Starmer to chair cabinet meeting as Labour sits on front benches for first time in 14 years: Live updates

The Tory slogan “levelling up” will be stripped out of Government departments and ministerial job titles, Jim McMahon has suggested.

The communities minister was asked by BBC Breakfast if the slogan would remain a part of his job title. He replied: “No, it was firmly tippexed out of the department yesterday, so we are now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

“Why that is important for me is levelling up was only ever a slogan, it wasn’t a thing that people felt in their communities.”

After adding that it was also important to ensure local government was included in the department’s title, he said: “It is a reshaping of the department. It is a refocus, but frankly it is also just grown up politics.”

Suffering from pneumonia, Reform candidate Mark Matlock checked social media after he missed election nightto find he was being accused of being an AI bot.

Looking at his glossy profile picture, online commentators had decided he was computer-generated and the inevitable Twitter pile-on ensued.

Fuel was added to the fire when he didn’t show up for hustings or even the election count after winning 1,758 votes for Brixton and Clapham Hill on a day of national success for Nigel Farage and his fledgling party.

Good morning. As the House of Commons is to sit with Labour on government front benches for the first time in 14 years, prime minister Keir Starmer and his cabinet are set for a busy day.

This is the schedule for today:

7.30am: Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner will meet metro mayors from around the country.

9.30am: Sir Keir Starmer chairs his Cabinet.

2.30pm: Parliament returns with Labour ministers on the Government frontbench for the first time in more than a decade.

Negotiations between junior doctors in England and the new Government are expected to start today with a view to end the long-running dispute over pay.

Medics from the British Medical Association (BMA) are to meet with Department of Health and Social Care officials to try and hammer out a deal to see an end to strikes which have been causing widespread disruption across the health service.

Officials from the union have previously said that they expect the conversation could be “tough”. But the BMA’s junior doctors committee has said Labour comments about pay rises being a “journey and not an event” align with their pay restoration goals.

Health leaders urged the Government to resolve the dispute as a “priority” after it emerged that tens of thousands of appointments were postponed as a result of the latest strike.

NHS England said 61,989 appointments, procedures and operations were postponed as a result of the walkout from June 27 to July 2.

UK mayors have arrived at Downing Street for a roundtable meeting with prime minister Keir Starmer as he pledged to loosen Whitehall’s “tight grip” over big cities and regions.

London mayor Sadiq Khan, Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and Liverpool mayor Steve Rotherham were among those who walked into No 10 this morning.

Before entering No 10, Mr Khan said: “I’m looking forward to meeting the new Prime Minister.”

Rwanda “has fully upheld its side of the agreement”, its government said after Sir Keir Starmer confirmed the deportation policy is to be scrapped.

The Prime Minister announced over the weekend the previous Conservative government’s plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda was “dead and buried before it started”.

In a statement, a Rwandan government spokesperson said: “Rwanda takes note of the intention of the UK Government to terminate the Migration and Economic Development Partnership Agreement, as provided for under the terms of the treaty passed by both our parliaments.

“This partnership was initiated by the Government of the UK in order to address the crisis of irregular migration affecting the UK – a problem of the UK, not Rwanda.

“Rwanda has fully upheld its side of the agreement, including with regard to finances, and remains committed to finding solutions to the global migration crisis, including providing safety, dignity and opportunity to refugees and migrants who come to our country.”

Rishi Sunak has named his shadow cabinet in the face of Conservative’s devastating election loss.

The party has named Jeremy Hunt, who narrowly held his seat on Thursday, its shadow chancellor, with James Cleverly shadow home secretary, mirroring the portfolios they held in government.

Former deputy foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell will become the shadow foreign secretary as Lord Cameron stepped back from frontline politics, while Richard Fuller, the former economic secretary to the Treasury, has been made the new Conservative chairman.

Leadership frontrunner Kemi Badenoch has been shifted to become shadow levelling-up secretary, while Kevin Hollinrake will shadow her former Business Secretary post.

But the ex-PM has tendered his resignation and will not serve in the shadow cabinet now the party is out of government.

The chancellor has ordered civil servants to compile a dossier on the state of the economy after 14 years of Tory rule.

In a speech at the Treasury, she said she had repeatedly warned about the dire state of the public finances during the general election and “what I have seen in the past 72 hours has only confirmed that”.