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Reeves says Treasury policies are always 'under review' when asked about planned fuel duty hike
Reeves was asked if she would come back to the Commons at the end of this parliamentary session to say she will review the decision to increase fuel duty this autumn if petrol prices are significantly higher than they are today (due to a prolonged conflict in the Middle East). Reeves responded:
The price today of petrol is 8 pence per litre lower than if I had a followed the plans that were left to me by the previous Conservative government. And from April they will be 11 pence per litre lower.
Of course, we keep these things, under review. But if you look at petrol prices, oil prices today, they are 24% lower than they were yesterday.
So things are very volatile at the moment, which is why, as I said yesterday, the most important thing we can do to address the cost of living challenges people face is to de-escalate the conflict in the Middle East.
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More than 45,000 British nationals have returned to the UK from the Middle East since the start of the crisis in the region, Number 10 said.
Giving an update on evacuation efforts, the prime minister’s spokesman told reporters that on Monday a total of 32 flights carrying 7,400 British nationals returned to the UK from the Middle East.
He added:
Today, Tuesday, 36 flights, are scheduled to land in the UK today, with eight flights I think landing so far.
As of this morning, 173,000 British citizens have registered their presence with the FCDO.
Neha Gohil
The Guardian’s midlands correspondent, Neha Gohil, was at the Reform press conference in Derbyshire earlier where Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick announced a pledge to reverse Labour’s planned fuel duty increase:
At the forecourt in Newhaven, which has been rebranded under the name ‘Reform, Refuel’ and ‘25p off with Farage’, the party has paid for a cut to petrol prices by 25p a litre for motorists for one day.
Farage and Jenrick criticised “net zero madness” and said the party would fund its plans by getting “rid of lunatic green levies”, naming the boiler upgrade scheme.
Jenrick was challenged on his previous support for net zero policies under previous Conservative governments. He said he was the second Conservative MP to call net zero a “fantasy”.
“It was never going to be achieved, that it was impoverishing our country … It was a huge mistake, and all of us who were involved in that should appreciate it.”
Lisa O’Carroll
Migration minister Mike Tapp has said a “crumbling” infrastructure in the UK was behind the government’s plans to increase the standard qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain in the UK from five to 10 years.
Defending the proposal, he told the House of Lords home affairs committee that many of those applying to stay in the country would be looking for social support, something the country could not afford.
“Many of those people are due to settle soon, and that [ILR after five years] would put untold stresses on our, welfare system and, social housing, for example. So by making it retrospective, we take that pressure off of the already buckling system,” he said.
He denied it was motivated by the costs to the exchequer. “It’s not a money saving exercise. It’s looking after the infrastructure of the nation that’s already, crumbling. We’ve inherited a really difficult, situation when it comes to, to housing and welfare,” Tapp told the committee.
He also said they had 200,000 responses to the public consultation which could take “months” to go through.
Lisa O’Carroll
Mike Tapp was also pressed about the case of Shamima Begum, the stateless former British citizen who left an east London school at the age of 15 to join ISIS, by Lord Dubs during the House of Lords committee appearance.
Dubs put it to the migration minister that it could be argued that as a child she was trafficked into ISIS and that “surely there must be some way in which we as parliamentarians can engage with that issue of the deprivation of that person’s citizenship.”
Tapp responded:
I maintain my, statement that if you join a terror organisation to harm this country, you shouldn’t be here. Of course there are rights of appeal.
Lisa O’Carroll
Migration minister Mike Tapp has admitted he does not know the height of the London Eye, failing a question in the Home Office’s Life in the UK test that citizenship applicants must pass before being naturalised.
But Tapp insisted he wouldn’t fail the test just because he couldn’t answer what he agreed may not be a relevant question for citizenship applications. He was being quizzed at the House of Lords home affairs committee.
“I don’t know the height of the London Eye,” he told them after being repeatedly asked to answer the question from the test.
“So you would fail the test,” he was asked by Lord Bath, the chair of the committee, who wanted to know what was the relevance of knowing this fact in a citizenship test which is designed to help integration.
“I’m confident that I would be able to pass the test. Absolutely. I’m a proud Brit. I’ve served the country,” Tapp said.
Ben Quinn
A UK government minister has said she expects police to take “robust action” against those expressing support for the Iranian regime ahead of a pro-Palestinian rally in London this weekend.
Sarah Sackman was speaking in advance of the annual Al Quds Day march in London on Sunday, which is organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC).
The body says that the event has taken place peacefully for the past 40 years and will attempt to highlight the ongoing plight of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
However, previous events have included participants waving the flag of the Iran-backed Lebanese group, Hezbollah, which is banned in the UK as a terrorist organisation. Rhetoric including chants calling for death to America and Israel have also been highlighted in the past.
The courts minister, Sarah Sackman, told LBC radio on Tuesday:
Those expressing support for the malign regime in Iran and the IRGC and its proxies have no place in our society.
They shouldn’t be on the streets of London calling for hate and hostility against this country. That’s thoroughly anti-British and I expect the police and the home secretary to take the necessary action against those people.
On Times Radio, she said: “I’m clear that hate marches like the Al Quds march has no place in British society and the authorities and the police should take the enforcement action needed against these marches.”
The Metropolitan police has said it has not ruled out a range of options ahead of the march, including seeking the imposition of an outright ban on the rally this weekend.
Reeves says Treasury policies are always 'under review' when asked about planned fuel duty hike
Reeves was asked if she would come back to the Commons at the end of this parliamentary session to say she will review the decision to increase fuel duty this autumn if petrol prices are significantly higher than they are today (due to a prolonged conflict in the Middle East). Reeves responded:
The price today of petrol is 8 pence per litre lower than if I had a followed the plans that were left to me by the previous Conservative government. And from April they will be 11 pence per litre lower.
Of course, we keep these things, under review. But if you look at petrol prices, oil prices today, they are 24% lower than they were yesterday.
So things are very volatile at the moment, which is why, as I said yesterday, the most important thing we can do to address the cost of living challenges people face is to de-escalate the conflict in the Middle East.
You can watch the chancellor responding to questions here:
Reeves recognises 'motoring costs have evolved significantly' and says she is taking action
The chancellor was asked what steps her department is taking to ensure that HMRC approved mileage rates are up to date. Reeves responded:
While the approved mileage allowance payment rates have not changed since 2011, I recognise that motoring costs have evolved significantly, and it’s an important issue for many people who claim motoring expenses.
We are therefore looking at the issue and will consider the matter further in the usual way as part of a future fiscal event.
Through steps like freezing fuel duty, we’re taking wider action in the meantime to ensure people pay the lowest price possible at the pump, whether or not they use the approved mileage allowance payments.
The current 45p a mile rate was put in place in 2011. Former Labour minister Jim McMahon said current costs of running a car worked out at about 67p a mile.
Rachel Reeves is now answering Treasury questions in the House of Commons. We will bring you the key lines.
Before taking questions from journalists, Nigel Farage pledged to reverse the government’s planned fuel duty hike by scrapping what he described as “lunatic” net zero levies.
Speaking at Newhaven services on Tuesday, he said: “The way we sneakily do tax in this country means there’s about 6p going on a litre of petrol staged over the course of the next few months. And this is just about the last time this should happen.
“How are we going to pay for not increasing taxes? Well, we’re going to get rid of lunatic green levies. In particular, I’m thinking about heat pump subsidies.”
Farage has sought to make hostility to net zero a centrepiece of Reform’s electoral pitch. Last year he claimed the government could save over £40bn a year from abandoning net zero commitments. But the experts he relied on for that calculation subsequently warned that the figure was mainly made up of private-sector investment, which does not contribute towards public spending.
Robert Palmer, deputy director of campaign group Uplift, accused Farage of being a “cheerleader for an oil and gas industry that is making obscene profits at our expense”.
He said:
It’s clear that the only route to lower bills and secure energy is to free ourselves from oil and gas through homegrown renewable energy and upgrading homes, whether that’s with solar panels or heat pumps. This is just common sense in today’s world.
New North Sea drilling will make no difference to UK energy bills and have no meaningful impact on the UK’s supply of gas.
The Ministry of Defence said earlier that landing ship RFA Lyme Bay is being prepared for potential deployment to the eastern Mediterranean. The vessel has aviation and medical facilities.
Meanwhile, Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon is due to be sent to the eastern Mediterranean to help protect Cyprus and the RAF bases there from further drone or missile attacks.
As my colleague Dan Sabbagh notes in this story, France has already deployed its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier into the eastern Mediterranean and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, met Cyprus’s president, Nikos Christodoulides, and Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, on Monday.
Britain has faced criticism from Cyprus about not acting fast enough to protect the country, home to two UK bases.
Farage: UK can't get directly involved in 'another foreign war'; doesn't 'have a navy'
When pressed to clarify Reform’s position, Farage said:
We cannot get involved directly in another foreign war. We don’t have a navy. We can’t even defend our own military base in Cyprus.
