No 10 says Starmer ‘shares public anger’ at early prisoner releases but system facing paralysis without it – as it happened

• Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has said that the Tories are to blame for the fact that the government needed today to release another cohort of prisoners early, saying the prisons crisis was “the greatest disgrace of the last Conservative government”. (See 5.05pm.) She used the comment as she made a statement to MPs confirming that David Gauke, the former Tory justice secretary, will lead a sentencing review for the government. Mahmood also announced further measures to reduce the jail population. (See 2.15pm and 2.16pm.) Potentially the review could lead to a liberalisation of sentencing laws, but Mahmood told MPs that some sentences could get longer, and that “in some ways, punishment outside a prison can be even more restrictive than prison”. (See 1.57pm.)

• Kemi Badenoch has criticised Robert Jenrick, her rival for the Tory leadership, for focusing too much on policy. Yesterday Jenrick said it was “disrespectful” for her not to have policies. Today, in an interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson for his Political Thinking podcast, Badenoch said Jenrick’s approach was flawed. She explained:

He doesn’t know where he’s going to be standing in four years time. So he uses the word disrespectful. I would not use a word like that about any of the candidates who have have stood …

If this was a general election, yes, it would be wrong to be standing with no policies. This is not a general election. And if you’re going to solve a problem, you need to make sure that you know what the question you’re being asked is. He thinks the question that is being asked is, what are the right policies to win a general election? I think the question being asked, is why should we trust the Conservative party?

Ministers have paused plans to open 44 new state schools in England, including three sixth form colleges backed by Eton, while they review each school’s potential demand and value for money, Richard Adams reports.

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner today for the first time met a network of British Palestinians to hear calls for an emergency child evacuation scheme, a Palestinian resettlement scheme and tougher measures to break Israel’s blockade on aid.

Starmer, accused by some Palestinians of being instinctively too close to Israel, was asked to consider setting up a pilot evacuation scheme for Palestinian children initially starting with 15 children unable to access any healthcare in Gaza.

There have been repeated complaints that the Home Office refuses to supply temporary visas to children needed to be admitted to the UK for private medical treatment. Most of the children would be based in Egypt.

The families also urged Starmer to set up a family reunification scheme for Palestinian refugees that includes legal pathways for families separated from loved ones in Gaza. The scheme would be modelled on the scheme operating for Ukraine, and no figure has been proposed for how many that could be allowed to come

On aid restrictions ministers have already acknowledged that Israel is restricting aid in an unacceptable way especially this month, but have not yet said ministers believe Israel is implementing what is in effect a campaign to starve Palestinians out of Northern Gaza as part of a so-called “General’s plan” that has been endorsed by the extreme right in Israel.

The families called for a British personnel presence at border crossings to ensure agile inspection processes and monitor and ensure that aid flows unrestricted into Gaza. Britain has repeatedly been denied a diplomatic presence on the aid crossing points, but has supplied £1m in emergency aid for medical evacuees in Egypt.

Israel insists aid has increased since a US warning more than a week ago that arms supplies would be blocked unless 300 aid trucks entered Gaza a day.

One of the family members reflected on the meeting, saying:

It is hard to talk about this collective trauma, but political leaders must hear our testimonies directly, so they understand the real-life impact of their policies.

Bringing 15 children to the UK is a tiny ask compared to the 34,000 injured, and that’s before even mentioning 16,000 killed and 21,000 missing. But we sadly know all too well how much difference one life saved could have been for us.

This would just be a tiny drop in the ocean, but it could be the start of something more.

All we can hope is that they have not just heard what we have said, but have listened.

The group is organised as the British Palestinian Families Network, an informal network set up by British Palestinians with family trapped in Gaza.

Most British arms exported to Israel don’t go to Israeli Defence Forces, minister tells MPs

Patrick Wintour

Anneliese Dodds, the Foreign Office minister, told MPs earlier that most British arms exported to Israel don’t go to the Israeli Defence Forces, as she sought to clarify the significance of the government’s decision in September to suspend only 30 of the 300 arms exports licences to Israel.

Speaking in the Commons, she also described the amount of aid reaching Gaza in October as unacceptable, and likely to be the lowest amount for a single month since the conflict began. But she did not set out any specific measures apart from diplomatic pressure to ensure a change.

In what the minister saw as a clarification, she told MPs:

Following the 2 September decision there are currently no extant UK export licences for items to Israel that we assess might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of UK humanitarian law.

She said the only one exception is UK supplied components for F35s joint strike fighter program. She added:

Most licences for exports to Israel are absolutely not for the Israeli Defence Forces and I am pleased to put that on the record.

She added later there had been misconceptions about the arms exports that have not been suspended.

At the time of the September statement the Foreign Office said:

There are a number of export licences which we have assessed are not for military use in the current conflict in Gaza and therefore do not require suspension. These include items that are not being used by the IDF in the current conflict (such as trainer aircraft or other naval equipment), and other, non-military items. Export licences cover a range of products including things such as food-testing chemicals, telecoms and data equipment.

The Foreign Office has so far refused to publish a list of the suspended and non-suspended arms export licences, or their customers.

A group of leftwing MPs has urged Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, to include a tax on “extreme wealth” in the budget next week.

In their letter, they call for an annual wealth tax, such as 2% on assets over £10m which they say would generate £24bn a year, and equalising capital gains and income tax rates, which they say could raise £16.7bn a year.

They argue:

In recent years, billionaire wealth has soared, increasing by almost £150 billion between 2020 and 2022. Despite this, revenue from wealth taxes has remained stagnant at around 3.4% of the UK’s GDP, proportionately only one percent higher than rates in 1965. This stands in contrast to other trends in the tax system, meaning that the richest are relatively under-taxed. This is deeply unfair and immoral: in an age of climate and economic crises, where public funds are desperately needed, it is necessary that we redress this imbalance.

The transformative potential of taxes on extreme wealth is clear, and appetite for them is growing. Governments around the world – including Norway, Italy and Brazil – are considering fiscal measures to fairly tax the super-rich. As one of the most unequal economies in the G7, the UK should follow suit.

The letter has been signed by 30 MPs and peers from Labour, the Green party, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP, and Alliance, as well as independent MPs.

The full list of signatories is: Adrian Ramsay, Apsana Begum, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Ben Lake, Brian Leishman, Carla Denyer, Cat Smith, Claire Hanna, Clive Lewis, Colum Eastwood, Diane Abbott, Ellie Chowns, Ian Byrne, Ian Lavery, Jeremy Corbyn, Lord (John) Hendy, John McDonnell, Jon Trickett, Kim Johnson, Liz Saville-Roberts, Nadia Whittome, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Olivia Blake, Lord Sikka, Rachel Gilmour, Richard Burgon, Siân Berry, Sorcha Eastwood, Steve Witherden and Zarah Sultana.

Scotland’s first minister has said pay talks for council workers are “closed” as he condemned the “utterly unacceptable” targeting of his constituency by a trade union, PA Media reports. PA says:

Unison announced two weeks of strike action by non-teacher school staff in the Perth and Kinross council area after the union voted against a new pay deal.

Unite and the GMB backed the deal, which provided a 67p per hour uplift or 3.6%, whichever was higher, for staff and the deal was imposed on workers.

The action has led to a number of primary schools and nurseries having to close, with Perth and Kinross council unable to conduct risk assessments during the October holidays leading to disruption at the beginning of this week.

Yesterday all primary schools, nurseries, intensive support settings and two secondary schools in the area were closed.

Today 11 primary schools were able to open but dozens remained shut and others only partially reopened.

Speaking to the PA news agency on Tuesday, John Swinney reiterated the words of his finance secretary Shona Robison, who said on Monday there was no more money for pay deals.

“There is no reopening of 2024-25 pay deals,” he said. “I’m very happy to have discussions about future years but this year is closed.”

Swinney, MSP for Perthshire North, also hit out at Unison’s decision to target his area for action.

“What is utterly unacceptable for me is the fact that education in my constituency has been disrupted purely and simply because I happen to represent that area,” he said.

“My constituents have been singled out for treatment just because their MSP is first minister, and I find that completely unacceptable.”

Beaming prisoners were greeted with hugs and kisses as they stepped out of the metal gates of HMP Manchester and into the arms of waiting friends and family after being freed under the government’s early release scheme, Hannah Al-Othman reports.

Mahmood ended her statement by saying she said she would accelerate the deportation of foreign offenders.

I share the public’s view that with 10,000 in our prisons, there are far too many foreign offenders in this country, costing £50,000 pounds a year, each to house at His Majesty’s pleasure.

It happens to be my personal view that deportation is as good a punishment as imprisonment, if not better.

We are currently on track to remove more foreign national offenders this year than at any time in recent years, but I will now be working with my colleagues across government to explore the ways that we can accelerate this further, including working with the Home Office to make the early removal scheme for foreign offenders more effective.

Mahmood said the early release scheme already implemented by Labour would solve the overcrowding crisis for about a year. But “after the summer of disorder, the next crisis could be just nine months away”, she said.

She said she had already given magistrates new sentencing powers, to reduce the pressure on remand prisons where overcrowding is most accute.

But she said she needed to go further.

She said she would be increasing the maximum period offenders can spend on home detention curfew from six months to 12 months.

She also said she would be review the risk-assessed recall review process, so that when offenders get returned to jail after a breach of their parole conditions, it will be more straightforward to clear them for release again.

UPDATE: Mahmood said:

The second measure that we will introduce will address the soaring recall population, which has doubled from 6,000 to 12,000 in just six years.

Risk-assessed recall review is a power of the secretary of state to re-release unlicensed those who pose a low list to the public, avoiding the long waits that they often face for a parole board hearing. In recent years, its use has fallen to as low as 92 times in 2022.

Later this month, I intend to review the ris- assessed recall review process so that lower risk cases can be considered for re-release after they have been recalled to prison for two to three months, where their further detention is no longer necessary to protect the public.

And I should note that this will only change the cases that can be considered for release, with the final decision still in the hands of experienced probation officers and managers.