Tories dismiss Home Office report suggesting good weather partly to blame for rise in small boat arrivals
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has issued a response to the Home Office report about the link between weather conditions and small boat crossing numbers. (See 10.10am.) He is accusing the government of “blaming the weather” for numbers rising. He says:
Labour seems to think praying for bad weather is a good border security strategy. This is a weak government, with no plan to end illegal immigrants crossing the channel.
They should never have cancelled the Rwanda removals deterrent before it even started. That’s why 2025 is the worst year in history for illegal crossings – not the weather.
Blaming the weather for the highest ever crossing numbers so far this year is the border security equivalent of a lazy student claiming “the dog ate my homework”.
Key events
Prison officers to be made to wear body armour in high security jails, MPs told
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has announced that prison officers will be told to wear body armour in some parts of high security prisons.
Speaking in the Commons, she said this was an initial response to a review triggered by the Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi attacking three prison officers with boiling cooking oil at HMP Frankland in April.
The review is being carried out by Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation.
Mahmood told MPs:
Today, I can announce I will mandate its use in close supervision centres, separation centres and segregation units in the high security estate.
This is my initial response to the review, but I will set out further action on body armour in due course.
When Jonathan Hall’s independent review into the Frankland attack reports, I will take any further steps necessary to protect our brave staff.
Why Farage was wrong to describe protesters outside his press conference in Scotland yesterday as ‘thugs’
Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has mischaracterised protests outside his press event in Aberdeen on Monday, claiming in an LBC interview the small group of demonstrators were Antifa “thugs” intent on violence.
The 20 or so protesters outside the Silver Darling fish restaurant overlooking the entrance to Aberdeen harbour were noisy, using loudhailers, but their most vigorous act came from a short, elderly Quaker in a pink coat who offered the media a short song and dance, as she carried an umbrella.
The demonstrators were largely young refugee and disability rights activists; lined up along the seawall, they made no attempt to rush the venue or prevent any of the media or Reform supporters entering the building.
Linking the protests to Antifa, the label for hard left and anarchist US activists, who sometimes use violence in clashes with the far right, was a wild mischaracterisation. There was no police intervention at any stage in Aberdeen on Monday: several police officers came and spoke to the demonstrators, and then stepped back.
Farage has encountered aggressive protests once in Scotland, when a large crowd of pro-independence and left-wing protestors shouting “scum” prevented him from holding a press conference in central Edinburgh in 2013. The Aberdeen demonstration was small, peaceful and disciplined.
restaurant where Nigel Farage was holding a press conference.
Photograph: Peter Summers/Getty Images
Vera Baird appointed interim chair of Criminal Cases Review Commission
Dame Vera Baird KC, a former Labour solicitor general, police and crime commissioner and victims commissioner for England and Wales, has been announced as the new interim chairwoman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, announced the appointment during justice questions in the Commons.
Baird will replace Helen Pitcher, who resigned as chair claiming she was being scapegoated over the CCRC’s failures in the Andrew Malkinson miscarriage of justice case.
Mahmood told MPs:
In recent years, the commission has lost the trust of the public.
It must now win it back, so today I have appointed Dame Vera Baird, a former victims’ commissioner, to be its interim chair.
She will review the commission, its governance and leadership and ensure it delivers once more for those who have been victims of injustice.
No 10 won’t say if Trump’s 50% tariffs on steel will affect UK when they come into force tomorrow
Downing Street has declined to say whether the UK will be hit by the 50% steel tariffs that Donald Trump has announced will apply to US imports from tomorrow.
The UK is supposed to be exempt from steel tariffs under the trade deal announced last month. But that deal has not been implemented yet, and it has been unclear whether the surprise 50% tariffs will include Britain when they start to take effect.
At the morning lobby briefing, asked if the government thought the UK would be affected, the PM’s spokesperson replied:
It’s up to the United States to make their own policy announcements.
The business secretary [Jonathan Reynolds] will be attending a meeting of trade ministers in Paris today and is expected to meet with the US trade representative Jamieson Greer to discuss implementation of the agreement that we reached with the United States.
You will remember that that agreement is committed to removing tariffs on steel and aluminium to save jobs and help the UK industry. That would mean that once that deal has been implemented, the steel industry will not pay tariffs for the majority of steel products that they’re exporting to the US.
Asked whether it was “embarrassing” that steelmakers could face a worse situation despite the announcement of the deal last month, he said:
I’m not going to get ahead of announcements for the United States.
But what you’ve seen so far is the US and the UK agree a landmark deal across sectors to protect British industries – cars, steel, aluminium – and you’ve seen the welcoming statements the industries have made in support of the agreement.
When it comes to implementation of the agreement, that work is ongoing.
The former Labour prime minister Tony Blair has for years been an evangelist for technology, and how it might contribute to the improvement of public services. As the Times reports in a front page story, yesterday he said he could see AI helping with the work of doctors and nurses. Speaking at the SXSW London festival, Blair said:
Government’s all about process, so you could use AI to speed up the process of the government, making sure that we do, for example, all the routine jobs of government much more efficiently. You could be responding to people in a much more sensitive, faster, better, more efficient way.
If, for example, you’re able to merge data sets across departments, you’re going to save money. You’re going to analyse, based on health data, in a way that allows you to make better health policy. And then, when you look in public services, you should be able to personalise education in the future …
You could have AI tutors, you should have AI nurses, AI doctors. We are already doing a lot of imaging much, much better through using artificial intelligence. It will make [government] much smaller, more efficient, cost less and give a better service to the customer.
Blair also described the civil service as a “conspiracy for inertia”. He said:
When I was growing up, people said the civil service was a Tory conspiracy. And when I got in there, I realised it wasn’t a conspiracy for the Tories or for Labour. It’s a conspiracy for inertia, it has got a genius for absorbing the impetus for change and suffocating it.
Ministers to create new offence aimed at gang leaders who force vulnerable children or adults to hide drugs in their bodies
Gang leaders who force vulnerable people to hide drugs and cash in their bodies could face up to 10 years in prison under a change in the law, the Home Office has announced.
As PA Media reports, ministers will create the new criminal offence to crack down on the action known as “plugging” typically used by organised criminals to move goods from one place to another in county lines drug running. PA says:
Children and vulnerable adults are forced to ingest or conceal the items in their bodies, which can cause significant harm and can be fatal if drug packages break open inside them, leading to an overdose.
The move will be included as an amendment to the crime and policing bill currently going through parliament.
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said: “There is something truly evil about the gang leaders who degrade young girls, young boys and vulnerable adults in this way, forcing them to put their lives at risk.”
Nato to force UK to lift defence spending to 3.5% of GDP to appease Trump, say sources
Defence sources believe that Britain will be forced to sign up to a target of lifting defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035 at this month’s Nato summit after a campaign by the alliance’s secretary general to keep Donald Trump onboard, Dan Sabbagh reports.
Data bill returns to Commons, after peers defy ministers for 4th time over AI copyright protections for creative artists
Later today the data (use and access) bill will return to the Commons from the Lords in the third round of “ping pong” between the two houses. It is not unusual for “ping pong” to go on for a round or two, as bills which are almost ready for royal assent shuttle between the elected and unelected chamber while they try to resolve matters of dispute. But, in this case, the Lords are digging in a bit more than usual.
The dispute is about copyright law, and whether AI companies should be able to use creative work without writers, musicians and the other creators responsible for the original material knowing about it.
The bill started its progression through the parliament in the Lords, where peers inserted protections for creators. They were removed when the bill went to the Commons. Since then the bill has gone back to the Lords three times, where peers have repeatedly voted to reinsert protections.
The most recent vote came last night. Here is the PA Media report on the debate.
The government has been accused of “supporting thieves”, as it suffered a further heavy defeat at the hands of peers pressing their demand for steps to safeguard the creative industries against artificial intelligence.
The fourth and latest setback for the Labour frontbench over the issue in the House of Lords was inflicted despite pleas by a minister for the upper chamber to end its prolonged stand-off over the data (use and access) bill.
It comes after artists and musicians, including Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney, have spoken out over AI companies using copyrighted work without permission.
Defiant peers again backed by 242 votes to 116 – a majority 126 – a change to the legislation that would introduce transparency requirements, aimed at ensuring copyright holders are able to see when their work has been used and by whom.
This is despite similar measures being repeatedly rejected by MPs in the Commons, where the government has a majority.
It means a continuation of the battle at Westminster, known as parliamentary ping-pong, where legislation is batted between the two bouses until agreement is reached.
Pressing her amendment, filmmaker Lady Kidron, who directed the second film in the Bridget Jones series, said people were “baffled as to why the government is deliberately standing in the way of UK citizens and companies who are trying to control and protect their own property”.
She added: “It is extraordinary that the government’s decided, immovable and strongly held position is that enforcing the law to prevent the theft of UK citizens’ property is unfair to the sector doing the stealing.
“In what other industrial context does being fair require a national government to support thieves to continue their plunder while simultaneously removing tools of protection from the victim.
“Balancing and being fair sounds reasonable, but it is neither fair nor balanced, nor indeed reasonable to stand by while one sector steals from another in full sight.”
Liberal Democrats call for Thames Water to be put in special administration after preferred bidder pulls out of rescue deal
There will be an urgent question in the Commons at 12.30pm on Thames Water. As Julia Kollewe and Jasper Jolly report, its future is in doubt because the US private equity group KKR has pulled out of a deal to support it.
Commenting on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, Charlie Maynard said:
The government needs to bite the bullet, and put Thames Water into special administration, so its unsustainable debt can be written down and the interests of Thames Waters 16 million customers can be protected.
While Thames Water is being allowed to keep piling up more and more debt, customers are paying the price in massive interest payments. This is totally unfair. The creditors who have heaped billions in debt onto the company should now pay to sort this mess out. This can only be achieved through a well planned administration process, followed by a swift exit – after which the company should go forward being mutually owned by its 16 million customers.
Tories dismiss Home Office report suggesting good weather partly to blame for rise in small boat arrivals
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has issued a response to the Home Office report about the link between weather conditions and small boat crossing numbers. (See 10.10am.) He is accusing the government of “blaming the weather” for numbers rising. He says:
Labour seems to think praying for bad weather is a good border security strategy. This is a weak government, with no plan to end illegal immigrants crossing the channel.
They should never have cancelled the Rwanda removals deterrent before it even started. That’s why 2025 is the worst year in history for illegal crossings – not the weather.
Blaming the weather for the highest ever crossing numbers so far this year is the border security equivalent of a lazy student claiming “the dog ate my homework”.
Starmer accuses SNP of ‘years of failure’ as he defends Labour’s record in Scotland
Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
Keir Starmer has artfully sidestepped accepting blame for Scottish Labour’s disastrous collapse in the polls and its anticipated defeat in the Hamilton byelection, by focusing instead on his government’s long-term strategy.
The latest Holyrood poll puts Scottish Labour at 19%, only one point ahead of Reform, and well behind the Scottish National party on 33%, with the party battling to avoid losing to the SNP and Reform in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection on Thursday.
That suggests Labour faces a fifth successive defeat in next May’s Holyrood elections. Blame for that is seen to lie squarely with Starmer’s decisions to cut winter fuel payments, his refusal to refund the Waspi pensioners, the increase in national insurance, and the sleaze row over a privileged donor giving him suits and glasses.
In a short interview with BBC Radio Scotland aired this morning, Starmer was pressed to accept that he was to blame for Scottish Labour’s steep slump since its triumph in last year’s general election.
That question bounced off him. Starmer faithfully repeated lines from Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar that only Labour can beat the SNP next May. He said:
Anas Sarwar has turned Scottish Labour around and produced incredible results with us at the general election in 2024.
[I] always said that we would stay focused, and we’ll do that into 2026, but in the end the question at that election is, do we want another term of the SNP after all these years of failure? And that’s the central question next year.
That “stay focused” line belies the fact Starmer is already changing course after Reform’s surge in the English council elections by accepting the case to expand eligibility for the winter fuel payments. There have also been hints the two-child benefit cap will be lifted. Starmer also made a point of launching the UK’s strategic defence review yesterday at a famous military shipyard on the Clyde in Glasgow.
He was asked why the UK government could find money for defence but not to keep pensioners warm in winter, and said:
That’s why I want to ensure more pensioners are eligible, but in terms of defence and security, obviously there is a huge defence spend. I acknowledge that, but we’re living in very dangerous times, and it is really important just to keep absolutely focused on the security and safety of Scotland.
And if – which is what we’re doing everything to avoid – we were drawn into a conflict of any sort, the impact on pensioners, on children, on everybody across Scotland would be profound. And I believe that to deter conflict, you have to prepare for it.
Good weather over past year has made small boat arrivals more likely, Home Office report claims
The Home Office has published a report claiming that over the past year weather conditions have made small boat crossings more likely.
The Met Office provides the government with a daily assessment of the weather conditions in the Channel, taking into account factors like wind and wave height, and every day is assessed as either red, amber or green. Red days are best for crossings (where the Met Office puts the chances of small boat activity at more than 55%) and green days are the worst (with probability at less than 35%).
The Home Office report says the number of red days has risen in the past year, and that this coincides with small boat arrivals going up too. It says:
The year ending April 2025 had a greater number of red days (190) compared to the previous year (106), and 81% more red days than the average number of days in the years ending April 2022 to 2024. Additionally, January to April 2025 had more than double the number of red days (60) compared to the same period in 2024 (27). This coincides with small boat arrivals being 46% higher in January to April 2025 with 11,074 people arriving to the UK by small boat, compared to 7,567 arrivals during these months in 2024.
This chart shows month by month red day figures, and arrival figures, going back four years.
Weather is not the only factor that affects daily crossing numbers and the Home Office report, which has been published without an accompanying news release, does not claim that weather is the only, or even the main, reason for the rise in arrival numbers this year.
The report also points out that number of arrivals per boat is going up. It says:
The average number of people per boat has increased in each year, rising to 54 people per boat in the year ending March 2025, compared with 50 people per boat in the previous year and 29 in the same period ending March 2022.
Yesterday, commenting on the news that the Home Office was about to publish a report making a link between weather and small boat arrival numbers, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, told the Sun this was a “pathetic attempt to blame the weather for their total loss of border control”.
Government says vital routes will be protected under bus services bill
Vital bus services will be protected from sudden cuts under new legislation, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced. As PA Media reports, councils in England will put strict requirements in place before “socially necessary” routes can be changed or cancelled, the department said. PA says:
This is aimed at services to locations such as hospitals and schools.
The measure is part of the government’s bus services bill, which passed its second reading in the Commons last night.
This will lead to an overhaul of buses, such as by giving all local transport authorities new powers to run their own services.
The government will also reduce some of the red tape involved in bus franchising, including reducing the minimum period between local areas taking control of services and being allowed to start operations.
UK water industry needs ‘fundamental reset’, review finds
The “deep-rooted, systemic” problems in the UK water industry are the fault of companies, the government and industry regulators, according to a much-anticipated review, which was immediately criticised for failing to recommend bold action by sewage pollution campaigners. Sandra Laville has the story here.
Minister rejects Badenoch’s claim that fine for man who set fire to Qur’an revives blasphemy laws
Good morning. Public spending is still the dominant issue at Westminster, with the spending review taking place a week tomorrow, and debate still raging about how the government will fund its defence and welfare plans (although the debate is now not so much whether there will be tax rises, rather how big they will be). But the Conservatives are now trying to revive a culture war issue, accusing Labour of in effect using blasphemy legislation to protect Islam.
Kemi Badenoch has been responding to the case of Hamit Coskun, who was found guilty and fined £240 yesterday for a religiously aggravated public order offence after he set fire to a Qur’an outside the Turkish consulate in London. Sammy Gescoyler has the story here.
As Sammy reports, the judge, John McGarva, said that Coskun’s actions were “highly provocative” and said he was “motivated at least in part by a hatred of Muslims”.
But, in comments written up supportively by the Daily Mail in their splash, Badenoch said the case should go to appeal. She said:
De facto blasphemy laws will set this country on the road to ruin. This case should go to appeal.
Freedom of belief, and freedom not to believe, are inalienable rights in Britain. I’ll defend those rights to my dying day.
Not for the first time, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has pushed this even further, telling the Daily Telegraph:
This decision is wrong. It revives a blasphemy law that parliament repealed.
Free speech is under threat. I have no confidence in Two-Tier Keir to defend the rights of the public to criticise all religions.
John Healey, the defence secretary, was on media round duty for the government this morning. Asked about the Tory claims by Sky News, Healey did not want to talk about the case itself, saying this was a matter for the courts. But he rejected the claim that blasphemy laws were coming back, telling Sky:
We don’t have blasphemy laws. We don’t have any plans to reintroduce blasphemy laws.
The National Secular Society is backing Coskun, and Humanists UK have also said they are concerned about yesterday’s verdict.
But, in his ruling, the judge said that burning a religious book and making criticism of Islam or the Qur’an are “not necessarily disorderly”. McGarva went on: “What made [Coskun’s] conduct disorderly was the timing and location of the conduct and that all this was accompanied by abusive language.”
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10.15am: Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Treasury committee.
11.30am: Shabana Mahmood, justice secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Yvette Cooper, home secretary, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.
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