentator:

And this from the shadow environment secretary and Labour & Co-op MP for Plymouth Sutton & Devonport, Luke Pollard:

Here the reaction of Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion:

And this from Gavin Newlands, SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, on the workings behind the scenes shortly before the vote:

This from Nadia Whittome, MP for Nottingham East:

This from Steve Webb, formerly a Lib Dem minister for pensions:

Government narrowly wins vote on social care cap with majority of 26

Result on the vote’s just in, 272 MPs voted for amendment New Clause 49 on the social care cap, and 246 MPs voted against.

Updated

MPs are now voting on New Clause 49 to the Health and Care Bill, with the results expected at 22.15pm.

Matt Hancock used the occasion to make a lengthy intervention in the Commons praising the government, which inspired some heckling.

“It is always easy in politics and in life to say, ‘I just accept the bits of the package I like’”, Hancock said. “And they tend, when it’s the Labour party, they tend to be ‘I accept the bits that are very expensive to taxpayers’, by the way. Instead, we must look at the package as a whole, which is funded.”

This from my colleague Jessica Elgot:

My colleague Robert Booth has written a handy analysis on what the government’s new social care proposals will mean for people across England.

He writes:

Even for government critics, this is a big step forward in tackling the lottery of old age that for decades has seen a minority lose most of their hard-earned assets just because they were unlucky enough to be struck down by long-term illness that required years of care.

The new safety net – a kind of national insurance against care catastrophe – doesn’t come cheap, at £3.7bn a year by 2028. And yet its main purpose is being undermined because a change to save £900m a year will leave people with fewer assets still vulnerable to losing almost everything.

Full story here:

Jeremy Hunt told the Commons he feels “conflicted” about NC49.

I think that, what we will end up with after this is a whole lot better for people on low incomes than what we had before, because the means test threshold is raised from [£23,250] to £100,000, so I think that’s a very, very significant improvement.

However, I have to be honest and say, this is nothing like as progressive as we had hoped for. But I do think it’s a step forward. My concern is, that when it comes to social care our entire debate is focussing on what contributions do and don’t contribute to the cap, when the fundamental problem in social care is the core funding to local authorities, which is not a matter for this bill, but actually has a direct impact on the care received by constituents.

Updated

Madders went on to tell MPs:

We on this side of the chamber always thought levelling up was just a slogan with little substance to it, but now we know its actually worse than that, it is in fact a con trick, a lie, that will leave many of those who it was meant to be supporting worse off.

And all those members opposite who loyally trooped through the lobbies in September to impose the social care levy knowing it would disproportionately impact their less well off constituents when paying into it, must now, to use a phrase we have heard a lot of in the last week, be suffering from buyers remorse- because it must have dawned on them by now that they have been sold a pup, that there is no plan to fix social care, that this Bill won’t stop people having to sell their homes, and the only people it will help are those already comfortably well off.

So the only way they can represent their constituents, constituents who voted for them because they believed that the Conservative party had changed, that it was at last on the side of ordinary people, is by joining us in the lobbies to vote against the government and show them that they wont stand for a government that breaks its promises.

[...]

And finally, I would remind members opposite of the manifesto they stood on, which said clearly and unambiguously in respect of social care that the prerequisite of any solution will be a guarantee that no one needing care has to sell their home to pay for it.

If they do not think the government amendment gives that guarantee, that it breaks that promise they made to their electorate, then they should join us in the lobbies, take back control, and vote against it.

Madders continued:

The Dilnot commission specifically said excluding state contributions from the cap would be unfair for those on lower incomes and would mean that they would contribute the same as the wealthy just over a longer period.

But that is where we find ourselves today. Ordinary people on modest incomes are paying an extra tax that doesn’t actually stop them having to sell their home to pay for care costs, but it will mean that the mansion dwelling millionaires will be able to keep theirs.

We have a reverse Robin Hood here: people on lower incomes will be paying into a system that they will see little benefit from but will protect 90% of a property worth a million pounds.

And just in case members need some help translating what this means to their constituents, here are a selection of median house prices in various constituencies across the country, all of whom would probably have to sell their homes under these plans:

Hartlepool £128k, Bishop Auckland £125k, Blackpool south £114k, Stoke-on-Trent central £112k, Hyndburn £110k, Burnley £99k.

Those figures are replicated across huge areas of the country. This isn’t just a few people in those constituencies who will lose out – it’s thousands of people in each constituency, mainly in the Midlands and the North of England, who will be forced to sell their homes whilst those in more affluent areas of the country get to keep theirs.

That’s not fairness, that’s not fixing social care. That is a betrayal.

Updated

Madders on what the government’s proposals will mean in reality for some with more modest assets:

Sir Andrew Dilnot [...] said these proposals will create a north-south divide. He said those with assets of £106,000 will be hardest hit and anyone with assets under £186,000 will be worse off than under his proposals.

According to the Health Foundation, assuming care costs of around £500 a week, those with assets of £150,000 will take a year and a half longer to reach the cap than they would have done under the Dilnot proposals, those with assets of £125,000 will take four and a half years longer, and those with assets of under £106,000 will never reach the care cap.

Contrary to what the minister [Argar] has said, those people with assets of only £106,000 or less will not benefit at all from this proposal.

Updated

Madders continued:

Not only will this proposal not stop people from having to sell their homes to pay for care costs, it will bake in unfairness for a generation.

It does nothing for working-age adults with long term care needs who seem to have been completely missed out altogether.

This isn’t what was promised.

But don’t take my word for it, listen to what some of the experts say. Age UK said this proposal, and I quote, “makes the overall scheme a lot less helpful to older people with modest assets than anyone had expected.

“It waters down Sir Andrew Dilnot’s original proposal to save the government some money, but at the cost of protecting the finances of older home owners.”

For good measure, Age UK also said: “This feels like completely the wrong policy choice and we are extremely disappointed that the government has made it.”

The King’s Fund said that for those with more modest assets, “the prime minister’s promise that no one need sell their house to pay for care doesn’t seem to apply to them”, but that it will instead only benefit “wealthier people”.

Updated

Justin Madders continued:

In case members opposite need reminding, in the prime minister’s first speech on taking office he promised to ‘fix the crisis in social care once and for all, with a clear plan that we have prepared’.

We have still to see that plan. What we have instead is a new tax and a broken promise.

The Labour MP for Wirral South Alison McGovern intervened to say:

What we should be talking about is a plan for social care. But what we are actually talking about is a tax on the very people who have lost out over the past decade or more, [on] the excessive house price growth in the South compared to other parts of the country. Isn’t that what we’re talking about? A tax that doubles down on inequality, not addresses it.

Madders agreed, added that this proposal is about regional inequalities being exacerbated not fixed.

Updated

Barbara Keeley, Labour MP for Worsley & Eccles South, told MPs:

“This [proposal] is grossly unfair. I gave the example earlier, in our region, 15% of people with dementia will reach the cap compared to the 34% that would have done under the Dilnot proposals.

“But the other thing is that the cap would not protect working age adults accessing social care, it does not protect all those people with a disability. Sir Andrew Dilnot’s proposal woyuld have done so.”

The shadow health minister Justin Madders told the Commons in a speech that the Health and Care Bill is “a jumble sale of bit and pieces”.

“Having breadth is not the same as having coherence and having clarity,” he said.

On the NC49 amendment, Madders said:

Let us start with the process - it is wholly wrong to bring such a fundamental change forward as a last minute addition to this Bill. That means it cannot be properly debated today, there is no impact assessment and of course as we already heard it was not discussed in Committee at all.

In fact in 22 committee sessions spanning some 50 hours we never heard mention of this amendment coming forward or discussion on the care cap, once. Indeed, when this chamber were busy debating the social care levy we were beavering away in committee on this bill oblivious to the fact that it was coming down the track.

If government can’t even get its decision making processes integrated what hope is there for integrating health and social care?

The aim of the New Clause as we know is to remove means tested benefits from the costs that count towards the care cap. As has been pointed out far and wide from members on both sides this change adversely impacts some more than others. It is a wholly regressive measure to say the least to give support through means testing but then to penalise people later on for receiving it in the first place.

We will vote against this iniquity and I hope many members opposite will vote with us. They should be getting used to broken promises by the prime minister by now and this is a chance to make a point that he should stand by what he says.

Updated

Liz Kendall, the shadow social care minister, asked Argar:

“Is he [Argar] absolutely sure [...] that everybody would be better off under the new clause than now?

“Is it not the case, as illustrated by the Health Foundation, that people with very modest homes worth under £106,000 will never hit the cap, and therefore will not be better off under the government’s proposed system than they are now?”

Argar responded: “I said no one will be worse off, the majority would be better off, that’s the point I’d make to [Kendall]. They wouldn’t be worse off.”

Updated

Kevin Hollinrake, Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton, has pressed Argar on the fairness of the NC49 amendment.

“There’s no doubt that the way the new cap works for those with more modest assets is less generous, would he not agree with that, and how can that be fair?”

Argar reponded: “This, when compared to the current system, is a significant improvement and step forward, particularly when taken in the round with the overall package of measures which see those floors go from £23,250 up to £100,000, and from £14,250 up to £20,000. I think we do have to look at this in the round considering all those aspects rather than purely one element alone.”

Updated

This from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg:

Philip Dunne, the Conservative MP for Ludlow, asked Argar to clarify whether the government’s social care cost cap proposal includes the cost of domiciliary care, which had not been included in the original proposals by the Dilnot Commission.

Argar responded saying this new proposal improves on the Dilnot proposals in this respect, but did not give any detail.

Updated

Argar says under the new proposals, the number of people in receipt of social care funding will rise to two thirds.

Matt Hancock just commented from the backbenches in support of the controversial amendment.

“Isn’t the right way to think about this change to consider the proposal in front of us compared to the current system?[...] This is a package that is paid for, and that’s why this governmnet has been able to deliver a package when no previous government has been able to.”

As a reminder, PA reports, the government’s key reform proposals include an £86,000 lifetime cap from October 2023, to be funded through a health and social care levy based on tax contributions.

People with assets up to £20,000 will not have to contribute anything to their care (up from £14,250), while those with assets to £100,000 will be eligible to receive some local authority support (up from £23,250).

Once the cap is reached, the government will take over paying for the person’s care.

The debate on amendment new clause 49 of the Health and Care Bill has started in the House of Commons. This is the bit of the amendments that focuses on amending The Care Act 2014 with regards to the cap on care costs.

“Let me remove all doubt on this issue: No one will lose from these reforms [...] and the overwhelming majority will win,” Edward Argar, a health and social care minister just told MPs, so some jeering.

Updated

Gareth Thomas, the Labour & Co-op MP for Harrow West, just shared this thread on tonight’s social care vote:

Ministers were emailed by whips on Monday afternoon to be instructed to return to the House of Commons from the Conservative party’s Winter Party fundraiser in time for the vote, having previously been given permission to be paired and abstain.

Amid mounting tensions with backbenchers, cabinet ministers including Sajid Javid have called MPs to stress details of the full social care package would mitigate the effects of the change and that a full impact assessment would be published.

“It strikes me that we are being asked to take an awful lot on trust and the events of the last two weeks mean that trust is in rather short supply,” one former ministers said.

The former chief whip Mark Harper said he would be voting against the plan and urged ministers to withdraw the amendment.
Most MPs are expected to abstain rather than rebel but Conservative MPs said there was significant irritation at the way the change had been announced. “There is an operation underway from Number 10 and DHSC to provide reassurance but it still underlines the fact that yet again we are told one thing and the details turn out to be different,” the MP said.

Members of the One Nation caucus of moderate Tory MPs chaired by former cabinet minister Damian Green met at 6pm to discuss their concerns, though several including the defence select committee chair Tobias Ellwood have said they are unhappy but will abstain.

Tory MPs from Northern constituencies, whose constituencies are likely to have far lower house prices, have also expressed concern, including the Bury South MP Christian Wakeford who said Johnson could not take their support for granted.

Number 10 said it would publish the full impact assessment of the cost changes but said that assessment would not be made available to MPs in time for the vote tonight.

Michael Gove said the forthcoming Levelling Up White Paper would include a framework demonstrating an intention to “go further in the devolution of powers to local government”.

The secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities told the County Councils Network’s Annual Conference:

I think that overall the case for further devolution, further strengthening of local government, further de-centralisation, has been powerfully made.

While I have myself a strong attraction to and preference for an accountable figure, whether you call that individual a mayor or not, serving a fixed term, providing visible and, as I say, clear, accountable leadership - while I have that preference - I recognise that it is not right for every part of the country, certainly not now.

And that by definition, if we are thinking about local government, we have to recognise that there will be different structures operating in different parts of the country to reflect different needs and different geographies. But one of the things that we do want to do is to make sure that at the time when we publish the White Paper, we’re clear that there are a number of County Deals that will take place, and that these should be beginning of a process, not the end.

Within it, as I say, there will be a framework, which I’m sure some people will criticise or object to, but there will be a framework that demonstrates our intention to progressively go further in the devolution of powers to local government.

Gove said it was still the government’s intention to publish the White Paper before Christmas.

This from Jonathan Ashworth, the Labour MP for Leicester South, in reaction to reports that around 20 Tory backbenchers could rebel and vote against the government’s social care plans tonight:

Downing Street has criticised the targeting of JK Rowling by trans activists, after a picture of the Harry Potter author’s address was posted online by activists who posed outside her home with “Trans liberation now” signs, in protest over Rowling’s gender-critical views.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said:

I don’t think any individual should be targeted in that way.

We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect and that people are able to share their views as long as it is done in that fashion.

Rowling tweeted that she has received “so many death threats I could paper the house with them”.

After a trio of trans activists posted an image outside her home where her address could clearly be seen, the writer shared a series of tweets stating she will not stop speaking out even after her doxxing experience.

Rowling wrote:

Last Friday, my family’s address was posted on Twitter by three activist actors who took pictures of themselves in front of our house, carefully positioning themselves to ensure that our address was visible.

I have to assume that IAmGeorgiaFrost, hollywstars and Richard-Energy- thought doxxing me would intimidate me out of speaking up for women’s sex-based rights.

They should have reflected on the fact that I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them, and I haven’t stopped speaking out. Perhaps - and I’m just throwing this out there - the best way to prove your movement isn’t a threat to women is to stop stalking, harassing and threatening us.

In the picture shared online, the trio outside the author’s home were holding signs which read “Don’t be a cissy”, “Trans liberation now” and “Trans rights are human rights”.

The Twitter accounts of Richard Energy, Georgia Frost and Holly Stars have since been deleted, PA reports.

This from Preet Kaur Gill, the shadow international development secretary and MP for Birmingham Edgbaston on tonight’s vote on the government’s amendment on social care:

Hello everyone, I’m Jedidajah Otte and I’ll be taking over for the next few hours.

If you have anything you’d like to flag that you think is relevant to our coverage, feel free to drop me a message on Twitter @JedySays, or you can email me.

The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope quotes an unamed red wall Tory MP as saying around 20 backbenchers to vote against the government tonight on the social care cap.

The government is legislating for the change announced last week in the form of an amendment to the health and care bill, a bill that is primarily about reorganising the NHS (and reversing some of the Andrew Lansley reforms passed by the coalition government). MPs have started debating amendments to the bill already, but amendments are debated in groups, and the amendment on the cap on care costs will come up in a group due to be debated between 7pm and 10pm. The votes will come after 10pm.

You can read all the amendments to the bill here (pdf). The care costs amendments is new clause 49 (NC49).

My colleague Jedidajah Otte is taking over the blog now, and she will be covering the debate.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international trade secretary, said the UK would not trigger article 16, suspending parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. “I don’t think anyone’s calling article 16 before Christmas, absolutely not,” she told the paper.

But at the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesman refused to confirm this. He said:

I’m not going to put a timetable on it. We continue to believe that the conditions for triggering that safety mechanism of article 16 have been met, that remains the government position but we will continue to look for a consensual negotiated solution.

Updated

Employers should encourage staff to take the stairs, Whitty tells CBI

Speaking at the CBI conference, Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England and the UK government’s chief medical adviser, praised the “great majority” of businesses who have tried to keep their workers safe during Covid.

When asked if there are areas where collaboration between businesses and government could be beneficial, he highlighted joining forces to research how to improve health at work, improving occupational health, and looking at regulation.

“What we need to do is make sure that it’s not onerous, but at the same time, it provides a fair and level playing field,” he said of the latter. He went on:

The health and safety executive often comes in for some bad press. But actually the improvements in accidents at work, for example, is due to the work they have done with industry over time.

Whitty suggested there are several areas which businesses could focus on to improve the health of their workforce in the future, including making it easy for employees to get vaccinated and take boosters against Covid, and encouraging them to do so, investment in ventilation, and trying to make sure people are as active as possible – for example by encouraging them to take the stairs. He went on:

It sounds trivial. But day in day out, over an entire work lifetime, it can be absolutely the difference between someone entering older age healthy or not healthy.

The CBI president, Lord Bilimoria, (left) with Keir Starmer during a walkabout in the offices of the software company Advanced at the Mailbox in Birmingham before the Labour leader’s speech to the CBI annual conference.
The CBI president, Lord Bilimoria, (left) with Keir Starmer during a walkabout in the offices of the software company Advanced at the Mailbox in Birmingham before the Labour leader’s speech to the CBI annual conference. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

Updated

Former Tory chief whip Mark Harper says he will vote against government on social care cap

Mark Harper, the Conservative former chief whip, and a former welfare minister, has said that he will vote against the government tonight over the proposals announced last week relating to how the cap on social care costs will be applied. He has explained why on Twitter.

Mel Stride, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons Treasury committee, was also interviewed on the BBC’s World at One, and he criticised the government for not releasing a distributional impact assessment of the social care decision taken last week ahead of tonight’s vote. He said it was “unsatisfactory” for MPs not to have this information, and he would not commit to definitely voting with the government tonight, saying he wanted to listen to the debate first.

The Peppa Pig comic routine may have backfired very badly judging by this from the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg.

Former Tory pensions minister says PM's social care plan 'just about helping very well off'

On the World at One Ros Altmann, a pensions minister in David Cameron’s government, was asked what she thought when she heard the announcement last week about how the government will implement its new cap on social care costs. Altmann, who is a peer, replied:

I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this is just about helping the very well off.’ That’s how it came across to me, protecting those who’ve got plenty of wealth, because they are the ones who would pay most while those average people, whether they’re middle-class or working-class, or don’t live in a reasonable-sized family home in more expensive areas of country, like London and the home countries, won’t really end up benefiting much, if at all, from these measures.

Altmann also said she expected the House of Lords to send the plan back to the Commons for a rethink.

Ros Altmann
Ros Altmann. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Updated

In response to a Commons urgent question on Channel crossings, Priti Patel, the home secretary, accused Labour of supporting “unlimited migration”. She told MPs:

If any members have concrete proposals that are not already featured in the new plan for immigration, I would be happy to discuss and meet with them because my door is always open, particularly to those members on the opposite benches.

Because of course they attack the new plan for immigration, they have not supported it, they voted against it and not because they are genuinely frustrated at the number of illegal migrants entering our country like those on this side of the House and the British public, but because they will always stand up for unlimited migration, free movement and they always said that and will do.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, accused Patel of breaking her promises to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in this way. He said:

As the home secretary knows, the government has already spent over £200m of taxpayers’ money on deals with the French authorities that are not working ...

The home secretary has repeatedly made pledges that the route across the Channel will be made unviable, but as usual with this government it is all empty rhetoric and broken promises.

The home secretary has blamed everyone but herself.

Updated

Boris Johnson inspecting a new electric shuttle bus at the Port of Tyne earlier today.
Boris Johnson inspecting a new electric shuttle bus at the Port of Tyne earlier today. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/AFP/Getty Images

Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru to cooperate on almost 50 policy areas

Radical plans ranging from strict restrictions on second home ownership to setting up a publicly owned energy company and driving forward a free nationwide social care system have been announced in an agreement between the Labour-led Welsh government and the nationalists, Plaid Cymru. My colleague Steven Morris has the story here.

Starmer's CBI speech and Q&A - summary and analysis

The CBI normally invite both the prime minister and the leader of the opposition to speak at their annual conference and in most years – last year was an exception because of Covid – this ends up as something of a beauty contest, with both main parties vying for the affection of business (or at least the CBI, the big business corporate establishment, which is not quite the same thing). Rarely, though, does one party win so conclusively. Boris Johnson’s speech will be remembered for his eccentric Peppa Pig riff and for the fact that he lost his way halfway through. By comparison, Keir Starmer exuded seriousness and responsibility, and told his audience exactly what they wanted to hear. As Lord Bilimoria, the CBI president, wrapped up his panel discussion with Starmer, his words of appreciation were heading towards “get a room” levels of intensity. (See 2.43pm.)

Did the speech deserve this amount of praise? Probably not, although it does show how far, with the right audience, you can get just by not being Boris Johnson (or Jeremy Corbyn). The new announcements in the speech were relatively limited, but the tone was important, and Starmer gave the clearest account we have yet had of how Labour would renegotiate Brexit. It would end up softer.

In his superb book on the “red wall” and Labour’s electoral plight, Broken Heartlands, a Journey through Labour’s Lost England, the FT journalist Sebastian Payne quotes Tony Blair on the problems that Labour in the UK, and the Democrats in the US, have on the economy. Blair says:

The problem is they don’t have a modernising economic message, their economic message is basically a bigger state, and more tax and more spending. The problem with that is the only part of that that’s popular is the spending and the right wing is prepared to do that in any event.

If Labour wants to get back, it’s got to say this technology revolution is going to intensify and accelerate, there’s no way out of it. We’re going to manage it and harness it in your best interests, and here are the things we’re going to do for that.

The Starmer speech did not lay out the sort of distinctive, and electorally attractive, policy that Blair seems to be demanding. But in what he said about the need for a new offer on skills, Starmer did seem to be looking pointing towards this direction.

Here are the main points.

  • Starmer insisted that Labour now sees business as a “force for good”. He said:

We are not just pro business as two words, we actually believe in business as a force for good in itself. Sometimes, if I may say so, our party has come across as thinking that business is to be tolerated in some way, but not to be celebrated as a good in itself. That mindset has changed under my leadership, and under Rachel Reeves [the shadow chancellor]. That sets up the sort of active, supportive relationship that we need going forward.

  • He said the UK needed a “national reset” after Covid, and that this required business and politicians to work together.
  • He set out details of how Labour would set out to improve trading relations with the EU. He did not propose a full overhaul of UK-EU free trade deal, but taken together his proposals would make Brexit noticeably softer than it is now. (See 1.56pm.)
  • He announced he is setting up a council of skills advisers to ensure pupils leave school with the skills they need for the 21st century workforce. (See 2.17pm.) Skills would be a priority for him, he said.

Better skills are vital if we are to improve productivity and economic growth.

That’s why getting the next generation ready for work will be my mission as leader of the Labour party.

  • He acccused Johnson of staging “pantomime disputes” with the EU. (See 1.56pm.)
  • Starmer implicitly criticised Johnson for what is seen as his “fuck business” approach (based on something Johnson once said in private – he insists he was misrepresented). Starmer said the only f-words he would use with business were foreign investment, fair trade, fiscal policy, a fiduciary duty.
  • He criticised Johnson for suggesting Covid was to blame for the UK’s poor productivity problems, saying the problem went back far longer and that the UK has had “the worst decade for productivity growth since the Industrial Revolution”.
Sir Keir Starmer speaks to the CBI in Birmingham
Sir Keir Starmer speaks to the CBI in Birmingham. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

Updated

This is from my colleague Peter Walker, who was at Keir Starmer’s CBI speech and who has been gauging reaction.

In her speech to the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Trade, held by the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international trade secretary, rejected claims that the UK is “little Britain”. Describing her trade policy, she said:

It is a strategy not looking just at the next headline, the next quarter, or the next year, but realising there’s opportunities ahead in the decades to come. It will make exporting easier for businesses ... and bring prosperity to every region and nation of our country.

Now, just as in Mrs Thatcher’s time, there are the naysayers and the doom-mongers who claim that we are little Britain - too slow, too weak, too inexperienced. But, and with the greatest respect to Matt Lucas, we are not little Britain, and we never were. We are global Britain.

Updated

Members of the public outside Southend West Conservative association’s Iveagh Hall to pay tribute to Sir David Amess on the day of his funeral service.
Members of the public outside Southend West Conservative association’s Iveagh Hall to pay tribute to Sir David Amess on the day of his funeral service. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Pallbearers carrying the coffin of Sir David Amess out of St Mary’s church in Prittlewell, Southend, following his funeral service
Pallbearers carrying the coffin of Sir David Amess out of St Mary’s church in Prittlewell, Southend, following his funeral service. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
A horse-drawn hearse carries the coffin from St Mary’s parish church after Sir David Amess’s funeral
A horse-drawn hearse carries the coffin from St Mary’s parish church after Sir David Amess’s funeral. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Updated

Lord Bilimoria, the CBI president, is now wrapping up the panel discussion, summarising the topics Starmer covered.

He says what Starmer said about skills and creativity was “music to my ears”. And says he loved the way Starmer talked about business as a “force for good”. It has been amazing, he says.

And that’s it.

I will post a summary shortly.

Starmer says he wants regional political leaders to play a much bigger role in deciding investment decisions.

He says at least Theresa May’s government had an industrial strategy. He says the current government ripped it up.

Asked about claims that Labour over-spending contributed to the financial crash of 2008, Starmer says he does not accept that. He says Gordon Brown did as much as anyone to limit the global damage. And he says UK annual growth was much higher under Labour than it has been in last decade.

Starmer says Labour view of business has shifted under his leadership, and he sees it as 'force for good'

In the panel discussion Lord Bilimoria, president of the CBI, says relations between business and Labour are “much improved” since Keir Starmer took over as leader.

Starmer says he is glad Bilimoria said that. He says he wanted a reset.

He says he sees business as a “force for good’. In the past Labour sometimes implied business was something “to be tolerated”, not “to be celebrated as a good in itself”. He says, under his leadership, and with Rachel Reeves as shadow chancellor, that has changed.

Labour sets up council of skills advisers to 'rethink education for 21st century'

Starmer said in his speech that the new council of skills advisers he is setting up for the party will “recommend the change we need to ensure everyone leaves education job ready and life ready, explore how to ensure that young people are literate in the technology of the day [and] raise the sights of all pupils”.

In a news release, Labour says the group - David Blunkett, Rachel Sandby-Thomas and Praful Nargund - will “rethink how we deliver an education fit for the 21st century”.

Blunkett, a former education secretary and home secretary, said:

I am very pleased to be able to continue contributing to the critical debate about how we modernise and reform the lifelong learning journey from schools through to progression in work.

Nothing can be more important than spreading what works, embedding high-quality and inspirational teaching and learning, and adapting a curriculum that provides motivation to young people at every stage, and reassurance to employers that they will have literate, numerate, creative and responsive employees for the future.

Having taken questions from two journalists, Starmer is now taking part in a panel discussion. He is again stressing the importance of politicians and businesses working together.

Starmer says solving Channel crossings problem requires long-term aid spending

Q: What would Labour do differently in relation to migrants crossing the Channel?

Starmer says there is no short-term solution without a long-term solution.

There are long-term solutions, he says. But he says the government is cutting foreign aid. He says it is the medium and long-term that really matter. He says you need to spend money upstream to stop migrants fleeing for safety in the first place.

In the short term, he says a better agreements with France is needed. But he says it is the medium and long-term that really matter.

Q: If any Labour MPs are putting second earnings through a company to avoid tax, should they stop?

Yes, says Starmer.

Starmer is now taking questions.

Q: Isn’t Labour making unfunded promises?

Starmer says Labour wants to be seen as fiscally responsible. That is why it set out fiscal rules. He claims that it is unusual for an opposition to set out fiscal rules like this this far ahead of an election.

(That is misleading, because other opposition parties have done much the same.)

Starmer restates Labour’s commitment to replacing business rates.

And he says the party would have a sector by sector approach to achieving net zero.

Starmer says he is announcing a new council of skills advisers, featuring the former home secretary David Blunkett, the tech entrepreneur Praful Nargund and the skills expert Rachel Sandby-Thomas.

Updated

Starmer accuses PM of staging 'pantomime disputes' with EU as he sets out Labour's plan to 'make Brexit work'

Starmer is now giving examples of what this means.

He says Labour would negotiate a new veterinary agreement for trade in agriproducts with the EU.

This would have two advantages, he says. It would help to solve the Northern Ireland protocol problems. And it would cut red tape for UK exporters. He goes on:

Labour would also look to find an agreement on mutual recognition of conformity assessments across all sectors. That would mean our producers would no longer have to complete two sets of tests. There would be no need for two certification processes to sell goods in both the UK and the EU.

We would seek regulatory equivalence for financial services, and mutual recognition of professional qualifications, because we absolutely recognise the importance of looking after our world-class financial and professional service businesses.

We would seek to maintain Britain’s data adequacy status, making our data protection rules equivalent to those in the EU, to secure UK digital services companies’ competitiveness.

We’d also seek a better long-term deal for UK hauliers to ease the supply chain problems we are seeing.

Starmer turns to leadership.

There is one further element - leadership.

Trust matters in international negotiations but with this PM that ingredient is missing.

Instead, what we get is a series of pantomime disputes which is no good for British business or for the British public, and no help at all as we tackle the task of remaking Britain.

Updated

Turning to Brexit, Starmer reuses a line from his party conference speech, and says the challenge now is to make Brexit work.

The government thinks that all it has to do is say the words “Get Brexit Done”. It has absolutely no plan to Make Brexit Work. Just to be clear, Labour is not planning a re-match, but it is obvious that a poorly thought-through Brexit is holding Britain back.

Trust matters in international negotiations, but with this prime minister that ingredient is missing. Instead, what we get is a series of pantomime disputes, which is no good for British business or for the British people.

Updated

Starmer accuses the government of wanting to put a cap on investment. That is a false economy, he says.

Starmer says business needs stability in terms of tax policy, regulation and trade.

He says Labour would constantly demand value for money on behalf of the taxpayer.

Starmer says, if we are serious about productivity, we need to invest in skills.

After Covid the UK needs a reset, he says. And he says the business world and the political world must work together.

Starmer reminds the CBI that Boris Johnson has not always been complimentary about business. He says the only f-words he will use with business are foreign investment, fair trade, fiscal policy, a fiduciary duty.

Starmer says the Labour party and the CBI have always been bound together. The CBI was in part formed in response to the actions of the Wilson government, he says. He says the CBI’s own book says it was set up at a time when business had radically different views on how to respond to the Wilson government’s policies.

He says the UK has not cracked the productivity problem.

The government has its own solution to productivity - Geoffrey Cox. But we need a better answer.

(It’s a joke about Cox’s 70-hour weeks and his second job, but it does not seem to get a laugh.)

Keir Starmer's speech to the CBI

Keir Starmer is about to give his own speech to the CBI. We’re not expecting him to address the merits or otherwise of Peppa Pig.

Instead, on the basis of what Labour was briefing overnight, we know that Starmer will be saying that a Labour government will not simply “throw cash at” the country’s problems.

Here is my colleague Heather Stewart’s preview.

As the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, points out, Boris Johnson’s disorganised performance at the CBI might not have gone down well with Tory MPs already worried about Downing Street not firing on all cylinders.

'Is everything OK?' – Johnson has to reassure TV interviewer after rambling speech prompts question about his welfare

Being, or appearing, shambolic has for decades been part of the Boris Johnson performance, and mostly it has been a political asset to him. People seem to like the shtick. But it is very unusual for a speech to land so badly that it results in a journalist asking the PM if he is feeling OK, which is what happened today.

Johnson claimed his speech “went over well”.

Updated

There will be an urgent question in the Commons at 3.30pm on Channel crossings. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, has tabled it, and Priti Patel, the home secretary, should be replying.

No 10 rules out changing social care plans to address concerns of Tory critics

At the lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman ruled out the government changing the details of the way the cap on the costs of social care will be calculated in the light of concerns raised ahead of tonight’s vote. (See 9.31am.) Asked if the PM was minded to change the plans, the spokesman said:

We continue to believe that this is a system that is necessary, fair and responsible. The system benefits those who are worst off. Currently anyone with assets of over £23,350 pays for their care costs. Under the new system anyone with assets under £20,000 will not have to pay anything at all, ensuring those with the least are protected.

Asked if that meant there were “no plans at all” to change the proposals to address the concerns of the Tory MPs who are unhappy about what is being planned, the spokesman said:

That’s right. As I set out, we believe this approach is fair and proportionate and strikes the necessary balance.

Updated

Labour says Johnson's CBI speech was 'shambolic'

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has criticised Boris Johnson’s CBI speech (see 12.01pm) as “shambolic”. She said:

Labour believes that government and business should work hand in hand to boost our recovery, grow our economy, and create prosperity across every part of the UK.

The prime minister’s shambolic speech today not only shows how unseriously he takes British business, but also how his government lacks any plan for growth or to propel our enterprising nations forward.

No one was laughing, because the joke’s not funny anymore.

As the Daily Mirror reports, Richard Swart, who chairs two business organisations in the north-east, the Advanced Manufacturing Forum and the Open North Foundation, has also criticised Boris Johnson’s tone. “This was way below par for a prime minister, especially given the multitude of challenges this country is facing,” he told the Mirror.

Johnson praises Peppa Pig as example of how private sector is more creative than Whitehall

And here is another memorable moment from the Boris Johnson speech. All prime ministers have a vision of a model society they would like the UK to emulate – normally Scandinavia (for the left) or the US (for rightwingers, like California fan Rishi Sunak), but sometimes ancient Greece, or Victorian England. Johnson must be the first PM to reference Peppa Pig World in this context.

Johnson also said that Peppa Pig was emblematic of “the power of UK [private sector] creativity”, and of the limits of what government can achieve. He said:

Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World ...

I was a bit hazy about what I would find in Peppa Pig World but I loved it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place. It has very safe streets, discipline in schools, heavy emphasis on new mass transit systems I notice, even if they’re a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.

But the real lesson for me, going to Peppa Pig World, was about the power of UK creativity. Who would have believed that a pig that looks like a hairdryer, a Picasso-like hairdryer, a pig that was rejected by the BBC, would now be exported to 180 countries, with theme parks both in America and in China, as well as in the New Forest, and a business that’s worth at least £6bn to this country, £6bn and counting. Now, I think that is pure genius, don’t you?

And no government in the world, no Whitehall civil servant, would conceivably have come up with Peppa.

Updated

Here is the moment when Boris Johnson lost his place in his speech to the CBI.

Helen-Ann Smith, Sky’s business correspondent, says it was toe-curling for those in the room.

Johnson claims social care plans 'incredibly generous'

This is what Boris Johnson said during his Q&A at the CBI conference in defence of his social care plans. In response to two questions about the plan, he never really responded to the key argument about the unfairness of what is being proposed (see 9.31am), but he made broader points justifying the plan. He said:

  • Johnson said his plan for social care reform was “incredibly generous”. He said:

These are incredibly generous and they are much better than the existing system.

Under the existing system nobody gets any support if they have assets of £23,000 or more. Now you get support if you have £100,000 or less, so we are helping people.

  • He claimed that in some respects the plan was “more generous” than the original scheme proposed by Sir Andrew Dilnot 10 years ago on which it is based. He said:

It is in fact more generous than some of the original proposals of Andrew Dilnot because it helps people not just who are in residential care but also people who benefit from domiciliary care as well.

Johnson is correct in saying this aspect of his plan is more generous than the original Dilnot plan. But overall the package is less generous than Dilnot, as Dilnot made clear when he gave evidence to MPs last week.

  • Johnson said, by putting a cap on the amount a person might have to pay towards the cost of social care, “you have the potential for the market to come in and offer an insurance product”. Under the current system people cannot insure themselves against the risk of needing social care, he said.
Boris Johnson speaking to the CBI conference in Port Of Tyne. The CBI is having a virtual conference, and speakers are contributing at live events in different parts of the country.
Boris Johnson speaking to the CBI conference in Port Of Tyne. The CBI is having a virtual conference, and speakers are contributing at live events in different parts of the country. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

Updated

Q: What is your message to Tory MPs thinking of rebelling over social care?

Johnson says the new scheme is “much more generous” than the previous scheme.

And he claims it is “very, very progressive”.

He says under the current system people get no support unless they have assets worth £23,000 or less. Now people with up to £100,000 will get help from the state, he says.

And he says the creation of a cap should allow a market in social care insurance to develop. (At the moment it is not feasible for insurers to offer cover, because their potential costs are unlimited.)

And that’s it. The Q&A is over.

Updated

Q: You have been conciliatory to business today. But why won’t you address the unfairness facing energy intensive industries.

Johnson claims he has always been conciliatory towards business. He says he has given pro-business speeches to the CBI for years.

(He must have forgotten this.)

On greening the economy, he says that cannot be done by government alone.

Updated

Q: You have rowed back on what was originally promised on the rail plan for the north, and you have a social care plan that will disproportionately hit people in the north. Are you going back on levelling up?

Johnson says “it’s not a rowing back, it’s better”. The rail plan will have an impact 10 years earlier than the original proposal. “It is a colossal plan,” he says, and it will deliver “fantastic commuter benefits in real time”.

On social care, he says the new system will be more generous than what was originally planned. It will be “incredibly generous”, he claims.

And in some respects it is more generous than the plan originally proposed by Dilnot, he says.

Updated

Johnson is now taking questions from the press. Simon Jack, the BBC’s business editor, goes first.

Q: How can you describe your policies as business friendly?

Johnson defends the integrated rail plan. He says he categoricially rejects the suggestion the rail investment has been set back. It is transformatory.

On business tax, he says corporation tax or business tax is still the lowest in the G7.

The government would like to lower taxes. But racking up unsustainable debt is not right, he says.

Updated

Q: You talk about innovation and skills. What can you do to promote this?

Johnson says universities are getting into the habit of setting up hubs, to work with business on “ideas that can change the world”. He says it is one of the glories of this country that we have so many world-class universities. They are getting better at working with business, he says.

Updated

Q: What can we do to unleash more investment?

Johnson says he was talking to the chancellor about this just last night.

He says the UK is a long way down the international league table for business investment in research and development. He says businesses should take a different approach.

Updated

Johnson says the great resource of the 21st century will be data.

If smaller companies were as good at this as bigger companies, that would take you a long way to levelling up, he says.

Q: The east coast mainline does not have enough capacity now. Are you committed to improving rail links between areas in the north?

Johnson says he is. He says some of the coverage of the integrated rail plan last week was “missing the point”. He says it was a £96bn plan (although much of that sum had been committed before). He quotes figures for how it will cut journey times.

UPDATE: Johnson said:

I must say that I thought, as a lesson in what happens when you tell the British people we’re investing £96bn in the biggest railway programme for 100 years, some of the coverage was missing the point, let me put it that way.

So, Birmingham to Newcastle is 40 minutes quicker under the IRP; from Newcastle to London will have 20 minutes shaved off because of the upgrades to the East Coast Mainline.

You are mad as a railway enthusiast, which I am, to think that you always have to dig huge new trenches through virgin countryside and villages and housing estates in order to do high speed rail.

If we’d done Crossrail like that, we couldn’t - we had to use lots of existing line.

So, Northern Powerhouse Rail will have about 40 miles of new high speed line from Warrington to Marsden but they can speed up the rest by electrification and other improvements. And that’s how you get the massive gains that are going to come.

Updated

Q: [From Sage, a technology company] Will you commit to putting enterprise and entrepreneurship at the heart of the levelling up agenda?

Yes says, Johnson. He says entrepreneurship is a massive part of what he is doing.

He says levelling up will have to be driven by startups. The government has boot camps for entrepreneurs, he says.

Updated

Johnson is now praising Peppa Pig World, which he described as “my kind of place”. There are very safe streets, disciplined schools, and mass transit systems, he says.

But he says he likes it most as a tribute to UK creativity. Who would have thought that a pig looking like a hairdryer could become a global brand, he says.

And that’s it. He’s finished the speech, but is now taking questions.

Updated

Even by Boris Johnson’s standards, this speech has been unusually rambling. But at one point Johnson, who is using a paper script and not a teleprompter, completely loses his place. He goes silent for what seems like an age, but is probably only about 10 seconds, before finding his place and ploughing on.

Updated

Johnson is now defending the integrated rail plan.

He says some people thought Covid would lead to a real change in working habits, with more people working from home.

But he says there are “sound evolutionary reasons why mother nature does not like working from home”.

Johnson says Lenin once said the communist revolution was Soviet power, plus the electrification of the whole country. He says the coming industrial revolution will be green power, plus the electrification of the whole country.

Updated

Johnson jokes about coming “down from Sinai” and delivering his 10-point plan to officials about how the UK will move to net zero.

Updated

Johnson says, despite criticism of what was achieved at Cop26, he is confident that within a few years opening a new coal-fired power station will be as offensive as smoking a cigar on a plane.

Johnson says, as a former motoring correspondent, he can say electric vehicles accelerate faster than Ferrari.

Johnson says there will be no stopping the UK if it can level up productivity, so that all areas have the same productivity as the best areas.

In the Industrial Revolution the UK had a “first mover” advantage. He says the UK can do the same as it moves to a net zero economy.

He recalls his time as motoring correspondent on GQ. It was one of the most hedonistic jobs he had, he says. He says when he was reviewing cars, electric cars were not impressive. But that has changed, he says.

Electric cares are now “getting ever more affordable”, he says. And he says at the Cop26 summit motor manufacturers representing much of the world market said they could go electric by 2035.

Updated

Boris Johnson's speech to CBI conference

Boris Johnson is addressing the CBI conference now. There is a live feed at the top of the blog.

He begins with a tribute to the firms who developed the Covid vaccines.

He says it will not be all “plain sailing” from now.

But he says the UK has been back to something like normal life for longer than comparable countries.

He claims the UK is forecast to have the fastest growth in the G7. And he welcomes the fact that mass unemployment has been avoided.

Minister refuses to promise no one will need to sell their home to fund social care under government's plan

Paul Scully, the minister for small businesses, told Sky News this morning that he hoped no one would have to sell their homes to pay for social care under the government’s plans. But he could not give an assurance that that would be the case.

In their 2019 election manifesto, the Conservatives said they would produce a plan for social care and that “one condition we do make is that nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it”.

But, as Sir Andrew Dilnot explained to a committee of MPs last week, the proposal to cap the amount paid towards care costs at £86,000, means a large proportion of people needing care could still still need to sell their property. (There is a mechanism available that allows someone needing to pay care bills to sell their home but to carry on living in it until they die, but this was not what the Tory manifesto implied.)

Scully told Sky News this morning: “There will be fewer people selling their houses and hopefully none.”

Asked if some people would have to sell their homes under the government’s new system, he said:

I can’t tell you what individuals are going to do. What I’m saying is the social care solution is all about getting a cap above which you do not need to pay – that gives people certainty.

Asked again whether some people receiving care might have to sell up under the proposals, Scully replied:

It will depend on different circumstances.

If you hit the cap you will not have to pay any more money for your personal care – I think that is a fair, balanced approach for taxpayers and people who are having to pay for what is a really expensive, at the moment, form of care through social care.

Paul Scully
Paul Scully Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Dilnot says reversing social care rule change that hit poorer pensioners would cost £750m a year

On the Today programme Sir Andrew Dilnot, the economist who produced a report 10 years ago on which the plans for a cap on the costs of social care are broadly based, told the Today programme this morning that the change announced by the government last week would save the government £900m a year by the end of this decade, compared with the system originally planned which would have allowed less wealthy people to keep a larger share of their assets. He said that was equivalent to £750m in current prices.

To put that in perspective, he said that the health and social care levy would raise more than £10bn a year, and that overall government spending is £800bn a year. He went on:

Of course we need to be careful with how we spend money, but these are small amounts of money compared to the overall level of public spending, and very small amounts of money compared to that which is being raised to pay for health and social care.

Labour urges Tory MPs to reject PM’s ‘care con’ ahead of Commons vote

Good morning. For the second time in less than a week, Boris Johnson is being forced to defend a policy that casts doubt on the credibililty of his levelling up agenda. But there are two reasons why social care is potentially more perilous for him than HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail.

First, the injustice is much starker. The main problem, in political terms, with the rail announcement last week is that it did not live up to the inflated promises Johnson had made in advance. With social care, it is now more clear than ever that when Johnson said his policy would stop people having to sell their homes to pay for care costs, the absolute guarantee did not cover poorer people with less valuable homes. This was always a feature of the policy, but was made more explicit than ever by a technical rule change announced last week.

Second, MPs are getting a vote on the social care plan. There will be a division tonight but even if, as expected, the government wins, the government risks losing on this issue in the Lords.

Here is our overnight preview story.

This morning Labour has intensified its opposition to the government’s plan, with Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, branding it a “care con”.

He told Sky News:

If you live in a £1m house, perhaps in the home counties, 90% of your assets will be protected if you need social care.

But if you live in an £80,000 terrace house in Hartlepool, Barrow, Mansfield or Wigan, for example, you lose nearly everything.

That is not fair, that is not levelling up, it is daylight robbery.

We’re saying to Tory MPs, join with us tonight in rejecting this proposal and instead ask the minister to retreat to the drawing board and come up with something fairer.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, takes part in an LBC phone-in.

10am: Boris Johnson speaks at the CBI conference.

10am: Gillian Keegan, the care minister, speaks at the County Council Network’s annual conference. She will be on a panel with Jeremy Hunt, chair of the Commons health committee.

10am: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, and Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, stage a joint visit to a drug support centre in Glasgow.

11.30am: Downing Street holds its lobby briefing.

12.45pm: Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international trade secretary, gives a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies’ Margaret Thatcher Conference.

1pm: Sir David Amess’s funeral takes place in Southend.

1.30pm: Keir Starmer speaks at the CBI conference. He will tell the business group that Labour will not simply “throw cash at” the country’s problems.

2.30pm: Priti Patel, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: MPs begin debating amendments to the social care bill. The debate on the amendment relating to how the new cap on care costs will work will not start until after 7pm, with the vote after 10pm.

4.30pm: Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, speaks at the CBI conference.

5pm: Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, speaks at the County Councils Network conference.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is 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 questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com

Updated

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