Burnham says he has not proposed return to EU freedom of movement – UK politics live

Q: Do you regard China as a threat? And, if you were invited to China, would you got there and meet President Xi? Badenoch said she had always been clear China was “an economic threat”. And it is a country spying on the UK, she said. She went on: What I am saying is that we need to take [China] seriously.

I’m not saying we need to go to war with China, but what I’m saying is that what they want is economic dominance, and the more dominant they are, then the more susceptible we are to coercion. So if I’m prime minister of this country and I get an invite, depending on what China has been doing recently, I might go, but not when it is holding dissidents, British citizens in its prisons, and not releasing them.

I would be going and getting those people released. Keir Starmer went to China and got humiliated, got absolutely nothing. That would not be happening with me. Badenoch may have been referring in particular to Jimmy Lai.

Q: Do you think the UK should reconsider Commonwealth membership, given other countries just keep asking us for slavery reparations? Badenoch said she did not agree with that “because most Commonwealth countries aren’t doing this”. She said the Commonwealth could be a force for good. But it had become “distracted”, she said.

Q: What do you say to the argument that an apology for slavery could be good for British security and British interests, particularly in terms of relations with China? Badenoch said China would not be impressed by the UK apologising. She went on: China did all sorts of things. It’s not out there apologising. The purpose of the apology is to make us look weak. It is to make this country look weak.

And once we start looking weak, then we have every man and his dog making demands and sending us an invoice, which the British taxpayer has to pay. We don’t have money for that anymore. We are running out of money. The little we have is being spent on welfare. Anyone who thinks that an apology is serious trade and economic policy … I’ve got a bridge to sell them, they don’t know how this stuff works.

Q: Would you support the food deal with the EU if it required dynamic alignment with EU regulations? Or is that a red line for you? Badenoch replied: Dynamic alignment is a red line because it gives away the biggest freedom that we have from leaving the European Union, which is to control our own laws. That’s why it doesn’t make any sense … Look at AI, for example. We are doing so much better than them.

Europe is going backwards, regulating a sector that doesn’t exist.

Q: Angela Rayner says she is stocking up on wine. What are you stockpiling? Badenoch replied: Water. Water’s the most important thing. I don’t blame Angela Rayner for wanting to stock up on sauvignon blanc. I would if I was in that party with all of those people in there. I’d need a drink.

Q: Do you support the deal with the EU to end checks on food exports? Badenoch said she did not know what the deal was. She said she wanted to see Labour negotiating and improve the trade deal; the deal negotiated by the Tories was one that would need to be updated, she said. But she said she was worried that Burnham’s deal with the EU would make things better.

She said: The reason why we left the EU was so we could make our own rules. But if what the government is signing up to is just following EU rules, then what was the point of leaving? They are too scared to actually use the Brexit freedoms that we have. The free trade agreement that we have with the EU, like many others, is one that needs constant negotiating.

So I want to see Labour negotiating and improving on deals with all countries. That’s what you do when you have your own trade policy. That’s what it means. It’s a never-ending process. But she said she was worried Burnham was giving too much away. [Burnham] doesn’t know h

After her speech, Badenoch took questions from journalists. Q: Should companies take responsibility for their own cyber security, or is it a job for the state? Badenoch said private companies should take their security seriously, and get their systems upgraded. But the government had to work with them too. And it needed to get its own house in order, she said.

Kemi Badenoch has been giving a speech on defence at a rally in London. Here are extracts released by CCHQ overnight. Hackers have taken control of supermarket fridges and freezers across Europe, turning up the temperatures and destroying thousands of pounds of food.

Imagine someone being able to ruin the food in your local supermarket without ever setting foot inside … North Korean hackers have just stolen more than $6bn in cryptocurrency. Hostile states can steal billions to help finance their regimes without firing a single shot … Hackers targeted power and heating plants in Poland, shutting down equipment at one facility supplying heat to 50,000 people.

The operators prevented a wider disruption, but imagine someone being able to threaten your heating from behind a computer screen … The threats are already reaching into our everyday lives, but Labour is failing to take them seriously. Last week’s Budget was the moment to fund defence, but instead we got more delays, more excuses an

This is what Shabana Mahmood said in her interview with the BBC’s Iain Watson when he put it to her that the care worker U-turn in her ILR announcement yesterday (see 9. 11am) would mean the government saying £7. 5bn less than under the original plans.

This figure seems to be based on Mahmood saying earlier this year the original plans would save £10bn, and her estimate that three-quarters of workers who would have been covered are now included in the exemption announced yesterday. Look, I’m not going to just give you a number. It will be laid out properly in an impact assessment.

But we do already know that the changes that I have announced today, including the changes for the cohort that will now not get settlement at five years, including care workers not working in care who are most likely to fall upon the state once they got settlement, they will now be waiting longer, and that does represent billions in savings to the DWP. If you are interested in where the £10bn figure came from i

The EU and the UK have completed their deal to remove Brexit checks on imports and exports of food and animal products ranging from sausages and cheese to leather goods and flowers, Lisa O’Carroll reports.

Good morning. In a Today programme interview broadcast this morning at 8.10am, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, ended by saying this about her plans to tighten the rules that determine when foreign workers and their dependants can get settlement. As a result of these changes, roughly half a million people who were going to settle at five years are not now going to settle. So on any measure, these are still very significant changes. She is right, as Libby Brooks explains in her First Edition briefing on the story this morning.

But that does not mean it has not been awkward for Mahmood, who recorded the Today interview, and other interviews, last night. Although her plans amount to a very significant tightening of the indefinite leave to remain (ILR) rules, they are notably less strict than the version she announced last November, which is why they are reasonably being described as a U-turn. In her interviews she had to make two significant concessions. Mahmood appeared to accept tha

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