Starmer ‘not telling truth’ over Gaza family asylum decision, claims Badenoch, after PMQs clash – as it happened

• Badenoch challenged Starmer on immigration policy at PMQs after it emerged that the Home Office has strengthened guidance so as to make it almost impossible for people arriving in the UK to acquire British citizenship – even if they successfully apply for asylum. (See 9.22am.) The Tories claimed this as a policy win. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said:

Just days ago, Labour claimed changes to border rules were ‘unworkable’.

But now they’re dancing to our tune with a change in position they have been forced into.

In the House of Lords this afternoon David Blunkett, a former Labour home secretary, expressed concerns about the new guidance, and said parliament should get a vote on it. He suggested it would be bad for social cohesion and unfair on children, and that it could leave people stateless.

• Reform UK has said that, if it wins the next election, it will impose a £10bn a year tax on the renewable energy sector. (See 4.41pm.) The proposals has been criticsed by Common Wealth, a green energy thinktank. Its director Mathew Lawrence said:

The energy system is at a high-stakes crossroad. Households are still feeling the squeeze. Electricity costs for industry remain too high. The solution isn’t to double down on volatile and expensive fossil fuels. It is to deliver an investment surge that builds out home grown clean power. The most cost-effective and direct way to do that is how we built our energy system in the past: public ownership and investment.

Tice is still speaking. He mentions another proposed sanction for solar energy.

He says Reform UK would scrap the Labour plan to apply inheritance tax to some farms.

But if farmers use their land for solar energy, they would not benefit, he says.

You can’t double dip. If you sell out to the renewables industry, then you would not benefit from that inheritance tax relief. That’s only fair.

Tice says battery energy storage systems pose a risk. So Reform UK would ban them, until it can be shown they are absolutely safe, he says.

And he says cables linking windfarms to the electricity grid would have to be placed underground.

Tice ends by restating his claim that Reform UK intend to win the next elections and says lawyers will have to put “risk warnings” in corporate fundraising documents highlighting the potential costs to firms if his party forms a government.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is speaking at a press conference now. It is about green energy. There is a live feed here.

Farage introduces Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, who is going to set out a policy proposal.

Tice says it is good to be back in the City where he was chief executive of a property company. People in Reform UK know about making money and running companies, he says.

Tice says one of the reasons why the economy is doing badly is net zero. He goes on:

Net zero is, without question, the greatest act of self harm ever imposed on a nation by the people in Westminster. It’s killing jobs, whether it’s in the car industry, whether it’s in the oil and gas industry, whether it’s in the steel industry, whether it’s chemicals industry.

The truth is that decarbonization does mean de-industrialisation and the great lie that’s been told is that somehow renewables are cheaper.

Tice says renewables cannot be cheaper because backup is needed.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that the cost of renewables plus backup must be more than the cost of backup. It’s basic common sense.

Tice displays a chart showing that electricity prices in the UK used to be much the same as in the US, but now they are much higher.

So today he is putting the renewables industry on notice, he says. Reform intend to win the next election, he says. And when they do they will impose charges on the renewable sector.

Given that the cost of the subsidies is about £10bn a year … we will be looking to recover that cost of the subsidies from the renewables industry via a number of routes. The first one, the key one, is we will impose a windfall tax on the wind, as well as on the solar, and we will do that, broadly to recover about the cost of the subsidies, primarily through probably a generation-tax based on pounds per megawatt hour.

Keir Starmer has told the families of those killed in the Nottingham attacks that a judge-led public inquiry will take place in “a matter of weeks”, PA Media reports. PA says:

During an emotionally charged meeting at Number 10, the families of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates were told by Starmer that a “number of different agencies” would be scrutinised by the probe.

Valdo Calocane killed 19-year-old students Webber and O’Malley-Kumar and 65-year-old caretaker Coates before attempting to kill three other people in a spate of attacks in the city in June 2023.

He was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility and attempted murder.

Starmer said focusing on just one aspect of the case would not be right as he did not “think that will do justice”.

A retired judge is due to be appointed in due course, with Starmer adding: “As soon as that happens, the process will start.”

The families had called for a statutory inquiry in order for witnesses to be compelled to give evidence, and Starmer said it was important for it to be statutory so witnesses could “answer questions about their actions and their decisions”.

The PM acknowledged it had “taken a long time” to reach a decision on announcing an inquiry, as he sat around the table alongside high-profile ministers such as the health secretary, home secretary and attorney general.

Opening the meeting, Starmer said: “I gave you my word that we would push for a judge-led inquiry. We have looked at the papers… and today I can confirm there will be a judge-led inquiry into this case. More than that, it will be a statutory inquiry.”

Their meeting with the Prime Minister follows the publication of NHS England’s report into the mental health care received by Calocane in the lead-up to the attacks, which found the offer of care and treatment available for him “was not always sufficient to meet his needs”.

Kemi Badenoch says Keir Starmer was wrong when he told MPs at PMQs that the asylum decision she was asking about was made when the last government was in office. She says this shows he “doesn’t tell the truth”.

The Prime Minister misled parliament YET again at PMQs.

He said: “the decision in question was taken under the last Government”.

This is untrue. The case was on the 6 January 2025 https://t.co/JjiKgEXJlm

Not on top of his brief.
Can’t answer questions.
Doesn’t tell the truth

Badenoch does seem to be right on this. But it also another example of relitigating PMQs after the event (see 1.18pm), which is always a sign of failure because it is like trying to win on the replay after you’ve lost the match.

The government has come under renewed pressure over Chinese involvement in a major North Sea wind project, amid claims it threatens national security, PA Media reports. PA says:

Energy minister Kerry McCarthy said the department had processes in place to ensure any risk in the Green Volt North Sea farm was minimised, as the Conservative party said Labour’s green energy targets came with a “made in China label”.

The project, due to be Europe’s largest floating offshore wind farm, is a joint venture between a Japanese and an Italian-Norwegian company.

The Treasury has reportedly selected Chinese firm Mingyang Smart Energy to supply wind turbines.

Among the concerns raised by government departments was that the Chinese state could switch off the power once the wind farm is operational, or that the platforms could be used as spy sensors, according to the Sun.

During an urgent question, the Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine said the government needed to ensure the software could not be accessed remotely or be at risk of being switched off by others.

She said the government must follow “rigorous processes”, adding: “That must include an assessment of any opportunities for remote access to the turbines, as the software will normally remain in control of the manufacturers, even once commissioned, which would leave them vulnerable to being switched off. We need local control.”

McCarthy said: “We have discussions with a wide range, variety, of international investors, but we do absolutely recognise this needs to be balanced against national security implications, and that is something that we work on constantly across Government. We do want to make sure that the most robust processes are followed as we look at the details of this particular incident.”

The referral of David Amess’s killer to Prevent was closed “too quickly”, Dan Jarvis, the security minister, told MPs.

Ali Harbi Ali had been referred to Prevent seven years before he killed the veteran MP on October 15 2021, but his case was closed in 2016.

In his statement to the Commons about how the case was handled (see 1.47pm and 1.48pm), Jarvis said:

The reviewer found that from the material reviewed, the assessment in terms of the perpetrator’s vulnerabilities was problematic, and this ultimately led to questionable decision making and sub-optimal handling of the case during the time he was engaged with Prevent and Channel.

“he reviewer ultimately found that while Prevent policy and guidance at the time was mostly followed, the case was exited from Prevent too quickly.

PA Media reports:

Ali was first referred to Prevent by his school, Riddlesdown college, in October 2014, amid concerns over a change in his behaviour.

The learning review found that he “was an engaging student who had performed well at school and appeared to have a bright future”, but then “his demeanour, appearance and behaviour changed during his final two years at school”.

A month after the Prevent referral, in November 2014, he was moved on to the next stage of the anti-radicalisation scheme, Channel, working with experts in Islamist extremism.

By April 2015 he had exited Channel, when his risk of terrorism was assessed to be low.

One year later, he was again assessed as part of a police review and again his risk was found to be low, and his case was closed.

There were no further referrals to Prevent in the five years before Sir David’s murder in October 2021.

Jarvis told the Commons that the learning review found six issues, including “problematic” record keeping; the rationale for certain decisions not being explained; responsibilities between police and the local authority being blurred; an outdated tool for identifying vulnerability to radicalisation being used; a failure to involve the school who made the referral; and only one intervention session being provided instead of two.

He also said a number of issues in Ali’s case would “most likely not be repeated today” as the reviewer found “significant changes” had been made since his referral, such as the introduction of statutory duties for Prevent and Channel under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

On Radio 4’s the World at One, Chris Bryant, a minister in the culture and science departments, said that he backed the Home Office guidance saying that people who arrive in the UK on small boats should not normally be allowed to get British citizenship. (See 9.22am.) He claimed this was just

Asked if he was in favour, he replied:

To be precise, it’s a new guidance on an old policy.

The law already says, quite rightly and obviously, that if you’ve arrived and you’ve arrived illegally, and you have acted illegally as part of your arrival, then you may well not get citizenship. That’s always been a provision that’s been available in law, and we’re simply clarifying.

When it was put to him that stopping people being granted asylum from being able to acquire citizenship would be bad for integration, and he was asked how he could justify that, Bryant replied:

Because what I want to do is I want to get these numbers down.

Whether it’s people coming in on small boats, or previously we had different versions of people get illegally into this country, and we need to get those numbers down.