Starmer mistakenly calls Sunak ‘prime minister’ as Cooper rips into ‘shocking’ Rwanda scheme cost - live

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Louise Thomas

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Sir Keir Starmer accidentally referred to Rishi Sunak as the “prime minister” when addressing the Commons, before joking “old habits die hard”.

The Labour leader and education secretary Bridget Phillipson suggested today that the government would consider scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

But Downing Street has now denied the prime minister had changed his position on the controversial policy adding “the government has got a certain set of fiscal inheritance that it has to deal with.”

It comes as chancellor Rachel Reeves said she could not promise to abolish the cap without stating where the £3billion annual cost “is going to come from”.

In the House of Commons, home secretary Yvette Cooper claimed the previous Conservative government had planned to spend a total of around £10 billion on the Rwanda scheme.

During a statement on border security and asylum seekers, she told the Commons the Home Office has “effectively stopped” making decisions on cases and warned “the backlog of asylum cases is now going up” as a result.

The Labour government previously pledged to tackle people-smuggling gangs orchestrating the crossings by setting up a Border Command Unit and through “work we’ll be carrying out with European partners”.

Key Points

• Home secretary claims Tories ‘planned to spend £10bn’ on Rwanda scheme
• No 10 denies Phillipson’s claim two-child benefit cap could be scrapped
• Starmer calls Sunak ‘prime minister' during Commons debate
• Home secretary accuses the Tories of running ‘asylum Hotel California'
• Starmer creates Skills England to reduce legal migration levels
• Labour could ‘consider’ scrapping the two-child benefit cap, minister says

Pressure building on Starmer to go further reversing the harms of Brexit

New Labour MPs joined parliamentarians from the Opposition benches in starting to build pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to reverse the harms of Brexit.

The new prime minister gave his first statement to the Commons today since taking office reporting back on the Nato summit in Washington DC and the European Political Community (EPC) summit he hosted at Blenheim Palace last week.

But while, Sir Keir again reiterated his promise to renegotiate the UK’s deal with the European Union and to create a new security pact, it was clear the mood in the House was for him to go further.

Read the full article from our political editor David Maddox here:

Pressure building on Starmer to go further reversing the harms of Brexit

MPs show appetite for far reaching changes to UK’s relationship with the EU with one new Labour MP claiming a toy shop in her constituency closed because of Brexit

Jeremy Hunt defends record on economy after Rachel Reeves criticism

Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt has defended the Conservatives’ record on the economy against “dubious claims” made by Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

He told the Commons: “When it comes to dubious claims, there are some rather dubious ones the new Chancellor has herself been making that do not withstand scrutiny. She says, for example, that the economy would have been £140 billion bigger if we’d matched the average OECD growth rate.

“But as she knows the OECD is a very diverse group of 38 countries, including many with economies very different to our own, such as Turkey, or Mexico or Luxembourg and a much more meaningful comparison is with other similar G7 economies where since 2010, we’ve grown faster than France, faster than Italy, faster than Germany and faster than Japan.

“Indeed, the IMF(International Monetary Fund) say that thanks to difficult measures taken by the last Conservative government we will grow faster than any of those four countries, not just in the short term, but over the next six years and one of the reasons for that is our record on attracting investment.”

Starmer accidentally calls Sunak ‘prime minister’

Sir Keir Starmer accidentally referred to Rishi Sunak as the “prime minister” when addressing the Commons this afternoon.

Responding to Mr Sunak’s remarks during a statement on a recent NATO summit, Sir Keir quickly corrected his mistake, joking: “Old habits die hard.”

The Conservative leader could be seen laughing along with fellow front bench Tory MPs.

Conservatives King’s Speech amendment up for consideration

The King’s Speech amendment tabled by Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak has been selected for consideration on Monday.

The Opposition proposal expresses regret at the King’s Speech not mentioning the “improved economic conditions the Government is inheriting” and urges Labour to meet its manifesto commitment “not to raise taxes on working people”.

Further amendments can be selected by the Commons Speaker for consideration and a vote on Tuesday, the final day of the King’s Speech debate.

Yvette Cooper reveals Tories’ £700m Rwanda spend and brands asylum backlog ‘Hotel California’

Home secretary Yvette Cooper has claimed that Rishi Sunak’s government have already spent £700m on their plan to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda and had planned to spend a further £10bn.

In a stinging speech in the House of Commons, Ms Cooper said the Tory government has left an asylum backlog like “Hotel California” because it stopped processing thousands of cases.

The amount already spent on the Rwanda scheme includes a £290m payment to Rwanda, “chartering flights that never took off, detaining hundreds of people and then releasing them, and paying for more than a thousand civil servants to work on the scheme”, she said.

Read the full article from our social affairs correspondent Holly Bancroft here:

Cooper reveals Tory £700m Rwanda spend and brands asylum backlog ‘Hotel California’

‘I have been shocked by what I have found,’ home secretary tells the Commons

Labour considering scrapping two-child benefit cap

The new Labour government will consider scrapping the two-child benefit cap as Keir Starmer comes under growing pressure to ditch the “cruel” policy.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the limit would be looked at “as one of a number of ways” to lift children out of poverty.

Her comments come as Labour could face its first backbench revolt over the cap, which affects 1.6 million children.

Charities, opposition parties and some of his own MPs have all urged the new PM to abolish the cap, brought in as an austerity measure under the Conservative Coalition government.

Left-wing Labour MPs are expected to hit out at the policy in a Commons debate on Monday, while SNP has tabled an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for it to be axed.

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin has the full story:

Labour considering scrapping two-child benefit cap

Sir Keir warned there was ‘no silver bullet’ for child poverty, adding if there was ‘it would have been shot a very long time ago’

Cleverly hits out at Labour over small boats crossings

Labour have already worsened the issue of small boats crossings in their two and half weeks in Government, the shadow home secretary James Cleverly has said.

Mr Cleverly told MPs: “The reality is everybody knows, including the people smugglers, that the small boat problem is going to get worse, indeed has already got worse under Labour because they have no deterrent.

“People are being sold a lie when they’re being smuggled into this country across the busiest shipping lanes. And we do need to stop them. Too many lives have already been lost. Sadly, six more have been lost in the Channel in the last few weeks and our hearts go out to them and their loved ones.

“We disagree on many things, but we can agree that we need to put an end to this evil trade but sadly, the initial decisions that her (Home Secretary Yvette Cooper) Government has made has made this problem worse and not better.”

Mr Cleverly earlier criticised the Government’s scrapping of the Rwanda scheme stating: “The fact there is now no safe third country to return people to who cannot be returned home means that we ask, where is she going to send the people who come here from countries like Afghanistan or Iraq, in Syria?

“Has she started negotiations on returns agreements with the Taliban, or the ayatollahs of Iran, or Assad in Syria? And if she’s not going to send those that arrived here on small boats to Rwanda, which local authorities will she be sending people to? We were closing hotels, when I was in Government and I wonder which local authorities will be receiving those asylum seekers if not Rwanda, will it be Rochdale or Romford or Richmond?”

Watch: Starmer speaks after Biden exits 2024 presidential race

Watch: Keir Starmer speaks after Joe Biden exits 2024 presidential race

Watch as Sir Keir Starmer delivered remarks at Farnborough Air Show in Hampshire on Monday, 22 July, after Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.

Cooper: Cost of asylum backlog ‘astronomical'

Yvette Cooper said the cost of the “indefinitely rising” asylum backlog in hotel and accommodation support bills is “astronomical”, telling MPs: “The potential costs of asylum support over the next four years, if we continue down this track, could be an eye-watering £30 billion to £40 billion – that is double the annual police budget for England and Wales.”

The Home Secretary said ending the migration and economic development partnership (MEDP) with Rwanda would save £220 million on further direct payments over the next few years, adding: “We will immediately save up to £750 million that had been put aside by the previous government to cover the MEDP this year.”

Ms Cooper said some of the money saved would be invested into a new border security command, adding a “serious returns and enforcement programme” would replace the Rwanda MEDP.

Home Office staff are being redeployed away from the Rwanda scheme and “into returns and enforcement to reverse the collapse in removals that has taken place since 2010”, Ms Cooper said before noting she has tasked the immigration enforcement team with “intensifying enforcement activity this summer targeting illegal working across high-risk sectors”.

Ms Cooper went on: “We will end the asylum chaos and start taking asylum decisions again so we can clear the backlog and end asylum hotels.”

She said she is laying a statutory instrument which ends the “retrospective nature” of the Illegal Migration Act provisions to ensure that the Home Office can “immediately start clearing cases from after March 2023”, adding: “Making this one simple change will save the taxpayer an estimated £7 billion over the next 10 years.”

Home secretary accuses the Tories of running ‘asylum Hotel California'

Yvette Cooper accused the previous Conservative government of creating an “asylum Hotel California” in which people arrived in the system but never leave.

The Home Secretary raised concerns over “legal contradictions” in the Illegal Migration Act and said “no decision” can be taken on an individual’s case if they arrived in the UK after March 2023 and meet key conditions in the legislation.

She said: “They just stay in the asylum system. Even if they’ve come here unlawfully for economic reasons and should be returned to their home country, they won’t be because the law doesn’t work.

“Only a small minority might ever have been sent to Rwanda and everyone else stays indefinitely in taxpayer-funded accommodation and support. Now the Home Office estimates that around 40% of asylum cases since March 2023 should be covered by these Illegal Migration Act conditions, the remaining 60% under the previous government’s policy should still have been processed and cleared in the normal way.

“However, even though previous ministers introduced this new law 12 months ago they didn’t ever introduce an effective operational way for the Home Office to distinguish between the cases covered by the Illegal Migration Act and the other cases where decisions should continue between the 40% and the 60% – as a result decisions can’t be taken on any of them.”

Ms Cooper said she had been “shocked to discover that the Home Office has effectively stopped making the majority of asylum decisions”, adding: “It is the most extraordinary policy that I’ve ever seen. We have inherited asylum Hotel California – people arrive in the asylum system and they never leave. The previous government’s policy was effectively an amnesty and that is the wrong thing to do.”

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