Starmer tells ministers they should stop ‘outsourcing’ decisions to quangos – UK politics live

In the Commons MPs are debating amendments to the employment rights bill. The paper listing all the amendments runs to 274 pages.

Louise Haigh, the Labour former transport secretary, has given a speech promoting her amendment that would ban the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that would prevent workers revealing the harassment they endured, including sexual harassment. Haigh and the Lib Dem MP Layla Moran both gave detailed examples of how ITN used NDAs to cover up cases of harassment in the workplace to support their case.

Haigh said it was already known that ITN is a company that has used NDAs to cover-up misconduct. She quoted the account given by the former ITN journalist Daisy Ayliffe who said that, after she complained about being harassed at the company, she was paid off and made to sign an NDA.

Haigh said she had another example of ITN using an NDA in this way. She said the victim asked not to be named, and so she described him as Mr B.

Haigh said Mr B joined ITN in 2008 through a scheme designed to help disabled people join the workplace. He had a neurologicial condition that could lead to seizures. ITN made reasonable adjustments, and he was happy with the support he had until he moved to another job.

But, when Mr B returned to ITN in 2017, he got none of the support had received before, Haigh said. She went on:

The situation got so bad that he had what he describes as his first ‘full-blown’ seizure in seven years and the zone outs and blackouts became increasingly frequent. After suffering from one particular seizure at work, he was required to apologise to everyone who had witnessed it.

And he was repeatedly accused of lying about his disability and told his issues were nothing to do with his disability, despite joining ITN on a disability inclusion scheme.

Mr B took ITN to a tribunal. He settled but, he was required to sign an NDA. Haigh said that his health deteroriated to the exent that for a while he was homeless. She said her amendment was needed to stop NDAs being used in this way.

If it can happen in organisations like ITN, whose literal job it is to expose injustice, or in trade unions whose job it is to protect workers, then it can happen anywhere.

In her speech, Moran she said she had her own example ITN using an NDA to cover up harassment. She said the victim, whom she did not name, joined ITN in her 20s, but quickly became involved in “a coercive, controlling sexual relationship with an older, male editor”. He accused her of affairs with colleagues, but she ended up suffering panic attacks.

After she ended the relationship, she was demoted and had her hours reduced. When she complained to other editors, they told her not to speak out. One told her, ‘It’s not like he ever hit you’, Moran said.

Moran said that it took months for the woman to get HR to take up her complaint. “HR found they could not assess the complaint, as it was criminal in nature, but at the same time found [the complaints] to be unfounded,” Moran said, pointing out this did not make sense.

Moran said that, when the woman asked at staff event what support was available for women reporting alleged sexual harassment, she was suspended without pay. ITN told her not to tell anyone what happened, and even her best friend had to sign an NDA to attend a meeting to support her.

Moran said the woman got a settlement eventually, but it was “extremely one-sided”, and the NDA covered not just her, but her partner, her best friend and her parents. The woman ended up in hospital because of the damage to her mental health, but even in hospital she was getting regular messages from the ITN lawyers telling her to sign the NDA.

Moran said MPs were “kidding ourselves” if they thought NDAs weren’t still be used. She said the woman thought ITN was “trying to change”, and that her own NDA might be lifted. But she said Haigh’s amendment was needed because NDAs like this should never be allowed in the first place.

The cross-party Local Government Association has broadly welcomed the planning and infrastructure bill, while expressing concern that it could involve too much centralisation. This is from Adam Hug, the Labour leader of Westminster council and the LGA’s housing and planning spokesperson.

This bill has included some of the LGA’s long term asks, such as making it easier for councils to purchase vacant land for house building, localising planning fees, and increasing planning capacity. These will speed up the planning process and ease the building of new homes and necessary infrastructure we need across the country.

However, there remains concerns around how it will ensure that councils – who know their areas best and what they need – remain at the heart of the planning process. The democratic role of councillors in decision-making is the backbone of the English planning system, and this should not be diminished. Councils approve nine out of ten planning applications that come before them.

Industrial action being taken by criminal barristers in Northern Ireland is causing “serious damage”, the Stormont justice minister, Naomi Long, has said.

As PA Media reports, Long was speaking in the assembly while criminal barristers in Northern Ireland continue to withdraw some services in an ongoing dispute over legal aid.

The Bar Council said the action was “regrettable”, but said it was “inevitable” after the Department of Justice “failed to engage meaningfully with the Bar in respect of the serious concerns which have given rise to the Criminal Bar Association’s action”.

In a statement to MLAs (members of the legislative assembly), Long expressed her frustration at the stalemate. She outlined the engagement and action her officials have taken, and said her department was on track to introduce a 16% uplift in civil, family and criminal legal aid fees in May.

She warned the industrial action was causing “serious damage” to the justice system. She said:

Additional delay means that defendants, whether guilty or innocent, must wait longer for their case to be resolved.

Delay means additional stress, anxiety and often trauma for many victims and witnesses and it must be recognised there are some victims and witnesses who are particularly vulnerable and who are suffering acutely.

Mike Kane, the transport minister, has told MPs that the cargo ship involved in a collision off the Yorkshire coast yesterday is likely to sink.

In a statement to MPs, Kane also said that everything possible would be done to recover the body of the one sailor still missing after yesterday’s collision between the Stena Immaculate, an oil tanker, and the cargo ship Solong.

Explaining what happened, Kane said:

Although they became attached to each other during the collision, the Solong broke free of the Stena Immaculate late last night and began drifting southwards.

Modelling suggests that should the Solong remain afloat it’ll remain clear of land for the next few hours. The assessment of His Majesty’s Coastguard is, however, that it is unlikely the vessel will remain afloat.

Tugboats are in the vicinity to ensure that the Solong remains away from the coast and to respond as the situation develops.

I want to be clear that while there are 1,000-metre temporary exclusion zones established around both vessels, maritime traffic through the Humber Estuary is continuing.

Kane said the Stena Immaculate was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel, which was the source of the fire. He said the MCA (Maritime and Coastguard Agency) was standing by with marine and aerial counter pollution measures.

Here is our latest story on the collision, by Robyn Vintner, Josh Halliday and Damien Gayle.

The Green party has described the plans reportedly drawn up by the government to cut disability benefits as “cruelty for cruelty’s sake”. Referring to a claim by Scope that 700,000 disabled households would be pushed into poverty if they were to lose PIP (the personal independence payment), the Green’s co-leader Carla Denyer said:

It’s absolutely beyond belief that a government that came in promising to make life better for ordinary people is now planning to plunge 700,000 disabled people into poverty.

This is cruelty for cruelty’s sake. The amount of money the government is talking about saving from this measure pales in comparison to what could be raised easily if we made the tax system fairer.

Either this government has lost sight of the people it was elected to serve, hundreds of thousands of whom are at this very moment terrified that the support they rely on will be pulled out from under them – or they have decided that they no longer care.

Every single MP must search their conscience and decide if they are prepared to vote to push already vulnerable people into poverty and insecurity – and I hope that none will, when these plans come before parliament.

The government reportedly plans to save up to £5bn by reducing eligibility for PIP. But nothing firm has yet been announced, and the government is not expected to set out its plans in detail until next week.

The Metropolitan police have confirmed that they are investigation allegations that Rupert Lowe MP issued verbal threats to Zia Yusuf, the Reform UK chair. Reform UK reported the complaints to the police last week, after Lowe gave an inteview criticising the party leader, Nigel Farage.

As Sky News reports, the Met said:

Our original statement referred to alleged threats made in December 2024. We would like to clarify that when this matter was reported to us it referred to a series of alleged threats made between December 2024 and February 2025. Further enquiries are ongoing at this stage.

In a post on social media Lowe, who denies the allegations, which he claims are contrived to discredit him because Farage seems him as a threat, said he had not been contacted by the police yet, but would cooperate with them.

I have instructed lawyers to represent me in this matter.

My lawyers have made contact with the Met Police, and have made them aware of my willingness to cooperate in any necessary investigation.

My lawyers have not yet received any contact from the Police.

It is highly unusual for the Police to disclose anything to the media at this stage of an investigation.

I remain unaware of the specific allegations, but in any event, I deny any wrongdoing.

The allegations are entirely untrue.

Jonathan Hinder, the Labour MP who took a swipe at “unelected bodies” at the end of justice questions (see 12.44pm) was clearly on message. At cabinet this morning Keir Starmer told his ministers that the government should be taking more responsibility for decisions, and not outsourcing them to regulators.

In a readout of cabinet, the PM’s spokesperson said:

The prime minister then turned to the future of the state, ahead of his intervention on Thursday [when he is due to make an announcement on Whitehall reform]. He emphasised that recent global events had shown the pace at which the world is changing, and the impact that global insecurity has domestically. He said that to deliver security and renewal we must go further and faster to reform the state, to deliver a strong, agile and active state that delivers for working people. This included cabinet assessing processes and regulations that play no part in delivering the Plan for Change, and the government taking responsibility for decisions rather than outsourcing them to regulators and bodies as had become the trend under the previous government.

Asked which regulators Starmer was referring to when he suggested they had failed, the spokesperson declined to say. But he said Starmer thought the state had become “passive’.

Asked if the government was planning a “bonfire of the quangos”, the spokesperson said he would not get ahead of the announcement on Thursday. But he went on:

The state in Westminster has grown larger but it has not become more effective, and as [the PM] said in cabinet we have seen examples over time of government becoming more passive when it comes to decisions by outsourcing them to other bodies and to regulators rather than being accountable itself.

In order to deliver security and renewal, the prime minister’s clear belief is we need a strong state, and agile and active state, that does deliver for working people.

Jessica is the Guardian’s deputy political editor.

An amendment to increase paternity leave signed by more than 80 MPs including a significant number of new Labour MPs is set to be debated in a push to get the government to agree to review the time given to new fathers.

But MPs said there was a major drive by party whips to pressure a number to withdraw their names overnight from the amendment to the employment rights bill that was put down by the Labour backbencher Stella Creasy, an outspoken campaigner on parental rights.

One MP who had signed the amendment said whips tactics had meant more than a dozen withdrew names overnight but a similar number have now backed the amendment in protest at the tactics.

The Speaker has selected the amendment to the employment rights bill, which has been signed by a cross-party group of MPs including the Lib Dems, Greens, independents, SNP and Alliance parties.

A coalition of charities have signed a statement urging MPs to back the amendment to review paternity leave. The statement, signed by organisations including Oxfam, the Fawcett Society, Women’s Budget Group and Pregnant then Screwed, said Britain had some of the worst parental leave in Europe and that shared parental leave was not working because so few could afford to take it. “With society debating masculinity and the role of men, it’s time to recognise dads need better rights in their own right,” the statement said.

The amendment commits the government to a consultation at the end of an already promised parental leave review, to increase paternity leave from the current two weeks.