Politics latest: Major prisons announcement expected; PM defends Biden (2024)

As the new prime minister makes his international debut at the NATOsummit in Washington – what does he need to do to make a quick impact with international colleagues?

On today's Daily, Niall Paterson is joined by political correspondent Tamara Cohen to discuss how Sir Keiris tackling his first overseas visit.

Plus,Lord Peter Ricketts, former diplomatand French ambassador,joins Niall to lookat Labour's wider foreign policy plans.

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Water bills are to rise by an average of 21% over the next five years, the industry regulator Ofwat has ruled.

But with the impact of the cost-of-living, water companies spilling record amounts of sewage into our waters, and controversialbonuses for senior leaders, do we need a complete overhaul of theindustry?

On this episode, Niall Paterson hears from our business correspondent Paul Kelso in Henley, on the impact for consumers, providersand our water ways.

Niall also speaks to Stuart Colville, deputy CEO of Water UK, which representsthe water companies, asking why they disagree with Ofwat’s plans.

Plus, Feargal Sharkey, campaigner and former lead vocalist of The Undertones,joins Niall to share his reaction and the story behind his efforts to protect our rivers and seas.

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For further background from Sky News, you can read Paul Kelso’s further analysis of Ofwat's business plansfor Thames Water’s survival here.

ByTim Baker, political reporter

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has urged people to "bear with" the government as it struggles to afford all the policies it wants to implement.

His defence comes amid growing calls from Labour backbenches for the government to scrap the two-child benefit cap - with it shaping up to be the new prime minister's first major row with his own party.

It is estimated that 1.6 million children are missing out on benefits due to the cap.

The Conservative government introduced the cap, which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or Universal Credit for more than two children for those born after April 2017.

It means families cannot claim about £3,200 a year per extra child, the Resolution Foundation has said.

The new PM Sir Keir Starmer has previously called for the cap to be scrapped - but says it is not currently affordable to do so.

Speaking to the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge, Mr Streeting said he voted against the cap when it was introduced, and he is not comfortable with it.

He added that Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall was working "at pace" on a cross-government plan to tackle child policy, like the last Labour government.

Read more here:

Sir Keir Starmer wraps his first NATO summit but a week since that exit poll dropped predicting his landslide majority.

It has been a whirlwind start, but the prime minister and his team are leaving the summit content their objectives were met.

The trip had two main aims:

• Carry out some speed-dating diplomacy;
• Set out their foreign policy priorities around Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.

One senior government figure told me as the trip drew to a close that it had been "great" to have so many leaders here in the first full week of Sir Keir's term.

"It's short cut a process that could otherwise have taken months to get round everyone, and meant we could make the most of the momentum coming out of the election and while there was maximum interest in the PM to raise all the strategic issues we wanted to and reset from our predecessors."

In this, there was both continuity and change.

When it comes to NATO and Ukraine, Sir Keir is all about continuity Sunak - re-committing to the £3bn a year of funding already promised, while also urging NATO allies to lift defence spending over time.

In his closing remarks, Sir Keir told NATO allies that "in light of the grave threats to our security, we must go further". He urged allies to lift spending to 2.5% of GDP as he reiterated his pledge to "set out a clear path" to get the UK there - despite telling me in an interview earlier that it would be "unserious" to "simply to pick an arbitrary date".

If he intends to reach the target, he has to make good on the pledge in his first term, and I suspect this will be a theme that keeps running through his defence review and his premiership if he refuses to commit in the first term of office.

It also somewhat undermines his overtures to fellow allies.

But while there is change over in Europe, the new administration is keen to shake off Brexit baggage and reset relations with EU partners after a tense few years between successive Conservative prime ministers and other European capitals over Brexit's execution.

Sir Keir wants to deepen trade, security and defence ties with European neighbours, and viewed this summit as an opportunity to kickstart that work.

But on the edges of this summit, the PM also talked about issues back home - the prisons crisis being the top of his in-tray, with an announcement expected later outlining how the government will tackle the acute shortage of prison places.

As one of the Number 10 team put it to me: "We're well aware this is the honeymoon."

It's only going to get harder when they get home.

The prime minister gave a news conference at the NATO summit late last night. But before he took to the podium, US President Joe Biden made a very public gaffe.

The 81-year-old president mistakenly referred to Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" - triggering gasps in the room, and intensifying calls for him to bow out of the presidential race.

Sir Keir Starmer was asked by Sky's political editor Beth Rigbyif he stood by his comment to her earlier in the day that concerns about his cognitive ability are misjudged.

He replied that the NATO summit was "successful", adding: "He [Biden] led it, he deserves credit for that.

"The outcome that matters is that Ukraine, you know, they are - look at what happened in that hospital last week. They are facing Russian aggression in its physical sense every single day. They are dying every single day, children are dying. And they need are support.

"And [it's] not just support for Ukraine - it is also about our values, and it is about what we stand for. And it's about what NATO values are."

The PM continued that the allies reached a declaration at the end of the summit, and added: "President Biden deserves credit for planning this, leading this, and getting us to that stage."

Watch Sir Keir's comments in full here:

The government has just published some new data on prisons ahead of an expected announcement of measures to ease overcrowding.

According to the release, there were just 708 places left in the adult male prison estate on 8 July.

Since the start of 2023, 60 out of 69 weeks have seen the occupancy rate higher than 99%.

Overall, the population of adult male prisons has increased by around 60 people per week on average.

That increase in the prison population is despite theEnd of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) that was first announced in October 2023, allowing some prisoners to be freed 18 days before their conditional release date.

That wasincreased to 35 days in March, and then to 70 days in May.

Data shows that between 17 October 2023 and 30 June of this year, 10,083 people were released under the programme.

The government is expected to expand early releases to ease the prison population, with some prisoners to be freed after serving just 40% of their sentences, rather than 50%.

We reported a little earlier that four people died while attempting to cross the English Channel to the UK from France overnight (see post at 7.59).

The home secretary has just issued a statement, describing the loss of life as "truly awful", saying: "My thoughts are with all those affected."

Yvette Cooper added: "Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk.

"We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue and bring down dangerous smuggler gangs."

By Tim Baker, political reporter

Sir Keir Starmer has "doubled down" on his promise to hold a free vote on assisted dying in the future.

The new prime minister has not committed to a timeline for considering a change of law, although hinted it may not be in the coming year.

But his stance is that MPs will be able to choose to vote with their conscience, rather than along party lines.

Speaking on his trip to NATO in the US, the new prime minister was asked when he would hold the vote he had previously promised on the topic.

He said: "What I said was that we would provide time for this, obviously by way of a private member's bill."

A private member's bill is a proposed change of law suggested in the Commons by an MP and not on behalf of the government.

The prime minister added: "There'll be a free vote - that remains my position for reasons I set out.

"Having probably got more experience in this than most people having personally, looked at, tens of cases in my time as director of public prosecutions.

"As to the timing of it. I haven't made a commitment on that, and I don't want to because... It's just, we've got to set our priorities for the first year or so.

"But I will double down on the commitment that we are going to do that. We will allow time for a private member's bill. It will be a free vote."

Read the PM's full comments here:

We've just been hearing from former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland ahead of the new government's expected announcement of measures to ease prison overcrowding.

Sir Robert lost his seat at the general election last week, and he clarified that he is not speaking on behalf of the Conservative Party, but rather as someone who has worked in the justice system for many years.

Asked for his view on the expected announcement that certain prisoners will be released after serving 40% of their sentences, rather than the current 50%, he replied: "I don't think any of us should say that it's a great thing. I think all of us want to see certainty in sentencing."

He said the most serious offenders are not part of this early release scheme, and advised the new justice secretary to "make sure that we aren't releasing people who could pose a risk, particularly domestic abusers, stalkers, those type of offenders".

We asked why the issue of prison overcrowding was allowed to get so bad, and he admitted that when he was in post in from 2019 to 2021, he "was constantly battling and making sure that we didn't exceed capacity".

"The prison system is always run, as we say, in a very hot way - 98% of the prison estate will be full at any one time, and the prison building programme... is coming forward, but not at a pace that is quick enough, I think, to meet demand."

He blamed the "slow" planning system for the failure to build new prisons.

Sir Robert said he wants to hear more than a "sticking plaster" from the new government today, and rather a long-term plan for the system.

He also warned against "sending mixed messages about punishment", saying it is"not a good way, frankly, to start a penal policy".

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to put a date on when he will increase defence spending to 2.5% of national income.

The prime minister is under pressure to match the timeframe set out by the last Conservative government, which said it would increase spending by 2030 in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the rising threats posed by China and Iran.

Speaking to Sky News's political editor Beth Rigby, Sir Keir said it was "right to say" that European nations were going to have to "put more in" to their defence budgets and that such discussions formed the "big theme" of the NATO summit in Washington DC that he attended with US President Joe Biden.

But asked repeatedly whether he would commit to increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP "by the end of the parliament", the prime minister said he thought it would be "unserious... to simply pick an arbitrary date".

He said the figure was a "serious commitment" and that he wanted to "set out a roadmap to it within our fiscal rules".

"I'm not going to put a date on it because it's going to be within our fiscal rules," he continued.

Read more from the PM's interview with Sky News here: