Labour will ignore local opposition if it has to to deliver more homes, says Starmer – UK politics live | Politics

The BBC has defended its decision to describe Hamas as militants rather than terrorists in its news coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. It issued a statement in response to Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, telling LBC this morning that the decision not to use the term terrorists was “verging on disgraceful”. Keir Starmer also said he thought the term terrorists was appropriate, and he urged the BBC to provide an explanation. (See 10.31am.)

A BBC spokesperson said:

We always take our use of language very seriously. Anyone watching or listening to our coverage will hear the word ‘terrorist’ used many times – we attribute it to those who are using it, for example, the UK government.

This is an approach that has been used for decades, and is in line with that of other broadcasters. The BBC is an editorially independent broadcaster whose job is to explain precisely what is happening ‘on the ground’ so our audiences can make their own judgment.

Shapps told LBC this morning:

I actually think it is verging on disgraceful, this idea that there is some sort of equivalence, and they’ll always say well there’s two sides … what Hamas have done, as a proscribed terrorist organisation, meaning that they are illegal in Britain, it’s illegal to support them, is to have gone out and slaughtered innocent people, babies, festival-goers, pensioners.

They are not freedom fighters, they are not militants, they are pure and simple terrorists and it’s remarkable to go to the BBC website and still see them talking about gunmen and militants and not calling them terrorists.

Wes Streeting also claimed in his conference speech that Rishi Sunak’s decision to back plans to stop younger generations ever being able to buy cigarettes showed that Labour was winning the battle of ideas – because he proposed the policy first.

He said:

Back in January, I proposed going even further by outlawing the sale of cigarettes to the next generation altogether.

Tory MPs said it was “nanny state”,

“an attack on ordinary people and their culture”,

They accused me of “health fascism”.

Unfortunately for them, Labour is winning the battle of ideas, and where Labour leads Rishi Sunak follows.

We’ll vote through the ban on selling cigarettes to kids, so that young people are even less likely to smoke than they are to vote Tory.

Streeting announced that Labour would consult on the idea in an interview with the BBC in January. The policy was first proposed officially in the UK in 2022, in an indepedent review of smoking policy by Dr Javed Khan published by the Department of Health and Social Security when Sajid Javid was health secretary. With Boris Johnson, and then Liz Truss, in No 10, the proposal was at the time buried by the government. Streeting said he would consult on it because radical public health measures were needed, but in May he gave an interview saying he needed to be convinced the plan would be practical.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said in his speech this morning the NHS is at risk of going bust if it does not reform.

Addressing the Labour conference, he said:

Labour will never abandon the founding principles of the NHS as a publicly funded public service, free at the point of use.

I make the case for reform not in opposition to those principles but in defence of them.

I’m blunt about the fact that the NHS is no longer the envy of the world, not to undermine it, but to reassure people that we’ve noticed.

I argue that our NHS must modernise or die, not as a threat but a choice.

The crisis really is that existential. Just because as waiting lists rise, public confidence falls …

In the longer term the challenge of rising chronic disease, combined with our ageing society, threatens to bankrupt the NHS.

The Tories answer is all sticking plasters in the short term but an abandonment of the NHS in the longer term.

As we saw in Manchester last week, the Conservative party dances to the tune of Nigel Farage now.

And the more they move to the right, the greater their threat to our NHS becomes.

So it falls to us, the party that founded the NHS 75 years ago, to rescue, rebuild and renew the health service today.

Labour will champion needs of ‘other people’s children’ ignored by Tories, Bridget Phillipson says

Richard Adams

Labour will champion the education of “other people’s children” ignored by the current government, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson told the party’s conference in Liverpool. In her speech this morning she said:

Degrees are for their children, not ours. It’s never their kids’ choices or chances that they’re keen to wind back.

Student debt for nurses, for young people starting out, looking to buy a home and build a family – not their problem. Other people’s children.

Phillipson said Labour will pay for free breakfasts for primary schools by “closing tax loopholes for the global super-rich”, repeating her determination to add VAT to private school fees.

Referring to private school lobbyists privately describing her as “chippy”, Phillipson said:

I have a message for them: chippy people make the change that matters. I will make the change that matters.

Phillipson mentioned new plans to improve maths teaching in primary schools, and announced that Sir David Bell, the vice-chancellor of Sunderland university and a former head of Ofsted, will lead a review of childcare under a Labour government.

The review will look at reforming the childcare workforce, and ways to increase primary school-based nursery provision.

Phillipson also hinted at revisions to higher education funding, saying that Labour will “change the way students pay for their time at university”, without giving further details.

And here are some more lines from what Keir Starmer said about the Israel-Hamas war in interviews this morning.

• Starmer declined to contradict Suella Braverman’s suggestion that the waving of Palestinian flags in some communities while the Israel-Hamas war is taking place could be a criminal offence. The home secretary raised this possibility in a letter to the police in which she urged them to clamp down on actions that might amount to intimidating members of the Jewish community. She said in some situations waving a Hamas flag might be a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence. Asked on LBC if he agreed that waving a Palestinian flag in some Jewish areas of London could be an office, Starmer replied:

I think it would all depend on the circumstances.

Obviously what we have seen is attacks on Jewish communities in north London and obviously – and I know firsthand – that’s having a huge impact on Jewish communities, understandably, and not for the first time.

It’s very important at times like this that we don’t conflate peaceful discussion of Palestinian issues with Hamas.

Now, the flags is a different situation. It really depends on the circumstances. If it’s provoking or encouraging attacks that might be one thing. There might be other situations. So I would not get fixated on that particular activity.

Yes, we have extended family in Israel. And this will be typical I think of many people in Israel, families, communities. They have a deep sense of shock of what is happening. And fear, overladen with a real anxiety, they felt that with the Israeli intelligence and security, they always know they’re under threat. But they felt there was a protection there, and there’s huge anxiety that on this occasion that didn’t seem to operate in the way that they wanted. So I’ve never known a time of such incredible anxiety on both those fronts, and understandably.

I think that Israel does have that right. It is an ongoing situation.

Obviously everything should be done within international law, but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has a right to defend herself and Hamas bears responsibility for the terrorist acts.

Keir Starmer has said the BBC should explain why it is calling Hamas militants, not terrorists, in its news coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Echoing a complaint by Tory MPs, including Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, who told GB News this morning that Hamas represented “pure and simple terrorism” and that other terms did not fully convey this, Starmer told LBC:

The BBC needs to explain why it [is not use the term terrorists] because for most people – I said terrorism and terrorist, and to me that’s obviously what we are witnessing. So I think it’s for the BBC to explain why then not doing it.

I have asked the BBC for a response to what Starmer and Shapps said this morning. But last night John Simpson, who for many years was the BBC’s world affairs editor, posted his own explanation on X.

British politicians know perfectly well why the BBC avoids the word ‘terrorist’, and over the years plenty of them have privately agreed with it. Calling someone a terrorist means you’re taking sides and ceasing to treat the situation with due impartiality. The BBC’s job is to place the facts before its audience and let them decide what they think, honestly and without ranting. That’s why, in Britain and throughout the world, nearly half a billion people watch, listen to and read us. There’s always someone who would like us to rant. Sorry, it’s not what we do.

The BBC’s style guide says:

The word “terrorist” is not banned, but its use can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should not use the term without attribution.

At the Labour conference Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, is delivering her speech now.

As Richard Adams reports, she is saying Labour would replace Rishi Sunak’s demand for compulsory maths classes until 18 with improved maths teaching for younger children and “real world” numeracy lessons for pupils in England.

Keir Starmer was talking about Labour’s plans to reform the planning system yesterday. He covered some of this in his speech, but after he had finished Labour published a much more detailed briefing, which does not seem to be available online. I’m posting it here for the record. This is what Labour describes as its housing recovery plan.

Upon entering office, the deputy prime minister and secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, Angela Rayner, will publish a written ministerial statement and write to all chief planning officers to instruct local planning authorities to approve planning applications in areas which do not have a local plan and fail other key policy tests, such as the housing delivery test.

This statement will also signpost changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, which will reverse concessions the government made to Tory backbenchers in December 2022, reinstate and enforce compulsory local targets.

The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has announced they would increase planning capacity – ensuring every local authority has at least one full time, experienced planning officer and expanding the government’s strategic planning capacity for housing and infrastructure – funded by increasing stamp duty on overseas buyers.

Where local authorities don’t meet their requirements, a Labour government would work with the planning inspectorate to use all powers available to build homes, with interventions ranging from mediation to worst case scenarios that may require use of ‘call-in’ powers or see local planning authorities designated.

As announced by Angela Rayner, increasing flexibility in the Affordable Homes Programme so Homes England can support build out of the increasing number of ‘stalled’ sites with planning permission, but that are no longer viable due to soaring interest rates and economic uncertainty.

As well as clearing the backlog, Labour will reform the system to accelerate planning permissions while strengthening local consent on ‘how’ developments can best support local communities, not ‘if’ the homes that people need are built at all. This will put the local plan front and centre in the planning system and create a genuinely plan-led system.

Labour will strengthen the presumption in favour of developments that are aligned to local plans, with a lighter touch process for approval in line with plans and, where criteria are met, a strong community right to appeal against off-plan and speculative development.

We will increase transparency, monitoring and enforcement of requirements to maintain up to date local plans with fixed timelines for renewing local plan. We will also introduce a ‘backstop’ option allowing central government or the planning inspectorate to draw up local plans where they are significantly and egregiously delayed.

Under our new streamlined system, we will lowering the thresholds for applications being made directly to the planning inspectorate to reflect the fact that decision making should be smoother.

We will give planning officers stronger authority to grant permission on smaller sites that are in line with the plan, without referring to the planning committee, and define in guidance that pre-application advice by officers is a material consideration to the planning decision, and a ‘cooling off’ period where members go against officers’ recommendations.

We will provide guidance on off-the-shelf environmental mitigations which cut down on endless surveys and halt the vexatious frustration of applications.

In addition to increasing planning capacity by raising stamp duty on overseas buyer, Labour will accelerate the government’s plan to increase planning application fees, and potentially going further, with revenue ringfenced for more planning resource.

We will also make HM Land Registry data publicly available to increase transparency of land ownership, preventing landowners from holding a de facto veto over local plans due to an opaque land market.

Keir Starmer has said that, in order to achieve his aim of accelerating housebuilding in Britain, he will be willing to ignore local opposition to developments.

He also said that he would not tolerate Labour MPs trying to block his housebuilding plans either.

Last year Rishi Sunak abandoned plans for mandatory national housebuilding targets in the face of widespread opposition from his MPs, many of whom represent green belt constituencies where housing developments are often unpopular with residents.

Labour’s plan for housebuilding depends to a large extent on reforms to planning law. The party is not going to stop communities registering objections, but it wants to limit the extent to which some developments can be held up.

In an interview with the Today programme, Starmer was asked if he would be willing to tell people: ‘We hear you, but I’m afraid we’re ignoring you.’ He replied:

Yes. We’re going to have to do that. Now, that’s not going to be a crude exercise. I think one of the problems we have is that planning is at the moment very, very localised.

There isn’t the ability to look across a wider area and say: ‘Where would the best place be for this development? Where could we have a new town?’ And so we need to bulldoze through it, but we also need to be pragmatic about how we do it.

But I’m going to be clear: we aren’t going to have to do things which previous governments haven’t done because otherwise we’ll end up where we are now, which is talking about housing – this has been the story of the last 13 years – but not actually getting very much done.

Asked about his own opposition in the past to the plan to take HS2 to Euston, which is in his Holborn and St Pancras constituency, Starmer said that MPs were entitled to stand up for their constituents, but that government had a different role. He said:

You will always get – and quite understandably and quite rightly – individual MPs standing up for the communities in their patch.

The role of government is obviously different. The role of government is to deliver on big projects. And we’re going to have to get that balance right.

In a separate interview with Times Radio, he indicated that he would not let Labour MPs block his plans in the way that Tory MPs vetoed mandatory housing targets. He said:

We are going to have to be tough with anybody who stands in the way of that and that will include any Labour MPs who say: ‘Well, I’m signed up to the project but just not here.’

Good morning. Keir Starmer has been doing an interview round this morning, and he used a striking phrase when he described what he was trying to do with his conference speech yesterday. He said he was trying to reach “the inner soul of the British public”.

He told Radio 5 Live:

What I was trying to do yesterday was not so much lay out layers and layers of detailed policy; we have done quite a lot of policy in the last year or so.

What I was trying to do was to reach, if you like, the inner soul of the British public who have had 13 years of decline, 13 years of hope almost beaten out of them, and to say: we can go forward, what is ruined can be rebuilt, wounds do heal and if we set our face to it we can have a decade of national renewal.

That helps to explain the “we are the healers” language in the speech. For a full summary, here is Pippa Crerar’s story.

And Rosa Prince at Politico has a good round-up of the reaction. It implies the inner soul of the public might be responding quite well.

As Peter Walker reports, on his media round this morning Starmer also said that he was “bomb-proofing” all of his policy pledges to ensure a Labour government does not break promises.

I will post a full summary from the Starmer media round shortly.

The Labour conference finishes in Liverpool today at lunchtime. With Starmer’s speech over, it may feel to some as if it is already over, but we will be hearing this morning from Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, and Jonathan Ashworth, a shadow Cabinet Office minister.

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