
The former West MPs with new roles in the House of Lords
To MPs in the Commons it is known as "the other place".But being elevated to the House of Lords has provided a way back to the political fray for two former West Country MPs.Former Conservative Transport Secretary Mark Harper and ex-Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire were awarded life peerages following their respective defeats at last year's general election.Harper said: "I'm hoping to be working hard. I'm going to be a working peer, so I shall be here as much as I can when the House is sitting and I'll get stuck in."
The new role marks a return to politics for Harper, who lost his Forest of Dean constituency in Gloucestershire by less than 300 votes in July 2024.He added that in his new position he hoped to contribute to internal Conservative party debates around how to be competitive again and "hopefully win the next general election".Labour's Debbonaire, defeated by the Green Party in Bristol Central, expressed a similar desire to immerse herself in her new role, calling it an "incredible privilege"."It wasn't a hard decision, primarily because I went into politics because I believe in public service, like most politicians of all parties," she said. "It was a new way to serve the public, which is your first and primary duty."
She added: "Bringing my skills to work on a daily basis is really, I think, of benefit to my service to the public and the country."Critics have pointed to Debbonaire's previous criticism of the honours system and Labour's former committal to abolishing the House of Lords.However, Debbonaire said that a second chamber was necessary, and the government was following through on commitments to remove hereditary peers.Harper and Debbonaire join another familiar face who has recently taken his seat in the chamber, Bristol's former Mayor, Marvin Rees.Now known as Lord Rees of Easton, the new Labour peer made his maiden speech on 3 April.They are all back in the political fray, spending time in the House debating and voting, but also having other roles elsewhere.
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The Independent
21 minutes ago
- The Independent
Fact check: 2025 spending review claims
This round-up of claims from the 2025 spending review has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK's largest fact checking charity working to find, expose and counter the harms of bad information. On Wednesday Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivered the Labour Government's first spending review, outlining its spending plans for the next few years. We've taken a look at some of the key claims. How much is spending increasing by? At the start of her speech Ms Reeves announced that 'total departmental budgets will grow by 2.3% a year in real terms'. That headline figure doesn't tell the full story, however. Firstly, 2.3% is the average annual real-terms growth in total departmental budgets between 2023/24 and 2028/29. That means it includes spending changes that have already been implemented, for both the current (2025/26) and previous (2024/25) financial years. The average annual increase between this year and 2028/29 is 1.5%. Therefore, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said, 'most departments will have larger real-terms budgets at the end of the Parliament than the beginning, but in many cases much of that extra cash will have arrived by April'. Secondly, it's worth noting that the 2.3% figure includes both day-to-day (Resource DEL) and investment (Capital DEL) spending. Capital spending (which funds things like infrastructure projects) is increasing by 3.6% a year on average in real terms between 2023/24 and 2029/30, and by 1.8% between 2025/26 and 2029/30. Day-to-day departmental budgets meanwhile are seeing a smaller average annual real-terms increase – of 1.7% between 2023/24 and 2028/29 and 1.2% between 2025/26 and 2028/29. Which departments are the winners and losers? Ms Reeves touted substantial spending increases in some areas (for example, the 3% rise in day-to-day NHS spending in England), but unsurprisingly her statement did not focus on areas where spending will decrease. Changes to Government spending are not uniform across all departments, and alongside increases in spending on things like the NHS, defence and the justice system, a number of Government departments will see their budgets decrease in real terms. Departments facing real-terms reductions in overall and day-to-day spending include the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (this factors in reductions in aid spending announced earlier this year to offset increased defence spending), the Home Office (although the Government says the Home Office's budget grows in real terms if a planned reduction in asylum spending is excluded) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Did the Conservatives leave a '£22 billion black hole'? Ms Reeves made a claim we've heard a number of times since it first surfaced in July 2024 – that the previous Conservative government left a '£22 billion black hole in the public finances'. That figure comes from a Treasury audit that forecast a £22 billion overspend in departmental day-to-day spending in 2024/25, but the extent to which it was unexpected or inherited is disputed. The IFS said last year that some of the pressures the Government claimed contributed to this so-called 'black hole' could have been anticipated, but others did 'indeed seem to be greater than could be discerned from the outside'. An Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) review of its March 2024 forecast found an estimated £9.5 billion of additional spending pressures were known to the Treasury at that point in time, but were not known to the OBR as it prepared its forecast. It's true that this review didn't confirm the £22 billion figure, but it also did not necessarily prove that it was incorrect, because Labour's figure included pressures which were identified after the OBR prepared its forecast and so were beyond the scope of the OBR's review. We've written more about how the Government reached the figure of £22 billion in our explainer on this topic. How big is the increase in NHS appointments? Ms Reeves took the opportunity to congratulate Health Secretary Wes Streeting for delivering 'three-and-a-half million extra' hospital appointments in England. The Government has previously celebrated this as a 'massive increase', particularly in light of its manifesto pledge to deliver an extra two million appointments a year. Ms Reeves' claim was broadly accurate – data published last month shows there were 3.6 million additional appointments between July 2024 and February 2025 compared to the previous year. But importantly that increase is actually smaller than the 4.2 million rise that happened in the equivalent period the year before, under the Conservative government – as data obtained by Full Fact under the Freedom of Information Act and published last month revealed. What do announcements on asylum hotels, policing, nurseries and more mean for the Government's pledges? Ms Reeves made a number of announcements that appear to directly impact the delivery of several pre-existing Labour pledges, many of which we're already monitoring in our Government Tracker. (We'll be updating the tracker to reflect these announcements in due course, and reviewing how we rate progress on pledges as necessary). The Chancellor announced an average increase in 'police spending power' of 2.3% a year in real terms over the course of the review period, which she said was the equivalent of an additional £2 billion. However, as police budgets comprise a mix of central Government funding and local council tax receipts, some of this extra spending is expected to be funded by increases in council tax precepts. Ms Reeves said this funding would help the Government achieve its commitment of 'putting 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles in England and Wales', a pledge we're monitoring here. The spending review also includes funding of 'almost £370 million across the next four years to support the Government's commitment to deliver school-based nurseries across England', which Ms Reeves said would help the Government deliver its pledge to have 'a record number of children being school-ready'. The Chancellor also committed to ending the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament, with an additional £200 million announced to 'accelerate the transformation of the asylum system'. When we looked last month at progress on the Government's pledge to 'end asylum hotels' we said it appeared off track, as figures showed the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels was higher at the end of March 2025 than it was when Labour came into Government.


Daily Mail
23 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
A reckless splurge we (and our children) will be paying off for years: Voters brace for tax hikes as Rachel Reeves embarks on unprecedented spending spree
Voters were last night braced for swingeing tax rises, after Rachel Reeves embarked on an unprecedented spending spree. In a return to Labour 's tax-and-spend approach, the Chancellor set out plans to 'invest' a staggering £4 trillion to fund 'the renewal of Britain'. She said the plans, which include another huge dollop of cash for the NHS, would end the 'destructive' austerity of the last government and boost economic growth. Labour strategists hope the costly gamble will pay off by cutting hospital waiting lists, improving the creaking infrastructure and pump-priming the economy. But experts warned the scale of the spending, coupled with the deteriorating public finances, will pave the way for another round of damaging tax rises this autumn. The Conservatives accused Ms Reeves of adopting a reckless 'spend now, tax later' approach. The Chancellor insisted her plans could be funded by the eye-watering tax rises she imposed last year. She refused to rule out tax rises this autumn, saying only that taxes 'won't have to go up to pay for what's in this Spending Review'. But the small print of yesterday's Treasury document already includes one significant new tax hike, with the Chancellor pencilling in council tax hikes that will add more than £350 to an average Band D bill by 2029 to help fund local services and the police. Asked to rule out further tax rises, Treasury minister Emma Reynolds said: 'I'm not ruling it in, I'm not ruling it out.' Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said Ms Reeves had 'completely lost control' of the public finances and the Spending Review was 'not worth the paper it is written on'. He predicted that a 'Corbynist catalogue' of tax rises would follow this autumn. Mr Stride told MPs: 'This is the spend now, tax later review, because the Chancellor knows that she will need to come back here in the autumn with yet more taxes, and a cruel summer of speculation awaits.' Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the public finances were so tight that the Chancellor would need further tax rises if 'anything at all goes wrong with the current economic forecasts'. Tom Clougherty, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said Ms Reeves had failed to address the crisis in the public finances, adding: 'We should brace ourselves for tax increases in the autumn, and a summer of speculation over exactly where they will fall.' On a day that will frame the political debate for the next election: Police chiefs warned of cuts to the front line, after Yvette Cooper emerged as one of the few losers from the spending bonanza; Ms Reeves piled further pressure on the Home Secretary by announcing a target to empty Britain's asylum hotels by the next election; The Chancellor said new funding for the health service would deliver an extra four million tests and procedures by the end of the decade; NHS chiefs said much of the extra cash would go to fund above-inflation pay rises for doctors and nurses; Ms Reeves suggested defence spending will be frozen at 2.6 per cent of GDP in the latter years of this parliament, despite Nato pressure to double it to 5 per cent; Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner secured a £39 billion boost for social housing after weeks of bruising battles with the Treasury; Ms Reeves ripped up the Treasury's value-for-money rules in order to pour cash into Red Wall seats where Labour is being challenged by Reform; She announced £15 billion for transport projects including a revamped 'Northern Powerhouse' rail project. Yesterday's Spending Review covers government plans for the next three years. Treasury sources said it totalled £4 trillion. Day-to-day spending is £190 billion higher than planned by the last Conservative government, while spending on capital projects is £113 billion higher. But the figures do not include the soaring welfare bill, or the cost of servicing the UK's debt mountain, which totals more than £100 billion a year. The review also relies on implausible plans to achieve efficiency savings of £12 billion a year. Any of these factors could tip Ms Reeves into breaking her fiscal rules later this year. She has yet to set out how she will pay for a U-turn on winter fuel payments, which is forecast to cost £1.25 billion. And she is under pressure from Labour MPs to end the two-child benefit cap at a cost of £3.5 billion and to scrap planned cuts to disability benefits totalling £5 billion. Labour's former shadow chancellor John McDonnell welcomed the spending on long-term capital investment but said Labour had to 'learn the lessons' of the winter fuel debacle and loosen the purse strings on welfare. He told Sky News: 'We cannot be seen as the austerity party by imposing cuts on the poorest in society... There will have to be tax increases – we need redistribution.' The spending package follows months of bitter Cabinet infighting over how to allocate government spending for the coming years. The Chancellor yesterday said her choices would deliver on the public's priorities. She said her 'driving purpose' was 'to make working people, in all parts of our country, better off'. But she acknowledged that many voters had yet to feel any difference from Labour's first year in office.


BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
Newsom v Trump holds promise and peril for California governor
In a televised address on Tuesday night, California Governor Gavin Newsom accused President Donald Trump of a "brazen abuse of power". The Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts were terrorising his state's immigrant neighbourhoods, he said. "California may be first, but it clearly will not end here," he warned. "Democracy is under assault before our eyes."Newsom's speech was the latest salvo between the US president and the Democrat who heads America's most populous state. The clash between the two leaders presents a formidable challenge to the 57-year-old governor. But it also offers a political opportunity for a man whose term in office ends next year and has his own presidential ambitions."This is unquestionably an opportunity for Gavin Newsom," said Darry Sragow, a long-time California Democratic strategist. He adds, however, that as the state's governor, Newsom has an obligation to defend California - whether it's in his political interests or not."It's a call to duty," he has accused Newsom of being "grossly incompetent" and of failing to adequately respond as some of the Los Angeles protests turned violent. He's dusted off an earlier derisive nickname for the governor, "Newscum", and said on Tuesday that he believed arresting him would be a "great thing".According to media reports, the White House is considering whether to cut off federal aid to California, including billions of dollars of education grants."Gavin Newsom's feckless leadership is directly responsible for the lawless riots and violent attacks on law enforcement in Los Angeles," White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said in a statement. "Instead of writing fundraising emails meant to score political points with his left-wing base, Newsom should focus on protecting Americans by restoring law and order to his state."Newsom called the arrest threat a step toward authoritarianism and said Trump's deployment of military personnel to secure federal buildings and protect immigration officials had inflamed protests that had been isolated and controlled."The rule of law has increasingly given way to the rule of Don," he said in his Tuesday night address. Hundreds arrested as calm returns to Los AngelesEverything we know about the demonstrationsVoters divided on Trump's LA protest crackdownTrump's deportation drive is perfect storm in city of immigrantsWhere else are people protesting in the US? Over the past few days, Newsom has become the face of a Democratic Party that has often struggled to present a clear and unified alternative to Trump's Republican administration on the national stage. The governor's set-piece speech, delivered in a suit while standing in front of California and US flags, received widespread press coverage and attracted well over a million views on assorted YouTube press team has also been active on social media, comparing Trump to the evil Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars films. According to the Washington Post, the TikTok followers on his official governor's account have doubled to 897,000 in the past few days."There is a very real possibility that Newsom will come out of this with a significant and favourable national profile," Sragow said. He says that the more Newsom can outline a story of Trump against California - a state with whom the president has a very clear grudge - the better the chances for the governor to benefit."Don't make this into a mano-a-mano shootout between two gunslingers on the streets of Laredo," he and Newsom have always presented a contrast in stories and styles – the brash outer-borough New Yorker versus the polished San Francisco was elected to office in 2018, in the Democratic mid-term wave election that marked the first major voter pushback against Trump's first presidential term. He promised to make his state a counterpoint to Trump's national right-wing populism, but his political journey hasn't always been a smooth flirted with controversy during the Covid pandemic, as he backed aggressive lockdowns of public spaces – but gathered for a birthday celebration at a posh French restaurant in November 2020. His political opponents, sensing weakness, triggered a recall election in September 2021 – but Newsom won the vote by a comfortable margin. Newsom won re-election to a second four-year term in 2022 and became more involved in national Democratic politics, fuelling speculation that he harboured presidential ambitions. He became a high-profile surrogate for Joe Biden's re-election campaign and took to Fox News for high-profile debates with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was at the time running for the Republican presidential nomination, in December Trump's re-election last November, Newsom made a noticeable tack to the political centre. He expressed new discomfort with transgender athletes in women's sports, called for curtailing health benefits for undocumented workers, and hosted conservative guests like former White House senior adviser Steve Bannon on his political podcast – provoking the ire of some in the Democratic January 2024, he toured the devastating fire damage in a Los Angeles suburb with Trump and pledged to work with the new Republican administration in recovery Los Angeles protests have brought a sudden and decisive end to that detente, as the two men square off across a deep political has frequently benefitted from having a political foil with which to contrast himself – whether it was Hillary Clinton in 2016, Nancy Pelosi in the latter years of his first presidential term or Joe Biden during his drive back to there are risks for Newsom in this fight – suspension of federal aid to California and the threat of arrest being just two notable ones – it is also a clash he seems more than willing to embrace.