PMQs live: Starmer urges women to report inappropriate behaviour amid Gregg Wallace questions
Comes as influential report warns UK interest rates will fall by less than expected over next two years after autumn Budget
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Your support makes all the difference.Women who make reports of inappropriate behaviour must have “confidence that they will be taken seriously”, Sir Keir Starmer has said, as allegations against Gregg Wallace continue to grow.
The prime minister said politicians should be ready to put in place “mechanisms” that would instil that confidence, after a Labour MP asked him about “women of a certain age”, reflecting comments for which the MasterChef presenter has since apologised.
Wallace faces multiple complaints of inappropriate behaviour, originally from 13 people across a range of shows over a 17-year period, and has stepped away from the cooking programme.
Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch has mocked Sir Keir Starmer over former transport secretary Louise Haigh’s resignation, which came after admitted misleading the police a decade ago.
The Tory leader told the Commons the country “needs conviction politicians, not politicians with convictions”.
“He can try and change the topic as much as he likes but the public are watching. He owes them an explanation”, she said.
Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of obfuscating over Louise Haigh’s resignation, after Badenoch demanded he provide the House of Commons with an explanation over the incident.
National insurance hike ‘biggest issue’ after Budget, Bank chief says
The boss of the Bank of England has said the way businesses react to the national insurance hike is currently the “biggest issue” after the Budget, as he warned that economic uncertainty is rising in the UK and globally.
Andrew Bailey, speaking at the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom, said it is not yet clear what effect the tax change could have on UK inflation.
Mr Bailey said: “The level of uncertainty is rising at the moment. Certainly, some of that is domestic and some of that is global.
“I think the biggest issue now in the immediate future is the response to the national insurance change; how companies balance the mixture of prices, wages, the level of employment, what is taken on margin, is an important judgment for us.”
Mr Bailey said the Bank had laid out a “range of options” analysing the potential economic impact, “some of which would imply greater inflation and some of which would imply less inflation”.
“So there is uncertainty there and we need to see how the evidence evolves,” he said.
Businesses need time to work out how they will absorb greater costs and work out their strategies, Mr Bailey said, adding: “I think as we go into the spring we’ll have a better idea.”
He said the central bank was also analysing the possible effects of the forthcoming Donald Trump administration in the US on the UK economy.
He said the impact of Mr Trump’s proposed plans to raise tariffs on all US imports was “not at all straightforward to predict”, adding “clearly it moves trading prices but it also depends on how other countries react to them, and how exchange rates react to them as well”.
Watch live: Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs as his reset Brexit plans suffer another blow
Watch: Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs as his reset Brexit plans suffer another blow
Watch live as Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs on Wednesday (4 December) as his reset Brexit plans suffer another blow.
Pictured: Starmer leaves Downing St to attend PMQs
Trump’s tariff plan would hit UK trade as hard as Brexit, think tank warns
Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs could hit UK trade with the US as badly as Brexit affected trade with the EU, a leading think tank has warned, as campaigners call for Sir Keir Starmer to protect the UK by urgently rebuilding ties with Europe.
The president-elect has threatened to impose tariffs of between 10 and 20 per cent on all imports to the US when he returns to the White House, with experts warning of a tit-for-tat global trade war that would fuel another spike in inflation.
And, in a bombshell report published today, the Resolution Foundation said the impact of Trump’s plans would hit UK firms as hard as the trade barriers that came into place after Brexit.
Read the full article here:
Trump’s tariff plan would hit UK trade as hard as Brexit, think tank warns
The Resolution Foundation said small firms have seen their exports to the EU fall by a third, with 20,000 companies having stopped exporting to the continent altogether since Brexit
Economics director warn business activity ‘close to stalling’ in November
Tim Moore, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said: “UK service providers indicated that business activity was close to stalling in November, with growth easing to its slowest for over a year.
“Weaker sales pipelines, cutbacks to new projects and more caution among clients were all cited as having an adverse impact on service sector output.”
He added: “Worries about the impact of policies announced in the autumn Budget, in particular those pushing up employment costs, were widely reported as leading to a gloomier assessment of business investment prospects and the broader UK economic outlook.”
The services sector makes up the majority of the UK economy, and is closely watched by the Bank of England as a gauge of underlying inflation.
The Bank’s policymakers are widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged at 4.75% next month, following two cuts earlier this year.
Heidi Alexander says nationalising rail operators a ‘fraction’ of the costs
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander could not say what the cost of nationalising rail operators will be, but said it would be “a fraction” of what is currently paid in management fees to train companies.
She told LBC radio: “So it will be a fraction of the costs, for example – to bring them over and also sort of set up Great British Railways – a fraction of what we’re paying in terms of the management fees.
“At the moment, we pay roughly about £150 million pounds in management fees to the train operating companies.”
Ms Alexander said she did not have a specific figure but added the setup cost would be less than the £150 million current management figure.
Transport secretary refuses to commit to cheaper rail fares
The Transport Secretary would not commit to cheaper rail fares as a result of South Western Railway, c2c and Greater Anglia being brought into public ownership next year but signalled that she expected the move to reduce cancellations and late trains.
“The primary aim of this is to improve reliability and clamp down on the delays, the cancellation, the waste and the inefficiency that we’ve seen over the last 30 years,” Heidi Alexander told BBC Breakfast.
“We’ve had private train-operating companies running train services in this country over the last few decades, and it clearly hasn’t worked.”
She said bringing the operators into public ownership was a “first step” to a “more integrated and unified railway”, and pointed to the impact seen by bringing LNER and Southeastern into public ownership.
“So if you look at LNER for example, we have reduced the number of trains that are cancelled because of staff shortages to basically zero, and we reduced other cancellations to about 5%.
“Southeastern, which is also now in public ownership, is in the top five of train operators for punctuality.”
Growth in UK services sector slows to lowest rate
Growth in the UK’s services sector slowed to its lowest rate in more than a year in November as firms digested business tax rises in the autumn budget.
The closely watched S&P Global UK services PMI survey scored 50.8 in November, slowing from 52.0 in October.
It was slightly above the 50.0 reading forecast by a consensus of economists.
Any reading above 50 means a sector is in growth, while a score below this means it is shrinking.
‘Growth is our number one priority,’ Reeves responds to OECD report
Responding to the OECD Economic Outlook report, chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Growth is our number one priority, and the OECD upgrade will mean the UK is the fastest growing European economy in the G7 over the next three years.
“That is only the start. Growth only matters if it’s matched by more money in people’s pockets.
“That is why we protected people’s payslips from higher taxes at the Budget and are determined to deliver growth that benefits households and improves living standards.
“This government will get our economy growing, with our National Wealth Fund, reforming the remits of our regulators and pension mega funds to attract better investment, as well as reforming our planning laws - all so that we can rebuild Britain for good.”
UK interest rates to fall more slowly than expected after Budget – OECD
UK interest rates will fall by less than expected over the next two years after the autumn Budget’s significant spending and borrowing plans, according to an influential report.
In its annual economic survey, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said UK inflation will also surpass previous forecasts next year, and upgraded growth projections for the economy, because of a budget boost.
The OECD said the global economy would “remain resilient” over the coming years but that “risks and uncertainties are high”.
The global economy is predicted to grow by 3.2 per cent this year and 3.3 per cent next year, the organisation said.
It reflects a slight improvement from its predictions of 3.1 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively, from its September interim report.
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