Starmer to launch local election campaign with claim Labour is ‘party of lower taxes for working people’ – UK politics live | Politics

The Commons standards committee says Margaret Ferrier should be suspended for 30 days for breaches of Commons rules related to the incident where she travelled by train from London to Scotland after testing positive for Covid in 2020.

Last year a court sentenced her to 270 hours of unpaid work in relation to the offence, but the standards commmittee says a further sanction by the Commons is required.

Ferrier currently sits as an independent, but she was elected as an SNP MP and the 30-day suspension means she could face a recall election if 10% of voters in her constituency sign a petition calling for one. At the last election she had a majority of 5,230 over Labour in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a byelection would indicate whether the recent resignation of Nicola Sturgeon, and the divisive SNP leadership contest, really is paving the way for a Labour combeack.

In its report the standards committee says:

The threshold for a breach of paragraph 17 of the code [which says MPs should “never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole”] is necessarily high. However, any finding that a member’s actions have brought the house into disrepute must be considered to be a serious breach. The 2019 Code states that “members have a duty to uphold the law”; something the public rightly expect. If Ms Ferrier had been a public sector employee in a position of trust or leadership, she could have faced severe disciplinary consequences, potentially including dismissal, for these or similar actions.

We therefore recommend that Ms Ferrier is suspended from the service of the house for 30 days.

Good morning. Keir Starmer is launching Labour’s campaign for the local elections today with a pledge with a pledge that is simultaneously complete nonsense, but also an interesting piece of political positioning.

In an overnight press release Labour says Starmer will announce that the party “would freeze council tax this year if in government, a move funded by a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants”.

But, as Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has confirmed in interviews this morning, the party is not promising to do this if it wins the election, expected next year. It will publish its manifesto nearer the time.

Greg Hands, the Conservative party chair, says this pledge is worthless. He says:

Labour’s announcement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. They have no plan to introduce this if elected. They’re taking the British people for fools.

If Labour were serious about cutting council tax Labour councils would be doing it now.

Instead across the country it’s Labour-run councils with higher council tax, Labour-run Wales where bills have quadrupled and Labour-run London where council tax has gone up 9.7 per cent.

And Stephen Bush, the Financial Times columnist, has made much the same point on Twitter.

And yet – even nonsense announcements can convey a message that has some sort of foundation, and what Starmer is actually saying is that he wants to go into the next election outflanking the Tories on tax cuts for working people. In a statement issued overnight he says:

There is a choice on tax. A Tory choice – taxes up for working people, tax cuts for the 1%.

Or a Labour choice. Where we cut business rates to save our high streets and where, if there was a Labour government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.

A Labour government would freeze your council tax this year – that’s our choice.

A tax cut for the many, not just for the top 1 per cent.

So take this message to every doorstep in your community: Labour is the party of lower taxes for working people.

That’s the difference we can make. That’s the choice in May. A better Britain.

I will post more on this, and Reeves’ morning interviews, shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak is visiting a research laboratory to promote the govenrment’s energy security plan published today. In our story on the plan, Fiona Harvey and Jillian Ambrose say the government defying “scientific doubts to place a massive bet on technology to capture and store carbon dioxide in undersea caverns, to enable an expansion of oil and gas in the North Sea”. The energy department’s news release is here, and a longer summary is here.

11am: Keir Starmer launches Labour’s campaign for the local elections at an event in Swindon. Later, at 2.30pm, he will do a Q&A with students on Radio Wiltshire.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 11.30am: Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs saying the government will not bring forward the age at which the state pension age is increased to 68.

12pm: Humza Yousaf takes first minister’s questions for the first time in Scotland.

I’ll try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

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