No 10: Hegseth ‘wrong’ to say most non-US Nato soldiers didn’t fight in Afghanistan – as it happened

Downing Street has criticised Pete Hegseth for downplaying the role of Nato allies in helping the US with combat operations in Afghanistan, saying Donald Trump’s defence secretary had been wrong to do so. Services for children in parts of England are in a “state of emergency”, according to a report that identifies what it claims to be the hardest places in the country for young people to grow up in.

Scottish Labour has become the second largest party at Holyrood after Amanda Bland, a Reform UK MSP, resigned from the party to sit as an independent. (See 12. 21pm.) Wes Streeting, the defence secretary has said the armed forces need to “live within their means” as he confirmed that some training exercises have been cancelled to save money. (See 2. 54pm.)

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, has published an article criticising the home secretary’s proposal to make immigrant workers wait much longer before they can apply for permanent residency in the UK.

In a post on the website that promotes her work as Labour MP for Peckham in south London, she said: Ultimately, I want to see a system based on control and compassion, with a much stronger focus on integration … If we continually prolong the time people have to wait for settlement, we can also prolong the process of building cohesion.

We need to raise the level of the debate, challenge divisive political rhetoric and make the case for communities like the one we have in Peckham. That means talking about immigration with care, control and compassion.

According to a story by Nick Gutteridge for the Telegraph, Fahnbulleh’s team say these comments were actually written by an aide as an account of what the MP said at a meeting with consituents last month. They describe it as poorly-phra

The latest edition of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly UK podcast is out. It features Kiran Stacey and Pippa Crerar talking about the Alan Milburn review of youth unemployment.

Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Welsh first minister, will give a speech later inviting Andy Burnham to agree to a “new partnership'” between Wales and the UK government on growth. The two governments should also avoid “duplicating activity”, he will say. According to a report for Nation.

Cymru, ap Iorwerth will say: I will invite the prime minister to agree a new partnership for growth between our two governments – a practical agreement about how our two governments work together to unlock Wales’s economic potential … My message to the prime minister will be a simple one – let us spend less time designing new programmes and duplicating activity.

Let us spend more time unlocking opportunity and supporting investment, and more time delivering the growth we both want to see in all parts of our respective nations. Ap Iorwerth also posted this on social media. Wales is not England, nor a region of it. Our institutions are different. Our communities are different. Our geography is different. Where pow

The Green party has reacted with alarm to reports suggesting the Alan Milburn review of Neets will recommend lower sickness benefits for people under the age of 25.

Pointing out that the recent review from Prof Peter Fonagy into the prevalence of mental health conditions, autism and ADHD argued cutting benefits was bad for mental health, the Green party’s co-deputy leader Mothin Ali said: It seems that when you commission an expert like Prof Fonagy rather than a Blairite former minister, you get a far more coherent analysis of the issues affecting young people and their mental health … The Green party has a proper jobs guarantee for young people – real jobs, with real training and rights at work.

It would be funded by those who can afford to contribute, not by cutting support for those least able to cope.

During defence questions, Edward Leigh, the Conservative MP and father of the Commons, asked Wes Streeting about the Diego Garcia military base on the Chagos Islands. Given that it was “to all intents and purposes an American military base”, why didn’t the government just sell it to Donald Trump for £6bn, and invest the money in defence? Streeting said that he didn’t think that was the right solution.

In an earlier answer, Streeting defended the government’s plan to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius as a response the legal doubt over the UK’s claims of ownership.

He said: Having looked at this whole issue with a fresh pair of eyes, I’ve reached the same conclusion as every prime minister since Boris Johnson, including this one, which is the capabilities provided by that base makes it extremely unwise and a risk not worth taking to have legal uncertainty. That is why efforts to negotiate a treaty continue.

Fraser Nelson, the Times columnist who is heavily involved in a project the paper is running investigating the nature of welfare spending, has written an interesting post on his Substack blog about Andy Burnham’s welfare article today. (See 9. 34am.) Nelson argues that Burnham saying “benefits will become the backstop, not the starting point” is the key line.

He explains: I read this as an intention to dismantle what Whitehall officials call ‘the pipeline’ – in effect, a Neet factory. Children as young as five are categorised as disabled and a £10k package released to the parents. This ‘disability living allowance’ typically converts to adult Pip at age 16 paying about £9,000 straight to the kid.

Outcomes for such child claimants are poor: the Milburn review disclosed that the DWP holds the power to follow these kids in later life. It does not use this power lest anyone FoIs to find out the scandal (they rejected my request saying it’d cost too much to work out what happened to sickness

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, reminded Streeting that, soon after being made defence secretary, he was asked in a TV interview if he would resign if the Treasury did not allocate enough for defence spending. “Absolutely,” Streeting replied. Cartlidge asked if that was still the case. Streeting said that his answer remained the same.

And he said he was confident saying that because “this government is already delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war”.

Back in the Commons, Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, is now taking topical questions. In response to Andrew Rosindell from Reform UK saying the UK’s “ability to protect the Falkland Islands is now in doubt”, Streeting replied: It is simply irresponsible, not to mention inaccurate, to suggest that the UK is incapable of defending the Falkland Islands. We are perfectly capable of doing that.

We had a very visible demonstration only recently. Maybe if Reform had a defence spokesperson, they might have noticed.

This morning Daisy Cooper cited Andy Burnham’s support for proportional representation as evidence that the Liberal Democrats are “winning the battle of ideas”. (See 11am.) But only up to a point. There are a couple of reports around this morning that show that, while Burnham may personally favour PR, he is yet to convincingly win the argument for it in the parliamentary Labour party.

In an article for PoliticsHome, Harriet Symonds and Matilda Martin point out that some of Burnham’s most senior ministers prefer first-past-the-post. They say: PoliticsHome understands that Louise Haigh, deputy PM and Burnham’s close ally, has concerns about shifting to PR. Other Cabinet members have previously voiced reservations about the idea.

In 2022, Angela Rayner, now secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, said she was a “first-past-the-post girl” who was “yet to be convinced by PR”, telling The News Agents podcast that it could allow extremist parties such as the British

Wes Streeting told MPs that the US is still on the side of Ukraine in its war against Russia. During defence questions, the Lib Dem MP James MacCleary asked about reports that the Ukrainian military were left exposed last week after President Trump reportedly intervened to restrict access to the Starlink internet service for its weapons.

Streeting replied: It is worth pointing out, after what was unquestionably a challenging week for relations between the United States and Ukraine, that the United States has and does and will continue to provide vital support to Ukraine, whether that’s intelligence sharing or indeed the work we do on procurement with and through the United States, as well as the diplomatic track.

Referring to a meeting he had with Pete Hegseth, his US counterpart, last week, Streeting went on: This is worth reporting to the house; Pete Hegseth, my US counterpart, was keen to thank the United Kingdom for our leadership of Ukraine. That would suggest to me the United Sta

Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, is taking questions in the Commons. When the Reform UK MP Danny Kruger asked him if he agreed it was “absolutely scandalous” that non-essential training had been cancelled by the army, Streeting said that training exercises were taking place for the rest of this year. But he accepted that some future training had been cut.

He told MPs: When I arrived in the Ministry of Defence, there was an in-year overspend that would have seen us overcommitted by the end of the year.

And, as I did at health, I make absolutely no apology whatsoever for sending a very strong message very early on that, while this government is delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, I also expect my department and our armed forces to live within their means.

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