Labour will reform benefits system to save £3bn, says minister – UK politics live | Politics

Rachel Reeves is considering raising the tax on vaping products in her budget this month as figures show that a quarter of 11 to 15-year-olds in England have used e-cigarettes.

The chancellor is looking at increasing the tax after a consultation carried out by the last Conservative government.

In his budget in March, Jeremy Hunt announced a tax on vaping products, which is due to take effect in October 2026, in a move to make vaping unaffordable for children.

NHS figures on Thursday revealed that one in four children aged 11-15 in England tried vaping in 2023 – up from 22% two years earlier – with almost one in 10 (9%) using e-cigarettes regularly. By comparison, 11% said they had tried cigarettes.

Matt Fagg, NHS England’s director for prevention and long-term conditions, said the statistics were “incredibly concerning. It means they are at risk of becoming hooked on one of the world’s most addictive substances, and that is before we consider the longer-term impacts which are still unclear.”

Andrew Gwynne, a health minister, also said the figures were worrying. “The health advice is clear that children and adult non-smokers should never vape, so it is unacceptable to see unscrupulous retailers marketing them at children,” he said.

An increase in the tax on vaping products would probably go hand-in-hand with an increase in tobacco duty so as not to encourage people to switch to smoking.

The move could raise hundreds of millions of pounds for the exchequer. The vape tax as designed by Hunt is due to raise £120m in 2026-27, rising to £445m by 2028-29, according to estimates from the charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

You can read more on this exclusive by Eleni Courea, Peter Walker and Andrew Gregory here:

A veteran Conservative MP has sparked outrage after saying he would not support Kemi Badenoch to be the Tory party leader because she is “preoccupied with her own children”.

Sir Christopher Chope told ITV News that the frontrunner in his party’s leadership race would be unable to commit to the role of leader of the opposition as she has young children.

Chope said he would support Badenoch’s opponent, the former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, adding:

I myself am supporting Robert Jenrick because I think he’s brought more energy and commitment to the campaign, and being leader of the opposition is a really demanding job.

Much as I like Kemi, I think she’s preoccupied with her own children, quite understandably. I think Robert’s children are a bit older, and I think that it’s important that whoever leads the opposition has got an immense amount of time and energy.”

Both candidates have three children. Badenoch’s youngest is five and Jenrick’s is eight.

Chope’s comments were quickly condemned by members of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, with Jenrick also distancing himself from them.

Liz Jarvis, the Liberal Democrat MP, tweeted: “Diminishing women’s ability to play leading roles in public life because they have young families is an attitude that should be in the distant past.”

Helena Dollimore, a Labour backbencher, posted: “I thought nothing could shock me about the state of the Conservative party, but that was before I had to sit through Christopher Chope MP opining about whether mothers can lead political parties.”

Her Labour colleague Stella Creasy added: “This is why we urgently need paternity leave sorted. Because until people start wondering if dads get distracted by their kids as much as they do mums, we will always have dinosaurs walk amongst us … or in this case on the modernisation committee in parliament …”

A spokesperson for Jenrick also disowned Chope’s comments, saying: “Rob doesn’t agree with this. He’s raising three young daughters himself.”

The Home Office has recruited 200 staff to clear a backlog of 23,300 modern slavery cases left by the last government, a minister has told the Guardian.

Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, said the department planned to end prolonged uncertainty and anguish for survivors by finalising the cases within two years.

It follows reports that some trafficked survivors have been waiting years to be defined as victims of modern slavery.

There are an estimated 130,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK, trapped in sectors including agriculture, prostitution and care. Most have suffered traumatic sexual, physical and economic abuse but face long delays in having their status confirmed through the National Referral Mechanism (NRM).

The aim of the NRM is to protect people from further abuse once they are no longer being controlled by their traffickers by providing safe housing, counselling and other support to help them recover from their ordeal.

Phillips, who met survivors of modern slavery on Thursday at Salvation Army premises in Denmark Hill, south London, said that the government was attempting to right a wrong by issuing a final decision in the process.

“For too long, modern slavery survivors and the harrowing experiences they have lived through have not been given the attention and support they deserve,” she said.

“This is going to change. The actions I have announced today are a first step towards putting survivors first, eradicating the backlog of modern slavery cases to give victims the clarity and peace of mind they need to move on with their lives.”

Badenoch and Jenrick spar over visions for future of Tory party in TV debate

Peter Walker

Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have attacked each other’s visions for the future of the Conservative party, in a sometimes low-key debate which could nonetheless prove significant in who becomes the next opposition leader.

The event on GB News, the only debate scheduled, involved the pair taking turns to tackle questions from audience members rather than going head to head, but featured notable differences of opinion on strategy and policies such as immigration.

Jenrick, going first, repeatedly pledged to “end the drama” in the Tory party, seen as a coded reference to Badenoch’s sometimes combustible approach.

Badenoch was polite about her opponent as a person but scathing when it came to his suite of headline policies, notably Jenrick’s repeated pledge to immediately quit the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which he again styled on Thursday as a Brexit-type “leave or remain” issue.

Badenoch argued the idea was a distraction from bigger worries and not properly thought-out.

“We need to stop blaming the EU or international agreements and start fixing problems here ourselves,” she said.

Leaving the ECHR was “not dissimilar to leaving the EU in terms of the consequences”, Badenoch said, in that there could be significant repercussions for Northern Ireland, where the convention forms an integral part of the peace process.

Badenoch, who gained noticably more applause than Jenrick from the audience of Tory members and won a post-event show of hands, criticised Jenrick’s policy focus, saying that with an election still far away, the party needed to first look at its fundamentals.

You can read the full recap by Peter Walker here:

SNP chief executive Murray Foote has announced he will stand down, saying in a statement he could not make the “necessary personal commitment” to delivering change in the party ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election, reports the PA news agency.

The former Daily Record editor was appointed to the role in a surprising move in 2023 after previously resigning as the party’s head of communications in a row with former chief executive – and Nicola Sturgeon’s husband – Peter Murrell over membership numbers.

“The SNP has recently embarked on a substantial process of internal reorganisation and renewal to better equip it for current electoral contests and to prepare for the critical Scottish parliament elections in 2026,” he said in a statement.

He added:

While I agree these changes are both essential and appropriate, I also recognised after a period of reflection that I could not make the necessary personal commitment to leading the delivery of these changes into 2026 and beyond.

In the circumstances, I concluded it would be in my best interests and the best interests of the party that I step down to give my replacement the time and space to mould and develop these changes in a manner they deem appropriate.”

The PA news agency reports that Foote will stay in the role until a successor is appointed.

Labour will bring its “own reforms” to the benefits system in order to make £3bn worth of cuts rather than stick to Tory plans, a minister has suggested, reports the PA news agency.

Work and pensions minister Alison McGovern was asked by Times Radio why Labour was pressing ahead with plans made by the previous Conservative government to reform work capability rules.

She replied:

Like all departments, the Department for Work and Pensions has to make savings because we are in a terrible financial situation.

To be clear, on that point we will bring forward our own reforms because the last 14 years have been a complete failure when it comes to employment.”

Pressed if this meant there would be no cuts, she added:

We will not go ahead with the Tory plan because that was theirs. We will need to make savings like all departments, but we will bring forward our own reforms.”

Rachel Reeves will seek to make around £3bn of cuts to welfare over the next four years by restricting access to sickness benefits, it is understood. The chancellor is looking to raise up to £40bn from tax hikes and spending cuts in the budget as the government seeks to avoid a return to austerity, reports the PA news agency.

Elsewhere, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, will join US president Joe Biden, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin for talks focused largely on how to end the fighting in Ukraine as Russian forces advance in the east and a bleak winter of power cuts looms.

More on that in a moment. In other developments and upcoming events:

• British foreign secretary David Lammy will meet his counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Friday to “challenge” China on sensitive issues like Russia’s war in Ukraine, as the two nations seek to rebuild frayed ties. Lammy is the first British cabinet minister to visit China since Labour prime minister Keir Starmer took office in July.

• Rachel Reeves is considering raising the tax on vaping products in her budget this month as figures show that a quarter of 11 to 15-year-olds in England have used e-cigarettes. The chancellor is looking at increasing the tax after a consultation carried out by the last Conservative government.

• The chancellor is taking action to ensure her budget plan for a multibillion-pound increase in government borrowing to fund infrastructure projects avoids a Liz Truss-style meltdown in financial markets. Ahead of her tax and spending event on 30 October, Reeves is convening on Friday the first meeting of a taskforce of leading City figures to advise on infrastructure projects.

• Kemi Badenoch has criticised a Conservative MP’s suggestion she could not head the Tories because she was too “preoccupied” with her children, saying “it isn’t always women who have parental responsibilities”.

• Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, has written to the prime minister urging him to intervene and stop the cuts in this year’s budget. He said, in a letter seen by the PA news agency, that Starmer must “listen to voters and your own cabinet colleagues: intervene now, overrule the chancellor and stop the cuts, or people in Scotland will never forgive the Labour party”.

• The Home Office has recruited 200 staff to clear a backlog of 23,300 modern slavery cases left by the last government, a minister has told the Guardian. Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, said the department planned to end prolonged uncertainty and anguish for survivors by finalising the cases within two years.