Liz Truss claims promoting interests of bankers in City ‘key part of levelling up agenda’ – UK politics live

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And here are some more lines from Liz Truss’s speech to the business roundtable in New York.

Truss said the UK-US free trade deal promised by Brexiters was not being negotiated now because Washington not interested in one at the moment. She said:

On trade, we’re not currently negotiating a trade deal with the US – the US isn’t negotiating a trade deal with anyone at the moment – but we are open to negotiating a trade deal when the administration decide that’s what they want to do.

She stressed that she wanted taxation in the UK to be not just lower, but simpler too. She said:

This week the chancellor will be doing his fiscal statement. I can’t pre-empt what he’s going to say, but what I can say – and I outlined this during the leadership campaign – is that we want lower, simpler taxes in the UK to incentivise investment, to get more businesses going in the UK.

In a short speech, she referred to simplifying taxes three times in total.

She said the government wanted to get the large number of people who had left the labour market (normally in their 50s and 60s) to get back to work. She said:

We do, following Covid, have a significant number of people that are economically inactive. We want to encourage more of them to go into work with a tight labour market.

She presented her pro-growth economic agenda as a security policy, arguing that countries needed to be economically strong to remain safe. She said:

I think one of the things we’ve learned from the past few months is that when countries are dependent on authoritarian regimes, that can be used as a weapon against them. That is a position we should never find ourselves in again. That is why having a strong economy is so vital for the future of the United Kingdom.

She dismissed Vladimir Putin’s speech this morning, in which he announced partial mobilisation in Russia and threatened nuclear retaliation against the west, as “sabre-rattling”.

Liz Truss has been addressing executives at a business roundtable in New York and, in an opening speech that stated her determination to cut taxes, she claimed that promoting the City was “a key part of the levelling up agenda”.

On Friday Kwasi Kwarteng,, the chancellor, is expected to announce that the cap on bankers’ bonuses is being lifted. The government has not formally confirmed this will happen but no one is denying it either and yesterday, when asked about the proposal, Truss cited it as an example of the sort of unpopular decision she was willing to take to boost growth.

Critics argued that allowing bankers to get higher bonuses was the opposite of levelling up – the goal set by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister, which was interpreted as referring to measures that would help people in less prosperous areas.

But in her speech Truss argued that boosting the City – and, by implication, allowing bankers to get richer – would contribute to levelling up. She explained:

We want the City to be the most competitive place for financial services in the world, and we see that as a key part of the levelling up agenda, because when we unblock capital, that capital will be used across the UK to make every industry become more productive and competitive.

(In this context, “most competitive” means having low taxes and light regulation.)

Most prime ministers in recent years have taken the view that redistribution, and reducing inequality, should be one of the aims of government. Today’s speech is the latest example of how Truss thinks differently.

James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, says the UK will never recognise the results of “sham referendums” organised by Russia in Ukrainian territory.

Sky’s Ed Conway says the eventual costs of the energy support schemes, for households and businesses, could eventually come to close to ?250bn.

Scotland’s justice secretary Keith Brown confirmed that he would be reviewing the policing of events relating to the death of the Queen in Edinburgh last week with the chief constable of Police Scotland tomorrow, after questions from MSPs in Holyrood today about the rights of protesters.

The Scottish Labour MSP Katy Clark said that media reports suggested a “heavy handed” approach during the proclamation and later the funeral procession along the Royal Mile, among other events. There were four arrests for breach of the peace, a number of other people were detained and released without charge and a woman who was demonstrating about free speech was followed by the police afterwards.

Brown said that, while he could not comment on specific cases, it was “the fundamental right of people living in a democracy to peacefully protest”. But he also commended the force on its handling of Operation Unicorn, the codename for the ceremonial plans that came to pass because the Queen died in Scotland.

Senior representatives from London and Brussels will meet tomorrow to try to resolve the protracted dispute over the UK’s exclusion from the EU’s science funding programme Horizon Europe (HE).

The specialised committee on EU funding programmes will meet as part of a formal process triggered by the UK, which has accused Brussels to locking Britain out of the ?80bn programme in retaliation over the row over the Northern Ireland protocol.

The UK has threatened to walk away from HE with plan B replacement financing if Europe continues to block membership of the programme, which was agreed as part of Lord Frost’s trade deal.

Science bodies have urged the government to continue talking. Tanya Sheridan, head of policy and evidence at the Royal Society, said:

Our community is concerned that while funding can be replaced, it will be very difficult to achieve the intangible collaboration, networking and mobility benefits that UK science has been able to benefit from through association to Horizon programmes.

The number of households subject to the benefit cap increased by 9% between February and May this year, new figures from the Department for Work and Pensions reveal.

The benefit cap was introduced by the coalition government to limit the total amount that most working-age people can claim in benefits. It is currently ?20,000 per household per year nationally, or ?23,000 per household per year in London. The policy was introduced in response to claims that some benefit recipients were receiving more than the average income, and it has impacted particularly on large families and people living in places with high housing costs.

According to the new figures, around 130,000 households had their benefits capped in May 2022. That was an increase of around 10,000, or 9%, on the figure for February 2022.

The May figure accounts for 2.1% of all households claiming universal credit or housing benefit. In February the equivalent figure was 1.9%.

For those affected by it, the cap results in an average weekly loss of ?52.

Kirsty Blackman, the SNP work and pensions spokesperson, highlighted the new figures in a news release. She said it showed how Tory policies were making the cost of living crisis worse for families. She said:

Ever since its introduction almost a decade ago, this cruel policy has done nothing but punish the most vulnerable and severely limit their ability to provide for themselves and their families. Now simply couldn’t be a worse time for the effects of the benefit cap to be felt and its limitations imposed on even more households.

As the Tory-made cost of living crisis ravages households across the country, the UK government must look at ways of supporting people financially, not constructing more barriers and taking money out of their pockets. Cruel policies like the benefit cap are instead directly exacerbating household’s financial fears.

Shares in housebuilding companies have risen sharply on the back of today’s report (see 8.49am) saying the government will cut stamp duty in the “emergency budget” on Friday, Reuters reports.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing No 10 said estimates for the cost of the energy support package for businesses announced today would be included in the statement from the chancellor on Friday (the “mini budget”, although No 10 is not using that term).

Asked about President Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilisation in Russia, the spokesperson echoed what Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, said earlier (see 9.35am), saying this was “a clear admission that his invasion is failing”.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, has been giving interviews about the energy support package announced his morning for businesses – or for non-domestic customers, to be more precise (charities, schools and hospitals are included too). The scheme will run for six months, but after March 2023 it will extended in a more targeted format, with help being available for “vulnerable” non-domestic customers.

Asked if schools would continue to get support after the initial six months is up, Rees-Mogg indicated that they would. He said:

We are going to have to support the state sector as well as the private sector. This is a fundamental increase in costs across the economy. Schools, hospitals and care homes are obviously going to need to be able to afford their energy in a year’s time as well as today.

Almost half of the candidates in the local elections in Britain experienced abuse or intimidation, a report by the Electoral Commissionsays.

The situation was even worse in Northern Ireland, where 71% of candidates in the election to the assembly received received abuse or threats.

The Electoral Commission, the watchdog set up to police elections in the UK, said that urgent action was needed to protect candidates in future.

As part of one of the regular surveys it conducts after elections, the commission surveyed candidates who had stood in the elections in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in May, and received around 1,000 responses.

People were asked to rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, how much of a problem they had with threats, abuse or intimdation, with 1 being no problem at all and 5 being a serious problem. Any response at 2 or higher was counted as a positive response.

In England and Wales 40% of candidates said they had a problem in this regard. In Scotland the figure was 44% and in Northern Ireland, where the elections were to the devolved assembly, not councils, and politics has historically been more aggressive than on the mainland, the figure was much higher.

Responding to the results Craig Westwood, the commision’s director of communications, policy and research, said:

Urgent action is needed to prevent the abuse and intimidation of candidates and campaigners at elections. It is vital that candidates can participate in elections without fear. The commission will work with governments and the wider electoral community to make sure we understand what is driving this issue, and address it as a matter of urgency.